Something's Off

The 50th Floor of the Tower.

The raid members of Nebula Guild had finished preparing for battle.

"Meals start with combat rations, then Tteokbap. Save the Rare Tteokbap until the very end, and keep to the feeding schedule."

Vice Guild Leader Shin Eun-woo's voice came through the tactical headsets.

Outside the Tower, Guild Master Yoo Se-ah ran the operation. The moment they stepped inside, Shin Eun-woo took command.

Perhaps that was because Nebula Guild's strategy was, by any reasonable measure, deeply abnormal: three tanks and twelve ranged dealers. An extreme composition, and the only reason it worked at all was those three tanks, Shin Eun-woo among them.

Tanks in the Tower did not fight the way they did in games. Their defense was better than other hunters', sure — but fail to block properly and you still got hurt. There was no healer in the back topping off a health bar. Potions were the best you could hope for. A tank's job was to catch every attack from a monster that wanted them dead, knock it aside with a shield, and bleed the force off. Fail, and you were the first to die. It was a high-risk role, and the position that called the retreat when too many monsters piled on. Not a job just anyone could pick up.

Regardless, Nebula Guild moved around those three tanks. The tanks held the line and pulled aggro with their skills. From the rear, Yoo Se-ah and the other mages, along with the archers, poured on overwhelming damage. Of course, that only worked because the dealers were top-tier themselves.

The archers, especially. Mages hit harder, but there were fewer of them. Nebula Guild had packed itself with named archers who could put an arrow exactly where it needed to go even in the middle of a chaotic melee. In any other country, the archer class wouldn't have been anything special. Korea's named archers, though — call it a national trait. They were ridiculously good with a bow. Not a single one of them was an Olympic archer, and they still shot like it. The best of those bow-slingers had simply flocked to Nebula ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Guild.

Their reasons for joining were simple. Being an archer here was easy. The tanks carried every burden.

In short, Nebula Guild ran on the talent of its tanks.

"Team One, on watch. Team Two, eat."

The 50th Floor was a time-attack clear. They had to eat on the move. Even mid-meal, a wyvern could drop out of the sky without warning. While one team ate, the other stood guard. To that end, every raid member wore a US military-issue assault pack, worn so the contents could be drawn in a single motion. The spatial expansion bag, of course, was on Yoo Se-ah's back. They could have carried larger field packs, but the extra bulk slowed them down and painted a target for the wyverns, so they didn't. Whether the System was involved or not, the wyverns seemed to go after whoever was carrying the most food.

In other words, the choice had been forced on them. The food they had on them now, Tteokbap included, came to forty-three servings per person — the absolute maximum, achieved only by stripping every wrapper and packing nothing but the contents. Supplies were finite. If they failed to find the boss room within twenty hours, they would have to retreat. Even the Americans had only barely cleared the floor after locating the boss room in thirty. Whatever food they had left would be burned through in the boss room itself.

"Move out!"

On Shin Eun-woo's signal, they entered in earnest.

A barren wasteland, yellow grass scattered here and there across empty ground. Overhead, enormous shadows circled the desolate sky.

Wyverns. The monsters of the 50th Floor. Killing every one of them would take far too long, so they cut down only the ones blocking the path and pushed through.

"Pull."

At Shin Eun-woo's single word, the designated marksman answered at once.

"Misdirection pull."

Orders and confirmations, stripped of everything extra. Hunters mixed game terms with military ones. Inventing new vocabulary was a waste; using words everyone already knew was faster, cleaner, and left less room for confusion.

Misdirection, for the record, was a skill that dumped aggro onto another party member.

A sharp whiiip cut the air. The arrow that left the archer's fingers struck the wyvern dead in the head.

"Kyaaaaah!"

The wyvern that had been circling overhead let out an ugly shriek and dove. Its target was Shin Eun-woo, planted at the front of the line. The thing came in like a missile. Shin Eun-woo raised his shield. Even with a mass like a heavy truck screaming toward him, his eyes stayed cold and still.

The wyvern closed to point-blank range, talons hooking for the shield — and in that exact instant, he parried.

A heavy CLANG rang out. The talons were knocked aside at the perfect moment. The wyvern's center of gravity lurched, and the whole bulk of it slammed into the dirt.

From the rear, a rain of arrows and magic came down in a storm — thwip, thwip, thwip, then BOOM, KABOOM. Overwhelming burst damage. The wyvern died without even managing a scream.

Not a single raid member celebrated.

"Move."

They simply kept going. On the 50th Floor, nobody farmed the corpses. The archers, though, pulled their own arrows from the wyvern's body as they passed. You could shoot a bow without arrows, but having them was more efficient.

And so they advanced again.

Fifteen hours had passed.

The clear was proceeding smoothly. If anyone had played a live recording of the raid afterward, ten out of ten viewers would have yawned themselves to sleep. That was what a top-tier raid looked like. Control and repetition. Even when something unexpected happened, nobody panicked. If aggro bounced and a monster charged the dealer line, no one screamed or froze. They just broke for the nearest tank, exactly as the manual prescribed. Everything meshed like clockwork.

Pushing forward like that, they arrived at last before the boss room.

"Check."

At Shin Eun-woo's order, the raid swung their packs around in unison and inspected what was left — remaining food, remaining weapons. Answers came from all sides.

"All clear."

"All clear."

"All clear."

Once the check was done, Shin Eun-woo looked at Yoo Se-ah.

"We're in good shape. Everyone's holding fifteen combat rations, three Tteokbap, and three Rare Tteokbap."

"Can we trust the Tteokbap to work?"

"The effect's the real deal. I tested it myself."

Yoo Se-ah studied him for a long moment. They were about to walk into an uncleared boss room. The data was thin, and the items they'd prepared were unorthodox.

"You know if we go in and fail, we're all dead, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm counting on you."

"Got it."

The conversation ended there. Shin Eun-woo gave the signal.

"All units, enter!"

Fifteen raid members gathered on the enormous transfer formation that led into the boss room. The circle hummed, resonating as it came alive, and a fierce flash swallowed their vision. In the next instant, they were gone.

By the time their eyes adjusted to the afterimage of the transfer light, a vast canyon boxed in on every side filled their vision. The exact terrain they had watched a thousand times over.

A moment later, a massive wyvern appeared at the rim of the sheer cliff.

Gale Lord. The name the first American raid to clear the 50th Floor had given it.

Spotting the intruders, Gale Lord beat its wings in what looked like excitement and screamed.

"KYAAAAAAH!!!"

A roar that threatened to split eardrums. And with it, the air itself changed.

"Ghk—"

"Kh…"

Groans rose from every direction. The debuff had intensified. As the Curse of Famine expanded, every one of them clutched at a stomach that had gone hollow. Guts twisted. A ravenous hunger slammed into them as if they hadn't eaten in days — a sensation that made holding onto reason feel like work. Without waiting for anyone else, they jammed combat rations into their mouths. Somewhere, someone choked and started coughing.

This had been the real problem. The boss fight itself wasn't that long. The reason they needed food anyway was this — the amplified debuff. With everyone stuffing their faces, drawing a bowstring or loosing a spell had all slowed down.

Even so, they attacked with everything they had while they ate. Arrows hissed. Spells detonated. Gale Lord, struck first, came down in a fury.

That was when Yoo Se-ah stepped in — the one person who had conserved her stamina until now. Her lips moved fast, muttering something no one could make out.

A sharp crack split the air as the ice came up on the diagonal and caged the boss in a heartbeat. Yoo Se-ah was that famous ice mage — a class built to force movement and pin a target down.

Shin Eun-woo's order followed at once.

"Focus fire."

Insane firepower crashed in. The other wyverns that came diving in between were peeled off by the tanks, and the storm of damage shifted to each new target as if the order of operations had been decided in advance. Perfect team play.

In the middle of it, Gale Lord — still under concentrated fire — drew in a huge breath, winding up for a sonic attack. Shin Eun-woo lunged in.

"KYAAAAH—!"

Strangely, the sonic blast seemed to bounce off his shield. No damage reached the back line at all.

Then the same dry command again.

"Focus fire."

They jammed combat rations into their mouths and poured on a mad, relentless assault. The fierce attack stretched on — and then, in a single ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moment, the blood-soaked Gale Lord beat its enormous wings.

A grinding crash, then the bright shatter of ice. The pillars that had bound it exploded into fragments. Gale Lord kicked up a cloud of dirt and dust and climbed back into the sky.

Urgent voices broke out from every direction.

"Rations out!"

"Rations out!"

"Rations out!"

"Tch."

Shin Eun-woo clenched his teeth. He hadn't expected to kill it in a single cycle, but the food had gone far too fast. The real problem was that the damn thing was circling overhead, stalling for time. The way it wheeled up there, unhurried, as if it understood the rules and meant to use them — it turned a person's stomach. And while it did, other wyverns kept diving in from every angle, hitting them like ambushes.

The infamous time-wasting pattern.

Shin Eun-woo relayed the situation without delay.

"Tteokbap."

Hands went to packs across the raid. Shin Eun-woo swallowed his own while still knocking aside a wyvern's attack.

And in that instant—

"Hn?"

Something was off. The hunger that had been wringing out his stomach was simply gone. Strength began welling up through his body — the feeling that he could fight all day if he had to.

The change was so dramatic that the raid started to fray. Relief hit them all at once, and startled exclamations broke out here and there. Even Yoo Se-ah looked thrown. At this rate, someone was going to make a mistake.

Shin Eun-woo shouted, urgent.

"Status report!"

No answer. This was about to go badly. He roared as if he were furious.

"Get your damn heads in the game!!!"

Voices came back at last, from all over.

"A— all clear. The hunger is just… gone."

"All clear. I've got energy to spare."

"If anything, I feel stuffed…"

The taut tension of a moment ago went slack in an instant. Just enough. Every second of Gale Lord circling lazily overhead had been hell — and now the mood had shifted to something closer to come down here and see what happens.

A few of them even drew and loosed at the circling Gale Lord.

"Kyaah!"

The other wyverns that had been trying to ambush them came in anyway — and were hit and dropped out of the sky before they could close. With room to breathe, the raid's DPS had gone up.

Time passed, and at last Gale Lord came back down to earth.

A heavy THUD. The boss landed in a burst of dirt. The raid members who had been grinding their teeth readied their attacks. In sequence, Yoo Se-ah began to cast. Whether the Tteokbap had taken hold properly or not, colossal ice pillars surged up — and this time they slammed Gale Lord straight into the canyon floor.

A long, grinding crack of ice, deep and final.

Shin Eun-woo, composure restored, gave the order quietly once more.

"Focus fire."