I Gain Infinite Gold Just By Waiting-Chapter 239: Episode 48_Money Spirit Bomb (4)

5.

’At this point, could I just sneak up and ambush Fly and still win?’ he wondered.

That was how good the “Cursed Sand Desert” armor set was. The expensive Stealth Potion he had bought with gold did its job so well that he had no trouble slipping past not only Fly but also his guild members without being detected.

’I’ve definitely gotten stronger.’

Things would be different if he actually closed in for a fight, but either way, the feeling was strange and new.

Watching them fight also gave him a chance to gauge whether he could hold his own against them.

—Can’t you just team up with them?

—Is he really going to solo this?

Many in the chat were telling him to join up with Fly, but he flatly ignored them.

Even if they were going to join forces at some point, now was not the time.

At the very least, he needed to identify the Sand Castle’s boss, see if it had its own lord, and determine if he could solo it. Only after confirming all that would he consider coming back to team up.

“I’ll just let him keep grinding hard until then. Since it looks like they’re about done here, I’ll just hurry and...”

He wandered around, quietly searching for the staircase to the next floor.

It wasn’t easy.

The hunting grounds were wide open, with a fair amount of varied terrain and obstacles, so he had to roam around quite a bit to find the hidden staircase.

On top of that, he couldn’t risk getting caught in the crossfire and having his stealth broken, so he had to make a wide detour around them, which only delayed him further.

By the time Fly’s guild had mostly wrapped up their hunt—

—Isn’t that it?

—Yeah, there it is.

He finally found it, thanks to his viewers pointing it out.

“Damn.”

The staircase rising toward the sky had been hidden by the battle’s debris.

It was right next to the Fly Guild, tucked against a small hill, so he only found it after circling all the way around.

He fell silent.

Either way, he had found it. All he had to do now was go up.

That was it, yet he swallowed nervously for no reason.

It felt like... even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, he still had to sneak past without getting caught.

He leaned into the feeling, moving with exaggerated care.

—Hahahaha, why’s he walking like that?

—Can’t he just say hi and go on ahead?

—I’m getting nervous too. If he gets caught, they’re gonna hunt him down, right?

Slipping in among the Fly Guild members, who had finished hunting and were sitting down to rest, wasn’t difficult.

Maybe they weren’t on guard against stealthed monsters, or maybe the gold-bought Stealth Potion was just that good, but even when he got relatively close, none of them glanced his way or seemed to sense anything was off.

He didn’t leave footprints or any trace of his presence, so it made sense.

No one was guarding the staircase, either.

After all, they had no idea that Kim Buja was stealthed, or that any player might be trying to get ahead of them to reach the end of the Sand Castle first. It was only natural.

If anyone could have figured it out, it would have been Fly.

Tense, he slipped past.

Just in case, he moved in a way that avoided even making eye contact with Fly as he approached the stairs.

He reached them without incident.

—Over here! We’ve got a thief passing through!

—Sir! Please look over here!

—Does he still have time left on that Stealth Potion? Hahahaha.

The viewers went wild over the pointless thrill of it all.

Anything that happened in a dungeon was unpredictable, which only made it more exciting.

This wasn’t some artificially manufactured drama.

In real life, people would just walk past and think, ’What’s so funny about that?’ But in a dungeon, on a stream, they could get completely absorbed.

Naturally, bets started flying.

—Fly notices him vs. Fly doesn’t notice him.

—Isn’t it already over? He’s at the stairs.

—Still, getting caught and running for it is different from sneaking up unnoticed.

—Fly God. I believe.

—Put a mission on it!

Kim Buja happily rode the wave of his viewers’ excitement.

“There’s no way he catches me. If he didn’t see me by now, he won’t—unless my stealth suddenly drops or something. If I do get caught? If I get caught, then...”

He spoke with total confidence.

Just as he was about to point toward Fly and lay out the conditions—

He locked eyes with Fly, who had just turned his head.

Kim Buja froze on the spot, and the chat exploded.

—What the hell. I got chills.

—Did I just shit myself?

—I’m gonna go change my underwear. Is this a horror movie?

It was way too perfectly timed to be a coincidence.

A lot of people wondered if Fly had heard him talking, but the Stealth Potion was known to erase sound as well. The fact that the other Fly Guild members were still going about their business proved that that wasn’t it.

’So then why?’

An awkward silence fell.

Kim Buja stayed frozen in that exact pose, not even thinking to look away.

Fly watched him for a moment, then turned his head again.

He stared fixedly at something, then shifted his gaze back to where Kim Buja was and spoke.

“Come on out.”

Kim Buja was too stunned to speak.

With that final, irreversible nail in the coffin, Kim Buja scratched his head and dropped his stealth.

“Huh?”

“What the—!”

The Fly Guild members jumped in surprise.

It was another moment that made everyone marvel at Fly’s abilities.

“Hey, everyone. How’s it going?”

To cut through the potential awkwardness of a familiar face suddenly appearing, Kim Buja greeted them with a bright, cheerful tone.

Things could have been awkward since he had stolen the last hit on the Ice Castle Lord, but neither Fly nor his guild members seemed hung up on it, and they welcomed him warmly.

“How did you get here?”

“When did you get this far?”

“I think I saw you live-streaming as a hologram or something... You’re already up here?”

Through their conversation, he figured it out.

“You got here pretty fast,” Fly said.

“I got wrecked by stream sniping,” Buja replied.

They laughed as they realized how Fly had seen him, and the other guild members quickly caught on.

“This is embarrassing. I’ll buy everyone burgers.”

It hadn’t been part of the plan, but the same expedition team from the Ice Castle raid was assembled once again.

* * *

“The floor above isn’t the boss floor either,” Fly explained.

“We were planning to clear it soon.”

Through his conversation with Fly, Kim Buja got a rough idea of what the Fly Guild had been doing since entering the Sand Castle.

They had steadily climbed the pyramid, taking proper breaks to deal with the occasional sandstorms and the level 7 petrification effect. Once they felt the boss floor was getting close, they had picked a safe spot to farm points through repeated grinding.

There was nothing to criticize; it was a standard, textbook raid pattern that made you nod along as you listened.

If you ignored the fact that this was the Sand Castle, that with each passing day the sand vortex was expanding and would eventually encroach on inhabited areas—or even if you factored that in—no one could really blame the Fly Guild for their methods.

Sure, people living nearby might say, ’If you were in my shoes, wouldn’t it drive you crazy to see them taking it easy?’ But most people weren’t in that position. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

The vortex wasn’t spreading so fast that people couldn’t prepare; they could just evacuate in advance.

There would be damage, of course, but that damage wouldn’t be Fly’s fault for not rushing the Sand Castle.

In that sense, you could say they were being quite methodical and cautious.

They had already scouted the upper floors, and the fact that they were hunting here instead of up there meant they had probably gone even higher to check things out.

“Will you be joining us again this time?” Fly asked.

In response, Kim Buja shook his head.

“Let’s make it a competition this time.”

For the sake of entertainment.

And for a clean result.

“In the morning, I’m heading up. Same as when I climbed up here, I’m going to sprint to the boss room in a time attack. First one to kill it wins. Deal?”

“Sounds good.”

Fly accepted without hesitation.

He might have wanted to keep grinding.

However, because this was being broadcast live, Fly couldn’t easily turn him down.

“Then let’s have another fair competition.”

The two men shook hands.

And night fell.

Thanks to the Night Watch Proxy Magic Circle, everyone could sleep soundly without a single person needing to stay on guard.

Kim Buja cracked his eyes open and headed for the staircase.

When he turned his live stream back on, which he had paused for a bit, a flood of people poured in as if they had been waiting.

—What’s this?

—Everyone’s asleep.

—Why’s he sneaking up the stairs?

—Why do you think? Hahahaha.

If Fly or any of the guild members woke up, they would be able to see this through the hologram.

But after grinding so hard, they only had a few hours to rest. It was unrealistic to expect anyone to suddenly wake up and check a video feed with no special notification.

Fly was sleeping soundly as well.

Once they realized what was happening, the viewers couldn’t hide their excitement at the drama unfolding in the middle of the night, right in the heart of the Sand Castle.

—Says “fair competition,” then runs off first.

—Pathetic!

Naturally, many players saw this negatively.

But Kim Buja didn’t care.

If he had lived his life worrying about what people thought of him, he would never have made it this far.

Of course, you couldn’t go through life completely ignoring what others thought.

“I said, after a night’s sleep, I’d be heading up. I never said we’d all wake up together and go as a group, did I? Anyway, I’ll start my run now. I don’t know if any of you have watched my entire Continent Story, but if you’ve seen the recent episodes, you’ll know I really don’t have time to be taking it easy like this.”

He had been crafting various story beats for the viewers, but the truth was that even this time felt too precious to waste.

With the Demon King having appeared on the continent, he had to be ready for when Chapter 4 opened, and it was time to go back. Even if the imperial princess and the saintess were safe for now, that could change.

He might not be able to kill the Demon King outright, but he needed to be strong enough to at least clear the next Chapter.

He needed to be able to slip past the Demon King’s gaze, take down a few demonkin, and then safely return to reality.

For that, he needed the Sand Castle.

He needed the Sand Castle, he needed Gold, and he needed items—he needed everything.

“Sorry, but the Sand Castle is mine.”

That was why he had invested the points he had saved up not into “Bonus Damage to Monsters” potions, but into items.

There would be no more fair competition or raids where he had to read the room.

The shadow climbing the stairs soon vanished from sight.

* * *

Five hours later.

When the Fly Guild members woke from their short sleep, the first thing they saw was Kim Buja—who should have been sleeping beside them—fighting a gigantic scorpion on screen.

Calling it “gigantic” didn’t do it justice. The human standing before it was so small he looked like a speck, and that speck was swinging a sword at a scorpion so massive it dwarfed him.

Before anyone could call him a coward, the sheer recklessness of the act made them worry for him.

’We have to kill something like that?’

Looking at the scorpion, obviously the Sand Castle’s master, they couldn’t help but think it might be better to just keep hunting down here.

It didn’t look like even Fly’s mana could pierce that enormous shell.

’Is this the end for Kim Buja?’

In fact, the spells he was hurling at it weren’t even penetrating the scorpion’s carapace.

Scorching it a bit wasn’t going to kill it.

Meanwhile, every one of the scorpion’s attacks slammed down with such force that the sandstorm it kicked up made it impossible to see.

Reckless.

Just watching was enough to make the outcome seem obvious.

THUD!

The ending that countless people thought they were witnessing was, in fact, the moment a golden sword sliced cleanly through one of the massive pincers, severing it completely.