Hardcore Gamer Trapped in a Dead Game

Chapter 4 – Floor 1 – Level 2 Hunter (3)

However, the girl was skeptical.

“If you stick your head out now, you’ll die instantly.”

“What if I only stick out my arm?”

“Then your hand will get blown off.”

That was an interesting reaction.

Unless she was familiar with crossbows, she wouldn’t know such specifics, yet she spoke with absolute certainty.

And I knew she was right.

As soon as I ducked back into cover, I heard the sound of a bolt being reloaded.

Crossbows have stronger draw weight than bows, making them much harder to reload in practice.

I also hadn’t heard the sound of it being set on the ground.

Reloading it while holding it up at that speed meant this was an expert.

Since I had already shown that I could dodge, they wouldn’t let their guard down.

If I stuck my head out again, I’d be dead for real.

Normally, this kind of situation was a checkmate.

Charging straight into a corridor with a skilled shooter lying in wait was impossible without some special advantage.

To be honest, I was mostly bluffing when I suggested it.

If things got too difficult, I was already considering taking a detour—even if it meant running out of time.

I had my own methods to deal with that.

The girl seemed to be deep in thought.

Then she spoke.

“Let’s do it this way.”

“Do what?”

“I’ll block one shot.”

“…What?”

It was a rather ridiculous plan.

She would step out first, drawing their attention.

She was confident she could block one shot.

Then, in the brief window that created, I would shoot and kill them.

“Since they don’t have a rifle or a pistol, you can just fire and hit them before they reload, right?”

She didn’t seem nervous at all—more excited, even.

Could she be lying that this was her first run?

Some people did that.

Until you reached the Kingdom, there was no way to verify someone’s number of runs.

Some people used that to their advantage.

I was one of them.

By the time you’ve hit your 97th run, you learn not to go around telling people.

Just let them believe whatever they want.

“If you’re that confident, why don’t you just take the gun and shoot?”

“I haven’t handled a gun before.”

I looked at her, dumbfounded.

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

“Oh, my family was really strict. Firearms were forbidden.”

The Jung family always came with some ridiculous backstory about being a human weapon.

But banning firearms?

So they were some kind of martial arts clan this time?

Her knife skills and joint locks already hinted at something unusual.

She stared at me and continued.

“You’ve shot plenty of guns before, haven’t you?”

“How do you know that?”

“Are you a draft dodger?”

“What? No— Hey. We use K-2s in the military.”

She tilted her head.

“They don’t give out shotguns?”

“Of course not.”

“But you handle it like it’s second nature. If you’d had a little more time earlier, you would’ve shot first and then rolled away, right?”

The small fry was picking me apart, but…

She was right.

If I had known about the ambush in advance, I definitely would have shot first and then dodged.

In fact, my finger had been on the trigger, about to pull.

But at the last second, I decided it was better not to reveal that I had a shotgun.

It was right at the edge of its effective range, meaning there was a chance I wouldn’t do any damage.

Letting them take cover first would be a problem.

After a hundred years of fighting all sorts of enemies, you learn to calculate countless possibilities in mere moments.

Anyone would, given enough time.

But how did she figure that out?

Once again, the Jung family had raised a remarkable one.

“Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

***

For all exiles, the first floor was tediously familiar.

Every time you died, you were sent back here.

The same old maze.

After spending years here, you learn a few tricks.

Finding the best ambush spot was the easy part.

When life becomes desperate, the first thing humans discard is their conscience and morality.

There’s always a good excuse to justify murder.

After all, even if you kill them, they’ll just wake up in another world, won’t they?

Since it’s not a true death in the real sense, there’s no room for guilt.

The two sharpshooters guarding the staircase near the maze’s center felt the same way.

This was a textbook early-game strategy.

Every living being in the labyrinth was experience points.

Humans were experience points too.

No one could predict how dangerous the trials starting from the second floor would be.

So, squeezing out every possible advantage by farming at every opportunity was, in most cases, the correct decision.

From another perspective, it was simply efficient.

Killing clueless newcomers was far easier than hunting monsters.

And humans yielded more experience points than low-level monsters.

It almost felt like the labyrinth itself encouraged murder.

Even if a few barely lucky stragglers managed to slip in at the last moment, no one would ever find out if they died.

Their reputation wouldn’t take a hit either.

That was why these two had banded together after briefly crossing blades and recognizing each other’s skill.

They shared the same mindset and believed they had found a solid partner for this cycle.

Luck had also been on their side.

Some foolish group had somehow stumbled upon two crossbows and tried to threaten them.

Just the fact that they hesitated to shoot proved they were newbies.

Their clumsy stances were almost pitiful.

Subduing them had been easy—it had happened just moments ago.

They didn’t have many bolts.

They needed to conserve them.

The plan was to remain in ambush until the maze collapsed, hunting down anyone approaching the staircase.

The experience they gathered this way would give them a significant edge on the second floor.

At least, that was what they thought.

“Do you think dodging that shot was just luck?”

“I doubt it.”

They had let their guard down, that much was true.

There weren’t many veteran exiles to begin with, and those with experience tended to move quickly to secure gear.

At this hour, anyone still fumbling around looking for the staircase was usually already wounded—probably with an arrow lodged somewhere in their body.

If they didn’t hurry to the healing spring on the next floor, they wouldn’t survive.

“If it wasn’t luck… would you be confident in dodging a shot like that?”

“I wouldn’t.”

A precisely timed dodge against an unexpected attack.

No skills, no decent stats—such a feat should be impossible on the first floor.

Both fell silent, feeling uneasy.

Even if they combined their years in exile, it wouldn’t total thirty years.

There were rare instances when a veteran who had survived alone for over thirty years was forced to restart after dying.

Such individuals were hardly human anymore.

They were monsters.

Did they mess with the wrong person?

The same thought crossed their minds at the same time.

“No, but… there’s nothing we can do about it right now.”

“Shh. Focus.”

The early stages of this labyrinth were, for the most part, fair.

If you sliced their throat, they died.

If you crushed their heart, they died.

Even just cutting an artery would lead to fatal blood loss.

The two decided to trust in that fact.

The girl slipped out from the corner like a wraith.

She didn’t just peek out—she fully emerged to draw attention.

Yet even then, it was difficult to notice her unless you were looking directly at her.

Her movement was almost ghostly.

I lunged forward the moment she made her move.

I had to get as deep into the shotgun’s effective range as possible and lock onto those bastards.

A dull gunshot.

And almost simultaneously, a crisp metallic ringing sound.

The crossbow bolt had been fired, and the girl had deflected it with her dagger.

I pulled the trigger at almost the same time.

With a loud blast, the one preparing a second shot was sent sprawling backward.

Using the heavy recoil to pivot my arm, I swung the barrel toward the remaining target.

Another shot rang out.

The last one didn’t go down—he had managed to duck behind cover.

But blood splattered.

I got his arm.

For a brief moment, he was out of the fight.

Phew… that actually worked.

Honestly, I had my doubts.

I turned to the girl with a grin, intending to praise her.

She, however, was grimacing and clutching her ears.

“What’s wrong?”

She couldn’t hear me.

Well, neither could I—all I could hear was a sharp ringing in my ears.

Gunfire at close range completely numbs your hearing.

But we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the ringing to subside.

Rush over and finish them off.

A trap was faintly visible in the middle of the hallway.

A type where the floor collapses.

This was an even more perfect ambush spot than I had expected.

Without projectile weapons, it would be tough to survive even if you blocked several bolts.

They must have assumed that all I had was a sword at best.

I leaped over the trap and reloaded as I ran.

Out of breath, but I couldn’t stop.

As soon as I flicked the shotgun to eject the shells, the empty casings dropped.

I shoved in two more rounds and got into a firing stance—about one second.

The guy hiding beyond the corner wouldn’t have fully regained his posture yet either.

I immediately shot the one on the ground.

He had only collapsed, still breathing, but now he was dead.

As I was tallying the experience in my head, the girl following behind me suddenly slapped my back.

She gestured to the shotgun and then to her ears—it seemed like she was telling me to stop shooting.

I nodded and changed my grip.

A three-kilogram lump of metal could be plenty lethal just by swinging it.

As I rounded the corner, a desperate scream pierced through the ringing in my ears.

“I surrender! I surrender! Please, spare me!”

The girl didn’t care.

She reversed her grip on the dagger and prepared to stab down.

I stopped her.

“Hold on a second.”

His expression was strange.

He had completely given up, yet his face showed a contradiction—despair mixed with hope.

This wasn’t a world where life was particularly precious.

Especially not on the first floor.

If he was still acting like this despite that, he must have had another reason.

“How many years have you been here?”

As expected, he answered right away.

“Twelve years.”

“What did you do outside?”

“I was a hunter back in California.”

“If you were a hunter, then it wasn’t just a hobby. What classes have you used?”

“I have a good amount of experience with the Ranger class.”

Not bad.

He must have noticed my gaze softening, as his nervous expression eased a little.

The girl asked curiously.

“You’re not killing him?”

“Do you like killing people?”

“No, but you killed that guy.”

The body of the one hit by the shotgun at close range was not a pleasant sight.

Even the man who had surrendered flinched.

I shook my head.

“That guy didn’t say he was surrendering.”

“…Wow.”

The girl merely mouthed the word in amazement before she sheathed her weapon.

Now that I noticed, she had a holster strapped to her thigh beneath her skirt.

It looked quite nice.

I just wore mine on my waist.

“If you were a hunter, you must know the woods and mountains well?”

“I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but I can tell you’re my senior. I promise I’ll be useful.”

“Alright, you’re in. Let’s go down.”

The middle-aged American had an expression I couldn’t quite read—was he relieved to be alive or just dumbfounded?

The girl spoke on his behalf.

“Isn’t it too easy to get accepted?”

I scratched my head.

“The safest people around here are the ones who are scared enough to surrender first.”

“…That’s a harsh way to put it, but I think you’re right.”

The man, who had quickly started bandaging his bleeding arm, spoke cautiously.

He was clearly afraid of being abandoned.

The girl still looked confused.

I elaborated.

“Sticking with a veteran exile drastically increases your chances of survival. And until you get what you want, it’s not easy to betray them either.”

“Even so, I’ve never seen anyone get accepted this easily.”

The man muttered as if he had even forgotten his pain.

“I don’t sweat the small stuff.”

In this world, a little luck—good or bad—could get you killed in an instant.

If saving time was the goal, then this was the only way.

How many runs had I lost, despite being meticulous?

There were no traps between the ambush site and the stairs.

The hunter briefly paid respects to his fallen comrades and gathered whatever gear he could.

Unfortunately, the crossbow of the dead guy had been shattered by the shotgun pellets.

Even birdshot could easily wreck something made of wood.

Early-game gear had low durability anyway.

Before we descended the stairs, the girl whispered to me.

“You’re going to explain what all this ‘exile’ stuff means, right?”

Come to think of it, she had been following me around without knowing anything.

Her combat prowess had made me forget.

But there was a different reason behind her whispering.

I caught her meaning and answered.

“Don’t worry. Since you joined my party first, I’ll rank you above the hunter.”

“How do you read my mind so well?”

The high school girl grinned.

Party hierarchy was definitely important.

It was the same in online games.