Floor 20: The Shelter (1)

Ah, right. He was talking about when I asked him back on the 13th floor if he wanted to join our party.

Well, this worked out nicely. I'd been planning to recruit someone after leaving the party anyway.

Hakin was a promising talent that Ha Heijeong herself had approved of.

It felt a little off to bring him in and then leave right away, but…

Well, I could just explain the situation to him.

The unexpected answer left me momentarily speechless.

I'd assumed he'd simply had a change of heart and wanted to join us… but it made sense. Even though the fortress defense had ultimately succeeded, there had been casualties.

And by unlucky coincidence, some of them had been Hakin's party members.

A quiet, buried sorrow ran beneath Hakin's words.

Average rest time in the Waiting Room was around ten hours.

Nowhere near enough to mourn comrades who had fought and died beside you. To survive himself, there would have been no room left for grief over the fallen.

My heart went out to the boy, wondering just how much anguish young Hakin must have endured.

Hakin fired back almost instantly, and the speed of his reply seemed to speak volumes about his bewilderment.

Before any misunderstanding could take root, I answered quickly.

Hm. If he was fine even without me, that was a yes.

I told Hakin to wait a moment, then sent a message to Ha Heijeong—explaining his circumstances and that he'd asked to join our party.

She must have been in the middle of something, because a little while passed before her reply came.

A small laugh escaped me at Heijeong's words.

So Seo Harin had been fully upgraded to warrior status these days.

Well, it was fair enough—she'd been donning full plate armor ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and marching onto the floor since the 15th. I'd heard that despite being in the priest line, she'd swung her mace at the oncoming enemies right at the very front.

Floor by floor, she was becoming less a priest and more a holy knight.

That's no bad thing.

She'd found her own talent, and with me leaving the party, it was good news for us all.

In any case, Ha Heijeong spoke with Azad Hakin directly. She didn't extend a formal party invitation yet.

After I announced my departure in the Shelter, she planned to talk the party members through it one by one.

Hakin's rank was around 2,100th, so I won't be seeing him in the Shelter.

He would most likely join the party on the next party-formation floor.

With talent like his, his rank would climb fast. I had a feeling we might even cross paths in the Zone 1 Shelter on the 30th floor.

And so, in the middle of our rest, the armor arrived.

My second visit here. The fading dusk, the fields washed in deep green—just like last time, they welcomed me.

The Tower of Trials surely chose the name "Shelter" for a reason, but did it truly restore peace of mind?

The moment I laid eyes on the fields, something in my chest simply let go.

After steadying myself with one long look at the blue-tinged sunset, I turned my gaze to my party members.

"It's the Shelter, as expected. And here we came fully armed for nothing."

"That's right. Apparently every tenth floor is a Shelter. Next time we shouldn't bother with our gea—"

Cole, mid-sentence, went wide-eyed the moment she saw me.

At that sudden silence, the rest of the party, who had been admiring the scenery, turned toward us as well.

Seo Harin and the old man's eyes went wide too, questions spilling out of them.

"O-oppa… what is that?"

"Suhyeok, where on earth did that come from?"

"Haha… I saved up some achievement points and got myself a new one."

It was the armor crafted by the master artisan Roxant.

Dark as ink, matching the gauntlets, and traced across its surface in a faint silver sheen was a pattern of stately elegance.

Even at a glance, the armor looked anything but ordinary.

No—was that even putting it strongly enough?

Aura positively seeped from the thing itself. Even someone blind to such things would have felt the armor's power radiating off it.

"Well, you did kill the Emperor and probably collapsed the floor, so you must've raked in a mountain of achievement points. Keheh, but damn—it really does look good."

"I agree. Your whole presence feels different. No matter how well you fought, Suhyeok, your defensive gear always looked a little thin for someone who fought on the front line every time—but now I can finally rest easy."

At Cole's words I gave a faint smile, and the old man beside me asked with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"By the way, Suhyeok—how much did it cost you?"

Instead of answering, I laughed awkwardly. The old man kept prodding me, grinning ear to ear.

"Oh, come on! So expensive you won't even tell me? I'd been saving up points to buy armor too, and you went and snagged a beauty. Hah, weird, though. When I ransacked the shop, there was nothing like this."

"There are just so many items in the shop. Besides, the word 'armor' isn't even in this one's name—you'd never have found it by searching."

I didn't bother mentioning that I'd used a Dimensional Forge voucher.

The moment I brought it up, the party members would pepper me with questions about what it was, and it was a bit of a hassle…

Plus, it felt a little shameless to flaunt that I alone had received some enormous extra reward.

But one thing I said was true: the word 'armor' really wasn't in the name.

It was a description that made me smile no matter how many times I read it.

I smiled at my party members, who were still drinking in every detail of the armor, and spoke up.

"Shall we get moving as well?"

The summoned climbers were already making their way toward the Shelter.

We needed to hurry too—book our lodging and a spot at a restaurant, and rest as much as we could.

"Sounds great! Let's go!"

"Alright, alright. I'm starving. Let's move fast."

And on the entire walk into the Shelter, the climbers' eyes never stopped drifting toward us.

Partly, no doubt, because of what we'd done from the 14th through the 16th floors…

But mostly, it was the armor. Everyone's eyes went round as saucers as they stared at it, wearing expressions that practically shouted, Whoa, holy crap—what IS that?

Quite some time had passed since we booked our rooms and came out to the restaurant.

Dinner was long finished, and we were a good few drinks deep. And thankfully, the conversation about my leaving the party wrapped up without much trouble.

Of course, the party members were terribly disappointed.

But everyone understood full well that my staying in the party would only hold them all back.

"Well, after watching you on the 16th floor, I can't exactly argue. You took down a dragon alone and then handled an army of lizardmen—splitting up is the right call."

"He's right. Honestly, traveling with you feels safest, but we can't lean on that forever."

"Aww, still… we've come all this way together. I'm really going to miss you."

Once I'd finished explaining, the party members spoke their minds in turn.

The old man nodded at Seo Harin's words, then added his own.

"Suhyeok, remember—once a party, a party forever. We're parting so we can all grow stronger, so let's meet again with smiles on our faces. Thank you for everything, and take care of yourself out there."

"Thank you, sir. We all have to make it to the end."

"Oppa, so is Dobby going with you too?"

"Most likely. Dobby moves with me, so he'll be leaving the party."

When I answered with a smile, Seo Harin's face crumpled with disappointment. As fellow priests, she and Dobby had apparently grown quietly attached without even realizing it.

After that, Ha Heijeong explained that a friend named Azad Hakin would be joining the party in my place.

Thankfully, Heijeong made the case well, and the party members accepted it without a word of complaint.

And so, setting their lingering regrets behind, my party members kept the drinks and the conversation flowing.

Given what we'd just been through, the talk kept circling back to the 16th floor.

"So—how exactly did that all happen?"

"Ah, right, you wouldn't have seen it. I made the opening move—I was the one who killed the dragon. And afterward, that Koshak named Turen told me that even if the end of the charge meant death, he would follow me anywhere."

"Keuh! Now THAT'S a man with soul. Mind you, I thought he was an arrogant little snot at first, but he did have the backbone to admit defeat right away, didn't he."

Because the party members had spent the whole fight along the left wall, they were full of questions about how I'd come to slay the dragon in the first place.

So I walked them through that, and through the charge that had followed it.

The moment the story turned to the charge with the Koshak, Seo Harin's eyes began to sparkle with fascination.

"And then I charged. The gate was collapsing and we had to keep them from pouring through. I never meant to run that far, not at first."

"And then?"

"But the longer I ran, the more something came over me. Possessed, I guess you'd call it? I ran with my mind completely blank, and when I finally came to, I was in the middle of the enemy lines."

"Keuh! That's it, that's exactly it! You looked like a man riding a demon straight into their ranks."

The old man swallowed a mouthful of beer and chimed in with perfect timing.

To feed their curiosity a little and give my throat a rest besides, I took a slow sip of my own beer.

"Only then did I take stock of the battle. The dragon was dead, the sky was ours, and the enemy's numbers had thinned considerably. It looked doable. And right then, Heijeong gave the order to charge."

"Kya, that was quite the moment. Her presence on top of that wall was no joke either. 'Acting Commander Ha Heijeong addressing all climbers: the full army charges!' Kuuuh."

"Mister!"

When the old man mimicked Ha Heijeong's voice, she scrunched her face up and shouted at him.

The party members burst out laughing at the comical sight.

And just then, Alexei ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠appeared, leading his own party members behind him.

"Hey there! I came with my party members today—we did fight together on the 16th floor, after all. Got room for a few more at your table?"