Half a Beat
Three months later.
"You've worked hard."
"Not at all. I've been in your debt as well."
We were trading the usual last courtesies when the old man came out from the back with a small coin pouch in hand.
"You've put the hours in. I ought to pay you back."
No. Severance? This miser?
Hope lit in my eyes.
"A fair pile of mana stones came in yesterday. I'll let them go cheap. How about it?"
A bitter smile pulled at my mouth.
Of course.
Mana stones — stones steeped in the mana that rose out of the Labyrinth. Essential material for every tool, every product, every place that needed mana to run. Even the red ones. Even the very bottom of the common grade.
But there was no chance the stones this man meant were anything so ordinary.
"You mean the ones judged defective, because they barely hold any mana?"
"......You've been collecting those, haven't you. Must be good for something."
He wasn't wrong. I could raise their grade if I gathered enough junk stones, and grade was money. That was the whole reason I hadn't quit the general store these past three months.
"Don't tell me you bought them on purpose for this."
"I told you. To pay you back. What, you don't want them?"
The nerve of it — hoarding trash-grade mana stones just to sell them to a quitting employee — left me speechless. Still, for me, right now, it wasn't a bad offer.
"How many have you got?"
"This many."
Stones rattled as Johnson tipped the pouch and showed me a fistful of red ones, each a dull crystal the color of watered blood.
A low-grade piece, holding only the faintest trace of mana.
The bottom of the common grade. Junk.
"......I'll give you one gold for the lot."
"Bah! Not at that price, you won't!"
"Then don't sell them. Take care, old man."
"Ah— ah, wait!"
I turned to go, and Johnson caught me.
"These cost me more than a gold. Tell me one thing and I'll let them go for fifty silver."
"Tell you what?"
The old man sidled in, face gone sly, and asked it low.
"What you use this junk for. It makes money, doesn't it? Am I right?"
A chill went through my chest. Copying money with the Goblin Basket — that was the point, of course. This old man sniffed it out already...... The question was how far I could go and still be safe.
"......Someone I know said they use defective mana stones when they craft. So I collected them. They promised me one decent common item I could actually take into the Labyrinth."
"Ah...... that so?"
"So sell them, or don't."
"Ehh, we've got history, haven't we! Fine! I'll sell!"
Johnson took the fifty silver and handed the stones over. My head wouldn't settle. Even then, the suspicion in the old man's eyes didn't fade.
I can't keep copying money like this.
The moment anyone learned I had the Goblin Basket, or anything like it, every future I could picture was an ugly one. And in the middle of that tangle—
The door creaked.
"Welco—!"
The greeting came out of habit, and the face that met it was one I did not want to see.
"Yo, trash-tier. Big bro's here. Been a while, huh?"
A thug, lifting a hand in a lazy wave and grinning wide. Lee Jeong-ho.
Lee Jeong-ho?
I looked past him. Nobody. No Kim Hyun-shik. No Cha Hye-ryeon. He was alone.
"The fuck you looking at?"
"Nothing."
I took him in, slow. He was a long way from three months ago. Leather armor gone dull and dry. A greatsword chipped along the edge from neglect. Hair brittle and unkempt. And more than any of that, the confidence that had clung to him three months ago was gone. What had filled the space was—
Nerves?
"Big bro brought a lot of good stuff again."
He heaved the sack off his back and dropped it on the counter.
Then he upended it and let everything spill. Stones. Broken bones. Rusted scraps of metal. And more stones.
......This bastard. Same as three months ago. No — worse.
"There."
Lee Jeong-ho jerked his chin.
"Ring it up."
I said nothing.
"What are you doing?"
He tapped the counter with a finger. Tap. Tap.
"Hurry the fuck up."
Three months ago, I would have rung it up. Put even the rocks on the scale. Paid an absurd price. Smiled, and sent him on his way. Because I hadn't wanted to get hit.
I picked one thing off the counter. A stone. Turned it over. Still a stone. I dropped it on the floor.
"Not buying."
"......What?"
"This."
I picked up another stone and dropped it.
"Not buying this either."
One more. Another drop.
"Not this one."
Lee Jeong-ho's face hardened. I held the last stone out in front of him.
"Should I make a special exception for this one?"
He didn't answer.
"Nah."
I let it fall at his feet.
"Not buying this either."
"You little shit......"
Lee Jeong-ho's face twisted. A familiar expression. I'd seen that face three months ago.
He kicked the display shelf hard enough to rattle it.
"You bought them last time!"
Yeah. I had.
"Quit wasting people's time and pay for the whole pile by weight."
Even the words were the same. A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing."
It really was funny. Three months ago, every one of those words had scared me. Now—
Why does he look so small?
"Hey."
"What."
"You."
I ran my eyes over his gear again, and asked.
"You a dropout?"
His hand stopped dead. Right answer.
"......What?"
"I heard the rumors. Even among summoners, some can't adapt, never get a class, and wash out in the Novice stretch."
"Shut up."
"Kim Hyun-shik and Cha Hye-ryeon?"
"I said shut up."
"They dump you?"
Lee Jeong-ho slammed the counter.
"You trash-tier piece of shit!"
His hand flew at my collar. Three months ago, I hadn't even seen that hand. By the time I came to, my body was already off the ground. Now—
Slow.
I could see the fingers. The wrist. The shoulder moving first. His weight tipping forward. All of it.
I knocked his arm aside with the back of my hand.
"......?"
Lee Jeong-ho's eyes went wide. He probably couldn't make sense of it. A trash-tier, swatting his hand away.
"You."
I said it plain.
"Remember what you said to me three months ago?"
"The fuck kinda—"
"You said a trash-tier had no business wasting people's time."
His face locked up. So he remembered.
"And."
I stepped in. He tried to retreat on reflex. Too late.
"You hit me here."
My fist buried itself in his solar plexus.
"Guhk!"
Lee Jeong-ho folded at the waist like a bow. In that moment the feeling was strange. Three months ago, I had gone down just like that — crawling the floor because I couldn't breathe, unable to do a thing, because I had no strength. Now it was the other way around.
"Uh......"
Lee Jeong-ho staggered and looked up at me. An emotion I'd never seen in those eyes was rising there. Fear. The moment I saw it, I understood in my body how much I'd changed in three months.
But one thing was left.
"And last."
I grabbed him by the collar.
"You did this."
"W-wait......"
I heaved him off the ground. Lee Jeong-ho's eyes stretched wide enough to tear.
"I......"
A laugh came out of me on its own.
"Hate it when people waste my time."
Then I threw him.
"Aaaagh!"
Lee Jeong-ho smashed through the shop door and spilled into the street.
I stared at the hole where the door had been.
"Whew."
He flew better than I'd expected. I'd put too much into it. I was stepping through what was left of the doorway when Johnson's shaking voice came from behind.
"......Charr."
"Yes?"
"The door."
I looked back. The door was gone.
"I'm only working through today, right?"
"Right."
"Then you can't take that out of my severance."
"You never had severance to begin with!"
"Figures."
Consistent to the end, the old man. I snorted a laugh and went outside.
The laugh died.
"Kkh......"
Lee Jeong-ho was hauling himself up, unsteady.
"You...... fuck......"
His face had gone bright red. Shame seemed to hurt worse than the blow. Fair enough. People were gathering, one and two.
"What's going on?"
"A fight?"
"They look like adventurers."
"Aren't they both Novices?"
Someone snickered.
"Nothing's funnier than a brawl between shit-tier nobodies!"
......I'll remember that face for later.
"Trash-tier bastard......"
Steel rang as Lee Jeong-ho drew his greatsword. A cheer went up around us.
"Ooooh!"
But I looked at the sword in his hands before I looked at him. The hand was shaking. Breath ragged. Stance a mess. Three months ago, that sword had terrified me. One swing, and I was sure my body would come apart in two. Now—
If this were Instructor Jerik...... one look at that stance and I'd have been beaten half to death.
Jerik's voice played back in my head.
"Feet!"
"Look at the feet first! Watch the sword and try to dodge, and you're already too late!"
Lee Jeong-ho's front foot moved.
Here it comes.
He charged.
"Die!"
The greatsword came down. I didn't dodge to the side. Just half a step back.
The sword hammered the ground in front of my nose. Stone chips flew. And Lee Jeong-ho's body opened completely.
Really. I stepped in. He's sloppy.
A left hook drove into his jaw.
"Uk!"
Lee Jeong-ho dropped the sword and rolled. The crowd went quiet for a moment. Then the shout broke loose.
"Waaaaah!"
Only then did I understand. This wasn't revenge. It was a test — of how different I was now from the me of three months ago.
I looked down at Lee Jeong-ho where he lay, and for the first time, looking at him stirred nothing in me. Not fear. Not resentment. Only—
He's weak.
That was all. The people around us didn't seem to see it that way.
"Waaaaah!"
"That was clean!"
"Looks like a Novice, but the technique's sharper than you'd think."
A raucous mood, fit for a barbaric world used to violence. I was smiling, a little drunk on it, when a few looks — staring down at me as if I were nothing — snapped me awake.
Am I puffing myself up because I handled one dropout? In this insane world?
The swell of pride folded itself away, and the shoulders I'd started to square sank again.
Careful. Careful.
In the middle of that, an unfamiliar voice cut into my ear.
"Advance-Retreat Footwork. Not bad."
I turned, and a man built like a bear was coming over. Blond hair, leather armor, muscle threatening to split the gaps between the plates. More striking than any of that was the small dragon tattoo at the corner of his right eye, writhing as if it were alive.
Whoa. Special Class?
I didn't know the grade or the level, but a mana tattoo that moved like that was proof he'd cleared a ten-floor gateway with outstanding results. A man I, still classless, couldn't even stand beside.
"Half a beat late coming back out of that retreat, and you'd be dead. You know that?"
"Yes. Of course."
That was what the technique was. The answer seemed to please him. The man gave a short laugh.
"And still no hesitation. Good. Form's clean, too. Advance-Retreat like that in this neighborhood — you learn it from Senior Jerik?"
Senior Jerik?
"Yes. I'm Go Cheol-woo. I train at the Jerik Martial Arts Hall. And your name......?"
At that, the man's expression stiffened a little.
"Cheoru? Odd name. A summoner?"
"......Yes. Not attached to the Royal Palace, though."
"A summoner, and not with the palace? Doesn't look like a drop......out, though?"
His gaze slid to the thug behind me, and I smiled bitterly.
"They threw me out. Said I had no talent."
"Oh, you? Figures. Those palace dogs can't tell gold from dirt."
I liked him immediately for that.
"You don't seem like someone who'd be in this district."
Why was a man like this in District 9 — the outermost ring, where ordinary folk, Novices, and at best lower-tier adventurers came and went?
"Ah. Well, I had someone to find. Just came from seeing Senior Jerik. He said he had a summoner trainee with fairly decent talent, and that was......?"
"What? Ah. Probably......"
"You grasp mana easily enough, and your body's still dull. Can't you do it right!?"
Set beside the voice that had drilled me, the praise didn't fit him at all. That was just the kind of man he was.
"......I think the instructor was being kind."
"......Right. A proper amount of humility sits well with me, too. Get a class, then come to District 4 and look up the Drake Guild."
Was this a recruitment offer?
I've heard plenty about guilds...... Unfortunately, almost none of it had been good. But a guild with a foothold in District 4 meant a fiftieth-floor-tier adventurer. No reason to sour the mood.
"Yes. Thank you."
At my answer, the bear of a man snorted a laugh and clapped my shoulder.
"Right. Don't imprint just any skill. Focus on a few and train those. Summoners make that mistake more than anyone."
Same thing Jerik had said.
"Natives are the same, but summoners especially have no need to imprint a pile of skills. In the end it's waste."
"One attack. One way of handling mana. One evasion technique. That's enough."
"I'll keep it in mind."
"Right. Take care."
"Wait — your name......!?"
"Geeks. Geeks of the Drake Guild."
He left like that, but the sight of a high-rank adventurer I'd never seen before was so striking it kept flickering at the edge of my vision for a while. When I came back to myself—
"Ah!"
I spun around, and there was Lee Jeong-ho, stripped completely bare.
"Damn...... They cleaned him out already?"
I'd been a step too late. The armor and the greatsword looked like they'd have been worth something. Still, taking the underwear too — wasn't that a bit much?
Looking at Lee Jeong-ho, picked utterly clean, even what revenge I had left seemed to cool. Of course I'd still have to pay the other two back.
The palace bastards, too.
Swearing one revenge, and then another, I turned my feet toward the martial arts hall.