One Hour to Live
Yujin parted ways with Kang Mu-hyun.
The more he looked at the man, the more he wanted him. Raise him right, and he might end up every bit as useful as the Sword Marquis. But Yujin held back. He didn't have the room for it. Honestly—hauling around a kid who'd barely scraped level fifteen and raising him from scratch? Wasn't that a little too much of a hassle?
That was why he'd handed over Dawn [C] and struck a bet that Mu-hyun would race up to the sixteenth floor.
He'll grow just fine on his own.
With a weapon like that in his hands, he wasn't likely to die anytime soon. Left alone to shoot up like a weed, Kang Mu-hyun would hit the sixteenth floor as fast as humanly possible.
Then I won't have to wait long either. Works for me.
Dawn [C] did sting a little. At this point in time, it was basically the highest-grade item you could get your hands on. The power was excellent, and its synergy with Heavenly Silk Thread [C] was solid. Handing something like that over made his gut twist, but…
"Gotta think of it as an investment."
And he'd put the man a little in debt, too. Gift someone something that valuable for free, and they'd crawl into the fires of hell if Yujin so much as asked. If they refused, he'd just shove them in.
"That's how everyone grows up, anyway."
Yujin hummed under his breath as he headed for the stairs. A Green Dragon with a stag's head would have respawned and be standing guard, but he didn't care. At his current strength, he could pulp the thing with a single finger, never mind a fist.
He walked on through the pine forest, taking in the scenery, when his brow suddenly furrowed.
Smell of blood.
Had someone already killed the Green Dragon and climbed to the sixth floor?
Someone that strong would be…
Only Zygoat. The guy who'd been lounging around Pine Breeze just a little while ago had already moved?
Yujin cocked his head and picked up his pace. And then he saw it—the Green Dragon's corpse, looking like something had torn into it and eaten it raw.
"Wow. This bastard. Already out here munching on everything in sight?"
It was certain. The one who'd chewed up the Green Dragon was Zygoat. In the first timeline, the sea dragon of the forty-third floor—the boss monster that bastard had eaten—had looked exactly like this.
"A Green Dragon, huh…"
Had green jade antlers sprouted on his head or something? Beyond that, Yujin couldn't think of any particularly useful abilities it might grant.
"Looks like I need to hurry."
Not him—Kang Mu-hyun. If Mu-hyun wanted to win that bet, he wouldn't have time to loaf around in Pine Breeze.
"Well. He'll manage just fine."
Yujin had handed him Dawn [C], after all, and they'd made a bet on top of it. The Kang Mu-hyun he knew was a man with a steel sense of responsibility. Having accepted a favor dressed up as a wager, he would thrash and claw his way to be first onto the sixteenth floor. It wasn't something Yujin needed to worry about.
"By the way… where exactly was the Champion Glove [C] again?"
It was definitely somewhere in the zombie apocalypse world. Since Yujin had already cleared the quest once, he didn't need to put himself through the same experience again. He could just wander the zombie-choked city and search. The problem was that the city was fairly large, and he couldn't quite remember exactly where the thing had been.
"I'll find it if I dig around enough."
It wasn't that hard a job for him, either. Zombies that didn't come in tidal waves were weak to begin with, and even a sprawling city had landmarks. Walk around long enough and the memories would surface.
Thinking that, he set his first foot on the stairs.
"…Ah, you son of a bitch."
Something caught his eye. Something the Green Dragon's massive corpse had been hiding.
Players. Four of them. Every last one, just like the Green Dragon, had been torn apart and eaten. As if they couldn't believe their own deaths—or as if they'd been killed by someone they'd never even imagined. Their faces were stained with disbelief and terror.
Yujin pulled back the foot he'd stepped forward with and approached the bodies.
No items.
Not a single one. The thought that the Green Dragon might have killed them vanished completely. Monsters didn't loot. That meant that goddamn bastard had taken everything.
"Zygoat."
Eating people already?
"…I have to kill him."
Decision made. Zygoat would die. Yujin turned and climbed the stairs—toward the sixth floor, where the bastard would have gone. To rip the head off that son of a bitch who was already more than qualified to be called one of the Ten Evils.
Eliyah gasped for breath.
"Damn it."
The sixth floor was truly wretched. He'd spent three full days running from a Wendigo—that man-eating monster—before finally recovering his lost memories and turning the tables, devouring the thing instead. Either way, the atmosphere here was nothing like any floor he'd experienced so far.
"Don't tell me every floor has a different world setting?"
It was possible. Repeating nothing but jungles and villages all the way to the top didn't seem likely to hold anyone's interest.
"Haa. Anyway."
A smile split his face—a chilling one. There was no one else around, so he didn't need the mask. He simply let the nature he'd been hiding show itself in full, hauling his cruel insides out into the open.
"This skill really is incredible."
The Green Dragon. His companions. And the Wendigo. All of them meals he'd swallowed over the past few days. Barely three days had passed, and already Eliyah felt several times stronger. The Green Dragon's elemental force, his companions' skills and traits, and the Wendigo's supernatural spirituality—every ability he'd gained through Fusion [C] gifted him a power so overwhelming it was almost intoxicating.
Of course, it wasn't without side effects. Whether it was the Wendigo's influence or the original price of Fusion [C], a ravenous hunger kept crashing over him without pause. The urge to shove something—anything—into his mouth right that second was nearly unbearable. But he couldn't. There was nothing alive left around him.
"I just have to wait a little longer."
Kang Mu-hyun and his companions would come. Once he ate those meals, the hunger would vanish. He only had to hold out until then.
"I wonder when they'll show."
Eliyah licked his lips and stared at the stairs. Once he'd taken their power for himself, wouldn't he finally be able to kill that damn monkey? Their levels might still be a little apart, but in every other respect he would have the edge. Kang Mu-hyun's strength in particular had been formidable. Even Eliyah had admired the spear that man used. If a stronger version of himself got to hold that golden spear…
I can win.
Eliyah was certain of it.
"I'll make him pay for acting so high and mighty with me."
Did that monkey even know who he was dealing with? Eliyah had mastered a unique skill no other player possessed, and his own talent was second to none. He'd even been granted a license to kill by the United States government. In every field, he had always taken first place; in every life, he had always been recognized—inside the Tower and out. Eliyah was the best. And that monkey who had humiliated him, who had dared show open hostility—he would tear him apart and chew him slow—
"Waiting for someone, are we?"
A voice came from right behind him. A chill raced down his spine, and every hair on his body stood on end.
Who—?
He spun on instinct and swept his spear in a vicious arc—the Spear of Beginnings [D] he'd taken from Kang Mu-hyun.
Whoooom—!
True to its D-grade, the strike carried real force. But—
Thok.
It stopped far too easily. Not by his will. By someone else's.
"You—!"
A familiar face filled his vision. The face of the man he'd been picturing just moments ago, the one he'd chewed up hundreds of times in his head.
"Guess I wasn't the one you were waiting for. I can feel the disappointment from here."
Yujin smiled, bright and easy, and met Eliyah's eyes.
"But as it happens, I was. You're the one I've been waiting for."
"What do you mean by—"
Eliyah's shock tipped into outright horror, but he slammed his mask back into place at once.
"To think you've already made it this far. I'd anticipated as much, of course, but to truly find it was you—the player who has already reached the tenth floor."
He forced his hammering heart quiet and stalled with conversation, racking his brain for whether he'd said anything he shouldn't have.
No.
Most of it had stayed inside his head. Nothing he'd actually spoken aloud would have been enough to provoke this monkey. One line niggled at him—the bit about making someone pay for acting high and mighty—but that was fine. He could always claim he'd been talking about someone else.
With his thoughts ordered, Eliyah finally managed a smile—
"Who said that? That I'd reached the tenth floor."
"Pardon? I heard it from the NPCs in Pine Breeze."
Had it been a lie after all? Relief washed through him. Of course no player could already be on the tenth floor. Seven or eight at best. That was probably—
"Fifteenth. I'm on the fifteenth floor right now. What ancient history are you even talking about?"
Eliyah's mouth shut.
Insane…
The fifteenth floor. He couldn't even begin to form a response. So he pivoted on pure instinct.
"And what did you mean a moment ago? That you had been waiting for me?"
"Yeah. That's right. Waited a long time. About three days?"
Meaning Yujin had been standing right here the entire time Eliyah had been running from the Wendigo on the sixth floor. An uneasy feeling rose in his gut, but he kept it off his face and tilted his head.
"Did you have business with me, then? Perhaps you wished to settle the wager we never finished?"
"A wager?"
Yujin's face lit with an ah of recognition, and he nodded.
"Nice. A wager. Let's call it that."
Something about his tone was wrong. The unease thickened.
"And do you have an item to stake on this wager?"
"Obviously."
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Yujin shoved a hand into Chunbae's mouth and pulled it back out.
"Kkyaaaaaang—!"
With a wail, a long blade slid free.
"Solar Blade [D]. Same D-grade as that trash spear of yours, but a whole lot better. How about it? It's not like you've got anything else worth putting up."
Yujin jerked his chin toward the Spear of Beginnings [D].
"…It is to my liking."
A saber steeped in a subtle red. At a glance it looked superior to the spear he'd won off Kang Mu-hyun. Same grade, as Yujin said—but apparently even within a grade, performance varied.
I have to take this.
With an item like that, he would grow stronger still. The time it would take him to become strong enough to eat this monkey would shrink dramatically. There was no reason to refuse.
"And the terms of the wager?"
It wouldn't be a race up the floors. Yujin was already somewhere Eliyah couldn't begin to compare with. Eliyah's eyes gleamed as he asked, and Yujin grinned—wide and sharp. Chilling. A face packed with a madness that made the smile Eliyah had worn alone moments earlier look almost wholesome.
Something's wrong—!
Eliyah realized it a heartbeat too late. Yujin was already speaking.
"One hour from now. Survive my hands. Hold out even a second longer, and the blade is yours."
The beautiful color of the Solar Blade [D] suddenly looked like blood.
"Refusal's refused. So go on—run for your life, you worthless cannibal bastard."
Bang—!
Eliyah kicked off the ground.
How the hell did he know?
The question came second. Fear came first—fear of the thing called Yujin, and of the madness he carried. Eliyah tore across the ruined city like a madman.
"I told you, didn't I? If I catch you, I'll play soccer with your neck. I'm the type who keeps his word once he's said it."
From far behind, Yujin's whisper slid into his skull and rattled everything inside.