Dragon Scale Armor
The memories of the first timeline came flooding back, vivid as ever.
How many of them had there been?
After clearing that absurd chain of linked quests with dozens of idiots whose names he couldn't even remember, he had arrived here.
Not this exact spot, of course. Leap [E] connected to the entrance of the ruins. From there, Yujin had fought the monsters that poured out in a mad torrent. The idiots kept screwing up the whole way, and Yujin discarded them without a second thought as he pushed forward.
He had no reason to help them, and no desire to either. Even back then, when he was already far stronger than an ordinary player, that hadn't changed. An idiot was an idiot. He hadn't liked them dragging him down in the first place — so why bother?
In the end, only about thirty players made it to the Underground Dragon. Roughly as many had died along the way. And here, they fought it.
His first encounter with a True Dragon. It was on an entirely different level from any boss monster he had hunted before. Even the ones who had somehow managed to keep pace until then went flying like autumn leaves in a gale. One sweep of its tail killed three. One stamp of its foreleg killed five.
Yujin had poured every last scrap of his strength into that fight. There was no other way to win. Trading help back and forth for maybe two hours, he finally drove his sword through the Underground Dragon's skull and killed it.
There was no cheering. Only five or six had survived, and even they were so badly wounded they looked ready to die at any moment. Yujin left the ones who couldn't move and headed deeper inside. At last, he claimed the hidden reward.
Dragon Scale Armor [B].
One of the rewards was a dull black lamellar armor, apparently forged from the Underground Dragon's own scales. A full B-grade. The kind of item that would make any player's eyes roll back in their head. There had been a few others, but Yujin took only that one and left the rest for whoever wanted them. How many of them actually got a reward, he never knew. He never saw those people again. Maybe they died here after all.
What if, back then, he had saved those wounded idiots and brought them out with him? Would the future have changed even a little? If they had climbed the Tower together, fought the end of the world the way they had fought the Underground Dragon…
…Well. He didn't know. He couldn't even remember their names, so probably not.
Even so, the thought of that day returned to him. The feeling of being left alone when the world ended. It rose up unbidden, and Yujin scratched his head, shaking the reverie off.
Well. This time is different.
He wasn't alone. Lee Sia, drooling and out cold. Vivian, drooling just the same. And the kid, mouth hanging open as he gawked at their surroundings. They were right there beside him. That alone felt like a considerable change. Maybe this time, after he killed the end of the world, he could pour a glass of soju over its corpse — in a world that hadn't been destroyed.
Holding that thought, Yujin took a step forward.
"Let's go."
"Ah — yes, Hyeong!"
Park Ji-hoo hurried after him. Nothing stood in their way. They had skipped every monster-choked path and already killed the boss. All that remained was to claim the rewards and head back.
Sweet deal.
Grinning to himself, he followed the narrow path that led out behind the cavern where the Underground Dragon had made its lair. About five minutes later, the darkness began to lift.
Fireflies. Countless tiny insects filled the space so densely that everything was as clear as if someone had flipped on the lights.
"Whoa…"
Park Ji-hoo, still not fully stained by the world's grime, stared with his mouth hanging open.
"Set that one down and get over here."
Yujin dumped Lee Sia and headed into the heart of the firefly swarm with Park Ji-hoo. Ten treasure chests sat there, each one looking unmistakably precious. Without a moment's hesitation, Yujin walked straight to the tenth and last of them and opened the lid.
Hwaaaaaaah—!
You have cleared the Hidden Dungeon, [Underworld of Phantasm].
Clear rewards are being distributed.
◈ Lamellar armor forged from the scales of a nameless True Dragon. The defense is decent enough.
No further description. Yujin's expression didn't change as he lifted it. The scales clattered against each other, producing a strangely beautiful melody.
"Equip."
At that single word, the Dragon Scale Armor [B] settled over his body of its own accord. Pitch-black lamellar beneath a pitch-black greatcoat. For a moment, it looked as though the darkness itself had swallowed him whole. Yujin glanced down at himself, then gestured to Park Ji-hoo.
"Open the rest of these. Pick what you want first, and we'll give the leftovers to those two."
"…I can choose first?"
"Doesn't matter. Who told them to get wasted? That's on them."
Yujin didn't care. He already knew Park Ji-hoo wasn't the greedy type. Even if an A-grade sword came out of one of those chests, the kid wouldn't try to claim it. He would set aside whatever Lee Sia and Vivian needed and take only what he truly required. That was just the kind of person he was. And even if he weren't, it still wouldn't matter. Like Yujin had said — they were the ones who'd kicked their own luck in the face.
Yujin stopped paying attention to Park Ji-hoo and went to crouch off to one side.
Around here, wasn't it?
He wasn't looking for another stroke of fortune. This was simply the spot where, in the first timeline, someone who had made it this far finally lost consciousness, unable to overcome his wounds. It wouldn't happen this time, of course. Even so, Yujin stared down at that patch of ground for a long while — until Park Ji-hoo had opened every chest, carefully chosen his items, and stowed them in his Subspace.
"Hyeong, I'm done."
It had taken quite a while. The kid must have deliberated hard. Yujin ruffled his hair, then hoisted Vivian back onto his shoulders.
"Find anything you liked?"
"Yes. Shoes and a bracelet."
"That so?"
"What they do is…"
"Tell me later. When these two wake up."
"Ah — understood."
Park Ji-hoo nodded.
"All right. Time we headed out."
"Yes!"
The two of them retraced their steps. When they reached the Underground Dragon's cavern, Park Ji-hoo suddenly asked,
"Hyeong, there's something I've been wondering."
"Yeah, go ahead."
"How do we get out?"
What kind of question was that?
"We go back the way we came, obviously…"
Yujin trailed off, tilting his head to look up. The way they had come. A pitch-black void so high that not a single ray of light reached it.
"We climb that?"
It was a genuine question. He really wanted to know if it was possible.
"Probably not, huh?"
"We nearly died just falling. Climbing it seems impossible."
Even after pouring every scrap of mana into a protective barrier, the impact had felt like his legs were shattering. And that was Yujin at level 61. There was no way they could scale a height like that.
"You wouldn't happen to have a skill like Aerial Step [B] or Fly [C], would you?"
"No, I don't."
Of course not. Yujin lowered his gaze from the heights above and smiled. Had he called this a sweet deal? He was going to have to take that back.
"Looks like we've got a little more work to do."
Each of them shouldering one of their unconscious burdens, the two of them began clearing the hidden dungeon — the Underworld of Phantasm.
In reverse.
"…I need to start thinking things through more carefully."
When you only focused on what was right in front of you, the obvious things slipped right past. In the end, Yujin and Park Ji-hoo wiped out every last monster in the Underworld of Phantasm and reached the entrance — the place where the Leap [E] skill zone was inscribed.
Yujin spat to the side and glared at Vivian on his shoulder. He hadn't intended it, but she and Lee Sia had ridden his bus the whole way. The experience they had banked on the road here must have been staggering. One more goblin and they might level up.
It wasn't anyone's fault, and yet…
"The world really isn't fair."
Some people busted their asses killing monsters for experience, while others got blackout drunk and still had their experience duplicated. As if his own usual behavior had been completely erased from his mind, Yujin resented the two wasted passengers.
"Are you all right?"
Park Ji-hoo's face was plastered with sweat. This was a high-difficulty dungeon to begin with. The gap between first-timeline Yujin and the current one was night and day, but they were still short on numbers. Back then, dozens had charged in. Now there were only two — and each of them was carrying a dead-drunk passenger. Of course it was exhausting.
"Yeah, I'm fine. What about you?"
Surprisingly, Park Ji-hoo looked far better than Yujin had expected. Given the dungeon's difficulty, he should have been completely spent.
"I'm fine too. I got something good a little while ago."
"Something good?"
Park Ji-hoo smiled.
"A Rune Fragment. The skill is called Azure Sky Cloud Step [B]."
"…Huh."
Azure Sky Cloud Step [B]. He had never heard the name before, but he could guess its effects well enough. Clouds drifting leisurely across a blue sky. The perfect footwork skill to compensate for the kid's heavy, sluggish movements. And it was B-grade — not even in the same league as the Silver Stream Step [D] Yujin had been planning to get for him.
"You managed to pick that one out?"
"My body always felt too slow whenever I fought. I kept thinking it would be nice if I could move a little more smoothly."
Good. Very good. A hundred times better than just fighting as ordered without a single thought of his own. Yujin was genuinely pleased that the kid had been thinking about it.
"I considered giving it to Nuna, but I figured it'd be better if I used it myself…"
Park Ji-hoo glanced at him sideways, looking worried he might have made a mistake.
"You did well."
Yujin ruffled his hair again.
"Uwaaah—"
Drained of strength, the kid's head lolled this way and that until he lost his balance and sat down hard.
"It's a far better skill for you than for the dead weight on your shoulder. So don't worry about it."
"Ah — yes, Hyeong!"
The kid smiled. It was a rare enough expression that Yujin's own mood lifted a little.
"All right, get up. Time to get out of here."
"Yes — yes!"
Park Ji-hoo scrambled to his feet. Yujin poured mana into the skill zone, and Leap [E] activated.
Don't any of you come back here.
There was nothing left now, anyway. Yujin whispered it as he looked out over the path through the ruins, where monster corpses were piled like mountains. A whisper no one would ever hear.
Hwaaaaaaah—!
The scenery around them transformed in an instant. And then—
"I found the terrorists!"
The booming shout of the Lord of Silver Stream County greeted the two of them.