White Night's Watchman

The moment we stepped onto the 5th floor, an ice reaper appeared out of nowhere right in front of us.

This was the first proper boss fight you faced after entering the Obsidian Tower—the 5th-floor boss battle.

For the record, boss-room events let you split experience through this Battle Resonance system.

It felt like someone had taken the experience-sharing option from Kang I-jun's ability, Coordinates of Binding, and spun it off as its own feature. That was why it paid to bring as many people as you could when you entered a boss room. Contribution rewards still scaled by individual performance, but looking at the whole boss-fight roster, experience waste dropped by a fair amount.

Whooooosh…

A spirit draped in a cloak of snow slowly raised its scythe. Where a face should have been, nothing existed but a blue core, glowing and flickering.

Through a field of vision gone pure white with snow, Choi Min-seo was the first to set her shield.

Kang!

"Everyone stay behind me for now! I'll take the first hit!"

"Yeah."

"Yes, Min-seo!"

"……"

With complete confidence she drove her shield into the floor and took the front line. The White Night's Watchman swept toward her, and the massive scythe came down from above.

KRAAAASH!!

"…Hhnnngh!!"

For a shield meeting a scythe, the impact was deafeningly loud.

Crack, craaack!

The shock must have been severe—the ice floor beneath Choi Min-seo spiderwebbed with fractures, and her body was shoved half a step back.

Kaaang!!

"…Hoo!"

Even so, her stance never wavered an inch as she held the line. While I smiled inwardly at reclaiming our party's rock-solid main tank, the Library of Knowledge floated the monster's information into my head.

The fire vulnerability was good news. It meant that if I landed Eternal Hellfire cleanly, we could seize the initiative.

More importantly, in my previous loop I had already cleared this monster with only Kang I-jun and Choi Min-seo—no Lee Mi-eun. Back then Choi Min-seo, who had been the highest level of us, had done almost all the work, and I had only delivered the finishing blow with fire magic on its weakness. This time, both I-jun and I were far stronger than before, and we had Lee Mi-eun—a level-13 mage—with us as well. There would be no barely crawling out covered in wounds like the first attempt.

"Kang I-jun."

"Yeah."

"Aim for the right arm holding the scythe."

"Got it."

The instant I spoke, Kang I-jun took his two-handed sword and cut in toward the Watchman's right side.

Kaaang!

The moment Choi Min-seo's shield shoved the monster's scythe aside again, the tip of Kang I-jun's blade swept toward its elbow.

Kagagak!!

The two-handed sword bit into an arm of snow and ice. He didn't sever it cleanly, but the Watchman took a solid wound and still swung the scythe.

"I-jun, duck!"

At Choi Min-seo's urgent shout, Kang I-jun dropped low, and her shield covered the space above him.

Kwang!

Shield and scythe collided, and snow powder scattered over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them. In the same stretch of time, blue lightning crackled at the tip of Lee Mi-eun's staff—ready to leap free at any moment, held ready for this exact opening.

"I-jun! Min-seo! Fall back!!"

"Yes!"

"Okay!"

Pajijijijik!!

The instant the two of them put distance between themselves and the boss, lightning ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tore through the blizzard and lanced forward—a blue spell that briefly lit the pure-white haze of our vision as it flew.

Bazuzuzuzuk!!

Struck by Lee Mi-eun's magic, the blue core flickered inside the Watchman's cloak.

Fwoosh.

I lit a flame on the low-grade dagger in my hand—the one I'd prepared ahead of time with the low-grade equipment selection ticket from the 2nd floor. My short sword was a weapon I needed to keep until the end; I couldn't just throw it around.

PAGAK!!!

The burning dagger punched through the monster's right elbow—through the wound Kang I-jun had just opened—and sheared the arm clean off.

"I-jun, do that again."

"Got it."

Kang I-jun stepped forward once more. The moment the White Night's Watchman tried to swing its scythe at him, Choi Min-seo slammed her shield into its torso again.

Kooong!

The snow spirit's body rocked for a moment, then part of it scattered like a flurry and bled off the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠impact.

Whooooosh…

Having lost one arm, the creature whipped up a blizzard near its left arm and reclaimed its ice scythe. That didn't mean cutting off its right hand had been meaningless. Even for a monster, there was always a difference in power between swinging a weapon with its dominant arm and with the other.

Kaaang!!

Choi Min-seo's shield met the scythe head-on once more—and this time she was the one who edged slightly ahead. Sensing danger, snowballs erupted around the monster, and in an instant figures identical to the White Night's Watchman multiplied into dozens.

"Wh-what is this?!"

"Holy crap, why are there so many…!!"

Anyone seeing it for the first time would naturally freeze up and start swearing. Fighting even one of these things was hard enough; if dozens suddenly appeared, of course you'd be rattled.

But you had to remember—no matter how much this was the Obsidian Tower, we were still only on the 5th floor.

"Hmm. Then I'll use area magic here and—"

"…No. You don't need to."

"Huh?"

A moment earlier, when I'd cut the arm off with the dagger, embers had been branded into the wound.

Fwoosh!

The instant I fanned those sparks, among the dozens of clones only a single right shoulder began to burn.

"The one on fire is the real one! The rest are just snowballs—just cut them down and smash them!"

"Okay!"

"Got it!"

"Lee Mi-eun! Hit that thing with another lightning strike!"

"…Give me a second. Single-target magic takes time."

With a focused frown, Lee Mi-eun gathered mana at the tip of her staff once more.

"Hahp!"

Seogeok!

"Uryaaaah!!"

Kwajijik!!

Up front, Kang I-jun and Choi Min-seo were swinging sword and shield for all they were worth, so we had plenty of time. As long as you knew the Watchman couldn't move the way it had before while it was controlling the snow shadows, and that each individual clone was weak, dealing with them wasn't hard. The only real problem was that there were a lot of them—like the wraiths on the 3rd floor.

Fwoooosh!

With four people, that barely counted as a problem either. Around the time I cut down a wraith that had broken through the two of them and tried to rush Lee Mi-eun—my short sword wreathed in flame magic—she looked my way and spoke.

"Ready, Ha-yoon."

"Then fire!"

Pajijijijijik!!!

The blue witch's second bolt of lightning carved a straight, zigzagging line through a dozen-odd wraiths.

Tadadak!

At the same moment she loosed the lightning, I swung my flaming short sword and charged forward, cutting down as fast as I could the snowball clones blocking the path.

Seogeok!

Fwoooosh!

……!!

It must have realized that someone was coming at it with a short sword sheathed in its own weakness—fire. The White Night's Watchman stopped controlling the clones and raised its scythe again. The moment the clones filling the White Night's Room scattered into snow and ice, I called for Choi Min-seo.

"Choi Min-seo! Get over here and block this!!"

I couldn't slow down just to dodge the scythe. If I didn't destroy its core on this timing, it would scatter into a blizzard again and reappear somewhere else in the room. With the embers still clinging to its right arm, and temporarily weakened from controlling the clones, this was the best chance we were going to get.

Whooooosh!!

I heard the ice blade closing in from above my head—and almost at the same instant, felt the vibration of heavy footsteps kicking off right beside me.

KRAAAASH!!!

Once more, a sound too loud to believe for a scythe meeting a shield thundered through the room. The Watchman's scythe, held in its left hand, shuddered, and through the open cloak of snow the spirit's core came into view. I drove my short sword—wreathed in Eternal Hellfire—into that exposed core with everything I had.

FWOOOOSH!!

Red flames bloomed inside the cloak of snow, and the White Night's Watchman let out a soundless scream. Its cloaked body and the blizzard that had filled the room twisted and writhed, speaking for the creature's agony.

Fwoooosh!

Then fire surged even more fiercely from within that cloak. As Eternal Hellfire burned the White Night's Watchman's core, its body crumbled into pure white powder and scattered away.

The Tower's system messages rang through my head the instant the creature died.

A flood of notification windows stacked one after another in my head and left me reeling. Most of it was useless information I didn't really need to read.

"Whaa—wh-what?! Why did my level jump so much all of a sudden?!"

"I-I'm the same. I was level 6 just a second ago, and now it says level 10…"

"…I didn't expect to level up either. It's been a while, though."

The others looked just as dazed by the sudden experience bomb. Even Lee Mi-eun, already level 13, was muttering that she had leveled up—which only confirmed that boss fights really were excellent for growth. The only shame was that you couldn't run proper boss fights like this very often.

As my level rose, all my existing stats jumped in a single leap. Getting Strength and Stamina—my weakest numbers after Luck—up near twenty was satisfying enough on its own. Of course, even after growing like this, I would still be the lowest in our party.

I should secure a proper recovery method soon…

Until I reunited with the holy-power dispenser, I'd just have to scrape by with what I had. Honestly, though, now that I had shot straight to level 11, the raw stat increases themselves weren't even the important part.

Leveling up mattered for surviving in the Tower, but not simply because your stats went up. What mattered was how well you grew your Unique Ability through those levels.

Among the clutter of notification windows, I checked the two newly unlocked traits first.