4. Floor 1 Trial(1)
<Safe Altar>
Grade: Floor 1 Trial
▶Objective: Score 20 points or more, then survive until the time limit expires.
▶Reward: All of the following are granted.
1) 500 points
2) Hunter's Leather Equipment Set
3) Right of entry to Tower Floor 1
▶Additional Reward: ???
▶On failure: Return to the <Floor 1 Trial Waiting Room>
[The Floor 1 Trial is passed once you accumulate 20 points or more.]
[Slaying a gnoll grants 1 point.]
[Registering your name after entering the <Altar> secures your safety.]
[However, once inside the <Altar> you cannot come back out, and killing gnolls within it does not raise your score.]
[Time remaining: 1 hour]
Kill twenty gnolls, then go into the <Altar> and rest, and you pass.
If it looked dangerous, go straight into the <Altar> and aim for the next trial.
The rules were simple.
[The <Floor 1 Trial> begins!]
The walls sank downward, and far off, a single altar revealed itself.
It looked as though it had been carved out of an enormous glacier.
BARK! BARK!
GRRRRRR!
Along the path leading to the altar, dog-headed gnolls began to roar and charge.
"Hold them! Tanks!"
"Archers, shoot!"
WHOOOOSH......!
CLANG!
Players with shields stepped out in front to block the gnolls, and the archers behind them loosed their arrows.
For people who had only just met, it was a fairly organized set of movements.
BARK! BARK!
GRRRRRRR!
But the gnolls were by no means easy opponents.
Incoming arrows they blocked with shields or knocked aside with blades.
Some even took an arrow and still charged like rabid dogs, swinging axes or tearing in with their teeth.
"Hrgh......!"
"These bastards, they're worse than I thought......!"
The things were smarter, bigger, more organized, and stronger than goblins.
Above all, they were tenacious.
"Why are these bastards so...... strong!"
"There's no comparing them to goblins!"
"Damn it!"
"Group up!"
To make matters worse, this place was cold.
That much was clear from the fact that an altar made of ice stood there perfectly intact.
Unlike the gnolls, covered in warm fur, the players' clothing was all over the place.
'If this turns into a long fight......'
'We're at a disadvantage.'
'Can we survive this?'
It took two players together to hold off one gnoll, three to barely push one back, and four to just barely kill one.
And things like that were gathered between them and the altar in the dozens, in the hundreds.
"Aaaaargh!"
"Die! Just die!"
"BARK! BARK!"
Humans and gnolls, mixed together like paper soaked in water, killing and dying.
One human bored through the middle of it like an awl.
"That's dangerous!"
"Everyone else hold the line!"
"Helping someone who runs off alone like that is more dangerous!"
SLASH—!
The players gathered here all thought the same thing.
That the player who had stepped out front would be dead soon.
That the gnolls would tear him apart until his body was unrecognizable.
It was a natural assumption.
These were players who had only just cleared the tutorial.
All they had killed was ten goblins, and nothing more.
That was not even enough to raise a level.
They had no stats, no levels, no experience.
Even if they used the <Shop>, they had no points to buy skills with in the first place.
That was why they had banded together like this.
Because they were weak.
Because as individuals they could not handle that many gnolls.
"Uh, uh?"
"Wh, what is that?"
But the sight before their eyes was nothing like what they had expected.
"Why...... why are the gnolls moving like that?"
The player who had gone out alone, Lee Jin-hyeok.
The gnolls standing before him were flinching.
It was a strange thing.
"Those things...... they're incredibly vicious, aren't they?"
"A monster stopping in the middle of a fight to do that? That's insane."
"What is that......? It's like they've been stung by something."
The people did not know it, but this was thanks to the <Gradri Petal Extract> spread on Lee Jin-hyeok's sword.
<Gradri Petal Extract> had two effects that people generally did not know about.
The first of them was that [to humans it is colorless and odorless, but to creatures with a keen sense of smell like gnolls, it gives off an insanely foul stench].
And that stench was not something one could simply endure.
Just as a human who forces himself to stare at the sun will have his pupils burn away, a gnoll that catches the scent of this petal extract feels the agony of its nose burning through.
The cold weather meant the smell spread less, but it was more than enough to reach the ones Lee Jin-hyeok faced.
It was a little expensive, but there had been a reason for using this petal extract.
SLICE.
"BARK! BARK!"
"GRRRRRRRK!"
[You have slain a gnoll. You have acquired 1 point.] x4
[You have acquired 5 points.] x4
The <Adept's Sword> in his right hand pierced gnoll skulls without mercy.
And the <Blood-Red Claw>, held reversed in his left, opened their throats without mercy.
SLAAASH—!
Blood shot up like a fountain and blocked his vision, but he did not so much as blink.
Calm and cold, he simply set his sights on the next target.
"My god......"
"Is that thing even human?"
To the others watching, Lee Jin-hyeok was no different from a wolf that had leapt into a flock of sheep.
Thanks to his high Strength stat, the slightest effort left enemies dead.
Thanks to his high Vitality stat, he did not tire.
Thanks to his high Agility stat, his enemies' movements looked slow and his body felt light.
"Insane. A player who just finished the tutorial can fight like that?"
"There's no way."
Forgetting even to kill the gnolls, the players stared at Lee Jin-hyeok as though spellbound.
They say you see as much as you know.
The ones who knew more about the Tower were the ones most stunned of all.
'There's no way.'
'What kind of movement is that?'
'What on earth was that man doing before he came here?'
These ones knew.
That there existed no being who could put on a performance like that with nothing but two swords and no visible special skills.
[Constellation <Blood-Red Hair> is astonished at your martial power!]
[Constellation <King of Muspell> takes great interest in your martial power.]
[Constellation <Eternal Flame> insists that it is the 'authentic Constellation.']
It was not only his fellow players who were marveling at Lee Jin-hyeok and losing themselves in the sight.
The Constellations.
Even Constellations that had watched countless players were marveling at the monster called Lee Jin-hyeok.
Openly enough to show their interest.
[You have slain a gnoll. You have acquired 1 point.] x6
[You have acquired 5 points.] x6
"Th, this is no time to be standing around!"
"Everyone, the formation...... let's hold the formation!"
"Now is our chance! Run for the <Altar>!"
Lee Jin-hyeok was merely cutting down gnolls at the very front in order to pile up as many points as possible.
But for the other players, that became an opportunity.
An opportunity to reach the <Altar>, because one man was holding the gnolls back perfectly.
If they let slip a chance handed to them like this, they had no right to survive here.
"Anyone who has 20 points or can't manage, get inside!"
"Hurry! There's no time!"
Either they had met the target, or they had lost their nerve.
Players who fell into one of those two groups went into the altar through the opened path.
[*Warning! The <Altar> has reached its full capacity. (100/100).]
But the altar's capacity was a mere one hundred.
Given that more than a thousand players were gathered here, it was filling up far too quickly.
But there was no rule saying they simply had to die.
[Additional altars are generated.]
Along with the message, altars began forming here and there.
"Over there! Go over there!"
"Hurry!"
The problem was that those altars stood a considerable distance away.
The players gritted their teeth, banded together, and began opening a new path.
'Rejoining them for a while is better. To achieve my goal. And.'
Swish.
'For the sake of the Constellations' satisfaction too.'
Lee Jin-hyeok had only one goal, 'to pile up the highest score.'
Not only among the players gathered here, but among every player who had ever set a record.
For that, stamina management was essential.
Lee Jin-hyeok's Vitality was overwhelmingly high, but it was not infinite.
He had minimized his movements and aimed only for vital points to maximize combat efficiency, but his stamina had dropped a great deal.
Rejoining the players to recover, then fighting alone again afterward, was the more efficient approach.
"Let's head for another altar."
At Lee Jin-hyeok's joining them, the other players' expressions brightened as well.
From their position, a player of overwhelming force joining them could hardly be better.
"Understood."
"We can't leave that young fellow to struggle on his own!"
"We all die anyway if we just stand here!"
"Charge!"
A powerful leader and commander affects morale by existing at all.
And morale has an enormous effect on an actual battle.
[*Warning! The <Altar> has reached its full capacity. (100/100).]
[*Warning! The <Altar> has reached its full capacity. (100/100).]
He could not save or rescue everyone, but it was a fact that Lee Jin-hyeok's joining them saved the lives of a great many players who should have died.
Thanks to him, the people were able to enter the altars in sequence.
'I couldn't examine them properly before the regression, but so the altars are built roughly like this.'
Even in the middle of all that, Lee Jin-hyeok studied the altars fairly closely.
'Good. This part is solid, and among the joints, the sections running diagonally are weaker.'
[Constellation <Eternal Flame> weeps at your spirit of sacrifice in trying to save your own kind!]
[Constellation <Eternal Flame> sponsors you with 2,000 points!]
[Constellation <Blood-Red Hair> is satisfied with the martial power you are showing.]
[Constellation <Blood-Red Hair> sponsors you with 1,000 points!]
'As expected.'
Lee Jin-hyeok had an exact grasp of the needs of the Constellations watching him right now.
So he moved along the 'only path' that could satisfy their appetites and his own goal at once.
As a result, he piled up the score as score, and earned points from the Constellations' sponsorships as well.
"Haah...... haah......"
If there was one problem, it was that his stamina was finally starting to bottom out.
He could taste something sweet and sour at the back of his mouth.
'Nothing to be done, I suppose.'
It was the cost of fighting at the very front, harder than anyone else.
And the number of people was steadily dropping, so the situation was growing harder the longer it went on.
'I can't fall over from something this trivial.'
He took out another vial of <Gradri Petal Extract>, spread it on his sword, and swung again.
[Time remaining: 5 minutes 20 seconds]
[*Current altar occupancy: 73/100]
And so, five minutes remaining.
Four altars left.
Only a small number of players who wanted to kill even a few more gnolls were still swinging weapons near the altars.
[Would you like to register your player name at the altar?]
[*Upon registration, the quest is cleared and your safety is guaranteed.]
'I could pass the trial just by going into an altar and watching from there.'
The enemy Lee Jin-hyeok ultimately had to face was a Constellation.
A lofty, transcendent being.
And among them, one of the very strongest, <Pure Radiance>.
To stand against a thing like that, he had to monopolize rewards and suck the very marrow out of every hidden piece.
No, even devouring all of it might not be enough.
'So.'
FLASH.
'It's still not enough!'
He kicked off from the altar and hurled himself out, moving toward another altar.
[Activating the skill <Enchant: Flame>.]
'My goal is to break the highest score no player in history has ever managed.'
FWOOOOSH!
'And the only means to do that.'
Before long, flames began to rise from both of Lee Jin-hyeok's swords.
'is to bring an altar down.'
Bringing down an altar was a kind of prank device that the Constellation managing Floor 1 had put in.
It was an element put in on the assumption that no player could ever pull it off anyway.
Which was exactly why Lee Jin-hyeok went for it.
The thing everyone thought could not be done.
Only by overcoming an element like that could he kick off and drive forward even harder.
The flame-wrapped swords drew a line.
FWOOOSH—!
The gnolls that saw the fire flinched for a moment, then changed their plan.
Judging that no single one of them could break through the flames, they packed tightly together, sacrificed the ones on the outside, and tried to get at least a few through the fire.
It was a clever choice.
But it only worked if the opponent was an ordinary player.
Against Lee Jin-hyeok, it did not.
[You have slain a gnoll. You have acquired 1 point.] x12
[You have acquired 5 points.] x12
[Your level has risen!]
Gnoll hide, which had already been cutting easily, burned far better once it caught fire.
[Constellation <King of Muspell> covets your domineering way and your flames.]