Chapter 17 · 10 min
Chapter 17
Chapter 17
I planted crops and made money, and somehow Influence piled up!
Now, should I splurge on a building?
======
<Building List>
[Lord’s Fortress: 10,000 points]
[Lord’s Harbor: 5,000 points]
[Lord’s Stable: 3,000 points]
[Lord’s Convenience Store: 1,000 points]
...
======
“Crazy expensive.”
Like the fox in Aesop’s fable, I dealt with the situation wisely.
“Every single one of these buildings is unnecessary. I’d probably regret building any of them.”
[Aqua... Sour grapes are the worst! Wouldn’t eat them even if offered!
( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ
]
We searched for the cheapest buildings.
[Lord’s Gate: 10 points]
Found it! Hurray!
I had to try this right away.
This was definitely a sweet grape.
[Aqua... So sweet~
づ
]
I had 251 Influence, while the gate cost only 10.
I could buy it arrogantly, like some big spender.
‘But doesn’t a gate only matter if there’s a house behind it?’
I searched for the building that went with the gate.
[Lord’s Ramparts: 500 points]
“Urgh! T-This one is a nasty sour grape!”
[Aqua... All sour grapes deserve extinction!
(꜆꜄꜆ ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ
]
Compared to that, the gate was unquestionably a delicious grape with a Brix sweetness of 1000!
“Install gate!”
A hologram of the gate appeared and moved wherever I gestured.
Aha.
It wanted me to choose where to place the gate.
“God-tier sandbox freedom.”
Where should I build it?
I kept getting strangely cautious.
Because this would be the only piece of property in the entire territory.
I moved the hologram around, then tried placing it against the earthen-wall altar I had built before.
[Building Synergy Activated!]
[Earth Wall + Gate = Size Limit Removed!]
The hologram began growing to an absurd size.
How big is this thing planning to get?
I was going to break my neck looking up at it. But the price shot up too.
[Super-Giant Gate Filled with Desperation: 1,000 points]
The gate grew more than a thousand times larger, bigger than most buildings.
It was like standing a soccer field vertically.
“My sweet grape turned sour.”
But this was over budget.
I had no money.
Then came the devil’s temptation.
[Loan Approved!]
[Beginner Lord Independence Stepping-Stone Loan!]
[Annual Interest Rate: 0.5%]
[We will cover your shortage up to 1,000 Influence.]
“Aaaagh! It’s a sweet grape again!”
[Aqua... Isn’t this basically Shine Muscat? You’d be stupid not to eat it! Definitely buying!
( ⚆ ⚆)و✧
]
“But I don’t even have a house! Is it really right to take out a loan just for a giant gate?!”
My cabinet encouraged me.
[Great Lord. Notification. You probably. Wouldn’t win a housing lottery. Anyway. Just buy it.]
[Aqua... These days even if you win a housing lottery, you can’t get a loan! Born in the wrong era!
(꜆꜄꜆⚆ ⚆ )و✧
]
Listening to them was pissing me off.
Fine.
Let’s do it.
Construction approved.
Ruuumble!
The gate was truly majestic.
Big enough that you expected a transforming robot to emerge from it.
And on both sides of the gate stood statues of Asura Rakshasas on guard.
Like being welcomed at the gates of hell.
Absolutely badass.
『When guests arrive!』
『Overwhelm them immediately!』
The hulking Asura Rakshasas struck bizarre poses and saluted me.
I was moved.
Not a single one of those 1,000 points felt wasted.
When I approached, the Asura Rakshasas even opened the gate for me themselves.
An automatic gate?
Amazing.
『Welcome!』
『The Lord is entering!』
I strutted through proudly.
But there was nothing beyond the gate.
Just wasteland everywhere.
Right.
We don’t have a house.
“Still, it looks insanely cool, doesn’t it?”
[Aqua... Extremely satisfied! A gate worthy of Aqua!
ꉂꉂ (ˆoˆ )
]
For a while, we kept walking back and forth through the gate.
We had nothing, but at least the Asura Rakshasas treated us like royalty.
“They say with cars, what matters is how you look getting out.”
People buy expensive cars because they want others to see them stepping out.
I had gone one step further and basically blown my entire fortune on nothing but the door of a foreign sports car.
No regrets.
“Even with a loan, the system’s rigged so I can’t buy a house anyway.”
Whether outside the territory or inside it, buying a home was impossible.
Then I give up too.
“Still, guests will probably envy the gate when they see it.”
[Aqua... Arrogance intensifying!
ᕦ(◔ ͜ʖ◔)ᕤ
]
[Guests. Please beware. Of cardiac arrest.]
Darkness spread across the sky as stars appeared densely overhead.
My seniors freaked out.
「What the hell...」
「Did he seriously just stick a gate in the middle of a wasteland???」
The seniors were baffled.
Because a massive gate was standing all by itself in the wasteland.
「Why is the gate so huge?」
「Its gate is bigger than mine, and I have five thousand years of seniority! Insolent!」
「The realism of those Asura Rakshasa statues is astonishing!」
「What’s astonishing is the state of that bastard’s territory.」
With a gate to hell standing in the middle of the wasteland, word spread among the senior lords.
More starlight appeared.
More seniors poured in!
「What could possibly be worth seeing here... KIEEEEK! A gigantic gate!!!」
「Why is everyone gathered in the wilderness... KEEEEK! Giant Asura Rakshasas!!!」
「Did that guy make this himself?」
「What an artistically gifted junior.」
「Rumor says he emptied his entire fortune to build the gate.」
「Hey. Get it right. He even took out a stepping-stone loan for the gate.」
「A max-loan gate-poor lord...?」
「Young one’s got a respectable amount of madness, huh?」
Their evaluation of me swung wildly.
Either I was an idiot wasting resources, or a deranged performance artist of the wilderness.
[Observers of the territory have increased.]
[Charm +1]
Charm was generated in the territory.
The territory’s landmark had begun attracting tourists!
For the first time, [Culture] emerged from a wasteland that had been nothing but farms.
As tourists accumulated, the territory gained additional Influence.
“Right. Loans are meant to be paid back after you profit!”
Just you wait, Carcosa.
The max-loan gate lord is coming.
* * *
Cheongyeol headquarters.
Conference room.
Executives under Cheon Ryujin had gathered, and tension between the research division and assault division was intense.
“Assault Division! How much longer is the Floor 41攻略 going to take? We need a Cyclops corpse before we can continue our research! Other companies are already going all-in on eyeball research!”
“You think killing a Cyclops is easy? One swing of that bastard’s club collapses cliffs! Boulders the size of houses come raining down!”
“Then figure out how to攻略 it!”
“What do researchers know, nagging us like that?”
The conflict was severe.
The cause was Cyclops eyeballs.
Recently, companies around the world had begun jumping into eyeball research.
Enormous potential had been discovered in the item.
A so-called untapped field.
Whoever commercialized something like this first would sweep the entire market.
Even Cheongyeol’s directors had begun throwing themselves into Cyclops eyeball research.
A race where every second mattered.
But Cheon Ryujin’s faction still hadn’t even managed to obtain a raw Cyclops eyeball.
Cheon Ryujin let out a deep sigh.
“Enough. Everybody shut up.”
The executives stopped arguing.
If they kept going?
Cheon Ryujin would beat them half to death.
Cheon Ryujin swept his hair back.
A sign that he was in a foul mood.
“The lab drops farther in the technology rankings every year. The assault division gets buried in items and still can’t kill one Cyclops.”
“Well, that—” “The thing is—”
“Did I tell you to answer?”
The executives shrank into their chairs.
Cheon Ryujin’s crimson hair gleamed like it might burst into flame.
“Every meeting takes years off my life... Suspend the Floor 41攻略 for now.”
“You’re giving up on eyeball research?!”
“No.”
“?????”
Stop攻略ing Floor 41, but continue eyeball research?
Cheon Ryujin had an answer.
“Enter Tower Floor 41.”
Flash!
Cheon Ryujin vanished.
While all the executives stared in confusion, Secretary Lee smoothly took command.
“Alright, alright~ Focus~ While the Director is gone, let’s check the other agenda items. A monster-waste leak happened at the Second Director’s factory. If we feed it to the press, they’ll tear him apart on their own.”
“We’re going to attack our own side? Shouldn’t we hear the Director’s opinion first?”
“Have you only known the Director for a day or two?”
“...Right. I’ll contact the media.”
The meeting continued for a while.
Flash!
Cheon Ryujin returned.
“G-Ghk!”
The executives were horrified.
Because Cheon Ryujin was clutching something enormous by the scruff of its neck.
The giant of Floor 41.
A Cyclops.
Half its neck had been torn away.
Cheon Ryujin had gone and beaten a Cyclops to death with his bare hands!
“You already went to Floor 41 and came back?”
It had only been a few minutes.
Cheon Ryujin’s skill was unchanged.
That bastard really was a lunatic, but he really was a genius.
“Research Division. I brought you a raw eyeball sample. You can continue now, right?”
“O-Of, of course!”
The Director had personally gone out and retrieved the sample.
From this point on, they had no choice but to throw themselves into the research as if their lives depended on it.
Everyone straightened up immediately.
A Climber could only enter the Tower once per day.
Cheon Ryujin had just thrown away a full day’s worth of growth opportunity.
Competition among rankers was brutally fierce.
“...”
The conference room fell silent.
Cheon Ryujin was an unparalleled mad dog, but he possessed this kind of force that seized people by the heart.
‘...Either way, we’re all in the same boat as Cheon Ryujin.’
A moving moment.
Just as the executives’ loyalty began swelling.
“Goddamn it. You human-shaped rice-wasting parasites. Just jump into the Han River. Your salaries are a waste.”
“...”
“Wow. And you’re still going to stuff yourselves at lunch, aren’t you? Fucking insects. When are you finally going to earn your keep?”
“...We’ll work hard on Floor 41攻略!”
“I said don’t攻略 Floor 41. Are you deaf? Your skills are nowhere near enough, so I just went myself.”
“...”
You fucking mad dog!
You’re still the worst!
“If it weren’t for the Lord Merchant, you bastards would—ugh.”
“...Ah!”
Only then did the executives notice.
Cheon Ryujin’s mana was unusually calm today.
It wasn’t scattering everywhere.
‘He could go to Floor 41 because his mana was being suppressed!’
They said generosity came from a full granary.
Now that Cheon Ryujin had an abundance of mana, he could even go攻略 Floor 41 in their place.
A butterfly effect caused by the Lord Merchant.
“Long live chlorella!”
“Congratulations, Director!”
“We pray for chlorella’s continued success!”
“Go, chlorella!”
Listening in silence, Cheon Ryujin’s mood worsened.
Because the executives kept clapping and chanting, “Chlorella~ Chlorella~.”
No.
He genuinely needed chlorella.
But it still pissed him off.
“Which bastard just cheered for me to keep drinking chlorella?”
“Huh...? M-Me.”
The executive looked blank.
He didn’t even understand what was wrong.
Ah.
Stress...
Cheon Ryujin started to beat the executive before waving him away.
“Everyone get out. I’m expecting a guest.”
Dismissed.
Soon after, his Academy Class 13 classmate Wol Hayeon came to visit Cheongyeol.
It had been a while since she last came by.
“Ugh... Cheon Ryujin! You caught a Cyclops alive? You graduated Floor 41 ages ago!”
“Such is the hardship of leadership.”
“The sun must be rising in the west.”
Wol Hayeon snorted and held out some lettuce.
She had continued tracking the Lord Merchant’s identity until today.
And today was the day to share the results.
Cheon Ryujin listened.
“I showed the lettuce to Robert, Europe’s number-one Spirit Master. He confirmed it. The vegetables were touched by a spirit.”
Ohh.
Even Robert.
Cheon Ryujin’s eyes narrowed.
‘If Europe’s number one and Asia’s number one both say so, it must be certain.’
The Lord Merchant was a spirit.
A difficult counterpart to negotiate with.
“And apparently, even among spirits, it has noble blood. Why would a spirit that exalted bother helping humans?”
“That’s for you to figure out.”
“I’m going to meet it directly now.”
The story was getting quite interesting.
Cheon Ryujin’s interest grew.
“I learned a [Spirit Contact] spell from Robert. It lets you meet spirits while in soul form.”
“Sounds dangerous...”
“Insanely dangerous. Practically suicide. Like covering yourself in gasoline before climbing a volcano.”
“Let’s do it right now.”
“Fine.”
The two had no brakes.
They were Academy Class 13 alumni, and every terrifying rumor about that class had been true.
People born without reverse gear in their brains!
That was Academy Class 13.
Wol Hayeon cast the spell, and their souls floated upward.
“From this point on, we’re approaching the Lord Merchant. I’ll warn you now. If you want to back out, turn around here.”
“Just guide me already. Worst that happens is I die.”
Pop―!
They transcended space-time and stepped into a pitch-black void.
From here onward, they were near the Lord Merchant’s domain.
And.
They encountered an enormous gate.
The size of the gate was already unrealistic, and the Asura Rakshasa statues looked ready to devour them on the spot.
“Whoa.” “Ugh.”
It truly was the gate to hell.
You could tell what kind of personality the owner had.
Definitely a vicious bastard.
‘Fuck. Should I turn back now? Forget increasing chlorella production...’
‘Ugh. This is way beyond my pay grade.’
Reverse gear was forcibly installed.
At that moment, they sensed someone beyond the gate.
The Lord Merchant appeared.
I Set Up House in the Tower, and Making Money Became Too Easy