Team Member Reinforcement (1)
After clearing the Labyrinth, I returned home immediately and checked the Exchange first in order to complete Caligo and Hertia’s equipment.
There were countless types and combinations of equipment sets.
Among them, naturally, there were expensive equipment sets.
The most popular one was the Gale Set, which increased speed.
It was extremely useful because it allowed one to activate skills first and set up the board.
However, because it was popular, it was absurdly expensive.
The price of one piece of Hero-grade Gale Set equipment with good basic options was over 40 million won.
But what if speed was attached again as a sub-option?
Then it immediately played in the hundreds of millions.
Back when this was a game, there were so few users that items like that did not even appear on the market.
‘But I do not need speed.’
Because I had Hertia.
On top of that, did Hertia not deal damage in proportion to vitality?
In other words, it was better for her vitality to be high.
Also, considering Caligo’s skills that would be unlocked later, the Maiming Set, which reduced the opponent’s maximum health, was also decent.
‘Hmm. As expected. The Maiming Set is treated as a dud, so it is practically free.’
If I sold the set selection boxes I had received as rewards, I could get 15 million won each.
It was a low price for a selection box, but since they were equipment from the Labyrinth, their ceiling was low.
Still, there were a total of 15 of them, so if I sold them all, that would be 225 million won.
With this much, I could even buy Legendary equipment.
If I had money, I did wonder whether I should summon the third villain right away, but right now, the urgent priority was to equip these two properly.
Since I had to fight the elves one month later, the money I would need was no small amount.
Besides, there were still two empty slots in the party.
If I wanted to fill them with the summons I wanted, I could not spend all my money.
‘Good. Then let’s list them for sale right away and put all the good items into the cart.’
「The sale of Equipment Set (Hero) Selection Box x2 has been completed.」
I thought they would not sell well since they were low-ceiling equipment from the Labyrinth, but people were buying them better than I expected.
「28,500,000 won has been deposited after excluding the 5% transaction fee.」
Seeing the amount left in my bank account made me feel proud.
Now I only had to properly prepare equipment for these two, Hertia and Caligo.
‘Now then, let’s buy equipment with this money first!’
《You have purchased Legendary Blooming Despair Helmet (Maiming).》
《You have purchased Legendary Blooming Despair Armor (Maiming).》
⁝
***
My next destination was the ‘Battle Tower’.
It was the only existing kind of ‘tower that had to be cleared’, and one of these towers stood in each country.
The tower’s structure could be described as ‘Legend Seven compressed into live combat’, with the contents from Episodes 1 through 7 packed tightly inside this Battle Tower.
It consisted of 100 floors in total, with mid-bosses every 5 floors and floor bosses every 10 floors, and the rewards were quite large.
One noteworthy point was that the bosses of the game ‘Legend Seven’—that is, the Seven Deadly Sins—did not appear.
Apparently, on stages where one would originally have to fight boss battles against the ‘villains’, other bosses took their place instead.
No one knew the reason.
At most, after I became able to summon the villains, I merely guessed that it must have something to do with my awakening.
In addition, the tower had a kind of ‘clear deadline’. If the highest available floor was not cleared by that deadline, a phenomenon known as a ‘dungeon break’ occurred.
The first dungeon break was... honestly, not something I wanted to recall.
On the very day the tower rose.
Goblins, orcs, and even dragons one would only expect to see in movies shot breath attacks from the sky.
The dungeon break was barely resolved only after adventurers broke through that hellish chaos and entered the tower.
After that day, the governments of various nations rapidly established laws and systems that gave preferential treatment to adventurers.
‘...It must never happen again.’
I did not want to experience such a calamity a second time.
If even a little had gone wrong, I would have lost my parents and my younger sister too.
...Returning to the subject.
Our country’s clearing progress was the 94th floor.
Considering that the nations currently classified as powerful countries had succeeded in clearing the 100th floor and escaped the threat of the tower, objectively speaking, Korea was not that slow.
However, the problem was that this clear progress had not been achieved entirely through ‘our own strength’.
The powerful countries that had finished clearing their towers first deployed their surplus forces to weaker adventurer nations and demanded various interests in exchange for protecting them from the threat of dungeon breaks.
The Republic of Korea was one of them.
Well, I did not intend to complain too much. Even so, our country was in a better situation than most weaker nations.
Countries that did not even have interests to offer the powerful nations received no meaningful help beyond support provided on a so-called ‘humanitarian basis’, and many of them had entered a state that was practically anarchy.
However, this precarious peace could not possibly continue forever.
Once the main episode updated one month from now, no one knew what might happen.
To put it bluntly, another tower might suddenly rise.
“But I cannot just sit around worrying.”
The current me had power.
The power to stand firm and advance against torrents and waves.
For myself, for my family, and for the people around me.
I intended to clear the Battle Tower at high speed.
I would save this country incidentally while achieving my own goal.
‘Now then, I need to put together a climbing party...’
The Battle Tower was fairly difficult, so the official strategy distributed by the current government was to prepare several party compositions suited to the floors one intended to clear.
That was because each floor had different gimmicks and methods of clearing.
It was not wrong. However, in my eyes, it was unsatisfactory.
It was like a half-finished map, half correct and half unmentioned.
Rather than a strategy, it was more accurate to call it luck-based voodoo.
‘But if it is me, I can clear it far more efficiently.’
Even so, reinforcing my team members was an unavoidable fate once I had decided to climb the tower.
As the first step, I had to meet the minimum condition required to enter the Battle Tower.
I had to form a party made up of at least four summons.
If I followed my heart, I would summon a new villain, but I did not have much money left on hand.
So, was I going to buy just any summon from the Exchange to fill the party?
Haha, as if!
‘The street market. It has been a while since I went there in person.’
The ‘Exchange’, which could only be used by those who had awakened as adventurers, had the advantages of being safe and convenient. However, products with good value for money usually circulated in the ‘street market’.
The reason was obvious.
Money.
The biggest reason was that people did not want to pay the Exchange usage fee.
That was why items that were not on the Exchange sometimes appeared in the street market.
‘If it is a street market near Seoul... the one near Hwaseong Haenggung in Suwon was famous, right?’
I headed to Suwon without hesitation.
***
As soon as I arrived at Hwaseong Haenggung, foreign faces caught my eye.
There were so many foreigners and merchants selling summons in a place with such distinct Korean traditional colors.
This place did not only sell summons, but all kinds of equipment items as well.
“Selling Legendary Gale Set! First come, first served!”
“Rare-grade or higher summons for cheap! Come over and take a look!”
Even though it was a weekday, it was truly crowded.
Since there was a large street market here, public safety was also fairly well managed, so I could not find tension on people’s faces.
However, my destination was not a crowded place with a good location like this.
The people who set up shop in the main plaza were usually merchants with deep pockets, and they only sold popular goods.
Even when it came to equipment, they sold Gale Sets that increased speed, and for summons, their main products were creatures useful in already established strategies.
Thanks to that, the prices had a bit of a bubble, but since that was the only method people knew, they bought them while swallowing their complaints.
However, leaving the main plaza behind, I headed toward the alleyways in search of small merchants.
Before I awakened as an adventurer, I had stopped by this place on a business trip and had seen some fairly interesting items.
‘Let’s see...’
Just as I was about to look around the shops located in the secluded area...
“Brother, take a look here first!”
From the entrance of the alleyway, a foreign tout began calling out to customers.
Perhaps because people rarely came here, he approached more closely than the merchants in the main plaza.
“Are you looking for something?”
“Ah, yes. I am looking for a Hero-grade summon.”
“Hero? For that, you should go to the main area. We do not sell such expensive summons here.”
“The bubble there is a little too severe. I will take a look around first.”
“Come on, there is nothing inside either! Just buy equipment here!”
Ignoring the merchants calling out to me, I headed deeper inside.
However, this alleyway felt quite strange.
The farther I went inside, the gloomier the atmosphere became.
The merchants kept their heads lowered, and it felt as though they had no will to sell at all.
Around the time suspicion raised its head that I might have come to the wrong place...
“Come look at my summons!”
At the mouth of an alley, I saw someone who did not fit this place.
A boy who looked about high-school age had opened a street stall.
Even his sign seemed to have been made by hand out of cardboard, and it was clumsy.
『Selling Hero Summons Cheaply. Sales List is...』
‘...Bingo!’
However, when I looked at the sales list, he had some fairly interesting ones.
Not all of the summons he was selling were written down, but a few were even ‘limited-time pickup’ summons.
‘They are far too cheap. Does he not know the value of the goods?’
Now that the game had become reality, there was no way to obtain limited-pickup summons through ordinary methods.
If there was at least one method, it was obtaining them through ‘Selection Tickets’.
That was why limited-edition summons were basically several times, or even dozens of times, more expensive than summons of the same grade.
However, the ones this boy was selling were not expensive. They were far too cheap.
Even when compared to summons of the same grade, they were at the very bottom level.
Did he even know that he had set absurd prices?
“Student.”
“Yes?”
Do you have more Hero summons besides the ones written here?”
“Ah. Yes! I have more.”
“Can I see them?”
“Ah. But I do not think there will be anything for you to buy, hyung.”
“I have not said what I am going to buy yet.”
“I can tell just by looking. From the way you walk, hyung, you do not look like someone who would come here...”
My way of walking?
I thought it was perfectly ordinary.
Did people who came here walk differently?
“Just show me first. There might be something I want to buy.”
“Yes. As long as you do not curse after seeing them.”
The male student immediately showed me the summons he was selling, one by one.
And I felt like I understood why he had asked me not to curse after seeing them.
They were Hero-grade summons, but the list was full of summons that depended on an absurd number of conditions.
‘Indeed, others would have been disappointed.’
The summons this boy had were generally slow.
Being slow meant they had no chance to strike first.
So even if their performance was useful, they were discarded.
To make proper use of these summons, one had to secure speed stats for them.
However, the ‘Gale Set’ that increased speed was absurdly expensive.
That meant the tail was wagging the dog.
It seemed that was why everyone who saw them said a word or two, whether out of pity or frustration.
“They are not very good, are they?”
“Yes. They are all missing a screw somewhere.”
“Ah... I looked over their abilities carefully, and they seemed fine at the time, so I bought them. I guess I have no eye for goods.”
“I do not think so.”
“Pardon?”
“I will buy them. Would cash be easier for you? Or card?”
“Pardon?”
“The payment. I am asking how to pay. Do you accept cards too?”
Among this shop’s goods, there happened to be two summons I needed.
They were difficult to obtain, so this was quite lucky.
Did this boy even know?
The fact that among his stock were some very precious summons that had only been sold for a limited time.
And that they were summons released right before I quit the game, at a point when power inflation had already reached its peak.
“Card and cash are both fine. So which ones are you buying?”
“Temina, Shade of Flame, and Iron, the Cowardly Golem.”
“Pardon? No. You are buying those two?”
“Yes. So how much are they?”
“Ah... 3 million each.”
“Aha. That price is a little troublesome. First, let us negotiate the price. Shall we adjust things at a café for a moment?”
I moved to a café with the seller in order to negotiate the price.