IDWGT 3

Chapter  3

“I tell you, I’ve always had a great interest in the ancient weapons said to have been created during the Age of Magic.”

From the very start of his story, something began to crawl slowly up my spine.

What is this ominous feeling…?

“As you well know, these days every kingdom is scrambling to produce golems. Those golems are also among the ancient weapons first created during the Age of Magic. But golems aren’t truly weapons of the Age of Magic. They’re just fellows that did odd jobs for people. The real deal is something else entirely.”

[Ding! Quest ‘Pantz’s Request Regarding the Strongest Weapon of the Age of Magic’ has been activated.]

Pantz had long harbored a deep interest in magic weapons. Then one day he heard a rumor. Apparently, an object believed to be a component of a magic weapon had appeared in a nearby region.

Pantz wants to verify whether that component is genuine.

“……”

So this was the source of that ominous feeling.

‘Damn it, why another quest like this!’

‘The Secret of the Giant Golem.’ Most of the sub-quests had been like this.

After spending a full two months clearing the Giant Golem’s Secret quest, how much material loss and mental damage had I suffered?

‘Once you’ve stepped on a landmine, that’s enough.’

No matter how hard I tried to look on the bright side, I couldn’t bring myself to accept the quest, and in the end I was about to refuse it.

But Pantz was one step ahead.

“Then I’ll trust you and wait for good news.”

[Ding! Forced quest activated!]

[As the forced quest has been activated, the quest details have been updated.]

[Request of Pantz, Chairman of the Artisans’ Union

Pantz, who has served as chairman of the Blacksmiths’ Union for many years, has secluded himself in a shabby smithy in Talant Castle, devoting himself day and night to researching ancient weapons—his lifelong aspiration. But he has been unable to achieve the results he desires.

Then, upon hearing a rumor about a component used in the strongest magic weapon of ancient times, he desperately seeks it.

Category: Forced Quest

Difficulty: ???

Quest Restriction: From this moment until the quest is completed, all item purchase and repair costs increase threefold.

Upon Success: ???]

‘A forced quest?’

I barely managed to swallow the shock that had risen to my throat.

I’d received special quests a few times before, but this was my first forced quest. That meant it was a rare quest.

What was even more surprising was that Pantz was the chairman of the Artisans’ Union.

But those thoughts circled in my head for only a fleeting moment—my gaze was nailed to the clause about the quest restriction.

“What kind of absurd quest restriction is this?”

Even the repair costs I was paying now were enough to make my back bend, and now they were tripling. That was no different from telling me to quit my dark gamer life.

Now that things had come to this, I had no choice.

If I were to suffer that penalty in full, it would clearly become the greatest crisis of my dark gamer career.

Cold sweat dripped down my back of its own accord, and curses surged up in my throat.

‘Phew… Let me calm down first.’

I hardened my expression seriously and fell deep into thought, but the answer had already been decided.

There’s no game as profitable as Legend World. Therefore, unless I was going to give up my dark gamer life, I had no choice but to complete it.

‘I can only hope it’s not a quest that devours as much time as the last one did—enough to deal a blow to my livelihood.’

As long as it didn’t take too long, it didn’t seem like it would be a big problem.

‘Just when I thought my luck was turning around when the Berserker’s Wings were selling better than their value.’

I forcibly suppressed the irritation rising up. But I couldn’t help it if my expression wouldn’t cooperate.

Still, thinking I should hear more of the story first, I caught my breath and asked Pantz,

“First, could you tell me what this component looks like?”

“Ah, what it looks like?”

When I nodded, he held out his hand toward me. Specifically, he held up his ring finger. But why did his face look so full of malice?

“It’s about this big.”

“……”

For a moment, I was speechless.

Surely he wasn’t telling me to find something the size of a pinky finger in all this vast area?

‘Surely… not.’

But my wish was not granted.

“They say it’s somewhere in the Talant Castle area. Well then, I’ll be going.”

“……”

I was so dumbfounded that I stood there dazed for a while. And eventually I exploded.

“You cursed old man!”

But by then Pantz was already nowhere to be seen. He had fled in advance.

“Damn it, I should have run the moment the word ‘golem’ came up.”

It was a belated regret.

I wanted to chase after him and confront him right away, but I didn’t.

NPCs look no different from humans on the surface, but what they have is not human-like intelligence but artificial intelligence.

That confronting them wouldn’t change anything had already been proven by my encounter with Teddy, the royal court alchemist.

I turned my body around in the smithy with the feeling of carrying a heavy burden on my shoulders.

Then I felt the envious gazes of users pouring over my entire body. They seemed to have noticed that I’d received some special quest.

But it was not welcome at all.

‘Hey, you lot—if you knew the situation I’m in right now, you’d never be able to look at me like that.’

The situation I was in wasn’t just about receiving a quest—it was about having my right to survive threatened by an extremely selfish NPC.

Is this what finding a needle in a desert is like, or finding Mr. Kim in Seoul?

With information that was not merely sparse but virtually nonexistent, I had no choice but to approach the quest from multiple angles.

First, I searched through every building I could enter in Talant Castle, and in case some NPCs might know something, I even talked to NPCs I’d never spoken a word to before, one by one.

“You’re diligent again today.”

“Yak, the apples are delicious today. Take one.”

At some point, NPCs began approaching me on their own, and my familiarity with them rose to the point that some even gave me gifts.

Thus, now there was no NPC in Talant Castle I didn’t know, and no NPC who didn’t know me.

But despite all these efforts, I couldn’t obtain any information whatsoever. Damn it!

“If the NPCs don’t know, I have no choice but to rely on the users.”

Thinking users might possess it, I posted an advertisement on the bulletin board in the central plaza, and on top of that, I posted on every single website where the majority of Talant Castle users were active.

<Title: Looking for an item the size of a finger whose purpose is unknown.

If you have something similar or know of it, please whisper to Yak or contact me by email. I will reward you sufficiently.>

But this too only cost money and yielded no results.

I brought things I’d purchased from users or found through tips to Pantz, but he always just shook his head with an indifferent expression.

“Where do you keep getting these pieces of trash and bringing them to me?”

“……”

“Do it properly. Properly.”

Even after searching like a madman, that damn component of the ancient weapon was not found anywhere in Talant Castle.

With things as they were, I had no choice but to go outside and search, but by then quite a lot of time had already passed, so I couldn’t help but feel impatient.

I barely managed to compose myself.

“Hurry, but don’t miss even the small things.”

Even when walking through the fields, I had to keep my head bowed low in case something had fallen on the ground.

Still, the fields were comfortable. Whenever I entered a forest, I had to frantically move my head up, down, left, and right like a madman, to the point of getting neurosis…

“Uwaaaaaaak!”

I wanted to throw everything away right then and there, but whenever I went to see him, Pantz’s expression—as if sneering, ‘You think a guy like you could find it?’—came to mind, and I gritted my teeth.

So I continued searching the fields like a madman, and thinking monsters might drop it if I hunted them, I went around every hunting ground within the territory labeled as Talant Castle and hunted at least a thousand of each monster type.

Furthermore, for high-level monsters or boss monsters that couldn’t be hunted alone, I even formed party play—something I’d avoided until then—to hunt them.

[You have leveled up.]

Unlike the last quest, I should have been happy that I was leveling up and making money from items dropped in hunting grounds, but I couldn’t. Because every time I hunted, I had to pay an enormous rip-off in equipment repair costs.

No matter how much I struggled, I barely had anything left in my hands.

The quest restriction that tripled all item purchase and repair costs until the quest was completed made me suck my fingers instead of making a living.

Then I realized clearly.

If I couldn’t complete this quest, I really would have to give up my dark gamer life in Legend World.

And so another two months flew by.

“I’ll search until today, and if it doesn’t work out… I have no choice.”

They were two hungry months when I had to swallow tears instead of meals.

Thanks to desperately clinging on, I somehow managed to pay the account fee after subtracting equipment repair costs, but that was the limit.

Like the previous two months, I had to survive each day on one or two packs of ramen.

Since I’m only human, with things as they were, I couldn’t help but feel despondent.

If there had been even a glimmer of hope, I would have held onto it, but this was neither more nor less than digging at empty air.

With the feeling that this was the last time, I began searching the forest where I had logged out the day before.

‘My thirst is especially bad today.’

After wandering through the forest for a while, I was incredibly thirsty. I took out the canteen I’d put in my inventory to quench my thirst, but the water had all run out.

I tried to endure it, but the more I did, the more I craved cool water.

“I really can’t stand it.”

I temporarily gave up the search and first looked for a place to quench my thirst.

After wandering around for a few minutes, a suitable place caught my eye. It was a stream deep in the forest, and the water looked clear at a glance.

I ran to the stream and scooped up water with both hands and drank.

“Kyah, refreshing. Hm? But what’s that?”

As I was about to get up from my spot, something glinted on the opposite side of the stream.

I walked over to the other side to see what it was, and a small piece in the water was reflecting the sunlight.

Without thinking, I picked it up.

Once I took it out, it was a screw-shaped piece.

‘D-don’t tell me!’

In that moment, alarm bells rang in my head.

I held onto it and ran straight toward Talant Castle. And I immediately sought out Pantz’s smithy.

Pantz, who spotted me first, spoke to me.

“You still haven’t given up?”

“Please take a look at this.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, I held out the screw-shaped piece I’d been clutching tightly in my hand.

At first, Pantz accepted it with an indifferent expression, but soon surprise spread across his face.

“Oh, how did you find this? Teddy’s words were true. You’re persistent. Truly persistent!”

[Ding! You have completed the quest ‘Request of Pantz, Chairman of the Artisans’ Union.’]

Pantz gave you the quest without even the slightest expectation. It was because even he thought it was far too absurd a request. In that situation, toward you who completed the quest, he is now assessing you as not merely worthy of awe but a truly relentless fellow.

[The title ‘Tracker of Magic Weapons’ will change to ‘One Who Has Approached the Magic Weapon.’]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[……]

[The quest restriction has been lifted.]

“I-I did it. Uhahahahaha!”

I burst out laughing, unable to hold it in.

I had finally completed a quest that had seemed absolutely impossible.

In this moment, what filled my head was not thoughts of rewards but simply ‘I did it!’

I felt like I might burst into tears from the surging emotions.

‘ I’ve finally finished that damn quest.’