I Gain Infinite Gold Just By Waiting-Chapter 245: Episode 50_The Demons’ Banquet (1)

1.

When ordinary players chose a dungeon, they usually stood at a crossroads.

Repetition, or challenge.

Most players understood a simple truth: behind the spectacular results and flashy talents of any protagonist was a boring, repetitive process.

Even those who didn’t know it at first would learn it naturally once they entered the world of dungeons and lived a little.

There were no results without effort.

Repetition was the process, the foundation for every challenge.

In a reality without cash shops or other game-like mechanics to shorten the grind, the only variable players could control was themselves.

They gathered EXP, leveled up, equipped better items, and prepared for the next “challenge.”

Once they were perfectly prepared, they would take on a thrilling challenge. And upon success, they would return to the repetitive grind to prepare for the next one.

In a way, even the challenge itself could be seen as just another boring repetition.

You got a bit stronger and saw a few different patterns, but in the end, the final goal was always to clear the dungeon.

Even so, the reason players were willing to throw away their real lives, to live and die in dungeons, grinding with everything they had, was the reward that awaited them.

Rewards!

Though it was the same endless cycle of repetition and challenge, the rewards grew larger and larger.

And since no one lived in a vacuum, society’s perception of those rewards also changed, allowing successful players to enter a world they could have never glimpsed otherwise.

That was why players challenged themselves.

And for that challenge, they repeated the grind.

The most important thing in repetition was efficiency.

Time and money.

Those two resources had to be conserved as much as possible.

Some players didn’t care, but most knew that if they didn’t, there was no point in “repeating” at all.

Six years had proven it.

Wasting time and money during the repetition phase was worse than simply throwing yourself into a life-or-death challenge from the start.

It was a competition, which made it all the more true.

The more you slowed down and got complacent, the more others pulled ahead.

If you stood still, you fell behind.

Thus, players who focused on “repetition” preferred fast, easy dungeons.

Naturally, dungeons with a lower difficulty than what they could actually handle, or at most an equal difficulty, were the most popular.

Furthermore, they were picky about the clear conditions.

They had to be obviously easy at a glance.

Any dungeon that might eat up even a little extra time was unsuitable for “repetition.”

Ironically, the more efficient a dungeon was, the higher its price climbed.

Even so, those dungeons sold steadily because players chose to sacrifice potential profit in exchange for saving as much of their time and money as possible.

Supply and demand.

A market that maintained a reasonable equilibrium.

Once they had saved up enough, players ready for a “challenge” would make their choice.

They chose conditions that were the exact opposite of what they had picked so far.

The maximum difficulty they could possibly attempt.

And they prioritized the highest-grade dungeon.

Because it was a one-time challenge.

There were no second chances.

In reality, unlike in a game, failure in a “challenge” didn’t lead to a new beginning; it led to the end.

After enduring the grind to finally earn a chance to challenge, they couldn’t afford any regrets, so they aimed as high as they possibly could.

The next thing they considered was safety.

High risk, high return—but a success rate that was too low was no good.

Naturally, as they tried to raise the success rate, the dungeon’s difficulty would have to drop.

They couldn’t have both.

So, the compromise that emerged was “specialization.”

Fortunately, dungeons came with countless concepts and traits.

There were innumerable combinations of clear conditions and dungeon types, and the fact that players could check those in advance was an absolute advantage.

A difficulty they could challenge.

And a concept choice that would lower that difficulty.

Over six years of players tackling dungeons, this had become the standard formula for “challenges.”

There was no other method.

Or rather, even if there was, it wasn’t recognized.

For an average player, no method offered a higher reward than satisfying both conditions simultaneously.

Even if such a method existed, in most cases, one of the two conditions would be off.

For example, successfully clearing a dungeon with a perfect conceptual counter meant it wasn’t the greatest difficulty you could truly handle. Conversely, if you picked the highest possible difficulty, it implied that a better conceptual matchup could have pushed your limits even further, breaking the formula.

Depending on who you asked, the interpretation might differ, but either way, it was hard to deny that this was an efficient formula, given that it had been accepted as a kind of “law” until now.

And in that sense, it was clear that Kim Buja was ready to “challenge.”

—Wow. This is literally the best setup.

—An 8-star Legendary dungeon with a “demon” concept. It’s perfect for testing that new item he just got.

—Isn’t the difficulty going to be a bit low? The “Heavenly Earrings” options are busted. That’s basically a 9-star Legendary item.

—Sure, but you have to factor in that it’s an 8-star Legendary dungeon. Even if his items are that crazy, he’s still only level 52. You can’t ignore the level gap.

—Yeah. Looking at the formula, he’s not deviating from it at all. It’s dead on.

The most difficult dungeon currently in existence.

The beginning of a path no one had ever set foot on.

Even Fly hadn’t attempted this place.

He was going to challenge it.

Who would dare say it wasn’t the highest difficulty?

His low level, which might have been a hindrance, was perfectly offset by the “Heavenly Earrings” he had just revealed.

A “concept” that filled in the gaps.

All that was left for Kim Buja, equipped with an item that was a perfect counter to evil, was the “challenge” itself.

—You think that one item is enough?

—Who knows. If he’s going for it, it must be.

—Yeah. Like we’d be able to see the angles anyway. You’d have to be Fly-level to see that. Let’s just watch.

There was more than enough support for his challenge.

Whether they hated Kim Buja or had never cared about him, the appearance of a player who had stolen a “world first” that had always belonged to Fly was bound to stir up curiosity.

On top of that, people knew from his track record that Kim Buja was very different from the countless reckless players who had thrown themselves at “first clears” in the past.

—I’ve got a feeling he’s gonna pull it off.

—If he clears this, doesn’t that make Kim Buja world #1 instead of Fly?

—Come on, he’s still got a long way to go to catch up to Fly’s level.

—Honestly, who cares about level? The guy who clears dungeons better is #1.

Because of that, most of the discussion wasn’t about whether he could clear it, but about when, how, and how fast he would do it.

* * *

“Phew.”

He had been incredibly selective.

He had not hesitated to come all the way to the United States to enter a dungeon that fit his conditions.

The world was overflowing with dungeons, but finding a high-level one that perfectly matched his desired concept had been an exhaustive search that led him all the way here.

And even then, he had almost failed to find it.

’The conditions are absolutely perfect.’

Most dungeons weren’t built around such a clean, singular concept.

In normal dungeons, various types of monsters were usually mixed together to maintain an ecosystem.

Even if the environment dictated the types of monsters that appeared, it was almost impossible for every single one of them to share the same attribute.

That was even more true for high-level dungeons.

There were plenty of monsters that overcame the fatal weaknesses of their race, and for them, attributes were just something that made certain enemies a bit more annoying to deal with.

[Clear Conditions]

☆ Enter the Demons’ Banquet

☆ Kill 2,000 demons

☆ Prevent the birth of the Demon King

☆ Kill 10 demon army commanders

☆ Achieve MVP of the Demons’ Banquet

☆ Destroy 200 Sources of Evil

☆ Kill 10,000 monsters

☆ Survive for 20 days

▷ This is a Legendary-grade special dungeon. Dungeon penalties will be applied.

In that sense, this dungeon’s concept was as pure as it got.

A dungeon with nothing but demons.

For Kim Buja, who was wearing the “Heavenly Earrings,” that meant he was getting a flat 15% boost to both attack and defense against every monster in the dungeon.

Even so, he let out a sigh.

It was perfect, but precisely because it was so perfect, there was a penalty to match.

No dungeon ever existed with conditions that only favored the player.

If there were conditions that favored the player, then the dungeon monsters would also receive at least some advantage in return, even if it wasn’t perfectly equivalent.

In the “Demons’ Banquet,” that advantage took the form of it being a special dungeon.

’Is an 8-star Legendary special dungeon a good thing or a bad thing?’

The monsters’ stats wouldn’t be boosted by more than 15% or anything like that.

A special dungeon was, literally, a dungeon built around a single concept.

Its structure and environment were simply designed to be unfavorable and difficult for players, but that didn’t mean it suddenly added new penalties that hadn’t existed before or tacked on extra clear conditions.

However, as the eight interconnected clear conditions suggested, the penalties would likely be just as intertwined, making it anything but easy.

On top of that, whether it was because of the nature of an 8-star Legendary dungeon or because the level gap was so large, the penalties weren’t even revealed. He would have to go in to find out.

’Can I do this?’

He honestly believed his stats and skills were more than enough, which was why he had decided to challenge it.

Even compared to Fly, he could now confidently say he was no longer inferior.

Still, he hesitated. He didn’t believe he was better than Fly.

It was a challenge even Fly had not taken on.

He had seen a sliver of possibility and chosen this path to reach the Demon King beyond it.

“Let’s go.”

“Kkyu!”

As always, he might have regrets, but he wouldn’t stop.

He would face it head-on and crash into it.

Then a path would open.

“If this doesn’t work, it means I can’t beat the Demon King either. So instead of dying to him in some bullshit way, I’d rather just die anticlimactically in a dungeon.”

A massive gate loomed before him, so huge it seemed to reject the very idea of human approach.

It was not one of the small, common doors scattered everywhere, but a gate that truly looked like a portal to hell, with darkness rippling across its surface.

The darkness was so deep it felt like it could swallow everything around it, and even though it didn’t actually exert any force, the people guarding it couldn’t bring themselves to get too close, keeping a certain distance at all times.

It was like when he had entered the 7-star Legendary dungeon, but the pressure and tension were even greater now. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

It was just a difference of one star.

He had cleared the 7-star Legendary dungeon just fine, and he had come this far to clear the 8-star Legendary dungeon safely, too.

Vmmm—!

He stroked the “Heavenly Earrings,” which reacted to the darkness, and stepped into the dungeon.

Flash!

Even though he had walked in of his own accord, it felt like the dungeon had swallowed him whole. As they stared at the gate, which had left no trace of him behind, people began to move quickly.

—Are we getting another live stream this time?

—Will it start inside the dungeon?

—Yeah, Kim Buja can do that.

—We’ll be waiting.

They didn’t want to miss a single second of the moment a new Chapter of history was written.

* * *