Chapter 83: Chapter 83

“Kkeuheuk…”

Kim Bong-Goo’s body wouldn’t stop trembling.

Just a moment ago, the fear of death had gripped his entire body as he fell from the cliff.

He had never experienced such terror before.

It would have been a hundred, a thousand times better to die from an attack and lose HP.

“F-Fuck… I never want to experience that again.”

But the problem was that he couldn’t bring himself to climb back up the cliff.

It was so high that the top was completely obscured by clouds.

“You crazy bastard!”

Kim Bong-Goo shouted, filled with resentment.

“What?”

Jeong-Hoon’s voice came from behind him.

Kim Bong-Goo’s mind snapped back to reality, and he turned his head with difficulty, like a broken robot.

“Huh…? How did you get here?”

“I came through the portal.”

Jeong-Hoon pointed to the blue portal behind him.

“…Since when was there a portal?”

“I explored an unknown area. That’s how the portal that wasn’t there before was created.”

“…”

Damn it.

So I was just a tool to open the portal!

Kim Bong-Goo glared at Jeong-Hoon with resentment.

Jeong-Hoon’s lips curled up into a smirk.

“Oh, you want to hit me?”

“N-No.”

“No? I heard you cursing just now.”

Jeong-Hoon approached Kim Bong-Goo, clenching and unclenching his fist.

Kim Bong-Goo turned pale and quickly knelt down.

“I’m sorry. I think I lost my mind.”

“No. I just felt it, you’re definitely the type to stab me in the back when things go wrong.”

“Absolutely not! I swear! I think I was crazy just now!”

[Master, just beat him up. Looks can be deceiving. I’ve never seen a nice guy who looks like that.]

Mukho chimed in.

“Shall I take care of him?”

Michael stretched his body.

“Hmm, let’s do this. We’re going to move to a new field now, and there’s something you need to do there.”

“What is it…?”

“Lure.”

“Huh?”

* * *

Earth Korea Management Team.

The management team staff were working in a quiet atmosphere.

Except for occasionally running the program to manage users, they no longer ran the real-time monitoring program.

No, they couldn’t run it.

[This is Yeo Sunwoo, the guild leader of Ho-Yeong Guild.]

Ho-Yeong Guild had contacted the Earth Korea management team.

In fact, Oh Jin-Soo and the staff knew which guild the user belonged to.

Originally, there was no need for secrecy since the guild name of a user would appear if you simply searched for them.

But the problem was what he said next.

[If you’re watching our guild members, please stop.]

He was so surprised by those words.

Oh Jin-Soo almost fainted on the spot.

They had been caught red-handed for intensively monitoring the user.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

One of the management team’s tasks was to monitor any abnormal play by users and take action before any problems arose, but in this case, there was no excuse, even if they were criticized for abusing their power.

[I’ll believe that it was part of your job until now. But please be aware that continued monitoring from now on is a crime.]

Yeo Sunwoo ended the call with a light warning.

‘How the hell did he know?’

All of the management team’s work was prohibited from being disclosed to the outside.

But Yeo Sunwoo acted as if he knew everything.

‘Sigh, it’s my fault anyway.’

Honestly, there was no need to blame Yeo Sunwoo.

He was the one who started watching the user in the first place, and he was the one who allowed the staff to abuse the program.

In a serious case, he would have to take all the responsibility and resign.

“Manager? About that user…”

One of the staff members approached him tactlessly and mentioned the user.

Oh Jin-Soo sighed deeply and said,

“Didn’t you hear me say to leave that user alone?”

“No… I did, but… That user found a bug…”

“A bug? What do you mean?”

Oh Jin-Soo jumped up from his seat and headed towards the staff member’s monitor.

The monitor showed the user at the bottom of the cliff located at the western edge of Autobahn.

“Isn’t that place supposed to be blocked off…?”

“…Yes, it should be.”

New World was a virtual reality game and a semi-open world game.

Unlike open world games where you could go to any village even if you didn’t meet the level or conditions, you could only move to another village if you met certain conditions, such as story progress or level.

And originally, the western area of Autobahn should have been blocked off by the cliff.

‘What is that…?’

Just like in the Mu Tower before, why did strange things keep happening wherever that user went?

“What should we do?”

“What do you mean what should we do? This is a bug. We need to report it to headquarters and ask them to fix it quickly.”

Oh Jin-Soo hurriedly returned to his seat and reported to headquarters.

That a bug had been discovered in Autobahn.

[No problem.]

But the reply he got was absurd.

* * *

Ho-Yeong Guild Leader’s Office.

“Guild leader, even if it’s Earth Korea… Do you really think they did that?”

Park In-tae looked incredulous.

“I don’t know. I just did as I was asked.”

Jeong-Hoon had asked Yeo Sunwoo to give a warning to the Earth Korea management team.

Just one warning.

And to not do anything after that.

‘What are you going to do if it’s just a groundless fear?’

‘Then I should apologize. He’s the guild leader of Ho-Yeong, can’t you cover for that much?’

‘…Alright.’

He was quite a bold fellow.

* * *

The imperfectly rendered city could only be entered by forming a party.

At that time, Maximus had entered with the friend who had led him to New World.

Jeong-Hoon had never met his friend because Maximus had already lost him when they met, but he felt a sense of camaraderie because Maximus sometimes talked about his friend.

Although the ending was terrible.

‘This time, I’ll take it.’

Jeong-Hoon pulled the bowstring.

[Lv. 122 ???]

A grotesque creature appeared before him.

It was a monster without even a name.

He aimed at its head and released the bowstring.

Whoosh!

The arrow shot out and accurately pierced the monster’s head.

“?#!@#”

The monster let out an incomprehensible scream and disappeared on the spot.

[Level Up!]

[All stats have increased by +1.]

[Bonus stat +1 has been granted.]

Jeong-Hoon leveled up and became level 105.

The reason he could grow so rapidly.

It was because the monster’s experience points were abnormally high.

The fact that he had risen to level 105 after hunting only 11 of them was proof of that.

He was already looking forward to how much he would level up if he hunted from the entrance to the boss zone inside.

“C-Can’t we hunt?!”

Kim Bong-Goo’s voice came from afar.

He was running around, attracting the monsters’ attention.

“No.”

This was a bug city.

Perhaps that’s why even if they were in a party, the experience points weren’t distributed evenly.

95% went to the one who hunted, and the remaining 5% was distributed to the party members.

To gain experience points, one had to succeed in hunting with their own strength.

Jeong-Hoon pulled the bowstring again.

[Master, wouldn’t it be better to test my defense in close combat?]

Mukho was dissatisfied with Jeong-Hoon’s fighting method.

All of its stats had been lost due to the aftermath of the seal, and there was no situation where it could even test the little bit of defense it had left.

“I’ll restore it soon, so just wait a little longer.”

Not yet.

He needed Legendary grade materials to give Mukho new power.

– The way to restore Mukho is simple. Just redesign it to your liking. But you’ll need some materials.

The materials Siegfried mentioned were not something he could obtain right away.

So he needed to take a long-term view with Mukho.

Whoosh!

He released the bowstring, and the arrow pierced the monster’s head.

[Level Up!]

[All stats have increased by +1.]

[Bonus stat +1 has been granted.]

After hunting about 300 monsters, Jeong-Hoon’s level surpassed 115.

‘Done.’

He had achieved his first goal of reaching level 115.

“Huff… Huff… I don’t think there are any more monsters.”

Kim Bong-Goo, who had been running around for a while, was panting, seemingly exhausted.

“Stop pretending to be tired.”

There was no way an Assassin over level 140 would be tired from running this much.

According to his calculations, Kim Bong-Goo should have leveled up once while receiving a bit of experience in between.

It didn’t make sense for him to be tired.

At Jeong-Hoon’s words, Kim Bong-Goo got up from his spot.

“Was it that obvious?”

“It was fucking obvious.”

“I’m sorry…”

“I was going to let you off here, but it looks like I need to make you work a little more.”

“Huh…?”

Jeong-Hoon took out a drill.

It wasn’t just any drill.

It was a MacGyver Drill.

It was enchanted with special magic, allowing him to change between more than 10 different drill sizes, and it could even be transformed into a shovel if needed.

‘From a rope to a drill… What the hell are you planning to do with these items?’

Yeo Min-Ji’s expression was full of curiosity as she handed him the items.

‘I might need them.’

And that time was now.

“We’re going to dig up all this ground.”

“This whole place?”

“No.”

An imperfectly rendered city.

The city looked like a desert.

A very flat desert.

Even while hunting monsters, there were no traces of an oasis, trees, grass, or buildings.

‘At first, I thought it just ended with abnormally high experience points.’

At that time, Maximus had tried to leave the dungeon after hunting monsters.

But just before entering the boss zone, he discovered traces of relics and dug up the whole place, and then he found the hidden opportunity.

“…There’s something there, right?”

Kim Bong-Goo, who received the drill, chuckled.

Where was he supposed to dig in this vast desert?

It was obvious that it would be nothing but manual labor.

He was probably trying to make him suffer because he was annoyed that he pretended to be tired.

“Here. Let’s dig quickly.”

The place Jeong-Hoon pointed to was in front of the portal leading to the boss zone.

In front of it was not a desert, but a mountain of broken rocks, so destroyed that their shape was unrecognizable.

“You mean here…?”

“Where else would we dig? We don’t have time, so move quickly.”

With that, Jeong-Hoon also picked up the drill and started to dig.

‘So I’m not doing this alone.’

Does this mean it’s not just manual labor?

Kim Bong-Goo followed him and started digging next to him.

The largest drill rotated quickly, digging into the ground.

1 meter.

2 meters.

They hadn’t dug that much, but Jeong-Hoon and Kim Bong-Goo were already so deep that they couldn’t be seen from the ground.

“Th-There’s nothing here!”

“Keep digging.”

“Yes!”

The work continued.

5 meters.

6 meters.

7 meters.

How long had it been?

Thud. Whirr.

At some point, the drill started to spin idly.

This didn’t mean it couldn’t penetrate, but that the space below was empty.

[New @#!@ Space! (($ Reached &*^]

And with an error-filled message, the ground beneath Kim Bong-Goo’s feet collapsed, and he lost his balance and fell.

“Aaagh!”

Fortunately, the bottom wasn’t that deep, so there was almost no impact.

Jeong-Hoon landed safely next to him.

“This is it.”

It was an Underground City

The underground city was spread out before his eyes.

Even though it was a city hidden underground, it wasn’t as dark as he thought it would be.

This was because it was automatically adjusted so that it could be discerned with the naked eye.

“Wh-Where are we?”

Kim Bong-Goo asked, dusting off the dirt from his body.

“An underground city.”

Although it was called an underground city, it was quite crude because it wasn’t rendered properly.

According to Maximus, there were also NPCs in this underground city.

To obtain items necessary for growth, he had to go through that NPC.

As they entered the city, they soon saw a man who looked to be in his late 20s.

===

[NPC Information]

– Nickname: ^$@@

– Level: @#!

– Class: %@#

===

An NPC whose nickname, level, and class weren’t displayed properly.

Since it was a bug, the NPC wasn’t rendered properly either.

Seeing the NPC, the corners of Jeong-Hoon’s mouth rose into a wide smile.

‘Found it.’