The Gift of Black Wing
“So you finally understand why I did that, right?”
How much time had passed?
Whether his anger had cooled or not, Yujin’s tone had shifted back to something almost polite.
Lee Sia lacked the strength to so much as twitch a finger, yet she managed a feeble nod. If she didn’t, she would have to endure that hell all over again.
What the hell am I supposed to have understood?!
Of course she hadn’t grasped a single word he’d said. Every scrap of her focus had gone into flailing just to take one fewer hit; how could she possibly have listened to whatever nonsense he was spouting? His voice had been nothing more than white noise between the endless thuds of impact.
Still, the future Sword Empress did not ask him to repeat himself.
“Good.”
Yujin finally stopped attacking and gave a satisfied nod.
“That’s enough for you.”
His gaze left Sia and settled on Park Ji-hoo, who lay face-down without so much as a twitch.
“Hey. You dead?”
He prodded the boy’s head with the tip of his boot.
“U-ugh…”
Fortunately, the kid was still breathing—though both arms and legs had been thoroughly broken for resisting too hard.
“So what’s this one’s name again?”
He would have preferred to hear it from the boy himself, but it looked like Ji-hoo would be out for a while. He asked Sia instead.
“P-Park Ji-hoo.”
Still a name he didn’t recognize.
“How’d you end up running around with him?”
“Well…”
Sia hurriedly explained everything that had happened back in Terra.
“And apparently everyone who came up from the same Tutorial Floor as Ji-hoo calls him the Fighting Demon.”
“What did you just say?”
Yujin’s eyes flashed.
“The… Fighting Demon…”
“Puhaha!”
The moment Sia confirmed it a second time, laughter exploded from Yujin’s mouth.
“I thought maybe—just maybe—but it was actually him?”
This scrawny little punk was the real Fighting Demon.
He’d planned to dig around slowly once he reached the higher floors, because the kid had seemed impossible to find.
And I just stumbled across him this easily.
He’d only been trying to recruit the Sword Empress and ended up with the Fighting Demon as a bonus. When fortune decided to smile, it really went all out.
Still only the first floor and I’ve already found two of them.
Only one slot remained—the one he hadn’t decided on yet. Of course neither the Sword Empress nor the Fighting Demon had ever agreed to follow him, but that was a trivial detail. Once Yujin made up his mind, they no longer had a choice.
The Fighting Demon, huh.
Unlike the Sword Empress, he still hadn’t found a suitable gift for the boy.
What would work best?
In the first timeline the Fighting Demon had used the Dragon God Armor [A]—a hybrid of heavy armor and gauntlets that handled both offense and defense. But unlike Black Wing, he had zero information on where to obtain it. An item like that was practically impossible to even glimpse on the first floor.
So he needed something decent for the short term.
Yujin furrowed his brow in thought. Sia swallowed hard, terrified of whatever fresh insanity the lunatic was about to unleash.
“Ah, right.”
Yujin snapped out of his musing and looked at her.
“What’s your name?”
He only knew her as the Sword Empress; her real name had never come up.
“L-Lee Sia.”
After a brief hesitation she exhaled a tiny sigh and gave it up. She really didn’t want to tell him, but refusing might earn her another round of hell.
“I’m Seong Yujin. Call me whatever’s comfortable.”
With that he reached for the scabbard hanging at his waist—Black Wing [A].
Sia flinched hard.
Why? Why now?
Had she made some mistake? Was he about to pick up the scabbard again?
In less than a second a thousand panicked thoughts raced through her head. She was wrong.
“Here. Take it. Meant to give this to you as a gift earlier. Finally getting around to it.”
“…What?”
A gift? For a moment she couldn’t process the words and only tilted her head.
“It’s a sword called Black Wing [A]. Right now it’s an A-grade item, but the moment you accept it the grade’ll drop to C.”
She still didn’t understand a thing. Yet the blade looked so vastly superior to her own Crimson Lotus [E] that her hand reached out of its own accord.
“Ah…”
The feel of the hilt against her palm was pure rapture. She hadn’t done anything special, yet it already felt as if the sword and her body had become one. Sia stared at the jet-black blade with dazed eyes.
“It’s a growth-type item. Raise it properly and it’ll outclass most swords by a mile.”
Yujin added a few more explanations, but Sia wasn’t listening. Every scrap of her awareness was locked on the perfect unity she felt with the weapon.
Yujin allowed himself a quiet smirk.
Definitely the Sword Empress. Her talent for the blade and her absolute focus were unmatched. Outside of Yujin himself, almost no one inside the Tower could ever catch up to her.
Glad she likes it.
It had been her sword in the original timeline; no better gift existed.
Things didn’t go exactly according to plan, but who cares?
All roads led to Rome. And because events had unfolded this way, he could begin their education that much sooner.
This is pretty exhausting, though.
He hadn’t simply been beating the Sword Empress and the Fighting Demon for fun. Far from it. With every merciless strike of the scabbard he had been forcibly hammering proper combat stances into their bodies. It would take time before the lessons sank in, but a few more months of this and—
Their foundations will be rock-solid.
It was hundreds of times faster than letting them grind monsters and skills alone. The rather severe side-effect of pain was something they would simply have to endure.
Anyway, the Sword Empress is more or less settled. Now for this one.
Yujin dredged up long-buried memories, searching for an item the Fighting Demon could use until they found the Dragon God Armor.
“Hmm. That should do.”
It was completely useless to a swordsman like himself, yet perfect for a fist fighter.
“Champion Glove [C].”
The name was garbage, but the item was strong enough to last him all the way to the fiftieth floor.
“Getting it’ll be a little tricky, but Champion Glove [C] should be more than fine for him in the meantime.”
Decision made.
“Time to get moving.”
Yujin hoisted the unconscious Park Ji-hoo over his shoulder.
“A-are we going back to the city?”
“Why would we? The sun’s still up.”
“…Then?”
“Didn’t we come out here to hunt?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then we hunt. We’re not heading back until both of you hit level ten. Got it?”
Level ten. She had no idea how long that would take, but the look on Yujin’s face made it clear the day would not be easy.
“Let’s see… where are the red goblins hanging out?”
The hunt had been interrupted, but he had zero intention of calling it quits. If anything, they needed to work even harder if he was going to train two complete newbies and raise their levels at the same time.
Looks like we’ll be out longer than I planned.
Yujin smiled and reached for his waist—then froze.
“Right. I already gave you the sword.”
He eyed the Black Wing [A] clutched in Sia’s hands with a faintly regretful look. She instinctively hugged the blade to her chest, her expression screaming, You’re not taking it back, are you?
“Tch.”
Yujin clicked his tongue.
“I was getting attached to it.”
Where else was he going to find an A-grade sword on the first floor? A decent replacement would be hard to come by for a while.
“No choice.”
Until they climbed higher he would simply have to make do with what he had. He lifted his hand from his waist and brought it to his arm instead.
“Huh?”
Sia’s eyes went wide. She had been too busy getting beaten to notice earlier, but something was dangling from Yujin’s arm.
“A bear?”
It was a cute little teddy bear, slightly larger than a palm.
Wait—that thing’s alive!
What she had taken for a doll was actually moving.
What the hell is that?
Curiosity at the adorable creature made her stare. That was when Yujin, looking distinctly unimpressed, shoved his hand straight into the bear’s mouth.
“Kyaaaaaaah—!”
Sia screamed at the grotesque sight.
“Kkuaaaaaang—!”
The bear—Chunbae—let out a massive wail of its own.
And then—
Ssssshhhing—
A crimson blade slowly emerged from Chunbae’s maw.
Fire Dragon Blade [E].
Compared to Black Wing [A] it was pure trash, but what choice did he have? It would have to do for now.
“At least nothing weird is dripping off it.”
The Fire Dragon Blade [E] came out of Chunbae’s stomach in exactly the same condition it had gone in. Any mysterious fluids would have made the whole thing even more disgusting.
“Kkuaaang—!”
Chunbae patted Yujin’s arm with a tiny paw as if to say, Don’t worry about it.
“Weapons secured. Let’s go. The red goblins should be that way.”
Having just performed a thoroughly grotesque feat, Yujin started walking as if nothing had happened.
Yeah. He’s completely insane.
Sia watched his retreating back with trembling eyes, then trudged after him like a death-row inmate being led to the gallows.
Enand was standing guard at the eastern gate again today.
There wasn’t much to do at the moment, but once a little more time passed this place would get busy. The players still holed up inside Terra would start heading out to hunt one by one.
I really hope this batch stays quiet.
Every player he had ever watched followed the same pattern. At first they acted like the biggest cowards alive; then, the moment they gained a little strength, their true colors came out. They harassed ordinary Terra residents and swung their weapons without a second thought. The number of civilians who had died at their hands was beyond counting.
Every time it happened, Enand and the other guards stepped in to punish the worst offenders, but…
“Haaah.”
A sigh escaped on its own. It was the same worry every cycle, and every cycle the same things happened. Enand had long since abandoned any expectations of players.
It’d be better for everyone if they just leveled up fast and left for the upper floors.
When would this new wave finally start hunting in earnest?
“Hey, Enand.”
A colleague’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts as he stared up at the blackened night sky.
“Hm? What’s up?”
“Someone’s coming.”
Enand immediately raised his guard and peered beyond the gate.
Night on the first floor was dangerous. Monsters grew far more vicious, and creatures that never appeared during the day prowled freely. At this hour no player should still be wandering outside Terra.
“Is that… people?”
Silhouettes became visible. Definitely not monsters. People—three of them.
Not residents, that’s for sure.
Could they be players who had only just cleared the Tutorial Floor this late? Keeping a hand on his weapon, he watched them approach.
A short while later—
“Aah, fuck! Finally back!”
Definitely human. Players.
“N-Nuna… I’m so tire—”
“Stay awake! You can’t fall asleep here!”
One woman who looked to be in her early twenties, one staggering teenage boy, and—
“Stop whining after just one day of hunting and get inside already. I need a damn shower. I feel disgusting.”
—a man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties.
“Wh-what the hell…?”
Their ages and genders varied, but they shared one striking trait: every last one of them looked as if they had taken a shower in blood. Enand couldn’t even begin to imagine what they had been doing out there.
“Yo, Enand. Fancy meeting you again. No need for another ID check, right?”
The man—by far the most thoroughly painted red—raised a casual hand in greeting.