Aftermath (2)
Damn it. How is he already here?
So Chanseong twisted and swung, his sword wreathed in a dense bundle of sword aura, even as he poured mana to its limit and hardened his protective qi. Baekcheonsingeom streamed pure-white sword aura in thick cords; So Chanseong's blade answered with a blood-red volley. The two met head-on.
A thunderous blast followed, and his body was flung helplessly backward.
"Guh—!"
He had raised his protective qi as high as it would go, so his body did not fly apart. Even so, the force of the blast he failed to fully disperse left him cut and battered, wound upon wound.
I have to run. Now.
Pain in the flesh meant nothing beside survival. Riding the very force that had thrown him, So Chanseong kicked off and shot away in a long, straight line.
That was when a Sand Worm erupted from the earth and cut off his path.
This damned vermin. Again.
He ground his teeth. A Sand Worm ahead of him. Jin-soo behind.
"KWOOOOAR!"
The Sand Worm gaped a maw lined with saw-blade teeth and lunged. Jin-soo was already swinging as well, pure-white sword aura and blood-red sword aura pouring from his blades as they swept toward So Chanseong.
One chance. Only one.
If he could make the Sand Worm and Jin-soo strike each other, he might slip through the gap. Jin-soo's target was him, so the man might still shift the angle of his attack. A Sand Worm, though, was nothing but a monster.
Whether I'm in front of it or he is, it'll attack no matter what.
So Chanseong burned every movement skill he had and twisted aside. The Sand Worm's head, ringed with teeth like the cogs of a saw, grazed him by a hair and hurtled on toward Jin-soo.
It worked.
Jin-soo could not simply ignore that. So Chanseong was certain of it. When a monster the size of a house came on with its fangs thrust forward, you dodged, or you struck. If Jin-soo dodged, he would lose the chance to give chase, which was good. If he attacked, the two of them would lock into a fight, which was better.
A grinding crunch split the air.
"Huh?"
His prediction missed completely. The Sand Worm, charging with those razor teeth thrust out, ducked its head an instant before it could collide with Jin-soo and plunged straight back into the earth.
Why?
The same savage worm that had thrown itself at him as if desperate to kill had veered away from Jin-soo and buried itself. So Chanseong could not begin to understand it.
Jin-soo's sword came around. Blast after blast drove So Chanseong reeling backward like a drunk, and then two Sand Worms ripped free of the ground once more.
I'll wait for them to attack.
A miraculous opening to flee might appear then. Contrary to that hope, the two Sand Worms did not attack at all. They settled in at his rear instead, swaying those fanged heads and sealing every route he might have used to escape.
What is this? Why are the Sand Worms—?
He could not make sense of behavior like that. It felt as if the Sand Worms were helping Jin-soo.
Damn it.
With no other choice, he hurled himself between the two heads. Face Jin-soo and he died, without question. Dive between the Sand Worms, and heaven's luck might still leave him the slimmest chance of slipping through. He smashed aside the head of the worm that had spread a maw full of fangs at him and twisted his body through.
In that instant the other Sand Worm bit down on his right leg. Heaven's luck did not come for So Chanseong.
"AAAAAGH!"
His right leg tore away, and a scream of agony ripped out of him. The Sand Worm his sword had struck and driven back came on again, fangs bared.
So this is how I die.
Certain of it, he squeezed his eyes shut. In a moment the Sand Worm would devour his upper body. He was sure of that.
If I was fated to die anyway, I should have fought to the end instead of running... Dying beside his men, he might at least have kept his honor. Instead he had abandoned them to save only himself, and now he was about to become a meal for a monster that was nothing more than vermin. No honor. No worth. No meaning. A truly wretched, paltry death.
"Hm?"
Yet no matter how long he waited, the death he expected did not come.
What?
He opened his eyes to a Sand Worm's maw, packed with razor teeth. It had stopped dead in front of his face and did not strike. Footsteps drew near.
"Krrrrk!"
The Sand Worm shifted its head aside as if making way, and Jin-soo stepped into view.
What in the world is going on?
So Chanseong stared at the two Sand Worms in bewilderment. They had taken positions on either side of him, cutting off retreat, and now they lowered their heads in perfect obedience.
Is he dominating the monsters?
Now that he looked, these Sand Worms were not quite the creatures he knew. The crisis had been too sharp for him to notice before, but they looked less like living things than statues.
Summons. So he had companions.
That was as far as So Chanseong's mind could reach. He still lived by the common sense that a Player could not hold more than one class.
"There are a few things I want to ask you. Answer me straight."
At those words, So Chanseong's eyes lit.
"Then you'll spare me?"
"No."
His face twisted viciously.
"You will never hear the answers you want."
Jin-soo let out a short laugh.
"We'll see about that."
He did not believe him. Had So Chanseong been a man who could stake his life on his own convictions, Jin-soo might have. But So Chanseong was nothing more than a petty wretch to whom his own safety mattered above all else. What followed between them was an interview long in suffering and short in duration.
"AAAAAAAGH!"
A wretched scream tore out of him.
"Ask me anything! I'll tell you everything!"
And before much time had passed, just as Jin-soo had expected, he broke and surrendered.
"Why brand Changseong Gate the culprit and attack them without a shred of real evidence?"
"That was..."
From So Chanseong's mouth spilled everything about the greed festering among the leadership of Sahyeol Gate.
All I did was hand them an excuse. With one side already fixed on its purpose, war between Sahyeol Gate and Changseong Gate had been bound to break out in the end.
Was this why the war broke out before the regression, too?
Jin-soo asked this and that besides, and So Chanseong answered with desperate diligence.
"Please. Kill me now."
He gasped it through the pain, and Jin-soo granted the request.
Army Summon. Army Summon.
Jin-soo activated the skill.
Army Summon
A paired summon, one black and one white, is born anew.
Stronger than Son Sanghyeok. Then he would be of more use.
Time to go catch the other one.
The middle-aged man who had commissioned the false rumors, then wiped out every Player of Heukha Gate, was already heading somewhere. Jin-soo launched himself toward the city. Kkami was still on watch, so there was no chance of losing the target.
Why the sudden panic?
The man who had been strolling the streets without a care flinched hard all at once and fled the city in a hurry.
No need to go looking, then.
He was coming toward Jin-soo of his own accord. Sharing Kkami's sight, Jin-soo waited, calm.
"Hah... hah... hah!"
The middle-aged man Kkami had been watching all this time came into view. Steel whispered free. Jin-soo drew Baekcheonsingeom and the Blood-Sucking Sword and launched himself.
"What—?"
Startled by the approach, the man yanked his sword free. The Blood-Sucking Sword crashed against his blade and drove him back.
"Kh—!"
He answered with sword aura pouring out in thick streams. The next swing of Baekcheonsingeom erased that aura as if it had evaporated, and the man's blade snapped. The Blood-Sucking Sword came to rest against the nape of his neck.
"Who are you with?"
The middle-aged man clamped his mouth shut.
"Don't feel like talking. Fine. Let's see if you last longer than So Chanseong."
His eyes shook hard.
"So you're the one who annihilated Sahyeol Gate's investigation unit."
"And?"
"Is So Chanseong alive?"
"No."
"You've gone completely mad. You're not afraid of Sahyeol Gate's revenge?"
"If I were afraid of Sahyeol Gate, I never would have hit their branch in the Starting City. And when Changseong Gate took the blame, I would have looked the other way."
Treating Sahyeol Gate—one of the greatest powers on the Tower's 200th Floor—like some nobody sect left the middle-aged man's face blank with disbelief.
"I've run into a true madman. I'm with Sahyeol Gate."
He gave up his affiliation without further resistance.
"You said that so easily I almost don't believe you."
"It's the truth. I only moved on the orders of So Chanseong, head of the investigation unit."
He held out his identity plaque. It was one Sahyeol Gate had forged for itself, worked with alchemy and ritual sorcery until the thing had become an item.
It's real.
His rank within Sahyeol Gate, his level of martial attainment, and his face—all of it engraved with meticulous precision. A genuine article.
Whoever the real culprit was, they meant to tie it to Changseong Gate no matter what. Had Jin-soo not stepped in, Sahyeol Gate's plan would have succeeded without fail.
Changseong Gate might aspire to the righteous path, but in the end it's still an organization of Players from Moosung. Whatever the reason, if their people had died under Sahyeol Gate's attack, Changseong Gate would have had no choice but bloody vengeance. Sorting right from wrong and dragging the truth into the light could wait until the blood debt was paid.
Whichever side won, Changseong or Sahyeol, the victor's word would become the truth.
Players born of Moosung had lived in a world where the strong devoured the weak even before the Tower dragged them in. For them, the word of the strong becoming truth was an everyday thing.
Both sides would claim the other struck first.
The Players of each guild would nurse their hatred, believing the enemy had started the war. Once the slaughter began and they were killing and dying in turn, exposing the true culprit behind it all would mean nothing.
They'd believe not the truth, but only what they wanted to believe and wanted to hear. And once victory and defeat were decided, the winner's claim would be truth and the loser's a lie, regardless of what was actually true.
If I'd stayed still, an all-out war between Changseong Gate and Sahyeol Gate would have been inevitable.
Good thing he had stepped in.
At the curse, thick with resentment, Jin-soo laughed shortly.
"You don't even know who I am. How do you plan to take bloody revenge?"
The man's words died in his throat. All Sahyeol Gate knew was that Jin-soo was a Player from Earth. Dig deeper, and they might learn he was Korean, and a young man, but with only that much, pinning down who he was and finding him on the Tower's 200th Floor would be harder than finding a needle in a desert.
"First I should cross-check what So Chanseong told me."
Jin-soo began the interrogation.
Not a single lie.
So Chanseong's account and the middle-aged man's matched exactly.
"You can go now."
Jin-soo granted him eternal rest. His combat power was lacking, so there was no point making him an Army Summon.
Time to head back.
With the cleanup finished, Jin-soo turned his steps once more toward the Starting City of the Tower's 200th Floor.