Level 4 Human in a Ruined World - Chapter 58

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 58 16. Land of Chaos, Gyeonggi-do (1)

“….”

Jong-su looked back and forth between the two Audis at Young-woo’s words that now was the chance to split up.

Then he tightly gripped his facial muscles and forced a smile.

“Hey, where would I go? If it weren’t for you, hyung, I would’ve been killed by those young bastards long ago.”

Even as Jong-su said this, he looked at the five headless corpses with a bitter expression.

“The world has changed, so the way we live must have changed too… Still, I think you’re probably the most virtuous among the powerful people, hyung.”

With these words, Jong-su walked toward the white Audi.

“By the way, the yellow one is too conspicuous, so that might be a problem, right? Who knows what other guys are in Seoul.”

Click.

Jong-su opened the driver’s seat door and sat down on the seat.

Then he started the vehicle, producing a loud engine sound.

Vroooom…!

The sound was so loud that if there were other robbery gangs nearby, they couldn’t help but come check it out.

At this, Young-woo looked around and then had his Goblin search through the corpses scattered about.

-Kit!

As soon as the order was given, the Goblin shot out like an arrow and returned with war spoils worth 8,000 Karma.

It was woefully insufficient money to repay the 69,000 debt he owed Jong-su.

‘They were incredibly poor guys.’

Was the robbery business not as profitable as expected?

They might have invested all the money they stole from others into ability stats, but it was clear they had little cash relative to their numbers.

‘Well, since the monster appearance time has passed, there aren’t many ways to make money. Robbery or daily quests, I guess.’

Young-woo’s gaze naturally moved to the Quest window.

[Daily] “Daily Bread”

【Mission】 Remove the petrification state from any food.

【Reward】 1,000 Karma

[Daily] “Scout”

【Mission】 Approach until you are within 10 meters of a monster.

【Reward】 3,000 Karma

Surprisingly, the difficulty of Yeoju City’s daily quests was lower than any region he had seen so far.

‘Scout seems to be fixed in every region… I guess only the other one is randomly determined.’

His first-day prediction that everyone would now make a living through hunting instead of commuting to companies had come true.

Even the daily quests were encouraging confrontation with monsters.

Moreover, 10 meters was a distance where survival couldn’t be guaranteed even if you ran away immediately after completing the quest.

‘But the reward is 3,000 Karma and there’s only one chance per day, so you can’t really avoid doing it.’

Current time: 6:36 PM.

Following the pattern so far, no more monsters would appear today.

In other words, even Young-woo, who didn’t particularly avoid monsters, couldn’t perform the Scout quest right now.

Then what remained was.

“….”

Young-woo looked at the Golden Goblin that had approached his feet and was waiting.

“You have petrified food in your bag too, right? I think I collected quite a bit.”

When Young-woo asked this, the Goblin rolled its eyes and then extended its right index finger to point at the sky.

-Ket!

Then blue-tinted letters appeared above the creature’s index finger.

“Huh…?”

It was none other than the status of items in the subspace pocket.

|Food : 21

|Tools : 13

|Equipment : 11

|Special : 1

Like a system window, the creature had its own interface.

“13 tools… Does that include everything like rope?”

Young-woo was going through the pocket status the Goblin had displayed when he paused at the last item, ‘Special’.

“Special? What’s this?”

When Young-woo asked this, the Goblin pulled out a small black gem from the pocket.

-Kiit!

As the creature held the gem high, a tooltip appeared in Young-woo’s vision as well.

「Kekidite」 – Hero Gem

【Slot : Ability Resistance 10%】

“Ah.”

Kekidite.

This was an item he had purchased together with this slave creature.

A type of enhancement item that could be equipped in empty slots of equipment.

‘Ability Resistance is something I’m seeing for the first time, so I bought it for now… Should I try using it this time?’

Through the epic necklace ‘Paradox’ he had seen last time, it was confirmed that elemental resistances like fire and cold existed.

Since it was such an intuitive option, he could sufficiently guess what its effects would be.

But Ability Resistance was a different story.

‘There’s no reference for this. It’s not even a commonly used concept in games.’

Therefore, Young-woo could only vaguely speculate that it might be related to powerful mutants or aliens.

‘Anyway, I have plenty of slots left, so there’s no reason not to use it.’

Young-woo immediately opened his equipment window and sorted out items with empty slots.

Pop!

「Angry Goblin」 – Mutation Ring

【Strength increases by 100 daily】

【–Empty Slot–】

「Murderer’s Finger」 – Relic Ring

【Ability stats increase by 10% in combat against humans】

【–Empty Slot–】

「Scared Cat」 – Epic Compass

【Points to threatening targets.】

【–Empty Slot–】

Currently available gem slots: 3 total.

‘Plenty of room.’

The problem was which slot to put the Kekidite in.

Based on common sense from games, these enhancement gems were usually one-time use.

‘Or you have to pay something when removing them.’

Since there were no special instructions regarding gem installation, Young-woo’s conviction was ‘once a gem is embedded, it cannot be removed or replaced again.’

Given the current situation, shouldn’t he assume the worst-case scenario?

So the choice Young-woo ultimately made was.

Ping!

「Murderer’s Finger」 – Artifact Ring

【Ability Stats increased by 10% in combat against humans】

【Ability Resistance 10%】

It was the Murderer’s Finger, an artifact ring.

While the Angry Goblin might become useless someday when his total ability stats reached tens of thousands, the Murderer’s Finger had effects proportional to his possessed ability stats, so it seemed like it would be useful for a very long time.

Of course, the Scared Cat also had high potential for long-term use, but it was Epic grade so he held off.

‘You never know, there might come a time when I need to dismantle high-grade equipment to obtain something or make a trade.’

This was intuition gained from playing countless games during his internet broadcasting days.

“Hyung-nim! Aren’t you coming?”

Right on cue, Jong-su stuck his head out the car window and asked.

Young-woo took out two plastic-wrapped breads from his subspace pocket and walked briskly toward Jong-su’s white Audi.

“You have money left, right? Unwrap this and eat it.”

“Huh? What…”

Just as Jong-su tilted his head in confusion, a palm-sized stone flew toward his forehead.

Whoosh!

“Ugh!”

Startled, Jong-su reflexively caught the stone, and Young-woo smiled faintly as he spoke.

“I thought it would be good to have a quick bite before departing. There’s also a daily quest.”

“A quick bite?”

Only after hearing Young-woo’s words did Jong-su realize what had just flown at him.

“…Ah.”

Come to think of it, he had just realized that he hadn’t had even a single meal today.

And Young-woo had been going without food for just as long.

The hunger he’d been feeling for a while now was threatening to burst through his solar plexus.

[Cream Bread : 1,000]

What Young-woo picked up was a cream bread the size of a full handful, and the price was a whopping 1,000 Karma.

‘1,000…? A bicycle cost 3,000, but does this even make sense right now?’

Even now, entering the second day of the reset, 1,000 Karma was surely a fortune for the absolute majority.

In other words, the prices were set absurdly high.

‘So this is why the Quest reward is 1,000 Karma. It means they’ll guarantee exactly one meal.’

But since different Quests appeared daily by region except for scout missions, guaranteeing one meal was only for today.

Hiss.

Soon, when Young-woo released the petrification on the cream bread, white smoke rose and revealed the original appearance of the packaging hidden beneath the gray shell.

“1,000? The price is completely insane.”

Jong-su had also just released the petrification, grumbling that it was ridiculous.

“They’re tightening the noose even more.”

When Young-woo looked up at the sky, the Quest reward fell down as if it had been waiting.

Ping!

One crimson coin worth 1,000 Karma.

‘So it’s breaking even after all.’

Young-woo, whose total wealth had become 8,000 Karma again, handed it directly to Jong-su in the driver’s seat.

“I’m paying back 8,000. So now there’s 61,000 left, right?”

But Jong-su didn’t take it.

“Hyung-nim, I’ll get indigestion eating while thinking about that. Just pay me back all at once later.”

“Pay back all at once?”

“Yes. I don’t really need money urgently anyway.”

Jong-su gave a brief answer, devoured his bread in an instant, then confirmed that Young-woo had gotten into the back seat and put his foot on the accelerator.

“Shall we depart right away? You said we don’t have much time.”

Now truly thinking he had entrusted his fate to Young-woo, Jong-su seemed to be urging him to hurry instead.

So Young-woo eventually nodded while unwrapping his bread packaging.

“Yes. Let’s depart right away. We can eat while moving.”

* * *

6:40 PM.

Approximately 1 hour and 26 minutes until the advertiser’s arrival.

The white Audi carrying Young-woo and Jong-su continued racing down the highway.

“That should be Yeoju City Center over there, but I don’t see anything.”

Jong-su pointed to the right side of the road and shrugged.

Young-woo also turned his head toward Yeoju City, but had no expectations whatsoever.

“There’s probably no need to go there. The existence of daily Quests also means the mutant has been caught.”

“Ah… I didn’t know that.”

“Most people don’t.”

Daily Quests are one of the basic welfare measures applied only after the second-day mutant is eliminated.

Therefore, it was natural that even Jong-su, who could be considered quite skilled, wouldn’t know such facts.

“Then do you only visit cities with mutants or monsters, hyung-nim?”

“Yes. For now, that’s right. Farming is the main purpose.”

“Then what about after all that farming is finished?”

“…”

When the conversation reached this point, Young-woo was at a loss for words.

It was questionable whether there would even be a point when survival farming ended, and he didn’t even properly understand exactly how this world had changed in the first place.

The sudden reset was one thing, but no one had ever explained the background of why alien merchants suddenly came in and started doing business.

He was even going to meet an entity called an advertiser from outer space soon.

Advertisement… Who was advertising what, and why use Earth as advertising space of all places?

It probably had direct connection to the reset.

‘…This is giving me a headache. I don’t understand what’s what.’

Just as Young-woo was about to hold his forehead because he really felt a headache coming on, Jong-su in the driver’s seat let out a groan.

“Ah, what’s that now.”

The nuance gave a very ominous feeling, so Young-woo quickly stuck his head out to look ahead.

Swoosh.

Then this time.

Thud thud thud thud thud…!

A cow running vigorously from the opposite direction came into view.

‘A cow…?’

And soon after.

“Hiyaaaah!”

About ten people chasing the cow while shouting also appeared.

Seeing that the distance with the cow wasn’t easily closing, they were clearly people close to ‘ordinary civilians,’ so what Young-woo and Jong-su were seeing now was…

“Hyung-nim, are those people hunting the cow because they don’t have food?”

“More precisely, it’s not that they don’t have food, but that they don’t have money to release petrification.”

“Ah. But cows are living creatures so they don’t turn to stone.”

Jong-su, who understood the situation, slapped his knee as if he got it.

The fact that some of humanity had regressed to the hunting age.

Grade 4 Human of the Ruined World (Serial)

Author │ Oetu

Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong

Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.

Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok

Address │ 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul, Room 204 (Guro-dong, Daeryung Post Tower 1)

Email │ [email protected]

Homepage │ www.jayplemedia.com

ⓒOetu2023

※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and no part of the content may be used in any form or by any means without permission from our company and the author.

Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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