LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 12 - Setting the First Achievement (2)
Chapter 12 Setting the First Achievement (2)
The Player Headquarters’ exclusive training ground was located in Yongsan National Park.
Originally, it had been a site where the U.S. military stationed in Korea was based, but the headquarters bought part of the area and repurposed it.
“Sigh.”
A deep sigh escaped from Park Chang-seok as he gazed at the yellow-tinged sunlight of the evening dusk.
Before him, a few players approached.
“Representative.”
“Why the sudden summons right at closing time?”
“I’m here!”
The players greeted him, numbering ten in total.
All of them belonged to the headquarters and were players who trusted and followed Park Chang-seok to some extent.
These were people who wouldn’t leak strategy information even if they were told.
Park Chang-seok smiled faintly.
“I called you all because I want to try an experiment with you.”
It was still Tuesday, before the week was over.
He had called them in urgently because if he hesitated, he might have to wait another week.
“An experiment?”
“What kind of experiment?”
“…Ho, now this sounds interesting.”
If it had been any other representative calling for a gathering, the group would have been grumbling with displeased expressions.
But Park Chang-seok was different.
He wouldn’t summon them like this unless it was something important.
Everyone looked at him with anticipation.
“Are you aware that the record for the lower-tier Tuesday Dungeon was recently broken?”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“Wasn’t it Baek Jin-woo?”
“Didn’t they post an announcement? Something like, ‘Don’t make a fuss about it.’ What’s that about? He’s not even a ranker.”
As expected from true, dedicated players, they were keen on information.
Even though it had happened just today, they already knew all the details.
This made sharing the strategy feel worthwhile.
“I got that strategy from overseas. We tested it with a player named Baek Jin-woo who recently registered, and it produced significant results.”
This was part of the promise made with Baek Jin-woo.
He had asked that it never be revealed that the information came from him.
“Is that really true?”
“So that’s why you were adamant about not spreading it!”
“Where in the world do you get information like that?”
The players were getting excited.
Why else would they have been summoned here?
It had to be to share the strategy with them!
‘Jackpot.’
‘As expected, Park Chang-seok never lets us down!’
‘He never calls us for anything trivial.’
Park Chang-seok looked at the players whose eyes were gleaming with anticipation and slowly began to speak.
* * *
Among B-rank summons, there was a creature called the “Striped Komodo.”
It was a lizard about the size of an adult man, sturdy yet capable of dealing damage—a classic DPS-tank summon.
However.
Being B-rank meant it wasn’t easy to raise, and its damage and tanking abilities were somewhat lacking compared to other B-ranks, so it wasn’t often used.
You could say it was a burdensome entity.
For a monster that had only a 1% chance of appearing from an advanced summoning book, its cost-performance ratio was quite poor.
Thus, it was often abandoned, until Zenos, one of the Five Emperors, found a use for it.
[Zenos: Do you know what that thing’s main diet is?]
[Zenos: Giant slimes. It goes crazy for them. The way it devours those massive things is insane.]
Here’s the important part.
It only went wild for giant slimes!
With this new idea, Zenos decided to unleash the Striped Komodo right at the start of the Tuesday Dungeon.
And then.
The Striped Komodo rushed through the maze at incredible speed, finding its way on its own and gulping down the giant slimes.
[Zenos: Jackpot!]
[Zenos: You could just let this thing loose on a loop and be done with it!]
[Zenos: No need to even control it. Just enter the dungeon, go have a smoke, and when you come back, it’s cleared. Lol.]
It was around his fifth year in the game.
Thanks to Zenos’ information, the Komodo hunting method became all the rage.
Of course, only a very few knew this information.
The One Heaven, Five Emperors, and their close associates were the only ones in the know.
As for Baek Jin-woo.
Even back then, he had memorized all the maze patterns, so he didn’t really need to use it.
Regardless.
Baek Jin-woo had shared that information with Park Chang-seok.
And Park Chang-seok, in turn, was now sharing it with these players.
“…Is that it?”
“So basically… you’re saying just release the Striped Komodo and it’ll handle everything?”
“That sounds too simple. Are you sure it works?”
Park Chang-seok had already procured a Striped Komodo from the marketplace at a fairly high price.
Now, they just needed to run it to cut off the top achievement time.
“We’re heading to the dungeon now, but you need to control it precisely. The current clear time is exactly 5 minutes and 32 seconds, so we need to stop at 5 minutes and 31 seconds. If we overshoot it, we’ll just retry.”
“Got it.”
Gulp.
The players swallowed hard and nodded.
* * *
[Tuesday Dungeon – Lower-Tier]
[National Record Holder – Park Chun-sik]
[Clear Time – 00:05:31]
“It’s real!”
Player Park Chun-sik, who had emerged from the dungeon with an excited expression, trembled as his body convulsed.
“This is revolutionary, a revolution!”
His whole body was shaking.
“Was it about 3 minutes and 30 seconds? I had already reached the boss room and had to struggle to stop the Komodo from eating the slime, but other than that, it was incredibly easy. I didn’t do anything!”
[Tuesday Dungeon – Lower-Tier]
[National Record Holder – Lee Dong-myung]
[Clear Time – 00:05:29]
“Agh! I’m sorry. I was supposed to cut off exactly 1 second, but I mistakenly shaved off 2 seconds instead. This darn Komodo! It’s got such an appetite! It’s like a Bichon Frise when there’s food in front of it.”
One by one.
The players began breaking records.
[Tuesday Dungeon – Mid-Tier]
[National Record Holder – Park Chun-sik]
[Clear Time – 00:08:30]
“Wow, even the mid-tier was a 3-minute run. I only pulled back by 1 second from the original record on purpose.”
“Phew, no more worries about polishing materials now!”
“If we match the Komodo’s movement speed runes, we could even aim for a world record, don’t you think?”
It was a full-on celebration.
An achievement festival.
The players who had never received achievements gathered, passed the Striped Komodo around, cleared their achievements, and shared the rewards.
The headquarters took 2 advanced summoning books, while the player kept 1.
Even with that, the number of volunteers overflowed.
‘Insane.’
At that moment.
The person most excited was none other than Park Chang-seok.
Was he happy just because they were breaking achievements?
That was part of it, but the more important reason was Baek Jin-woo.
‘Baek Jin-woo is the hope of Korea.’
It was now certain.
Just a 1st-year gamer?
No.
He was someone with far greater potential.
Clench.
Strength surged into Park Chang-seok’s fist.
‘This can’t go on.’
He took a deep breath to calm his excitement.
‘I’m going to form a team dedicated to Baek Jin-woo.’
As he had mentioned before, there was just one thing they had to prevent.
‘Naturalization!’
Whatever it took, they had to keep him tied to Korea.
If they succeeded, Korea might be able to follow in the footsteps of the world’s five great summoner nations.
First.
“Secretary.”
Park Chang-seok made a call and gave an order.
– Yes, Representative.
“That matter we discussed earlier. Push it through immediately.”
– The payment of 1.5 billion won and 10,000 lower-grade summoning books, correct?
“That’s right.”
Baek Jin-woo had kept his promise.
Now it was time for Park Chang-seok to keep his.
* * *
[Account Details]
[Account Holder: Baek Jin-woo]
[Premium Account]
[Available Balance: 167,004,500 won]
“Whew.”
He had earned 9 million won from selling 3 advanced summoning books, 5 million won in prize money, and another 1.5 billion won.
“Making money is this easy?”
His past life now felt trivial.
The value of labor income seemed endlessly insignificant.
On top of that.
[Summoning Book Inventory]
1. Lower-
Grade Summoning Book x 10,000
An employee had come by and directly placed 10,000 books into his inventory.
Now, what had to be done?
He just had to summon relentlessly!
Since he had promised not to resell them, he had no choice but to draw them all.
Baek Jin-woo moved to a deserted clearing he often visited.
At the same time, he summoned the Wind Fairy.
– Lamba, I’m ready!
“Lamba.”
– Yeah!
“We’re going to start the summoning ritual now.”
– Okay! So, we wash our hands thoroughly while praying, right?!
“Exactly.”
Baek Jin-woo opened a bottle of mineral water he had bought and tilted it.
Trickle.
As the water poured out, Lamba vigorously rubbed her hands together.
– Please, let us summon something good!
This was a pure act that Baek Jin-woo had done as a middle schooler 10 years ago.
Lamba, who was highly advanced for an AI (though thinking back now, she probably wasn’t just a simple AI), had eagerly participated in the ritual back then.
– Please, give Jin-woo a great summon!
“Alright. Let’s start ripping!”
Rip!
[You are using a ‘Lower-Grade Summoning Book’!]
[Player ‘Baek Jin-woo’ has obtained the summon ‘Blue Dragonfly’ (F-Rank)!]
Rip!
[You are using a ‘Lower-Grade Summoning Book’!]
[Player ‘Baek Jin-woo’ has obtained the summon ‘Horned Larva’ (F-Rank)!]
Rip, rip, rip!
Now the endless grind began.
The summons he obtained were piling up in an intangible warehouse, to be sorted out later at the 「Synthesis Station」.
* * *
“Huff, huff.”
He had just gone through 3,600 books.
It had taken 1 hour.
He had torn through one book every second without stopping.
“Damn. This is unbearable. I need a break.”
If he had received 50,000 books, he would’ve been in serious trouble.
“And why aren’t these guys showing up?”
The Training Instructor (E-rank) and the Explosive Dragon Sage (D-rank).
They weren’t coming out as often as he had hoped.
If he had paid for those lower-grade summoning books, it would have been disastrous.
Still, looking at the 35 D-ranks and 182 E-ranks he had obtained, the odds seemed about right.
For the record, D-rank summons were so common that they didn’t sell well.
Summons only started fetching high prices from C-rank upwards.
– You fool.
“Hmm?”
– Did you really think they’d show up that easily? They’re not just any E or D-rank summons—they’re EX-rank.
“Why? You showed up on the first try.”
– That was a stroke of insane luck! To pull those guys, it’s not 10,000 books, you’d need 100,000, and even then, it might not be enough.
“…What?”
As he was quietly watching, Lamba sighed and began to explain.
– Do you even know how the summoning system works?
“How does it work?”
How would he know?
Even Baek Jin-woo’s vast knowledge was from a player’s perspective.
Back when he played 「Battle of Summoners」, there was no way to communicate with summons.
– Originally, there are only as many summons as 10% of the total player population. Your Horned Larva? There might have been a few hundred of them at first, but now they’ve multiplied to over 800 million.
“…Huh?”
Ah.
The world’s population was around 8.1 billion, so…
– But the crucial point is, we’re classified as isolated, meaning there’s only one of us.
“…What?”
– I don’t know the exact reason, but the isolated ones like us can only be summoned by you. So there’s only one of each of us left. Or maybe… the gods who created us decided to isolate us but couldn’t bring themselves to fully dispose of us, so they kept just one. My head’s starting to hurt.
“Sigh…”
If that assumption was correct, then the situation was dire.
From what Baek Jin-woo knew, there were tens of thousands of different kinds of summons…
And each summon species had around 800 million individuals?
In that case, he had to draw out the one and only EX-rank from that pool by chance?
Even simple calculations made the odds seem ridiculous.
It would be easier to win the lottery repeatedly.
– But don’t worry too much. Once a summon is pulled, it won’t come out again. In other words, if all 800 million Horned Larvas in the world have already been summoned, no matter how many books you tear through, you won’t get another one.
“Still, it’s tough.”
– Right?
“Hah, should I just go for mid-tier?”
But of course, that wasn’t an option.
A mid-tier summoning book cost 500,000 won each, and there weren’t that many of them on the market either.
There were limits.
“Ugh, whatever.”
He decided to just keep ripping.
If he kept at it, one day, one of them would come out.
After all, Lamba had managed to break through the extreme odds, so he had faith that the others would eventually do the same.
Rip, rip!
Taking a short break, Baek Jin-woo resumed diligently tearing through the books.