28th Floor — Treasure Hunt

A cool sea breeze brushed through my damp hair.

We left our brief moment of fun behind and climbed back onto the sandy beach, seawater dripping down from beneath our climbing suits.

Ha Heijeong wrung out her body and turned to look at me over her shoulder, squeezing the water from her hair where it hung down her back.

"How long has it been since we went to the ocean together?"

"Two years, maybe? We went to Busan with the others the year before last, remember?"

"The year before last... right. That was 2018."

There was something wistful in her voice, a note of quiet regret, and though I almost asked what was wrong, I held back. It was probably because of the regression. Even I, having climbed a mere twenty-nine floors, felt Earth drifting far away. For Ha Heijeong, that feeling had to be so much heavier.

Instead of answering, I pulled a water bottle out of my inventory and handed it to her.

"Huh? Thanks."

"Should've packed something to drink, I guess."

"Nah, water's plenty."

She drained half the bottle and handed it back. Maybe it was the seawater, but my throat felt a little dry. The moment the bottle touched my lips, a wave of cool freshness slid down my throat.

"Hey, by the way, weren't you going way too hard back there?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, a water fight is supposed to be hands, not magic! Who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠casts spells in a water fight?"

A wave the size of a small tsunami had crashed right over me. I'd swallowed a good mouthful of the ocean because of it, too.

Ha Heijeong snorted at my complaint.

"You're hilarious. You're the one who used your shadow arm first?"

"Hey, that still counts as an arm."

"Uh-huh~ and mine was an arm made of mana, so."

She turned away with a mischievous grin, her wet hair scattering like something out of a painting. She plucked her robe off the sun lounger and shook the sand out of it.

"Shall we get the treasure hunt properly started, then?"

"Yeah, forty minutes is plenty of play time."

"Oh, and you don't really need your armor."

I nodded and stowed my armor and axe into my inventory. Like the fourth and fifth floors, this one had no enemies — there was no reason to clunk around in armor. Fastening my belt over my climbing suit instead, I felt oddly bare without it.

"What did you find here in the first regression?"

"Last time? Hmm... nothing good."

"What was it?"

"An elixir that drops mana by 8 and raises every other stat by 2."

Even granting +2 to Strength, Agility, and Vitality, an elixir that cost a net total of 2 stats... I couldn't help thinking it was practically poison.

"I drank that one, didn't I?"

"Yep. If one of us had to bite the bullet anyway, it made more sense for you — the battle mage at the time — to take it."

I'd expected as much, so it didn't exactly shock me. And besides, this time around we had extraordinary luck on our side, so I wasn't worried.

"Let's go."

As Ha Heijeong buttoned her robe and turned toward the island's interior, the sea suddenly crossed my mind.

Couldn't there be treasure underwater, too? The Tower's message had said the treasure chest was hidden somewhere on this island — and part of the sea would surely count as part of the island.

Treasure at the bottom of the sea, inside a sunken shipwreck. Even back on Earth, that was the kind of thing that turned up in the news now and then.

"Heijeong."

"What?"

"Couldn't there be treasure down in the water?"

Her brow furrowed. She seemed to partly agree with me, but also to be weighing which option was better.

"It's definitely possible... Did you get some kind of feeling?"

"No, nothing like that. It just came to me."

"Hmph. Short-sighted of me. I should've spent our play time scouting the ocean instead."

"I literally just thought of it, so."

Ha Heijeong shed her robe again and tossed it onto the sun lounger. Going straight to the sea, then.

"I've been weighing whether to search the island's interior or the water first, and I think the sea is the better bet."

"A gut feeling?"

"Not exactly. In the first regression, we never found anything remarkable inside the island. Of course, it's possible we just missed it."

Nodding at her reasoning, I loosened my belt as well.

"Forty minutes. Let's give the sea forty minutes. If we come up empty, we'll search the island after that."

"Sounds good."

Roughly forty meters deep.

Schools of tropical fish I'd never seen before brushed past as we swam. I checked the notification window — we'd already been diving for about fifteen minutes.

Ha Heijeong had used magic to keep a film of air around our noses and mouths, so breathing wasn't an issue. But contrary to expectations, the underwater search wasn't making much progress.

The sea was clearer than I'd imagined, so visibility wasn't the problem — there simply was no shipwreck to be seen.

Then, out of nowhere, a memory surfaced: playing The Witcher 3 back on Earth. Quest items had always seemed to be buried under the beds of lakes and seas.

Do we really have to dig through the sand like that?

But the ocean was far too vast for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that. There was no telling how far out the island's territory extended. Still, with nothing to show for our efforts so far, it seemed worth a try at least once.

I tapped Ha Heijeong's shoulder and pointed downward.

Let's go down.

She nodded, having understood, and turned her body toward the depths. We hadn't gone all that deep yet, so it didn't take long to reach the bottom.

Fish resting on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the sand scattered in a startled flurry. I reached out and caught one, and it wriggled at my fingertips.

Huh. This almost felt like playing Subnautica.

The fish wasn't the point, though, so I admired it for a moment and let it go.

I turned my eyes back to the sandy floor. Please, just let something turn up.

Digging through a seabed this wide by hand was hopelessly inefficient, so it fell to Ha Heijeong to scoop the sand away with magic, handful by handful. She bore the brunt of the work.

But as before, nothing came of it. We searched with everything we had, yet the sea was simply too vast.

A thin sigh escaped me, frustration bubbling up. A string of bubbles skimmed past above my head and rose toward the surface.

'And here I was told about some incredible luck.' This was nothing but wasted effort. Maybe I should have just hunted for any old chest up on the island? With our luck, that would have worked out fine too...

It was in the middle of that brooding that something caught my eye at the edge of a pit Ha Heijeong had dug. The water was clouded with disturbed sand, so it wasn't crisp, but I was sure of it.

Ha Heijeong, her vision obscured, hadn't noticed — she was busy casting magic elsewhere. I hurriedly tapped her shoulder.

She turned, asking what was up, and I pointed excitedly at the spot I'd just been staring at.

There's something there.

Something in my widened eyes must have convinced her, because hers went round as well, and she gestured toward the place I'd indicated.

It's over there?

I nodded, took her hand, and led her toward it. As the churned sand slowly settled, the view grew clearer by degrees.

And there, at the edge of the pit, a single thick wooden pillar jutted up out of the seabed.

Found it!

It was weathered but clearly hewn, unmistakably part of a ship. Judging by the size, it was probably the mast.

Ha Heijeong must have been just as stunned, because she slapped my shoulder and flailed in excitement. We shared a high five underwater, and then she cast her magic again — more carefully this time. The sand around the mast's edge began to vanish, and it wasn't long before the hull itself came into view.

A gunwale that could have sailed straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Holes riddled the ship here and there, but mercifully the interior wasn't choked to the brim with sand.

Is that the captain's cabin?

We made for the door mounted at the ship's highest point. When we eased it open, two treasure chests sitting in the middle of the rotting room caught our eyes at once.

Unlike the decrepit wreck around them, the chests weren't damaged at all, and their trim gleamed gold — impossible to mistake for anything else.

The problem was that there were two of them.

Why did it have to be two?

For someone as indecisive as me, this was unwelcome news. If there had just been one, everything would have been simple...

While I grumbled internally, Ha Heijeong picked up one of the chests and shot me a look. The message was clear: grab the other one and let's head up. The floor only ended when a chest was opened, so carrying both was no problem at all. Better to deliberate over which one to open up top than down here in the water.

"Ugh, diving is apparently not my thing. I thought I was going to suffocate."

The moment Ha Heijeong was out of the water, she flung her treasure chest down without ceremony.

"Hey! What are you doing, throwing it like that?"

Fine, there was sand below — but that seemed like way too careless a handling of our loot.

She shrugged as if it were nothing. "So what? It's not like it'll break."

"Still, you know."

I set my chest down gently beside hers. Now came the moment of decision.

Personally, I wanted the one on the right. It was pure intuition, but my best guess was that our extraordinary luck had something to do with the feeling.

Still, I couldn't decide alone, so I asked her. "Which one do you like?"

"Left. You?"

"Huh? I like the right one, though?"

Ha Heijeong's brow creased — and at the same moment, I tumbled into my own confusion. What was going on? Why were we at odds?

But it didn't take long to find the answer.

"The left one's something that helps you. And the right one helps me, I'd bet."

"Probably. We've got luck on our side, so nothing harmful should come out."

"Hmm... how do you want to do this?"

When I asked, still deliberating, Ha Heijeong turned to me with a look of pure disbelief. Why are you even asking that?

"Obviously you pick the one that helps you."

"Huh? You don't have to do that."

"Enough. Last regression, you took the loss, so this time you get the good one. And even if that weren't true, it's still your call to make."

I felt a little awkward. I was grateful for the gesture, but being the one she yielded to every single time left me with a faint pang of guilt.

"How about we just settle it with rock-paper-scissors instead? It feels like I'm the only one collecting rewards every time—"

"Oh, come on~"

When I hesitated, Ha Heijeong strode forward with long, decisive steps.

"Hey, wait— Heijeong!"

I blurted it out too late. Before I could stop her, she flipped open the right-hand chest.

And out of it, quite suddenly, popped a single staff.

Clutching the staff she'd caught in her arms, Ha Heijeong let out a very unbecoming sound of confusion.

"Uh... what?"

"Wh-what is that?"

Our bewildered eyes met. Neither of us understood what was happening, and we just stood there, dumbfounded. I'd been sure I preferred the right one...

"Heijeong, does this thing give different things to whoever opens it?"

"No."

Right. The message had clearly stated that the contents of the chests were fixed. I knew that, and yet I'd asked anyway, my mind blank.

Which left only one conclusion.

"I wanted you to have something good, and you wanted me to have something good — maybe that's why."

"...Yeah, I think you're probably right. I'm sorry."

Ha Heijeong heaved a deep sigh as she apologized. It looked like she was blaming herself for stealing my reward.

I rushed to reassure her. "No, it's not like I'm lacking anything right now. I wanted you to have it."

"Even so..."

"Hey, think about how much you've already shoved my way. Don't sweat it. Besides, you opened that one for me, didn't you?"

When I patted the shoulder of her deflated silhouette, she pushed the staff toward me instead. She looked like a scolded puppy gazing up at its owner, her eyes glistening.

"Then do you want to take this? You could sell it in the Waiting Room for points, at least..."

"Ugh, forget it. It's yours. Keep it."

And then a notification window appeared. I was curious about the staff's details, but... eh, I could just ask in the Waiting Room.