Chapter 2 – 2

Farming is all about looting.

Seowoon opened the door secured by a short bolt and peeked inside. He then desperately tried to yank the bolt out, gripping it tightly—but it wouldn’t budge at all.

The bolt, already short and hard to get a good grip on, simply wouldn’t come out no matter how hard Seowoon pulled.

“Damn it. I wasted precious bolts trying to get a feel for the crossbow.”

Still, not practicing with the crossbow to save bolts could lead to mistakes when it really mattered.

At the very least, he needed to know its effective range and trajectory.

But because he had fired it inside the cramped cabin, the bolt had instantly buried itself in the door, giving him no sense of range or arc.

“For now… it’s farming time. I need to scavenge more and worry about the rest later. The others are probably still trying to figure out what’s going on with this whole ghost-show. They’ll be slower to adapt. I need to identify and loot as many items as I can right now.”

The only way Seowoon could survive in this game was by using as many items as possible.

Unlike roguelikes where everyone starts equal, this game had players with wildly varying abilities.

To overcome that difference, he needed better gear.

After roughly scanning the cabin where he had found the crossbow, Seowoon was about to leave when something caught his eye—a worn-out booklet.

He had almost passed it by, but something told him he shouldn’t ignore it. Trusting his gut, he turned back and picked it up.

In that moment, a clear chime echoed in his mind.

[Ding! You’ve obtained a Martial Arts Manual. Would you like to learn it?]

A translucent window appeared before his eyes with [○] and [X] selection buttons.

“I… I can learn martial arts?”

His hand paused before pressing the button. Instead, he opened the book.

‘If martial arts can be learned like this, there must be a tier system. I probably can’t learn just any technique—there must be limits.’

As he opened the book, a small window popped up, translating the Chinese characters inside.

[Black Star Flying Fingers. A martial art that strengthens the fingers to throw hidden weapons.

Chapter 1: Finger training methods.

Chapter 2: Throwing techniques.

Chapter 3: Applications.

Training time: 1 year for martial artists; 4 years for ordinary people.]

After reading that much, the system chimed again.

[Ding. Would you like to learn it?]

“Throwing weapons, huh… Doesn’t sound like a bad skill to have…”

Seowoon had read his fair share of martial arts novels. Since it wasn’t some internal energy technique but just a throwing skill, there didn’t seem to be any harm in learning it.

When his hand touched the [○] button hovering in midair, the martial arts manual glowed faintly blue, crumbled into dust, and disappeared—his fingertips now darkened slightly.

“Huh?”

Startled, he examined his hand. His fingers somehow felt sturdier than before.

At the same time, the method for using Black Star Flying Fingers surfaced in his mind as if he had always known it.

“So this… this just compressed four years of training into a few seconds.”

Once again amazed by the game’s system, Seowoon quickly left the cabin.

‘From above, I saw there were multiple cabins. I need to loot them all fast.’

In the chaos of falling, he hadn’t been able to clearly memorize the layout of the cabins. Plus, based on his experience in roguelikes, he knew how hard it was to recognize terrain from the ground after seeing it from above.

‘I should’ve memorized a landmark or something…’

Roughly picturing the layout in his head, Seowoon began looking for the next cabin—only to stop in his tracks.

“Ah! There’s a map!”

As soon as the word “map” left his mouth, a small window popped up, showing his current location and the terrain around him.

Just like manipulating a touchscreen, where you can zoom in and out, Seowoon ran toward the nearest cabin from where he was.

When he opened the cabin door and stepped inside, as expected, there were no signs of human presence.

He glanced around the cabin briefly but saw no special items or martial arts manuals.

“Damn. Is this a dud?”

As he was about to head back out, something caught his eye.

It was a scroll-like paper tied with a blue string, carelessly tossed in the corner of the cabin.

Seowoon had played enough games to not lose to anyone in that field.

Because of that, he hadn’t gotten into a good university, and after being discharged from the military, he was lagging behind in reality—he was enrolled in a cram school to prepare for a bleak future before returning to college—but at least his intuition in games was top-notch.

And that intuition was now sending him a signal: Don’t overlook that paper scroll.

“It looks just like… a scroll.”

As he finished speaking and picked up the object lying in the corner, a familiar notification sound chimed.

[Ding! You’ve acquired a Level 1 Recovery Scroll. Would you like to use it?]

As expected, it was an item.

He couldn’t tell how much a Level 1 Recovery could heal, but Seowoon was sure that this item would be crucial someday.

When he pressed the X button, another system notification popped up.

[You can use the item by tearing the scroll at any time. Cooldown: 5 seconds.]

“Just as I thought.”

Scrolls or magic spellbooks—items that could be used once by anyone, even non-magicians, simply by tearing them.

Anyone who had played fantasy-based games would know about such items.

Now it’s starting to make sense. Items from the world of magicians and the world of martial artists are scattered around like this. If that’s the case… then items from my own world might exist here too… If I could just get my hands on that K-2 I was so familiar with…

The K-2 he’d clung to so unwillingly until just recently. If he could somehow reclaim that thing he was eager to leave behind, he might have a chance to survive in this monster-infested world.

No—he was confident he could.

With that thought, Seowoon shoved the scroll into his pants pocket and suddenly realized he still hadn’t found the item he truly needed.

“This won’t do.”

He rushed toward the next cabin, praying over and over that he would find that item there.

Seowoon dashed into the third cabin, but after a quick glance around, he sighed when he didn’t find what he was hoping for.

“Haa…”

As he continued acquiring different items, Seowoon realized he had no place to store them.

There’s only so much I can carry in my hands… I need at least a small bag.

Thinking that, he started rummaging through the cabin just in case there was a martial arts manual or a scroll. Just then, as the setting sun cast an orange glow into the cabin, something sparkled on the floor.

“Hm? What’s this…”

It was a tiny black ring—so small it would’ve been nearly impossible to find with just a casual glance.

As Seowoon picked up the ring, a smile crept onto his face.

The unmistakable system sound confirmed what he already suspected—it was a valuable item.

[Ding. You’ve obtained the Ring of Strength. Wearing it will increase your strength.]

“There really is all sorts of stuff in here. It’s like every item I’ve ever seen in a game is showing up.”

He slipped the ring onto his finger, and instantly the weight of the crossbow slung across his back felt nearly nonexistent.

While not particularly heavy, carrying around a bulky and unfamiliar crossbow had been inconvenient. But the moment he put the ring on, the weight vanished, making it clear just how effective the ring was.

“This is the best item I’ve gotten so far.”

He instinctively knew it. Unlike a one-time-use scroll, a slow-to-reload crossbow, or martial arts he hadn’t yet mastered, this ring—which boosted his overall strength—was an item he could continuously rely on.

Having made that realization, Seowoon took the crossbow off his back and tried reloading it.

“Just as I thought!”

The old crossbow, which used to require bracing with his foot and using his full weight to reload, now reloaded effortlessly by hand.

This meant his rate of fire would also significantly increase.

“I still can’t compete with those terrifying martial artists… but…”

Even so, to Seowoon in this moment, the ring was an invaluable treasure.

—Growl.

His stomach rumbled loudly, and Seowoon finally noticed how hungry he was.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten anything all day.

The sudden change in environment had left him too tense to notice his hunger, but now that he was beginning to adjust, the emptiness in his stomach was undeniable.

“Is there nothing to eat around here? Now that I think about it, if the game is going to last for a hundred days, it’ll be dangerous unless I can reliably secure food and water.”

It was something he had been overlooking because the game logs in reality were so similar.

In the game, as long as you maintained the character’s HP, there was no need to eat. But here, he had to play with his own body. If he didn’t eat anything, there was no way he could survive.

‘Starving to death would be even more miserable than dying from the shrinking zone.’

After finishing his thoughts, Seowoon checked the setting sun and hurried toward the fourth cabin.

Unlike the three cabins that had been relatively close by, this one was quite a distance away. If he wasn’t careful, he might not reach it before nightfall.

“Still, wearing the Strength Ring makes it a lot easier.”

Even with the body of a young man who had just completed his military service, running through mountainous terrain was exhausting.

However, ever since he was lucky enough to acquire the Strength Ring, even running long distances hadn’t been too taxing.

‘Does it improve cardio too?’

Seowoon didn’t fully understand it, but increasing physical strength was practically the same as making the body feel lighter. If you calculated it numerically, the ring he acquired increased his strength by a fixed amount.

Since the ring was designed to boost strength by a certain number based on the players’ average stats, it had an even greater effect on Seowoon, whose strength had been notably lower than others.

If Seowoon’s strength was originally 10, the ring boosted it by about 30. In other words, his strength almost tripled, so it was only natural for him to feel the difference.

After running for a while and arriving at the cabin as dusk settled in, Seowoon gasped for breath.

Even though he was wearing the Strength Ring, sprinting recklessly out of urgency had inevitably left him short of breath.

“Haa… haa… Damn it! The sun’s finally setting.”

Catching his breath, he quickly entered the cabin.

This was the fourth cabin he was looting.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep