No Need to Let Them Live

When I was a child, a day felt endlessly long. An hour, two hours—why wouldn't they pass? All I ever wanted was to grow up faster.

Once I actually became an adult, it was different. Blink, and a day was gone. Come back to yourself, and a week had vanished.

It was the same now. I had barely done anything, and yet two weeks had already slipped by since I became master of the dungeon.

What I had done amounted to this: brutal physical training to rebuild a ruined body, and endless drills of the Clear Wind Sword Art and Ghost Shadow Steps. Whatever time was left, I spent sweeping the dungeon or hunched over the management window, poking at whatever I could reach.

That was how I uncovered a few functions I hadn't known at the start. One of them was the entrance.

If the monsters and the rewards were both empty, I could shut the gateway into a connected world. So I closed the Earth side first.

At the beginning I had even forgotten that entrance was open, distracted as I was by Cheonmu-gye. I still can't say how hard it startled me when I finally noticed. It was a mercy that no one had walked in.

The more people entered, the more techniques would be recorded, so that part was good. I simply didn't have the confidence to run two dungeons at once. Keeping a single martial world in order was already more than enough. Later, maybe. And Earth's circumstances were nothing like Cheonmu-gye's.

The problem was the rewards. The only thing I could supply with any stability right now was Clear Spirit Fruit, and Clear Spirit Fruit was rare precisely because it could not leave Heavenly Mountain.

If word got out that a dungeon near Heavenly Mountain was handing out Clear Spirit Fruit as a reward that could leak to the outside, the Baek family would never sit still. It was a matter tied directly to the clan's income. Quality aside, they could lock the whole thing down.

There was no reason to take that risk. I decided to concentrate on one side alone.

Cheonmu-gye. Over the past two weeks, a fair number of people had come through.

It felt less like rumor and more like chance. None of them were on the level of Jin Muhyeok or Yu Hajin—First-Rate or above. Most were martial artists who didn't even reach Third-Rate.

Ordinary people. Over there, I believe they call them the common folk. Some wandered in on the chance there might be something worth taking, saw a handful of monsters, and ran.

Now and then someone pushed deeper and put up a real fight, but not one of them reached the reward chamber. Anyone who looked ready to linger, I bled just enough and drove back out.

Even so, I absorbed the blood in earnest. My level climbed, and new techniques were recorded.

I did wonder whether killing them outright would raise the level faster, but I never tested it. I wasn't a psychopath. Blood was enough. I didn't see any need to take their lives on top of it.

At least—not until these bastards walked in.

"I think this really is a monster's den, Boss!"

"Send him in first."

"Yes, sir!"

A bandit drove his foot into the back of the man beside him. Hands bound behind him, the man tumbled across the floor.

"Walk in front."

"P-please... spare me."

"You gonna shut up? Meat shields don't get to talk."

Laughter broke out behind them.

"Kahaha! That's the boss for you!"

"Picked him up while we were sacking the village. Might as well put him to use somewhere like this."

"What do we do with the women we tied up?"

"One of you stands watch. The rest, with me."

Eleven bandits, the boss among them, drove the three bound men ahead and advanced.

And I watched every bit of it.

"......"

Everyone but the boss was Third-Rate. The boss himself was merely Second-Rate.

I'm no psycho.

Even so, bastards like these didn't need to leave alive.

"B-Boss..."

A blood-soaked bandit crawled across the floor. Of the group that had numbered more than a dozen only moments ago, nothing remained. The bandits who had been laughing and shouting were cold corpses, sprawled where they had fallen. The bound men, every one of them, had survived. They pressed themselves to the wall and shook so hard their shoulders knocked together.

"S-save me...!"

The last subordinate still alive reached up from beneath the boss's feet—and a spear hurled from behind punched clean through his back.

Warm blood sprayed across the boss's face.

He stared blankly down at the man. The ones he had raided villages with, killed alongside—gone, all of them, in a single instant.

Footsteps.

The boss's shoulders flinched. The steps did not fade. They came in from every side.

Monsters showed themselves all along the passage. A goblin dragging a blood-smeared weapon. A kobold with its teeth bared. A horned rabbit bouncing as it came. Slowly, they drew the circle tight.

"Stay back..."

He retreated a step.

"I said stay back."

There was no answer. Only the cries of monsters ringing through the space.

Little by little, the distance closed.

The boss's gaze slid elsewhere. He saw the captives sitting against the wall.

What in the world had happened? The only ones still breathing were the men he had meant to use as shields. And now they were waiting to watch him die.

"...Fuck."

The boss ground his teeth and seized his saber, forcing strength into a hand that shook with fear.

"Fine."

The corner of his mouth twisted.

"Come on, then."

He swung the saber.

"Finally."

The monsters had been picked clean.

The only survivor was a single kobold. To bring down one Second-Rate, nearly thirty F-Rank monsters had been ground to pieces.

Would it have been easier if a trap or an ambush had wounded him first? I had gone for a straight fight to make certain he died, and it had been hopeless.

Even so... the rewards were sweet.

The notices just kept pouring in.

"Oh."

Something rather fine had appeared, this thing called Boss Designation. And I could grant techniques, too.

For a moment I pictured a kobold, or a goblin, unleashing martial arts. Conveniently, one survivor was still standing, so I decided to test it at once.

Next, I released my own Ghost Shadow Steps and granted them to the kobold.

"Krrk?"

Something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in its eyes had changed from the first instant. The kobold clung to the wall, unfolded the movement art, and tore around like something mad.

Whoa. That was actually incredible.

"Krrrr."

I was watching, amused, when the kobold suddenly dropped and sprawled flat on the floor, limbs thrown wide.

Looked like it had hit its limit.

When I grant a martial art, I'm better off giving it to something strong.

Only then could it actually keep using the art.

I opened the record list.

But were a few of these even techniques?

The bandit boss's downward smash had hit hard, I'll give it that. Even so, I wasn't sure. And I still didn't understand the standard for what got recorded.

At first I thought it was whichever technique was used first. It wasn't. It wasn't the one used most often, either.

The most practiced technique, then?

"Well. I'll figure it out someday."

Right now I could synchronize four. I could give the boss one.

A perfect fit.

I granted Stone Throw to the kobold and synchronized the rest to myself.

"And the last reward."

This one was the real cheat. And I liked that I could pick the technique myself.

If a technique I wanted—or one that simply looked good—came along later, and some other art got recorded instead, I would be genuinely sick over it.

I'll save it.

If a truly formidable master of the murim ever came calling, that was when I would use it, and copy them.

"That's the end of the rewards."

A solid haul. I was already looking forward to the next rank-up.

Which meant that, for the sake of rising again—and for the sake of growing stronger myself—it was time to look the dungeon over.

The sole surviving kobold was picking up stones, hurling them at the wall, and picking them up again, over and over.

"Hmm..."

Now that I had ranked up, E-Rank monsters were available as well. Time to say goodbye to F-Ranks that still came up short against a Second-Rate martial artist, even in an all-out frontal assault.

So where was I supposed to get the monsters?

Baek Jaehun came to mind at once, but unfortunately that wouldn't work. One or two might have passed unnoticed. I meant to stock about twenty, and if I brought that many home, the clan's eyes would turn my way. I couldn't have that. Not yet.

There was only one way to fill the dungeon safely, and to replenish as many as I wanted.

"No helping it."

I took up my sword.

While I was at it, I ought to find one monster worth using as a boss. And for that... yes. That place would do.