Blue Sea Party

Blue Sea Party.

They looked like they had ignored hunting entirely and sprinted straight to the 14th floor. The moment they arrived, they started shouting for the Fixed Safe Zone's conditions to be lifted.

"…And by what right do you demand that?"

Joo Ha-yeon's voice was ice. I had never heard her use informal speech with a stranger before. Honestly, it caught me off guard.

She was the type who never dropped her honorifics until she got close to someone — and even then, depending on the person, she kept that respectful distance. In fact, she was older than I was — well, not counting the first timeline, in which case I had years on her — and she had been speaking formally to me this entire time.

And now she was talking down to someone she'd just met? The tone was downright hostile.

"Do you even realize what you've done? Maybe it's fine now, but what happens when the next wave of people starts coming in?!"

The leader of the Blue Sea Party, Han Ba-da — a beauty with blue hair — came right back at her, refusing to yield an inch.

"We gave you a place to rest in safety. You can spend the rest of your time hunting, can't you?"

"People like you elites wouldn't understand. There are still countless trainees wandering around lost in the tutorial. And kids who are no help in a fight are being brought into dungeons one by one by the adults looking after them. I checked the conditions on the other Safe Zones. You could keep providing a place for people to rest in safety! So why put conditions on it?!"

"How long do you plan to let them live in the Fixed Safe Zone? Don't they have any intention of climbing the Tower?"

"They have to survive first! Survive! And this place is crawling with trash! Do you have any idea how many people are running wild just because there's no law—?!"

"We know. We've run into plenty of them. We've even been ambushed."

Joo Ha-yeon pressed on without missing a beat.

"That's why we put up the restrictions. So nobody inside can lay a finger on anyone else, and so no one can stay beyond a set amount of time."

People without a home base tended to become wanderers. Occupying a cavern and turning it into a stronghold was an option, but then the gnolls and goblins that caught the scent would launch a full-scale assault.

That had happened more than a few times in the first timeline. Caverns painted in blood. Trainee corpses didn't disappear, after all.

That was why everyone had been so desperate to claim a Safe Zone.

"Then just block those people! Anyone under a certain age—!"

"Are all kids under a certain age automatically good people? What about the possibility they'll be used by others, or exploit the rule themselves? Do you have any idea how horrific it is when children turn vicious? Look at school bullying. Look at ostracization. You can't say someone's kind just because they're young. You think being weak and young automatically makes someone good? What a flower garden you've got for a brain."

Joo Ha-yeon's expression said she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"And who says kids are all weak? We've got a sixteen-year-old on our side. She's the second strongest among us. Drop the prejudice that children are weak. As for me, since coming to the Tower, I've only seen one man stronger than I am."

That one man was probably me. Floor Masters and NPCs seemed to have been excluded from the count.

"The men on your side… look weaker than me, too."

She added that she was a priest.

One of the men in the other party looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. He seemed to feel he'd been dismissed. Which, to be fair, he had.

"If they're young and weak, you give them a chance to get stronger — you don't just protect them and expect them to survive. We provided a place to rest. We shut down the possibility of anyone being attacked from the inside. And we didn't ask for a single thing in return. We're even offering to provide a reasonable amount of fish and teach people how to catch them, and what you want is for us to just keep handing out fish forever?"

"…Fine, maybe that's true for the inside. But what about when twelve hours pass and they step outside? You think there'll only be one or two people waiting to jump them? The place is infested with human hunters! Us — trainees, or whatever we're called? If you kill a human, you gain experience! A lot more than from monsters! Did you know that?"

"Of course. We've killed people ourselves."

Han Ba-da flinched.

A grinding of teeth. The casual admission of murder, and the unflinching composure of the party behind those words. Han Ba-da clenched her jaw and said nothing more on the subject.

So she's got kill experience too.

They had it on their side as well. And after hearing we'd been ambushed, she could probably piece together the rest. She would also know we hadn't climbed this far on murder alone.

The higher you went, the fewer people there were to begin with. Human hunting might raise your level, but it did almost nothing for your actual stats.

Someone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of Han Ba-da's caliber would already have a decent read on our party's strength. And that was no surprise — her potential and current stats were quite solid. No: they exceeded my expectations.

None of her stats reached the thirties. Her potential was listed as High, but looking at her skill slots and her numbers, she was practically Supreme. She had likely fallen just short — High, but close enough to Supreme to taste it.

If Han Ba-da had taken the elixir I'd consumed, her potential would have become Supreme. In my case, even after taking it, my physical potential had risen to something comparable to Supreme, but overall I was still listed as High. The contrast was telling.

I attributed the reason her potential was estimated at High to her age. The younger you were, the more of a bonus you received on potential. Everything I had confirmed so far pointed to that being true. Skill slots aside, physical potential was definitely affected. Just as I had strengthened the circuits inside my body and purged accumulated waste by consuming a legendary-grade elixir — elevating my physical potential to something comparable to Supreme — I believed Han Ba-da would jump straight to Supreme potential if the waste in her body were simply cleared out. Internal waste accumulated with age, and that seemed to be the factor. Of course, waste would slowly be purged as her realm rose. Until then, though, it would keep dragging her body down. For now, she was a future Supreme candidate, more or less.

In the meantime, the upward curve of her physical stats would gradually flatten. They had risen quickly so far because it was still early, and her talent had played a role in that too.

No — honestly, even this was astonishing. An average in the mid-twenties? That was no joke. Even Rankers around this point would be averaging in the high twenties, maybe.

This place really is crawling with monsters.

And that wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all. The number of skill slots told the whole story. The average initial skill-slot count among Rankers was eight to nine. She had nine. The one disappointment was that it was a hidden class. Then again, the Administrators were never going to leave a being like her alone. They wouldn't know what had become of her in the first timeline, but with talent like that, even if she had gone down in the first round, handing her a class and skills of this caliber would have given her more than enough of a chance to survive. Gaia's first-claim rights had just lost their meaning. …Is the blue hair an effect of her class?

So there had been unexpected talent on the Korean side after all.

Just how many gifted people had died in the tutorial and the Lower Floors?

In the first timeline, not a single Ranker had come out of Korea. And yet here were two people who could already be called Ranker candidates. If I looked, I would probably find more.

I suddenly wanted to get back to the Labyrinth's 11th floor as fast as possible and lock down the talented ones. Hadn't she said the kids were being looked after by adults with at least some conscience?

Poaching them would be easy.

Even after completing the clear conditions, we might have to stay in the Labyrinth for a while. How many kids would be worth investing in?

That said, Han Ba-da had a remarkably strong heart. If just three of our party stepped forward, the other side would likely be wiped out. She had to know that, and she was still coming at us like this… the Na-yeon type, I supposed. I'd give her that — she had guts.

While I was turning all of this over, Joo Ha-yeon and Han Ba-da had not stopped talking. They kept going on about the justification for the conditions, whether better terms existed, whether what we had done was right. Somewhere in the middle of it, Han Ba-da seemed to realize she had been operating under a slight misunderstanding about me.

In the little fantasy playing out inside her head, our party — me, specifically — had been some kind of psycho who was hoping the others would thrash around, racing against the clock. She had apparently imagined I would sneer at the trainees as they trembled in terror, picturing every second what would happen to them the moment they stepped outside and their remaining time ticked down.

An absurd slander.

If we lifted as many of the restrictions as she wanted, it would just be a repeat of the first timeline. For Han Ba-da, who had never lived through that, my actions would have been hard to understand.

The misunderstanding that I was a sadistic psycho had been cleared up. Even so, Han Ba-da kept demanding that the restrictions be lifted.

"If it doesn't work, we band together. Is there a law that says only the trash get to form groups?"

"We're too few. It won't work. We'll be overwhelmed."

At some point, the two of them had dropped the informal speech and started addressing each other with proper courtesy. It had become something closer to a debate. They had each recognized that the other's argument had a certain amount of merit.

"If you remove the time limit inside, you'll just get more and more people begging because they're too scared to hunt. Food will always be scarce. And if the trash have a stronger faction than we do, we'll need to get even stronger. If time passes and only the trash get stronger, we'll be short on numbers and falling behind in quality. In that situation, those people will seal off the exit passage. And then we'll probably lose anyway, just from the food running out."

"But… I can't drive children onto a battlefield. If the conditions were relaxed…"

The same arguments, over and over. In the end it came down to lift them and no. Both sides had a point, but we were the ones holding the knife. Eventually, Han Ba-da gave up on persuading us.

"…Then will you impose the same conditions on the next floor's Fixed Safe Zone as well?"

"Yes. We will."

"…Let's go. They have no intention of lifting anything."

"Planning to claim it first?"

"…Yes. Are you going to… stop us?"

Joo Ha-yeon looked at me. I shook my head, making it clear I had no such intention.

"We have no plans to stop you. If you want to go first, go ahead. But… are you planning to head up right now?"

Han Ba-da nodded, her composure intact.

"Will you be all right? I don't mean this as an insult, but… when you go to the next floor, the monsters get stronger, or their numbers jump. You already look like you're struggling as it is."

That was the truth.

Han Ba-da was clearly outstanding. But that was as far as it went. Aside from her, only one archer in their party had High potential. The rest sat at Mid to Mid-High. Every last one of them was level 12. Han Ba-da's level 13 was the only exception. Even Jin Sang-soo, who would one day become the boss of the Blue Sea Cartel, only had Mid-High potential.

Han Ba-da's eyes wavered at Joo Ha-yeon's words. Her companions all looked exhausted, that much was certain.

"It's fine, Bada. Do what you want. We can still hold out."

The speaker was the only other woman in the party besides Han Ba-da — a female archer with High potential.

"We can still hold out. Don't worry, Miss Bada."

"…Honestly, I think it'd be tough. I'm against it."

That was the man whose class was thief, and Jin Sang-soo. Jin Sang-soo looked like he thought it would be difficult. The thief said they could do it.

Looking closer, the party seemed to have split into two camps. The thief, the archer, and Han Ba-da made up one group. Jin Sang-soo, leading the remaining three men, made up the other.

So they were originally separate parties?

They had probably joined forces after realizing they didn't have enough strength on their own. Until a moment ago, Han Ba-da's party had been playing the leader despite being fewer in number, because their quality was so much higher. Now that the situation had changed, the others were voicing their complaints.

Well, it wasn't a strange development. They didn't want to die either.

"…Please. We need a Fixed Safe Zone. Come with us."

Han Ba-da bowed her head toward Jin Sang-soo.

"It's not that we can't, but do we really need to take that kind of risk? If we hunt here first and then go, we'd still have plenty of—"

"Then we'll be too late. They've already…"

She was right. We were currently clearing the surrounding area in preparation to move to the 15th floor. We could clean up far faster than they could, which meant we were more likely to reach the next floor first. Of course, if they got lucky, they might beat us there.

"Our party will take the lead. If there's anything you want among the loot that drops, we'll give you first distribution."

"Heh. You'll pay a price, will you?"

Jin Sang-soo looked Han Ba-da up and down with a gaze that all but licked her. Her party bristled with fury at the blatant once-over, but they were in the weaker position now. They seemed to be holding it in with difficulty.

"And if we still don't want to? I judge it as too dangerous with our current strength."

Jin Sang-soo had, naturally, decided that his life mattered more than loot.

"…If it gets dangerous, I won't say a word if you abandon us and run. And that other party will come up soon anyway. Even if we fail, if you just hold out a little, they'll pioneer the Safe Zone for you."

She was saying, right in front of us, that she intended to use us. It was a little absurd, but it also meant she was that desperate. Honestly, I didn't think it was a bad arrangement. If they fell apart that way, I could deal with Jin Sang-soo and his three companions at my leisure. An open opportunity to take out a confirmed piece of future trash.

Incredibly stubborn, and not an ounce of give in her.

In a sense, she was an upgraded version of Na-yeon. But that might actually be for the better. I couldn't handle everything myself, and a brick wall like her, at least, wouldn't stoop to anything filthy. A righteous hardhead was a million times better than trash.

"Hmm…?"

Jin Sang-soo stroked his chin, looking our party over as if he were appraising merchandise.

There was no longer any reason for me to hang back. I stepped forward, making no secret of my displeasure, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠let a moderate amount of killing intent roll off me for good measure.

Jin Sang-soo flinched. His expression changed in an instant. He immediately turned his head and addressed Han Ba-da.

"Ahem, ahem. Under those conditions, by all means. We'll also get first distribution of the food. Food is very important if you're going to hold out while running away, you know."

Blatant didn't even begin to cover it. The moment he felt my aura, the calculations had apparently finished themselves.

Han Ba-da clenched both fists, a flicker of humiliation passing through her.

"Understood. Thank you for agreeing."

"Sure, sure. Let's keep working well together going forward."

Once the negotiation was over, they split from us immediately and headed for a different cavern. I turned toward Han Ba-da as she receded into the distance and demonstrated a little trick that had become possible as my mana increased.

Han Ba-da flinched and looked back this way, startled.

"…Bada?"

The archer called to her. Han Ba-da couldn't answer.

It was a technique similar to message magic. People used to jokingly call it Sound Transmission. The technique itself wasn't particularly difficult, but at a low level there was a risk of being overheard. To avoid eavesdropping, you had to twist the mana considerably — what was commonly called encryption. The base difficulty of Sound Transmission was low, but the more you encrypted it, the more the difficulty skyrocketed.

Not that it mattered. There was no one here with a higher level of technique than I had, so heavy encryption wasn't necessary. Nobody even knew the technique existed. In other words, there was no chance of being overheard.

"…I know."

A tiny voice. Soft enough that only someone with high physical stats — me, or maybe Na Seoyun — could barely catch it.

With that, the Blue Sea Party left the cavern behind.