A Real Madman
Invisible magic machines spread out in every direction in an instant.
Centered on Vivian, every scrap of information within a hundred meters began pouring into her mind.
Players.
After filtering out every useless detail, she focused solely on beings that possessed mana.
Herself, Lee Sia, and—
“Behind.”
She kicked off the ground and ducked forward.
Paaaat—!
A sound of air being sliced tore through empty space.
A red dagger.
As if it had ripped straight out of space itself, the weapon looked exceptional even at a glance.
Lee Do-gyeom, who had aimed for the back of Vivian’s neck, tried to slip back into stealth the moment his attack failed.
But Lee Sia was never going to stand there and simply watch.
The instant Vivian’s mouth opened, she had already drawn Black Wing [B] and brought it down in a single stroke.
Seogeok—!
I cut him.
There was a clear sensation at her fingertips.
Not deep—but she had definitely cut him.
“Keuk!”
Space rippled.
The man who had been perfectly transparent could no longer maintain the skill once he was wounded.
Seureureureuk—.
In the end Lee Do-gyeom’s form resolved into view, a little blood seeping through the tear in his suit.
“…Too bad.”
Lee Sia’s brow furrowed at the sight.
She had been aiming for the neck.
All she had managed was a shallow graze across the shoulder—and the left one at that.
At her regretful tone, Lee Do-gyeom’s cold gaze locked onto her.
“I didn’t think you’d keep chasing me.”
Not a trace of pain showed on his face.
“I don’t care about the others, but I’ve got to take you down.”
“Those two are already dead?”
“Yeah.”
Lee Sia nodded, staring straight into both of his eyes as if to say, You’re next.
Yet something felt off.
Hearing that men who could pass for his comrades were dead, he showed neither fear nor rage…
Regret?
The expression Lee Do-gyeom wore was unmistakably one of regret.
The reason became clear soon enough.
“They were the ones I’d already marked. And you stole them from me.”
“Marked?”
“I was going to kill them myself.”
He let out a low giggle.
The madness that had been hidden behind those chilly eyes finally stepped into the open.
“Especially that fat pig bastard. I really wanted to be the one to kill him. I was curious whether he could still put on airs once the knife was already inside him.”
Lee Do-gyeom spun the dagger in his hand as if performing a parlor trick. The motion was dazzlingly flashy.
“You’re insane.”
“That’s right. I am insane. I’ve lived my whole life that way. But I could never show it. All the pretenses and the fucking stares forced me to hide it. But now…”
Everything had changed.
The Tower and the players.
For some people it was an experience straight out of hell. Not for Lee Do-gyeom.
It felt more like he had arrived in heaven.
A world had opened up where he possessed the power to crush the weak, and where law and morality no longer existed.
“I can do whatever I want.”
He smiled.
The cold mask vanished, revealing the face of a pure psychopathic killer.
“Hey.”
Lee Sia, however, called out to him with a thoroughly unimpressed expression.
“I don’t know if you’re pretending to be crazy just to scare me or if you’re actually a lunatic.”
She rested Black Wing [B] on her shoulder with a solid clack.
“But you seem to be under some kind of misconception. There’s something you don’t know.”
“What’s that?”
Lee Do-gyeom asked, looking amused.
“Among my companions there’s a real madman who can’t even be compared to trash like you. And that bastard is ridiculously, impossibly strong. And finally…”
Lee Sia smiled as she finished.
“I’m no less than that bastard myself.”
Kwaang—!
Lee Sia’s body cut through space like a cannonball, hurtling straight at him.
“What!”
His eyes flew wide at that monstrous speed.
He tried to activate stealth at once, but how quick could the reactions of a mere level-twenty player possibly be?
Before the skill could even trigger, the tip of Black Wing [B] was already touching Lee Do-gyeom’s brow.
An extreme thrust no player of the fifth stratum could ever have imagined.
Lee Do-gyeom’s eyes bulged.
Watching that expression, Lee Sia extended her arm in a perfectly straight line, her face empty of all emotion.
Thin skin tore. The hard skull split.
Every single sensation traveled up the black blade into her hand, her arm, and her entire body.
Kwaduk—!
Black Wing [B] entered through Lee Do-gyeom’s forehead and punched clean out the back of his skull.
Vitality drained from his bulging pupils in a rush.
No matter how vicious a killer he might have been, once his head was pierced there was no surviving.
Lee Do-gyeom simply hung limp from Lee Sia’s hand, skewered like meat on a spit.
Tok. Tok.
Blood droplets ran down the blade and struck the ground.
Lee Sia watched the scene with faintly trembling eyes, then bit her lip and pulled Black Wing [B] free.
Thud—.
Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, Lee Do-gyeom’s corpse collapsed.
“Haa—”
A sigh escaped on its own.
The emotions she had barely been holding back came flooding in like a tidal wave.
Three people.
That was the number of lives Lee Sia had personally ended today.
Something that could never be compared to hunting monsters had lodged itself solidly in her chest.
But—
It’s okay.
She had only done what needed to be done.
If she hadn’t killed them, her family and Park Ji-hoo’s family could have been put in danger.
No—they would have been endangered for certain.
She repeated the thought over and over, justifying her actions to herself.
“Well done.”
Vivian was the same.
She rested a hand on Lee Sia’s shoulder and spoke with a completely unaffected face.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Looking at Vivian’s expression, it truly felt as though nothing at all had happened.
Pfft—.
“Thank you.”
“Not particularly.”
Vivian shook her head at the thanks.
“Let’s go. We have a lot to do.”
“Yes, let’s. It’s an order from a real madman who can’t even be compared to trash like this, so who knows what he’ll do if we’re late.”
“You’re no less yourself.”
“…That was just something I said.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“Unnie!”
Lee Sia no longer even glanced at Lee Do-gyeom’s fallen corpse. She simply started walking—toward the place where the Green Dragon and the players were locked in fierce combat.
Until Lee Sia and Vivian instantly severed the Green Dragon’s head and climbed the stairs, only a single corpse remained behind, having dropped its dagger, facing the lonely pine wind that blew through the trees.
“So you died after all, you fucking idiot.”
Then a voice suddenly rang out.
As if he had been standing there from the very beginning, someone who had appeared at some point kicked Lee Do-gyeom’s corpse and mocked it.
Barely twenty years old, perhaps.
Fair white skin and an expression full of mischief.
As light as the wind itself, a man who seemed to possess not a single scrap of seriousness.
He kept kicking Lee Do-gyeom as if toying with him, then suddenly noticed the fallen red dagger and smiled.
“Oh, jackpot!”
Yujin sat in front of the small pond in the annex of Chwiwolru.
A total of ten.
Of the elixirs he had mapped out in his head, he had found eight. Unfortunately, two had to be replaced with substitutes.
He had known every location from his experience and information in the first round.
But location alone had its limits.
Time, place, and a touch of heavenly luck—there were things that could only be obtained when all of those aligned.
The two Yujin had failed to bring back were exactly that sort.
“Well, can’t be helped.”
Letting out a sigh, Yujin swallowed his regret and scratched his head.
“Still, I found some replacements.”
Their effects would be a little weaker, but that much didn’t matter.
They were still superior to anything he planned to feed the 3 No.
That alone put them among the highest-tier opportunities available in the Dream Garden.
“First, setting the kids’ ones aside.”
Yujin pulled the ten elixirs out of Chunbae’s mouth and laid them on the floor.
“Kkuaaaaaang—!”
The little creature flailed wildly, as if something good for its body had been stolen.
Yujin chuckled and stroked Chunbae’s head.
“I’ll feed you something tasty later, so don’t be disappointed.”
“Kkuaaaaaang—!”
The creature that had seemed a bit off-putting at first glance had become someone he could no longer do without—especially when he thought of the countless weapons sleeping inside Chunbae’s belly.
Yujin played with it for a moment using his fingers, then turned his attention back to the elixirs.
“This one, this one, and this one go to the kids.”
He casually selected three out of the ten—ones lower in grade than the other seven, relatively easy to obtain, and a bit lacking in effect.
“What, why.”
As if feeling oddly guilty, Yujin put on a thoroughly confident expression under Chunbae’s stare.
“Hey, honestly you should be grateful just that I went out and found these. Who the hell goes hunting this kind of stuff for their slaves to eat?”
He spoke as though making excuses, but it wasn’t wrong.
Saying their effects were inferior was only true by Yujin’s own standards.
For ordinary players of the twentieth floor, these were items that could be called opportunities among opportunities without the slightest exaggeration.
Moreover, Yujin hadn’t simply grabbed them at random.
Lee Sia, Park Ji-hoo, Vivian.
He had deliberately chosen the ones that suited each of the three best.
If they consumed these, the kids would grow by at least one full stage—that much was certain.
“So don’t look at me with those eyes. I’m not a wicked master.”
“Kkuaaaaaang—!”
Flicking Chunbae’s nose with a finger, Yujin took a small breath.
“Now, let’s eat.”
Seven top-grade elixirs obtainable on the twentieth floor.
After eating them and digesting them, fully absorbing everything would take quite a long time.
It would have been convenient if this were a real game where mana rose with a cheerful ding the moment you swallowed something.
Thinking that, Yujin picked up a finger-sized golden fruit.
C-grade
A rare elixir that grows only one at a time on a giant tree standing in the heart of the mysterious forest known as the Golden Wave Sea, in the southernmost reaches of the Dream Garden.
A rare C-grade elixir of which only a single fruit ever ripened at once.
Exact figures had never been confirmed, but he had heard stories of mana doubling after consumption.
Of course that level of increase would be impossible for Yujin.
There was a vast gulf between the player who had eaten the Golden Spirit Fruit [C] in the first round and the Yujin of the present.
Still, 20 percent. No—even a 10 percent rise is enough.
With eyes full of expectation, Yujin gazed quietly at the golden apple, then brought it to his mouth.
An indescribably sweet fragrance rose from it.
Gulp—.
He swallowed it in a single bite and chewed.
An extreme sweetness he had never once tasted outside the Tower lingered on the tip of his tongue—a taste and richness enough to make his eyes fly wide open.
But Yujin paid no attention to any of that.
Mana.
The flesh that entered his mouth and slid down his throat immediately melted, transforming into the purest mana and beginning to seep into his body.
It’s coming.
Hwaaaaaaaak—!
It felt as though a storm had begun to rage inside him.
Hot energy pulsed beneath his skin, endlessly stimulating his flesh.
Tuduk—, tudududuk—.
The sound of something long blocked finally opening rang through his head.
Pain sharp enough to turn his mind white washed over him.
Even so, without the slightest change of expression, Yujin observed every change occurring inside his body.
The hot energy—mana—that had surged in an instant raced through him like a tempest.
One circuit. Two circuits. Three circuits.
With every additional loop it grew larger and more ferocious.
Kuuuuuuuuung—!
At a massive impact as if a bomb had detonated, his body jolted on its own.
A grin curved Yujin’s lips.
“This is actually pretty damn good, huh?”