Ex-level Player With the Greatest Civilization of All Time - Chapter 6

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 6

[Entering Sky Tower, Floor 5.]
[Complete the given objective within the time limit.]
[The Safe Zone will be deactivated shortly. Prepare for combat.]
[Objective: Eliminate Monster – Kinol Struck by Lightning 0/1]

Floor 5, entered after modest preparations.
The objective that materialized was simpler than expected.
Simply dispose of Kinol and be done with it.
Somewhere in the forest below the ridge lay a goblin settlement.
Finding Kinol within that settlement was tedious, but the actual killing would be straightforward.
“The main thing to watch for this round would be goblin archers, I suppose.”
Goblin archers weren’t particularly well-matched against drones, as I’d experienced on Floor 4.
I’d prefer to avoid them if possible, but the settlement had well over a hundred goblins crowded together.
I’d need to tear through it like a hornet’s nest to draw Kinol out, so combat was unavoidable.
Still, I felt reasonably confident this time.
“That’s only true if I relied on automatic hunting, though, isn’t it?”
There was no need to entrust everything to simple automatic hunting anymore.
“Gate Opening.”
Two new units joined the battlefield freshly deployed.
Most notably, the Hunter Drone and Projection Unit.
The moment the Safe Zone vanished, I issued commands to my drones.
As always, I assigned one drone to defense and sent two to attack.
And then I issued an order to the newly arrived Hunter Drone as well.
“Hunter Drone, you’ll circle around and eliminate Kinol.”
The operation was simple enough.
While the Combat Drone drew their attention, the Hunter Drone’s stealth function would let it assassinate the target.
Of course, it wasn’t quite that straightforward.
Even though it seemed simple, drawing attention required knowing when to strike and retreat, and maintaining proper distance.
And what made that possible was this.
“Projection Unit.”
The moment the Hunter Drone disappeared stealthily, I activated the Projection Unit.
Zing—
The spherical device unfolded screens in all directions around me: forward, back, left, right.
I was sharing the visual feeds from the deployed drones.
Now I could monitor the field in real time and issue commands accordingly.
“There’s the settlement.”
The feed from the Combat Drone showed what looked like crude hovels.
The goblins hadn’t noticed us yet, from the look of things.
“First strike. Once engagement begins, focus your aim on the archers.”
As I issued those instructions to both Combat Drones, charging began.
Flash—
A pulse of light rippled from the far end of the forest, and a thunderous explosion reached my ears an instant later.
Boom-crack.
About ten percent of the goblin settlement was obliterated in a single strike.
Absolutely devastating firepower.
But goblins came pouring out moments later, having heard the commotion.
“Cease fire. Climb higher—beyond arrow range.”
The Combat Drone continued its assault from a higher altitude, but—
both its attack power and hit rate dropped considerably.
Whoosh—thunk-thunk.
I could now understand why drones attacked at low altitude during automatic hunts.
With goblins clustered so densely, attacks rarely missed entirely, but—
the efficiency of the strikes was noticeably reduced.
None of that mattered now, though.
All I needed was to keep their attention.
From the start, it wasn’t the Combat Drone that would end this battle—it was the Hunter Drone.
There’s no point wasting strength on worthless goblins like these. It’s just a drain on resources.
He ordered the drones to attack with mere provocations, and was just checking the Hunter Drone’s camera feed when it happened.

[Kinol’s flute performance begins… 30 seconds]

An alarm flashed before his eyes.
From the screen of the Hunter Drone circling wide in the air came the sound of a flute.
Moving toward the source of the sound, the camera soon picked up a suspicious black goblin.
A flute-playing goblin, then….

[Kinol’s flute performance begins… 10 seconds]

And moments later.
Whizz—
Compared to the Combat Drone, a decidedly shorter and thinner beam incinerated Kinol’s head.
The goblins standing guard around Kinol hadn’t even noticed, startling only belatedly at the sight.
Ding—

[Eliminate the electrocuted Kinol. 1/1]

“Both new models are performing better than I expected.”

* * *

Soon after, he returned to the tower and collected his reward.

[Mission Complete!]
[New record established!]
…
[Clear Grade SSS achieved!]
[Level increased.]
[S-Rank Reward Box (Floors 1-5) has been added to your inventory.]

[Lv.7 Kang Seon-woo]

Job: Subspace User
Grade: EX
Strength: 10 (+)
Agility: 10 (+)
Magic Power: 14 (+)
Mana: 15 (+)
Stat Point: 9
Magic Power: 14 → 19
Mana: 15 → 19

As he distributed the accumulated stat points evenly between Magic Power and Mana, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Hmm… come to think of it, do these stat increases actually have an effect?”
Truthfully, in all his battles so far, he’d simply set the drones on automatic and waited from a distance.
He’d never confirmed whether his own stats were reflected in the drones’ combat performance.
But now, thanks to the Projection Unit, things had changed.
From now on, he’d pay close attention to this as well, and closed the status window.
Regardless, this battle—even with only two additional units—had dramatically increased his overall power.
Especially the Projection Unit. It was remarkable.
Being able to analyze the entire battle situation at a glance and issue effective commands to his forces established a diversity of tactics he hadn’t had before.
It wasn’t just setting automatic hunts and waiting anymore; it was the sensation of directly orchestrating the battlefield, which carried its own peculiar satisfaction.
Of course, that wasn’t to say the Hunter Drone’s performance was lacking.
Its unique stealth function had clearly proven itself invaluable in boss fights once he’d tested it.
“Should I try the sixth floor?”
The difficulty would naturally be higher than the first five floors.
But he felt no real concern.
The basis for this confidence lay partly in the superior specs of his drones, but more fundamentally in the nature of the sixth floor’s monsters—they were Boars.
Unlike Goblins, these creatures had their instincts heightened at the expense of intelligence.
Since they couldn’t use tools, they had no means of attacking from the air.
That was why he’d challenged the sixth floor without hesitation.

[You have successfully cleared the first five floors!]
[As a reward for clearing Floor 5, you are offered a skill selection.]
[The next reward will appear after Floor 10.]

Along with the status window, his vision suddenly flashed bright, and cards materialized before his eyes.
“Right, that’s true….”
Starting from Floor 5, the Tower granted one new skill for every ten floors cleared.
It provided skills based on the battles fought so far, tailored to be useful.
And now three skill cards hovered before him.

[Efficient Processing]
– Reduces production time by 10%.

[Spirit of Economy]
– Reduces electrical consumption by 5%.

[Special Assembly]
– Grants a 5% chance to produce a special unit.

He’d expected combat-oriented skills, but all three that appeared were tied to production and industry.
That made sense—his battles had all relied on drones, after all.
But that didn’t mean he disliked them.
“These are pretty good, actually.”
Whichever he chose would prove valuable down the line.
In fact, he liked all three so much that it was hard to pick just one.
“Though Efficient Processing… I guess I’ll set that aside for now.”
A 10% reduction in production time was an excellent skill, no question.
Over the long term, it would prove invaluable.
“But it’s too distant.”
He’d only been running the factory for barely a day to reach Floor 5.
Given that timeline, it was hard to say how far ahead he’d need to look to truly feel the benefit of a 10% production cut.
Lacking immediate, tangible results, it was eliminated from consideration.
So that left two.
Weighing Spirit of Economy against Special Assembly, he pondered at length before ruling out Spirit of Economy.
The reason was simple: Special Assembly was simply too attractive a skill.
A 5% reduction in electricity?
Of course, it was tempting enough.
Maintaining Naia in standby power mode cost roughly a million won per day, so saving fifty thousand daily was nothing to scoff at.
And if he ever ramped up production or eventually supplied electricity to the entire city, there was no telling how much he’d save.
But that was a future concern.
For now, efficiency was the immediate bottleneck.

[You have selected Special Assembly.]
[Special Assembly has been added to your skill list.]

“Now, shall I tackle Floor 6 as well?”

* * *

South Korea.
Players Association.
Player Management Division.
The office was currently in a state of emergency.
“Director, take a look at this, please.”
“Did you review that request I asked you to check earlier?”
There was only one reason the emergency alert had been triggered.
A single message they’d only discovered late this morning.
“Did you find the person suspected to be Naia?”

Naia, whom they’d originally assumed was a foreigner.
A text sent out of pure formality, without any real expectation.
And yet an answer had come back.
Carrying information so startling it had nearly broken them.
To be honest, the content itself wasn’t unwelcome news.
That Naia had nothing to do with Eclipse.
That she simply wanted to spend time alone.
But at the very top of the message.
The timestamp of the received message was the problem.
Fundamentally, all correspondence displays the time in the sender’s home country’s timezone.
And the message Naia had sent them bore, unmistakably, a timestamp in Korean time.

[13:59 KST]

The monster who’d become the talk of the town was none other than Korean.
They’d remained ignorant of this fact for nearly a week.
“We’re, uh, still narrowing it down as best we can.”
At that report of no real progress, Byeon Gi-hyeok, the head of the Player Management Division, made a face like he’d swallowed something foul.
It was good to receive a message of innocence just as unsettling rumors were spreading that Naia might be Eclipse.
And it was good again to learn that Naia was actually Korean.
But the problem was they couldn’t release this good news to the press.
“Damn it….”
Failing to identify Naia meant broadcasting his own incompetence.
But he couldn’t bury this message as if it had never arrived.
It would come to light eventually.
Everyone in the department already knew.
In the worst case, if a similar message had been sent not just to the Korean association but to associations in other countries as well?
They would’ve already figured out Naia’s nationality.
With Naia’s nationality now all but certain to be exposed, what was there left to hide?

“Come on, move, move! I want results!”
Now it was a race to see who would identify Naia first.
On their end there’d been no progress whatsoever, and it was eating him alive.
“Why’d they block communication again….”
Byeon Gi-hyeok stared at the message again with frustration.
He’d tried to reply, but it just kept showing “sending” indefinitely.
This was proof that the other side had blocked incoming messages.
Byeon Gi-hyeok clenched his head as he looked at the news headline on the screen.

『Naia Clears Another SSS Grade—Already on the Sixth Floor.』

“I’m not going to end up having to strip, am I?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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