Survival Mission

They really aren't dropping. Not a damn one.

Jin-soo had already passed Floor 32 and was on the verge of clearing Floor 49. Along the way he had stripped every hidden dungeon on every floor, and still not a single Dark Body Pellet had appeared—not even a Demon Spirit Divine Pill. Skill books and elixirs had come down in absurd quantities instead. Quite a few of the skill books were things he could put to use at once, but elixirs that raised base stats were worthless to him.

Well. Sell the elixirs at the auction house and they'll still turn into a decent pile of points.

Climb one more floor to Floor 50, and the auction house would open. There was nothing wrong with treating the elixirs as points banked in advance for whatever he would need to buy there. The problem was the Dark Body Pellet.

When the hell is that thing going to show up?

With every floor he climbed, the restlessness in his chest drew tighter.

Should I try the auction house?

The odds of one being listed there looked vanishingly slim. Even if it was, it would obviously be priced so high that the funds he had could never touch it.

For now, I climb.

Jin-soo made for the clear point that would take him up to Floor 50.

For the first time, a clear mission had appeared.

So this is finally Floor 49. It was brutal, back then. But now he could clear it without any real trouble. Jin-soo selected Yes.

A blaze of light wrapped his body.

Jin-soo arrived ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the heart of a fortress fallen to ruin.

The first place a survival mission ever showed itself.

It was the first time the mission had been survival rather than subjugation, and it had been every bit as hard as that implied. Before his regression, every kind of monster imaginable had come swarming in, and they had suffered for it. He and his companions had used the collapsed fortress as a shield, hidden themselves, dodged every fight they could, and run—and only at the end of all that had they barely lived. There had simply been too many monsters. Winning by fighting was impossible, and it hadn't only been the numbers. Their quality had been high as well. Twenty-four hours was the only reason they had been able to hold out. Any more time, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they would have been wiped out without question.

Even so, the rewards were generous. I'll give them that.

Dozens of them had pooled their strength, and still more than ten had died before the rest scraped through. Even then, he remembered, the clear reward had given every survivor an elixir and a skill book.

I could clear it just by hiding and running. Survival and nothing more. But what if he went past survival and hunted every last one of them? The reward would be on another level entirely.

The Goblin Champion had been an unhuntable monster. The moment the hunt succeeded, Floor 1 had paid out a reward that floor should never have been able to produce. The survival mission was no different. Subjugation, rather than survival, was supposed to be impossible. Pull off the impossible, and the Tower would naturally hand over a reward that Floor 49's level should never have been able to offer.

I've prepared for it. But can I actually do it?

Jin-soo's stats had long since blown past Floor 49's ceiling. Even so, a subjugation in place of a survival was a mission that did not exist—one whose clear had been impossible from the start.

Let's do it.

Steel hissed as Jin-soo drew both swords. The fortress had fallen to ruin, but it had not collapsed completely.

The ways in are fixed.

Before his regression, he had searched for somewhere to hide until the monsters came crashing through. Now he chose the ground where he could hunt them with the greatest efficiency.

The earth thundered, and the ruined fortress shook.

How many is that? Not a few hundred. Seven or eight thousand, at the least. It might even be past ten thousand.

Jin-soo swallowed against a dry throat. Head-on, that was a number he could not beat if he died and came back.

Guerrilla warfare, then.

The monsters fielded for the Floor 49 mission were numerous, and their quality ran high, but they were slow on their feet. On top of that the fortress itself was immense—large enough to hold not ten ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thousand monsters, but hundreds of thousands, with room to spare.

He sheared the head off a monster that had only just stepped inside.

"Kieeeek!"

"Kyaaaak!"

The ones that spotted him roared and charged. Swords in both hands, Jin-soo cut them down in a blur.

Have to ration my stamina. And he had to take care not to let himself be surrounded. Using the collapsed fortress walls as a shield, he swept the monsters aside at a terrifying pace.

"Kwoooaaargh!"

A single massive orc burst into a furious roar and charged straight at him. An orc warrior. Jin-soo slipped lightly past the axe it swung and drove his sword in. The Blood-Sucking Sword punched through the orc warrior's neck.

"Krrrgh!"

Buried in that throat, the blade drank blood at a horrifying speed. In an instant the orc warrior shriveled into a moisture-drained mummy.

More useful than I thought.

Setting everything else aside, the option that absorbed an enemy's blood, raised his physical ability, and restored his stamina was doing the heaviest work. And that wasn't all. The Blood-Sucking Sword was a growth-type item, one whose level rose. The prey sat below the sword in level, true, but quantity had a quality all its own, and so the sword's level climbed steadily regardless. Use it together with Blood Drain, the job skill of the Blood Demon Swordsman, and the synergy would be even greater.

Jin-soo cut the monsters down while calmly reading the field. Then monsters that had scaled the walls or poured in through collapsed gaps began to blanket every direction and close a ring around him, and he launched himself toward the center of the fortress.

"Kwaaaah!"

"Krrrrrng!"

They roared in fury and chased him, and in that instant the encirclement fell apart.

Simple-minded things.

The monsters of the Floor 49 mission were not particularly intelligent. Most of them moved on instinct, which was only natural. Numbers that high, quality that high, and intelligence on top of it, and clearing the survival mission would have been impossible. Slow feet and low intelligence—those penalties were the only reason challengers could survive against such an overwhelming horde. Jin-soo's goal, however, was not survival. It was subjugation.

With the ring broken, the monsters came tangled together in one mass, and he cut them down. What a mess. Funneling all at once into a narrow passage, they crashed into one another and went down. More than a few even died trampled not by his swords, but by the other monsters that might as well have been their allies.

Jin-soo drew a spear from his treasure pouch, packed it full of mana, and hurled it. The spear punched through the torsos of the monsters at the front.

"Kuwaaargh!"

Skewered like meat on a spit, they twisted—and in that moment the monsters surging up from behind shoved them, trampled them, and pushed forward. He kept throwing. Whistling shafts choked the narrow passage with impaled bodies in an instant.

"Kraaaang!"

"Kuaaaak!"

The ones coming after tried to shove and trample the impaled dead out of the way, but the bottleneck did not break easily.

So this is about the limit. Status Window Switch.

Jin-soo flipped his status window over to the holy affinity.

Flame of Purification.

He turned the holy-affinity mage skill he had only just acquired on the monsters trapped in the narrow alley. Pure-white flame engulfed their bodies.

"Kwoooargh!"

"Kraaaang!"

They screamed and thrashed, and in the thrashing the white fire leapt to the others.

It catches well.

Flame of Purification, a holy-affinity mage-exclusive skill from a hidden-dungeon clear reward. Its raw power actually fell short of Flame Storm, the job skill of the Flame Battle Mage, but it had a special advantage Flame Storm lacked. The pure-white fire it raised did not go out easily, and it swallowed enemies at close range. There was no need to keep feeding it mana, either. The white flame burned on and on, gnawing at a monster's life force and mana.

And decisively, his stats were broken. No matter how weak a skill's base attack power, a magic stat of 922 corrected for it. Add the effects of his job passives and his blessings on top of that, and trash of this level could be wiped out in an instant. Lucky they're stupid. Had they not crammed themselves into the narrow alley, he would never have gotten efficiency like this.

"Kraaaaaang!"

Then, bursting through the white flame, the boss monster showed itself—an orc great warrior.

As expected. The limit is clear.

No matter how much mana he poured in, no matter the corrections from stats, job skills, and blessings, the skill's own attack power was simply too low. That inborn limit remained, and so he could not deal serious damage to a monster of a certain grade, like the orc great warrior. A textbook farming skill. That's all it is.

Scorched here and there, the orc great warrior swung an axe wreathed in gray mana straight at him. Jin-soo knocked the blow aside and read the field. Five hundred of them, at least, are going to die. Maybe more. Even now, monsters were still packing into the narrow alley from every side. Finish it fast.

He reinforced both swords with mana. The longsword and the Blood-Sucking Sword were swallowed in a blue heat ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠haze and a blood-red one. With the sword in his left hand he battered the orc great warrior's axe away. Mage or not, his strength, agility, and stamina—and his swordsmanship—remained exactly what they were. Even without a warrior skill backing me, this much is easy. At the same time the Blood-Sucking Sword in his right hand opened wounds large and small across the orc's body.

Aggravation.

He triggered the option of the Ring of Aggravation. The wounds across the orc great warrior's body tore wide and sprayed red blood.

"Krrgh!"

The moment it staggered, the Blood-Sucking Sword in Jin-soo's right hand pierced clean through its heart. The blade drank at a horrifying speed, and the body, its breath already cut, turned into a mummy in an instant.

"Hoo."

Having finished the orc great warrior, Jin-soo looked around. The monsters that had packed the narrow alley were dying, wrapped in the fire Flame of Purification had raised—but more were still swarming in than had died. Some weren't even funneling into the alley. They were climbing the walls. And monsters scattered through the fortress, drawn by the commotion, were charging in from every side at once.

Too many piling in.

It would have been nice if they all rushed only toward the burning flame, but of course they didn't.

Pull back for now.

Jin-soo slipped into another alley and carefully put distance between himself and the heart of the uproar. From atop one of the fortress spires, he watched how they moved. Utter pandemonium. And Flame of Purification has gone out.

Their intelligence was low, not nonexistent. Once the monsters that had been shoved into the flame half against their will began to die, the others recoiled in terror and opened the distance. Still, the effect was excellent. He had thought he might take about five hundred. Looking now, it seemed closer to a thousand cleaned up.

I can do this. More than enough.

The monsters' level was lower than in his memories from before the regression. They haven't gotten weaker. I've gotten stronger. And decisively, acquiring a mob-farming skill like Flame of Purification had been an enormous help. The moment I learned it, the skill level locked at 22. That's the good part.

As his blessing grew, he had become able to lock at level 22 not only his job skills, but two others as well—a general active skill and a passive. For now, it's the best choice. The active-skill level lock granted by the blessing applied across both the holy and dark affinities together. I wavered between mage and warrior. But to face a multitude alone, spending it on Flame of Purification—the skill built for farming mobs—was the right call. It meant burning one of only two stacks that could lock a general active skill's level, but there was no need to worry. The number will probably go up later.

His stats had climbed from 2 all the way to 922. Then if the blessing keeps growing, the level I can lock a skill at should rise as well. If the number of locks didn't increase too, that would sting. Judging by the pattern so far, the odds that it increases are high. Even if it didn't, there had been no other choice. Had he not raised Flame of Purification to level 22 in the first place, hunting every monster that appeared in the Floor 49 mission would have been impossible.

Time to move again.

As far as he could from the site of the uproar, Jin-soo searched for another place where the monsters would bottleneck the way they had before. Then he stirred up a commotion, drew them in, and cast Flame of Purification on the swarm—steadily, methodically cutting their numbers down.