Only I’m the solo player

Chapter 7 – Rotten Guts

—–CROW—– 

They say that when you get seriously injured, you don’t feel pain because of something called adrenaline.

After I got out of the boss room and collapsed on the ground, the pain in my ankle started to set in belatedly. No, it was already painful, but now it’s fucking painful.

It feels like a hot iron rod is stuck in my ankle. The injured area feels like it’s burning. Is this a status effect?

“Ugh, huuk, fu, ck…”

I struggled and examined my ankle, but that wasn’t it. It seems that it just hurts this much when you get hit by an arrow.

The burning pain changed to a squeezing pain over time. It feels like my vision is flashing.

Arrow, I need to remove the arrow, but how do I remove it? Can I just pull it out?

-Clench.

I gasped for breath and grabbed the arrow, but the arrowhead twisted, and a sharp pain hit my brain.

“Aaaah!”

You idiot, it’s obvious that you can’t just pull it out! You have to do something about the arrowhead first!

My unrelated arm was trembling like an aspen tree, and every time I breathed, I felt a pain in my chest like a needle prick.

Ah right, I was injured here too. Did I break a rib? Are there other bones here besides ribs?

HP: 19/340

While I was having stupid thoughts, I saw my HP gauge decreasing little by little. It’s the bleeding damage. If I keep this up, I’m fucked.

“Hu, huu… fuck, huu…”

I took a deep breath with difficulty and grabbed my sword. I brought the blade to the arrowhead stuck in my ankle. The sharp +6 blade easily cut off the arrowhead.

Now I have to pull out the arrow shaft, fuck, it should come out this time. Please come out in one go.

Maybe it’s because of my high strength stat, but when I grabbed the fletching and pulled hard, the arrow slid out smoothly. And it hurt like hell.

“Ugh, guh!”

It felt like electricity was flowing through the arrow shaft. The moment it was pulled out through the wound, my whole body convulsed.

My chin, no, why is my chin trembling? Fuck, fuuuck, fuck. And the blood, why isn’t the blood stopping?

HP: 17/340

My HP keeps dropping. My vision, which was flashing with lightning until a moment ago, gradually darkened. I’m getting sleepy.

There’s no way I’d be sleepy when I’m in this much pain. This is it, that, I’m about to die. I was on the verge of death.

If I don’t stop the bleeding, I’ll die. I clutched my bleeding ankle with my hand. My vision flashed again.

“Guh, ugh, uaaah…!”

Please stop, stop coming out, I don’t want to die, mom, fuck, why do I have to live this shitty dirt spoon life and die like this, stop it, fuck!

No matter how much I clutched my ankle, blood kept seeping through the gaps. My HP displayed in the status window kept decreasing, and tears welled up again.

I was now holding onto the status window, not my pierced ankle. Please stop this damn HP from decreasing.

-Ding.

Then, somehow my hand moved while manipulating the status window, and the inventory window opened.

[Red Potion]

When used, slowly recovers a small amount of HP.

Applying it to the wound will speed up the recovery.

Only then did I realize that I had potions.

“Fuck, you idiot…”

**

The Tower of Trials is structured like a game, but it’s not really a game.

Because drinking a potion doesn’t instantly restore HP, challengers in the open community say not to rely on potions too much.

Also, you don’t die when your HP gauge is depleted, and you don’t necessarily survive just because your HP is full, so you have to make good judgments depending on the situation.

I didn’t do that. Like an idiot, I had a lot of potions, but I didn’t think to use them.

They say that when people panic, they completely lose their judgment, but I never thought that would happen to me. I thought that was something that only happened to other people.

“Ah, shit, I’m so embarrassed…”

After chugging three potions at once and pouring another one on the arrow wound, my body became lively again.

I still feel that hot or whatever pain, but after taking a deep breath, I realize it was an illusion.

-Rip, clang!

I removed the upper body armor that was tattered by the Goblin Lord’s attack. I can’t use this anymore.

It was the best armor I could get at this point, but it became trash after a few attacks from the Goblin Lord.

Should I have enhanced durability instead of just defense? No, then I might be dead by now.

I was healed thanks to the potion, but it seems that my breastbone was shattered along with the armor. The boss’s attack power was just too strong.

I changed my equipment to the spare armor in my inventory and checked my body condition once again.

The door to the boss room is still right in front of me. I can challenge it again if I want to.

But I don’t feel like doing that at all.

There’s no way I can clear that alone. I got everything I could get on this floor, and I still almost died.

Since I’m a solo challenger, this is unavoidable.

**

There’s still a lot of time left before the day ends, but I’m too exhausted.

I returned to the village, bought a change of clothes, and went straight to the inn I usually use.

The clothes I was wearing under the armor were covered in blood, and I don’t know when, but I also pissed my pants. It was understandable.

Anyway, I bought unnecessarily expensive everyday clothes, changed into them, and lay down on the bed. And I habitually opened the open community.

[The Standard Strategy for Clearing the 1st Floor Boss Without a Bus (For Beginners).txt]

The boss strategies for each floor, listed in the community announcements, caught my eye.

This is what I skimmed through before entering the boss room. I thought it would be doable until I saw this.

The general content of the strategy guide is as follows.

As soon as you enter the boss room, the tank draws the boss’s aggro, and the damage dealers quickly kill the Goblin Royal Guard.

If you quickly kill all the Royal Guards that are summoned at the beginning, there’s a long delay until the next summon, so focus fire on the boss during that time to clear the 1st phase.

I thought I could quickly kill the three Royal Guards and deal with the boss because of my high stats, but when I actually fought them, it was completely different.

Since I was alone, the boss’s aggro was fixed on me from the beginning, and the Goblin Royal Guard was more persistent than I thought.

Because of that, I was quickly surrounded, and since the second Royal Guard summoning pattern came around quickly, it was 6 against 1 at the end.

The armor that the Royal Guard is wearing is the biggest problem.

Unlike other goblins, they are armed with heavy armor, so to deal damage, you have to aim for the gaps or destroy the armor itself.

The former is just difficult, and the latter requires changing to a weapon like a mace. And honestly, I don’t think it will work even if I change.

I searched for more information about the 1st-floor boss battle. What caught my eye was the clear records.

Among the various clear records excluding Ranker buses, the one that was defeated with the fewest number of people was a 7-person party. The average level of the party members was around 18.

Considering the time, the strategy must have been well established by then. Even so, seven challengers around level 18 were needed.

I, who reached level 22 and equipped all my gear to almost the highest level, would be much stronger than these challengers, but no matter how strong I am, I’m not 7 times stronger.

It’s the same even if I become a little stronger through job change.

Even if I change jobs right away, skill proficiency and level don’t increase that easily, and I can’t challenge it alone using the existing strategy.

“Fuck, of course I can’t…”

I’m giving all sorts of reasons, but I already made the conclusion a long time ago. I just can’t do it.

I don’t want to go through that terrible pain again. Why should I?

**

While lying on the bed, I wrote a post complaining about my situation in the open community.

[Author: Seo Jinhyuk#2661]

[Title: Newbie is fucked]

(Photo)

I almost died trying to solo the boss today, fuck.

Which region’s tower is this that no one is coming in?

I can’t do anything until another challenger comes lol

– lol idiot why would you solo that

– Because there’s no party, you fuck

– lol what a loner ㅋㅋㅋㅋ just pay for a bus ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

– Do you think there are any buses?

– ? What, where is tower 2661?

– You were always flexing, serves you right lol

– What’s with the 1/1 chat? Which country is this?

People who were already wondering about the server tag #2661 started commenting like crazy, asking if I was really alone.

Anyway, I have plenty of time. I replied to each and every comment asking about the 2661 server.

Maybe it’s because of the flexing I did in the past few days, but the vast majority of people were envious of my monopoly of the tower rather than sympathizing with me.

Even though I’m stuck on the 1st floor because I’m blocked by the boss, it will eventually be resolved when other challengers come in.

Honestly, even though I’m complaining, this is also a form of flexing.

Anyway, I spent the whole day browsing the community like this and fell asleep late at night. I didn’t have anything else to do anyway.

But even after a long time had passed, no other challengers came in.

Time passed meaninglessly like that, and-

[Tower of Trials #2661 (1/1)]

-Before I knew it, half a year had passed.

—–CROW—–