In fact, those who blocked the entrance to Pioneers' City and its swamps to collect tolls used polite language when they first saw me. But these guys were simply rude. So, I gave a sarcastic response in a friendly tone.

"Oh, I've come here to brace for something terrible."

"?"

"?"

Maybe I didn't give them the answer they wanted. Maybe that's why three of them approached me with a confused expression.

I opened my mouth quietly as they approached.

"Ice Spear!"

Puck!

Thump!

I used the Ice Spear skill for the first time at the three members of the Gahwa Guild. Of course, this was a Safety Zone. Therefore, I could not inflict any damage to them who were blown away after being hit by the Ice Spear. However, it was simply their HP that my attack could not affect. My attack was still effective in terms of pure force. That's why they were blown away.

"You son of a bitch, are you crazy?"

"How dare you infiltrate our territory?"

In no time, the three guild members who fell to the ground stood up and shouted at me. Of course, I could understand why they were upset. Even though my attack did not do any damage to them, I had attacked everything including their territory.

"Oh, yeah, you're right. In this Safety Zone, it's hard for me to inflict any damage to you. Then, how about this? Multiple Ice Arrow! Ice Ball!"

Puck! Puck! Puck!

I poured out my skills toward the angry Gahwa Guild members who were stupefied by my boldness..

Moreover, the skills I used were recently upgraded from level 2 to level 3, so they were powerful enough to make them fall flat on their back, even though they did not take any real damage.

Then, other guild members who were far away began to turn their eyes at me as if they noticed something strange.

However, I ignored them and ran forward. I had no intention of quarreling with them in the Safety Zone.

Fortunately, there was nobody blocking the entrance to the hunting grounds perhaps because they thought this was their territory. Even if there was anybody blocking it, I was confident I could break through. So, I safely broke through the Safety Zone and escaped into the hunting grounds

.Then I moved inland because this rocky area was the Gahwa Guild's exclusive hunting ground, and a large number of guild members were always stationed here for hunting.

So, I immediately found some guild members hunting.

"Hey! Check the direction of 3 o'clock! Don't let it escape there!"

"Close it there!"

"If you miss it again, we won't be able to fill the hunting quota. Stay alert! Money! Just think of it as money!"

Of course, the way they hunted was a little different from what I was familiar with. The hunting I was familiar with, especially party hunting, focused on reducing the number of monsters quickly one by one at the leader's order, with each party member pouring out their skills all at once. But the party hunting unfolding before my eyes right now was new to me. It focused on enclosing a cute looking stone squirrel in a circle and gradually reducing the circle's size while not allowing the stone squirrel to escape.

Then, when the circle became smaller, they began to attack.

"Ice field!"

"Spirit of Earth, take hold of the enemy's feet!"

"Slow! Slow!"

"Increase it to restrict their movement! Apply added weight!"

"Spirit of the Wind! Blow here and restrict the enemy's movement!"

Generally, I used skills that restricted the target's movement first. After that, I fired a barrage of ice shots and ice balls. My attack was very well organized. As a result, I got rid of about 20 stone squirrels. Then, the guild members started cheering.

"Good! This time there were 5!"

"Wow, we're very lucky this time."

The Gahwa guild members were celebrating themselves. But I dashed past them right away because they would be alerted by their fellow members in the Safety Zone about me.

"Ice field! And Multiple Thin Ice!"

But one of the guild members counterattacked with Ice Field.

The guy had used it even before I could. Pasa Sasak!

At a glance, my Ice Field was twice the size of this one.

"Damn it! What the heck is this?"

"Who the hell is it?"

When I fired my Ice Field, some of the guild members who were moving to pick up the stone squirrel drops started shouting after being trapped in my Ice Field layered with Multiple Thin ICe. Of course I had no intention of watching them quietly, so I used my skills again.

"Pouring Ice! Ice Blast!"

Two ice attacks. The ice from Pouring Ice got thicker and bigger than ever because of the Thin Ice on the Ice Field.

Pak! Pak! Pak!

The sound of ice being broken by Ice Blast rang very loudly, reflecting the corresponding damage .

"Damn! What the heck!"

"Who..."

"What the hell…"

Most of them were killed before they could finish their words.

Only then did those who were far away look toward me with eyes wide open. Obviously they were full of suspicion, but I didn't have to explain what was going on. I got rid of them by firing Ice Spears and other level 3 skills such as Multiple Ice Arrows and Ice Balls. Then I moved to the center because I was curious about the items that fascinated them so much.

"Stone?"

It was obviously a stone by appearance . There were five stones, the same number of stone squirrels that they exclaimed they hunted. In other words, these were stones without any doubt.

So, I held them in my hand and opened my mouth quietly.

"Check item."

[A stone squirrel's undigested mineral ore. (Rare, material item)

* Stone squirrels usually feed by eating stones. Therefore, they typically reside in stones or rocky areas. Besides, they are unusually greedy and hot-tempered, so sometimes various minerals inside the eaten stones that cannot be digested accumulate inside the body. Moreover, the stone squirrel's digestive liquids cause the various minerals to mix together into one ore. This is the stone squirrel's undigested mineral ore.]

"Hmm."

I thought it was a stone, but it was not. It was just a collection of small minerals contained in the shape of a stone. That's why it was heavier than a normal stone.

I grabbed the mineral lump in one hand and threw it up, then repeated it several times.

Then I opened my mouth quietly.

"Based on the description, it doesn't seem to be such a valuable material item. Besides, its grade is just Rare."

I could understand the guild members shouting for joy if its grade had been Precious, one grade less than Legendary..

But it was just Rare.

It was better than General, but honestly, even Rare was not good.. So, if I had to say I was equipped with commendable equipment, I would have items that fell into at least the 'Precious grade.'

"By the way, why were they so happy after finding this mineral mass?"

I felt strongly that there was something about it that I did not know.

At this point, I began to understand the behavior of the Gahwa Guild members. Obviously, what they wanted wasn't the tolls, but these chunks of undigested mineral from the stone squirrels. So, I wondered if they deliberately charged such high tolls to stop outsiders from entering their territory or kicked them out so they could make sure nobody visited this place.

Obviously, this was just my guess, but I think it is right.

"Good. Anyway, this mineral mass must be your Achilles tendon."

First, I picked up the remaining four undigested mineral chunks of the stone squirrels and put them in my inventory because they must be very precious and expensive, although I didn't know their use. Then I moved fast because there were still lots of Gahwa Guild members hunting in this area.

Soktae Kang, the Gahwa Guild's leader, ate lunch leisurely and accessed the game as usual. But as soon as he logged in, he immediately saw that the guild chat room was unusually active today. So, he posted a message in the guild chat room.

[BOSS Kang (Guild Leader): What's going on? Why is it so noisy right now?]

Kang was in his mid-30s. Of course, he was not young, but he was not yet old. Regardless of age, however, Kang saw all the guild members as his subordinates. If they didn't like it, he didn't accept them as a guild member right from the beginning. He himself thought there was no problem with this at all because it was very easy to manage users in virtual reality who are not real people in a world where money was the king. He thought he was a lucky guy who managed to grab a golden thread as a solid source of funds.