I'm Going to Make It My Friend

"I'm going to make it my friend."

Why would he do something like that? Even asking the question felt absurd. Wind Gale Sword was young, and thoroughly drunk on his own strength at that.

Still, he wasn't foolish enough to genuinely believe a mere level 70 like himself could take down the final boss.

"Has he lost his mind? What does he think he'll manage on his own..."

"He probably thought he could pull it off."

"Why, though?"

Jeoksa asked with what looked like pure, unfiltered bewilderment. I plucked the divinity back off the horn's white-sheened surface and smirked.

"I left 4th Ascension switched on for a moment to check the horn's composition. The buff probably re-applied and filled his head with confidence."

4th Ascension came with a buff that massively boosted your stats and techniques. Having already tasted its power, Wind Gale Sword would have been swelling with the certainty that he could overcome anything.

And the timing was perfect—buff applied, me and his brother nowhere in sight, boss staring him right in the face. Of course he got greedy.

At my explanation, Jeoksa let out a long, long sigh.

"...Let's just prepare first. I'm fully ready to run this as many times as it takes. The gauge ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is at 54% now... wait, why has it climbed this much?"

"He fought pretty well, you know."

Wind Gale Sword's hits were only grazes, true, but he was landing blows that even a level 130 boss registered. A body that moved with uncanny grace, and the wind dwelling in his blade. In that state, he'd probably measure up to a user inside the top 30 rankings.

Anything above the top 10 would be a different story, though.

The problem was that he was so intoxicated with his own power that he was riddled with openings—and he kept poking at the Red Horse's horns. Was that what he'd decided was the weak point? He wasn't entirely wrong, but without the strength to actually break them, all he'd do was fill the gauge and make things worse.

I would have liked to watch a little longer, given how hard he was trying...

"Time's running short."

There wasn't much 4th Ascension time left for me. Jeoksa swiftly carved five more horns from the colts and tucked them into his inventory, while the circulation gauge climbed steeply even as we ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worked.

"Then I'll head out. If even one of us stays, we can react to whatever comes next."

So Wind Gale Sword was already being treated like he didn't exist. Jeoksa moved straight into logout preparations, and I—still toying with a horn—drew out my staff and tore open a dimensional rift.

A space I knew very, very well.

"Don't log out—just hand them over. I can put them in here."

"Excuse me? The inventory doesn't even accept them. You have to log out or the system registers them."

"It won't work here either. I've tested it."

The Void Space, bound to my soul, had already proven itself back on the Blue Forest Plateau when I stuffed the Shadow Spirit inside it.

Back then, I'd sent that dungeon's boss—the Shadow Spirit—into the Void Space and tried to claim the world-boss kill credit, and the system, unable to perceive it, simply recalculated and handed me the reward anew. Unless something strange was afoot, the odds were very high it would fail to register the horns this time too.

Ordinarily I'd need something like the Blue-Red Stone in quantity to open the door, but my 4th Ascension self could pry it wide open with divinity alone. Jeoksa hesitated a moment, then handed the five horns back. I added the ones I carried and slipped all six into the space at once.

The instant they vanished inside, a burst rang out through the air and the world shook.

Shaaaa—!

The world flipped upside down.

"Okay, that was bad—"

"Stand up properly."

The moment the loop completed, Jeoksa hauled the far-flung Wind Gale Sword over by the collar. Evidently he'd stripped the kid of everything worth taking before the reset—blade, armor, every decent piece of gear, all of it gone. The samurai garb the brat was so proud of was caked in dust from who knows how many beatings.

"How many hits do you want."

"...Three?"

"Thirty?"

"...Ten."

Jeoksa exhaled, then cracked his knuckles against the top of Wind Gale Sword's head.

"Ow!"

"We'll settle this after you log out. From now on you stay still. Touch nothing."

"...But—"

"Try any funny business and I'm never giving it back. Be grateful it's only two months' worth."

Had he been an ordinary guild member, this would have meant instant expulsion and a bounty on his head. So saying, Jeoksa glared down at his younger brother, who had curled up into a miserable little ball. Wind Gale Sword hung his head deep.

"F-fine, I get it..."

And yet, even in the middle of all this, the kid was apparently still planning to return the horns in the end. If it were me, I'd have never handed them back.

"Miss Lily. Are you still here?"

"Yes."

Even through the loop, the six horns still existed within the Void Space. Now that we knew they survived the reset, we could gather all one hundred purely by looping—no logout required.

"Good. Let's get moving."

Each horn we tore free raised the gauge by a baseline 3%, and factoring in the passive climb over time, a single loop capped out at barely thirty-one or thirty-two horns. We'd need at least three loops—and opening the Void Space demanded 4th Ascension. Even without logging out, a time limit still hung over us.

Jeoksa and I worked fast: gather the horns to just under the threshold, seal them into the Void Space, then turn the Ring of Circulation and loop again. Three times we did this.

Twenty-one seconds. By the skin of our teeth—twenty seconds to spare—we had gathered all one hundred horns.

"Twenty seconds left... That's cutting it awfully close."

We'd be facing the boss in 3rd Ascension, so in practice I'd never use what was stored—but "in case" had a way of existing. From what I'd glimpsed of the horn's composition earlier, there was a strange power radiating off it, strong and alien. Something would only work in 4th Ascension. I could feel it.

"If you've gathered all the horns, please take them out. The moment you do, the Choice will begin."

At Jeoksa's word, I nodded and activated 4th Ascension.

The divinity came flooding back into my body, and the countdown plummeted in lockstep. I opened the Void Space.

As if it had been waiting all along, one hundred horns scattered across the meadow.

Ding!

RRRRUMBLE!!

The world convulsed once more. The Ring of Circulation shuddered violently, and from far across the plains—red eyes blazing—the Red Horse of Circulation revealed itself, as though it had merely been waiting for this moment.

The story unfolds. Life and death. The fate of circulation that every living thing must pass through.

The Red Horse had not been there from the beginning. It had refused the Ring of Circulation rooted into the world, and pried loose the lambs who orbited it. Then it forged a ring of its own and granted them eternity. The lives freed from death lived on forever inside that new ring, never to die—

VMMMM!!

As the tip window flared, Jeoksa, I, and Wind Gale Sword—who was squirming around over there—were all lifted into the empty air.

The Red Horse's colossal body filled my vision from midair. It was easily twice the size of a fully matured dragon.

As I stared at the sight, two message windows floated up before my eyes.

Appease, or refuse. The answers were so obvious I almost wondered why it bothered offering a choice at all—but I had a pretty good idea what choice the Red Moon Guild would make.

Jeoksa looked back at me.

"If it asks to be appeased, you won't actually go through with it, right?"

"Of course not."

This boss was mine. I wasn't just going to let it slip through my fingers. It might be a bolt from the blue for Jeoksa, but as far as I was concerned, what was owed to me had to be collected.

I moved to press Refuse—and then, suddenly, that tip window from before drifted back up into my mind.

'Surely even the master of circulation once needed a friend?'

I'd read tips for countless dungeons, and rarely had any of them actually been helpful. Most of a dungeon's trials I could handle on my own, and the tips were, quite literally, nothing more than 'trivial aids.'

But this time, one line gnawed at me more than usual.

I wiped both message windows away and drew out the White Savior in its hammer form.

The moment the windows cleared, the Red Horse of Circulation flinched, utterly unprepared for this.

"Miss Lily?! What are you—"

"Neither option suited me. Bow down and live, or resist and die—how could anyone be so cruel."

Such a merciless pair of choices. Unpickable.

"Not sure that's something a noona who goes around cracking skulls should be saying."

"Would you like yours cracked?"

"No, ma'am."

Wind Gale Sword shut his mouth.

CLANG!

The White Savior drank deep of white-hot divinity.

"I'm going to make it my friend."

And I knew just the right friends for it, too.