Silence Descends on Pine Breeze
Silence settled over Pine Breeze.
It was heavy enough to choke on.
Not only the NPCs, but even the players gathered beyond the alleyway couldn’t bring themselves to speak.
Someone had died.
And it hadn’t been some accidental kill born of a fight. This was clear, deliberate murder. A sword had taken the neck of a person who couldn’t even resist—without the slightest hesitation.
The sight of two women killing a man felt unreal. Even allowing for the fact that they were inside the Tower, it still did. Until now, what they had been fighting were monsters, not people. They hadn’t yet been swallowed deep enough by the Tower to grow numb to murder and slaughter.
“…Someone just—”
“That’s not a monster, right?”
“Pretty sure that’s a person?”
Only after Lee Sia and Vivian started walking did the murmurs finally spill out. What they had just witnessed had simply been too far outside reality.
Step by hesitant step, the players edged backward—anything to put a little more distance between themselves and the two women.
Ugh.
Seeing them, Sia let out a quiet sigh. Should she try to explain why she’d done it? She considered it, then let the thought go. They probably wouldn’t believe her anyway, and she didn’t feel any real need to justify herself.
Honestly, I doubt we’ll ever run into them again. Just ignore it.
This was the 5th Floor. The gap between here and the 20th Floor, where they actually belonged, was enormous. Of course people would climb eventually—but a fifteen-floor difference wasn’t something you closed easily. That went double for people like these, who hadn’t even taken down a boss monster and were just killing time here.
Even if we do meet again, it’ll be ages from now. By then they’ll have forgotten all about it.
So she felt no urge to explain. Right now, finding the remaining two mattered far more than that.
“Where do you think they are?”
“Dunno.”
Vivian shook her head at Sia’s question. She hadn’t really expected an answer. Scratching her head with an awkward look, Sia was about to speak again when Vivian continued.
“But we have to hurry.”
“Huh?”
“Rumors. They might run.”
Lightning cracked through Sia’s mind.
“Ah!”
Pine Breeze was a tiny town—nothing like Terra or Ezhara. A person had died right in the middle of a place like that. Of course the rumor would rock the entire village, and there was a very real chance the killer’s and the victim’s descriptions would get out as well.
“They might make a run for it.”
“Right.”
They didn’t have the luxury of taking their time. If those two started climbing, things would get messy—because…
From the 6th Floor on, it’s a horror theme!
Even if you beat them to death, there was no going back up there a second time. So this had to be finished before that.
Sia kicked off the ground.
“Waaaaagh!”
“R-run!”
The people who’d been watching with tense faces scattered in every direction, terrified they might be next. Sia didn’t even glance at them.
Tattoo Pig. Luxury Guy.
The vision of a player who’d hit Level 60 began sweeping Pine Breeze clean. She wasn’t looking for ants or bugs. Something the size of a person could never slip past her eyes.
Whoosh—!
Suspended high in the air, she took in everything that entered her sight.
Then—
“Left.”
Vivian, who’d risen into the air beside her at some point, pointed. A straight central road ran from the outskirts of town all the way to Pine Breeze’s main square. Someone was sprinting hard down that road.
Huge build. A tattoo visible on the back of the neck. Even mid-flight, that flash of empty swagger. Everything about him brought one person to mind.
“That’s him. That’s the one.”
Tattoo Pig.
Sia kicked off the empty air.
Bang—!
With a sound like the air itself bursting, her figure plunged at terrifying speed. No—plummeting like a falling meteor was the better way to put it.
In an instant she slammed down in front of him. She’d moved so hard that the force packed into her body hadn’t fully dispersed yet, and it left a massive aftershock in its wake.
KRAAAAASH—!
The ground flipped over; dirt erupted skyward under the impact. Tattoo Pig’s eyes flew wide with pure terror, and he went sprawling. There was no way trash like him could weather a shockwave of that magnitude.
“Aaaaaagh!”
A scream tore out of him as flying dirt and stone hammered his whole body, leaving more than shallow wounds.
“Hey.”
Through the rain of debris, Sia fixed him with ice-cold eyes.
“I’m gonna ask you one thing. I want you to answer me. Unless you feel like ending up looking even more like a thug than you already do.”
Covered in blood and sweat, Tattoo Pig nodded so fast his head nearly came off.
“Hope they’re doing all right.”
Slash—!
A Green Blood Horse was carved into eight pieces and collapsed. Yujin didn’t even spare it a glance. The razor-thin Heavenly Silk Thread [C] circling him was already moving like an automated defense system. Without him needing to intend a thing, anything that drew near was sliced apart on contact.
It wasn’t a boss monster. The odds of common trash like that ever touching Yujin’s body were already scraping absolute zero.
“I’m a little worried, though.”
He scratched his head. Sia had answered with her eyes that she could handle it. But was killing a person ever that simple? Yujin himself would do it without hesitation if he had a reason—but…
That kid’s still young.
Barely twenty-one. Socially, mentally—she was still green. He’d sent her anyway because she still seemed better than the minor, Park Ji-hoo.
Fwoooooosh—!
“Hmm.”
He lightly sidestepped the rain of Green Blood Horse blood and clicked his tongue.
“Well, she’ll figure it out. Vivian’s with her, after all.”
Sia might hesitate. Vivian was not someone who felt any particular resistance to murder. That vacant look of hers hid a mind that was extremely cold and rational. If she judged someone was going to cause them harm, she would act without a second thought. That was the Vivian Yujin knew.
So he decided to stop worrying about it. If they failed, he could think about it then.
“Still, this place is endless.”
At last Yujin lifted his head and looked around.
A mountain of corpses, a sea of blood. Hills of shredded Green Blood Horse flesh, and oceans of blood pouring out of them. How many had died? He hadn’t counted, but it had to be at least several hundred.
Once he’d killed a hundred, Reaper’s Touch [C] had kicked in and made the slaughter even easier—so the numbers had ballooned into something truly absurd.
“Trash like this barely gives any experience no matter how many you kill.”
Yujin’s level was never going to be satisfied hanging around the 20th Floor to begin with. In the first timeline, he’d only hit around Level 60 after climbing near the 40th Floor. Compared to back then, he was progressing at a ridiculous pace.
“Experience is barely coming in. Looks like leveling up for a while is going to be rough.”
Ordinary monsters, not bosses, barely yielded any experience at all. He’d probably need to reach the rapid-leveling zone around the 35th Floor before real growth became possible again.
“Once I’ve taken everything worth taking here, I should focus purely on climbing.”
If he couldn’t raise his level anyway, skipping the regular hunting grounds and racing up the floors was the smarter play.
“So where the hell is it?”
Yujin frowned. In the first timeline, killing this many had been enough to make it show. With a face full of pure annoyance, he stretched out a hand.
At the same time, the threads drifting through the air shot out and wrapped the neck of a Green Blood Horse standing some distance away.
Snap—its head came off, and blood poured down.
And in that same moment—
FWOOOOOOOOOOSH—!
The pooled sea of blood began to surge upward.
“Oh. There it is.”
The hidden boss that appeared once you’d hunted more than a certain number of Green Blood Horses.
“Green Blood Horse Lord.”
The name sounded like some unorthodox sect boss’s title, but it was really just a supersized Green Blood Horse. Skin that looked like it had been dunked in pure radiation, eyes glowing a bloody red, a five-meter frame, and a twisted horn jutting up like a unicorn’s. Covered in gore, the Green Blood Horse Lord was a nightmare to look at—but Yujin wore a pleased smile.
“Hey. Long time no see.”
He raised a hand in greeting, then detonated his mana.
“All right, die well. Spit out the loot.”
Whoosh—!
The Heavenly Silk Thread [C] constricted around the boss’s entire body as if it had been waiting for this exact moment.
Kieeek—! Kieeeeeek—!
The Green Blood Horse Lord swelled its muscles and fought back. It was pointless from the start.
“You think you’re on the same level as the Earth-Prison Dragon or the Flower Keeper?”
Even among hidden bosses, this thing was trash compared to those. A party of about three players who’d made it to the 20th Floor could take it down. To Yujin, it wasn’t even a post-meal snack.
Riiiiip—!
In the end, the creature’s radioactive skin and muscle failed to withstand the strength of the Heavenly Silk Thread [C] and began to tear. It thrashed and shrieked, but once the cracks started, it was already over.
It came apart into a thousand, ten thousand pieces. Inside the whirlwind of spinning threads, the Green Blood Horse Lord’s body was reduced to shreds.
You have won the battle against the Hidden Boss: Green Blood Horse Lord.
You have obtained 5 Coins.
“Finally.”
The item he’d been looking for dropped straight from the corpse—a thick green blood sealed inside a small pouch of rotting leather.
◈ A liquid that somehow looks like it should never be drunk.
◈ The condensed essence of the Green Blood Horse Lord’s blood. Slightly increases mana when consumed.
The name was pure trash, but it was still a C-grade elixir. The evaluation was a little stingy in true Akasha System fashion, but it was also an item that raised mana by a serious amount.
“Nice. That’s three.”
Fresh Green Juice [C] was the third elixir Yujin had secured. He’d already collected Star Essence [C] and Golden Spirit Fruit [C].
“Just seven more, then we head back.”
Feed the three weakest of the ten to the 3 No—one each—and take the rest for himself, and…
“I’ll be able to spam that Seven Nights whatever and the Heavenly Demon set skills all I want.”
Skills he’d been hoarding out of fear of mana exhaustion. Leveling up a bit more would have solved it, but for now raising his level was hard. If he pushed his mana to the absolute limit with elixirs instead?
Even the greediest skills would become something he could use without a second thought.
“Heh heh—”
Yujin let out a sly laugh and stuffed the rotting leather pouch holding the Fresh Green Juice [C] into Chunbae’s mouth.
“Kkyaaaaaang—!”
“Feeling good, huh?”
Smiling, he ruffled Chunbae’s head, then turned toward his next destination.
“Time to go grab some Silken Celestial Herb [C].”
Whistling like a jobless man out for a stroll around the neighborhood, Yujin ambled off.