The Eight Mad Dogs (2)
Swift Dog's face went slack with disbelief. A mage-type player—weak in strength, agility, and stamina—had swung a staff and sent Iron Dog, their tank, flying.
What?
Something that could not happen, by any ordinary measure of the world, had just happened, and it rattled him hard. His thoughts snagged. His body did not. It moved the way it had been trained and went for Jin-soo—but no matter how fast Swift Dog moved, he could not outrun the Staff of the Ice Dragon in Jin-soo's hands.
The staff lashed in like a striking snake.
"Ghk—!"
Swift Dog wrenched himself into an unnatural angle, desperate to slip the blow. He failed. Bone cracked. Caught full on the staff, he sprayed red, was hurled into the air, and came down hard against the ground.
In the space of a breath, Iron Dog and Swift Dog were both out of the fight.
"Jangho! Mujin!"
The other Eight Mad Dogs shouted their names. Pinned where they stood by the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, they could do nothing at all.
"Recovery!"
Old Dog, the healer, cast a recovery skill over Iron Dog and Swift Dog.
"Nnngh—!"
"You're dead!"
Wounds closing, the two charged Jin-soo again and ran straight into an encirclement. The Dragon Tooth Soldiers' net snapped shut around them.
"All here? Good. Take a few hits first."
Jin-soo came toward the Eight Mad Dogs wearing a bright smile.
The only cure for a mad dog is the rod.
The Staff of the Ice Dragon blurred, and the beating began.
"Ghk—! Kagh—!"
"I'll kill you!"
Crack!
"Agh! You bastard!"
"I will not let this go!"
The Eight Mad Dogs hurled themselves at him with madness in their eyes. Jin-soo did not so much as blink. He simply kept the beating going. They resisted with everything they had. Swords, spears, and axes swung; attack spells and arrows came flying in. Not one of them reached him. The Dragon Tooth Soldiers' guard was too solid for that.
"You think we're going to give up?!"
Old Dog shouted it even as he kept casting recovery over his companions.
"Good. Don't give up. You keep holding on."
Jin-soo went right on beating them.
How long will it take this time? About the same as before the regression?
To the eye, the Eight Mad Dogs looked as if they would never break. Jin-soo already knew better. Before his regression he had learned the truth of it: a mad dog yields to the rod.
Well. It won't run past three days.
That was roughly how long it had taken him to break them in the life before this one. Their levels were lower now, and they were nowhere near as seasoned, so he expected it to come in under three days.
"Ghk—!"
"Kagh!"
The problem was that these Eight Mad Dogs were far weaker than the ones he had met before the regression. Their stamina, durability, and willpower were simply too low. He had barely started in on them before every one of them blacked out, and what was left of their bodies was a wreck.
Old Dog, the healer, kept stubbornly casting recovery even while he was being beaten himself, and so he held out. Mana, though, has a limit. The moment the recovery skill cut off, the Eight Mad Dogs dropped where they stood.
No heals coming in, so they folded even faster.
He couldn't keep hitting them like this. They might actually die.
"Sua. Blessing and recovery on these guys."
"Huh? Yeah! Got it!"
Shin Sua had gone white, but at Jin-soo's word she hurried to cast both skills.
"Nnngh..."
"What... what just happened?"
Bathed in her blessing and her recovery, the Eight Mad Dogs came to.
"Then let's start again."
Jin-soo smiled and brought the Staff of the Ice Dragon around once more. The blows landed in a steady rhythm, and the Eight Mad Dogs, barely back in their own heads, threw themselves at him and fought. It did them no good. They hadn't been able to beat him when they were whole. Waking from a faint in bodies already beaten to ruin was not going to change that.
Jin-soo kept hitting them.
Shin Sua turned her eyes aside. She would not look at their suffering, and still she cast blessing and recovery, and the time went on. Somewhere past the two-hour mark, her skill level rose.
Shin Sua
Skill level increased.
"Admit you were wrong and apologize properly, right now, and I'll forgive you. Keep resisting, and an apology won't be the end of it."
He said it with a bright smile.
"And if it doesn't end there, what are you gonna do!"
"We will never submit!"
"You think we'd apologize?"
"Then just kill us!"
The Eight Mad Dogs shrieked back at him, spitting fury.
"Then we start again."
Jin-soo had known all along that a mere two hours of beating would never make them yield. He only wanted it driven home that they had brought every bit of this on themselves.
The staff rose and fell, and the Eight Mad Dogs cursed him and fought him, and so it went until some six hours had passed.
"Stop."
"S-stop. That's enough."
"Yeah. Please, just stop."
The fight had gone out of them.
"Then admit you were wrong, and apologize. Politely."
At that, the Eight Mad Dogs thrashed all over again.
"You were wrong too!"
"Yeah! And we got beaten half to death! You don't have a scratch on you!"
"This ought to be enough to let it go!"
The rod, it seemed, had not yet been enough. Jin-soo beat them for two hours more.
"Hic—! We were wrong! Please forgive us!"
"It was all our fault!"
"We'll pay you back! No—we'll do whatever you tell us!"
"So please, stop hitting us!"
The Eight Mad Dogs had broken completely.
Much faster than last time.
Before the regression they had lasted three days. This time the white flag was up before ten hours had passed.
"Not even a day, let alone two. No grit. No grit at all."
Jin-soo clicked his tongue, the look on his face thick with disappointment, as if the whole thing had left him hollow. The Eight Mad Dogs went white.
He had beaten them for ten hours, and now he was scolding them for not lasting longer than that?
He's disappointed we stopped fighting back?
Clicking his tongue because he doesn't get to hit us anymore. A pervert. An absolute pervert!
That thing isn't human.
A demon. He's a demon wearing a man's face. He has to be.
All at once, the Eight Mad Dogs felt wretched for every moment they had endured by screaming. The longer they held out, the more pleasure the beating had given him.
I never knew Jin-soo had a side like that.
Shin Sua, who had been keeping blessing and recovery on them to help him, was more than a little shaken herself.
Still, he didn't hit them for nothing. He didn't kill them. And my skill level went up.
She steadied herself almost at once and found a way to make his actions reasonable.
"So. How are you going to pay me back?"
At Jin-soo's question, the Eight Mad Dogs went mute, as if they had swallowed their own tongues. They had surrendered because they could not bear to be hit anymore. Not one of them had thought about what compensation was supposed to look like.
"W-with points..."
One of the Mad Dogs had barely pulled himself together enough to open his mouth.
"I'll decide."
Jin-soo cut him off.
"Here. Sign these."
He drew eight contracts from his inventory and held them out. The Eight Mad Dogs took them and read.
From this day forth, you shall follow Jin-soo's instructions eight times.
"It doesn't even say what the instructions are! ...sir."
The Mad Dog started to protest, caught Jin-soo's eye, and quietly tacked the courtesy on at the end.
"But why eight times?"
Shifter Dog asked it, plainly baffled.
"The eight of you are one heart and one body. Joint liability. That's why it's eight."
At that, the Eight Mad Dogs hesitated over the signatures, injustice written all over their faces.
"What? Don't like it? Want another round? Next time it might not be eight. It might be eighty."
"N-no."
"We'll sign."
Broken by the rod, the Eight Mad Dogs signed at last. Jin-soo had handed each of them a contract that bound the primary stat matching his position—an agility contract for Swift Dog, a durability contract for Iron Dog, a mana contract for Mana Dog.
With those primary stats held hostage, each of them would have to obey Jin-soo eight times.
What in the world is he planning to make us do?
We only bowed our heads for a moment. We do not submit. Not ever.
Go on, give an order. We'll carry it out the worst way there is. We'll make a dog's breakfast of it.
Having steeled themselves after their own fashion, the Eight Mad Dogs swallowed against dry throats and watched him, tight with tension.
"All right. Off you go."
Question marks might as well have bloomed in the air over their heads.
"Just... go? What is that supposed to mean... sir?"
"Weren't you going to make us do something?"
When they showed their confusion, Jin-soo frowned.
"I figured I ought to get something out of this, so I had you sign. But where would I ever have a use for weaklings like you? I'm better off using summons. Next time we meet, if you're even a little worth using, I'll put you to work then. For now, just go."
He waved them off as he said it, and the Eight Mad Dogs' faces crumpled into something wretched.
Useless?
Weaklings? Us?
Worse than summons?
He dares look down on us.
They had never intended to follow an order properly in the first place. Hearing him say outright that they were useless changed that.
"Ah. Climb the Tower any slower than I do, and we might never meet again for the rest of your lives. If there isn't a next time, that's the better outcome for you. Live easy."
Jin-soo said it with a smile, and a thick venom gathered in the Eight Mad Dogs' eyes.
Just you wait.
I won't catch up to you. I'll leave you behind.
Next time we meet, I'll make sure words like that never leave your mouth again.
I'll get stronger. Stronger than this, until I never suffer a humiliation like today again.
Their pride torn open, the Eight Mad Dogs ground their teeth and left.
"If you were just going to send them off like that, did you really need the contracts?"
Shin Sua asked it with a puzzled look.
"They're too full of themselves. Mostly, I wanted them to learn that the world can be a frightening place. Not right away, but if we meet again later, they'll have to be stronger before there's any point in using them. Don't you think?"
"Mm. I see."
Shin Sua nodded at that.
So he picked up the rod to fix their habits. They'd only just met, and it wasn't even a good meeting. To go that far for them... Jin-soo really is kind.
And she shaped what he had done until it fit the way she wanted to understand him.
Good to see you. Get a little stronger. This time, don't die like fools the way you did before.
Jin-soo watched the Eight Mad Dogs dwindle into the distance and murmured it inwardly. Before the regression, they had been a party in the guild he led. They had climbed the Tower at his side, adding their strength to his, and partway up they had been wiped out.
Not only them. The reason Jin-soo had challenged the Tower's 2,222nd floor alone was that every party in the guild had already been annihilated.
This time, I won't let it end that way.
Meeting the Eight Mad Dogs today had been a piece of real luck.
They were always going to become strong. From here on, they'll be stronger still.
They had the talent. Left alone, they grew into players of the highest rank. The trouble was how much time and how many chances they had wasted pulling lunatic stunts for fun, and for the thrill of it.
This time they came to their senses much earlier.
The first time they met Jin-soo, lost, and took a beating for three days, the Eight Mad Dogs had bitterly regretted all that wasted time and all those wasted chances. They had given everything to growing stronger, and they had grown faster for it.
The hour in which meeting him put that venom in them had been pulled far forward. They would grow faster than they had before the regression.
With personalities like theirs, it's obvious.
An ordinary player, hoping not to run into Jin-soo, would hunt at a lazy pace and climb the Tower slowly. The Eight Mad Dogs would try to reach him as fast as they could, clear the eight orders, and then come looking for revenge.
I'm looking forward to the day we meet again.
The smile still on his face, Jin-soo summoned the Dragon Tooth Soldiers and set off to clear the hidden dungeon and claim the title.