The Holy Saintess

Could I level up this way? Pick up achievements, too? He would have to test it. Jin-soo ordered the Shadow Summons to keep hunting monsters, then turned toward the village. No problems so far. His level was still climbing. Might as well head back and rest.

He was just about to convince himself that auto-hunting would work.

Trouble, out of nowhere. This is the limit? Jin-soo called the Shadow Summons back to his side and tucked them into his shadow. Roughly ten kilometers... An awkward range. Auto-hunting still seems possible. While he remained in the city, though, they could hunt only nearby. And there aren't many monsters around a city. With players swarming the place, that was only natural. Well. Better than not doing it at all.

On the outskirts he released the Shadow Summons hiding in his shadow, then entered the city alone and made for the inn.

The door shrieked open, and every eye in the room locked onto him.

"Huh. He actually came back alive?"

"Didn't he?"

"I was sure he was dead."

The crowd in the first-floor dining hall was much the same as it had been that morning.

"So where are the others?"

"What happened out there?"

He had left with Kim Ji-seon's party and returned alone, and that seemed to strike them as strange. They never mentioned running into me. Then again, they might not even have realized it was me. Jin-soo flicked a glance at Cha Hee-soo's party, and Cha Hee-soo answered with the slightest dip of her head. She figured out it was me. And she still kept her mouth shut. She didn't appear to have told the other players—or even her own party. Smart.

Keeping what she knew about him to herself was the wise move. Spreading word of another player inside the Tower was rarely a good choice. She hasn't mentioned that those people are dead, either. Whether the rest found out or not, he didn't much care. Attention would only multiply the hassle. No profit in it, and nothing but gnats buzzing in. He could do without that.

Jin-soo ate a simple meal, asked for bathwater to be prepared, and went farther into the inn. How many have sold? He opened the auction house. It could be accessed only inside a safe zone. All but one. They were stat-raising elixirs, and despite the steep price they had moved rather well. Lower the price and they'd sell even faster. He wasn't desperate for points, so there was no need. He listed nine more elixirs.

Nothing else has finished its auction. There was nothing more he needed to buy, either. After yesterday's massive shopping, that was only to be expected. For now, he decided to let the points pile up untouched. I need at least a billion of them. Only then could he purchase items that were actually worth having.

"Your bathwater is here."

An inn employee had brought it, and Jin-soo got in at once. This is nice. On Earth, washing in warm water was as simple as turning a tap. The Tower is different. Stay at a high-class inn on the middle floors or above, and it was possible. That's still a long way off. For now, warm bathwater meant paying points and waiting a good long while. Tonight, I'll rest properly.

Washed and finished with a simple dinner, Jin-soo lay down. Even then, thanks to the Shadow Summons, his level kept climbing—only to drop again the instant it rose.

The moment he woke, he opened the auction house and checked how many items had sold. All of them. There was more good news besides. My listing cap went from ten items to twenty. Perhaps because the elixirs fetched so high a price, the limit had risen faster than he'd expected. He registered twenty more.

After a quick wash he went downstairs, ate breakfast, bought rations for lunch, and set out for the hunting grounds. Clear Floor 50 as fast as I can. For an ordinary player, Floor 50 was a fork in the road, a place where other choices opened up. For Jin-soo it was nothing more than a checkpoint: clear the achievements and hidden dungeons he needed, then move on.

With his Shadow Summons beside him, Jin-soo hunted the monsters of Floor 50 at a terrifying pace, cracking achievements and clearing hidden dungeons and open dungeons one after another. He shaved every minute he could from eating and sleeping and never once rested, moving like a machine.

Even so, there was one matter he was spending time on separately. Finding party members. Most of the newcomers are already in parties. Hardly surprising. Banding together favored survival, and however nightmarish the Floor 49 mission was said to be, anyone who had lived through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was still holding a party of three to five.

Jin-soo accepted the mission to guide newcomers. He did not clear it, of course. The reward was far too stingy for the time it cost. But once I take it, I can tell when newcomers will reach Floor 50, and how many. He kept watch on every fresh arrival. Party or solo, if a player looked usable, he meant to take them. I can do without the other classes. What I absolutely need is someone who can become a healer.

All the way to Floor 50, Jin-soo had played solo rather than in a party. It was the most efficient way to grow fast and climb. From Floor 51 on, that changes. Floor 50 had a city, a safe zone. From Floor 51, the situation was different. No city. No inn. The real problem is that without a safe zone, I can't use the auction house or the shop. That he himself still needed to eat and sleep was another problem. The difficulty isn't like Floors 1 through 49.

Before, food packs and great swarms of mimics ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had turned up now and then. Not anymore. As if the tutorial ended at Floor 50, food packs were gone entirely, and mimics appeared about as often as rain in a drought. Well. The reason you can linger five years on Floor 50 in the first place is so you'll acquire a class, grow as strong as you can, and prepare for everything before challenging Floor 51. Finding party members who suited you was part of that design as well. It isn't an invitation to challenge the climb alone. Stuff food into my inventory and treasure pouch, post the Shadow Summons as a night watch, and I could cover things to a point.

The problem was that the next safe zone lay on Floor 100. No matter how much food he stockpiled, no matter how much he foraged along the way, he was bound to run dry somewhere in the middle. Clearing Floor 49 got me a holy-attribute healer class-change tome, and I already bought the healer-exclusive skill book, Sanctuary, off the auction house. What he still lacked was a player worth changing into a healer and teaching the skill. It would have been nice if the shadow healer summon could learn from a skill book.

He had tried. A Shadow Summon could not acquire skills that way. In a sense, that's only natural. A being born from a skill learned through a skill book, learning still more skills from skill books—that would be a contradiction.

The achievements and hidden dungeons still available on Floor 50 were nearly scraped clean. If it comes to it, do I just change class to healer myself? That would mean abandoning Flame Battle Mage. Why don't mages have Sanctuary? A genuine shame, but there was no helping it. Sanctuary, like Blessing, Curse, Protection, Recovery, Debilitation, and Purification, was a healer-exclusive skill. Only a player who had changed class to healer could learn it. Healers are weak in a fight. Dropping Flame Battle Mage to become one would be a net loss.

Busy putting the Shadow Summons to work, he had rarely even opened the status window of his holy-attribute class of late. Even so, I can't give Flame Battle Mage up. For the Tower-clearing plan he had already laid, advancing into a higher mage class was one thing. Abandoning the mage class entirely to become a healer was not an option. Changing to healer now and switching back to mage later isn't impossible. He had not a single spare stack on his class-skill level lock, so that route was rejected as well. No matter how high my mana and mental stats climb, a skill stuck at level 2 has a ceiling I can't get past.

There was only one conclusion. He had to find a healer as quickly as possible. Ideally someone who'll stay. If that's too much to ask, I don't mind if they only serve as a stepping stone to Floor 100.

The problem was the nature of Floor 50 itself. Too many players mean to take everything there is to take, then loaf through all five years. The overwhelming majority there were nothing like Jin-soo, who wanted the Tower cleared in the shortest time possible. And the racial pool is far too small. As with the other floors, there was more than one Floor 50. The one Jin-soo occupied held only people from Earth—and among them, only Koreans. Reach Floor 100, and that changes. The catch was that reaching Floor 100 required party members. No exceptions. I need either a newcomer who just arrived, or a player or party already set on leaving Floor 50 for Floor 51. Clearing the minimum line ought to be enough. Finding anyone even moderately usable is harder than I thought.

Floor 50 held a fair number of players. Search as he might, though, he could not find a single one who both meant to climb quickly and was of any use right now. There's still time. Forcing down the urgency that kept trying to rise, Jin-soo headed for the hunting grounds.

"When the hell are you planning to go up!"

"We'll go up when we're ready! We've only been on Floor 50 for two years!"

"Yeah. No need to rush. We've still got three whole years to spare."

He had come upon a group of players in the middle of a fight.

"I don't have that kind of time!"

"Haah. Quit forcing it. Honestly, you're the weakest one in the party."

"We'll challenge it once your ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠level's higher. The gatekeeper's strong. Screw up, and you die on the spot."

"Grr! Keep talking like that and I'm leaving the party!"

"Don't throw a fit. Honestly, we're only keeping you because we've been together so long."

"Right, right. Any other party wouldn't even look at you."

"I really will leave!"

One of them shrieked it and split off alone.

"Then leave. Works for us. Easier that way."

"Let's just go, the rest of us."

"Yeah. Sua's no real help anyway."

"Sua, quit talking nonsense and go cool your head back at the inn."

The others paid her no mind and left for the hunting grounds. Jin-soo meant to ignore it too, and keep going—until he heard the name Sua. Sua? Could it be Shin Sua?

He looked at the player they had called Sua. She looks nothing like her. Just someone with the same name? The Shin Sua he remembered was a gentle-faced girl in her late teens, white-haired and red-eyed, standing about five foot ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠three. The Sua in front of him looked well into her mid-twenties at the youngest, black-haired and black-eyed, and taller than five foot seven. Her face wasn't that of a soft, pretty girl, either. She was a cold beauty.

Hair and eye color can change with a class change. Face, age, and build are another matter. The gap is too wide. A player did not age. The body neither grew nor grew old. Even supposing she had grown, she should have gotten taller and older—not shorter and younger. There was no way it worked in reverse. And her mana reserves look below average.

Jin-soo decided it was only a namesake and started walking again.

"Sujeong. Your big sister will come back. I swear it."

Jin-soo's feet, already in motion, stopped dead.