Why We're Hunting
“What the hell even is this?”
Lee Sia gave her sword a sharp flick. The pure-white bodily fluids of the Holy Light Bugs clinging to the blade sprayed across the floor.
“I still don’t get why we’re hunting again.”
Glowing insects buzzed and whirred all around them. From a distance they looked like bright fireflies; up close they were grotesque enough to make anyone gag. They looked like miniature versions of Didascalia. Thanks to that resemblance, Sia felt not the slightest hesitation cutting them down, even on this sudden hunt. Of course, the complaining never stopped.
“You’ve gotten strong enough to think about other things mid-fight, huh?”
Yujin’s cold voice drilled straight into her ear. It was a warning. Normally he let her grumble as she pleased, but hunting was different.
“…Sorry.”
Recognizing her mistake, Sia apologized at once.
“Focus. Holy Light Bugs aren’t anything special as monsters, but if one gets its teeth into you, it becomes a real pain.”
Their fangs carried a curse. A holy-attribute monster with a curse—it was almost funny. Yet that curse was vicious enough that even Yujin preferred to avoid it.
Fanaticism [C].
A curse that made the victim’s eyes roll back and never stop praising some god. Combat, movement, everything twisted out of control. Being C-grade, it was not easy to remove either. Vivian’s financial treatment could handle it, of course, but…
I can’t keep making her spend money forever.
Their accounts were flush for now, but the road ahead was long. Saving whenever you could was the shortest path to getting rich.
No way I’m wasting my precious cash in a dump like this.
At some point Yujin had started treating Vivian’s money as his own.
“Park Ji-hoo. Fall back. Lee Sia, take the front.”
After watching the two fight for a while, Yujin switched their positions. The tank at the front, Park Ji-hoo, had burned through a good deal of stamina.
“Y-yes!”
The instant the order left Yujin’s mouth, the boy slid backward as smoothly as flowing water. Yujin gave a small nod.
Not bad.
He still had no footwork skill or related trait, yet Park Ji-hoo moved with natural grace. The raw instinct that would one day earn him the name Fighting Demon made it possible. If a kid like that kept growing, Yujin was looking forward to seeing what he would become.
Lee Sia, on the other hand—
“Yap! Yap!”
She swung Black Wing [B] like a flyswatter, carving through Holy Light Bugs one after another.
…She’s excellent, but.
One strike, one kill. Never a miss. The cuts were so clean and precise even Yujin had to admire them. Yet his expression soured.
Her body mechanics were flawless. There was simply nothing to criticize.
But something about it feels frivolous.
He couldn’t pin down exactly where it had gone wrong, or whether letting her keep growing this way was even okay.
Will she really be able to call herself the Sword Empress later?
The worry surfaced for a moment. Then he simply shrugged. Nickname, title, whatever—Sword Empress or empty-headed flower garden—
As long as she smashes monsters, that’s enough.
Maybe the Sword Empress would never even appear in this timeline. Yujin didn’t care.
“Healing?”
Beside him, Vivian asked at the perfect moment.
This one is impressive too.
He still couldn’t understand how she had failed to stand out in the first timeline. She looked vacant and empty-headed, yet she always sensed the exact second someone needed recovery.
“Leave it.”
Yujin stopped her.
“Why?”
Vivian tilted her head, clearly not understanding.
“If they get used to hunting comfortably all the time, it’ll bite them later. They have to be ready for when you’re not around, or for situations where healing is impossible.”
It wasn’t because the money was precious. …He couldn’t claim that wasn’t a factor at all, but it wasn’t the main reason.
Vivian nodded as if she agreed and looked forward again.
Is she dense, or is she sharp?
Her face still looked like she understood nothing, yet her actions were those of someone who had understood perfectly. Of all the servants, Vivian seemed to have the best head on her shoulders.
“Aren’t you even a little curious why we suddenly came out to hunt?”
Watching the two endlessly smash Holy Light Bugs, Yujin asked out of the blue.
“No.”
Vivian answered flatly.
“Huh? Really?”
The unexpected reply threw him. He had assumed she would be curious.
“Why not?”
So he asked again.
“The you I’ve watched always had a reason that fit the action. Coming here must have a reason of that caliber too.”
“Hmm.”
Yujin scratched his head. She wasn’t wrong. His pride had been stung at the Alchemist Guild and he had altered the plan a little, but this was never empty venting. He had far too much riding on his shoulders to waste time on pure harassment.
The underground dungeon of the 15th Floor, Ezhara.
Something quite interesting slept here—one of the things first-timeline Yujin had obtained. It offered no direct combat power, yet in countless other situations it displayed overwhelming utility.
◈ A swarm of nanometer-scale magical machines. Collects all information within a 100-meter radius and transmits it to the owner. The number of machines and the collection range scale with the user’s level and mana.
Depending on how it was used, its effectiveness varied wildly.
I got a ton of mileage out of that thing.
By the time Yujin hit level 300, he could map an entire floor with it. A completely different power from Detection [B] or plain ki sense.
What would happen if he gave something like that to Vivian?
In a party, the healer’s field of vision is always the most important.
Failing to notice danger and healing a beat late, or healing the wrong person—those cases were endless. Especially in real combat, not some game. Hand the already sharp-eyed, situation-reading Vivian the Super Spacetime Information Collection Body [C] as well…
Not a single mistake would ever happen again. At least, that was how Yujin saw it.
I could use it myself, but…
Efficiency-wise, Vivian was the right choice.
I’ll just grab better ones later anyway.
The upper floors were overflowing with similar tools—Sense Map [B], Eye of Horus [A], and more. Common sense said you kept the best for yourself and handed the leftovers down.
That was when his eyes met Vivian’s. He flinched. His conscience twinged for no good reason.
“You’re right. We came to this underground dungeon for a reason.”
“Okay.”
Vivian’s gaze returned to the battlefield. The two fighters smashing the endlessly buzzing Holy Light Bugs were gradually slowing down.
“Hitting their limit already?”
Right then, as if it had been waiting, one Holy Light Bug sank its teeth into Lee Sia’s forearm.
“Aaah!”
Startled, she crushed it with her palm. Too late.
Eyes roll back; the victim cannot stop praising a god. All actions become disordered.
“Ah, O God! Smite the heretics!”
Praising some unknown god, she swung her sword straight at Park Ji-hoo beside her.
“Nuna!”
Shocked by the sudden attack, Park Ji-hoo threw himself aside, and the battlefield instantly turned into pure chaos.
“Offer your life unto Him! In the holy name! Holy Mother Fuck!”
The name Fanaticism fit her perfectly. Worshipping with swear words, of all things.
“Vivian.”
Watching Lee Sia’s ridiculous display, Yujin called her name. The ATM promptly spat out dollars.
Whoooosh—!
“O God! Will You accept my faithful devotion?”
Healing and curse removal finished in an instant. Lee Sia froze mid-swing toward Park Ji-hoo, blinking blankly.
“She’s going completely fucking nuts.”
That was Yujin’s review.
“Didn’t I tell you not to let your guard down?”
Crack!
He snatched a Holy Light Bug diving at him and crushed it, then slowly walked toward Lee Sia.
“N-no. Wait a second.”
Her face drained of color as she scrambled backward. Even fully healed, there was no escaping Yujin’s hand.
“Aaaaah!”
Lee Sia’s scream echoed loudly through the underground dungeon.
Time is given equally to everyone. How it is used, however, is entirely up to the individual.
Some wasted it hiding away in Terra on the 1st Floor. Others used it to blend in with other players and climb at a leisurely pace.
Time was given to Kang Mu-hyun as well. What set him apart was that he used it more faithfully than anyone. Aside from eating and sleeping, every moment went into climbing. Thanks to that, he and his companions ascended the Tower at tremendous speed. They reached the 10th Floor in a flash, took only a single day of rest without even leaving, and immediately moved again.
11th Floor, 12th Floor, 13th Floor, and then the 14th.
Wailing virgin banshees greeted them. Kang Mu-hyun’s Dawn [C] punched straight through the creatures.
He tilted his head slightly.
Something’s off.
There were twelve banshees in total. Yet for some reason it felt as though they were deliberately avoiding Kang Mu-hyun. More precisely, avoiding Dawn [C]. Did they have some kind of trauma?
Come to think of it, the same thing happened on the 13th Floor.
Monsters called Noctibar. The ones that specialized in ambushes from the dark had actually edged away the moment they saw Kang Mu-hyun holding Dawn [C]. Back then he had simply assumed it was their nature. Now the banshees were doing it too, which was strange.
“Isn’t that spear something amazing?”
Lim Ayeong said.
“That makes sense.”
Kim Jihye agreed. Perhaps the Dawn [C] that the player named Seong Yujin had given them held secrets they still didn’t know. Otherwise there was no reason for monsters to avoid it. It was a little odd that the phenomenon only appeared on the 13th and 14th Floors, but still.
Kang Mu-hyun decided not to overthink it. He wasn’t losing anything, after all. If anything, he was gaining. Thanks to the spear he cleared the monsters far more easily than on previous floors and pushed steadily forward.
How long had they wandered the maze?
“I hate places like this the most.”
Finding the path was more irritating than the banshees. It felt like playing an extremely hard puzzle game.
“Let’s just keep moving. Sooner or later we’ll find—”
Mid-sentence Kang Mu-hyun spotted something and blinked. Sensing the strangeness, his two companions followed his gaze.
And they saw it.
Right in the middle of the maze that had been cruelly blocking their way forward, a highway had been opened.
“What in the world…?”
Had a boss monster gone on a rampage? A perfectly straight path punched clean through. The three of them felt as if some unimaginable force had bulldozed every wall and simply kept going.
“S-should we… check it out?”
Lim Ayeong asked carefully. Kang Mu-hyun nodded.
Cautiously—very cautiously—they followed the highway Seong Yujin had carved open and, in no time at all, arrived in front of the Stone Dragon.
GROOOOOOAR—!
With that roar, and without even a proper chance to prepare, Kang Mu-hyun began the final battle of the 14th Floor.