The Secret Vault

"Hyaaaaah!"

BOOM!

Nam Eun-ju roared out a battle cry, as if she could shout the fear straight out of her bones, and met the Undead Lizardman's strike head-on. The gap in stats was not something a yell could close.

"Kyaaah!"

Her shield shattered in a single blow, and her body was flung backward. It was worse than what had happened to Joo Ha-yeon. She went tumbling across the floor in a heap.

I shouted at the party at once.

"Everyone, fall back!"

Every face among them was stunned.

"Na-yeon! Don't fire that! Fall back, now!"

"What are you talking about?!"

"It won't work anyway! I'll fight it alone — all of you, get out of here!"

"That's too dangerous! Just now you were pushed back by its strength—!"

BANG! CLANG! WHOOSH!

The Lizardman had no interest in waiting for us to finish talking. It swung its weapon at me at once. I slipped aside, caught the follow-up strikes on my blade, and eased back from the third.

A three-hit combo.

I called out as I retreated.

"I can't hold the aggro! You'll just get in the way! Get outside! Get out and clear the dungeon!"

"What?"

"You saw it when we came in! If we clear the dungeon, we might be able to leave!"

Current progress sat at ninety-four percent. The clear was close. If the four of them worked together, they could finish it in an hour or two. The remaining ground wasn't nothing, but they only needed to mop up a couple of spots.

"I can hold out just fine on my own! Get out there and finish the dungeon!"

"Th-that's...!"

My words weren't actually wrong. To leave a dungeon, you either went back out the entrance, or — if a party member ended up isolated inside a system-governed dungeon — clearing it would pull you free. You could hit one hundred percent progress without bothering to clear a hidden space. Finishing this place would tack on a bonus, of course.

But they had never lived through that, so they didn't know. Unable to be sure, they all hesitated.

"There's no other way! Just go! If it's holding out, I can do it for hours! You know me! We spent a whole night running for our lives!"

I kept slipping the Lizardman's attacks as I spoke, showing them I could hold.

It was a ridiculous claim, if you thought about it. Holding out for hours against a monster stronger than yourself? Even a dedicated tank would struggle.

"No, oppa! Not this time — not again...!"

"Damn it! That's an order from your party leader! Fall back, now!"

When I barked at them, their faces went frightened. Maybe because they had never seen me get genuinely angry like this. Na Seoyun looked scared.

"...We'll pull back. Clearing the dungeon quickly would be better. We'd only get in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the way anyway."

That was Joo Ha-yeon.

"You have to hold on. Two hours — no, we'll finish everything and be back within one."

I waved a hand at her words.

"I'll have it dead before then, so take your time."

"...We'll be quick. Just wait for us."

When I wasn't around, Joo Ha-yeon was the leader. She gathered up the ones who couldn't bring themselves to leave and hurried them out through the passage.

A little time passed, until I could no longer sense any trace of the party. I muttered quietly to myself.

"Yeah, that's better. When the hell am I supposed to raise the others, anyway."

Monopolizing everything was genuinely hard. This was already the second time I'd had to put on this act. I found myself hoping Na-yeon would get used to the Tower soon. Earth's morality was a liability here.

Joo Ha-yeon was the most solid of them, at least mentally. I thought it would have been nice if her potential were a little higher, and I turned my eyes on the Lizardman.

The Lizardman kept missing, but like any undead it refused to give up, attacking with mechanical persistence. I'd already mapped the pattern thoroughly, though.

A charge. A spinning slash as it turned. A whirling tail strike. And finally the three-hit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠combo. This wasn't a game, so there were plenty of ordinary attacks besides those — but the undead had a habit of moving the way they had in life. Figure out the patterns they actually used, and the fight got easy.

I leaped far back, and the Lizardman charged.

"Easy."

I slipped aside, carved a line across its flank, then turned with it as it spun its blade and raked my sword down its back. The tail whip came next. I dodged it lightly and put my blade in its path.

SLASH!

My strength, a decent sword, and the Lizardman's own attack speed all came together — and the tail came off clean. A one-sided toying. There was no trace left of the man who'd been barely holding on a moment ago.

"Hah. What a pain."

The Lizardman still wouldn't quit. This undead kept swinging at me until the end.

The three-hit pattern. A downward chop, then two slashes. I timed my own three strikes against those openings and landed every one.

The fight didn't last long. The Lizardman was reduced to a twitching heap of parts — neck, arms, tail, and the rest of it carved apart.

"Filthy thing just won't die."

I crushed the severed head, and the writhing body went still. A moment later the Lizardman's corpse vanished, leaving a single ticket in its place. At the same time, my body felt a little lighter.

Leveled up, huh?

I picked up the ticket, feeling satisfied.

An Intermediate Armor Exchange Ticket. It was worth about ten of the Armor Exchange Tickets I'd picked up in the tutorial — though the goods it produced were different. Broader selection, better quality.

An excellent reward. Unexpected income, you could say. I'd spent two Armor Exchange Tickets on the fourth floor and been a little sorry about it; this more than made up the difference.

I tucked the ticket into my inventory and headed deeper without wasting time.

Further in stood a single door, an unusual pattern carved in relief across its face.

Found it.

I pulled the key from my inventory at once and slotted it into the recess.

Creeeak — click.

The door opened immediately. I walked into the passage beyond.

This was the corridor the Undead Lizardman had been guarding. There might be something more waiting further in. I still had a little time, so I moved carefully, scanning the interior as I went.

For all that caution, the passage was empty. After about ten minutes of winding tunnel, I came to another door like the first.

Click. Click.

Fully locked. But the key opened this one just as easily. I pulled the door inward — and found the way ahead sealed completely with packed earth.

A closed passage.

I pressed an ear to the familiar wall and listened carefully for any presence on the other side. A body sharpened with mana was sensitive enough to catch a trace through stone. There was nothing.

I reinforced myself and dug the earth out fast. The dirt wall wasn't thick. Once I'd cleared it, though, a wall of actual stone appeared, and I could dig no further. I listened again. Still no presence. So I broke the wall by force.

THUD! THUD! CRASH!

The wall was remarkably solid, but it couldn't stand up to a sustained assault, and it finally gave way.

The secret vault.

I'd made a fair amount of noise, and nothing happened. The location itself was so classified that no one was even posted to guard it. I stepped inside.

"...Whoa."

The vault was fairly large. I opened the stacked crates and found them packed with silver and gold coin; one entire wall was lined, dense and glittering, with top-grade jewels. The gold alone ran past four thousand, and once you added the gems, the coin and jewelry in this vault were worth more than ten thousand gold all told.

The rest of the space was crammed with dozens of artifacts and antiques that looked valuable, occupying an enormous stretch of floor. But empty spaces showed among them.

...Someone had already been here?

Only the labels remained. The spaces themselves were empty.

Johann had taken those three. The Ring of Life among them would turn up in one of our party members' rooms. He was going to plant it there. It would be found, by chance, in the hands of a maid cleaning the room.

An absurd frame-up.

Once that item was discovered, the lord — realizing it had come from his own secret vault — would come straight here, notice the missing pieces, and have us arrested the moment we cleared the dungeon.

Did that even make sense? How were we supposed to have stolen any of this?

But the lord, having lost the Sword that Protects Melid — one of his ancestral heirlooms — hadn't been in his right mind. He'd tortured us, screaming about where we'd stashed the goods. And the one who'd taken the lead in that torture had been Johann himself.

In the course of it, Na-yeon and Joo Ha-yeon were raped under the name of interrogation and put through every kind of humiliation. The sixth floor was a survival mission, so the thought ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that we only had to endure it kept everyone hanging on through the insults and the torture, somehow...

The next floor was a survival mission too.

Yes. That was the problem. The location never changed, and the torture started all over again.

Na-yeon couldn't endure the brutal torture and the horrific humiliation. She killed herself. Joo Ha-yeon didn't take her own life, but she died midway from the aftereffects. Nam Eun-ju, who'd died on the fourth floor, had been better off.

In the middle of all that, Kim Insil seized a chance and escaped alone. He died at the goblins' hands in the end, but still.

My teeth ground together.

Just remembering it was enough to drive me insane.

Thank God the goblins had hit us when they did. Kim Insil, who'd gotten out first, was the one who died — and I was the one who survived. If they hadn't come, I would have died ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in there too. In the end, I was the only one who walked out of that tutorial alive.

But this time was different.

The dungeon clear had gone so much faster that I'd reached this place before the lord could come back. Johann had already been through, but I'd expected that. I'd wanted it that way.

I shoved the gold and the jewels into my inventory at once and started expanding it on a massive scale. All that coin and all those gems vanished. And my inventory swelled until it could swallow the entire vault.

Maybe because the jewels were of such high quality. The inventory had expanded until it couldn't take another inch. To push it further, I'd need a different method.

Nobles, after all.

A rural frontier lord he might have been, but he was still a noble with a domain of his own. His finances were reasonably healthy.

The artifacts were nothing special. Even artifacts from the Lower Floors weren't particularly good, and these were tutorial pieces. Every last one of them had some useless function.

Just a man with a lot of money.

I looked over the antiques with Information Level behind my eyes, and more than half of them were garbage. The Imitation Holy Grail I'd brought him was in there too. I took the antiques that were actually worth something — there weren't many — left the rest, and started working on the artifacts.

Erase this here, then force mana through here...

A technique I'd paid to learn at the Magic Tower, once.

I tossed a specially sabotaged artifact into the space piled high with antiques and moved myself into a corner. A moment later—

KABOOOOOM!

The artifact detonated.

Whew! The yield on that thing was vicious!

An Artifact Bomb. A kind of technique. It didn't occupy a skill slot, but if you tampered with an artifact's interior in a particular way and wrecked it, it became a single-use explosive. A method you only used in a genuine emergency. You didn't treat your main gear like this — but it let you turn the useless artifacts that dropped in dungeons into bombs.

I wrecked the inside of the vault on the spot, then walked out, blasting even the passage I'd entered through with another Artifact Bomb, and thought:

Go ahead and get fucked, you goddamn bastard.