Character Development Plan

With a cool, dispassionate mind, Dohyeon contemplated his own abilities. Goldie nestled against him, tail wagging.

It doesn't matter what I want. I have to build my plan around the abilities the Tower gave me — like raising a game character.

Most necromancers, by all accounts, focused on raising Domination, Mana, and Spirit. Every Climber differed slightly, and some fine-tuned their stat investment ratios with great care, but the majority seemed to put a single point into each stat at every level-up. With 3 stat points granted per level, it was only natural for one's mind to drift toward a tidy, even split.

"My situation's a little different, though..."

The Domination stat simply mattered far less to him than it did to other necromancers. When he revived a life with which he already shared a deep bond — as with Goldie — the two could remain together permanently without consuming any Domination at all. That was surely thanks to his unique skill, Jade Bone.

"The soul taking up residence in the jade bone must be the reason, right?"

An ordinary necromancer could, at best, seize a soul and wield it as a weapon; settling one into a summon and commanding it that way was rare. Perhaps only a necromancer of the very highest order could manage it. To field something on the level of a Death Knight, wouldn't you need the soul of a master swordsman?

"Not that I'd have any way of knowing."

In any case, there were circumstances under which Dohyeon could skip investing in Domination entirely.

"Though that only holds because I have a deeply bonded life-form like Goldie..."

At present, no such being existed. No family, no lover, no dearest friend...

"And even if I had one, they'd have to die before I could use them. Raising someone I was close to, just to make use of them — that's not right either..."

After turning it over from every angle, reviving humans for use was rejected. Only a monster with a human face and the heart of a beast could do such a thing.

"If things stay like this, getting another summon like Goldie will be incredibly difficult..."

Dohyeon turned his thinking down a different path.

"A human giving me their complete loyalty is impossible to begin with... Wasn't this only possible because Goldie is a dog?"

He couldn't imagine a human being wholly loyal to another human. Way back in the old days, perhaps the oarsmen who served Admiral Yi Sun-sin aboard his legendary turtle ships had given their whole hearts. In this day and age, even soldiers didn't pledge loyalty to their superiors.

"Maybe I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠should run some kind of stray dog shelter? From what I've read, shelters put animals down fairly often..."

For one instant, Dohyeon felt as though he had locked eyes with the abyss, and he hurriedly shook his head.

"No. Having animals euthanized so that I can use them crosses a line. It must never be to my benefit that those poor creatures are put down."

That left only one path: caring for the sick and the homeless, and taking in only the ones who passed on naturally under his watch.

"That's a longer lead time than I expected."

Before any new companion came to Dohyeon, he would do well to hunt for a thrifty way to put his 5 Domination to use.

"First things first — today's climb."

This climb's target was Floor 6. The opponents: a whole heap of goblins.

"Goldie. Ready to fight?"

"Woof! Woof!"

Goldie, who had been perched on Dohyeon's knee soaking up the petting, sprang away and dropped to the floor.

"Woof woof woof!"

He looked ready to fight this very second.

"Good. Let me just change, and we're off."

"Woof!"

Appearing in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grasslands of Floor 6, Dohyeon and Goldie deftly kept watch in every direction.

Keruk?

Beyond a few trees, a goblin pack huddled close together came into view.

"Goldie. A quiet ambush is our best bet. I'll reserve plenty of mana for you, so make it count."

Goldie gave a silent nod.

Dohyeon had invested his spare stat points into Mana and Spirit. It shortened the time it took to craft ordinary bones into jade, and let him pour reserved mana into his revived summons to make them stronger still. There was simply no downside to investing in Mana.

Mindful of their footing, Dohyeon and Goldie crept toward the goblin pack. Thankfully, the wind was in their faces, carrying their scent away from the camp.

Once they had closed to point-blank range, Dohyeon and Goldie locked eyes and counted to three.

One, two... three!

Crash—! Thwack!

Cracking the backs of the skulls of the dim-witted goblins seated around the campfire, Dohyeon made a new discovery.

Goldie and I can communicate without a single word!

The count he had kept in his head and the timing of Goldie's leap had matched far too perfectly.

Battle first!

Having floored one goblin, Dohyeon moved with nimble agility to keep the enraged goblins from surrounding him. He had struck first, but the odds were still against them.

Dohyeon shifted over by a tree and tried to lead the goblins along like the Pied Piper — but there turned out to be no need.

"Woof! Woof!"

Goldie, infused with a full 10 mana, swept through the goblins like a ten-year-old tiger rather than a year-old pup. Pouncing on them in silence the moment Dohyeon's ambush began, he raked their throats with jade-glowing claws and, with crushing jaws and bite force, seized their napes and snapped their cervical spines. Starting with the goblin archer reaching for its crude bow, he put down one or two goblins with every breath, each kill clean and certain.

Keruk?

By the time he had led the frenzied goblins around one more tree like the Pied Piper, only a single goblin warrior remained. The warrior had realized its ten comrades had fallen in the blink of an eye and stopped dead in its tracks. Thoroughly rattled at being caught off guard, it pressed its shield tight against its body.

"Goldie, why are you so strong..."

Dohyeon raised his cudgel and rapped it against the warrior's shield, drawing its gaze. In the moment the creature's attention strayed, Goldie moved like lightning and clamped his jaws around its ankle.

Keruk! Keruuuk!

Yanked off its feet, the goblin warrior thrashed wildly, like a toddler throwing a tantrum in the toy aisle — but Goldie ended it as sternly and finally as a judge's gavel.

"Goldie! Come here!"

"Woof!"

At his call, Goldie released the nape he had been gripping and came bounding over, rear end wiggling with delight.

"You took a sword hit, you know. You okay?"

"Woof!"

Goldie nodded his head vigorously. When Dohyeon looked him over, the small gash from the goblin warrior's sword was already fading away.

"Hmm. It must repair itself with the reserved mana, right? What a relief."

Ding—!

As if every last goblin had met its end, the status window's notification chimed right on cue.

"Magnificent! Goldie!"

Dohyeon hoisted the lightened Goldie into the air and went tearing through the grassland.

"Woof! Woof woof woof woof!"

Goldie looked absolutely beside himself with excitement.

Having cleared the Tower and stepped back out, Dohyeon took out his smartphone and logged into the Climber community. He meant to dig up information on everything up to Floor 10.

The reason Dohyeon had challenged Floor 6 without much worry was a passage written at the very end of the tutorial guide.

He had cleared Floor 6 with ease, just as the guide's author promised — but he couldn't guarantee there would be no trouble ahead. Goldie, with a whole 10 mana reserved, had of course run rampant like a wolf among sheep, yet that was a tactic that only worked on a single goblin squad.

But no matter how formidable the wolf, what if it took a hundred sheep's headbutts all at once — or what if those hundred sheep charged the wolf's keeper instead?

The moment Dohyeon fell, the Tower conquest would fail — and Goldie would be sealed inside his jade bone for good.

"Ugh — horrifying."

Losing his master, trapped in jade, living out eternity unable to move so much as a finger...

Dohyeon resolved that he absolutely could not lose his life.

"If I want this problem solved before I die, I'll have to climb the Tower in earnest."

Surely one of the skills he would gain later held the answer.

"Woof!"

Dohyeon brushed Goldie down with a stiff-bristled brush. His coat had gone lumpy and uneven since he became a skeleton, and petting him barehanded hurt. Goldie, for his part, didn't seem satisfied with bare-handed rubs either — so it was a win-win for dog and man alike.

Swish, swish—

Scrolling through the community, it appeared goblin numbers simply kept growing through Floor 9. Goblin warriors and archers apparently mixed into the ranks along the way, but the goblins' crude bows supposedly couldn't even punch through the leather armor climbers commonly wore.

"Still, if one lands in a gap, that would be dangerous."

Caution seemed warranted — his class, after all, left Dohyeon personally with no real attack or defense to speak of.

"More importantly, I ought to get Goldie some companions... Should I try reviving a goblin?"

One goblin squad was something he and Goldie could pounce on and handle reliably, but anything beyond two squads would likely be more than they could manage. Dohyeon, who had dreamed of building a skeleton legion out of friends who shared his heart, was reluctant to revive goblins.

"For now, I'll stay on Floor 6 a while and earn some money."

He hadn't decided to make goblins into Jade Bone Skeletons, and even if he had, completing a single jade bone would take days.

Dohyeon looked at the business card Song Seogyeong had left behind and sent her a text.

While Dohyeon was still wondering what explanation he ought to add, the reply came almost at once.

"Oof — this feels a bit burdensome, honestly... Like I'm putting my sister-in-law to work."

Dohyeon resolved to treat her to a truly fine meal.

Then his gaze fell on Goldie, resting on his familiar cushion. The shape molded back when muscle and flesh still clung to him seemed a touch too big for the Goldie of today.

"Should I buy you a new cushion, Goldie?"

"Woof!"

Goldie shook his head hard.

"Hehehe. Adorable, that's for sure."

He still missed fluffy Goldie, drooly Goldie, happily-munching Goldie — just a little. But jade bone Goldie had his advantages too. For one, the Climber skill binding the two of them together made clear communication possible. Goldie had always been on the clever side, but that had only ever been communication by human standards; whether they had truly understood each other before was anyone's guess. The Goldie of now could pass meaning back and forth, plain and certain — and Dohyeon loved that.

"Someday, I hope I can put flesh back on you. Goldie."

"Woof!"