The Blue Sea Party

After the Blue Sea Party took their leave, Joo Ha-yeon turned to me.

"...Will they be all right?"

"What can we do? It's not as if we could have stopped them."

It probably wouldn't be easy. The fifteenth floor was a special one — the monsters there were nothing like what they had faced so far. The sixteenth would go back to Hobgoblins and stronger gnolls, but that was another problem entirely.

"...Those four guys. I don't like them."

Na-yeon's expression was openly sour.

She probably had a bit of a soft spot for Han Ba-da. The concern that woman had shown for the children and the weaker trainees had looked genuine enough.

"Oppa, Oppa! What was that just now?"

Na Seoyun was far more interested in the technique I had just used than in any of that. Impressive, honestly. I hadn't gone out of my way to be stealthy, but catching it at all was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something. She didn't seem to know what I had done — only that I had done something.

She must have felt the flow of mana.

I had nothing to hide, so I told her plainly.

"It's a technique I put together not too long ago."

"...Huh? What do you mean..."

The rest of the party looked at me as if they had no idea what I was talking about.

"It's called Sound Transmission. Think of it as whispering in someone's ear without anyone else hearing."

"Whoa!"

Na Seoyun seemed fascinated by this particular way of handling mana. She clung to me, begging to be taught, and I walked her through Sound Transmission without much trouble.

True to her monstrous talent and her Legendary-grade Magic Affinity, she pulled off a basic Sound Transmission on the very first try.

The others caught on a beat later and stared at me, every one of them looking impressed.

"...You really do come up with the strangest techniques."

"Well. It just sort of happened."

In her eyes I must have looked like some kind of genius. The truth was I had learned it — but in this second cycle, it was the first time I was using it.

"We should keep hunting for now. We still need to reach the fifteenth floor."

"Right. We've got competition now, after all."

Even so, none of them looked particularly tense. Neither was I. Our hunting speed was more than twice theirs. We had an elementalist and a priest. They had one archer, one rogue, and five warriors.

Mass slaughter was off the table for them, and once someone got hurt, recovery would be a nightmare. They would fight with extreme caution, safety first. They would probably stick to the passages.

Unless we were spectacularly unlucky, there was no chance we would arrive at the fifteenth floor later than they did.

Except that spectacular unluckiness actually happened.

Three days. For three full days, we failed to find a passage leading to the fifteenth floor.

The absurd result was that my level hit fifteen.

And in the meantime, disaster struck: the Blue Sea Party reached a passage to the fifteenth floor first.

"...They really went ahead of us."

"...Wow. So this is how it..."

Joo Ha-yeon and Nam Eun-ju looked utterly deflated.

We had cleared twice as many chambers, and the other party had still moved on ahead of us. Passages were single-use. We couldn't take theirs. If we had cleaned out that cavern together, maybe. Otherwise, it was impossible.

I hadn't seen this coming, so I was a little thrown.

Not that it mattered much in the end. On the fifteenth floor, cavern 1-1 wasn't the Fixed Safe Zone.

The Fixed Safe Zone was somewhere else entirely.

The Temple of Tribulation. A temple appeared near the center of the zone summoned on the fifteenth floor, and the cavern right beside it was the Fixed Safe Zone.

So Han Ba-da's party would be flailing around for a while. All we had to do was move up to the fifteenth floor in the meantime. Anyone taking the route toward cavern 1-1 would pass through the center once and find it without even trying. Still, I couldn't help feeling restless.

It wasn't that I coveted the record of being Administrator of five consecutive Fixed Safe Zones. I was worried because I knew.

At their current level, the Blue Sea Party wouldn't last long on the fifteenth floor. Individual skill mattered there, but so did teamwork — and quite a lot of it. Each cavern on the fifteenth floor held only one or two monsters.

Their true nature: fragments of the twentieth-floor boss. The monsters that appeared on the fifteenth floor were the Phantom of the Single-Horned Minotaur and the Phantom of the Twin-Horned Minotaur.

To go from the fifteenth to the sixteenth, you either had to defeat a Twin-Horned Minotaur Phantom or clear the Temple of Tribulation ten times. Most of the later arrivals would team up to take down a Twin-Horned Phantom and get out fast. The Temple of Tribulation was so brutally inefficient that everyone avoided it.

They might scrape by against a Single-Horned one. If they ran into a Twin-Horned Phantom, though, the Blue Sea Party was finished. And if luck turned against them, they could walk into a cavern with two Single-Horned ones. The archer and the rogue made that less likely — they probably wouldn't blunder straight into a double spawn — but you never knew.

I couldn't help the restlessness. I was reluctant to lose Han Ba-da, that stubbornly righteous wall of a woman.

None of this would have happened in the first cycle. It was happening because my presence had twisted the future.

This is driving me insane.

But there was nothing I could do. All we could do was keep hunting.

Being overtaken seemed to have shaken the party more than I had expected. Everyone started hunting even harder. They hadn't even been that conscious of holding the lead, but now that someone had passed them, it clearly sat wrong.

At least it paid off. After about half a day's hunting, we secured a passage to the next floor.

"Yes! Finally! Finally!"

Na-yeon's face lit up. The others were no different. Even Na-yeon and Na Seoyun had hit level fifteen by then, which told you how hard we had been pushing.

"Oppa, hurry — let's go! They're going to take it from us!"

The thought that Han Ba-da's party might claim the Fixed Safe Zone had Na Seoyun in a panic. She clearly didn't like the idea of them securing it. Not that anyone would enjoy watching a place they could rest fall into someone else's hands.

"Yeah. Let's move."

I took the lead and headed straight for the fifteenth floor.

I immediately checked the cavern we had been summoned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into.

Not bad. The Temple of Tribulation was in Area 5-15, so we could pass through without much trouble.

The party didn't see it that way.

"Ah, it's a six... That's so far from one..."

Na Seoyun wilted.

"We don't know that yet, Seoyun. Come on, chin up. Let's just go see."

I gave her a word of encouragement, then turned to the others.

"I'm thinking we push straight through without resting. Is everyone's stamina all right?"

"Yes. No problem."

"I'm fine, Party Leader."

"I'm good."

Thanks to their steady growth, they were still fresh. These days they could pull an all-nighter or two without their condition slipping. Before, they had managed to endure, but their condition would tank and their performance would drop with it. This was a completely different picture. They had come a long way.

Going past four days would start to take a toll, but clearing a single zone never took that long.

"All right. Let's go."

The moment we stepped into the cavern, a Single-Horned Minotaur Phantom revealed itself.

"...What is that?"

"That's not a goblin. Or a gnoll. That's..."

A monster standing a full four meters tall. The party looked overwhelmed. Fair enough — we had never seen a mid-to-large-class monster before. Creatures of that size radiated intimidation just by existing.

"You know we can't run, right? If we want to get through, we have to fight."

It was the truth. Ignore them and flee, and the monsters would chase you relentlessly until the whole area turned into hell. They wouldn't follow you into a safe zone, but they would camp in front of it for a long time, which left you with no options. Used well, you could even trigger a monster wave on purpose. In the first cycle, whenever that happened, we would stop the runners, kill them, and keep the wave from growing as much as possible before everyone piled in to break it.

The Cartel had taken the lead on those hunts. They couldn't afford to let their little kingdom collapse.

On the Lower Floors, at least, goblins and gnolls would sometimes fight each other and give you a little breathing room. Not here. You could end up watching a stampede of cattle come thundering toward you.

The party remembered the times I had driven monsters for a hunt, and their faces went rigid. They were probably picturing a herd of bulls charging.

"...Even if we're in a hurry, we take them one at a time. One at a time."

"R-right. That's probably ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠better."

Vigorous nodding. Na-yeon and Nam Eun-ju agreed just as fiercely.

"Understood. I wasn't planning to do anything else from the start, so don't worry. I'll go in first. Same as always — we start on the defensive. I trust you'll handle it."

"Yes. Be careful. That thing is huge."

"I have no intention of meeting it head-on. Don't worry."

I finished speaking and charged the Single-Horned Minotaur Phantom.

Honestly, my Strength was probably higher. Minotaur or not, this was a Single-Horned Phantom. Even the Twin-Horned one's estimated Strength didn't reach forty, so once I added mana, I had an overwhelming advantage.

The irony of being stronger than a creature twice my size wasn't lost on me. It was a fresh reminder of just how much mana mattered.

"Moooooorgh!"

A bellow that was cow-like and somehow not a cow at all. The Single-Horned Phantom spotted me and came pounding in with brutal, heavy strides.

I veered sideways, drawing it off so the party standing in a straight line behind me wouldn't get hit.

"Mooooooorgh!"

True to a monster defined by raw power, the force in those hooves slamming the ground was anything but ordinary. The Single-Horned Phantom came thundering toward me, each impact booming — a presence rarely seen on the lower floors.

Even so, it couldn't match my speed. After charging on two legs, it dropped to all fours and came at me properly.

The moment its direction fully changed, Na-yeon unleashed her magic.

"Sylph—! Wind Cutter!"

A blade of wind tore free and crossed the distance in a blink. The invisible edge carved across the minotaur's left ankle as it passed.

"Mooooorgh?!"

A scream of pain. But the wound wasn't as deep as I had hoped. It hadn't fully severed those thick muscles. Wind-element magic was on the weaker side for raw damage to begin with.

Even so, the Single-Horned Phantom — wounded in the leg while running at top speed — went tumbling. The moment its foot caught, inertia slammed it into the ground and sent it rolling.

I closed on the fallen phantom before any stray aggro could bounce, slipped into the blind spot of its vision, and rammed my blade into the nape of its neck.

A single blow. My strike cut the Single-Horned Phantom's life short. No blood came out. It was a phantom, after all.

"...Huh?"

Na-yeon, who had been midway through preparing her next spell, sounded almost disappointed.

"What was that..."

"The matchup was in our favor."

Joo Ha-yeon had caught on immediately. She was right. The matchup was excellent.

We had Na-yeon, who could throw a wrench into a charging minotaur, and two people fast enough to run from one without breaking a sweat — me and Na Seoyun. Seoyun had more than enough speed to stay ahead of a minotaur. And we had the attack power to sever a vital point in a single strike.

For our party, a single powerful enemy was actually easier to deal with than a swarm of small ones. Of course, thanks to Na-yeon, even group fights were easier for us than for the Blue Sea Party.

Memories of the first cycle surfaced, and a complicated feeling washed over me. Back then, every one of those charges had been terrifying enough to make my blood run cold.

I watched the Single-Horned Phantom dissolve into particles of light. Once the corpse had vanished completely, a Strange Iron Scrap and some food remained where it had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stood.

I carefully picked up the scrap and the rations.

This iron scrap. It was enormously important. I was wondering how many we would be able to collect when Joo Ha-yeon's voice broke through my thoughts.

"...I'm worried. That Sea party had five warriors..."

The matchup was definitely bad for them. Take one of those charges head-on, and anyone who wasn't me would walk away with a critical wound or a corpse. If it built up enough speed, even Joo Ha-yeon's Solid Shield of Earth would be cutting it close. Her holy power just wasn't high enough yet.

"So we might get the Fixed Safe Zone, then?"

Na Seoyun didn't seem particularly concerned about the other party's welfare. Na-yeon and Joo Ha-yeon looked a little pained at her reaction, but they came around soon enough.

Our party came first. That was only natural. It was what I had been telling them all along.

The Blue Sea Party did seem to be in some danger. Still...

Well. Given Han Ba-da's specs, they won't drop that fast. And they've got a High Potential archer.

Unless Jin Sang-soo's group went out of their way to troll, they wouldn't die in a day or two. If it had taken us another day or two to reach the fifteenth floor, we might have found them right away — but we had caught up in half a day, so I figured we could secure the Fixed Safe Zone first and look for them after that without being too late.

The location wasn't far, and the matchup was in our favor. I decided to prioritize securing the safe zone.