The Ring of Swiftness

It was my first equipment drop.

"Oh..."

"I'll put it on right away."

A gold ring closed around my finger with the alert. I opened the system window, and Heal's cooldown had dropped to eight seconds. Twenty-five percent acceleration, in the most literal sense — the long cooldown, my one real weakness, substantially patched.

"Is there a cap on skill acceleration...?"

I dug through the wikis. The prevailing word was that up to about a hundred percent, there ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were no separate diminishing returns. Past that, nobody had ever pushed it, so nobody knew.

Whatever the type or the slot, you can only wear four pieces of equipment, which means a hundred percent takes twenty-five percent a piece. Anything but easy.

"Still, if I ever hit a hundred percent..."

Heal's cooldown would be five seconds flat.

"That's insane."

A heal every five seconds. How sweet a deal would that turn into?

"I should see what skill-acceleration gear is going for."

I'd heard the very best equipment was mostly traded in private, but gear of a reasonable grade did show up on online auction sites. The big one was eBay, in the United States. Set aside the categories the U.S. government had banned from export as core ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠assets, and everything else could be traded freely. Foreign Awakeners were no exception — they could buy and sell equipment online.

Awakeners of South Korean nationality, of course, could buy and could not sell. That got you charged on the spot with leaking a national strategic asset.

"Hmm..."

I typed skill acceleration into the search bar. More gear came up than I'd expected. And yet.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"You've got to be kidding me even harder."

I hadn't looked at many, but the conclusion was obvious.

"How am I supposed to buy any of this...?"

Never mind that nothing at twenty percent acceleration or higher even existed. A lone item with a measly ten percent ran past eight hundred sixty million won — more than every bit of income I'd made so far, pooled together. Spending money like that on a single item...

"Is the rest of the gear this expensive?"

The newbie set the government was supposed to issue for free, for instance. What did that go for?

"About three hundred million...?"

This was no bargain either. Equipment they handed over without a single question, and it cost this much. Even then, I'd heard it stopped seeing use around Floor 15 to Floor 20, at the outside.

"Yeah. There's really no reason not to register as an Awakener."

Pour that kind of money into sending ten newbie Awakeners up a tower, and you got something like five who cleared Floor 10, one who cleared Floor 20, and a tenth of a person who cleared Floor 30. Even making the money back was hard. They supported them as far as they possibly could all the same, because the moment a tower collapsed, South Korea would take damage it could never recover from. This narrow country had two towers in it.

Daejeon Tower, and Busan Tower.

But the real problem lay somewhere else.

"The true nightmare is when Gaeseong Tower comes down."

It was North Korea's tower, yet the city that would suffer most if it fell was Seoul. Worse, the tower's system put its weight on effective control and drew Awakeners from the North alone. If North Korea ever felt like it, it could choose to perish together with Seoul.

The nuclear threat?

Old news. This age runs on the tower threat. One sentence — we aren't clearing it — and the whole country turns over. From America's side, a Gaeseong collapse isn't especially frightening, so they don't watch it the way they watch denuclearization. That's a problem of its own. A nuke rides a ballistic missile to Washington. A tower only falls where it stands.

And so, one way and another, housing prices in Seoul had fallen a long way. Prices nobody had managed to pin down, flattened in a single stroke — did that count as a win? In exchange, Gangwon Province and Jeju Island, the stretches expected to take relatively less damage in a collapse, had climbed and climbed and climbed.

I'd put in for a new apartment on the Gangwon side myself. The competition was so fierce I figured my odds of winning were close to nothing.

"So buying equipment is probably out..."

One hope left.

Coin Exchange.

In the Communal Area on every tenth floor, an exchange where you could trade coins was said to appear now and then. People didn't run it. The tower's system did. Get lucky, and a few hundred coins might bring back a fairly high-grade item, so I was counting on it. Either way, none of that story moved until I actually entered a tower.

"Which means..."

There was something I needed to do, and soon. A proper, in-depth test of Heal. I still didn't know the exact mechanism — whom I could give it to, and how I was supposed to designate a target. All of it had to be tested.

"Let's find out."

Test 1.

Could I grant Heal to a specific person merely by picturing them, without looking?

I picked an Awakener who was live on Nutube. Once I had a rough sense of the face, the name, and the tower, I shut my eyes and held out a hand.

"Activate Heal."

......

No response.

"Doesn't seem to work on thought alone. ...Confirmed."

Test 2.

Could I grant Heal by calling a name, without looking at the person?

"Activate Heal. Target: Lee Minho."

"So this one works...?"

It could fire even when I wasn't looking, so long as I knew the name. Which raised a further question. What if two people shared a name? Would I have to give the tower as well? No Awakener with a duplicate name came to mind just then, so I set it aside for the moment.

Test 3.

If I knew the face but couldn't pronounce the name, would Heal still activate?

I picked another subject off a livestream. The condition this time: someone whose name looked difficult to say.

"......"

How in the world was I supposed to read that?

There would never be a better condition. I reached out and cast Heal.

"It went off..."

I couldn't begin to say which tower it was, or what the name even was, but it had activated. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠If I could pin a target down by eye, directly or indirectly, Heal was possible.

"Then, last of all..."

Test 4.

Could Heal reach someone who wasn't an Awakener?

I swallowed.

The more I thought about it, the more this one mattered. For all I knew, I had become the only being alive who could cure every disease, every incurable illness, every disability that no one in the world had ever conquered.

An ordinary Awakener, of course, can exert power only inside a tower. Combat skills are strictly tower-only, no exceptions, and just a tiny handful of crafting skills work outside. But mine wasn't ordinary Heal. It was Heal: EX. It even activated without me entering a tower. This might actually be possible.

Hopeful, I looked out the window. An old woman was sweeping the street alone, her body clearly giving her trouble. Nobody was praising her for it, and nobody was pressing so much as a coin into her hand, yet she was out there sweeping like that every day.

"...Heal."

Activate. Please.

I wished for it, hard.

But.

"......"

It wasn't working. Figures. There was no way it would come that easily.

I'd known as much in my head. My chest felt heavy all the same — a disappointment so large it startled me.

"Why...?"

I didn't know. What was I so let down about? Had I wanted to help an old woman who was struggling? Then I didn't need to lean on an ability. I could just pick up a broom and walk outside.

"That's true."

My mind made up, I opened the door.

"Ma'am, I'll help!"

I called out brightly, ready to sweep the street with her.

"Aigoo! Young man, thank you kindly~!"

"Haha, don't mention it."

"This old woman can die happy now~!"

...Pardon?

"They hardly pay a thing for doing this, mind you, but it's nicer all the same when a young man does it~!"

"Oh. This was a job?"

"It's work, so I do it. You think I'd be out of my mind enough to do this otherwise?"

Aha. So that's what this was.

I went back inside, flung the broom aside, and buried my face in my hands.

...What am I even hoping for from this world?

"Guess I'll watch some TV..."

Click.

The news had Kim Minsung's face on it — the man being treated as the hero of Daejeon.

"Hm...?"

Kim Minsung was starting to farm Floor 51?

Was that even possible? Near the end, the damage had been coming in faster than Heal could keep up.

The TV commentary happened to voice the same worry.

Right — there was that. On top of it, the First Clearer of a given floor received an additional ten percent. The monsters that appeared had their stats cut by thirty percent. That was the greatest advantage of being the First Clearer.

"With that much, maybe it's doable after all...?"

Thirty percent is easy to say. Attack, health, defense, speed — all of it drops. Enough that you might as well call it a different floor.

"Or I could just heal him, and it'd be fine."

I could farm a little myself while I was at it. Desperately keeping that friend in Brazil alive had worn me out, mentally. Eh — I could always order another fried chicken. A plate of tteokbokki, those spicy rice cakes, wouldn't be bad either.

"Hmm..."

I opened Nutube and pulled up the livestream Kim Minsung had started himself. Less delay than terrestrial broadcast, and more convenient for it.

And then.

"This bastard...?"

Absolutely do not heal him? I'd been about to drag my tired body over and heal him on purpose, and this was the thanks.

Well. If the man himself says not to, what am I supposed to do? Not heal him.

He was saying it because he'd already run the numbers. Please — he's the one and only S-Rank of Daejeon Tower. As if he couldn't size that up.

"In that case, maybe I'll go out for gukbap. Been a while..."

Gukbap was the one thing you couldn't get delivered — rice sunk in a deep bowl of boiling soup, and that full, soul-deep satisfaction only came if you went and ate it there. A gukbap house sat a ten-minute walk away. One earthen bowl, and my head would come back nicely recharged. Ride that momentum, grab a few more people, and heal them. That would do.