To the 11th Floor

The battle had been going our way. We were stacking damage, slow and steady, and we'd seized the high ground.

But the moment the taunt's target switched to Han Ba-da, the fight that had been meshing like clockwork started to come apart.

Han Ba-da was faltering. She'd temporarily swapped into the main tank role — a tank's job was to hold the line — and somewhere along the way she'd started tangling with the Minotaur like a melee DPS.

She'd eaten the taunt.

Tsk.

I clicked my tongue.

I hadn't been able to share intel on a Minotaur none of them had ever seen, so I hadn't warned her to be careful. I'd figured we'd win easily enough without it. Han Ba-da had the third-highest talent in the party. Her mana was solid, her mental fortitude wasn't bad — I hadn't expected her to get caught this easily. Experience, or the lack of it, was showing.

She had zero resistance to that kind of attack. She wasn't even trying to counter it. She didn't have the presence of mind to examine her own actions.

When she tangled with the Minotaur more than I'd anticipated, our ranged support cut out. The party looked a little puzzled — startled, sure, but the training had done its job, and they kept their composure.

I signaled them to hold position, then watched Han Ba-da and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Minotaur, waiting for an opening.

Han Ba-da charged in with plenty of fire. The Minotaur, despite all those wounds, casually absorbed her attacks and gave ground a little at a time.

A genuinely clever bastard. And then, the moment Han Ba-da — her boiling point dropped by the taunt — lost her patience and wound up for a big hit, it swung for her head like it had been waiting for exactly that.

A clean hit would be fatal.

I'd been waiting for it. I drove between them, kicked Han Ba-da clear, and threw myself the other way.

The Minotaur's flank was wide open — the side it had exposed swinging at her. I rammed my sword in and dragged it down with my full weight.

Mooooooooooooooooooooo!

Pain beyond anything it had imagined. The Minotaur thrashed, flailing every limb to shake me off. I yanked the blade free without a second thought, fell back, and signaled the rear line to resume the attack.

Han Ba-da, the one I'd kicked, was twisting on the ground, struggling to get up — the impact must have been rough. I gestured for her to fall back. Getting hit by me seemed to have broken the taunt; she immediately dropped behind the second line and volunteered as Keeper.

Nam Eun-ju swapped in, stepping up to the second line to support me. Na Seoyun, who'd been hesitating, kept up her magic attacks, and the boss raid slowly rolled toward its end.

Mooooooo—

With that last death cry, the boss collapsed onto the earth. Even for a top-tier party like ours, taking down the 20th-floor boss had taken longer than I'd expected.

In practice, the 20th-floor boss was usually a five-party-plus joint raid. A typical party ran five to seven people, which meant thirty or more trainees raiding a single monster.

We'd done it with eight. That was a solid result by any measure.

But no achievement popped. Even with the boss down, no door to the next floor appeared.

When the boss Minotaur collapsed and dissolved into motes of light, the medieval manacles it had been wearing were left sitting there on the ground.

"Ah! Oppa! An item! We got an item!"

I heard Na Seoyun, but I did what I always did first.

After a fight, the first thing was checking for injuries. As main tank, I'd never dropped aggro, and since I was fine, nobody was hurt except Han Ba-da, the one I'd kicked. Even that wasn't a serious injury.

"I'm sorry, Shin-hoo. I don't know why I suddenly..."

"It seemed like a skill. I felt a strange impulse myself."

"...A monster using a skill?"

"We use them. There's no rule saying monsters can't."

Han Ba-da looked startled, then accepted it. There really was no rule against monsters using skills. Goblin shamans threw something pretty close to Fireball, didn't they?

Once she realized the Minotaur had used the taunt on me as well, she gave a bitter smile and apologized again. Fair enough — I hadn't been caught, and she had, and that had thrown the fight off. It was a genuine mistake. You couldn't always go into combat with full information.

Combat was full of variables. It had worked out, so I didn't give her a hard time. I just nodded, clapped her on the shoulder with a light word of encouragement, and walked over to the manacles the boss had dropped.

The moment I picked them up, an information window appeared.

Strength 60. Right now, with a twenty-point Strength penalty, it looked like complete garbage — but that Upward Growth Correction was a monstrous effect, boosting you regardless of potential.

There was a reason an item that ate twenty Strength still sat at Super Rare.

I showed the item to the party. Confusion all around.

"What even is this..."

"Is this actually good? It says it has Upward Growth Correction, but..."

"It seems like it's bad now and good later. But the Strength you lose right away..."

"It's incredibly good, but the drawback is brutal."

For melee tanks and DPS, Strength was a critical stat. And this thing wanted you to shave twenty points off it. You had to wonder if you'd even survive a fight. Raising stats through training alone was hard, so you had to hunt — and this weakened your body to the point where hunting could easily get you killed.

Of course, for people like me and Na Seoyun, with high mana, you could amplify your physical abilities with mana and paper over the gap. It didn't really matter. It just meant dropping the level of the monsters you fought a notch.

And Strength 60 — that was Middle Floor territory. I expected my average stats to clear 60 by the time I reached the Middle Floor even without this, so I didn't strictly need it. There was a reason people said your stats and level only really balanced out once you hit the Middle Floor.

My growth was already slowing. Wearing this would just bring the ceiling a little sooner. Even so, it was equipment I absolutely needed. The growth correction raised you regardless of potential, which meant I could conserve that potential.

So I needed to wear it. Na Seoyun too. Nam Eun-ju as well, if we could swing it. While the party was still talking it over, I quietly slipped away, pretending to look around, and headed for the altar I'd been aiming for.

I glanced at the party. Nobody was paying me any particular attention.

Even so, just in case, I made a show of setting food and miscellaneous gear on the altar. Nothing happened.

But when I placed the Strange Iron Scraps we'd secured on the 15th floor onto the altar—

I immediately dumped Strange Iron Scraps from my inventory onto the altar. With this much, I could make three. Drawing on my first-cycle memories, I poured the tribute onto the altar in a heap.

Ting-ting-ting.

The sound of iron scraps spilling from my inventory and clattering against each other pulled every eye in the party toward me.

"Shin-hoo? What are you doing...?"

"It says these can be offered as a sacrifice. We don't have any other use for them, so I'm trying it."

My answer was matter-of-fact. The unusual situation brought the party over immediately.

Once I'd dumped every last scrap from my inventory, another message appeared.

I hit Y at once.

Then—

A bright light flared.

Three Minotaur's Handcuffs sat on the altar. Same effects.

"...What is this."

The party looked a little disappointed.

Idiots.

Three Super Rare-grade items for a pile of junk. This was a steal, and they had to know it. They just couldn't tell from a message how incredible that correction actually was.

I looked at the party.

"I'll distribute these to the people who need them. My stats are the highest, so I'll put one on first as a test and see how strong the correction is."

I immediately handed Minotaur's Handcuffs to myself, Na Seoyun, Nam Eun-ju, and Han Ba-da.

Honestly, I hadn't planned to give one to Han Ba-da, but two of our party were a priest and a spirit master — Strength didn't matter much to them. She'd suffered through this, so I decided to pass ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one to her.

Han Ba-da refused adamantly, but when I told her to at least hold onto it, she took it with a slightly burdened look, unable to win against my insistence.

She was going to be grinding in the Labyrinth for a while. Her level would stall. Giving her this would at least make it easier to tear through the place.

I put the manacles on immediately.

I could feel the Strength drop like a stone. I'd only recently hit 40 Strength, so losing 20 of it hit like a truck.

"Oppa, how is it?"

"The stats dropped, that's for sure. I'll have to check the correction over time."

I'd recover the lost 20 soon enough. And after that, I'd keep growing at a pretty fast clip. This was a top-tier Super Rare. Stat-correction items that took you all the way to 60 were genuinely rare.

We headed straight to the next room and secured the Fixed Safe Zone there.

I registered myself as the Zone Administrator. The achievement I'd been hoping for didn't appear. And this floor was special.

I had no authority to configure anything. Everything was locked.

So that's why the Cartel couldn't really run wild on the 20th floor in the first cycle.

They hadn't been completely shut down, but compared to what they'd done on the lower floors, it had been a pale imitation. There was a reason.

By default, combat between trainees around the Fixed Safe Zone was difficult, and hostile acts inside it were forbidden. Violate it twice and you were permanently banished from the Labyrinth. On top of that, entry permission was restricted to "those who defeated the boss."

As the location of the door to the next floor, it seemed to be under special management.

I approached the door, and a message appeared.

Not yet.

I stepped back immediately, and the message vanished.

Checking the surroundings, I spotted another door. The moment I approached it, a new message appeared.

From the 11th floor through the 19th. A door that could take you to any of the Fixed Safe Zones.

I immediately called the party over.

"The lower floors!?"

Han Ba-da's expression shifted from shock to joy.

Until now, there had been no way to go back down. Not in the tutorial. Not in the Labyrinth. And now there was. From Han Ba-da's perspective, that was something to celebrate.

In the first-cycle Labyrinth, descent to the Lower Floors had been strictly controlled. Escaping the Labyrinth entirely had been the same. In this cycle, Jin Sang-soo — already dead — had been the one strictly controlling any descent. He'd effectively controlled this Fixed Safe Zone as well.

If a group looked too dangerous to mess with, he wouldn't stop them from escaping the Labyrinth — but that was as far as it went. Even then, if the numbers got too high, he'd kill some of them to keep it in check. The people who actually made it out on skill alone were a tiny minority. Leaving the Labyrinth meant betting your life.

That was the kind of atrocity you could pull when your power was that absolute.

But now it was different.

I asked Han Ba-da and the party if they wanted to head down.

Han Ba-da was all for it, of course. She saw it as a chance to clean up the trash.

Without me, she wouldn't have had any reason to climb this fast. In the last cycle, she probably would have stayed behind and tried to deal with the trash somehow. Looking at the Fixed Safe Zones and the Cartel situation on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠each floor, she'd still have been aiming higher, same as this cycle — just not this quickly.

And then at some point Jin Sang-soo would have stabbed her in the back, and it all would have fallen apart.

My party members looked a little puzzled by this move. The Yoo Shin-hoo who always thought about the next floor, who only ever schemed to get stronger — why?

I had a good excuse for moments like this.

I looked at Na-yeon.

"I promised, didn't I. If we had room to breathe, we'd help people a little. Even if we slow down a bit now, we're still in the lead, and it won't cost us much."

I added that at our current strength, it didn't seem all that dangerous.

Na-yeon's eyes went round, then her face filled with emotion. Then she was half on the verge of tears, and a moment later her expression bloomed into pure joy.

Watching the rapid-fire change of faces, I found it a little funny, but I wasn't stupid enough to let that show.

"Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Shin-hoo..."

She'd wanted to go herself. But she'd agreed to follow my lead, so bringing it up would have been hard. And now I was making time to go down, out of consideration for her. She looked deeply moved.

"Congratulations, unni."

I had no idea what there was to congratulate. Na Seoyun pulled the teary Na-yeon into a hug and rubbed her back.

Joo Ha-yeon and the other women offered warm smiles, and Han Ba-da looked at Na-yeon with a hint of envy.

Our party and Han Ba-da's group were unanimous. We were going down.