Escape

Going through a dead man's belongings didn't sit well with me, but I had no choice.

A soft click. I unlocked Team Leader Kim Nam-gook's phone, then the legal assistant's as well. They hadn't been dead long, and facial recognition still took without a hitch.

Tap, tap. Mana threads flicked through the texts and the chat logs. Fortunately, the situation wasn't complicated. There had been a reason for the sudden visit.

So the faction opposing Vice Chairman Choi Han-sung had been looking for me.

Representative Director Kang Min-chul. The memory returned, faint—an uncle who had followed my father even before the business grew large. He would be old by now.

They had judged that Kang Min-chul had caught a scent of me. Clean up my side of things without a loose end, and then swallow the company in one swift bite. That had been the plan.

Once I understood, a plan of my own took shape. I had to move.

...Money first.

I went through the dead men's wallets. A fair amount of cash came out—about five hundred thousand won between the legal assistant and Team Leader Kim Nam-gook. Add the money I'd already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠taken from Lee Hee-ja, and it came to three million.

This will do for now.

I wound mana threads around my body and slipped outside. In the yard I burned Park Gwang-soo's corpse. Black smoke climbed for a moment, and the bastard's filthy carcass vanished from the world without a trace.

The legal assistant I left in the yard, where there was nothing to feed a fire. Burning an innocent man's body didn't sit right. After that, I put the house itself to the torch.

Flames roared up. The prison that had clamped down on me for eight years was burning, and the tightness in my chest seemed to ease, just a little. From Team Leader Kim Nam-gook's phone, I sent Woo Mun-ryong a text.

Then I got into Lee Hee-ja's car. For all the vulgar character that had done nothing but spew abuse at a disabled man, the car was excellent.

I started the engine. It roared. I couldn't see ahead, so I reached to switch on the wipers—and the turn signal blinked on instead. Ah. So it was the one on the right. It was my first time driving, and I was worried.

Mana threads took the wheel. I laid more of them over the accelerator and the brake. I might mix the two up, but there was no other way. I would simply have to concentrate.

And I drove.

The engine snarled. In the rearview mirror the house blazed, and the scenery beyond the windows changed by the second. A strange sense of release washed over me. I had no sensation anywhere in my body, and I might soon be a man with hunters on his heels—and still, in my own way, I felt free.

At least for this one moment.

The driving was easy. Thinking about it, there had never been any reason it should be hard. The house sat on the outskirts of Chuncheon, and the roads out there were, of course, empty.

I only took the car as far as Chuncheon Station. I left it in a vacant lot and put a Fireball through it. The output was absurd. In a matter of minutes the entire vehicle was gone, without a trace.

After that I stopped in front of a medical supply shop with a shabby face and went in on an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠unnatural gait. Staggering, my hands moving awkwardly, I pointed at a cane.

The old proprietor clicked his tongue.

"Tsk, tsk. Young fellow like you... what happened."

The moment I produced cash, his expression brightened.

"Much obliged."

The station wasn't far. I walked there on the cane, bought a ticket, and before long I was aboard a train.

The first train I had ever ridden. The feeling was new.

It leaked from the earbuds of the woman by the window in the next seat. I drew myself as far toward the aisle as I could. I had no desire for a mana thread to brush her and turn into a problem.

The one mercy was that waste wasn't an issue. Among the ingredients found in dungeons, quite a few were highly absorbable and left almost nothing behind. For someone as severely disabled as I was, that counted as good news—and all the more so while I was on the move.

The lid popped. Fingers wrapped in mana thread opened the plastic container, and I swallowed an elixir pill the size of a thumb. The woman glanced sideways. Her brow creased, just slightly.

Fair enough. The pills were infamous for tasting awful.

But measure for measure they were dense with essential nutrients, and they digested cleanly. Quietly popular, in fact—enough that a fair number of ordinary people sought them out.

For me, of course, there was no better food.

Time passed quickly. Not long after I transferred to the subway at Sangbong, I arrived at my destination: Daelim Station.

Public order here was worse than in other districts. But every sort of person was mixed together, and for someone who had to hide who he was, that wasn't a bad choice. The rooms were cheap, too.

"Overnight, or a short stay?"

A run-down motel. I hesitated at the owner's question. What was a short stay supposed to mean?

At least I knew enough to get by.

"What, your ears stuffed? Overnight, or what..."

Overnight. I caught the word and nodded at once. The man narrowed his eyes.

"Overnight?"

I nodded. He clicked his tongue.

"Can't talk?"

Another nod. He clicked his tongue again, asked how many nights, and I held up two fingers. I handed over eighty thousand won and took the key.

The elevator carried me up into a hallway thick with a stale smell. The unpleasant texture of the cheap carpet climbed through the mana threads.

Room 403. I opened the door, locked it behind me, and dropped onto the bed as if collapsing. Sleeping facedown meant a risk of suffocation. I turned over, watched the yellowed ceiling, and closed my eyes.

I was exhausted. I needed to sleep, and sleep properly.

A shrill ring dragged my eyes open. The intercom. A mana thread hauled the receiver to my ear.

The owner's voice came through.

I checked the time. Nine in the morning. Wondering why he'd called, I checked the date—and startled. Not one day had passed. Two had.

Tok.

Tok. Tok.

A cheap motel, and a cheap rate—only forty thousand a night. No great burden. I ate an elixir pill in place of a meal and sat with my thoughts.

What did I need?

Money, first. I'd brought as many pills as I could, but it wasn't enough. They were made from ingredients that came out of the Labyrinth, so of course they were expensive.

A way to make money in the Tower.

I searched the community. All sorts of methods came up, and one of them caught my eye.

A verified info post, as expected. Cleanly put together.

I reached back through my memories of the Labyrinth. Plants had shown as green dots, minerals as brown. At the time I'd been satisfied with that much. It looked as though I needed to pay closer attention to resources.

Mana threads could keep me alive now. What I needed most was money. If I wanted to live like a human being, I had to buy the pills.

And—

Something skittered.

"......"

Even if only to find a room where cockroaches weren't zipping around right beside the bed, I needed money. Badly.

The second floor of the Tower produced three kinds of goblin. Goblin swordsmen. Goblin shieldbearers. Goblin archers. The so-called goblin scouting party.

The third floor was a little different.

I had already passed the zone where the scouting parties kept to. Not far off, an unfamiliar place came into view: a crudely built wooden palisade, and two watchtowers roughly five meters high.

Scouts were patrolling the perimeter. The mood was a little lax. But the moment a goblin on a watchtower spotted you, everything changed.

The goblins on the towers go first.

The standard clear was a lure. Draw the goblins at the edge into the forest, kill them, and repeat. It was the safest method, and it took far too long. Even so, an ordinary magic-type Awakened had to follow it. They needed time to refill their mana. Some hauled in piles of food and choked it down, forcing their mana back up and grinding through the goblins that way.

I had no need for that. Mana welled up without end, and through Detection I could read every single movement they made.

"Take them down. Calmly."

Fire skills were built for raw destructive power. The attacks hit hard, and the defense was frail. Simple strikes I could answer with Detection and mana threads—but there was no reason at all to take on more risk than I had to.

I summoned three Fireballs and sent them at once. The patrol outside the palisade turned to powder and vanished. The moment they died I dismissed the summons. Not a trace remained.

I pressed myself to the palisade, and I liked the way I moved. It was a different order of speed from shambling along on mana threads. I circled carefully along the wall and threw a Fireball at the tower.

Flame roared. The goblin above vanished without a trace, and not a single one of the others noticed. I swung wide along the palisade, waited a moment at the corner, and when the next patrol drew close I summoned the Fireballs and let them fly.

A soft burst. Three of them punched clean through the goblins' hearts. They had come from point-blank range. The creatures couldn't even scream. They were gone, without a trace.

The same way, I took the goblin on the other tower, then the last patrol. Every goblin outside the palisade was gone. Only the inside remained.

I looked in through a gap in the loose stakes. Six crude tents of animal hide. Through the holes gaping in the hides, the interiors were packed with large male goblins. The females bustled here and there, as if seeing to the chores.

The dangerous ones first. Make sure of them.

I vaulted the palisade lightly—and startled, just a little, at how light my body was. Of course. Level 40 on the third floor. Set against the difficulty of the floor, the physical specs were absurd.

The thought put a little confidence in me. I didn't let my guard down. I moved carefully to a spot where five tents were visible at once and summoned five Fireballs on the spot.

Five orbs belched flame in the empty air, each easily three times the skill's default size. I didn't hesitate. I threw them into the tents.

Fire detonated outward. A demon of flame covered the tents ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in an instant, and before anyone inside could react, it swallowed them whole.

"Kraaaaaaah!"

"Kie—keeeeeek!"

Male goblins burst from the tents, thrashed, and rolled across the ground. The flames didn't die. They only grew fiercer. Panicked females rushed in, and the fire leapt onto their bodies as well.

"Kyaaaaaaaah!"

It was chaos. Caught by a sudden ambush, the goblins milled in confusion. I was the only one keeping his head. Fireballs rose into the air and fell on the ones still unharmed, all at once.

And even then, I didn't forget. The lighter that had clattered to the floor. Executive Director Park Gwang-soo shoving through the iron door.

I had felt it down to the bone that day—how large a variable one small lapse could become.

Perhaps that was why. A thin shriek of air, and Detection caught the arrow from beyond the tent perfectly. A mana thread from my left hand knocked it aside. The thread from my right tore the tent open, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and through the gap a Fireball flashed.

"Kek?"

The goblin saw it and still couldn't dodge. The Fireball was too fast, and unlike me, it had no way to feel what lay past the tent. From its side of things, the hide had only flapped—and a Fireball was already buried in its heart.

A soft burst. The last goblin died. I stood at the dead center of the blazing village and read the message that rose before my eyes.

Transcendence had activated. Level 60—the limit—in a single rush. And then the points.

It was time to learn the next fire spell.