The Second

I charged straight into the wall of fire rushing toward me.

I didn't have to save him, honestly. For all I knew, the arrows had already killed him.

The goblins around us were scattering in terror from the flames. I used that opening to vault across their heads the way Cory had, closed the distance, and slung him over my shoulder. Then I ran, the knights with me.

Fire chased us from behind. With the screams of countless goblins writhing in agony fading at our backs, we escaped the Grand Goblin Settlement.

After the raid, we had no choice but to rest for two days straight.

The Grand Goblin Settlement had burned to nothing. Not a trace remained. The number of goblins that died with it was in the thousands. Most of them had been ordinary goblins, but it would still take a long time for the settlement to recover.

If this invasion was stopped, a window of several years would open. The subjugation would have to be finished within that time.

Cory could be saved. It had been painfully close. I'd been prepared to recover a corpse, at least — but fortunately, a thread of life was still in him.

Who the hell gave you permission to die?

Arrows had found him all over. He was in critical condition. We got back fast, stopped the bleeding, and barely managed to keep him alive.

Two days later, with our stamina only partly recovered, we returned to the castle to find the battle already over. Every one of the knights wanted to head back after recovering a little, but that was impossible. They were truly drained dry, and the wounds they'd taken while surrounded by thousands of goblins were not few. Even I, wearing cheat-tier armor, had been cut up wherever the plate didn't cover me — so how much worse was it for the rest of them? They weren't in full plate mail. They'd worn leather for mobility. There was no way they were in one piece.

On top of that, Cory had barely clung to life. We couldn't take him with us. Better to bring a priest instead.

The news we heard upon entering the castle was this: the goblins had seemed to be waiting for something. And as time passed, their strength had visibly drained away.

The reason was simple. The Grand Goblin Settlement had fallen. One of their key supply hubs had been destroyed, and their resupply plans had fallen apart. No reinforcements were coming, either.

In the end, they hadn't been able to keep fighting, and had chosen to retreat. I found myself wondering what the Goblin Lord must have felt, looking at the state of his own tribe.

It wasn't all good news. The victorious humans had taken losses that were nothing to sneeze at. Every village ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠around the castle had been half-destroyed. The castle itself was far from intact, and the casualties were staggering.

But we had won. That was what mattered.

Once the Lord grasped the full picture of what we had done, he didn't even give us time to shake off the fatigue of battle. He committed a number of elite soldiers and priests and sent a detached force to recover the isolated Cory, Joo Ha-yeon, and Nam Eun-ju.

They moved fast, and bringing them back proved no great difficulty.

After that, we were commended before the Lord. Together with the knights, we received medals bestowed by his own hand, along with a reward in gold.

And at the same time, I received a message telling me I had earned an Achievement I had only ever heard about in stories.

...That's broken.

No wonder people killed themselves trying to earn Achievements. On top of that, it wasn't showing in the message, but it seemed to give experience too. My level had even gone up.

...An Achievement?

Whoa.

Everyone seemed to have gotten one. But when I checked, there appeared to be a contribution ranking involved. I had received 5 points, while Na-yeon and Na Seoyun got 2, and Joo Ha-yeon and Nam Eun-ju got 1.

Honestly, even 1 was rare enough.

A little over seven days remained until the quest cleared. We decided to spend that time resting.

The Lord treated us with extraordinary care. He gave us the guest-of-honor chambers again — the same rooms he had once offered as an apology — and at every meal he wrung whatever ingredients he had left to serve us well. Even in the middle of rebuilding the villages and the castle, he came to see us every day to share a meal and conversation.

Cory and the other wounded received devoted care from the priests, and were essentially out of any real danger. They even showed the women a special kindness, donating extra to the clergy so that even their scars were erased.

Once I had rested enough, I pulled up my status window, and then the rest of the party's.

We were still in the tutorial, so there was a bit of an adjustment in effect — my stats in the thirties had grown a little, and my Mana had jumped by a full ten points.

Stamina, sitting in the forties, hadn't moved. Growth slowed noticeably once a stat crossed 40, so that wasn't strange.

Na-yeon's Mana had risen another stage. Her Stamina was still 16. As a spirit contractor, Mana mattered most — but Stamina couldn't be ignored either. The thing that stood out was that she had hit level 11 thanks to the Achievement. A thoroughly welcome miscalculation.

Na Seoyun had finally pushed even Strength and Mana into the twenties, and in the meantime her Stamina had climbed to 21. The growth was insane. She could probably take Joo Ha-yeon and Nam Eun-ju by herself at this point. She had hit level 11 as well, which pleased me more than I let on.

Joo Ha-yeon and Nam Eun-ju were still sitting at level 10. Fair enough — they hadn't taken part in the final raid on the Grand Goblin Settlement, so their level at the time had been 9. The Achievement had apparently pushed them over. It must have been a close call.

Even 10 was more than enough. In the first playthrough, they hadn't even had 9.

Next to me and Na Seoyun, their stats looked low. The truth was, even this much was extraordinary. Most trainees who arrived at the 8th floor averaged under 10 across the board. Mana was usually a freshly awakened 1, and physical stats topped out around 7 for the low end and 12 for the high.

Nam Eun-ju, the lowest in our party, was averaging 10. And since she was level 10, her stats would climb fast with training. The problem was that her potential was rated Low. Joo Ha-yeon was at least Mid-High — but Nam Eun-ju would hit a wall, and soon.

For the time we had left, I didn't nag the party either. They'd suffered enough.

"Oppa, let's train!"

"Shin-hoo, are we really resting today?"

"Shin-hoo, what are you doing? Got a minute? Can you teach me more about mana control?"

"Party Leader, how am I supposed to raise my Agility?"

The party members, however, would not leave me alone. They had properly felt how dangerous the Tower was, which meant they knew that if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their growth stopped, they would die. Even Nam Eun-ju had come to me asking for training...

I didn't push them away.

On top of that, the castle soldiers we owed a debt to, the knights who had gone on reconnaissance with us, and even Sir Gillaham — the sole knight who had remained behind to hold the castle — all stepped in to help with our training.

And so we spent the remaining week buried in it.

Then, the day before we were to leave, the party came to find me.

"...You want to say a proper goodbye before we leave the castle?"

"Yes."

"I think that would be best."

"...I want to, too."

"And what are you going to do if the next floor is here as well?"

"...I don't know. I just have a feeling it won't be."

They seemed to sense it too. The next floor would take us out of Mellid Castle, toward somewhere new.

It was a fair prediction. Setting aside this invasion, there were no more major threats around Mellid Castle. If there were, the castle would already be finished. So we would be sent somewhere new.

And they weren't wrong. But had they considered how mortifying it would be if, by some chance, we actually had to operate from here as a base?

As far as I was concerned, this place would vanish anyway — the whole thing was a colossal waste of effort. But I went along with their wishes. It wasn't as if it would cost me anything.

I went to the Lord and told him we intended to leave the next day.

He looked stunned.

"Why? Was our hospitality lacking? Why on earth..."

"It has to do with the trial through which we obtained our spatial inventory. We have to be on our way. We would like to stay, but..."

At the troubled look on my face, the Lord made one more attempt to hold me back, his expression full of regret. But when I told him we had already stayed too long, he relented with a look of genuine disappointment.

"Still, I intend to hold a farewell banquet tomorrow. At least do not refuse me that."

I nodded.

Refusing even that would have made the excuse I'd given meaningless, and it would have wounded the Lord's pride besides. Like it or not, I was a decorated hero. If they simply let a man like that walk away... Honestly, I thought of this place as an illusion and didn't particularly want to dwell on it — but the others didn't know that. And it would have been strange for me to tell them.

Word that we had to leave spread through the castle in no time. We were subjected to an endless stream of visits.

"Why not just stay at the castle with us?"

"It's because of the trial. There's nothing we can do."

"Tsk. Can't you just give that up? You don't even need a spatial inventory. We'll take more than good enough care of you. You people are the heroes of this castle."

"...It's not as if that's something we can decide for ourselves..."

The others were having a hard time of it too, if not quite as much as I was. Some of the soldiers had even started proposing. In the end the girls took cover behind me, and I was the only one who ended up more exhausted.

The next day, a lavish farewell banquet was held.

The castle was in no condition for true splendor, but they filled what was lacking with people — a great crowd of townsfolk, a festival atmosphere. Throw a festival after hardship. The most basic method of soothing the people's hearts. And by making it known that we had no choice but to leave, they had even given themselves a justification.

They were sorry to see us go, but since they couldn't keep us, the people of the castle sent us off in a cheerful mood.

As the farewell banquet drew to a close, the Lord called me aside.

"...Perhaps next year — no, the year after would be better. In two years' time, could you visit this castle once more?"

"May I ask what this concerns?"

The Lord spoke with a cold face.

"...Will that be possible?"

"I will make it possible. Thanks to you and the knights, the central tribe has burned and a great many goblins are dead — but that is only a temporary blow. Sooner or later they will swell again and threaten our castle. That is why I mean to spend two years gathering our strength, and then subjugate them. When that time comes, it is my hope that you will stand with us."

I bowed my head and pretended to consider it. The tutorial was an illusion anyway. The moment we left, this place would vanish — a memory that disappeared on clear, like an instanced dungeon. Mellid Castle, the Lord of Mellid, and every NPC here existed in as many copies as there were tutorials. I was about to answer without much thought when—

What?

I lifted my head at once.

A purple exclamation mark was floating above the Lord's head. The mark that signified a Hidden Quest.

A Hidden Quest required the right situation, the right timing, and the Information Level the quest demanded.

The first Hidden Quest — Hans — had triggered because he was drunk. That much had been enough for my Information Level to bring it up. This was different. This time the situation had genuinely, honestly lined up. Of course, it was only because I had an Information Level that I could even recognize it as a Hidden Quest.

I hadn't taken the first one. Even though the circumstances had been more than sufficient to induce a quest, I had used my high Information Level to extract the information and discarded the rest. I had approached him first, and I had chosen to steal the Lord's treasure over whatever the quest would have paid.

What if I had induced Hans and taken the Hidden Quest?

A Hidden Quest's reward surpassed the floor it belonged to. Say it was a 20th-floor Hidden Quest, and the reward was an item — that item's caliber would be 30th-floor, not 20th.

But that was as far as it went. There were vanishingly rare exceptions, but a 20th-floor Hidden Quest would not spit out a 50th-floor item. In other words, there was a floor ceiling. From the start, I had estimated Hans's Hidden Quest reward as, at best, a portion of the treasure. That was fair. Hans had nothing else to give me. And quests of that kind didn't grant Achievements, nor did the Tower step in to provide a substitute reward.

So I had used my high Information Level to pull the quest information and nothing else. I had monopolized the treasure vault, and from it I had taken more than enough gold and jewels to expand my inventory and then some.

The Lord's case was different. I would receive the reward from him, or the system would provide it.

And there was no extra information to extract with Information Level. What he had said was truly all there was.

I weighed it.

If I accepted, what happened then? Would this tutorial persist? Hidden Quest or not, we were going to the 8th floor. That much was certain.

Which meant...

In two years... we can come to the 7th floor?

Maybe. No — it wasn't certain. But the choice was obvious.

Refuse, and it ended there. Accept, and something was waiting.

I accepted at once, and spoke.

"...You have my thanks. That alone is enough."

True to a Hidden Quest, the reward was a question mark.

But that wasn't what I was curious about.

The question was this: after we moved to the 7th floor and finished the quest, would we be sent straight back to our original floor?

If not...

I needed to find out.

And so, after accepting an unexpected Hidden Quest, my party and I were transferred to the 8th floor.

The 8th floor was where you met other parties. Trainees who had cleared the 7th gathered here, formed new parties and bulked up their numbers — or ignored all that and operated on their own — or, without necessarily traveling together, built the kind of friendly ties you could call a network. Parties that made a name for themselves here and grew their ranks often went on to become guilds.

I had no intention of inflating our numbers from this point. That was a matter for later.

The reason I took the 8th floor seriously was that this was the first place you encountered a Floor Master.

I had been raising my level and making my preparations for that meeting.

What I had not expected was to run into something like this the moment we arrived.

"Whoa! Girls! There's four of them!"

"And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they're smoking hot, too! But there's only one guy?"

"Nah, look closer — there's three. Though... two of them look half-dead."

"Obvious, isn't it? Those idiots got played by Johann. Dumb bastards."

"Hmm... we don't need the guy. Hey, you. Yeah, you. Leave the girls and get lost. I'll even let you live."

You've got to be kidding me...

Outlaws. That was what they would come to be called, in time.

I looked at the unbelievable morons I'd run into from the very first second, and let out a hollow laugh.