The Hidden Thirteenth Floor
The method for obtaining Spatial Storage was simple.
Alchemists.
All you had to do was complete the quests handed out by the Alchemists Guild, where those disgusting bastards clustered together.
The size of the Spatial Storage was determined by your quest completion rate, and as far as anyone knew, the maximum came out to roughly ten pyeong.
Think of it as about the size of a studio apartment.
Larger versions of Spatial Storage existed on the upper floors, but they were vanishingly rare.
For an ordinary player, the biggest you could realistically get was whatever the Alchemists Guild of Terra offered.
Under normal circumstances, at least.
Yujin scrubbed the earlier incident from his mind and picked up his pace.
I'll do better next time. Next time.
He had long since forgotten things like shame or embarrassment.
His personality was far too twisted to keep fretting over that sort of nonsense.
A short while later he arrived at the Alchemists Guild.
It was a building so vast, so lavish, so dripping with excess that it made Citadel's Golden Hammer look like a roadside stall.
Even within Terra it probably ranked among the top five most imposing structures.
Those bastards have money, after all.
They crafted every kind of item and potion imaginable and squeezed out profits that bordered on outright extortion.
Players had every reason to hate alchemists.
But what choice was there?
The potions those alchemists produced were essential for hunting.
Without them you couldn't even leave for a hunt, so you paid with tears in your eyes and a bitter taste in your mouth.
Wearing a thoroughly sour expression, Yujin stepped into the den of those money-sucking parasites.
"Welcome!"
"Oh my, a player!"
"Welcome to the Alchemists Guild!"
"Potions needed for hunting are on the east side of the first floor. Growth-enhancing potions are on the west side of the first floor. Skills and items are available from the second floor upward."
"Where may we escort you?"
Bright, gleaming smiles all around.
The quality of service was on an entirely different level from a hole-in-the-wall like Citadel's Golden Hammer.
That place had one burly, hairy uncle and nothing else.
Here, beautiful women greeted Yujin with warm smiles.
The atmosphere—and even the scent—belonged to another world entirely.
People get dazzled by this place and end up with their pockets completely cleaned out.
A place where hard-earned money vanished before you even realized it.
That had been true of Yujin himself in the first round.
Strength aside, he had been naive in a lot of ways back then.
If he didn't want a repeat performance, he needed to keep his wits sharp this time.
"Thirteenth floor."
He laced the words with an aura that screamed don't approach, delivering them as coldly as he could manage.
The surroundings fell silent in an instant.
"…The thirteenth floor, you said?"
"Yeah."
When Yujin nodded, an NPC who looked like the manager offered an awkward smile.
"I'm terribly sorry, Player, but no thirteenth floor exists in our guild."
Officially, that was true.
Even from the outside the Alchemists Guild appeared to consist of twelve floors.
But Yujin knew better.
This building had a hidden thirteenth floor.
"Stop testing me and just take me there. Or should I summon Cupiditas myself?"
The silence deepened until the very air felt heavy.
The same people who had been beaming moments earlier now fixed Yujin with sharp, wary eyes.
Of course they did.
Cupiditas was the master of the Alchemists Guild and one of the five Lords who ruled Terra.
Extremely few people knew that fact.
Even most NPCs were unaware.
It was not knowledge some fledgling player who had barely set foot on the first floor should possess.
The woman attending Yujin studied him for a moment, then inclined her head slightly.
"Please allow me to escort you."
Once the name Cupiditas had been spoken, this was no longer a situation a mere manager could handle.
Even if she caught hell for it later, she had no choice but to bring Yujin to her.
Yujin followed her onto the circle carved into the exact center of the building.
It was a skill zone that functioned as a kind of elevator.
Ordinarily a place like this used Leap [E]; far larger facilities employed Spatial Transfer [B].
"Ascending to the thirteenth floor."
A low, resonant hum filled the air.
The skill engraved into the floor activated, and the scenery around them warped.
A burst of light—
Just like the first time he had been summoned into the Tower, the crumpled space unfolded, revealing an entirely different place before his eyes.
The thirteenth floor.
Cupiditas's research laboratory—her innermost sanctum, a place no one could set foot without her permission.
"We have arrived."
Across the countless dimensions in which the Tower had existed, fewer than ten players had ever stepped into this place.
Yet Yujin's expression did not change in the slightest as he calmly walked out of the circle.
"…You don't seem surprised."
"Am I supposed to be?"
"Well, no, but most first-time visitors struggle to maintain their composure."
He could understand why.
The interior of the thirteenth floor defied words like "bizarre" or "grotesque."
An ordinary person would lose their mind simply by entering.
That was no exaggeration.
The mind filled with every negative thought imaginable, the boundary between reality and unreality dissolved, and in the end even one's own existence was forgotten as they crumbled away.
Those who knew of this place sometimes called the thirteenth floor the Abyss.
But Yujin was fine.
He had come and gone countless times during the first round.
It was a phenomenon that affected only the mind—not levels, skills, or traits—so for someone already accustomed to it, it held no power at all.
"Guess I'm not ordinary, then."
Yujin answered as if it were nothing and strode forward without waiting for the manager's guidance.
"Ah—you mustn't move about so recklessly!"
"That's enough. You can go back down now. I'll meet Cupiditas alone."
It was a space where you couldn't properly make out even a single step ahead, yet his stride held no hesitation.
Three steps left from here, then five steps forward.
Like a veteran who had memorized every walkthrough by heart, Yujin advanced with almost insulting ease.
I am a veteran, though.
That wasn't exactly wrong.
Leaving the flustered manager behind, he walked for a long while.
By feel it had been about thirty minutes.
Given the size of the building that was absurd, but here it was possible.
"Looks like I've roughly arrived."
He stopped.
As if it had been waiting, the surroundings began to transform once more.
The space that had been so grotesque it defied description peeled away under a soft light, reshaping itself into an entirely new place.
Same as always.
The ground stretched endlessly, paved in pure white marble, while the sky above was a black expanse of cosmos.
The moon and stars cast their mysterious light downward—a sight of pure beauty.
Even so, Yujin's face twisted.
Disgusting bitch.
He knew exactly what that breathtaking light truly was.
A soft footstep.
"A guest I've never seen before?"
The moment he took a step, a woman's voice—full of life—drifted from directly behind him.
"I don't believe I invited anyone. How did you get in here?"
He didn't bother turning around.
It wouldn't have shown him anything anyway.
"Took the elevator."
"You know perfectly well that isn't what I'm asking."
"If you want to ask something, show yourself and ask. What happened to basic manners?"
"…What an interesting person."
The soft rustle of fabric whispered through the air.
Not from behind—from above.
As if an angel were descending, a woman wrapped in flowing cloth settled gently onto the marble.
"There. Better? Then I'll ask again. How did you get in here?"
She had a pretty face.
If you asked a hundred people, ninety-nine would give her a thumbs-up.
And the remaining one was, of course, Yujin.
"Didascalia told me."
He lied without the slightest shame.
Cupiditas's expression hardened.
"Might your name be Seong Yujin?"
"Word travels fast. Didascalia must've been in a real hurry, calling around everywhere like that."
He smirked, and a smile curved Cupiditas's lips as well.
It had nothing to do with warmth.
It was a cruel, uncanny smile that reeked of blood.
"Very well. I'll take you at your word."
She knew better than anyone that Yujin's words were a lie.
Even so, she didn't press further.
Her curiosity about why he had come to the Abyss had only grown.
"Ordinarily I would have simply killed you. You are an uninvited guest. But I'll make an exception this once."
She made an exaggeratedly benevolent gesture that suited her not at all, as if bestowing some great favor.
"I did want to see you at least once. Didascalia convened a Grand Council because of you."
"Oh, is that so?"
He pretended surprise, though he had fully expected it.
A coward like that would naturally do exactly that.
The real surprise was the woman standing in front of him.
"How do you know about that? You're not even an Administrator—just a single NPC."
"Once you reach a position like mine, you end up with a fair amount of power. Nothing compared to the Administrators, of course."
She answered as if it were nothing special.
Then, almost immediately:
"But do you even know what a Grand Council is, speaking of it like that?"
A Grand Council was the highest assembly that could be convened when a critical threat to the management of the Tower arose.
Players wouldn't even know the name existed, let alone the institution itself.
Yet Yujin's behavior suggested he understood precisely what a Grand Council was.
"It's a meeting, right? A place where everyone gathers and argues with each other? That's the kind of meeting I know. A Grand Council is just a bigger meeting, I guess?"
Yujin shrugged.
At that flippant remark, Cupiditas's eyes turned cold.
"You're quite skilled at wriggling out of things."
"Thanks."
She stared at the man who took her sarcasm as a compliment, then finally let out a sigh and raised both hands.
"Fine. I'll look into the details myself later."
Seeing no sign he intended to answer, she took a step back for now.
"So tell me. Why did you come here? You're not planning to keep that a secret as well, I hope?"
How? Then why? And so on.
This time Yujin decided to answer straight.
He had been waiting for this question.
"Ah, nothing major. I just wanted to ask a favor."
"A favor? And why, exactly, should I grant you one?"
They were meeting for the first time.
They knew each other's names, but this was their first face-to-face encounter.
At least for Cupiditas it was.
And yet he was demanding a favor right out of the gate?
At this level, shamelessness itself could probably qualify as a B-grade skill.
"If you don't, I'll smash the Alchemists Guild to pieces."
"…What did you just say?"
"This hell you built. This filthy place that lights itself with the screams of the dead for your amusement—I'm going to tear it apart."
Those beautiful, intoxicating streams of light.
They were the anguished wails of souls burning themselves away until they vanished.
Yujin had only learned that fact after reaching the eightieth floor.
Then he had returned to Terra, cut Cupiditas in half, and completely crushed this place underfoot.
"You utterly disgusting monster. Did you think I wouldn't know?"
Souls numerous enough to light up the world.
They were the players who had died on the first stratum.
"I'd love nothing more than to cut off your head right now and stomp it into paste, but unfortunately I don't have the strength for that yet."
Yujin flicked the hilt of Blazing Dragon Blade [E] with his fingers as he continued.
"So instead of taking your life, hand over your Spatial Storage, you fucking bitch. That's my favor."