Gift (2)
When the incident that day carved deep into the strength of the Phoenix Guild and the Minamoto Guild, and the other guilds suffered staggering losses in coin, the guilds gathered here—Daehan among them—did not lose so much as a single thing.
That was why they could step forward more aggressively than anyone and swallow the interests of the broken Phoenix and Minamoto Guilds whole.
The guilds that had taken only financial damage still had the strength to shove their way into the scramble for those holdings. In the end, though, they contented themselves with pocketing a few modest gains. They knew they had already fallen out of Jin-soo's favor, so they read the air on their own and kept from doing anything that would stand out.
To the powers that had ruled Tower Floor 150, Jin-soo was no different from a natural disaster—something their own strength could never hope to contend with. You do not pick a fight with the sky and the sea simply because a typhoon rose, a tidal wave crashed down, and the damage was great. You only pray the typhoon does not rise again, and that the wave does not come a second time.
But Jin-soo was not nature. He was a person. Of course they had no choice but to watch his mood and mind his temper.
It was only natural that he went on hunting as he always had, paying the Tower's great guilds no mind at all. The guild masters of those same guilds had no such luxury. They were forced to track every gesture of an absolute being who could sweep them away with ease whenever he pleased, and to flinch at the slightest shift.
The guild masters gathered here had all benefited from Jin-soo, whether their guilds had chosen to or not. Jin-soo did not care what profit they had taken. The guild masters could not afford to be so careless. A fear had taken root—that he might look unkindly on those who had gained from him—and so, just in case, they came of their own accord to read his mood and offer up what they had won. A calm sky and a still sea were no reason to relax. If nature turned fickle, everything could come to nothing.
I'm not even the one eating them. Why are they groveling like this?
Jin-soo knew his present strength with perfect clarity. Even so, however much he soared and crawled through the Tower's lower floors, it was dust beside the power he had held before his Regression. That was why he could not settle here and call it enough. If anything, the sense of lacking only sharpened a vicious hunger for strength.
And because he was that sort of man, he could not properly grasp how deeply the guild masters of Tower Floor 150 revered him. Awe for a human with the power to kill you, and awe for a great nature you cannot resist, are things of an entirely different order. Jin-soo took them for men nursing a shallow scheme—bribe him, then cling to his side. In truth they were closer to devotees laying tribute before a god and praying for mercy.
"Then we will take our leave."
"We are sorry to have troubled you."
"If you should ever need the Alsani Guild, please contact us at any time."
"The same goes for the Kujo Guild."
"And for the Ivan Guild as well."
The guild masters bowed low to Jin-soo and withdrew. He had seen through their intent before they even offered their tribute, and yet he had not grown angry; he had accepted their offerings with a generous hand. They left counting it fortune enough that he was not wroth.
I thought they'd cling a while longer. To back off this meekly...
Jin-soo, for his part, was dumbfounded. They had waited nearly a week, been turned away before they could even state their business, and then left smiling—with gifts, no less? Saints did not come any saintlier.
Same as that day. They really do know how to keep to the line. Polite people.
From where he stood, that was the only way to see it.
Still, it really does change a great deal who sits at the head, even within the same guild.
The American Alliance, the Alsani Guild, and the Ivan Guild were the ones who, on Floor 100, had picked a fight with him over the Bone Dragon's spoils and ended up on bad terms. And yet on Tower Floor 150 they had taken his side instead.
Well. Some of them never change.
The Minamoto Guild, the Yellow Dragon Guild—on Floor 100 and on Tower Floor 150 alike, they had tried the same unreasonable demands and been smashed by Jin-soo for it.
No need to cling to prejudice, but...
Somehow he had a feeling the disputes with Minamoto and Yellow Dragon would keep coming. Even before his Regression, both guilds had been infamous for cringing before the strong, bullying the weak, and endlessly playing petty tricks.
The Ulrich Guild and the Phoenix Guild leaned that way too.
The future was unknowable, but if they kept the same disposition they had held before his Regression, more conflict looked likely.
Not my problem to worry about.
If they picked the fight first, he would simply make them pay the due price, the same as he always had.
First, let's see what they packed in here.
Jin-soo drew out the contents of the treasure pouches the guild masters had given him.
Quite a few skill books.
Most of what filled the pouches was easy to turn into cash—skill books, class-change tomes, and the like. Equipment, surprisingly, was scarce. The guild masters had judged that gear would be of little use to him. The class-change tomes were much the same, but they seemed to have slipped those in because they converted to coin so readily.
They put together a solid haul.
As if they had thought the skill books might actually help him, the pouches held a great many summoner-exclusive volumes and common skill books.
Both help me.
Jin-soo had already secured equipment for every class. What helped him most now was precisely class-change tomes and skill books. He set about sorting them at once.
"Huh?"
In the middle of it, a shaman class-change tome caught his eye.
There were so many tomes I wondered, just in case.
It was rare enough that he had never truly expected to find one. He changed class on the spot and acquired the shaman-exclusive skills, Blessing of Madness among them.
This isn't nearly enough. I'll have to sweep the auction house for shaman-exclusive skill books.
Once he finished acquiring them, he could fuse the middling skills into permanent hybrids through Skill Synthesis and simply keep the ones worth keeping.
For now, back to the city.
They had camped in the wild for more than ten days; even Jin-soo needed rest. And even if he wanted to test the skills, the monsters in the area had been hunted to extinction. It was impossible from the start.
"Let's head back and get some rest."
"Really? You're not lying, right?"
"Yeah."
"Waaaaah!"
At his firm answer, Shin Sua burst into a cheer. She had clearly been desperate for a break.
Fair. So am I.
They had eaten well enough and slept well enough, but it was still camping. How could that compare to a properly cooked meal and sleep in a warm, soft bed? Washing, especially, was beyond comparison.
A long soak in hot water, a generous delicious dinner, and a deep sleep. That's the plan.
Jin-soo and Shin Sua set off toward the city with light steps.
Jin-soo spent a full day in true rest, unwinding the fatigue he had piled up. His summons, of course, hunted without pause, so even while he rested his level kept climbing and his achievements kept stacking.
Feels like I'm forgetting something.
Jin-soo tilted his head.
I bought the shaman skill books. I made the synthesized skills, too.
Using the remaining class-change tomes and skill books had been put off; the sorting still was not finished.
What is it?
He raked back through his memory, but no matter how he turned it over, he could not recall what he had forgotten.
"Was there something I was supposed to do? You remember anything?"
"Nope."
"Yeah?"
Jin-soo did not know, and neither did Shin Sua. Then it was probably nothing that mattered. If it had been important, one of them would have remembered.
"Let's head for another city for now."
They had rested a single day. How many monsters could have respawned in that time? For efficient hunting, it was better to move to another region and hunt the way his summons did.
"Okay."
Rested through and through, Jin-soo and Shin Sua departed for another city.
And elsewhere, at that very hour, Ogawa's eyelids were sinking little by little. He had taken his master's words—I'll contact you again shortly—as iron gospel, set everything else aside, and stayed awake through two full nights waiting for a message that might come at any moment.
Why is "shortly" this long? Is the shortly I know different from Master's shortly? Or did I mishear?
Every kind of doubt welled up.
No. He will contact me. I'm sure of it.
Ogawa believed in his master. Whenever that faith wavered, he swept the doubt aside and set his heart firm again. But the moment he actually received Jin-soo's contact came only after a full week more had passed.
Will they be able to bring out the power they had in life?
Jin-soo regarded the two orc shamans—now Army Summons—with a doubtful eye.
I'd be glad if they could manage even half.
He could not help being skeptical. From the start, the higher a summon's rank under Army Summons, the less its current level could properly express the original's might.
The Bone Dragon was like that. So was the Demilich.
The Bone Dragon had a record of sweeping away Tower Floor 150's top Players with a single breath, and yet...
Compared to the original that ran wild scattering curses, the gap in combat power is extreme.
The same held for the Demilich. When the mission was cleared, it had summoned an immense host of undead monsters over the course of a week—so many they were impossible to count. The Demilich that had become an Army Summon, however, could call forth only a hundred.
And the quality of those summons plummeted, too.
It was a problem that would solve itself once the level of Army Summons rose.
But the problem is the point at which the skill has grown enough for the Demilich to match its original.
By the time the skill level climbed that far, the monsters they hunted would most likely have risen beyond anything the Demilich could handle.
The Bone Dragon's rank is high, so it's somewhat better.
The Demilich was not. And to make matters worse, the orc shamans ranked even lower than that Demilich.
Still. They are Out-of-Spec Monsters.
With a faint hope that they might surprise him, Jin-soo stroked Leo's head.
"Nyaaaaaang!"
At that, Leo unleashed a vigorous wide-area taunt roar.
Wide-Area Taunt Roar
"Kraaaaang!"
"Kuwoooork!"
"Kyaaaaak!"
A tremor strong enough to shake the earth rolled through the ground, and monster roars erupted from every direction. Any ordinary Player would have had no choice but to feel terror.
Plenty of monsters here. The hunting speed should go up.
But that was the whole of Jin-soo's impression.
All right. Show me what you can do.
He sent the orc shamans in.
"Kururuk!"
"Kuwooork!"
The two orc shamans, statue-like forms wrought of black and white, cast their skill. Crimson light blazed from both eyes, and a wave of mana spread in every direction.
The orc shamans' main skill takes hold. A wave of mana rolls outward, and crimson light burns in their eyes.
So the skill does activate, at least.
He had thought that, in the worst case, the orc shamans' main skill might not activate at all. It seemed it was not quite that bad.
Then again, the skill level is past a thousand. They ought to manage at least this much.
A soft, sweeping rustle passed over the field.
"Krrrrk?"
"Kuwooork?"
The monsters that met the wave of mana the two orc shamans had released wore briefly bewildered looks. Then, with a rush and a crunch, they turned and attacked the other monsters.
"Kuwaaaak!"
"Kyaaaaak!"
A monster war broke out, each one killing and being killed. Jin-soo watched with interest, counting how many had fallen under the orc shamans' domination.