Chapter 9 - A Beginners First Step 04

White clouds floating in a clear blue sky. A vast green meadow and various heights of vegetation that stretched endlessly. A world full of diverse plants, from ankle-deep turf-like grass to waist-high reed-like green bushes.

"Wow… the view is really wonderful."

It's like the meadow on a Windows desktop background, the landscape stretched endlessly in front of us. This is the first floor of the Tower, the Meadow. Some ostentatious poets or boastful people call it the Infinite Meadow or the Meadow of Plenty, but most adventurers just call it the Meadow.

The higher you climb the tower, the more diverse terrain you get, so most adventurers tend to shorten it. Plains, caves, swamps, snowfields, something like that.

As Han Se-ah looked around with her mouth open in awe, I give the answer to the question she asked outside the Tower.

"This is why people who come in without the help of the Adventurers Guild die."

"What? Why?"

"Because there's nothing here that can be a landmark in the meadow."

"…Come to think of it, how do we get out of here?"

Adventurers step into a dark tunnel, and when they open their eyes, it's a vast meadow. Aside from the strange behavior of the tower that ignores space constraints, the main concern is that the exit door doesn't seem to exist.

When we entered the tower from outside, we clearly rushed into a place that looked like a door, but when we opened our eyes, there was no door, no wall, no tree, and no rock – just a grassy plain. No matter which direction you go, you have to have some tool to return to the same spot. It's the scariest thing about the tower – to exit, you have to return to the grassy plain on the first floor, exactly where we came in.

"That's the scary part of the tower. To go out of here, we have to go back to the meadow on the first floor, the place where we came in. Exactly here," I said while pointing my finger to the ground, and Han Se-ah lowered her head with a puzzled expression.

What caught her eye was a mysterious circle made by the flattened grass in the meadow. It was a small circle with a diameter of only about one meter, just enough for one person to stand on.

"So we have to step on this platform?"

"Yes. You have to wander around this vast meadow without a single landmark and find this foothold in the bushes again to get out of the tower."

The reason why I don't risk my life climbing the tower is because of this inconvenient system. From entering the meadow, climbing the tower to the higher floors, hunting, collecting a lot of mana stones, and then finally going back down the tower to step onto this tiny platform in the meadow.

While dealing with all of that, you can only rely on a magic compass created by the adventurer guild, without features like teleportation or a mini-map in the game system, it's unavoidable to be annoyed.

In addition, there is no inventory system, so the higher you go up, the more food and drinking water you have to carry, so unless you're bringing porters, most of the returning adventures will have very little to show for their efforts. That's partly why there are so many pitiful adventurers coming out of the tower. Also, since monsters randomly spawn, the return journey is even more difficult.

"But at least they have a conscience and mark it on the map with a dot. It seems like only the places I've been to are being marked, just like the city earlier…. Someone in the chat just said they expect me to be defeated by a first-floor goblin, I will remember their nickname.."

Han Se-ah, who finished her conversation with viewers while looking down at the patterns on the floor, raised her head. The curiosity mixed with ambition was evident in her clear eyes. It seemed like her gamer pride was quite strong as she blinked and expressed her desire to fight monsters right away.

Of course, I also wanted to clear the quest for 10 lowest-grade mana stones today, so I tilted my head slightly and started walking towards one side.

"So that's why the Adventurers Guild exists. It's a bit of a drawback that they charge high commission, but without them, it's impossible to attack the tower. The adventurer's token has magic cast on it, so it has the function of finding the exit of the tower."

"Oh, it says that the tower's internal mini-map is activated only when the adventurer's token is in the inventory."

Do you have an inventory?

I almost choked on my saliva as I was about to let out a jealous scream. The monsters inside the tower all turn into mana stones, so if you miscalculate your food supplies, you'll end up having to scavenge for food in the fields. That's why the most enviable ability is the inventory.

Of course, what I can do is far from a game system such as inventory and mini-map integration, so I instead pull out a golden card from my pocket. It was a hexagonal metal card with a large shield, helmet, and mace engraved in the center.

"Now, if you look at the symbol in the center of the card, there is a small marble embedded in it. If you press it firmly, a guide will appear for a moment."

As I pressed the small marble embedded naturally in the center of the shield, an arrow with an appearance similar to a hologram rose above the adventurer's symbol. It naturally shone on my chest and behind us, where we had just walked a little.

"Of course, because it only shows one direction, in places other than the meadow, it is better to hire professional guides like thieves or archers for the party. That's why most parties always bring them along."

In an open meadow, you just have to follow the arrow, but in a maze-like cave, if you just follow the arrow, you will become a skull leaning against a dead end. It was quite interesting to see, so Han Se-ah put her hand in her waist pouch and pulled out her adventurer card. Is that leather pouch the inventory system?

The small card made of scrap metal that she pulled out was engraved with an X-shaped long staff and a witch's hat symbol. Although the material of the card was different, since the marble was the same, when Han Se-ah pressed the marble at the end of the staff, an arrow also floated up from her card.

"Mine has a different pattern than yours?"

"That's because the adventurer's card also serves as a kind of identification. It's to prevent situations where a wizard might carry a warrior's card, for example. Actually, the blacksmith who first made these emblems didn't like how plain they looked, so he carved his own designs onto them."

"Really?"

"It's a famous story among adventurers. It doesn't have names or titles on it, so how could it serve as identification? Carving weapons like swords and staves into it is just a way for adventurers to show off their gear."

In short, it's just a case of a blacksmith who received a large order from the adventurer's guild and added his own designs to them, and then it became a tradition. Since they're not made to a specific template, the designs are all different. For warriors alone, there are designs for swords, maces, axes, helmets, shields, and armor, among others.

Because of this, high-ranking adventurers with some influence in the guild sometimes carve their own gear onto their emblems just to show off.

… Like me

I was so moved when I became a senior adventurer after a lot of hard work that I asked for my armor to be engraved on the card. It's a little embarrassing to say it out loud, but at that time, most of the senior adventurers seemed to customize their own cards.

"Since we've checked the cards, let's look for monsters. Wherever you go in the meadow, it's the same, so let's just walk wherever we want."

"Oh, anywhere?"

"Yes, anywhere your heart desires."

Han Se-ah nodded her head with crossed arms, swallowing her saliva and walking slightly to the side towards the front with a tightly gripped staff, looking tense.

On the surface, the vast green meadow appeared to only have small rabbits. However, since this is the first floor of a fantasy game tower, it's only natural that there are monsters. Of course, the first floor is close to a tutorial, so there are no dangerous monsters that pose a threat individually… but Han Se-ah wouldn't know that as a first-time player.

On the first floor, there are weak monsters that can be easily defeated just by kicking them, such as soft and squishy slimes, rabbits and foxes with horns the size of a finger, and elderly or sickly goblins. Slimes are such weak monsters that they sometimes don't even drop loot, and rabbits and foxes can bite or pierce with their horns, but they can't even penetrate thick cotton armor.

The only real danger comes from goblins wielding rocks or wooden clubs. Even so, anyone can easily defeat them if they don't panic.

"Is that a goblin over there?"

"Yeah, we found one faster than I thought."

Well, even among goblins this one was incredibly weak. The goblins on the first floor appeared much smaller than the goblins in the higher floors. It's been said that they have been banished to the first floor due to old age and illness. The goblin in front of us was thin and hunched over, making it look dwarf-like.

"Ke-ee-ak!"

"Oh, he's coming!"

Without bothering to hide our presence, the goblin had already spotted us and was moving in our direction. The little green dwarf ran through the rustling bushes. It was barely covered in tattered rags and had a thin and frail appearance.

'… From goblins to trolls, was the reason why they wear underwear because of the game world?'

As I had an irrelevant realization, the goblin and Han Se-ah stared at each other before rushing forward. Of course, the interaction was overwhelmingly in Han Se-ah's favor. Although she was a small-framed woman, the hunched goblin who was less than 1 meter tall barely reached the height of Han Se-ah's stomach. In addition, the weapons they are carrying are different, with Han Se-ah wielding a staff and the goblin carrying a rock.

"Hyahh!"

During the short lessons, Han Saea learned well, as she thrust her staff forward like a well trained spear man. From the sound of her stomping forward to twisting her waist and stabbing, the staff was quite powerful for a novice's weapon.

"Huh, what's this?"

"Hmm, good posture."

The staff flew through the air and struck the lower part of the goblin's neck. The battle was over with just that. With a strange sound of "Kek," the goblin breathed its last and transformed into a small stone about the size of a finger.

[Obtain the lowest level magic stone on the 1st floor while partying with Han Se-ah 1/10]

The quest was going smoothly.