Episode 151

1.

Once Kim Buja walked out, the other players began to exchange furtive glances.

They had all seen it.

In a place where not a single item was affordable with the points they had scraped together over the past month, he was the only one to walk out with something in hand.

And he hadn't even paid for it.

Most of them hadn't seen how expensive the item was, but that wasn't the point.

Precedent.

Once a precedent is set, others will always try to exploit it.

A few players began to edge toward the display of items.

However, there was something they had overlooked.

Almost everyone here had entered this place before Kim Buja, but that didn't mean they had all arrived at the same time.

From the very first batch of entrants to the players who had heard rumors and returned after special missions, everyone had entered at different times and stayed on the island for different lengths of time.

Naturally, the information they possessed also differed.

The difference might have only been a few hours, but that tiny information gap was enough to push someone into making an irreversible choice.

So the players who tried to follow Buja's precedent without a second thought should have considered one more thing.

'Why is no one else doing this?'

'Why were the players who arrived first just standing there, staring blankly at the openly displayed items without even trying to touch them?'

'No matter how fast the old man moves, it should at least be possible to get a closer look, right?'

The reason the first arrivals hadn't done that—or rather, the reason they couldn't—soon became clear.

A clean cutting sound, followed a beat later by a scream.

"Aaaaargh!"

The desperate howl of the first player to reach for an item froze the entire island in silence.

It was to be expected.

The player whose outstretched hand had just been severed at the wrist was a high-level player—not a top-tier ranker, but well-known enough that anyone in the know would recognize him.

Among the players currently on the island, he was definitely in the upper tier.

Yet his wrist had been cut off before he could even react.

And it wasn't just that it had been cut.

He only realized his hand was gone after watching it hit the ground.

Naturally, everyone present couldn't help but imagine themselves in his position.

'If that had been me, could I have dodged it?'

Heads shook.

There was no way to avoid that.

A sigh of relief slipped from more than a few mouths.

'Good thing I didn't rush in first.'

With that thought, they quietly backed away, watching the old man with the pipe in his mouth as if he might casually pick out his next victim at any moment.

Before they knew it, they had all ended up in the same spot as the others.

They joined the players who were keeping a safe distance, just staring blankly at the items.

And then they understood.

They realized why everyone had been standing in such an orderly fashion.

Why did they so cleanly give up on the items and jump into the sea to earn some side income instead?

"Tsk, this is why you should never deal with broke bastards."

The players swallowed hard at the old man's words.

The difference in his tone from just moments ago with Kim Buja was staggering.

He looked at them as if they were insects.

No, it was worse than that. He didn't even bother to look at them; his words sounded like a farmer complaining about the inherent nature of his livestock.

They retreated cautiously.

Not a single player had the guts to ask why they were being treated like this in a point shop they had paid 10 points to enter, or why he had been so unusually kind to Kim Buja and even given him a gift, or to question this blatant unfairness.

If that arm hadn't been cut off, maybe someone would have mustered the courage to ask.

If the worst that could happen was getting smacked around a few times like Kim Buja.

But for a player, a hand was as important as their life.

Losing even one limb was practically the end of a player's career.

Sure, with the right potion and proper care of the severed limb, "cut off" didn't necessarily mean "lost forever." But that was a twisted sort of mercy, designed for players whose bodies were their assets; they wouldn't be allowed into dungeons with an injury like that anyway.

Fortunately, the old man didn't stop the maimed player from frantically grabbing his severed hand and fleeing the dungeon, so everyone concluded that his dungeon life probably wasn't over yet.

Even so, that didn't give anyone a reason to step forward.

The atmosphere had turned ice-cold.

One by one, eyeing each other, the players left the point shop.

Even as his customers trickled away, the old man remained as relaxed as ever.

He even started humming a little tune.

"That kid was born with a gift for making money. I might actually get to do some real business for the first time in a while. Heh heh."

* * *

Kim Buja's expression was far from bright as he walked out holding a ragged piece of chest armor.

"Man, I really didn't want to take this."

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Kim Buja had the gutter-rat mentality to squeeze something free out of anyone if he had to, but he wasn't stupid enough to grab any hand that reached out to him dripping with goodwill.

"Free" only has meaning when you wrestle it out of someone through your own effort. When the other side offers something for free, you peel back the wrapping and usually find it stuffed with overpriced, frothy bullshit.

And this time, that went double.

The other party was an old man whose true nature was a complete mystery.

He couldn't even confirm if the old man was human, and with his current stats, Buja couldn't track the man's movements at all. That was how strong he was.

The explanation might sound fancy, but simply put, the old man held all the cards.

He was selling from a position of absolute power.

'Buy it if you want, walk away if you don't.'

He was the kind of person who could afford to act like that, and yet, after one look at Buja, that same man had handed over the most expensive item in the shop for free.

Even though the choice of which item to take had technically been up to him.

"Mm."

He had tried to show some backbone because he hated the idea of dancing to the old man's tune, but now regret was creeping in.

Still, what could he do?

That had been his only option.

Would anything have changed if he had refused? The old man had already taken notice of him and had given him an item because he wanted something.

Whether it was as pure as he claimed—seeing through the Gold Maker class and wanting to profit by selling more items—or whether there was some other reason, it was already water under the bridge.

So he decided not to waste any more time worrying about it.

"I should at least see what it is."

There was something far more important to deal with.

A piece of armor worth a whopping 5,000 points.

Maybe there had been something even more expensive if he had looked harder.

But among the armor he actually needed, he hadn't seen anything pricier.

In this brutal update where even clearing a 4-star special mission only gave you 20 points, this was armor that would require completing roughly 250 similar missions.

And the "armor" in question was a shabby T-shirt so pathetic it was almost embarrassing to call it that.

Still, the options had to be good.

He carefully checked it, a mix of dread and anticipation swirling within him.

He could have checked it the moment it landed in his hands, but the memory of getting smacked with that pipe was still so vivid that he hadn't dared to inspect it inside the point shop.

As soon as he brought his hand close, a hologram popped up.

A treasure hidden inside a T-shirt that couldn't look more worn-out!

'This has to be just the wrapping to protect what's inside.'

'Once I open it, a dazzling jewel will appear!'

His guess was spot on.

[Would you like to break the seal?]

"What?"

[Required P: 500]

"You son of a—"

His feet automatically turned back the way he had come.

He couldn't help but picture the old man's smiling eyes behind those sunglasses as he had chuckled and reluctantly told him to just take it.

The old man had known full well that he didn't have enough points to buy the cheapest item in the shop, yet he had given him something that required 500 points just to unseal, without so much as a five-second explanation.

One could argue that he should be grateful he had gotten anything at all, but to someone like Kim Buja, who was convinced the old man had an ulterior motive, this was a losing deal.

He should go back and complain right now…

"…Wait."

The moment he thought that, he remembered how many points he had left.

He had spent 10 points to enter and had 10 remaining.

If he went back in just to argue? His already meager points would drop to zero.

It wasn't like there was a huge difference between zero and ten, but he still needed to think carefully about whether storming back in there out of wounded pride was really the right move.

'Would complaining even work?'

He could ask to exchange it for a cheaper item or demand that the 500-point unsealing fee be waived.

For a moment, he tried to put himself in the old man's shoes.

"Mm."

Since he wasn't exactly mild-tempered himself, it wasn't hard to empathize.

"Hm."

A moment later, he turned and headed for home.

"I already got it for free, so I'll just slowly farm up 500 points and open it. It's not like it's going anywhere if I don't rush."

More than anything, he really didn't want to see that obnoxious old man again.

Anyone would feel the same.

No one likes dealing with someone so far out of their league that everything is decided by the other side's power, no matter what you do.

"I've seen what the point shop is like, and I picked up some usable armor, so I probably won't need to go back there for a while."

With that resolution, he crumpled the T-shirt up and shoved it into a corner.

If he got the chance, he would slowly gather the points and open it.

"It's not like I'm in a rush."

Even without this, he had way too much to do.

He wiped the point shop from his mind as cleanly as he could.

* * *

For the first time in a while, Kim Buja visited the Jeong Cheol Guild and headed straight for Jeong Seora.

"What's going on? You even came in full gear?" she asked, blinking in surprise at his unannounced visit.

He answered with a grim look.

"The Jeong Cheol Guild stops dungeon breaks too, right?"

His intention was obvious, and she nodded.

"You want to farm points?"

Jeong Seora was sharp.

You didn't need to be a genius to understand what he meant, but the way she cut straight to the heart of it came from experience.

He let out a sigh that confirmed her guess.

"I need to collect 500 points. It feels hopeless."

"Five hundred?"

"Yes."

"…Did you, by any chance, just come back from a point dungeon?"

"Yeah, it just kind of happened. When I came out, there was some kind of fusion dungeon break going on, so I just tagged along."

He then gave her a quick rundown of what had happened.

"So that was you, Buja. I had a feeling, but still."

"Anyway, I ended up with a piece of armor worth 5,000 points, but I need 500 points just to see what it is. I mean, I could live without it, but I have to see it at least once."

Forget "wiping it from his mind"—the moment he got home, he hadn't been able to sleep for curiosity and had run straight here.

You had to be honest about some things.

"Damn point items. It looks like total trash, so I need to see with my own eyes how good it actually is before I decide whether to toss it or wear it."

And to do that, he was more than willing to invest.

His real-world time.

To stack points.

"So where do we go?"

Decisions were made quickly.

Actions were even faster.

The point grind had begun.

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