Floor 7 — The Eerie Forest and the Maddened Tiger-Men (2)

I had resolved to fight with everything I had, but in truth I couldn't afford to cut loose against the Tiger-Men. Not fully, anyway.

"Kkuh-heung!"

I brought my mace down on the shoulder of a Tiger-Man charging in from the right. Crunch! The sound of the shoulder blade caving in was unmistakable, and the beast staggered, toppled over, and clutched at the sunken hollow where its shoulder used to be.

Of course, I wasn't swinging at full power. Just enough not to kill. Every attack I made was deliberate, measured, careful.

"Suhyeok! A little slower, please!"

At Cole's shout from behind, I swept my lightning-wreathed mace in a wide arc across the front. The lightning crackled outward in every direction and the Tiger-Men recoiled — and in that opening, I glanced back over my shoulder.

I led the party at the front. Cole, Dobby, and Seo Harin held the middle, while Ha Heijeong and Hosu anchored the rear. I carved the path forward, and the two of them covered the party from behind. Cole supported whichever end needed him most.

"Is it Harin and Dobby?"

"Yes, sir. They've been running so long... I think they're worn out."

Just as I'd predicted, the two priests were the first to run dry. This suffocating chase against the frenzied Tiger-Men had already stretched past fifty minutes.

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...That's a long time to hold out, honestly.

Truthfully, I'd expected Dobby and Seo Harin to give out even sooner. A faint mist hung throughout the forest, soaking the ground into a bog — with every step, the wet earth seemed to grip at our feet and drag us down.

It wasn't much of an obstacle for me, but for the priests it was another matter entirely, with the fatigue piling up in their legs minute after minute. The fact that they'd kept our pace this long was impressive in itself. Probably thanks to the Body Enhancement Elixir — they'd all been over the moon when their stats went up.

"Harin! Dobby! From now on, cast your Vitality spell on yourselves!"

Until now, the two of them had been casting their Vitality buffs on me and Hosu — naturally, since we were the ones moving the most. But I still had stamina to spare.

Hosu looks like he's holding up fine too.

After barking the order, I turned my eyes forward. The Tiger-Men were charging in again. As my gaze snapped ahead, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Seo Harin and Dobby nodding at the very edge of my vision.

"Yes, sir!"

"Kkiik! Got it!"

They've still got some fight left in them after all.

At the two priests' spirited replies, I smiled faintly and swung my mace.

"Kkeo-eok!"

"Kkuh-heung!"

A mace-struck Tiger-Man lost its balance and crashed to the ground, and another came lunging in from the opposite side. I drove my shield up under its jaw, then dropped my center of gravity and kicked out at its shin. Crack. Bone snapped, and the Tiger-Man's lower leg twisted at a grotesque angle.

"Kiyaaaaak!"

If I left it like this, its screaming would become an obstacle for the whole party. So I kicked the wailing, crumpling Tiger-Man square in the chest, and the beast went flying backward, the back of its head slamming hard against a tree trunk.

The thud of impact rang out loud. Above the fallen Tiger-Man, leaves drifted down in a lazy shower.

...Ah, shit. Please tell me it's not dead.

"Left!"

Our bloodied chase through the forest had now dragged on past the hour-and-a-half mark. Just how vast was this Eerie Forest? Even after running for over an hour, there was still no end in sight.

To be fair, we had been weaving this way and that to shake the Tiger-Men as we fled. But surely something should have turned up by now — anything?

"Damn it all! This forest won't even cough up a single rock to lean our backs against!"

"Hosu! One on your right!"

Just dense trees, mist, and charging Tiger-Men, over and over. The monotony was so absolute I half-suspected we'd been caught in an illusion spell.

The one silver lining was that the Tiger-Men's pursuit had thinned out somewhat.

"The rear's definitely lighter!"

"The front too!"

Apparently the Tiger-Men weren't an infinite horde after all. For every one of them we'd knocked out of action, the pursuit had weakened a little more.

"Let's catch our breath. But don't stop."

With that, I eased our pace slightly. Seo Harin and Dobby's stamina had simply bottomed out. Slowing down meant the Tiger-Men could press us ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠harder, but there was nothing to be done about it. No telling what would happen next — for now, we needed a moment to breathe, however brief.

In the end, we killed one.

There had been no way around it. During the short rest, Seo Harin and Dobby had recovered a measure of their strength — but the chasing Tiger-Men had swelled back into the hundreds. They'd no doubt closed in on us in the moments we slowed our pace.

All of that was within expectations. The problem came when a little more time had passed. From somewhere, the number of pursuing Tiger-Men suddenly exploded.

I'd done everything I could to avoid killing them, but in the chaos there was no way to keep track of everything at once. Cole's arrow, aimed at a shoulder, punched straight through a Tiger-Man's brow instead.

We'd killed only the one — but from that moment, the whole party's attacks grew even more cautious. And naturally, the more careful our strikes became, the faster our stamina drained away.

At last, the party's stamina reached its limit. Our running pace slowed noticeably, while the number of swarming Tiger-Men crept ever higher.

About three hours remained. Half of the time we'd been given had bled away, but half still hung in the balance. I could keep going — but the others clearly could not. Even Ha Heijeong was gasping for air, her breath coming rough and ragged.

Even now, she offered no advice, no counsel. She simply hauled in great heaving breaths and exerted herself only as much as an ordinary mage could manage.

And in that moment, I understood. Floor 7, the Eerie Forest. This was a floor that could never be cleared by running away alone.

That's absurd.

Even granting that Ha Heijeong wasn't using her real abilities, this was still a party with the Rank 1 climber in it — me. Every other member sat comfortably in the upper ranks of the leaderboard too.

Kill the King of the Tiger-Men, or offer up a sacrifice.

Floor 7 was a floor that forced you to choose between two roads: settle it with overwhelming force, or sacrifice a comrade. Flee halfheartedly, burn through your stamina, and you'd end up too spent to ever take down the King. The architecture itself was a trap.

Damn notification window. No wonder nobody trusts this thing. Even when it tells you the truth, suspicion comes first. There's malice baked into it — a deliberate design to keep climbers from ascending.

Of course, if I'd been any other climber, this would have been a fatal problem... but I wasn't.

Honestly? I don't think I'd lose to the King of the Tiger-Men.

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That had been my thought, in spite of my objections to the party's plan, back when we first entered Floor 7. And yet I'd still stubbornly chosen to run — for the sake of my own growth, and the party's.

Kid, if you act like you already know everything, you'll end up a fool.

After hearing Ha Heijeong's words, I'd realized that the lesson wasn't confined to knowledge. It applied to strength, too.

Overwhelming power is a wonderful thing. You simply smash through everything that blocks your path and move on. But what happens when you run into something that power alone can't handle? How do you fight your way through then?

Take Floors 4 and 5, where brute force had been utterly useless. I couldn't just leave it to luck every single time something like that came along.

Karakshi. Queen Seraphim. The King of the Tiger-Men.

Wielding overwhelming power in the moments that demand it — that much is only natural. But to survive the moments that don't demand it, you have to think like an ordinary climber and walk headlong into the Tower's trials.

And when I thought of my party, that became all the more true. Cole Sprouse and Seo Harin were, by Ha Heijeong's own admission, genuinely talented people. Hosu hadn't existed in her memories, but he was a solid man all the same.

If I bulldozed every situation with raw strength, what would become of my party members? I would be ruining people who had every chance to grow.

But.

On Floor 7 — this is where it ends.

"Kkuh-heo-eung!"

As if it had read my mind, a wall of flame over three meters tall roared up around the party. Ha Heijeong's doing. The charging Tiger-Men recoiled in fright, scrambling backward.

"So what now?"

Ha Heijeong asked it in a calm voice, her face perfectly composed. But in her eyes I could see it — a faint, flickering glimmer of expectation.

"Heijeong."

The answer had already been decided. It was time — time to put an end to this endless, wretched chase.

"Put out the fire."

Ha Heijeong smiled, a slow, sharp curve of her lips. And with that smile, the wall of flame began to die, sinking away from the bottom up. As the fire vanished, the Tiger-Men's legs came into view — and the tails lowered between them.

Now it's time for a real fight.

The moment I resolved on it, a sense of release burst up from beneath my sternum and flooded through my whole body. For the sake of my party's growth and mine, to learn Floor 7's true purpose — everything I'd swallowed for over three hours came surging out at once.

"Come at me, you tiger bastards."

The instant the wall of flame dissolved into nothing, I kicked off the ground and charged straight at the Tiger-Men, the wind whipping across my cheeks, crisp and clean.

The first Tiger-Man came bounding in, and I brought my lightning-laden mace down on the crown of its skull. Crack — with the sound of shattering bone, the beast's head burst apart.

One.

Two more leapt at me from either side. I batted the left one out of the air with a sweep of my shield, then ducked my head to slip past the right one's claws. I drove my mace up into its belly and channeled the lightning upward. Through the punctured hide, electricity crawled across the Tiger-Man's entire body in a seething wave.

Two.

I brought the mace down on the chest of the Tiger-Man felled by my shield. The head of it punched through the ribs, and the beast's eyes rolled back white.

Three.

The kill count matched the number of times I'd swung the mace. Two more swings, and the King would appear.

I sprinted forward and leapt, kicking a Tiger-Man in the chest and sending it tumbling backward. Its claws flailed, swiping at empty air as it fell. The moment its back hit the ground, I snapped my wrist and drove the mace down onto its skull. Crunch! Bone and flesh erupted outward, mixed with brain matter, exploding like a burst sac.

Four.

I felt gore running down my cheek, but I couldn't be bothered to care. Behind me, I sensed a Tiger-Man gathering itself to leap — aiming for my back, by the look of it.

Too late.

I twisted, borrowing the torque of my rotating hips to swing the mace from behind me up and over in a single arc. The Tiger-Man, caught square in the chest, ignored its own forward momentum and was slammed into the ground together with my mace.

Five.

With the one Cole had already taken, that made six. The notification window refreshed.

A sacrifice? I didn't have one.

King of the Tiger-Men or Emperor of them — I intended to break every last one of them.

"Kkuh-heo-heo-heung—!"

As if it had been waiting for exactly this moment, a colossal roar rolled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in from far away — a roar on an entirely different tier from any of the other Tiger-Men's cries. The King of the Tiger-Men, without a doubt.

I'd killed six. Now it was the King's turn to die.