Chapter 134: Veteran Player?

Means of transportation are extremely important in games.

Since this is Water Land, the initial means of transportation for the event is a boat.

There are two types of boats.

Manual and automatic.

Manual, as the name suggests, adopts the realistic operation method of actual boats.

Aside from being very cheap, it doesn’t really have any advantages.

When you move from a small boat to a large one, you need a lot of people working together in sync to move the boat.

If you do well, you might even pull off movements better than an automatic boat, but that’s only possible when you’ve built up a lot of experience.

It’s a boat for hobbyists.

Automatic boats are completely different in how they move. Instead of realistic steering, they opted for controls that feel closer to driving a car.

Since the environment is different, of course there are differences.

But you can approach it with a sensation closer to playing a car game than a boat.

Now that we’ve covered convenience, next is movement speed.

If the process of moving from island to island is made too realistic, the game drags on too much.

You might not even get to explore underwater-just moving between islands a few times could take a whole month.

Just sitting on a boat for hours is torture in itself.

The goal isn’t to make people suffer on boats, so that can’t happen.

But if you skip the movement process entirely, you lose all the drama that could be born from it.

That’s why the sea zone system was introduced.

The regular sea zone is leisurely enough to go fishing in.

The acceleration sea zone drastically increases the speed of the boat.

The rapid current sea zone requires you to ride the currents.

Depending on which sea zone you travel through, travel speed can differ by several times.

The most leisurely regular sea zone takes over an hour just to reach the nearest island.

If you take the rapid current zone, it only takes ten minutes. The farther you have to go, the more it makes sense to ride the rapids.

But if you could just travel easily with no penalties, it wouldn’t be any fun.

The rapid current zone is basically like a racing game.

If you space out, you might end up in some unrelated place or your boat could sink.

The farther the distance you want to travel, the faster the speed and the higher the chance of accidents.

The rapids aren’t the only danger.

If you have gutsy pirates with you, you could recreate a car chase scene from a movie right on the sea.

The acceleration sea zone drastically increases the speed of the boat.

This place is full of various dangers.

You might run into Typhoon Slime.

You might encounter a Giant Monster.

This is the area with the most pirate activity.

In game terms, you could call it a PK zone packed with danger.

When the stage shifts to underwater, the fantasy vibe increases dramatically.

Since no one has really operated underwater yet, we’ll have to wait a bit to see exactly how it plays out.

Still, it wouldn’t be strange if they showed up any time now.

Humans who play with strange actions the developers never anticipated, like bug-abusing gameplay.

As long as it’s not something that completely breaks the balance, I’m planning to just watch for now.

That kind of playstyle is part of the fun too.

***

The gamer stared out at the sea.

In other games, he was called a veteran player, but here, it was different.

After all, this was his first time playing this game.

‘How could I make use of this?’

At the end of his gaze was the boundary between areas.

Boundaries are always where secrets and tricks lie dormant.

It’s where the rules change.

Humanity has always found ways to use boundaries.

Using osmosis, we draw water out of vegetables to pickle them.

We use the refraction of light due to density differences to make telescopes.

We apply surface tension to make spheres.

Above all, boundaries are where bugs often occur in games.

Finding something special that others can’t notice in the ordinary and surprising people with it.

The thrill of that is something only those who’ve experienced it know.

After tasting that thrill as a child, the gamer started looking for alternative uses for anything he saw.

As a child, the reward was small compared to the effort put in.

But once the stage shifted to games, it was different.

Unlike reality, built on precise physical laws, the world of games was full of loopholes.

There were plenty of bugs, and those bugs became broadcast content and a way to make a living.

‘There must be loopholes in Water Land too.’

Alchemy Slime isn’t perfect.

The world he creates isn’t complete.

This was proven in [My Own Story].

It’s not about the story going off the rails because the writer gave total freedom.

Even in works where the writer gives almost no freedom, people still find ways to cause bugs.

Like saving a character the writer was dead set on killing off.

Or turning an enemy the writer swore would never join the heroes into an ally.

Or killing off a core character to halt the story’s progress.

You could say these are the writer’s mistakes, not Alchemy Slime’s.

But even Alchemy Slime has plenty of stories where he shows his limits in the process of compromising with reality.

There are people who insist on using <Slime> in ways Alchemy Slime has blocked.

For example, the recently added <Bicycle Slime>.

This bicycle prioritizes the rider’s safety. So, when it detects stairs ahead, it automatically activates the brake.

It’s a great feature. Riding a bicycle down stairs is extremely dangerous, after all.

But there are people in the world who, when told not to do something, are even more determined to do it.

They ran at the stairs carrying the <Bicycle Slime>, then jumped-and mounted it midair.

The <Bicycle Slime> that landed on the stairs had its brake released.

<Bicycle Slime> absorbed the shock, but it couldn’t completely erase the rider’s inertia.

If the brake was too strong, only the rider would go flying, making it even more dangerous.

With the brake released, the <Bicycle Slime> went down the stairs.

But the speed limit was still in effect.

There were people who didn’t like that speed limit.

So they thought outside the box.

If the wheels can’t spin fast enough for acceleration, just lift them off the ground.

They grabbed the handlebars and did a somersault.

With this method, they conquered not just stairs but downhill slopes too.

In this way, <Bicycle Slime> became a toy for freerunners.

Whether it’s Alchemy Slime’s own mistake, a mismatch during collaboration, or a compromise with reality, there’s always a chance for bugs to occur.

Even if it’s not a bug, there could be hidden elements.

And those things are usually dormant at the boundaries.

Doing it alone is fine, but there are things you can only figure out with lots of people.

The gamer gathered people with similar tendencies and conducted all sorts of experiments.

‘When you’re underwater, your movement speed is faster than on the boat.’

In the rapid current zone, they tied a person with a rope and threw them overboard.

Then they discovered that the submerged person moved much faster than the boat itself.

‘If we throw a large number of objects tied with ropes, could we move even faster?’

The gamer pulled their teammate out.

“How is it? Can you move down there?”

“No way. Unless we get better gear, there’s no way to move freely under the sea in our current state.”

Unfortunately, it seemed impossible to move freely underwater with their current equipment.

If you throw a large number of objects tied with ropes, the boat would just get dragged off to some unexpected place.

They could always try again later after getting diving equipment.

But if you only think about putting things off for later without making use of what you’ve found, you can’t call yourself a gamer.

They had to think of ways to use it even at their current level.

“How about this?”

Another teammate offered an idea.

“Wow… That’s insane.”

“Right?”

“Let’s do it right now.”

After getting the necessary equipment, they wandered along the boundary between the acceleration sea zone and the rapid current sea zone, looking for prey.

“Ship spotted!”

This side had a warship. That side had a trade ship, so their movement speed was faster.

The gamer pirate crew chased after the prey.

Once they got close enough.

“Human torpedo, launch!”

The person who lost at rock-paper-scissors and was chosen as the human torpedo tied a rope around their waist and jumped into the sea.

Entering the rapid current sea zone, the human torpedo instantly accelerated.

The rope went taut.

Even if the human torpedo was much faster, the boat’s mass was overwhelming.

The human torpedo drew a curve from centripetal force and entered the acceleration sea zone.

Bang.

They struck the prey’s side.

“Hit! Fire another one!”

The second human torpedo was launched.

This one also hit the lead boat.

The second human torpedo drilled a hole in the bottom of the boat together with the lead boat.

Both sides were using beginner ships. Their defenses were low, so it didn’t take long to make a hole.

“If you don’t want to sink, hand over your loot!”

The trade ship, figuring it was better to share their loot than sink, obediently complied.

The gamer pirate crew’s plundering was a success.

After that, the gamer pirate crew kept getting more results with the same method.

Soon enough, people would come up with countermeasures, but for now, the word hadn’t spread much, so plenty of prey were caught.

In any game, the more resources you have, the more things you can do.

They used the resources they acquired to upgrade their boat and human torpedoes.

With an even stronger boat, they continued their piracy.

Even then, they kept brainstorming for new tricks, making their methods more efficient, powerful, and fun.

It seemed like it was about time to launch something other than humans, but they stuck with human torpedoes.

Because it was more fun that way.

“Human torpedo, launch!”

The now extremely powerful human torpedo dove into the sea.

“!!!”

And then they made eye contact with a passing fish.

They didn’t realize it, but their current setup wasn’t much different from a fishing boat.

The fish took a big bite of the tasty-looking bait.

As the fish, much bigger than the boat, swam freely, the boat suddenly accelerated.

“Cut the rope! Cut it!”

The gamer shouted, but no one could follow that order.

Being dragged by a fish swimming every which way was just like riding a roller coaster with no safety bar.

The best they could do was desperately cling to anything they could.

Even if you loved games enough to dig deep and be called a veteran player, even if you had a wealth of knowledge-

They were basically people who lived by tapping keyboards or pressing controllers.

When a crisis hit, their first instinct was to stick their face forward and focus on the screen.

Even after Slime Land appeared and they’d gotten more physical activity, they still lacked the ability to deal with sudden situations.

Because they’d upgraded their pirate ship several times, they were dragged around for quite a while.

Eventually, the rope couldn’t take it and snapped, finally setting them free.

“Ugh… How many are left?”

They counted how many remained.

“Half of us are gone.”

About half couldn’t hold on and were thrown out of the boat.

“They won’t be able to come back, right?”

“Yeah. Look at the map.”

There was a map provided for convenience, but it only showed the surrounding area.

Except for the long line, the map was pitch black, so it was clear they’d been dragged to a place they’d never been before.

“Even if you die, you’ll respawn randomly.”

They’d already figured out the respawn rules to some extent.

If you die by suicide, you fall into hell.

You couldn’t deliberately go to a place where you’d die on purpose, either.

They were curious about that hell, but for now, had no plans to go.

Some teammates had died by accident, but they revived at designated locations.

They even experimented on pirate targets to see what happened if you couldn’t respawn at a designated location.

They found out you’d respawn at a random location nearby. If you got too far from a respawn spot, you’d restart in an unrelated place, too.

After being dragged by the fish for so long, it was clear it would take a while to regroup with their teammates.

It wasn’t even certain they’d try to regroup.

If there was fun content right in front of them, their instinct was always to dig into that first.

“Land.”

Desperate for solid ground, they headed straight for land.

“I’m alive…”

After flopping on the ground and enjoying the land for a moment, they turned their eyes to the forest.

It was a shame their piracy had been interrupted, but new content was always welcome.

The gamers headed into the forest.

They explored for a short while.

“Crap! Dinosaurs! Get back to the boat!”

Since they’d invested heavily in the human torpedo build, fighting dinosaurs on land was tough.

They tried to run for the boat, but the small, chicken-like dinosaurs were nimble and cunning hunters.

The dinosaurs blocked their way and herded them deeper into the forest.

In the end, they were completely surrounded by the small dinosaurs.

‘Respawn time.’

It was right to avoid death as much as possible, but when death was inevitable, gamers accepted it quickly.

‘We’ll still struggle, though.’

As they prepared for battle, hoping to see even one more attack pattern, something fell from the sky.

It landed with a crash like a meteorite, shaking the ground, and swung a giant stone axe, slaughtering the dinosaurs.

“You alright?”

The man who had finished off the dinosaurs turned around.

The gamers took one look at him and knew by instinct.

‘That’s a teammate!’

Just a few days after Water Land started, and already someone is radiating that unmistakable veteran player aura.

A warrior with a barbarian warrior concept stood before them.

***

Days since Water Land began.

The game is progressing well.

Occasionally, someone gets ahead, but it’s not a big problem.

The sea is always full of disasters like typhoons, tsunamis, reefs, and sea monsters.

There’s probably no one who can make it from start to finish without running aground even once.

Except for Ash.

Some people use almost bug-like or otherwise questionable methods, but compared to what Ash does, it’s nothing.

Ash’s very existence is practically a bug.

If you balance Water Land around Ash, it turns into hell.

Since you can just restore the places Ash passes through, he’s only excluded from the first achievement.

There are Hunters too, but they’re not causing any major issues.

Slime Land is peaceful.

As for matters outside of Slime Land, there’s the Undersea Dungeon.

Our Hans, wearing a wig scattering purplish light, has left for overseas.

He left with full authority, and he’ll probably return with half the world in his hands.

Half the world, huh.

Is he the Demon King or something?

Before leaving, there’s one thing he made sure of.

He arranged a relatively easy agreement with the Korean government.

We discussed starting with the dungeons located in the seas near Korea.

Instead of raiding the dungeons themselves, collecting the mana stones, monster materials, and artifacts left after the dungeons collapse was very simple.

There was no need to call in Road, who travels the world’s oceans.

Root, who occupies the underground of Korea, extended her tentacles.

With what that child brought back, I raised my skill experience and injected the mana I gained into the dead land under the sea.

To think this easy task had been neglected until now.

Well, for me and the kids, it’s a simple matter.

We’ll take care of it ourselves.