"Like this."
I pulled out the 'Beginner Longspear' I'd purchased from the Item Shop, as well as another item.
[Black Yak's Lean Meat]
Very juicy meat.
A food ingredient that can make the eater extremely full even with a very small amount.
It was the Black Yak's Lean Meat I'd acquired in 'Seoul Station Dungeon', where I'd met Seo Joohwan. I never knew I would end up using this item I had stored in my Inventory here.
'I was planning on using it at some point.'
But I didn't think that time would come so soon. The Black Yak's Lean Meat was a big chunk of meat. I skewered two chunks of it at the end of the spear.
"Starting now, we'll look for bogs."
The monsters lived in bogs. If we found them on land, we could hunt them right away, and if they were submerged, we just had to drag them out.
"Ah. So we'll be luring them out with this."
I nodded. "Alligator fishing. Your first time, right?"
Of course, it was a first for me, too.
[The 'Nameless Observer' is observing you.]
[The 'Whispering Devil' is amused by your petty tricks.]
The other Guardians didn't send notices. It seemed they intended on watching me a little longer.
After some time, we cleared the reed thicket and discovered a large stretch of bog almost completely made up of muddy water. It was almost closer to being a pond.
I submerged the spear with the Black Yak's Lean Meat in the water and swished it around. There was no need for any elaborate fishing technique or anything like that.
'Have a bite.'
If there was an alligator in this water, it would probably eat the meat. As long as it ate the meat, it would come onto land due to the special trait of the Black Yak's Lean Meat.
A food ingredient that can make the eater extremely full even with a very small amount.
'When… will you come out.'
"Can you really catch an alligator like this?" asked Yeonseo.
It did look slapdash in my eyes, too. The Beginner Longspear from the Item Shop could only be so good, and I'd just slapped a few pieces of Black Yak's Lean Meat on there. Who would believe that you could catch an alligator with just this?
"As long as there's one in here. Don't let your guard down. There's no knowing when it'll jump out and bite our ankles."
On the very off chance that happened…
"Cut off your ankle. That's the only way to survive."
I focused my attention on the water, watching the bog that was somewhere between a swamp and a muddy pond.
'There's one in here.'
I could feel it. I couldn't see it with my eyes, but there was definitely one in there. Through Eye of Perception's faithful information relay, I felt the energy of the alligator we'd seen earlier.
'Come.'
I felt it coming closer and closer, and I readied myself, not lowering my guard.
'So it doesn't bite me.'
I swished the longspear, standing as far away as possible from the bog so that the alligator wouldn't bite me instead of the meat.
'Bite.'
It came closer. The speed at which it traveled up the water was greater than I imagined. That was its special trait. I felt a slight vibration at the tip of the spear. The alligator was apparently giving it a taste.
'Bite.'
And then, there was a splash of water. Like what had happened to the Japanese Player, the alligator surged out of the water before returning to the depths.
'It ate it!'
The alligator ate the Black Yak's Lean Meat.
"Now, we just have to wait.'
It was just two chunks, but the alligator would probably feel more full than if it had eaten a human. It might taste like shit, but the 'Black Yak's Lean Meat' was a wildly popular dieting food.
Sure enough, the full alligator crawled onto land to take a nap, and I was able to kill it without a hitch.
[Swamp Alligator has been killed.]
[Swamp Alligator Claw 2/5]
Yeonseo blinked at me. "This is the first time I've seen a monster get caught like this. How in the world did you come up with this?"
"Just randomly."
I suddenly had a certain thought. 'If I hadn't known this method, what would it have been like?'
This method was something everyone in the future knew about. But what if I weren't a regressor and were in the same position as Shin Yeonseo? And if I could use the Item Shop and already had the Black Yak's Lean Meat with me?
'I would have probably… figured out that these monsters came up for naps when that Player died.'
Even if I hadn't known the strategy from the future, I might have still been able to come up with this method. Even without the strategy, I got the sense that I would have been able to figure it out anyway.
'This gate is actually one I have no information about.'
It was still just a beginner gate, but technically speaking, I was also just a beginner level Player, wasn't I?
'It's easier than I thought.'
Even though I was challenging this gate without the strategy, I was clearing it extremely smoothly.
[Swamp Alligator has been killed.]
[Swamp Alligator Claw 3/5]
[Swamp Alligator Claw 4/5]
[Swamp Alligator Claw 5/5]
In the end, I gathered all five Swamp Alligator Claws and gave them to Senia, who took them and stood in speechless silence for a while.
"What? Is there a mistake somewhere?"
"No, but…"
"Then?"
"…It's nothing."
In any case, the quest was cleared.
[The 'Swamp Alligator Claw Acquisition' quest has been cleared.]
[Receiving quest rewards.]
Since the quest was issued by an Intermediate Administrator, I also received the rewards for clearing it from Senia.
"This is the quest clear reward."
It was an item.
[Map of the Turtle Nest]
A map of the Turtle Nest. It marks the primary features of the Turtle Nest.
I got a map item. Seeing as how the map was given out so easily, this was indeed a low-level period gate.
'A map, huh?'
With this map, you could say this raid was pretty much over. Having the map was no different from starting a raid knowing almost everything about the gate.
'Let's take a look.'
I looked over the map.
'The habitat of the Swamp Alligators is marked… This must be the actual turtle nest.'
I noticed a certain spot. There was a high chance the Clear Crystal would be there. My shoulders felt quite a bit lighter.
"Let's go."
Senia stared at Hyukjin's back as he walked in the front. He looked considerably at ease from the back, like he had become far more relaxed after getting the map.
'Do you know… just what you have done?'
The Guardians were going wild right now.
[The 'Wanderer of the Milky Way' reveals their True Name and joins the chat.]
[The 'Eye of the Abyss' reveals their True Name and joins the chat.]
Two Guardians revealed their names. The act of doing so meant they would take action in earnest. It was known that it took a staggering fee of 1,000,000,000 Coins for a Guardian to reveal their True Name. As such, Guardians who paid the fee to do so were, at the very least, not insignificant rabble.
Of course, there were still way more Guardians who didn't reveal their True Names. Like always, their responses dominated the chat.
–What is he?
–Wasn't this gate originally supposed to break? It'll get cleared if this goes on!
–Isn't the first scenario of the Japanese server bound to get messed up at this rate?
–Shouldn't the difficulty be higher for a Player of that level?
The clear was nearly set in stone. Japan's first scenario quest was botched. Of course, Kim Hyukjin didn't use any illegal methods in the process. Rather, he only used the best methods available to him.
'Two Guardians revealed their names, and the Japanese server's scenario has gone off the rails at the first station.'
She peered again at Kim Hyukjin's back some distance away.
'Just what are you?'
She had scanned him last time. He didn't have anything like a 'True Name'. He was really a 'human'. He claimed to have the Precognitive Dream ability, but Senia didn't think he could tow along the situation like this with that alone.
'It might be that… the difficulty has to be readjusted.'
Because of just one person. No, because of the party that person led, the difficulty of the whole world might have to be readjusted.
She decided to watch him a little longer.
* * *
I discovered a cave. It wasn't hard, since I had a map.
'They're not here.'
I couldn't see any Gold Turtles. It wasn't hard to figure out why.
"The Japanese man from earlier must have found this place first."
That was likely why he had so many Gold Turtles with him. He was unable to hunt the Gold Turtles hiding inside their shells, so he just carried them along in nets.
"There are a total of three caves."
We combed through this one, but there was no 'Clear Crystal'. Since the Japanese Player had died, if the Clear Crystal had been in his Inventory, it would have respawned here. That meant it wasn't here.
"We'll go through all three of them."
The next cave was inhabited by Gold Turtles. There was a fairly large pond right next to the cave.
"Yoohyun, Yeonseo. You two make sure they don't escape into the water."
Each and every one of them dropped a large number of Coins. That number was nothing to scoff at. If you were lucky, they could even drop Random Coin Boxes.
"We can't get them if they go into the water."
"Got it, hyungnim! Leave it to me!"
"Okay, I'll earn my keep."
The two of them blocked off the path from the cave to the pool. Upon spotting us, the Gold Turtles instantly shrank into their shells, which made them super easy to hunt. To be exact, we stuffed them all into nets, like the Japanese Player had done.
"We're not going to kill them?"
"We'll do it all in one go later."
"Why not do it right now?"
"Cause when all is said and done, AOE hunting's the best, you know?"
Gathering them in one place and killing them was the most efficient. Yoohyun expressed his admiration with light claps of his hands.
"I see. This is also a kind of AOE farm! Didn't think we'd AOE farm like this."
The Clear Crystal wasn't in the second cave, either. We arrived at the third cave, which was inhabited by quite a lot of Gold Turtles, too. We were able to catch them without any difficulty.
Since the grade of the gate wasn't that high, the Clear Crystal was also not very difficult to find.
"Oppa. The Crystal is over there."
Once we destroyed that sparkling purple crystal, this gate would be cleared.
"What should we do? Destroy it?"
"No."
First, we would finish hunting. I poured out all the Gold Turtles hiding in their shells in one spot. I didn't count their exact numbers, but there were around sixty of them.
'We should be getting a notice around now.'
This strategy would become very famous later on. When hunting Gold Turtles, gather as many of them as you can in one spot. It was so effective that there were even Gold Turtle farms and slaughterhouses.
'You're supposed to have a minimum of forty, right? I think I remember the name being Gold Turtle's Collective Spirit.'
[You have fulfilled the Hidden Piece 'Gold Turtle's Collective Spirit.']
Though it was technically a "hidden" piece, this was a strategy everyone and their mother knew about in the future.
[For 30 minutes, the drop rate of Random Coin Boxes is increased by 10%.]
[For 30 minutes, the Coin acquisition is increased by 10%.]
The least amount of effort for the greatest efficiency. This strategy accomplished that perfectly. No matter how you sliced it, this raid could be considered a huge success. It was indeed an impressively big success. The Coins I acquired here would serve as paint that would allow me to draw the picture I wanted far more vividly and surely than before.
'Well then, shall we get cracking?'
But just then, I saw a yellow '!!!' pop up.
'An important notice indication suddenly popped up?'
____