The Tower's 200th Floor
"She looked pretty shocked to see us, didn't she?"
"First time seeing something like that, it figures. We were the same way."
"Listen to them talk. Earth-born. I'm out."
"Same. I give up. A full party, maybe—but if only two of them made it up alive, you already know how that story ends."
"No loyalty in that lot."
"Eh. Their fellow Earthlings will take them in."
Most of the players who had turned at the sight of Shin Sua's surprise looked away again. To Jin-soo, it was only natural.
Guilds founded by Arius players or Moosung players tend not to favor Earth-born climbers. And this wasn't even an intact party—just two people. How that crowd would size the two of them up was obvious enough.
Not that guilds raised by Arius or Moosung players shut Earthlings out entirely. They simply felt no need to make the first approach.
If an Earth-born player is actually skilled, they figure they can scout them later and be done with it.
On the Tower's 200th Floor, guilds built around Earth-born players sat squarely in the lower ranks. It wasn't that those guilds had no Arius or Moosung members among them…
Most of the ones who join are the ones who fall short.
Put plainly, the majority were players who lacked the skill to enter a guild led by Arius or Moosung climbers, and who settled for an Earth-born guild as the only alternative left to them.
"You're Korean. I'm Kang Seung-woo, a player with the Daehan Guild. It's a real pleasure to meet you."
The man who had named himself Kang Seung-woo offered the greeting with a bright face.
"Likewise."
"Were you with the Daehan Guild on the floors below, by any chance?"
"No."
"Ah. I see."
Kang Seung-woo's expression darkened noticeably.
"Then could you tell me which guild you belonged to?"
"I've never joined a guild."
"Haaah…"
At Jin-soo's answer, Kang Seung-woo let out a long sigh. He wore a thoughtful look for a moment, then spoke.
"Hmm… You do seem rather lacking in skill, but I can hardly be cold to a fellow Korean. I'll make a special effort so the two of you can be brought into the Daehan Guild."
He said it as if he were granting an enormous favor. Jin-soo let out a hollow laugh, and Shin Sua's face went blank with disbelief.
"I suppose it's hard to believe, given how exceptional a concession I'm making. But there's no need to worry. If your skill is lacking, the guild can simply raise you. For now, follow me."
Having delivered this one-man performance of drum and gong, Kang Seung-woo strode off ahead with confident steps. Jin-soo and Shin Sua, of course, had no intention of following.
"What are you doing? Hurry up and follow me!"
Jin-soo answered with a faint smile.
"I appreciate the kindness, but I have no interest in joining the Daehan Guild."
"What? What do you mean?"
"We'll be going, then."
The moment Jin-soo turned, Kang Seung-woo's face crumpled into something ugly.
Thud.
Kang Seung-woo seized him by the shoulder.
"Hey. If you're grateful for a favor, just take it quietly. You think a chance this good is going to come around again? I treat you nicely and you decide I'm easy to push around? On Floor 100 or Floor 150 this wouldn't even be a conversation. A guildless drifter who doesn't know his place, running his mouth."
Face twisted, he muttered as if to himself, dropped the courtesy from his speech, and tightened his grip—meaning to lean on Jin-soo with raw strength.
Jin-soo, expression perfectly calm, closed his hand over the one resting on his shoulder.
"Funny. When someone treats you nicely, you take them for easy prey and forget your place. I wonder who that describes."
He smiled, and put strength into his hand.
Crunch.
"Agh—!"
Kang Seung-woo's face warped with pain in an instant.
"Show off your strength without knowing your own weight, and it's usually your head that comes off. I'm honestly curious how you've stayed alive this long."
"It hurts—let go, now!"
"And you've got no sense for the room, either."
Still smiling, Jin-soo squeezed harder.
"Hngh—! P-please, let go. I was wrong. Forgive me."
"I can hardly be cold to a fellow Korean, so I'll forgive you this once. From here on, though, you'd do well to grow something resembling a sense of the room."
With that, he released the hand.
"Th-thank you."
Kang Seung-woo ducked his head in a deep bow.
"At least he's not a complete idiot."
Jin-soo let out a short laugh.
A truly stupid man might not have swallowed the jab about his nonexistent sense. He might have drawn a weapon with his free hand, or pulled up his mana and fired off an attack skill. Kang Seung-woo, the moment he understood the gap in strength, had switched to honorifics and bowed his head. He knew that no amount of thrashing would let him beat Jin-soo, and he had tucked his tail.
"Let's go."
"Mm."
Jin-soo and Shin Sua left Kang Seung-woo where he stood.
"Well, look at that. The Daehan Guild's getting rejected by fresh arrivals now."
"Hahaha! What do you expect, when all they've got is a pile of the talentless?"
"Still, that one looks pretty usable for an Earth-born."
"Yeah. I'll give him that."
The players who had been indifferent to Jin-soo and Shin Sua changed their look. They mocked Kang Seung-woo of the Daehan Guild for the humiliation, but a player who had only just reached the Tower's 200th Floor casually suppressing someone who had already spent more than a year there was not a sight one saw often. Once the situation turned that way, some began to show a more direct interest.
"A usable one, that. And he seems to have some spine."
Ak Chanseo, a player from Moosung, was one of them.
"Elder, are you thinking of bringing that fellow in?"
"I am. He looks to have some promise. Hardly seems Earth-born at all. I will be back shortly."
With that, Ak Chanseo moved his feet lightly.
Tak.
His body shot forward and, in the space of a breath, barred the way in front of Jin-soo and Shin Sua.
"Changsung Gate is stepping in."
"Looks like we'll get to watch that cocky one take a beating."
"This ought to be a fine show."
The players' eyes turned keen with interest.
"Young ones. Might you spare this old man a moment of your time?"
Ak Chanseo addressed them with a smiling face.
"Hah."
Jin-soo let out a short sigh. Thanks to Kang Seung-woo, the annoyances had multiplied.
"I have no intention of joining a guild."
He said it and walked past Ak Chanseo. In that instant the older man's face flooded with bewilderment. He had not imagined he would be brushed aside so openly.
"Bind!"
Rigidity — the mana-laden cry locks the body in place.
The shout burst from Ak Chanseo's mouth thick with mana, and the mana that tore free with it became a rigidity skill, binding Jin-soo and Shin Sua where they stood.
"A whelp, arrogant beyond measure on the strength of some petty trick. Today I will break that habit of yours properly, and teach you how wide the world is."
Whoosh.
With the words, Ak Chanseo drove the spear from his back straight at Jin-soo. He had no thought of killing or maiming. He meant only to stop the spearhead a hair short of the throat, display his overwhelming skill, crush the younger man's spirit, and then try once more to recruit him.
Clang!
The plan went wrong from the very first exchange. The thrust was met by a drawn sword and knocked aside.
"What?"
In the heartbeat Ak Chanseo faltered at a result he had never expected—
Whoosh.
A second sword had already come around and rested against the nape of his neck.
"For a man who's lived as long as you have, old man, your experience of the world is still sorely lacking."
At Jin-soo's words, Ak Chanseo's eyes shook wildly.
"H-how can this be. That I, against a mere Earth-born martial artist…"
He had not gone all out. He had tempered the speed of the thrust, and he had neither poured mana into it nor triggered a skill. Even so, he could not accept what had just happened.
Before he was dragged into the Tower, Ak Chanseo had been a martial artist who had reached the first-rate realm. Past seventy, he had still trained with everything he had. But the body withered by the day, and no matter how he trained, his internal energy slowly scattered; far from growing stronger, his martial arts slid backward. Then he was forced into this place called the Tower.
He had taken it, instead, as a blessing. Hunt monsters, raise his level, and the body that had been aging day by day grew hale again. Internal energy piled up quickly, and the arts that had been regressing began to advance once more. In the end, with a body hardier than in his youth, with experience stored over a long life and internal energy grown beyond what he had known, he could reach for the next realm—the dream of his entire life.
For that man to be subdued in a single exchange by an Earth-born player, whom he had judged—setting aside the peculiarity of skills—to be worse than even a third-rate martial artist, since they had never properly learned a martial art at all… Shock was the only reasonable response.
"Elder!"
"You wretch! What do you think you're doing to the Elder!"
At the sight of a sword against Ak Chanseo's neck, the martial artists of Changsung Gate came running in a startled rush. But with their elder's life hanging by a thread, they could only raise their voices, unable to advance or retreat, stamping where they stood.
Shhhk.
Jin-soo lowered the sword from Ak Chanseo's throat.
"Elder, are you all right?"
"You let your guard down far too much."
"To my eye, it looks as though you were caught by sorcery."
"Even so, it is a great mercy that it ended only at this."
The martial artists of Changsung Gate crowded in to comfort him. Jin-soo could only stare, at a loss.
He did let his guard down, that's true—but even if he'd gone all out, the result wouldn't have changed. And still they have to prop up that pride of his…
Players from Moosung carried a fierce pride as martial artists. Because of it, they were especially quick to dismiss Earth-born players as children who had never learned the fundamentals and merely happened to be strong. Someone from Moosung who had trained in the martial arts since childhood and someone from Earth who had never so much as held a sword or a spear in their life were bound to differ from the basics up. And yet, because of the System, Earth-born players who raised their levels and grew their stats and skills sometimes surpassed the martial artists of Moosung in raw might.
Every time it happened, the line Moosung players repeated like a habit was the same: carelessness, or sorcery.
A textbook double standard.
They themselves had grown strong with the System's help, and then they called it sorcery when Earth-born players grew strong by the System's power. From where Jin-soo stood, a hollow laugh was the only answer.
"That is enough."
Ak Chanseo waved the martial artists of Changsung Gate aside and offered Jin-soo a fist-and-palm salute.
"You stayed your hand. I thank you."
"It was nothing. Don't trouble yourself over it."
The man had shown courtesy, so Jin-soo returned it.
Well. I wasn't planning to kill him in the first place.
Before the regression, Jin-soo had no tie to Ak Chanseo. With Changsung Gate, though, he had some history.
They were a place with principles.
Players from Moosung, as a rule, held a strong pride as martial artists. Even among them, some kept to the righteous path and some did not. In Jin-soo's memory, Changsung Gate had been a guild that walked that path and understood loyalty.
They helped me more than a little, before the regression.
Had the man belonged not to Changsung Gate but to Sahyeol Gate or Geomsal Gate—guilds with which he'd had bad blood in the life before—he might simply have killed him. Changsung Gate, shown mercy, remembered it and knew how to repay a grace. Sahyeol Gate and Geomsal Gate were the sort who would repay a grace with enmity and still have spite to spare.
Whether the Changsung Gate of now was a guild of exactly the same character as the one he had known before the regression, even Jin-soo could not be sure. He had only given them one more chance, out of regard for a good connection from the life before. But if Ak Chanseo and Changsung Gate nursed a grudge over this and turned on him?
No need to extend mercy twice.
For a bond from before the regression, one mercy was enough.