Ch.247[Chapter 247] Greedy Things

“Wasteland H3, Snow Field A2, Ancient Castle D11…”

The miner, wearing gloves, held the map and tried to memorize as many farming locations as possible.

The process was extremely tedious and gave her a headache, but she was grinning with bloodshot eyes.

It was only natural.

Each of these locations was information, and that information was incredibly valuable.

Depending on the negotiation, prices might vary, but each location recorded here was worth at least 30,000 Gacha Stones.

With approximately 40 farming locations marked on this map, that was at least 1.2 million Gacha Stones.

That amount would be enough to pay off her debts and live comfortably for years.

Just this once, if she committed this one illegal act and wiped her hands clean afterward, who would know?

Thinking this, the miner put the map back down.

Now that she had memorized all the material farming locations, she needed to eliminate any evidence that she had seen it.

She had worn gloves, so there would be no fingerprints, and no police officer crazy enough would come all the way here to investigate.

If she just returned the map to its original place, it would essentially be the perfect crime.

With that thought, the miner returned the map to its original position and carefully took a few steps back.

“Now I just need to leave through the secret passage—”

Just as speed runners had their own maps, data miners also shared map information among themselves.

The data miners’ maps only showed parts of Glitchburg, but they had one advantage over the speed runners’ maps.

They showed the locations of backdoors.

Data miners could freely travel between Gachaland and Glitchburg through these backdoors.

Of course, data mining was illegal, so coders and police were always searching for these backdoors, but data miners would never reveal their existence to others, even if it meant being exiled.

Naturally, the miner had her own backdoor.

It was a bit far from where she was now, but she thought it would be fine and started humming happily due to her unexpected gain.

Until she bumped into a soft black wall.

“…What is this?”

The miner had hit her face against a soft black wall that hadn’t been there moments ago.

It was very soft, so she wasn’t hurt, but she frowned at the sudden appearance of the black wall.

The direction of the black wall was the quickest path to the backdoor.

“No choice. I’ll have to go around.”

The miner sighed and turned her head.

She planned to take a detour, even if it took a bit longer.

But soon she felt something was wrong.

She could see the black wall in the direction she had turned as well.

“…Did the terrain suddenly change?”

The miner looked around suspiciously.

No matter where she looked, she saw soft black walls.

After circling around three times, she finally realized her situation.

She was now trapped, surrounded by these soft black walls.

“I-I need to find a way out.”

She raised her pickaxe and struck the soft wall.

But the wall was just soft; it didn’t break or crack.

“Th-the floor? The floor should still be okay.”

In a panic, the miner violently struck the floor with her pickaxe.

Of course, even if she broke through the floor, there would be no escape route.

Below the floor of Glitchburg lay all kinds of bugs and errors.

The miner’s equipment was too inadequate to break through those bugs and errors.

But consumed by the thought of escaping, she mercilessly struck the floor.

And when the floor tiles finally broke and revealed what was underneath, the miner could only fall back in shock.

Even below the floor was filled with the same soft black substance.

“W-why is this happening to me? Who has lived as righteously as I have!”

She threw her safety helmet to the ground in anger.

All her escape attempts had been blocked, and she suddenly felt rage building up.

Of course, the helmet she threw bounced off the soft black substance and returned to her hand.

It was like a magic trick, but the miner was too distressed to notice this amazing experience.

“…Wait, is this getting closer?”

The miner quickly touched the soft wall.

There had clearly been half a step’s distance between her and the wall just moments ago, but now that distance had definitely decreased.

“A-am I going to be crushed to death…?”

Only then did the miner become terrified.

Death in Gachaland wasn’t a big deal, but in Glitchburg, it was different.

Experiencing death here meant exposing the resurrection system to Glitchburg’s errors and bugs.

If something went wrong with the resurrection system, there was a high chance of permanent disability, and in the worst case, one might have to live in eternal pain, neither dead nor alive.

Of course, there was a very small chance that the resurrection system would work properly and she would revive normally, but she didn’t want to bet her future on such a low probability.

“N-no.”

The miner now realized that the space surrounded by these black walls was only about 10 square meters.

Of course, with the black substance rising through the hole in the floor, it might actually be even smaller.

In the face of approaching death, the miner completely lost her mind and screamed like a monkey.

“Nooooooooo!”

Of course, her screams would not echo through Glitchburg.

…

“This is annoying.”

Sir Dominic, hanging from a rock in the middle of this giant spiral stepping stones, glanced to the side.

There was a void-corrupted monkey throwing something, but whether because the surroundings were dark or because Sir Dominic’s eyesight wasn’t very good, the projectile wasn’t clearly visible.

The barely visible projectile, when it hit, created a tremendous shockwave that pushed the person backward with such force that even a glancing blow meant starting over from the beginning.

Sir Dominic knew this fact well.

This was already his 13th attempt.

Having learned the monkey’s pattern during his previous 12 attempts, Sir Dominic closed his eyes and counted the timing internally.

One, two, throw, one, two, three, throw, one, two, three, four, five, six, throw, one, throw.

Now.

Sir Dominic quickly climbed onto the rock and ran toward the next one.

The gap between these rocks was particularly wide, so Sir Dominic focused intently and jumped with all his might.

During his previous 12 attempts, Sir Dominic had tried to cross this gap about 3 times.

Each time, he realized that his jumping skills were just barely insufficient, and concluded that a standard jump wouldn’t work.

Instead, Sir Dominic came up with a new method to jump across.

And now was the time to try that new method.

The void-corrupted monkey threw something.

While in mid-air after jumping from the rock, Sir Dominic quickly checked the trajectory of the object.

Even up close, the trajectory was barely visible, but Sir Dominic suddenly stretched out his arms and legs forward.

Like a long jumper.

The object barely passed behind Sir Dominic’s back.

For anyone else, it would have passed without touching their back.

However, Sir Dominic happened to have a shield on his back, and the object hit the shield, releasing a shockwave.

Riding the shockwave, Sir Dominic managed to reach the next rock, though his landing was a bit unstable.

Sir Dominic’s new method had succeeded.

“Congratulations, Sir Dominic. We’re halfway there now. Let’s keep going!”

Unryu Hime, agile as a kunoichi, had already passed through this section before Sir Dominic and encouraged him.

“This seems harder than anything I’ve done before.”

Sir Dominic sighed and looked down.

Far below, he could see the starting point.

Sir Dominic then looked up.

The exit seemed slightly closer than the starting point, but it was still high up.

“Truly, I never want to experience this again.”

Unryu Hime unconsciously nodded at Sir Dominic’s words.

Unlike the pleasant Gachaland, Glitchburg seemed to have something that made people tired.

“Go ahead. I’ll catch my breath for a moment—”

Sir Dominic suggested that Hime go ahead.

But he couldn’t finish his sentence due to a sudden vibration.

“W-what’s happening?”

Hime barely maintained her balance on the rock as she spoke to Sir Dominic.

“I don’t know. Let’s wait until the vibration stops!”

Sir Dominic lay flat on the ground due to the increasing vibration, waiting for it to end.

The vibration continued for quite some time.