A Precious Treasure to Someone! # 4
"The inside of this tower is exceedingly nymph-friendly, it is…! Behold how the flowers bloom in such abundance, they do…!"
We stepped into the tower's interior.
Just as Oinoi had said, the first floor was a garden of every kind of flower imaginable, with butterflies and bees drifting lazily over the blossoms. It was, in short, paradise.
It was unmistakably the inside of a building—and yet a blue sky stretched overhead with clouds floating across it and the sun shining bright. How any of that was possible, I honestly couldn't fathom.
Lee Jeonghun, who had far more experience as an S-Rank than any of us, supplied the explanation.
"That's because the tower itself is a massive rift. Multiple rifts formed and merged around this tower as their center, until the whole thing became an ecosystem of an entirely different star-world in its own right."
Because it was an anomaly born of many rifts fusing together, each floor apparently had its own environment.
An island popping up out of nowhere had been one thing, but this world still had no shortage of ways to leave me slack-jawed.
"Coris shall gather heaps of flowers, she shall…! When we return home, Coris wishes to fashion them into a flower necklace and a crown as a gift for Kore-to-be Jina…! And then the Kore-to-be shall become a true Kore, she will…!"
And so Coris began snapping blossoms off their stems.
Oinoi followed along beside her, picking her own flowers and tucking them neatly into a hiking backpack.
All in all, the mood was less monster hunt and more school picnic.
Of course, everyone except the nymphs was far too busy watching our surroundings to enjoy it.
"Lee Jeonghun. You said your comrades were left behind on the second floor. Where's the way up?"
"The exits and staircases keep changing position. But we've had reports that multiple staircases to the upper floors exist, so there should be one around here somewhere."
Yu Ari was scanning the area too, alert as a meerkat guarding against hawks overhead.
Clearly the Chinese black-ops team—the so-called Black Wall—was weighing heavily on her mind.
"The Black Wall is famous for stopping at nothing. If those people see anything of Senior Ildo, they'll absolutely try to abduct him and haul him back to China…!"
That was an extremely violent thought.
Even so, I couldn't quite imagine anyone forcibly kidnapping a person and dragging them across a border—while Ari's conviction seemed rock solid.
"China barely gets any rifts, so they've fallen behind in the 5th Industry and they're short on powerful awakeners too…! They only have one S-Rank, after all. That's why they're desperate to poach talent from other countries!"
"Is that so?"
I think I'd heard something like that before, actually.
China was enormous, but the number of rifts opening on its soil was absurdly small relative to its population and territory. The number of awakeners they produced was supposedly around one-hundredth of Korea's.
One point three billion people—and a single S-Rank among them.
"Honestly, if rifts open rarely and you have few S-Ranks, that's a good thing."
It meant people were safe.
These days everyone treated rifts like oil fields or gold strikes appearing out of thin air, but a rift was, at its heart, a disaster. In the age of the 5th Industry, however, China had been locked out of rift resources, and with every passing year it slipped further behind on the world stage.
So the Chinese government's grand strategy was: bring in other countries' awakeners.
"Come to think of it, there was that paper recently, wasn't there? The one claiming that powerful awakeners draw rifts to themselves. Dr. Edward's, was it?"
Strong awakeners attract strong rifts. And strong rifts, in turn, forge awakeners even stronger.
Thanks to that endless cycle, Korea had become the country with more rifts than anywhere else on Earth. If China simply increased its awakener numbers, the theory went, rifts would spring up all over the country in time.
That was supposedly why the Chinese government was obsessed with luring foreign awakeners onto its soil.
"Because you're truly amazing, Senior Ildo! Of course other countries have their eyes on you!"
Ari practically shouted it.
Somehow, I felt embarrassed.
I could practically see the MeTube videos flashing past my eyes, bold yellow letters splashed across their thumbnails.
Then again—had I gone too far with that one?
That was the moment.
"That wavering something over there needs to be looked at, dot…! That is without doubt the road to the treasure-filled soil of the second floor, dot…!"
Unlike Oinoi and Coris, who were busy picking flowers, Illinoi—the nymph whose interest extended to exactly one thing, money—pointed at something with her hand.
There, rippling in midair like a portal, hung a dimensional gate. Its semi-transparent oval surface shimmered, offering glimpses of another space beyond.
"That's it! We go that way!"
Lee Jeonghun barked and dashed off ahead of everyone.
"Binnari! I'm coming!"
If the first floor had been a peaceful flower field, the second floor was a field of rocks crawling with ferocious monsters.
A field of rocks, though. Was that an odd way to put it?
But that was precisely what it was—boulders and pebbles strewn everywhere as far as the eye could see.
"…So this is that Mana Hydrolite stuff?"
Shhk—
Lee Jina bent down and scooped up a stone.
"Looks like any old rock to me?"
To me too, it looked like plain rock. But I'd heard that with just a little processing, these things became ore with staggering energy efficiency—the kind that made your jaw drop.
"Mwehehe, grab everything greedily, dot…! This Illinoi shall become a super-rich nymph beyond any nymph in the whole world, dot…! Totally Forest Gump, dot…!"
Pat-pat-dadadak—
Illinoi dumped all the water and rations out of her pack and crammed it full of stones instead.
It looked tremendously heavy, but she shouldered the bag without a hint of fatigue and announced:
"From this moment, this Illinoi is no mere Illinoi but Kaiser Illinoi, dot…! When calling upon this Illinoi, please talking to Kaiser Illinoi, dot…!"
Apparently that was the decree.
Shhk—
Just in case, I pocketed a stone of my own. Still, my first priority was rescuing Lee Jeonghun's comrade.
The B-Rank monsters prowling nearby—the Demon Mantis—were plenty unnerving.
A two-meter crimson mantis walking upright on two legs, brandishing four scythe-like forelegs. Lovely.
━Samat, samaa-at…!
"Get them, Kalinoi!"
━Hoo, hoo…!
"Aah—! The Tiger Owl is a bird, and birds are exceedingly strong against bugs like mantises and honey ants, they are…! That dreadful Demon Mantis is no match for her at all, it is not…!"
Toppling monsters by exploiting the mana affinities living creatures naturally held made short work of them.
The real problem was the rescue operation itself—how it was going, and how it wasn't.
"Lee Jeonghun, your comrade may be badly hurt depending on the situation. Ari, be ready to give emergency treatment at any moment."
There was even a chance we were already too late.
At the very least we'd have to recover the remains and send them home to the family—though of course I could never say something so cold-blooded in front of Lee Jeonghun.
"There it is…!"
Just then, Lee Jeonghun, who had been sweeping his gaze back and forth across the rocks, shouted.
Padadak— he sprinted.
Having spotted something in a crevice between boulders, he lit up with joy. It was a small case—or you could call it a container. One I knew very well.
"It's a charger bag, isn't it?"
The same kind of bag I used when charging Myeong-i, my steel spider.
Lee Jeonghun flung it open at once and cried out.
"Uh… she's not here…! Binnari, where are you? Binnari!"
Lee Jeonghun's comrade, Binnari.
Supposedly a magnificent Ki-Dog-Squirrel with sleek, sky-blue fur.
"…Wait. We came all this way to rescue a comrade, and it's an AI squirrel?"
Lee Jina wrinkled her nose slightly.
"W-well, you see…"
Only then did Lee Jeonghun start trembling and fidgeting. Back when I'd asked him what his relationship with the comrade he was so desperate to save was, he'd dodged the question in a very suspicious way.
Lee Jina pressed him.
"So we trekked all the way here to rescue a robot squirrel? I mean, you looked so frantic I figured you were here to save your beloved fiancée or something."
"Sh-she's my precious comrade! Binnari is!"
Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling—
Right then, a bell chimed somewhere in the distance.
Lee Jeonghun snapped his mouth shut instantly and pressed a finger to his lips. Shh—
Shiiit—
What was that?
Koom, kuuung— A colossal tremor rolled through the ground.
When I turned my head, I saw something like a four-meter titan roaming about, its blue-bronze skin gleaming in the light.
━Something is strange. A sound. I heard it.
It was a monster covered head to toe in scars.
At the sight of it, the nymph Oinoi shivered brrr— and murmured softly.
"That one is Argos the Watchman, it is…! A giant who bore a hundred eyes, until the god Hermes sealed every last one of them and banished him to some far-off place, so it is said…!"
A giant whose eyes had all been sealed shut.
I turned to Ari.
"What do you estimate its danger rank at?"
"Subjugation rank looks like S. A dangerous opponent."
"Yeah. That's what I figured. Still, if it can't see, we shouldn't need to fight it. We avoid combat. Its ears seem sharp, but its other senses look mostly dull."
If we couldn't win, we ran. That was the strategy of survival.
As everyone nodded along to my plan, Illinoi spoke up.
"Lookie there, dot…! This Kaiser Illinoi has discovered a strange birdcage hanging at the monster's waist, dot…! There is a squirrel inside it, dot…!"
Just as Illinoi said, something like a birdcage hung from the belt cinched around the giant's waist like an ornament. Inside, a squirrel with sky-blue fur was huddled in a ball—and with its face so like Keongkeongi's, a wave of familiarity washed over me.
"Bi-Binnari…!"
So that was Lee Jeonghun's precious comrade, Binnari.
Shhk—
Ari tugged at my arm.
"Senior. What do we do? Contact is unavoidable if we're rescuing her. That fiend, Argos the Blind Watchman, is definitely an S-Rank monster. And according to Lee Jeonghun, it reacts to 'mana.'"
So we had no choice but to collide head-on with an S-Rank monster to pull off the rescue.
An S-Rank monster was the genuine article—something that could only be put down by an S-Rank awakener. And if even Oinoi was warning that it was "a dreadful creature, it is…!", then it was powerful beyond question.
"Risking death to save an AI… that would be foolish, wouldn't it? We've come this far somehow, but… I can't exactly bring myself to ask any of you to die for it. I…"
Hoo—
Lee Jeonghun let out a long breath. His eyes wouldn't leave the cage at the giant's waist.
"Yeah. It would be a foolish thing."
I gave a small nod. Then I drew Ang-ang-i out of my pocket.
━Zzji…!
"But abandoning a comrade would be even more foolish. This operation isn't a hunt—it's a rescue. We don't need to defeat or subjugate the monster. We just need to get Binnari out. And then get out alive."
I thought of Keongkeongi, who I'd left home because of Lee Jeonghun's dog-squirrel allergy.
If Keongkeongi had been locked in that cage, would I have run away and left her behind?
No. I never could.
Keongkeongi would have fought tooth and nail to save me, and if my own strength fell short, she'd have begged others for help. Binnari was Lee Jeonghun's Keongkeongi.
"Ha Ildo, you…"
Lee Jeonghun stared at me, his face struck with shock. His eyes glistened as moisture welled up along the edges.
"I always knew you'd say exactly that, Senior."
Shhk—
Yu Ari drew a short scalpel from her pocket. A moment later, Lee Jina snapped a gauntlet into place with a clack.
"Then let's finish this fast. So—what's your plan?"
Everyone fell in line quickly. These really were the comrades I'd chosen to trust.
All that remained was the plan itself—
Just then, Oinoi spoke.
"This Oinoi has a fine proposal, she does…! We nymphs know precisely what the giant Argos's weakness is, such is our knowledge…! And so we can surely rescue Binnari with no one getting hurt at all, it is certain…!"
"Indeed, even this Kaiser Illinoi has gotten it, the plan, dot…! With that method, cooking Argos like a cake is guaranteed, dot…!"
"This Coris knows exactly what that method is, she does…! With it, we can absolutely bring Argos down, that is the fact…!"
Warak—
The nymphs threw their hands up and broke into a dance of joy, their nymph-dance of celebration.