Chapter 21

I used “adventurer” to preserve the meaning of the original text. I indicated floors 1 through 4 as “Floors 1 through 4,” and kept the quotation marks around “Cheol-woo's” as is. I have completed a final check to ensure there are no remaining Korean words._TITLE: You Brought This on Yourself

I understood it in the same instant I felt it—I had been moved, someone's hand planted on my shoulder. Light flared. The moment a different place opened before my eyes, I ripped my spear free and drove the shaft backward, and the blow landed with a heavy crack.

"Oh? Not bad."

The voice was easy, unhurried. Kim Hyun-shik shook out his hand and gave ground a few steps.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What do you mean, what am I doing? I told you. I got orders. This isn't a situation where I can just walk away."

Whatever he was hurriedly tucking into his clothes looked like a stealth artifact. That had to be what had made this mess. The information my trait had fed me the instant his hand closed on my shoulder said as much.

So a Summoner's trait showed up too. I was only learning that now.

He looked like a warrior.

Either way, I kept it in mind: whatever he fought like, it had nothing to do with the gear he showed the world.

"So that's why you latched on like this?"

"Whoa. What is all this—you butchered them? Looks like you actually learned the trade. So that's where those items came from?"

A cave in the highlands of Floor 4. He was glancing over the traces of my butchering and talking about something else entirely.

"Why don't you just get lost. I've got no intention of running a quest with a leech like you hanging off me."

"Hey, hey. You think you've got a choice right now? This guy's hilarious."

Steel whispered. Sword drawn from his hip, he came on at a walk.

"Nobody left to talk me down. I'll just haul you to Floor 5 by force. After that, you do what I tell you. We clear?"

That confident face. A Classed adventurer against a Novice—he had reason enough.

And two abilities, on top of that.

But his guard was down. That was the opening I could take.

I ran the Volante Footwork in reverse, forging an extreme weight into the step, and the vibrating ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spear—carrying that weight in full—drove into his chest like a thunderbolt.

"Hmph!"

The sword he swung with that snort failed to knock the spearhead aside and was flung back instead. His eyes blew wide as he twisted, but the range was already too close. The point I'd aimed at his chest punched through his armor and raked his flank.

Shallower than I'd thought.

"Shit!?"

The curse burst out of him and he retreated fast—only for his body to close in faster still. A blade swept for my neck, and I barely knocked it off with the shaft. The clang rang out, and he grunted. The recoil off the vibrating shaft must have hit harder than he'd expected. The moment he faltered, the shaft whipped around and slammed his side again, and riding that same rebound I thrust, the spearhead scoring his opposite flank.

Shallow.

I swallowed the disappointment and stepped back. In that span Kim Hyun-shik had retreated several paces, his face gone frighteningly hard.

"Are you insane, you fuck! Right. That spear. Ha. And on top of that—you've already dumped every level-up point? Dumb bastard."

The man was thinking something truly stupid.

"Well, fine. So you had a trick or two after all, is that it?"

His eyes finished checking both flanks and came back to me carrying killing intent.

The instant he moved, his figure vanished.

I lost his trail completely for a heartbeat, but the spirit senses I'd loosed when the fight began told me he had circled into the blind spot behind my left shoulder. I spun and brought the shaft up, and for a moment it seemed to catch the slash—then, in that tiny gap, a chill touched my neck and my side.

Kh!

I swung the shaft wide on reflex, and there he was, already well clear of me. For some reason he didn't close again. He was just grinning.

"If I'd felt like it a second ago, you'd be dead. You know that?"

The flank had ended at a pierced armor plate, but a faint cut had opened on my neck. I took it for bluster, and still my chest went cold. Then, all at once, my head spun.

"Ugh!?"

A cool clarity spread from my lower abdomen and wiped the dizziness away, and I saw Kim Hyun-shik's smile deepen.

"Getting real dizzy, guts churning, right? Vision swimming too."

Hm?

"I happen to work with poison, see? From here on, if I don't detox you, you'll be puking and shitting yourself while I drag your sorry ass along."

He came in again like the wind, and in that short instant a thousand thoughts ran through me. The underwear with its purification effect was already handling the poison. But that sword stroke I hadn't even properly seen a moment ago had set off a serious sense of danger.

And yet—

I gave up a few more shallow wounds, and strangely, it was manageable.

I'm getting used to this?

He took short steps and swung from every side. The speed was tremendous, but the form—how to put it—there wasn't any. Exaggerate a little and it was just an ordinary man flailing a sword at random, except the speed was absurd.

This isn't even swordsmanship.

Fast, yes, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but the windup was far too easy to read, and there wasn't so much as the minimum of technique meant to deceive anyone. With the spirit's senses backing me, it looked entirely blockable.

But.

He is definitely fast.

The footwork looked wretched, and still his movement left afterimages.

"This bastard's ignoring me? Keep this up and you're the only one who's gonna have a worse and worse time."

Win or lose aside, if someone with this kind of speed decided to run, I had no confidence I could ever catch him.

Make it more certain.

I knocked the sword aside a few times and deliberately let myself be cut a few more. Another shallow line on the neck, one on the exposed flank, and one that slipped through the armor on my thigh in a light graze. I kept anything vital out of it and took only faint wounds. He seemed to have been aiming for exactly that from the start, so it wasn't hard.

Then, in that state—

"Ugh..."

I shook my head, blinked, and staggered, and his smile grew thicker.

"Come on, don't fight it. Just listen nicely and your big brother here will clear Floor 5 for you fast and let you out. Ah—of course, you'll have to tell me the secret behind these traces."

"And if I... can't... talk?"

"Then what? I'll just have to take an arm and a leg. Oh—should I start with the fingers?"

He snorted a laugh and pointed the sword at my hand.

"Ugh..."

I put a pained look on my face, tipped forward as if I were collapsing, and let the spear slip just a little. I had no confidence in the acting. I was only hoping his arrogance would cover his eyes.

A moment. That's all I need.

And then he took one more step in. My spearhead tilted inside the line of his sword, and in that brief instant the angle of my fake collapse lined up almost perfectly with the shaft. My hand snatched it. The foot that closed the distance in one long stride made the drive. The spear, trembling with vibration in my grip, shot straight out and punched through his solar plexus.

"Ghk!?"

Tch.

Slipped a little.

Even then he'd twisted on instinct, so the point had taken him through the right side of the chest. That was still enough.

"You little—bastard!"

Lung run through, he still roared and swung like a man possessed, but it was already markedly slower than before. I stepped back, pulling the spear free as I slipped the sword, and thrust again. The point went in. He choked on it. Again, and again. The Edelin longspear punched his plate with ease and laid fatal wounds down one after another, so that no adventurer, however astonishing his vitality, could possibly live.

"H-how...?"

"Easily."

At that offhand answer the kneeling man's eyes shivered, and he pitched forward with nothing left in him. He hit the ground.

Only after that unbearably empty system voice told me he was dead did my hands begin to tremble, just slightly.

I really killed him.

My heart kicked. The moment I looked down at the corpse, it started beating even faster than it had in the fight.

I'd done plenty of killing before this, but all of it had been monsters and beasts out of the Labyrinth. Even Lee Jeong-ho, I hadn't killed. And now, out of nowhere, I'd killed a person—someone from home. Of course there was a shock to it.

But the moment I recognized that and the words left my mouth—

"You brought this on yourself, you piece of shit."

—the shaking in my hands and in my heart stopped cold. If he'd won, I would have died, or ended up in a state worse than death. He was the one who'd picked the fight. He was the one who'd made the threats. He'd even used poison.

Without the purification effect, I'd have been finished.

I'd made that effect to prepare for the Floor 5 quest. I'd never imagined this bastard would force me to test it ahead of time.

"I did good. I did the right thing."

Soothing myself like that, I went to set my hand on the portal and realized I'd forgotten something.

That guy. The sword and the shoes look like artifacts. No—even the armor's expensive.

Only then did I calm down in any true sense. I started stripping his gear on the spot.

"Hup."

I didn't even bother looking over the ordinary armor. It all went straight into the spatial pouch. But the moment my hand found, inside his clothes, a leather wrap large enough to cover a whole body, I had to stop. The texture and the pattern of that leather weren't unfamiliar.

The system's description was extremely simple.

Check Additional Information.

A low hum answered.

What I saw through the trait dragged a hollow laugh out of me.

"Ha. Shit. Materials I sold? No way."

Was I supposed to call this a connection? Feeling absurd, I took the stealth cloth anyway. An artifact was an artifact.

The next thing in front of me was a single sword.

"Hm."

So that was why the cuts had landed even when I could see them coming. A sword that paired well with a poison ability, but I wasn't particularly tempted.

Not a size the basket will take, either. This one gets sold. Once things quiet down...

His shoes were a different matter. They weren't boots formed up over the shin—just leather shoes.

"Oh?"

At this level, wouldn't it be fine to synthesize them with the shoes I had on? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The thought came, and one thing snagged on it.

Mine are boots. These are just shoes.

If the synthesis erased the shin of the boots, that meant losing a piece of my armor. Only for a moment, though.

No. The form usually follows the larger piece. It'll be fine.

I crammed my boots into the basket, dropped his shoes in after them, and fortunately, they took. Light flashed.

"Nice!"

What had been born was a pair of boots carrying so many options that it was hard to simply call them a high-grade item. The name grated a little. But the additional line—shoes synthesized by Go Cheol-woo through the Goblin Basket—would only appear for someone using my trait, so it didn't matter.

I'm not planning to sell them anytime soon anyway.

I had no intention of giving up the convenience functions on my own shoes, so from here on I'd probably synthesize everything to match these.

Once the armor and the artifacts were all stripped off, the corpse had nothing left but underwear. Unlike the blood-soaked top, the briefs were fine—and they were a familiar cut I'd seen more times than I could count, only yesterday.

Right. You're from the modern world too. You wouldn't have had a choice.

Even now, a hollow laugh came out of me. Beyond that, about ten gold in coin and some junk.

Clean it up. It's in the way.

I dragged the body out and threw it down beneath the highland cliff, and by the time I walked back in, the stray thoughts about him no longer rose.

"Floor 5. Floor 5."

I steadied my breathing, putting the weight on the words.

I have to nail this. Perfect Clear.

Because of Perfect Clear, I knew that what happened on Floor 5 and Floor 10 wasn't the whole of it. I also knew full well that those two were special floors.

The quest most likely to show up on Floor 5 is...

I shook off the aftermath of the fight I hadn't asked for with Kim Hyun-shik, ran one more mental rehearsal on what I already knew, and set my hand on the portal.

Floor 5!

Light flared. The instant my vision drowned in white again, a voice nothing like any that had come before it rang out.

What?