Staff of the Ice Dragon

I made it.

Shin Sua breathed out in relief the moment Jin-soo moved with that easy, unhurried calm. She had not wanted to be cast aside. On the strength ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of that one fear she had endured a brutal forced march, clinging on until the dark circles under her eyes had sunk all the way to her chin.

Climbing from Floor 1 to Floor 12 had taken her roughly a hundred days. Reaching Floor 62 from Floor 51 in less than ten was more than enough to leave her wrung out.

For her, the extra rest and sleep ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that came as the Shadow Summons and the Dragon Tooth Soldiers grew were like rain on a drought. Even so, once a hunt began she still had to move at a frantic pace. Jin-soo could work his summons, stand there watching, and still drink down experience while stacking achievement upon achievement. Shin Sua had to pour out blessing skills and protection skills without a pause just to earn any experience at all. For all that effort she was little help in the hunt itself, and beside what Jin-soo gained, her share was a speck of dust.

Titles were no different. When he claimed First, Outstanding, Great, and the rest, the best Shin Sua received was Contributor.

All of this is thanks to Jin-soo.

Even so, she neither envied him nor felt slighted. She was grateful—deeply so. He had his own purpose, yes, but he kept looking after her all the same, useless as she largely was. Set against her old party, her level was rising at an overwhelming speed. The stat gains fell short of a proper title, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yet she was collecting them in heaps: titles she had managed only five of across two whole years.

There was a saying that gathered dust becomes a mountain. Jin-soo had gone past even that. Every day he handed her enough dust to raise a mountain and still have some to spare.

I will never fall behind.

Meeting Jin-soo had changed her life itself, and hope had come with the change. At first her only goal had been to reach Shin Sujeong with his help. Now she wanted to stay beside him even after that reunion.

Jin-soo wants to bring Sujeong into the party too.

The wish to remain with him kept growing inside her, larger by the day.

Jin-soo and Shin Sua climbed the Tower without pause. Around the time they broke through Floor 85, Lucy came looking for them.

"I've brought the finished piece."

Lucy held a staff out to Jin-soo.

"Whoa! It's gorgeous!"

Shin Sua's mouth fell open. The staff really was magnificent—a pure, glittering white, both ends honed to spear-like points, the core at the top enclosed in a dome of White Drake claws.

It would serve well enough as a blunt weapon.

Bone and claw of a White Drake: the thing looked harder than most clubs.

Good. The staff I've been using was nearly out of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠durability anyway.

Perhaps because he had swung it like a club in the fight against the White Drake, it was cracked and chipped all over. He could pour mana into protecting it all he liked; the base durability was simply too low, and there was nothing to be done about that.

It didn't even have a self-repair option.

Jin-soo took the staff.

The level was absurdly high. Even granting the materials were steeped in karma, he had thought the White Drake's low level would set the ceiling somewhere around 800. The finished work sailed cleanly past that estimate, and the options were excellent besides. The margins on everything a mage needed—mana amplification, faster mana recovery, amplified magic attack—were enormous. Layered over them, cold-attribute skills carried still more: extra magic attack, a wider spell range, a lower mana cost, plastered on thick. Anyone who used ice magic as their mainstay would be buffed twice over.

To get an item like this for nothing but the materials...

From Jin-soo's side of it, the luck was extraordinary. He had offered guidance, yes, but a crafting commission of forty-five million points was a bargain in the plainest sense of the word.

"Hm?"

A pleased smile on his face as he looked over the options, his eye caught something strange. Mana recovery on physical attack.

"Why does a mage's staff have an option that recovers mana on a physical hit?"

Options like that belonged on a warrior's weapon.

"Master Unlaelba asked me to convey his apologies. He was trying to raise the mana recovery on magic attacks, failed, and a useless option for a mage attached itself by mistake."

Had the attempt succeeded, it would have been a masterpiece, and the value of the Staff of the Ice Dragon would have shot straight up.

"And he let it go with nothing but an apology?"

The man was obsessively fixated on the perfection of his own work. If not for the contract with Jin-soo, a failure like this would have been smashed the moment it came into being. Even if he were forced to sell it, he was not the sort to wipe his mouth clean with a single apology.

"W-well... you see...?"

Lucy trembled, turning her head just enough to avoid his eyes.

"Really? Shall we draw up a new contract and talk this over again?"

As he said it, Jin-soo drew a contract from his inventory, and Lucy blurted out in a rush.

"The truth is, he said he would return the commission. All forty-five million points."

"Is that all?"

Under the pressure of it, Lucy hung her head, despair in her eyes.

"As a token of apology, he said that if you provide the materials, he will craft one item for you free of charge."

"I knew it."

Jin-soo smiled and stroked Lucy's head.

"So you meant to swallow the forty-five million points and the free crafting chance whole."

"I-I did not!"

"What do you mean, you didn't? Once I reach Floor 100 I'll spread it everywhere. Wandering merchant Lucy scams players."

At his words, Lucy's fur stood on end. A rumor on Floor 100 alone would not be a devastating blow. But if Jin-soo spread the same story every time he climbed higher, the damage to her credit would be enormous.

"I-I'm sorry. Please take the forty-five million points first."

Lucy bowed her head and handed the forty-five million points over.

Receiving them, Jin-soo wondered whether he ought to return the fee to Master Craftsman Unlaelba. One option was useless to a mage, but the rest were extraordinary.

And for me it isn't a useless option, so my conscience does sting a little.

Other mages aside, Jin-soo had already brought a staff down on an Ice Drake's skull. The attack power had not been bad, and the impact had felt satisfying, so he already meant to keep using the Staff of the Ice Dragon to strike monsters that closed in for melee. And now it recovered mana when he did?

It fell short of mana recovery on a magic attack, but from where Jin-soo stood, the item was thoroughly useful.

If I try to give it back, though, a man of his temperament will only get angry.

His pride was anything but ordinary. Return the commission fee, and he might take it as an insult and fly into a temper.

"The next time I get good materials, tell him I'll be commissioning Master Unlaelba first."

"Yes, I understand."

"And you. Hand over compensation."

"C-compensation?"

"You tried to scam me. Of course you pay."

"I really have almost no points..."

At that, Jin-soo offered her a kindly smile.

"Don't worry. I take payment in kind."

He shook Lucy down for every item she was carrying.

"A skill book I could understand, but you don't even need a class-change scroll, a staff, or a robe!"

At her protest, Jin-soo glanced at Shin Sua.

"They're for her."

Lucy simply sank.

"From now on, don't even think about scamming anyone. Just trade honestly."

It showed in her eyes, her ears, her fur, and her tail, all of it. He could not fathom what she had been thinking, trying to cheat him. Honestly, he wanted to tell her to quit trading altogether—but if his easy mark disappeared, that would be a problem, so he forced himself to hold back.

"Hngh!"

Lucy's eyes welled up. In truth, she usually traded honestly. Now and then she used information a player lacked, beat a price down just enough to profit... but she had never once taken an excessive cut.

When the other party was Jin-soo, it was a different matter entirely. From their first meeting through the second, she had been cleaned out so thoroughly that a desire to claw something back had welled up before she knew it. She had tried. She had been cleaned out all over again.

"Go on. See you next time."

"I'd rather not see you at all!"

Lucy shouted it and vanished.

She always comes looking for me first, and then she says that.

Say what she liked, the moment he laid hands on an item steeped in karma she would come running like a puppy with its tail on fire.

The Goblin Champion's two-handed axe, the White Drake byproducts—the way she shows up at once, she must have some special skill.

Novice wandering merchant Lucy had found him first, twice. Once might have been chance. The second time, tracking him all the way to an inn, was anything but. The odds were high that she possessed a special skill for detecting items that carried karma.

This will make things easier from here on.

With an easy mark like Lucy around, he could sell at the highest price and squeeze out every last point the market would bear.

"Advance your class, and change your gear too."

Jin-soo passed Shin Sua a portion of what he had stripped from Lucy.

"Th-thank you."

Shin Sua ducked her head and accepted the class-change scroll and the items. Wanting to try a new piece of gear the moment it was in hand was only human. She recast her blessings and protections first, and Jin-soo ordered the Dragon Tooth Soldiers to drive the monsters in.

"Kyaaaak!"

The Dragon Tooth Soldiers came on at a drumming run, herding a mass of monsters that had to number well over a thousand, driving them the way sheepdogs drive a flock.

"Frost Proclamation."

Gripping the Staff of the Ice Dragon, Jin-soo cast the attack skill. It was only supposed to slow whatever it struck.

Krik—krak—krak!

The instant they crossed into the pure-white mist, more than a thousand monsters turned to shards of ice where they stood.

"Whoa!"

Surprise crossed Jin-soo's face. Shin Sua's mouth fell open.

The power, at least, is certain.

Limited to frost-attribute magic though it was, power of that order made for an item he could still use at the standard of Floor 500. Afterward he kept casting frost skills into the monsters the Dragon Tooth Soldiers drove his way, testing the staff. The results were deeply satisfying.

With the new item tested, Jin-soo and Shin Sua resumed the climb.

Floor 100 isn't far now.

The pace was staggering. Even so, Floor 100 was nothing but a foundation. The road ahead was still long.

No more Demon Spirit Divine Pills.

They did nothing for Jin-soo, but they were another matter for Shin Sua. And not only for her. If he meant to strengthen the people he would bring into the party from here on, Demon Spirit Divine Pills were essential.

Buying them with points costs far too much.

Worse, the pills drying up was not the real problem.

I cleared that many hidden dungeons. Is this truly all they yield?

To Jin-soo's mind, the hidden dungeons past Floor 51 coughed up nothing but cheap rewards. Anything actually useful appeared about as often as a bean in a drought, and they were not even producing many items worth selling at a high price. But that was only how Jin-soo saw it.

Shin Sua, looking at the rewards he hauled out of those same dungeons, could only gape. Prizes other players might obtain once across dozens of floors—if they obtained them at all—were falling into their hands by the dozens every day. It was only natural. The gap between what Jin-soo called valuable and what Shin Sua called valuable was as wide as the distance between the sun and the earth.