The Bracelet of Reduction
"Since I've received an apology, I'll let this matter end here."
With those words, Jinsoo drew his shadow summons back into his own shadow.
"This is offered as a token of our apology. Please accept it."
Kim Young-cheol held an item out to him. It was a bracelet—a level 422 piece bearing the cooldown-reduction option every mage-type player desperately needed, worth at least tens of millions of points.
"All right."
Jinsoo accepted the bracelet, then turned with Shin Sua toward the guild house exit.
"Might we meet again with smiles on our faces?"
Kim Young-cheol asked.
"Of course."
Jinsoo answered evenly.
"Hahaha! That's a relief!"
"I think so too."
With that, Jinsoo left the Daehan Guild's guild house together with Shin Sua.
"Whew. Thank god."
The moment Jinsoo was gone, Kim Young-cheol let out a sigh of relief.
"You worked hard."
"Still, you wrapped it up cleanly."
His party members offered what comfort they could. Kim Han-ul, Oh Ji-woong, and the rest of the Daehan guild members, meanwhile, wore the blank look of people asking what in the world had just happened.
"You caused a disaster you can't even clean up, and you still don't know why? You insane bastards!"
Seong Ha-yeon, one of Kim Young-cheol's party, scowled and hurled curses at Kim Han-ul, Oh Ji-woong, and the guild members around them.
"Ha-yeon..."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Haah. These idiots, I swear..."
Staring at guild members who still had no idea what was going on, Seong Ha-yeon let out a long sigh, forced her anger down, and spoke.
"You thought you could beat that man—Lee Jinsoo—if you fought him, didn't you?"
"Well..."
"He's a rookie who hasn't even been on Floor 100 for a week."
"And there were only two of them."
The Daehan guild members staying in the Starting City numbered over two hundred. Two hundred against two, and the other side had only just arrived on Floor 100. The outcome might as well have been decided already.
"If we'd shown up any later and a fight had broken out, every one of you would be dead."
"What? What are you saying?"
"You're telling us we'd be wiped out by just two people?"
"Ms. Ha-yeon, aren't you looking down on us a little too much?"
Complaints poured out from every side. The Daehan members were convinced Seong Ha-yeon was treating them with far too much contempt.
"Do any of you think you could beat our party?"
At that, the guild members went mute, as if they'd swallowed their tongues. Player or not, an impassable wall stood between Kim Young-cheol's party, which operated out of the Final City, and the members active in the Starting City.
Why else would a single party step forward to hunt the powerful out-of-spec monster that had annihilated the three-hundred-strong Chavel Guild? Because they were confident they could kill it.
"But you can't compare the Guild Master's party to those two."
A year ago, the previous guild master had departed with five parties to challenge the gatekeeper of Floor 100, and Kim Young-cheol had served as master of the Daehan Guild ever since. He was the strongest player among the guild's members on Floor 100, and his party was, naturally, the strongest party in it.
"They're comparable enough."
Seong Ha-yeon's words kicked up an immediate uproar.
"What?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Those people haven't even been on Floor 100 for a week."
"How can you compare those two to the Guild Master's party?"
Disbelief filled every face.
"I saw it myself."
Kim Young-cheol spoke then.
"With my own two eyes, I watched them hunt monsters with their summons. A number that would have wiped you out completely—they slaughtered every last one in under a minute."
"That's impossible."
"How could that even be possible?"
"People who just set foot on Floor 100?"
Even coming straight from Guild Master Kim Young-cheol, a man they trusted deeply, the guild members could not easily bring themselves to believe it.
"Are you saying that man is so strong that even the Guild Master's party couldn't handle him?"
One member asked, cautious now.
"Not to that extent. If we fought, of course we'd win."
"Then why did you bow your head, apologize, and hand over an item on top of it?"
Humiliation was written all over the questioner's face. They had been in the wrong first—that much was true. They were the ones who had stood by while trouble was picked, who had attacked first, who had made the threats. Even so, Jinsoo's attitude, as if the Daehan Guild were not worth a second thought, had wounded their pride more than a little. That was why they had gone along with Kim Han-ul even while knowing his actions were unreasonable.
"You morons. Stake your lives on a fight over something that trivial, and what do you have left even if you win?"
"Uh... well..."
The guild member who had asked scratched his head.
"If a fight had broken out, more than half of you would have died for certain, win or lose."
At the flat declaration that half of them would have died without question, the guild members' faces went white.
"And if that man used his summons as a shield to get away, then hit and ran like a guerrilla afterward, how exactly were you going to answer that?"
Kim Young-cheol's question struck them dumb. Not much was known about summoners, but they knew at least this much: a summoner could hide somewhere safe and command summons even from a great distance.
"When Young-cheol gave him the item and asked to meet next time with a smile, he meant let's forget every grudge up to now. The other side understood that and accepted."
Only with Seong Ha-yeon's added explanation did the guild members finally grasp the situation.
"So that's why they both said they were relieved."
"I was wondering what that was about."
"True enough. If just the two of them walked out that confidently, then unless they're insane, they have to be that sure of their own strength."
"Jinseong's on the weaker side, but he's a tank in name, at least. If he went down in a single hit, that man's definitely strong."
Kwak Jin-seong's party was the weakest among the Daehan members in the Starting City. Even so, the other members were staying in the Starting City as well, so the gap in levels was hardly overwhelming. If those two were on the level of Kim Young-cheol's party, then no matter how many bodies they fielded, defeat was as good as decided.
"Taking pride in belonging to the Daehan Guild is fine. But the moment that pride turns into arrogance, a catastrophe can follow. Our seniors founded this guild to survive, not to prop up their egos. Something similar happened back when I'd only just arrived on Floor 100. What happened then was..."
Too-Much-Talker Kim Young-cheol's back in my day had begun. His party members traded the look of there he goes again and quietly headed up to their quarters. The rest of the Daehan members, however, had no choice but to stand stiffly and listen in silence to the long, long journey that started the day Guild Master Kim Young-cheol first set foot on Floor 100.
Still quick on the uptake.
Slipping out of the Daehan Guild's guild house, Jinsoo looked down at the bracelet Kim Young-cheol had given him and murmured to himself. Got something good. Its name was the Bracelet of Reduction. The kind of thing that's hard to get even when you have the points. It carried cooldown reduction, an essential option for any mage.
Four stacks, each able to cut a cooldown by one hour... Burn all four, and he could shorten a shadow summon's cooldown by a full four hours. It's a level 422 item, so it's impossible for now. But later, once the level I can fix onto an item rises to 622? He would be able to resummon a shadow summon the instant it was dismissed. And perhaps, as the item's level climbed, the cooldown it could shave away would grow—or the stacks themselves would increase.
Normally, raising the level of an item that isn't a growth type is impossible. But Jinsoo possessed a blessing that could forcibly fix an item's level, and with it he could raise the level of non-growth items as much as he pleased. Thanks to that, I'm still putting the Ring of Recovery and the Ring of Deterioration to good use. Both were a mere level 22, items he ought to have thrown away long ago. By forcibly locking them at 222, he was still getting plenty of use out of them.
Once the Bracelet of Reduction's level rises and I have stacks to spare, using them on the summon-contract skill in ordinary times would be perfect. That would let him trim at least a little off the skill's thirty-day cooldown. Of course, none of it would be possible until the blessing's item-fix level surpassed the bracelet's current level of 422.
"Let's get a room first."
"Okay."
Jinsoo and Shin Sua took a room at an inn, washed in warm water, and settled into a comfortable rest.
The next morning, they set out for one last hunt.
Nothing worth buying. Jinsoo's expression soured. He was short on uses of his skill-level fix, so he could no longer create synthesis skills. Points, though, he had in abundance, and he had spent the previous night combing the auction house for something to spend them on. There had been nothing worth purchasing. Then again, the good items mostly get snapped up on buy-now. The only exceptions were pieces priced absurdly high relative to their worth. He had placed bids only where the price was reasonable. Unless it's something on the level of the Shining Longsword or the Ring of Revival, there's no need to get gouged. The more points, the better. No reason to rush.
"Meow!"
Leo had eaten his fill of meat since morning and looked to be in an excellent mood.
"I'm counting on you again today."
At Jinsoo's words, Leo tapped his shoulder with a forepaw, as if to say he need only trust him.
"Nyaaaaa!"
Then the little beast let out a great cry.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
It was not long before monsters came swarming. Jinsoo summoned his shadow summons, and Shin Sua called forth her stone golem.
Fwoooosh! BOOOOM!
Beginning with the magic attack skills of Jinsoo and the shadow mage, a one-sided slaughter unfolded.
Shwk-shwk-shwk! Crunch! Slice!
The shadow knight, the shadow assassin, and the shadow archer led the charge, and Jinsoo swung the Blood-Sucking Sword and the Shining Longsword in the same breath as his spells.
"Kyaaung!"
"Kiiik!"
The monsters that had rushed in were annihilated in an instant, dying amid mournful screams.
Summoner-exclusive skills are paying off nicely. Thanks to Leo, the shadow beast contracted through the summon-contract skill, hunting had become easy. No matter how many monsters poured in, the shadow summons and the stone golem—strengthened by summon-exclusive buffs—held without so much as a flinch. Stacking both buffs is incredibly useful. The overlapping effect of Jinsoo's summon-exclusive buff and Shin Sua's healer-exclusive buff was truly tremendous.
You have hunted more than two thousand monsters across more than twenty species.
The Yellow God's blessing has grown.
The Red God's blessing has grown.
Titles multiplied at a steady clip, and the blessings grew well along with them.
My level keeps bouncing up and down, too. Since this is the last of it, I'll take everything I can get. He meant to clear every remaining title and hidden dungeon, return to the Starting City for a proper rest, and then set out for the place where the Undead Hidden Dungeon lay.
While Jinsoo and Shin Sua were absorbed in the hunt, a shadow archer reported players approaching.
We've already been spotted. No point hiding it now.
Jinsoo kept hunting without dismissing his shadow summons. The players closing in were moving extremely fast.
People from another city, like Kim Young-cheol's party. Otherwise they could not possibly be this quick. Fortunately the hunt was nearly finished, and by the time the group revealed themselves, it was already over.
"A summoner."
"Did that black cat draw the monsters in?"
"Could be useful."
The players who had just shown themselves were speaking Chinese.
Faces I've never seen. Unlike Kim Young-cheol's party, there was no one he recognized. Jinsoo meant to ignore them, move elsewhere, and keep hunting.
"Hey, you two! Stop!"
Shwk!
With that, the Chinese-speaking players cut across Jinsoo and Shin Sua's path.
"You'll be coming with us for a while."
The other side had no intention whatsoever of letting them leave in peace.