The Gift
What?
Not once since becoming Guild Master of the Minamoto Guild had Ogawa reached out first. Jin-soo had seen no reason to contact him either, and had put the man entirely out of mind.
"What's going on?"
"Forgive the presumption of contacting you first, Master. I have something to report."
"A report? Let's hear it."
"Some of the guild masters of the mega-guilds have set out to seek an audience with you, Master."
"Set out to meet me? Who?"
"The guild masters of the Daehan Guild, the America Alliance, the Alsani Guild, the Kuzo Guild, and the Ivan Guild."
A strange look crossed Jin-soo's face.
"The guilds that didn't fall for the Phoenix Guild's instigation."
The question, though, did not go away. His ties with them were not hostile, but they had never grown close either. There was no particular reason for them to come looking for him.
Finding him would not have been difficult in itself. The monsters moved in a huge mass. At first they would have mobilized to investigate the sudden anomaly, and then, once they laid eyes on the Bone Dragons, they would have realized he was involved. Jin-soo's summons were all massive enough to draw the eye, and the two Bone Dragons especially — enormous, and airborne — could be spotted with ease even from a great distance.
They do have some sense, at least.
Judging by how late they were moving, they had waited quietly in a nearby city until his hunt was finished. Or they hung back because they didn't want to get swept up in the monster wave. Whatever the reason, they had confirmed the hunt was over and were only now stirring themselves.
"Have the guild masters come looking for me before?"
"They moved the moment they picked up your trail, Master, so I would guess that they have."
If they've been searching for me, they've had a rough time of it. For the sake of efficiency, Jin-soo had hunted apart from the Bone Dragons. If the guild masters had spent all this time chasing those tails, they had likely come up empty again and again.
But why look for me? The masters of the mega-guilds shouldn't have any need of my help.
Jin-soo's martial power was transcendent, true enough, but the masters of the mega-guilds were themselves among the ten strongest on Tower Floor 150. With vast numbers of guild members behind them, they lacked for neither strength nor coin.
Are they just coming to make nice? Jin-soo answered goodwill with goodwill, and malice with malice. After what had happened before, the masters of the mega-guilds had surely grasped that much. So they're making contact. Had his nature been that of a villain steeped in slaughter and madness, they would not have dared come near.
Still — what do they stand to gain by buying my favor? Befriending a transcendent on his level was profit, no question. But did they need to chase him this desperately?
"Do you know why they're looking for me?"
Ogawa answered at once.
"The guild masters coming to see you have little time left that they may remain on Tower Floor 150, Master. It seems they hope to purchase your goodwill with a trifling offering of wealth."
Only then did Jin-soo understand what the masters of the mega-guilds — men who should have wanted for nothing — actually desired.
They want me to travel with them.
The Tower grew harsher with every floor climbed. On Tower Floor 150 and Tower Floor 199 in particular, where a clear mission waited, even guild masters could not be sure they would live. But if they're with me, that's a different story. Unless they were blind, they would have understood that his strength was not something they could contest — that it sat on a level where the thought of matching him never even arose.
Fools.
Jin-soo clicked his tongue. The Tower was merciless. Survive by someone else's help rather than your own strength, and you might be safe for the moment — but you would have to surrender the chance to grow. If the masters of the mega-guilds cleared the missions of Tower Floor 150 or Tower Floor 199 with his aid, they would forfeit the experience and the items granted as rewards, and they would be weaker by exactly that much.
They might tell themselves it doesn't matter, for now. The Tower, however, was not so lenient a place that a frail heart could survive it. Small gaps like that piled up, one upon another, until they decided whether a climber could clear the upper floors at all.
And I can't keep cleaning up after them forever. It wasn't that he lacked the spare capacity. He simply had neither the need nor the reason. Even the Eight Mad Dogs who had served under him before his regression — he had left them behind and climbed, hoping they would grow on their own. Shin Sua was different. She was a healer, she was someone he absolutely had to look after, and her true growth would come only after she met her younger sister, Shin Sujeong.
They can't seriously expect me to play nursemaid and secure their experience and achievements for them. Anyone who actually said such a thing would have to be suspected of something wrong with his intelligence.
Do I meet them, or not? The easiest thing would be to slip away without a word. I'll meet them.
After a brief hesitation, Jin-soo decided. Meeting them did not mean he intended to grant what they wanted. He meant only to show them how cold the Tower's reality truly was.
"I'll contact you again shortly."
"Yes, Master."
Jin-soo cut the link.
Last time I saw them, there wasn't a single familiar face. Which meant most of them had died while climbing, or fallen to the rank of lesser Players. First, let's see how they come at me.
From his inventory he drew a mask bearing a Perception Reduction skill and set it over his face. At that, Shin Sua likewise took a mask imbued with Perception Reduction from her inventory and put it on.
Not long after, the guild masters who had been friendly toward him — those of the Daehan Guild of Tower Floor 150 among them — showed themselves.
"Have you been well?"
The first to speak was Han Sangwoon, Guild Master of the Daehan Guild.
"Yes, I've been well. May I ask what brings you here?"
At the question, Han Sangwoon faltered. He had taken the lead because they were both Korean, but he could not bring himself to open straight away with the real point.
"We received reports of a large-scale movement of monsters and came to investigate."
"The guild masters themselves?"
"So many monsters were massing that we thought the city itself might be in danger."
An obvious lie. The monsters the orc shaman had called were staggering in number, but their target had always been Jin-soo, not the city. They might have passed near it. They would not have attacked it.
"I've already dealt with every last monster, so there's no need to worry."
"Ah — is that so? Truly remarkable. And thank you, truly. Thanks to you, the city is safe. Hunting monsters for more than a week must have been exhausting."
"Exhausting? I ate well and slept well inside the Sanctuary. I was perfectly comfortable."
When he answered as if it were nothing, astonishment and shock spread across the faces of Han Sangwoon and the other guild masters.
Well, he is a summoner. Even if he lounged at ease inside the Sanctuary, his summons would have handled the monsters on their own.
Two Bone Dragons alone are an overwhelming force.
The other summons looked no less formidable.
I'm honestly envious.
They were the heads of the mega-guilds on Tower Floor 150, strong enough to be counted among the top ten, and they had taken fierce pride in the authority and martial power they held. Set beside Jin-soo, that authority and that power felt wretchedly small.
More decisive still was this: those dragged into the Tower by force could not help a sharpening anxiety as each floor's time limit drew near. Could they fell the gatekeeper and climb to the next floor? Even if they succeeded, could they keep ascending a Tower where every floor held its own tangle of variables? And even if they somehow overcame all of that, the mission on Tower Floor 199 — vicious enough that one's life hung by a thread — still had to be cleared. Could they manage it?
Watching eyes full of respect and envy, Jin-soo could read what they were thinking. He had once stood where they stood, and so he understood it all the more keenly.
Their greatest fear is that even if they reach the Tower's 200th Floor, they may have to live through this same ordeal again and again.
When they first climbed to Floor 100, they must have held a fierce hope that they might return to Earth. And then that hope broke. This time, no doubt, they had shifted it onto the Tower's 200th Floor. But what if it failed them again? What if, upon arriving there, they had to start over from the very bottom rather than as top-ranked Players?
Some of them might break. Such people appeared on Floor 100, and on the Tower's 200th Floor, and on Tower Floor 300. When I reached Floor 1,000, even I felt the crash of it, hard.
But to live, one had to keep climbing. Even if they could not rise as fast as Jin-soo, they had to endure — and keep enduring — until the limit of their stay on each floor ran out. They had to survive, tooth and nail. Because then, perhaps, they could go home.
Jin-soo had already decided the wish he would make if he conquered the Tower. Once that wish was granted, the Tower would no longer exist in this world. He was wearing a bitter smile, picturing the day of that conquest, when Han Sangwoon carefully opened his mouth.
"Even so, we received your help. How could we let it pass with a few words? This is a token of sincerity from the Daehan Guild. Please, accept it."
Han Sangwoon held out a treasure pouch.
"There's really no need—"
The moment Jin-soo moved to refuse—
"The America Alliance can hardly stand idle at a time like this."
"Nor can our Alsani Guild. You protected the city's guild house. A debt like that must be repaid."
"The Kuzo Guild knows its manners."
"Please accept the Ivan Guild's sincerity as well."
As if they had rehearsed it, the guild masters gathered there held out treasure pouches to him all at once.
They coordinated their lines in advance. Well — Ogawa knew, so of course they did. While they waited for his hunt to end, they had prepared thoroughly.
"I can't give you what you want."
At his words, the guild masters flinched and trembled.
"This is repayment. How could we want anything in return?"
"That's right. We're only repaying the kindness of protecting the city."
"Please, accept it."
"We beg you!"
Their conduct did not change.
Why are they like this?
Bewildered by guild masters desperate enough to plead, Jin-soo nonetheless accepted the treasure pouches they offered up.
"Thank you!"
"Thank you so much for accepting them!"
They offered their thanks with utterly sincere faces. To an outsider, it would have looked less as though Jin-soo had received the pouches than as though he had been the one to give them. The guild masters, however, had their own reasons.
Thank goodness.
He doesn't seem angry.
As expected — nothing beats groveling before you're told to.
From that day on, Jin-soo put the mega-guilds of Tower Floor 150 out of his mind. He had intervened in the affairs of the Minamoto Guild only because Ogawa had become his subordinate, and because information mattered. The mega-guilds of Tower Floor 150, however, had not forgotten his existence for a single moment since that day. The same was true of the guild masters gathered here, the Daehan Guild among them.