A Predetermined Farewell
What the hell was that?
I stopped the slaughter I'd been in the middle of and looked back.
The moment I halted, the trash who'd barely kept their lives didn't even consider a counterattack. Every last one of them was too busy running.
A few of them had timed it well — finishing their own hunt and then striking at our backline while I was occupied. I'd been aware of it. They posed no real threat, so I hadn't bothered giving them any thought.
Then something unexpected happened.
Joo Ha-yeon and Nam Eun-ju had sealed the approach cleanly. One of the attackers looked like he might slip through, but Nam Eun-ju used a Taunt and cut him off. The trash's last scrap of hope had already crumbled. After that, even without Na-yeon or Na Seoyun doing much of anything, Nam Eun-ju — now armed with the Earth's Shield — should have been more than enough to mop them up.
And then the unexpected happened.
Ha Yoo-jin — the kid I'd figured would take forever to raise even if I did take him in — shot forward the instant it looked like one might slip through.
A dagger was in his hand, pulled from his inventory, maybe, and the instant the Taunt took hold, he drove the blade into the man's nape.
Unless you used mana to reinforce your body, a trainee's flesh couldn't stop a blade. And even if you did, dumping mana that way was so inefficient you'd be better off just taking a shield. Sure, once you reached a certain level, your body would start to leave humanity behind, and an unenchanted sword wouldn't be enough to deal a fatal wound — but at this stage, that was impossible.
Which meant that if you could put a blade into a trainee's body, into a vital point, you could kill them. Adult or eight-year-old, it made no difference.
Ha Yoo-jin had done exactly that. An eight-year-old.
The kind of killing I'd had to put on a whole production to force Na-yeon into on the 8th floor, he'd done as if it were nothing.
I hadn't seen that coming.
It was true that if a melee fighter was in the backline in that situation, someone needed to cover immediately. If Nam Eun-ju had actually missed, Na Seoyun would have stepped in. But Na Seoyun knew Nam Eun-ju's skill. She knew Nam Eun-ju could handle that much on her own, so she didn't react.
Ha Yoo-jin didn't know that. So he reacted. No — more than that, the timing was perfect. As if he'd known exactly that one would slip through, he drove the blade into the man's throat at the precise instant.
That wasn't a judgment an eight-year-old should be capable of. And being able to actually follow through on it was another matter entirely.
He's insane.
That kid was a gem. He'd already finished adapting to the Tower. Well, a fair amount of time had passed since he'd been summoned. Humans were creatures of adaptation — given this much time, it wasn't impossible for someone to have fully adapted. I just hadn't expected that someone to be an eight-year-old brat.
Mentally, he was still a little immature. That was unavoidable. More precisely, he was lacking in social skills and interpersonal relationships, and he was afraid of being isolated. That was unavoidable too. Children — hell, humans in general — weren't animals that could survive alone. But in terms of combat, I considered Ha Yoo-jin half-complete.
The body could be built up with the System's help. Technique could be taught. His form when he stabbed the nape had been clumsy, sure. But Nam Eun-ju's Taunt had left the gap wide open, and the one who'd slipped through was so unskilled he hadn't even noticed Ha Yoo-jin using Stealth. In a situation like that, technique didn't matter. Aim for a vital point that would kill in one hit, and it was easy.
The isolation as a human being would be solved by being with our party.
And more than anything, I was satisfied that the mental fortification — the hardest thing to cultivate — was essentially already done.
The party, however, looked thoroughly shaken.
Na Seoyun didn't seem particularly bothered. If anything, she looked rather impressed.
But Joo Ha-yeon's eyes had gone round with shock, and Nam Eun-ju looked stunned as well.
The prize went to Na-yeon. Her face was twisted with shock and horror.
She was the one who'd spotted Ha Yoo-jin too late and shouted for him to stop. But regardless of that cry, Ha Yoo-jin had committed murder right in front of our eyes.
It wasn't anything special, really. On the 8th floor we'd carried out a massacre, and what we were doing now was called cleaning up trash, but it was closer to hunting humans. The only issue was that the one who'd done it was an eight-year-old kid, and our party simply didn't have enough experience to watch an eight-year-old kill someone and feel nothing.
Na Seoyun's composure was the strange part, if anything.
I, for my part, found both Na Seoyun's reaction and Ha Yoo-jin's performance extremely satisfying.
While the party stood frozen in shock, the survivors among those who'd attacked the backline started to flee — not just on my side, but theirs as well. I had no intention of letting any of them live, so I went after the ones running late.
I'd zoned out a little too long to catch them all. They'd scattered in every direction besides.
Seeing me give chase, the party snapped out of it and started hunting down the remaining trash still alive in the cavern.
Ten minutes. That was how long it took to finish off the remnants.
We'd let a fair number get away, but it couldn't be helped. Honestly, losing those ones wasn't particularly important. There was something more important to deal with.
After the fighting ended, I approached Ha Yoo-jin.
"Why did you do that?"
"...Huh?"
"Have you... ever killed anyone before?"
"A few times."
"Then why? Why at that moment..."
"D-did I do something wrong? I just... I suddenly thought I had to go out there. I-I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
"No, no. That's not what I meant. Honestly, I think you did well."
"Shin-hoo?!"
I could feel Na-yeon recoiling in horror at my words.
"You shouldn't kill people indiscriminately. But that doesn't mean you need to spare the ones who come at you trying to kill you, either. Of course, depending on the opponent, not killing them can be useful sometimes. A misunderstanding, or when you need to gather information — that sort of thing. You'd want to be careful in those cases."
But as a rule, I added, when someone came at you for their own survival, killing them was the surest answer.
There was nothing wrong with what I'd said. Na-yeon, Nam Eun-ju, and Joo Ha-yeon didn't argue. The Tower was not a place you could live with a generous heart — even now, when there was virtually no party that surpassed us.
Na-yeon couldn't bring herself to say anything more to me. She swallowed her words, stewing in silence.
After that, I extracted Ha Yoo-jin's story whenever we were on the move or taking a rest.
There had been people who'd looked after him from the tutorial onward. With their help, he'd cleared the tutorial, and the dungeon as well. Then, not long after reaching the 11th floor, he'd been attacked by the Labyrinth Faction and dragged off as a slave.
The ones who'd taken care of him had been a married couple. He'd heard they'd met a wretched end.
His body trembled just from recalling it, so it seemed a bit of trauma had taken root — but even so, there was none of that refusing-to-talk, shutting-down behavior. True to the words he'd spoken himself, he didn't look like he'd be a burden.
During combat, I paired him with Na Seoyun and had her teach him the fundamentals of fighting, one piece at a time. The couple before hadn't taught him anything like that, he said. They hadn't really known this kind of thing themselves. So this was the first time he was learning any of it, and he threw himself into each lesson with real hunger.
I clapped him on the shoulder in encouragement.
Na Seoyun seemed to have taken a liking to Ha Yoo-jin, and she agreed to accept him into the party. I was in favor as well, and Nam Eun-ju had no real objection. Watching what the kid had done today, she seemed to have realized he wasn't someone who'd fall behind.
In the end, when that day's cleaning was finished, the party formally took Ha Yoo-jin in.
Our first recruitment.
Unlike the rest of us, Ha Yoo-jin had never been to the 20th floor, which meant he had to climb one floor at a time.
We were still in the middle of cleaning out humans, so I paired him with Na Seoyun and had them climb the Tower separately.
Na Seoyun didn't seem happy about being apart from me, but she liked Ha Yoo-jin well enough that after a moment's hesitation, she agreed.
Losing Na Seoyun as insurance was unfortunate, but it didn't cause any real problems with the cleaning. Nam Eun-ju was more than capable of protecting the two in the backline, and I could hold my own without any support from the rear.
Over the course of several days, we steadily cleared out the trash, and at last we were able to hit their stronghold. More precisely, we couldn't raid it — it was a Safe Zone — but we succeeded in sealing it off.
That much was enough.
I went to find Han Ba-da.
She was in the middle of issuing instructions to people, thoroughly occupied.
"Hm? Shin-hoo?"
"Ah. You look busy."
She was busy, no question — but there was something refreshed about her, as if she were in her element.
"Yes. This and that... is there something you needed?"
"The 11th-floor cleanup is essentially finished. We need to move to the next floor."
"Ah..."
She looked slightly troubled. I paid it no mind.
"This evening — I'd like a moment of your time. There's something we need to discuss."
"...All right."
Han Ba-da seemed to have guessed what I intended to talk about. She nodded with a grave expression.
When evening came, I left the party and met with Han Ba-da alone.
"It's been a while since it was just the two of us."
There'd never been a reason to meet like this. We'd spent a fair amount of time together, but there'd been almost no occasion for the two of us to sit down alone.
"It has, hasn't it. ...What did you call me here for?"
Han Ba-da didn't circle around. She asked me directly.
"We... agreed we'd only stay together inside the Labyrinth."
She nodded.
"Once we pass the 20th floor, the 21st isn't the Labyrinth. You know that, right?"
"...Yes."
The message we'd seen on the 20th floor had asked if we wanted to escape the Labyrinth. Which meant the 21st floor was not the Labyrinth.
"So I wanted to ask — do you intend to stay with us going forward?"
I asked it like I was testing the water. At the beginning, I'd taken her party in with every intention of cutting them loose the moment we left the Labyrinth — but we'd grown fairly close since then.
If she wanted to come with us, it wouldn't be a bad thing. She and her party were skilled, after all. From her party's perspective, the chance to grow alongside a party that surpassed their own level was a genuine opportunity.
But I didn't want that. I hadn't made it obvious, but these people were best performing the role they had now.
Han Ba-da had no way of knowing any of that, and she answered with difficulty.
"...I'm grateful, but... I... I'd like to remain here."
Fortunately, it was the answer I wanted. I'd expected it, honestly. Watching her run around eagerly handling all these tedious tasks of her own accord — if you paid even a little attention to how she worked, it was easy to predict she'd stay here rather than leave with us.
She knew it too. That to grow further, to climb higher, she needed to go with our party. But if she did that, she would have to abandon everyone here and walk away.
Even now, it was only by using our party's strength to bring down the Cartel that they'd barely established a starting point. And she was just supposed to throw that away and leave? We'd clean the next floors on our way through, sure. But if we did, the 11th and 12th floors — without a proper manager — would have a high chance of producing a second Cartel.
Choi Jung-heon? He wasn't a bad man, but he lacked the ability. He didn't have Han Ba-da's charisma, and he wasn't outstanding in personal combat either.
Gentle charisma? For that to work here, you needed a certain level of backing, or personal martial strength. The Tower was a place where power exerted the greatest influence.
"I thought you might say that."
"...I'm sorry. After everything you've done to help us..."
"There's nothing to be sorry for. That was the agreement from the beginning."
From her perspective, my words probably didn't sound that easy. I'd pulled them out of a dangerous situation, and now that things had improved, it was essentially eat-and-run.
I preferred it this way, though.
"I really am sorry."
When she apologized a second time, I gave a bitter smile.
"Honestly, I don't think that's a bad thing either. We're people who were going to leave anyway. Even if we've cleaned up once, a second or third Labyrinth Faction could appear at any time. They say if you start something, you should see it through — if you can manage this place too, I'm sure it'll be rewarding."
"...I'm just grateful you see it that way."
"That said — come to the 12th floor with me."
"...What?"
"If you've decided to stay, you ought to see it through to the end, don't you think?"
I registered her as Sub-Administrator of the 12th through 20th floors in a single stroke as I spoke.