The Goblin Champion
Jin-soo drew a dagger. Mana flooded the blade as he reinforced it and drove his body higher, and then he let it fly. The dagger whistled through the air, punched clean through the hobgoblin's skull, and the creature dropped.
You have brought down a field boss monster in a single strike.
A title. He had it.
The title The One Who Advances has vanished.
Gone the instant it appeared.
The Yellow God's blessing has grown.
The Red God's blessing has grown.
The blessings, though, had grown.
What goes up this time?
He had expected Strength and Vitality themselves to climb, or the rate of their increase to widen. He felt no real change at all.
What?
Jin-soo opened his status window and checked the blessing options.
— Strength is fixed at 122.
— Agility is fixed at 122.
— Mana is fixed at 122.
— Strength increased by 12.2%.
— Agility increased by 12.2%.
— Mana increased by 12.2%.
— Physical Attack increased by 2.2%.
— Vitality is fixed at 122.
— Endurance is fixed at 122.
— Mental Strength is fixed at 122.
— Vitality increased by 12.2%.
— Endurance increased by 12.2%.
— Mental Strength increased by 12.2%.
— Physical Defense increased by 2.2%.
Attack and defense. That's the increase.
Leaving the stats themselves untouched was a shame, but there was nothing bad about it.
Only 2.2 percent for now.
Once it climbed to 12.2 percent, the efficiency would be monstrous. That much was certain.
Finish the hunt first.
Jin-soo charged the goblin pack, leaderless now and lost in confusion. One stroke of his sword sent four heads flying.
"Kieeeek!"
"Kyaaaak!"
The goblins that spotted him came screaming, eyes bloodshot—but the two swords in his hands moved short and clean, as if each possessed a life of its own, and took theirs away. Every swing carried off three or four heads and split bodies in two. It was less a hunt than a one-sided slaughter.
Even so, the pace did not satisfy him in the slightest.
The body's too raw.
His stats had risen, but the flesh he wore now belonged to an ordinary man who had never once swung a sword before the Tower dragged him in by force. Pre-regression memory and those high stats let him grip the blade with fair skill and mow monsters down like straw, yet to his own eye the movements were full of gaps, and anything but efficient.
What the head remembers and what the body remembers aren't the same. Nothing to be done about it.
Train and fight long enough, and the body answers a situation on its own with the most efficient motion, no order from the mind required. Right now the flesh could not even follow the mind's commands, and the paths his sword traveled were staggeringly wasteful besides.
The mana isn't flowing cleanly either.
Circuits in a body that had never known mana were clogged shut, maddeningly tight. Usable mana fell far short of his mana stat, and what he could spend was inefficient.
If he had truly brought the blessing-raised stats to bear—if the body had carried out every command from his mind without flaw—if those circuits had been blown wide open? One swing would not have taken three or four goblin heads. It would have taken dozens.
All dead.
Even as he fought he had focused, trying to move more efficiently and force the mana circuits a little further open. The flesh had barely begun to learn real combat. Mana had scarcely circulated through him a handful of times. And already every goblin was dead.
Well. The monsters keep coming.
On the off chance, he searched the spot where the hobgoblin had fallen.
Another one?
This one had a treasure pouch too. Jin-soo took hold of it, and in the same instant the blessings grew.
The Yellow God's blessing has grown.
The Red God's blessing has grown.
Two of the same thing. That's what this is.
A satisfied smile crossed his face as he checked what lay inside the pouch.
A bust.
Most of it was garbage. The only things worth keeping were four spears and two daggers, clearly taken off Players the creature had killed.
Did they run?
He looked downstream. The Players who had been huddled together resting had all fled at the sound of him hunting.
Just in case, he drew two spears and gripped one in each hand. The blessings did not grow.
I'll catch some sleep. No point going far.
He climbed a nearby tree, settled onto a thick branch, and closed his eyes.
Early dawn.
Jin-soo woke from a light doze. He had kept his edge and never sunk into deep sleep, only drifting—but some of the fatigue had eased all the same. After a simple breakfast he dropped from the tree and set off toward his destination.
Why am I seeing nothing?
Moving toward the site of the next hidden dungeon, he frowned. Not a single goblin had shown its face the whole way.
No way yesterday's kills were all of them.
The thought had barely formed when the noise reached him.
"Hold the line!"
"If they break through, we're all dead!"
"Aaaah!"
"Kieeeek!"
"Keruk!"
Steel rang. Something wet gave way. Humans and goblins were fighting.
So they were all piled up over there.
Alone, he drew less aggro. The Player group he had seen yesterday had every survivor except him gathered in one place, so of course the goblins' aggression had concentrated on them. He launched himself toward the sound.
Better prepared than I expected.
Before the cave where the Players seemed to have bedded down stood a crude barricade of wood and stone. A horde of easily three hundred goblins was charging to force its way inside, and the Players behind the wall were holding them off with spears and swords.
Too few of them are actually fighting.
There were about eighty Players. Barely twenty stood at the front.
The cave mouth isn't even narrow.
There was room for at least thirty more to come out and fight.
They've turned into dead weight—drawing aggro and hauling the goblins in after them.
Not even a full day had passed. They might simply not have adapted to the Tower yet. But the Tower was cold. Those who failed to adapt died. That was all.
He kicked off the ground. More than three hundred goblins he had not glimpsed all morning were gathered here. No hobgoblin boss among them was a shame, but even this much was, for Jin-soo, a feast spread under his own name.
The moment he burst from their rear and swung, four or five goblins died.
"Kieeeek!"
They shrieked and rushed him, and died in an instant before the two swords. The horde could not flee. A barricade blocked the front, and Jin-soo stood at their backs.
Got it.
With the goblins nearly cleared, he added an achievement obtainable only on Floor 1.
That helped a great deal.
Players banded together had drawn the goblins' aggro properly, and he had cleared the achievement and taken the title with ease. That was not the end of it.
A title even Jin-soo had not known existed.
There was one of these?
He had moved for Monster Slaughterer and stumbled into a second achievement along the way.
The titles Monster Slaughterer and Savior of Floor 1 have vanished.
Swallowed by the blessings the moment they appeared, gone in a flash. He was used to that by now.
When the horde was annihilated, Jin-soo flicked the blood from his blades and sheathed them with a click. Those inside the barricade stared, faces blank, souls elsewhere.
"Eek!"
The moment his gaze found them, some of the ones who had been fighting goblins at the wall dropped to the ground, faces twisted with fear.
Time to go.
Before the day was out he had to sweep every title and hidden dungeon Floor 1 could offer, and climb to Floor 2. He turned.
"Thank you for helping us."
A man bowed his head and called out to him.
"The truth is, I saw you fighting the goblins last night. We ran without even thinking to help. I'm sorry."
At the man's words a forgotten memory surfaced—the man thanking someone, and Jin-soo chiding him, asking whether there had been any need for that.
A man who could admit his own fault.
Jin-soo let out a short breath of a laugh.
"It's all right. Don't concern yourself."
He left on that brief line.
Finished.
Every achievement and hidden dungeon Floor 1 had to offer was cleared.
And there were bonuses.
Simply in the course of moving, the blessings had grown twice more. He had not known why at first. When he checked, it was absurd.
They rose because twenty-two hours had passed since I came to the Tower. They rose again because it became the second day since I entered.
Items, monster hunts, cleared missions, titles—and now even time spent in the Tower, if it touched the number two, grew the blessings. His expectations ran high. What reward would he be given for reaching Floor 2 within two days of entry?
Jin-soo headed for the heart of Floor 1.
Clearing Floor 1 isn't particularly difficult.
Pass the gateway at the center within ten days, and that was the end of it. There was an obstacle, though.
That one.
A monster so tall, so vast of frame, so thick with muscle that one could doubt it was a goblin at all.
The Goblin Champion.
A higher specimen than the hobgoblin.
Not a monster placed here to be killed.
Hobgoblins alone overflowed Floor 1. A hobgoblin treated as a trash mob past Floor 50 was not designated a boss on Floor 1 for nothing. The Goblin Champion, stronger still, was an Out-of-Spec Monster that could not be hunted at all.
A monster made to be avoided.
The usual methods were to lure it elsewhere, or slip past while it slept. Even if it noticed you, dodge however you could and simply cross the gateway.
The Goblin Champion, gatekeeper of Floor 1, has never once been hunted.
And if he hunted a thing like that?
The reward would match the deed.
The Tower was that kind of place.
Steel whispered free. Both swords in hand, Jin-soo walked toward the Goblin Champion.