Chapter 158.

“Who is it…?”

There was someone on the island . He didn’t look too unfamiliar . Although I couldn’t remember his name, he was likely a high-intermediate rank Hero who often appeared on variety shows .

“Wait…”

Could it be that all Players in the highest difficulty level shared the same sea? It was something I never thought about when writing my setting .

—…O-Oi! Oiii!

The man seemed to have discovered my boat as he waved his hand .

I sailed forward . Although I had no intention of letting him on board, I was willing to give out some of the food I was overflowing with .

“…Must be a green ticket . ”

The man didn’t have anything with him, not even the basic weapon and food supply provided by the tutorial .

In reality, choosing the hardest difficulty with a green ticket was akin to committing suicide . The system should have warned him about it as well, but it seemed he wasn’t the type to listen .

—Here! Here! Uhaha! Over here!

The man jumped excitedly . I took out a glossy seafish from my inventory .

It was then .

A dark shadow was cast underneath the island .

I didn’t have much time to think about what it was or why it was here .

Puaaaa—

Suddenly, the mouth of a giant fish shot up from the water . There were two sharp fangs growing on each side of its jaw, which promptly swallowed the island whole .

[You spotted an Island Devourer . ]

===

○Monster Encyclopedia

[Island Devourer] [Tutorial-only Monster]

—This monster hates those who stay on one island . However, who it seeks is solely dependent on luck .

===

A system alert popped up .

“Whoa, whoa . ”

I broke out into cold sweat and stood a bit dazed .

However, I didn’t have time to sit still . The shadow that swallowed an island whole was now creeping up on me .

I quickly began to paddle away . However, the shadow was only getting closer . I couldn’t do anything against it with a mere paddle .

I quickly opened my inventory .

[Inventory]

[Random Dice x3]

I could keep a maximum of five Random Dice . Since it could become anything depending on my desire, I was saving them up to use in emergency situations .

I picked up a dice and thought hard .

‘Please become something that can save me from that thing . ’

Something like an engine that can be attached to my boat…

Drrr—

I rolled the dice with my dearest wish .

“…What?”

However, the dice mercilessly betrayed my wish and became a strange mango . At first, I didn’t even know it was a mango . It was yellowish-orange but was as big as a watermelon .

[Lv . 3 Big and Juicy Mango]

If it wasn’t for the status window, I would have thought it was some exotic fruit .

“The hell is this?”

I checked the item description just in case .

===

[Lv . 3 Big and Juicy Mango]

—A big, juicy mango . It is a very precious fruit that is sometimes used as medicine .

○Lv . 2 Vitality Recovery

○Lv . 4 Satiability

===

A Lv . 3 item!

As most items in the tutorial were only lv . 0~lv . 2, this mango was certainly a good item .

The problem was that it was useless in this situation . What would filling up my belly do when I was about to enter a belly myself?

—Drrk .

“Shit…”

The Island Devourer’s fin grazed my boat . I had a strong hunch that it wanted to eat me .

My heart thumped violently, but I was used to it by now . As a mercenary, I had lived through much more dangerous situations…

Now, I didn’t even have time to throw another dice .

I racked my brain frantically .

Mango .

A delicious, juicy mango .

A lightbulb went on in my head .

“…H-Hey! Eat this instead of me!”

I held the mango forward and wafted it back and forth . The shadow slowed down, or at least, that’s what it looked like .

“This is a precious food you can never taste in the tutorial . ”

As I said before, Lv . 3 items could not be found inside the tutorial .

“So… take it!”

I threw the mango as far away as I could .

Whiiish—

With Master Sharpshooter’s support, the mango drew a beautiful arc and landed 400~500 meters away .

Plop!

Water splashed on my face . The giant creature underneath my boat changed course and began to swim towards the mango .

“…Whew . ”

The giant shadow was getting farther away .

Thud .

I fell on my butt . Although I didn’t do much, I was out of energy .

I most certainly didn’t put such a creature in my tutorial .

“…I knew this would happen . ”

But I wasn’t too surprised .

In the original story, I often had comments saying, ‘isn’t the highest difficulty tutorial too easy?’

My excuse was always, ‘it’s not that the tutorial is easy . Kim Suho’s Gift is just broken . ’

“Haa…”

In any case, I just barely avoided death .

The scene of an entire island being swallowed still lingered in my mind .

“Mango, mango, mango…”

I murmured the same word in a daze .

**

“…Auu, I’m getting seasick . ”

Six days had passed since then . Today, the waves were fiercer than usual .

The past few days have been quite spectacular and dynamic . I almost fell overboard from a sudden storm, and I was almost eaten by an intermediate-rank grade-8 sea monster .

Both times, I barely managed to survive using my red crystal weapons and Random Dice’s power .

===

[Lv . 2 Sea Tiger’s Oil]

—An oil that drives away sea monsters .

○Lv . 1 low-intermediate rank or lower monster repellent

○Lv . 1 Shock absorbent, waterproof coating

[Lv . 2 Magical Repair Ointment]

—A mystical ointment that works on items .

○Restores durability of items under Lv . 1

===

These two items were especially helpful in my journey .

“I want to be on land . ”

After staying on a boat for six days, I was starting to miss land .

[Your Sailing technique improves to Lv . 2]

—You can now cross waters more easily .

—Your sense of direction on sea improves .

No, please just give me a land of some sort!

I widened my eyes and peered out into the distance .

In the distance, I caught a glimpse of a small island .

“…Nice . ”

With my new destination discovered, I began to paddle towards it .

Sploosh . Perhaps because of my improved Sailing technique, the boat seemed a bit faster than before .

After about 20 minutes of paddling, I could finally see a portion of the island .

“Eh?”

When I saw the island, I exclaimed in shock .

There was a familiar face on the island .

I shot up and shouted .

“Boss!”

**

Seoul, Essence of the Strait’s team leader office .

Yoo Yeonha was chatting with Yoo Jinhyuk .

[Why are you so curious about this?]

[I’m not curious, I just want to know the truth . ]

Yoo Yeonha shared what she knew about the Kwang-Oh Incident with Yoo Jinhyuk . However, Yoo Jinhyuk still kept some matters secret, which Yoo Yeonha was now in the process of investigating .

Under the assumption that Kim Hajin was really the survivor of the Kwang-Oh Incident, Yoo Yeonha wanted to know why Chae Joochul’s assassin didn’t kill him and who the assassin was .

[To be completely honest, I don’t know . ]

“…He’s lying again . ”

Yoo Yeonha frowned .

[You’re lying . ]

[No, I’m serious . ]

[You said you saw him being admitted to the orphanage . ]

As she typed, Yoo Yeonha suddenly wondered .

How would Kim Hajin have looked like as a baby? She found it a bit difficult to imagine his face on a baby’s .

[Yeah, some kid left him there . ]

[Kid?]

[Yeah, 5~7 years old or 8 at most . Black hair… er, actually maybe it was covered with a hijab or something . ]

[Do you have dementia?]

[Heh, I’m getting old . Time travel isn’t like what it used to be . ]

As inaccurate information introduced needless bias and noise, having more information wasn’t always better .

[Anyways, it was a young girl . ]

[…Okay, thank you . Ah, by the way, have you thought about my offer?]

[No . ]

“…Tsk . ”

Yoo Yeonha suggested Yoo Jinhyuk to enter her information guild, Falling Blossom . As far as she was concerned, he was lazing around most of the time in his office .

[Think about it, I’m already being watched by Chae Joochul . What would he think if he sees you so close to me?]

[I get it . ]

[Good, then send me some assault rifles . ]

[…What do you need those for?]

[I decided to form a small militia . You know how to go about it without being discovered, right?]

[Yeah, no . ]

[What? Oi, Niece, you—]

Yoo Yeonha left the chat and leaned against her chair .

Ssss—

Her eyes closed automatically .

“…It really is amazing . ”

If she were to describe this sensation, she would say it was like leaning on an angel’s wings or sleeping peacefully in Noah’s Ark while the world was crumbling down .

As she spent 16 hours a day in her office, her new chair was the best gift she’s ever received .

“Hnnng…”

Buried in the chair, Yoo Yeonha thought about many things .

Her guild members who were in the Tower of Wish, the high-intermediate rank monsters, the Dungeons her guild was planning to conquer, a cup ramen… hamburger… ssp .

She began to drool .

**

Boss seemed to have gotten skinnier since the last time I saw her . I wanted to give her a big hug out of joy, but we were both too dirty from staying in the wild for several days .

“It’s been a while . ”

Boss smiled leisurely as she said that . However, she didn’t look to be in all that good a shape .

“Boss, did you eat?”

“I did . ”

She nodded affirmatively, but I was a bit suspicious .

“What’s your vitality right now?”

“Vitality?”

“Yes . ”

She looked at the air blankly . She was probably checking her status window .

“…90 . ”

“90?”

“…Yes . ”

Boss nodded .

“Are you sure it isn’t just 9?”

“…Pft, as if . ”

Her unnatural smirk confirmed it . Her vitality was definitely 9 . In fact, it couldn’t be anything but 9 . Boss’ stat restriction had to be incredibly high . Kim Suho received an 80% stat restriction, so Boss’ should easily surpass 90% .

“It was hard at first, but I got used to it . ”

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

“No, I went back and forth to find food . ”

“Ah…”

Thankfully, it seemed she wasn’t targeted by the Island Devourer .

“Then let’s eat something first . ”

“…Okay . ”

I opened my inventory to take out a seafish . But before that, Boss moved first .

“Follow me . ”

With a kind smile, she turned around and began to walk into the forest .

“Boss? Where are you going?”

“I thought this might happen, so I kept some emergency food supply . ”

“Ah… okay . ”

I followed her for now .

Boss walked to the middle of the forest and stopped in front of a giant palm tree engraved with an X mark . She moved the leaves underneath it and took out the tutorial-only food supply bag .

“Here . ”

Boss opened the bag proudly .

Inside, there were all sorts of seafood: clams, sea pineapples, crabs, snails, and two small fish . They were certainly good enough for a meal .

“Wow . ”

I was genuinely surprised . Boss’ main stat was ‘magic power’ . This stat displayed exponential power as it grew but unless it surpassed a certain point, it was more or less useless .

In other words, Boss had fished all these up without any tools, using only her physical abilities .

“There’s a lot . ”

“Of course . Thanks to this place, I got to relive the old days of training . ”

Boss stuck her chest out proudly .

Since she kept the food inside the tutorial bag instead of her inventory, she clearly had a good survival sense . Unlike the inventory, the tutorial bag kept food fresh .

“You must be hungry since you paddled all the way here . Wait . ”

Boss seemed to be worrying about me as she quickly took out a burner and frying pan and began to cook the seafood .

Tsss .

I stared at Boss who was watching her food cooking on the frying pan . After flipping them a couple times, she turned the burner off and gave the frying pan to me .

“It’s done . You can eat . ”

“…What about you, Boss?”

“Ehem, like I said, my vitality is at 90 . ”

She was saying she didn’t need it .

“… . ”

At that moment, I felt something warm rush into my heart .

Was this why she was the boss?

Was this the duty of a boss?

Feeling a surge of emotion that was hard to put into words…

“Aren’t you going to…”

I took out a fish from my inventory .

“…eat?”

It was a large glossy seafish .

Boss’ eyes lost focus as she glanced back and forth between the frying pan and my glossy seafish .

On the frying pan were tiny seafood gathered together . On the other hand, the glossy seafish was too big to fit in the frying pan .

Boss’ face turned red .

**

30 minutes later .

We ate all the glossy seafish in my inventory .

[Cooperation is an important factor in climbing the Tower . ]

While I was sitting on the ground digesting my food, the system messaged me .

“Alright, let’s start moving . ”

“…Moving?”

“Yes . ”

The second tutorial’s performance-based points used both an absolute and relative evaluation . In other words, even if you achieved first place overall, you had to surpass a certain threshold to receive the reward .

“Let’s set sail . It’s dangerous to stay on the same island . ”

“Sail?”

“Yes, there’s a monster called Island Devourer . It attacks you if you stay on the same island . ”

“I don’t quite understand but sure . ”

Boss and I went back to the beach where my boat was .

“…Hmm . ”

But now that I looked at my boat, it seemed too small .

“We’re going to ride that thing?”

Boss had doubts as well .

“Mm… hold on . ”

I took out a Random Dice . Since I had five, it was fine to use one .

“…I don’t know if this will work though . ”

I thought as I rolled the dice, ‘a boat or materials to build a new one . ’

Tk .

The dice became stuck in the sand without rolling . It seemed my wish was too big as the first dice turned into a wooden plank .

“Oh? What was that dice?”

“Uh… hold on . ”

I rolled another one .

Tk .

It got stuck in the sand once again . But this time, the dice was shaking strangely . Then, the dice grew in size…

“Oh?”

And it transformed into a boat . Although it was only half as big as my sailboat, it was shaped like an actual boat .

“What is this mysterious thing?”

“… . ”

“Newbie?’

“… . ”

Newbie?”

I couldn’t reply to Boss’ question .

I just felt… betrayed .

Why did I cut down trees, shave them, tie them together, and repeat tiring tasks? All I had to do was roll the dice a couple times…

*

After tying my old sailboat to the new boat, Boss and I set sail .

Voyaging became more fun with someone to talk to . I obtained food by fishing, and Boss focused on training her magic power .

“Ah, my magic power stat just rose by 0 . 3 points . ”

After about 6 hours of sailing, Boss spoke with a bright face .

“Wow, it’s increasing fast . When do you think you’ll be able to hunt sea monsters?”

“Now . ”

“What is it at?”

“2 . 3”

“…Let’s just eat . ”

“Okay . ”

While Boss continued to meditate, I began to cook .

Today’s menu was seafish sashimi . Although sashimi was low in calories, eating it had a chance of increasing magic power .

While I was cutting up the fish…

Pssssh—

A large waterspout shot up from the ocean . At the same time, the surface of the water split, and a house-sized fish shot up .

It had fierce eyes that took up half of its face and a mouth that protruded out sharply . The ugly fish blocked our boat as it stared down at us .

[You spotted a giant fish . Its information has been recorded in the Player Encyclopedia . ]

===

○Monster Encyclopedia

[Giant Fish] [Intermediate-rank grade-9]

===

“Boss?”

“Don’t worry . ”

Boss stood up and reached out to the fish blocking our way .

Gueeee— The fish opened its mouth with a strange roar . It was clearly trying to swallow us, but trying to fight Boss from a close range was foolish no matter how much her stats were restricted .

—Pervading Shadow .

Along with a soft whisper, black magic power shot out of Boss’ fingers, entering the fish’s mouth . Soon, the fish’s body began to distort as though something was trying to dig its way out .

Gueeee—

A different scream rang out .

The fish was in pain . However, the pain didn’t last long as black thorns pierced out from inside its body .

“… . ”

Boss sat down on the boat with a peaceful look .

I pulled the giant fish’s corpse near . I checked to see if it had any useful materials, but there was nothing .

**

[The second tutorial will end in 10 minutes . ]

[Good work surviving until now . ]

A system alert notified the end of the 14-day tutorial . Boss spoke from next to me .

“The tutorial is ending soon . ”

“I heard . ”

Boss looked at me and smiled .

“Good job . ”

“Thank you . But Boss is just dead weight here . ”

“Dead weight… is too harsh . Didn’t I kill all the sea monsters?”

“That’s because I kept us fed . You were starving every time you used your magic power . ”

Boss narrowed her eyes . She seemed to be glaring at me, but it wasn’t scary at all .

“I’m kidding . Good work . ”

“You too, Newbie…”

We smiled while looking into each other’s eyes .

[You cleared the second tutorial . ]

[Player Extra7 obtained 2008 performance points . ]

[You are currently ranked first out of the 78 Players who cleared the hardest difficulty tutorial . ]

[You are the only Player who surpassed 2000 points – you will be given the second tutorial’s reward of honor . ]

[You will be transferred to your waiting room in three minutes . ]

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