Floor 6 — The Lost World of the Contaminated (2)
"Kkiiek!"
The trajectory of the incoming arrow blazed into sharp focus before my eyes.
I'd thought it was already too late — so how?
Before the thought could even finish forming, I swung my mace and knocked the arrow out of the air.
In the same instant, Ha Heijeong cast her spell, and a translucent barrier materialized in front of Dobby.
The arrow, half-shattered by my mace, crumpled pathetically to the ground.
Ah……
I took the Physical Enhancement potion, didn't I?
Since I hadn't fought on Floors 4 and 5, I hadn't realized just how much my body had improved.
A memory flickered up unbidden — myself rolling across the dirt on Floor 1, scrambling to dodge an arrow.
I've really grown, haven't I.
"Stop! Stop!"
While I was lost in my brief moment of reflection, Ha Heijeung shouted at the white man holding the bow.
The man — handsome as a Hollywood actor, with a neat pompadour of blond hair like he'd just come from the barber — was nocking his second arrow with a bewildered expression.
"That goblin is on our side!"
At Ha Heijeong's cry, the man's hand froze on the bowstring. His face was a question mark.
When I glanced around, the others were all staring at me with dumbfounded looks.
"St-student. You deflected that arrow just now, d-didn't you?"
"Sorry? Yes."
The bald man with thick brows and a gleaming scalp asked in a tone of genuine admiration.
He was so huge he could have been a professional wrestler. It didn't look like fat, either — it was solid muscle. Wrestler or not, he must have spent serious hours in the gym.
"That goblin — is it really yours?"
The moment I gave the bald man a vague answer, the Hollywood actor piped up. Judging by how he was still lightly drawing his bowstring, he hadn't relaxed his guard one bit.
"'Mine' might be putting it a bit strongly. His name is Dobby. He climbed up through the tutorial with me."
"Kkiik! Goblin! Human! Friends!"
Dobby had been hiding behind me ever since the near-miss with that arrow, but as soon as I answered, he poked just his face out from behind and shouted.
Seeing that, the Hollywood actor finally lowered his bow.
"And he may look young, but Dobby's a healer? He can use healing spells too."
"Ah, my apologies. I thought he was attacking us."
"……It's fine. You didn't know."
The Hollywood actor bowed his head lightly and apologized.
Honestly, I was a little annoyed.
I wanted to snap back, what if you'd actually killed Dobby? But I could understand his position, to a degree.
If a goblin I'd never seen before had suddenly been standing behind Ha Heijeong.
I would have hurled my mace at the thing's head without a second's hesitation. Better to just be grateful Dobby hadn't died.
The mood was a bit awkward, but we couldn't exactly keep talking from this distance, so everyone gathered toward the center of the clearing.
Me and Ha Heijeong.
The bald man with his massive shield and longsword.
A girl pressed close beside him, clutching a small mace.
The Hollywood actor with his bow, and a black woman holding a staff.
Two warriors, one mage, one archer, two priests. Not a bad composition, honestly.
The black woman was glaring daggers at Dobby, clearly displeased — she still didn't trust him.
Ha Heijeong was just opening her mouth to take stock of the situation when the bald man beat her to it.
"Er, hm. I'm Seo Hosu. Forty-five years old. This here is my daughter, Seo Harin — she just turned nineteen."
"Hello, I'm Seo Harin."
At her father's words, Seo Harin gave a polite little bow.
She had the look of a fresh-faced beauty, long black hair falling all the way to her waist and suiting her perfectly.
"Well, meeting like this has to be fate, so let's all do proper introductions. You foreign folks can understand me too, right?"
"Yes."
"Man, that's something else."
"I'm Kwon Suhyeok, twenty-four years old. This is Ha Heijeong, my friend — same age as me. And this goblin here, feel free to just call him Dobby."
Well, no point dragging it out, so I went ahead and introduced Ha Heijeong along with myself.
The moment I finished, everyone's eyes went wide and they stared at me.
What? What is it?
"The Kwon Suhyeok and Ha Heijeong — first and second on the rankings?"
"Kid, you're really number one?"
The Hollywood actor and the man asked in turn.
Oh, right. I was pretty famous on the community boards, wasn't I.
Thanks to me sitting at the top of the rankings, hundreds of thousands of people had been stuck in infinite waiting in their waiting rooms……
"Ah, yes. I'm the number one, Kwon Suhyeok, and Heijeong's number two."
"Hot damn, we hit the jackpot. Teamed up with the top two — nobody's dying on Floor 6. Harin, what luck!"
The bald man clapped his hands, grinning ear to ear.
Watching him fuss over Seo Harin beside him was so endearingly doting that it warmed me to him.
It was like looking at my own father, almost.
"I'm Cole Sprouse. Twenty-seven."
"I'm Chloe Bennett."
After the Hollywood actor, who wore a surprised expression, the black woman spoke up.
Unlike Cole, this Chloe woman had a grating, irritable edge to her — like something about everything displeased her.
Even at a glance, she looked the prickly type. I didn't like her.
You know any of them?
Hm, they turned out better than I expected. Cole Sprouse made it to Floor 90 with us in the first run, too. He'd probably still crack the top hundred even now.
Yeah?
Harin traveled with us from Floor 41 onward. Seeing her like this brings it back. She was famous for hard-carrying as a priest. I don't recognize the Hosu guy, and that Chloe girl…… hmm, not really sure about her.
I'd quietly asked Ha Heijeong just in case, and it turned out they were all pretty solid people.
Hm, come to think of it, wasn't this balance going completely off the rails?
The top two on the rankings, plus future powerhouses on top of that.
Is the Tower actually rooting for me or something?
While I was mulling that over, I felt a gaze fixed on me and turned my head.
Cole was looking at me. And even after our eyes met, he kept looking.
What's his deal? Is he picking a fight because I made him wait forever in the waiting room?
Why are you staring? You wanna go?
"Oh, right. Careful. He's gay."
"What?"
Ha Heijeong's whisper startled me so badly I jerked my eyes away.
I'd heard somewhere that two men locking eyes and staring each other down was how gay guys confirmed each other.
Damn it. I shouldn't even be making eye contact.
"So, student, this Dobby friend of yours — is he, what do you call it, a pet? Like that?"
"Ah, not a pet. He's a comrade. He can think like a person, and he saved my life."
"Oh? Saved the life of the number one? Impressive friend you've got. Nice to meet you, Dobby!"
Like greeting a cute puppy, the bald man waved at Dobby.
I told you, he's not a pet……
"Well now, hoh ho. Cute little fella, aren't you. Goblin! Pleasure's mine!"
"Ah, Dad. Keep it down!"
"Why? What's it to you? Come on out so I can shake his hand."
Seo Harin whispered in embarrassment at her father's antics, but the bald man just beamed and went right ahead and shook Dobby's hand.
So he wasn't thinking of him as a pet at all — he just genuinely found him cute.
Watching the bald man chat away while shaking Dobby's hand, I had a faint premonition that he was going to make a pretty good comrade.
"I mean, what's cute about that?"
"Hm?"
Just as a warm breeze was blowing through the group, the black woman had to stick her nose in.
"It's a monster anyway. Why not just kill it and be done? Doesn't it gross you out?"
"Hold on a second, young lady!"
"We're going to be traveling together from now on, aren't we? How do we know it won't stab us in the back later?"
"Hah… Dobby saved this young man's life, didn't he?"
"Ugh, whatever. Even if that's true, that's no guarantee he won't turn on us. Monsters just disgust me every time I see one."
The bald man gave Chloe an expression of pure incredulity.
Inside me, the warmth drained away and anger came flooding in.
Seriously?
How can a person be this rude to a total stranger? She's out of her mind, no question. That crazy——
"Crazy bitch."
That one wasn't me.
Beside me, Ha Heijeong was glaring at the black woman with sunken, glacial eyes.
The same terrifying look I'd seen in the pub, before we ever entered the Tower.
"Wh-what did you say? Are you talking to me right now?"
Even the black woman seemed cowed by Ha Heijeong's stare — her voice was trembling.
And yet she still pushed back. Thought to myself, she's got some nerve of her own.
I clenched my jaw and listened to Ha Heijeong.
"Anyone watching would think we begged you to travel with us. If you're so disgusted, then you can be the one to leave."
"B-but we're all humans here, obviously——"
"Humans, huh? So humans don't stab each other in the back? You're a priest, aren't you? Want to bet on who can cast a better healing spell, you or the goblin?"
Under the rapid-fire barrage of Ha Heijeong's words, the black woman fell silent.
But the displeasure didn't leave her face.
The atmosphere had plunged. The bald man, hovering awkwardly at the edge of it all, stepped in to mediate.
"Er, uh, meeting like this is fate too, in a way, so let's not go red in the face fighting each other. We don't know what's coming. Chloe, why don't you apologize first."
"……I'm sorry."
Chloe, who'd been clenching her mouth shut, reluctantly apologized.
It didn't sit well with me, but the man had stepped in to mediate, and I couldn't very well tell him to get lost, so I just gave a small nod.
"Pisses me off. It's always the useless ones kicking up a fuss."
Ha Heijeong whispered to me, her face full of irritation.
Her blunt honesty, honed by experience, nearly pulled a laugh out of me — but mindful of the mood, I barely managed to swallow it.
As we muttered together under our breath, the black woman shot us a brief glare.
What are you glaring at? Back in the day, you wouldn't have even been able to meet her eyes.
Hrk, enough. Drop it.
*Sigh*. I'm only holding back because of you.
It was right then that I heard a rustling sound.
I'd been chatting idly with Ha Heijeong, but I whipped my head toward the noise.
The spot we occupied looked like an open lot on a construction site that had never been finished. Barricades were erected around it, and beyond them stretched a somewhat familiar landscape.
Rising above the barricades stood towering high-rises, as if someone had lifted Earth's cities wholesale and dropped them here.
The sound had come from the entrance of this construction site.
"Suhyeok?"
Ha Heijeong must have sensed something off too, because she tightened her grip on her staff.
The others, noticing our reaction, tensed and turned their eyes toward the entrance as well.
Through the half-open gate in the barricade, a grotesquely shaped creature appeared.
"Hhk. What is that?"
"Th-that's not… i-isn't that…?"
It resembled a human, but it was not human.
Two small horns jutted from the top of its head, and its sickly pale skin was covered in scales, as if it had contracted some disease.
But its torn abdomen left its entrails swaying beneath it, its mouth smeared with blood, as it came shambling toward us, slow and steady.
"Is that a-a zombie?"
It looked exactly like the zombies you only ever saw in movies.
The thing stepped through the entrance, spotted us, and broke into a sprint with terrifying speed.
Far faster than any ordinary human.
But before it could even build up to full velocity, I heard Ha Heijeong's low murmur.
A split second later, a fireball shot out and struck the thing square in the head, then burst in a small explosion.
Astoundingly, the small explosion made no sound at all. Not even a whisper.
"Suhyeok, take point! Everyone, follow us!"
Before I could even finish wondering how is there no sound?, Ha Heijeong was already pulling me forward.
Starting with the thing that had just exploded and died, more zombie-like creatures began oozing through the entrance, shoving and tumbling over one another.
I reset my shield grip, clamped down hard on my mace, and charged out front.
No one gave any orders, but the others must have earned their chops in the tutorial, because they started falling into formation on their own.
The bald man at the vanguard.
Cole Sprouse in the middle.
Ha Heijeong, Seo Harin, and the black woman bringing up the rear.
Well — even watching the things rush at us, I didn't feel much worry. Didn't feel like we'd lose, either.
My physical abilities had improved enormously, and with it having been so long since my last real fight, my body was practically itching for it.
"We punch straight through!"
As Ha Heijeong's shout rang out, I wreathed my mace in lightning.
The mace began to crackle and blaze more violently than usual, light flaring off its head.