The Legion of the 60th Floor, Part 1

Han Se-ah strode forward with magnificent confidence, leading the party members and the Ice Cross Knights, Charlotte's coordinate-relay magic tool gripped firmly in her hand—

And it took all of three minutes for her shoulders to collapse into a miserable slump.

"As I put in the stream title, this isn't a bait-and-switch—we're deciding the roulette contents through a popularity vote on the fan café~ …No, but seriously, what kind of penalties are these?"

She'd carefully tested the waters and ultimately kept the girls' night contents a secret—but there was no way she could skip out on a 3.3-million-won penalty roulette. This was the inevitable result.

The boss monster of the 60th Floor hadn't even been discovered, let alone cleared. So we had to travel to the Harpy Kingdom on the 50th Floor and climb floor by floor through the gates. Walking up ten floors from the 50th to the 60th would be a waste of time, which left us no choice but to hitch a ride on a merchant caravan's supply wagons.

In other words, we were stuck on a nearly half-day journey by wagon—and there was no chance Han Se-ah's penalty talk wasn't going to come up during that dead air.

"Acting cute, fine, whatever—but chanting spells out loud every time I cast, shouting heroic lines at boss monsters… and what's this? Confess to Roland?"

Clatter-clatter. As the wagon rattled across the grasslands, Han Se-ah sat wedged into a corner, pretending to collect herself while her fingers flew across her screen.

I quietly pulled up her stream and, at the same time, checked the fan café—and the posts were even more unhinged than usual. The fan café was normally tame compared to the gallery, but today it looked like the gates of hell had been thrown open. People were losing their minds.

Apparently the crime of not showing the girls' night had earned her a full stack of spite. The penalties were vicious. The nonsense that hadn't gotten any upvotes wasn't worth looking at, but the ones that had climbed into the top ranks through sheer recommendation power were genuinely creative in the most unhinged ways possible.

…

Acting cute, playing horror games, sexy dancing, various workouts—the old roulette staples had naturally been shoved aside by penalties related to Heroes Chronicle.

The ones near the top were reasonably fun, logical, and actually doable. Further down, you got the unrealistic ones that still somehow racked up votes. Things like clearing the 60th Floor boss using nothing but Magic Missile, or selling the boss loot to the Empire instead of the Magic Tower…

I guess people really do hit peak creativity when they're inventing ways to torment someone else.

Unlimited duplicate voting wasn't allowed, so unless some dark-horse option suddenly surged, the top-ranked penalties would go straight into the roulette. Of course, we'd still have to negotiate what percentage each one got.

"Hey, Roland."

"Hmm?"

"Aren't you curious what we talked about last night?"

I was thinking all this while resting my head against the rattling wall of the cargo wagon, pretending to doze off so I could keep web-surfing—when Grace quietly leaned her head against my shoulder.

I wondered if the armor would be uncomfortable, but she found a good spot on her own and settled cleverly against a broader plate. Then she looked up at me at an angle, those ash-gray eyes full of mischief as always.

I rolled my eyes sideways and caught Irene and Katie giving Grace a subtle little nod. So they'd talked about something yesterday.

"Honestly? Yeah, I'm curious."

"Really?"

Grace grinned at my answer and wriggled closer, pressing snug against my side and bringing her face right up to my ear.

The Ice Cross Knights had split into other wagons, so it was just our group in the cargo hold—and the way she tilted her head so no one else would overhear was pure fox.

Then, as if she hadn't planned to keep it secret at all, she whispered right against my ear.

"Nothing that dramatic. Hanna's pretty shy, so she didn't spill everything. Did you know? Hanna can hold her liquor surprisingly well."

It's not that she can hold her liquor—she's a player, so the intoxication debuff doesn't work on her.

"But I did hear something interesting. Well—more like I figured it out than heard it."

At the mention of her figuring out Han Se-ah's secret, my eyes drifted carefully toward the stream camera. Thankfully, it was still pointed at Han ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Se-ah, capturing her audio about the penalty roulette rather than us.

I wanted to tease Han Se-ah—I didn't want to expose her private life and send ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the stream into freefall. So my whole posture went cautious on instinct.

"Did you know? The truth is, Hanna…"

What kind of bombshell was this going to be? Had she been caught watching our nighttime activities? Labeled a pervert who only pretends to be timid? Was this going to trash her dignity as a hero? I was turning those worries over as I slowly tilted my head toward Grace—and she whispered into my ear like she was about to kiss it.

"She likes Roland."

"………?"

What are you even saying, Grace…

Did I really look that dense?

Throughout the journey to the 60th Floor, Grace—who had somehow pieced together the world-shaking secret that Han Se-ah was a player—did not dissolve into data fragments. Nor did anyone discover that Han Se-ah had been spying on our private moments with her invisible camera drone.

Grace had simply tossed out a probing question over drinks, and Han Se-ah had walked right into it. The system, the cameras—those stayed hidden. Everything else, though, seemed to have been thoroughly found out. For example: the fact that Han Se-ah had been lurking nearby, eavesdropping, whenever Grace or Katie came to my quarters.

The one silver lining was that Grace believed Han Se-ah's feelings were love, not just lust. Even so—better a one-sided crush than the hero getting a reputation for one-night stands with party members because she was horny, right…?

The secret she'd built up with all that suspense turned out so anticlimactic that I was seriously considering grilling the soft-hearted Irene for the real details—when we arrived at the 60th Floor.

"So, which direction are we starting the exploration?"

"Hmm. Do we have any intel compiled?"

"The northern apprentice commanders and mercenaries mostly headed north and east. The least-traveled direction ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is west. South is… mixed. Not as crowded as the north, but adventurer parties that saw the mess up north and east ended up going that way."

While we'd been buying gear and enhancing with regular enhancement stones, the Ice Cross Knights hadn't been sitting idle either. The briefing poured smoothly from Alissa's mouth.

As expected of a noble family's daughter—had she already made contact with whoever was overseeing the northern apprentice commanders? Alissa had mapped out not just where adventurers and mercenaries had gone, but where the northern commanders themselves had moved, and in what numbers. The twenty-odd men behind her watched her competent performance with their mouths hanging open in pure awe.

These guys, I swear—without Alissa, you'd believe this was a backwater mercenary band, not a knight order made up of second sons from noble houses.

"Then… which way should we go?"

"Hmm… do you know why the apprentice commanders all piled into the north and east?"

"From what I heard, it was because of the ogre that showed up on day one. You know—I overheard some mercenaries whose contracts had ended talking at a tavern, and they seemed to believe that wherever the ogre appeared, the enemy army would be."

Even so, the knight order members answered Han Se-ah's casually dropped questions one after another, having at least picked up the circulating rumors the way Alissa had prepared actual data.

But in the end, there wasn't a single real hint about the boss monster—just the Empire's apprentice commanders running around on the strength of one superstition. That made it hard for us to decide either.

…Though something felt off. At this point, shouldn't the system be giving the player a hint?

"With zero information, this is rough. Do we really just have to go with gut instinct?"

"Maybe we leave it to Katie's instincts this time?"

"Me?"

With no leads at all, the decision fell to the hero's party—specifically to Han Se-ah, the party leader. She shot me a sidelong look, but I didn't have any brilliant ideas either, so I just glanced away.

No matter which of the four cardinal directions—or even the eight ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠intermediate ones—you picked, what stretched out was the same endless blue-green grassland. Monster spawns were random, with no warning signs. Without a hint from the game system, we really were stuck relying on pure luck. The party was murmuring among themselves about which way to go when the gate area suddenly got noisy.

We'd stepped aside for a moment so other gate users could pass while we deliberated—and that was when people came sprinting desperately from far across the plains.

"Hey, stop right there!"

"What's going on?!"

"Th-the Demon King—the Demon King's Grand General—they're cominggg!"

Blood-soaked, terrified out of their minds—screaming information that was far too important for a player to miss.