Sand Pit. A Gold-tier wizard skill.
It creates a quicksand pit in front of the user, trapping anyone who steps into it.
Typically, area-of-effect crowd control (CC) skills are highly valued.
This is because they can alter the tides of battle and create overwhelmingly advantageous situations for allies.
However, this particular skill was different.
Its evaluation was ambiguously poor, making it an utterly questionable ability.
[Title: Why Sand Pit is Bad for Newbies]
Posted by: Refrigerator
Pros: Area-of-effect slow. Low mana consumption.
Cons: No ally-foe distinction.
This single line explains everything. Game over.
If you disagree, you’re wrong.
– Pikachu: If you use that skill, our team’s tank gets snared too, you know.
It’s a foolish skill that binds the feet of our allies who are supposed to be tanking for us, you see.
If you don’t want to get cursed out by the tank even after dealing the most damage, it’s best not to use it, understood?
– Magic is Firepower: To fall for something just because it’s Gold-tier, you really are a newbie.
Only then did the entire situation become perfectly clear.
An area-of-effect crowd control skill that rendered even allies completely incapacitated.
In a tower raid, where party play was highly recommended, there could be no worse skill than this.
Yet, I still found myself perplexed.
Their initial premise, after all, had been fundamentally flawed.
– ㅇㅇ: But I’m going to solo anyway, so it doesn’t matter, right?
– Magic is Firepower: That only works on the lower floors.
What did you think after facing ten goblins?
Honestly, didn’t you wish you had a sturdy tank to stand in front of you?
At those words, I was momentarily speechless.
The perilous moments from the tutorial vividly replayed before my eyes.
Eight bullets, crafted with my utmost concentration.
If I hadn’t been able to control them, or if even a single one had missed its mark…
The mere thought of it conjured a truly horrific outcome.
I readily conceded.
– ㅇㅇ: That… that’s true.
– Magic is Firepower: But the CC skill you use would also affect that tank. Don’t you understand that?
– ㅇㅇ: That makes sense.
Despite my agreement, my true thoughts remained stubbornly opposed.
‘A tank? Tanks are only needed when your damage output is insufficient, aren’t they? If I can just kill everything in one hit, why would I need a tank?’
‘I’m going to be a pure damage wizard.’
‘My party won’t need a tank.’
Their logic was flawlessly perfect.
However, this only held true under the premise that one fought in their manner.
The method of application I envisioned diverged significantly from their conventional wisdom.
“But it would be pointless to try and explain it here.”
I had no intention of elaborating on my plan at length.
Doing so would only result in a tedious and pedantic response.
“Besides, there’s a 100% chance of a debate breaking out.”
Moreover, I had no confidence in winning a keyboard battle against A-rank and S-rank wizards.
At best, I would be dismissed as a mere rookie and ignored.
I quietly closed the browser window.
Proof, after all, was best demonstrated through action, not words.
****
One could challenge the Tower only once per day.
Accustomed to a life with reversed days and nights, I awoke again the next day at dawn, while everyone else was still asleep.
Rising in the unfamiliar body of a girl, I began preparations that differed from the previous day’s.
This time, I had no intention of rushing in haphazardly as I had before.
‘They said that only goblins appear from the first to the fifth floor, but… my difficulty setting is different.’
The first thing I gathered was sand, which had been the biggest problem during my last attempt.
During the tutorial, lacking any pre-prepared sand, I hastily disassembled my own fingers to use as bullets.
As a result, I had only ten bullets at my disposal.
This number was woefully insufficient to face ten goblins.
‘Now that I think about it again, it was truly terrifying. If even one shot had missed…’
To hit every single bullet in an actual combat situation without any practice—it was sheer luck, no matter how I thought about it.
I had no intention of repeating such a foolish mistake this time.
I securely fastened a small pouch of sand to my waist.
It was filled with soft sand I had scooped from the school playground.
‘Well, if my plan goes smoothly, I won’t even need to use this directly.’
Next in importance was the camera.
I firmly secured the body cam I had purchased online to my shoulder.
Last time, I had been too preoccupied to capture a proper proof shot.
All I had managed was a hastily taken photo of the scoreboard upon returning to the white room after the tutorial.
I secretly regretted missing the scene of that gruesome goblin massacre.
‘I can’t upload it to the Hunter Gallery because of my personal information, but it should be fine in the Wizard Gallery.’
As that thought crossed my mind, a chilling question abruptly surfaced.
Those people in the Wizard Gallery. Why were they being so exceptionally kind to me?
Was it merely because we were both wizards?
Or were they simply delighted by a rare newbie, one of only five in Korea?
‘No way.’
I let out a mirthless chuckle.
Having spent a decade navigating all sorts of online communities and observing every conceivable type of person, I knew better.
I was not so naive as to blindly trust people’s goodwill.
On the internet, unprovoked kindness was either a scam or merely bait for something far greater.
There was undoubtedly something I wasn’t aware of.
Some benefit that accrued to them.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
The important thing was to leverage their goodwill without being swayed by it.
‘One thing they said is definitely true.’
I must become strong. Overwhelmingly strong.
Strong enough, at least, that other Hunters or even the nation itself could not dare to trifle with me.
As Beetle had advised, I needed to feign ignorance until I became an A-rank Hunter acknowledged by all.
According to information I’d gleaned from the gallery, the benchmark for an A-rank Hunter seemed to be whether one could clear the 20th floor of the Tower.
Until then, I would endure and persevere.
‘Right, since I drew a golden spoon class (TL Note: A Korean slang term, ‘geumsujeo jigeop,’ referring to a highly advantageous or ‘born with a silver spoon’ type of class in a game.), I should at least aim for that.
…Then I’ll become a gallery celebrity (TL Note: A Korean slang term, ‘gallery nameudae,’ referring to a well-known or influential user in an online forum or ‘gallery’), and live doing whatever I want.’
As I gradually climbed, what would life be like once I reached S-rank?
No, more accurately, how were the current S-ranks living?
A sudden curiosity stirred within me.
I opened the gallery app on my phone.
‘I wonder if they’re still talking about me?’
I accessed the Hunter Gallery.
Unfortunately, my story had been pushed down and disappeared within a day.
The trending topic in the gallery had shifted to Demigod, the strongest Hunter on Earth.
‘Wait, after reading it, this is also about me, isn’t it?’
[Title: Demigod is absolutely furious about losing 1st place lolol]
[Title: Demigod’s current beaming expression]
[Title: Thumbs up if Demigod is a water rocket lol]
The posts were all screenshots of Demigod’s SNS account.
I read Demigod’s SNS posts with a satisfied smile.
His account was plastered with furious posts, written at one-minute intervals.
[Show yourself, coward. Don’t hide behind anonymity.]
[I will find and crush the bug that dared to challenge the realm of God.]
[Whichever country it is, it’s outrageous.]
[It must be a Hunter secretly trained by a nation.]
[China? Is it China again?]
[I don’t know what method they used, but it’s clearly a bug or something. Their real skill must be pathetic.]
[No one can be stronger than me.]
– Demigod is raging lol
– So pathetic, Migod…
However, the public’s reaction to Demigod’s fury was utterly cold.
No one was taking his side.
There were even some of Demigod’s fans openly trying to dissuade him.
– DemiGoD, I understand your feelings, but it’s only the first floor, so please calm down for a moment…
But he absolutely refused to stop his SNS activity.
The reply to the concerned comment was as follows:
[How dare a mere nobody like you ‘order’ me?]
“He’s truly an insane attention-seeker…”
I clicked my tongue and closed the window.
Seeing someone even more addicted to SNS than myself felt like a form of mirror therapy.
“I must not become like that…”
As I walked through the empty predawn streets, doing something so pointless, I eventually saw the silhouette of the colossal Tower in the distance.
A pillar of absolute blackness, seemingly swallowing all the city lights.
Without hesitation, I stepped inside.
[Entering Tower 2F (EXTREME).]
[Moving to the designated location in 60 seconds.]
With a familiar sensation of weightlessness, the scenery before my eyes changed.
The same damp cave as yesterday. It was the second floor of the Tower, a space that felt like an extension of the tutorial.
‘Everyone said that from the second floor onwards, the number of monsters doubles.’
I remembered seeing a post that said four goblins appeared on the second floor in Hard difficulty.
Therefore, I had to assume at least twenty monsters would burst forth for me, playing on Extreme difficulty.
“Ker-lek!”
Sure enough, after a moment, the unpleasant ‘ker-lek-ker-lek’ sounds peculiar to goblins began to echo.
It wasn’t the sound of just one or two.
The number of gleaming eyes in the darkness far exceeded twenty, even thirty.
But there was no worry.
My heart was strangely tranquil.
Instead, an exhilarating thrill enveloped my entire body.
“Sand Pit.”
I cast the spell as prepared.
The cave floor before me instantly transformed into a massive sand pit, several meters in radius.
“Ker-rer-lek!”
The first few goblins that rushed forward immediately got their feet stuck in the sand and began to halt.
Those following behind suffered the same fate.
The creatures slowly advanced, tangled amongst themselves.
I severed my right hand and threw it into the Sand Pit.
The hand, now turned to sand, blended seamlessly with the pit.
Soon, I could feel my senses becoming shared with the Sand Pit.
It was as if the Sand Pit had become my hand.
The goblins felt like ants crawling on my hand.
“Now, shall we begin the experiment?”
