Stay Still
The moment I got back to my room, the first thing I did was use Return. The cooldown had already run its course anyway, and there was one thing I wanted to check.
Return
The moment I used the skill, familiar light washed over my vision.
"Whew."
My own room, down to the last familiar detail — sunlight through the window, the bed, even the clutter strewn across the desk. I went straight to comparing the clock on the wall with the one on my phone.
Time looks the same.
The place I'd come back to was probably wherever I'd cast Return from earlier. I still didn't have nearly enough data.
Just how much can I take with me?
I'd confirmed that carrying things across was possible. The problem was the amount, and I still had no idea how much I could bring out of the Tower. There hadn't been anything worth hauling back to test it with in the first place.
I looked at the waterskin in my hand and nodded.
This much, at least, I can definitely bring.
If something more worth carrying turned up next time, I'd have to try it. I opened the fridge, took out some water, and drank.
"Ahh—!"
Cold bit hard enough to sting my throat. God, I had missed this.
The water in that leather waterskin hadn't been fit to drink. The hide's foul stink had soaked into it, and neither the taste nor the temperature was anything to speak of.
"I should wash up."
I opened the skill window, checked the time, and stepped into the bathroom. Could a bathroom this cramped, stuck in a one-room studio, really feel so welcome?
"Haaaah—!"
The water pouring from the showerhead felt unbelievably good.
"Ahh— I don't want to go back—!"
When I finished, I looked at myself in the mirror.
"Ha."
The day before yesterday, I'd still been pulling night shifts at a convenience store.
For the time being, I decided to stop ferrying things over from Earth — at least until I moved into a lodging with better security. Once I had a new place, maybe I could live a little more like a person.
Holding on to that small hope, I started looking around the apartment. What did I have right now that was worth taking?
I'll grab a few towels.
Those seemed worth having. They'd be useful for sword training, and I could think of plenty of other places they'd come in handy.
"What a life."
A hollow laugh slipped out of me. Sword training, with luck like mine... Still, I had to do it. Being able to Return didn't make the Tower safe. I could only stay for a set stretch of time, and using it again meant waiting a full day.
In the end, most of my hours would have to be spent in the Tower. If that was how it was going to be, I at least needed to be able to keep my own body in one piece.
Duration: 00:44
Cooldown: 23:30:44
Already time to go.
I checked what time I had left and lay down on the bed. A little later, familiar light carried me back to the Tower.
"Logan?"
The next morning I went to the Nyx Merchant Guild and gave a short account of what had happened the day before — the man staying in the same lodging, the name Logan, and how he had followed me onto Floor 1, helped me, and offered to come along for a few days.
Taeyong didn't answer right away.
"What is his family name?"
"I don't know."
"And his appearance?"
"Well, for one thing, he's enormous."
"......"
Maybe that description had been a little thin.
"Blond, looks to be in his mid-forties. He carries a huge shield."
Only then did Taeyong's expression shift, just a little.
"That would be Logan Howard."
"You know him?"
"Not personally. I know the face and the name, nothing more."
Taeyong leaned back in his chair.
"He has spent about ten years here. As I understand it, he fights as a tank."
Ten years. Far longer than I'd thought.
"He isn't trouble, is he?"
"Not as far as I know."
Taeyong thought a moment, then added,
"At the very least, he is not the sort of man who stabs someone in the back, kills them, and strips the gear off the body."
"......"
Come to think of it, of course people like that would exist.
"This is a place where people live, too. There are good ones, bad ones, and some who are very bad indeed."
"I suppose so."
"Only."
Taeyong tapped the desk lightly with a finger.
"As for why Logan Howard would go out of his way to look after you, Minsu, when the two of you have only just met... well, I can't say I know either."
That had been bothering me too. Buying someone a meal, that much I could understand. Even following me in after he saw me enter the Tower.
If he was simply the sort who couldn't leave well enough alone, I could let that pass. Offering to follow me around in person for days and help was a different matter.
"Even so, would it be all right to accept his help?"
"That is for you to decide."
Figures.
"If it were me, though."
Taeyong smiled.
"I would take it."
"Why?"
"A tank of Logan's caliber, attaching himself to you for days over a single meal — what reason would you have to refuse?"
Put like that, it sounded like an absurdly good deal.
"Hmm. I seem to recall your guild offering to help me, though."
"Yes. That's right."
I knew that.
A little of the smile left Taeyong's face.
"Well, I'm not forcing you, so think it over however you like. But talk of the skill is absolutely forbidden."
I nodded. That was enough. At least the Logan that Taeyong knew was not a dangerous man. It didn't mean I could trust him completely — but then, I hadn't meant to put full trust in someone I'd known for only a few days in the first place.
"Thank you."
I was about to get up when Taeyong called me back.
"Minsu."
"Yes."
"Take your time judging people. Looking like a good man and being one are two different things."
He was smiling as he said it.
"Does that include you, Taeyong?"
"Of course."
The answer came at once. I liked it.
"So."
Logan fixed me with a stare.
"You mean to do it?"
"Yes."
"You take a long time deciding."
"It was only a day."
"Hm."
Logan seemed to be weighing whether that was long or short.
"Have you eaten?"
"Not yet."
"Come along. I shall treat you."
"Mm."
Our arrangement was simple. Logan would help me, and teach me the sword and the basics; in return, I would buy him one meal a day.
It wouldn't last long. Logan said that in a few days he would climb the Tower again with his own party. Until then.
"Let us go."
After we left the restaurant, Logan set off first. I followed behind him as a matter of course, and then something odd struck me.
"What about your shield?"
"Haven't brought it."
"Will you be all right?"
"It is only the first floor."
He had a point. To me it was a dungeon I entered with my life in my hands; to him, it seemed little different from a walking path. Even so, a short sword hung at his waist. He'd brought the bare minimum, at least.
We crossed the plaza and reached the entrance, where the same blue light as yesterday wavered in the air. This time I didn't hesitate in front of it. Maybe because Logan was beside me, I was less tense than I'd been the day before.
"Let us go in."
Passing through the blue light, damp air clung to my skin. The scenery was exactly as I'd seen it yesterday — bone-dry trees, rocks jutting up here and there, grass no one tended, and a wide stretch of land with hardly a person in sight.
"How far are we going today?"
"Here."
Logan stopped a mere few dozen paces from the entrance.
"Draw your sword."
I drew it as I was told.
Shrring—
The sound grated on me less than it had yesterday.
"Take hold of it."
"I am holding it."
"Properly."
I looked down at the hand gripping the sword. What's wrong with it? Logan tapped my hand.
"You are gripping too hard."
"Don't I have to grip it hard, or I'll drop it?"
"Do that, and the wrist goes first."
Logan shifted my hands a little at a time — the space between them, the strength in my fingers, the angle of the blade.
"You said you had learned the sword, did you not?"
"When I was a kid."
"How long."
"A few months?"
Logan looked at me.
"What."
"I would not call that having learned it."
Harsh. I still couldn't argue.
After that I swung the sword for a long while. First simply from high to low, then on a diagonal, then to the side, and finally thrusts. It looked like nothing, but around the twentieth repetition my arms began to ache.
"Ease off."
"I am easing off."
"No. Ease off."
As far as I'm concerned, I am. Even so, I repeated it as I was told. Only after several more swings could I feel the point of the sword wavering less than it had at the start.
"This will do."
"Do we hunt now?"
"Hunt what."
"A slime."
"You wish to?"
"We've come this far. I ought to take at least one."
Time to pay back that kin of yesterday's — the one that had snatched my sword and toyed with me at its lazy crawl.
Logan studied me a moment, then pointed ahead.
"One comes, as it happens."
Squelch, squelch—
He was right. Between the clumps of grass, a familiar gray lump was creeping along. A Gray Slime, identical to yesterday's.
I fixed my grip and waited until the slime drew close.
"Do not chop down as you did yesterday."
Logan said.
"Do not try to cut. Thrust. A little below the center."
Squish. Squiiish—
Still slow. But it felt a little different from yesterday. Maybe because Logan was behind me, my heart wasn't hammering the way it had.
"Now."
I drove the sword forward the instant he spoke.
Thuk.
The feeling was nothing like yesterday. The point broke through the resistance and sank into the slime.
"Twist."
I twisted my wrist.
"Bring it down."
The slime's body warped badly.
With a sound like air leaving a bladder, the body sagged, and a moment later it spread across the ground like water.
"Got it."
I really had. The first monster I had ever taken down with my own hands.
"That was nothing."
"It is a slime."
"Even so."
I felt good anyway, for no good reason. I looked over the slime spread across the ground. Had anything dropped? In a game, a coin or an item would have been about due.
"What do you seek?"
"Nothing comes out? Not even a Magic Stone?"
"From that?"
Logan's expression turned peculiar. Only then did I realize I had just asked something profoundly stupid.
"There is none. That is why no one hunts them."
He was right, now that I thought about it. The reason Floor 1 had been strangely empty yesterday was simple. This place no longer held anything of value.
"Next."
"Already?"
"You took one, did you not."
After that we circled without straying far from the entrance.
Finding slimes was the whole of the work. A long walk for one, then another long walk for the next. On the second I stabbed too deep and had a miserable time pulling the sword back out; on the third I swung in a hurry and missed. By the fourth, though, I was getting the feel of it.
Thuk— a slight twist. Pssh—
This one was fairly clean.
"Did you see that?"
"I saw."
"That was all right, wasn't it?"
"Better than the start."
Stingy with the praise. Still, it meant I'd improved on the beginning.
"We stop here today."
I wasn't particularly sorry to stop. My arms were growing sore, and the point of today had never been making money off monsters in the first place — only picking up a little of the basics. I put the sword away, and Logan and I started back toward the entrance.
"You mean to come again tomorrow?"
"That's the plan."
"Then we shall have to begin again with how you hold a sword."
"Is it that bad?"
"Hm."
He could have at least pretended to think about it. Still, I hadn't had a slime snatch my sword the way one had yesterday, so I'd thought that counted as progress of a sort.
"Logan. That slime from earlier — does it really drop nothing at all?"
"Hm."
"I got four of them."
"Take four, and what is not there is still not there."
It felt unfair. In a game my experience would have gone up, at least, but when I checked my status window nothing in particular had changed. In the end, all I'd gained today was how to kill a slime, and a pair of sore arms.
Well. This still counts as gaining something.
I walked on, turning that idle thought over, until the blue light showed in the distance. A little farther and it would be the Ground Floor.
Then Logan, walking ahead of me, stopped without warning. I nearly walked straight into his back.
"What's wrong?"
No answer. He was simply staring at a large rock.
I followed his gaze. Looking closer, there were people beside the rock. Three of them. All men.
What?
Were they looking at us? They were far enough that I couldn't make out their faces, but there was no mistaking where their eyes were pointed.
A moment later the three began to move. Toward where we stood.
"Do you know them?"
Logan didn't answer. Instead he took one step to the side, into a place that put him naturally in front of me.
"Logan?"
"Back."
"Pardon?"
Only then did he turn to look at me. His face was hardly different from usual. His voice was.
"Get behind me."
I didn't ask anything more. I took a step back.
Logan's broad back filled my view, and beyond it I could see the three men. They weren't hurrying, but they were walking toward us.
Before I knew it, my hand was moving toward the sword at my waist.
Logan said it low. The distance between us and the three of them kept closing.
© GrandJackpot#1qxce
Author's Note
Thank you.