Chapter 13: The Forum Delivers
After successfully posting,
Walfred witnessed the power of 300 coins firsthand.
[Whoa! 300 coins!]
[What kind of question is worth that much?]
[Gotta at least read it.]
The moment the post went up, the view count skyrocketed and comments exploded. Then a few comments threw questions his way.
[Is your niece a hunter too?]
[If she’s Awakened, her survival odds are a lot higher.]
Walfred replied.
[FrozenMan]: She wasn’t a hunter before the Antarctica gate liberation. I don’t know about now.
The mood immediately cooled.
[Hmm, if you still haven’t heard from her...]
[Ninety-nine percent chance she’s already gone.]
[Might be easier on yourself to just give up.]
A stream of negative comments, one after another.
Walfred bit down hard on his lip.
He’d braced himself for this to some degree, but hearing it spelled out like that made everything go dark before his eyes.
Then, right at that moment:
[I’m in Key West right now. Want me to look into it for you?]
A comment that made his eyes light up.
A hunter in Key West was offering to check whether Jenna was alive and even track her down? Filled with hope, Walfred moved to type a reply.
But at that very second,
a flood of comments poured in like a tidal wave.
[Oh great, that scammer’s back again.]
[Hey, OP. Don’t fall for it.]
[That guy’s infamous around here. Says he’ll find your person, then just pockets the reply coins and disappears.]
[He swindled 10 coins off me. Son of a bitch.]
"Oh..."
The hope that had swelled like a balloon deflated in an instant. A moment later, a comment from the hunter who’d been called out as a scammer appeared.
[SummerBlossom]: Cry about it lol
"That rotten bastard..."
Walfred’s face twisted with fury.
Playing games with someone desperate to find their family. Seething with rage, he was burning the hunter’s nickname into his memory when,
suddenly, the tide of comments began to shift.
[Hold on, wait a sec.]
[Their last known location was Key West, though.]
[Huh? Oh yeah, you’re right.]
[If it’s Key West, that’s a whole different story.]
[For real. Survival odds are way better there than on the mainland.]
Key West. Once the hunters finally noticed the region where Jenna had been, they started changing their tune one by one. Catching on, Walfred quickly asked:
[FrozenMan]: What do you mean by that?
[Elma’s in Key West, you know.]
[Don’t tell me you don’t know who Elma is?]
[If he Awakened recently, he might not.]
[Still, she’s S-rank. Not knowing her doesn’t make sense. How many S-ranks does this country even have?]
Elma. An S-rank hunter with a water attribute.
Injuries from a previous battle had kept her out of the Antarctica gate operation. She’d gone to Key West to recover, and then got stranded there.
"So now she’s known as the hunter leading the largest group of survivors in Key West..."
Hearing that an S-rank hunter, someone evaluated as a strategic-level asset, was managing the survivors there, Walfred felt hope stir inside him once more.
If Jenna had been lucky enough to make it into that shelter, she was definitely alive. Walfred typed another reply.
[FrozenMan]: If I wanted to contact this Elma, how would I go about it?
[Obviously you’d have to go to Key West.]
[Or you could just camp out here and wait.]
[She shows up on this board every now and then.]
[Her username is ’Aqua.’]
[If you set reply coins in the thousands and write a post, it’ll get pinned to the top for a while. Try reaching out to her that way.]
And just like that, he had something useful.
Elma appeared on this board from time to time. So the advice was to put up a post with a four-figure coin reward and catch her attention.
Walfred put the plan into action.
[Title]: Elma, please get in touch.
[Author]: FrozenMan
[Reward]: 2,000 coins
He invested over half his remaining coins.
Naturally, the comment section went wild. Walfred scrolled through the comments one by one, but the username ’Aqua,’ the one Elma supposedly used, was nowhere to be found.
’All I can do now is wait.’
After stepping away from his second post,
Walfred decided to pay out the reward to the hunters who had provided information on his first one.
[Please select the coin recipients.]
[Recipients: 1 to 10]
At least he didn’t have to pick just one. Walfred selected the six hunters who had given him the most critical information.
[Reply coins are being distributed.]
[50 coins each have been awarded.]
The instant the system notification faded,
the comment section erupted in cheers.
[Wow! 50 coins, nice!]
[Thanks, I’ll put it to good use.]
[That just covered a week’s worth of food for me.]
[I hope you find your niece!]
One comment in particular caught his eye.
’Food?’
Walfred tilted his head.
50 coins covered a week’s worth of food?
What did that even mean?
Puzzled, he left a reply asking about it, and a helpful answer came back shortly.
[Once you hit Level 40, the [Shop] and [Exchange] features unlock. You can use coins to buy water, food, or even skill books there.]
[A packed lunch usually runs about 10 coins.]
[But how does someone who drops thousands of coins on a single post not know this stuff?]
[Yeah, good point actually.]
There were skeptical comments too, of course, but Walfred ignored them. Instead, he zeroed in on the fact that the shop and exchange features would be unlocked.
Being able to buy supplies at a shop or exchange with coins was an enormous advantage.
’I need to level up fast.’
A new goal had taken shape.
Eyes gleaming, Walfred went ahead and asked about how to earn coins as well.
When he asked whether you could only get coins from killing Elite Monsters, the hunters who’d just received 50 coins were more than happy to spill everything they knew.
Here was the breakdown:
[Coin Drop Rate Summary]
[F-rank Monster: 10%]
[E-rank Monster: 50%]
[D-rank Monster: 100%]
[Elite Monster: Scales with rank, large drops]
’Ah, so that’s why no coins dropped when I first fought those Snow Wolves.’
At a 10% drop rate, you’d typically have to kill around ten of them just for a chance at getting any coins.
Every last question answered.
"All right."
He’d gathered more than enough information.
Walfred checked the comments on his second post one more time, confirmed that no one named ’Aqua’ had responded, and logged out of the community.
’What I need to do going forward...’
Wait for Elma, the leader of the Key West survivor group, to reply to his post under the name ’Aqua.’ And reach Level 40 to unlock the shop and exchange features.
With those two goals etched firmly in his mind, Walfred quietly closed his eyes. He wanted to get at least a little rest before morning came.