The Secret Key

When I woke the next morning, the woman was already gone. The faint traces left on the bed were the only reminder of the night before.

A single night. I felt no lingering attachment.

I changed clothes and headed for the dining hall. One by one, people began to stir and filter in for breakfast. Sure enough, every last one of them had dark circles under their eyes. None of them had slept properly.

After the meal, I addressed the party.

"Let's collect our armor first and take the rest of the day to recover. We start on the Lord's request tomorrow morning."

No one objected.

I led them to the place Johann had mentioned and told the soldier at the entrance that we'd heard the Lord had granted us a reward.

"Ah, so you're the ones. I've been expecting you. Come on in."

The soldier welcomed us warmly. Our performance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the day before — mine, more accurately — had left a strong impression. We were the ones who'd plugged the crisis, after all.

"Find whatever fits from the gear in here and head on out."

The warehouse was packed with armor. Most of it was leather, though a few plate cuirasses, helmets, and pieces of chain mail were mixed in among the rest.

The party set to checking the equipment at once. The two men found pieces that fit them in no time, but the women took considerably longer. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Women's armor was scarce to begin with, and getting the sizes right was a struggle. Na Seoyun had it worst of all — she was small-framed, and not quite finished growing. In the end, the women had no choice but to settle for leather. Given how low their stats still were, heavy gear would have been more of a liability than a help anyway. It was the smarter choice.

I checked the defense values on what we'd been issued. Most of it sat at two or three. A few of the plate cuirasses came close to five.

It drove home, all over again, just how exceptional my own equipment really was.

"As I said, today is a rest day. Do as you like. We have a request tomorrow, so keep yourselves in decent shape."

The words were barely out of my mouth before Na Seoyun came up to me.

"Oppa. What are you doing today?"

"I've got preparations to make for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tomorrow's request. I was thinking of heading to the market."

"The market? We were going there too… want to come with us?"

The women needed clothes and a few daily necessities, so they were planning a shopping trip.

"No, that's all right. There's something I need more than clothes."

"…I see."

"There'll be another chance. Sorry."

I apologized and ruffled her hair. Na Seoyun shook her head.

"It's okay. Next time we definitely go together!"

"Yeah."

With that, the women headed out. The moment they were gone, the men approached me as if they'd been waiting for it.

"Shin-hoo."

"What is it?"

"Well… Johann mentioned something…"

It was Park Nam-young, the man who'd been summoned alone.

"He said there's a good place. Open during the day, and not too expensive. What do you say? Just us guys. Insil's already in."

He wore a lewd grin and made a crude gesture with his hands. I gave him a wry smile.

"I'll pass. I actually do have business to take care of."

Park Nam-young looked disappointed, but he didn't press.

"Shame. All right, then. See you tomorrow."

Only after the whole party had left did I make my way to the market.

I made the rounds — a leatherworker's, a cosmetics stall, an herbalist, an adventurer's shop — picking up everything I needed. Deodorant, and a beast-repelling compound distilled from monster blood. The deodorant was a just-in-case measure. The beast-repellent was to keep us from suffering another animal attack like the one on Floor 2.

I also laid in emergency herbs, salve, bandages, a simple tent, flint, and the like.

And most important of all, food. As much as I could carry.

Johann hadn't been lying about the castle's food shortage. Provisions were genuinely expensive, and even at those prices the supply wasn't plentiful.

By the time I'd bought everything I needed, nearly half my money was gone — most of it spent on food.

When my inventory ran out of space, I deposited gold directly into it and expanded the capacity. It was a function you wouldn't normally learn about until Floor 8, but with my first-cycle memories, it was second nature.

Early on you used gold; later, precious gems. Expanding it beyond that required special methods. I still hadn't even finished expanding with gold. With only about ten gold ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to my name, I had a long way to go.

Once I'd packed the inventory full of food, I had enough to last three months on my own.

After the expansion and the purchases, the more-than-ten gold I'd been carrying was scraping the bottom. Making money was still hard. Spending it was all too easy.

I judged the preparations sufficient. And with that, I had nothing left to do.

I decided to head back to the inn and rest, to keep myself in shape for tomorrow. It was on the way back that I spotted something absurd.

A purple exclamation mark was floating above an NPC's head.

A purple exclamation mark. The thought slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

…A Hidden Quest? Here?

Tutorial Floor 4. I had just stumbled across a tutorial Hidden Quest I'd never even heard rumors of in my first cycle — simply walking down the street.

Hidden Quest.

A quest hidden in the truest sense of the word. They appeared only when a specific situation and a specific timing lined up — and even then, if you lacked the Information Level the quest demanded, you wouldn't even know one had appeared. They didn't put "Hidden" in the name for nothing.

Difficulty varied wildly from quest to quest, but they all shared a single common trait.

The rewards were outrageous.

Even the easy ones offered prizes that first-rate parties would kill to get their hands on. The reason I'd been so genuinely glad to inherit my Information Level was precisely this: the chance to monopolize Hidden Quests before anyone else could.

Quests you could know about and still neither find nor complete. A prize you could see and never touch.

I'd already learned, through a full first cycle, how important Information Level was. I'd planned to grow as fast as possible and raise it myself — and then it had simply been inherited. Honestly, this was tens of times, hundreds of times more valuable than inheriting my stats. There was no comparison at all.

If I monopolized every Hidden Quest I knew of, there was a real chance I could become a Ranker on the strength of that alone.

That was how precious they were, and how absurd the rewards. And I had never once dreamed that a Hidden Quest existed in the tutorial.

It hadn't been known in the first cycle either.

Is this for real?

I kept the tremor in my chest from showing and looked at the NPC with the mark floating over his head.

A middle-aged man. He was drinking in broad daylight, already so far gone that his face had gone a deep, blotchy red. Looking closer, I saw that one of his legs was missing.

I walked up to him without hesitation.

"Mind if I join you?"

"Huh? Who're you?"

"A mercenary. One of the ones who fought at the north gate…"

I wasn't in the habit of boasting, but I wasn't so modest that I'd dodge it when it was useful.

"Ah, aah! So you're that hero, are you?"

The tone was faintly mocking. I didn't care for it, but this was for a Hidden Quest.

"Hero's a bit much…"

"No, wait! Meeting a hero calls for a drink! Come on, drink with me!"

Just like that, he'd turned me into an excuse to keep drinking.

Getting friendly with a drunk was simple. I didn't need a long-term relationship. Given the nature of the tutorial, even a Hidden Quest wasn't going to be some drawn-out affair — and in a situation like this, alcohol was a remarkably effective tool.

I spent what little money I had left on more cheap liquor, and he didn't refuse a drop of it.

His name was Hans. Drunks have loose lips, as a rule, and after a cup or two he was pouring out the lament of his life.

"I used to be somebody, you hear me? A real big shot! If it weren't for that one damn incident, I wouldn't be living like this!"

"Ugh, here he goes again."

The people nearby gave him a wide berth. A local fixture, apparently.

"What happened?"

"Back in the day, I— I even took a commission straight from the Lord himself…"

His lament was simple enough. He'd once been a successful architect, and the Lord had commissioned him to repair a warehouse.

The warehouse's location had been classified, so they'd led him there with his eyes closed, walking for a long time before they arrived. It had turned out to be the rumored Lord's Secret Warehouse. The materials and the workers had already been waiting. Under his direction, the warehouse had been repaired to perfection.

In recognition of that work, he'd also been given the contract to repair the castle's Underground Waterway — and there, by chance, he had discovered a door that connected to the Lord's Secret Warehouse.

I had to pour five more bottles into him to get that far.

He hesitated now and then, trying to pull himself together, but he was an NPC under the System's influence.

This was the terrifying part of Information Level. He tried to keep his secret. He kept spilling it anyway.

A man already drowning in liquor, and an Information Level that crushed his own outright. Information Level 60 was not something a Floor 4 NPC could withstand.

"If it weren't for that goddamn monster! If only that—!"

"What monster?"

"Undead. Undead! There was an undead in there!"

His face went slack with terror, and he started to tremble. I refilled his empty cup.

"Could you tell me more?"

He gulped the liquor down in a rush and pressed on.

"It was a door I found by chance. Looked like it'd been sealed off ages ago and only come to light with time. The emblem carved into it was painfully familiar. That's right — it was the exact same emblem from the secret warehouse in the Lord's castle. I knew what it meant in an instant! The warehouse had a secret escape route! The Lord's Secret Warehouse sat beneath Mellid Castle, deeper even than the cellars, and like any lord's castle worth the name, it had a hidden way out. That passage started at the warehouse and ran all the way to the Underground Waterway!"

He couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice.

"I realized it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance! An old door. Latest engineering back then, maybe, but now it was just outdated craft. Making a key to open it wasn't hard. I got everything ready and snuck into the secret warehouse. But… damn it all! There was a reason it'd been sealed. There was an undead in that passage!"

"What kind of undead?"

"A lizardman! An undead lizardman. This was no ordinary corpse. It'd be a match for most knights — hell, stronger. Honestly, it's a miracle I made it out alive. I slammed the door, but I was too late. The thing was already through, and I barely managed to run. But while I was running, the lizardman caught my leg. Couldn't get it treated. Even the priests just shook their heads. It rotted, slow, and in the end they had to cut it off. I've carried this key ever since. It's all I've got left. Couldn't tell a soul. All I could say was that I'd been jumped by slimes and ratmen in the waterway, and once I was a cripple, the Lord wouldn't hire me anymore. That's why I'm like this. Wait. Why the hell am I telling you all this?"

He tipped the bottle and drank straight from the neck.

He'd spoken loudly enough, but I wasn't worried. To any other NPC it would sound like nothing more than a drunk's rambling, and a trainee without the Information Level wouldn't understand the contents even if they heard every word.

Hidden Quests weren't called Hidden Quests for nothing.

Once I had everything I needed, I couldn't quite keep the smile off my face.

Money. It was money. The reward for this quest was going to be a fortune — that much was obvious.

One of my plans had been to make a great deal of money, and to do it before Floor 10. I already had the information I needed for that, so I hadn't been concerned. But more money was always better.

And this particular piece of information, at this particular moment, was more than just coin. It was a chance to turn the tables on Johann. That made it all the sweeter.

Sweeter still: I already knew that the Floor 5 quest was to clean out the Underground Waterway.

I listened with half an ear to the rest of Hans's useless drunken rambling and bought him a few more bottles. He was delighted, and he drank himself to the edge of passing out. He got one last sentence out before he went under.

"It's a secret… this is a secret… you can't tell anyone, you hear? It's a secret…"

Pretending to shake him awake as he lay slumped over the table, I stole the key from inside his coat.

Even if I stole it, he had nowhere to go to complain. He'd downed more than ten bottles — would he even remember? He might just decide he'd lost it and raise hell. Not my problem.

I smiled and quietly left.