The Ring of Ouroboros

Buy it.

Jin-soo had turned the matter over for a long while. In the end, he decided to purchase the Ring of Ouroboros.

The talk of it being a cursed item is nothing but rumor anyway.

Setting everything else aside, the ring was worth buying for a single reason: it would keep the thing out of the Mad Demon's hands.

They said the losses during the Mad Demon's subjugation were catastrophic because of the Ring of Ouroboros.

The Mad Demon had been a lunatic in the most literal sense. He killed people for looking at him. He killed them for having a face he disliked, for standing in front of him, for passing beside him, for simply getting on his nerves. He was a true madman, carrying out endless slaughter for no reason at all, and the only reason he had been able to spread that infamy for so long was that he was far too strong.

The players who joined the subjugation were the ones on the side of good, or at least of neutrality.

In a Tower that was already hell, countless people who had managed to cling to the barest scrap of humanity lost their lives. More than half the dead in the subjugation force fell during his last, desperate rampage. If only to prevent that, buying the ring was the right call.

Jin-soo had bought the Ring of Ouroboros.

A brilliant flare burst, and a ring shaped like a serpent biting its own tail materialized before his eyes.

Not sure I'll ever have cause to use this.

He had no intention of testing which would win, the Blessing or Ouroboros's Greed. If the ring's greed happened to overpower the Blessing, half of every stat he held would vanish.

Well. I bought it. If a day comes when I need it, I'll use it.

With the Blessing behind him — high stats, high skill levels, synthesized skills, and two status windows — he doubted he would ever be driven into a true crisis. Even so.

There may come a day I have no choice.

Before his regression, Jin-soo had never broken through the wall of Floor 2,222. He was stronger now than he had been then, but even he did not know where the Tower ended. Floor 2,222 might be the summit. It might be Floor 3,000. For all he knew, the climb would not finish until Floor 10,000.

Keep climbing, and sooner or later I'll find a use for it.

Which stood higher, the Blessing or Ouroboros's Greed, could wait until that day. What actually worried him was the opposite — the Blessing crushing the ring's greed completely.

Then the option itself, a 125 percent increase to all stats, might not even take properly.

The ideal would be for the Blessing to preserve the extra 125 percent from the buff ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while simply ignoring the penalty that halved every stat.

Best of all, of course, would be never needing to use it at all.

Having secured the Ring of Ouroboros, Jin-soo looked through the auction house a little longer. Nothing else was worth buying.

Time to sleep.

He lay down on the bed and let sleep take him.

The next morning, Jin-soo and Shin Sua packed their inventories and treasure pouches full of necessities and left Starting City.

"Mraooown!"

Leo let out a pleased cry and drew the monsters in. With their summons beside them, Jin-soo and Shin Sua hunted at a steady pace and kept moving.

When the day sank, Jin-soo claimed a spot beside a stream.

"We'll sleep here tonight. Once the summons head outside, cast Sanctuary."

"Yeah, got it."

The Shadow Summons and the Stone Golem stepped beyond the skill's reach.

At Shin Sua's casting, the safe zone took hold around them.

"Then let's eat and get ready for bed."

Jin-soo lit a campfire and drew from his inventory the cuts of meat they would roast for supper.

"Nyaaown!"

Leo flailed in a fit of excitement, demanding his own share.

"Eat your fill."

Smiling, Jin-soo pulled out Leo's portion of monster meat and tossed it over.

Leo set to it in a frenzy, biting and tearing at a slab bigger than his own body.

That little thing has been eating meat nonstop since he woke up. After putting away that much, he's still hungry?

Add up every piece he had eaten from morning until now, and the pile would come to more than ten times his body.

Where does it all even go?

No wonder they called him a magic beast.

Not a shadow beast. A glutton beast.

It hardly mattered. Even if Leo's appetite grew worse than this, monster meat was something Jin-soo could supply without end.

"Let's eat too."

Fat hissed as Jin-soo laid the meat over the fire. They had brought plenty of food, and if it ran short they could always buy more at the auction house, so tonight's supper would be a generous one.

Shin Sua swallowed before she could help it, drawn by the savory smell of cooking meat. Jin-soo was just as hungry. They had only grabbed a rough lunch while hunting, so it was only natural.

We're by the water, and we've got a fire with meat on it. The monsters are going to swarm.

The proper way to use Sanctuary was to raise it on safe ground, somewhere monsters were unlikely to gather. Casting it near water, where they clustered, was something of a taboo.

Lighting a fire or roasting meat is the same.

A crimson blaze lighting up the dark was bound to catch their eyes, and once meat went on the fire the smell spread in every direction. It was no different from advertising to the monsters: I'm right here, come and eat me.

And a decent night's sleep becomes impossible.

They would keep attacking, trying to break Sanctuary. If the skill shattered under the assault, that was a problem. If it held, that was a problem too.

One wrong step, and a pack could have us surrounded.

In that situation, the moment Sanctuary was released they would be buried under a concentrated siege by a staggering number of monsters. Even an outstanding party would be clinging to life by a thread.

Good thing I learned Shadow Summons and Dragon Tooth Soldiers.

Jin-soo and Shin Sua were different. For a party that held summons this strong, monsters swarming in was an excellent turn of events. Even while the two of them slept, the Shadow Summons and the Stone Golem would hunt without pause, stacking experience and piling up items.

It'll be a little noisy. That's a price worth paying.

Jin-soo and Shin Sua roasted the meat and ate a late supper.

Growls and shrieks split the dark. Firelight and the rich smell of meat had called the monsters in, and the Shadow Summons and the Stone Golem cut them down as fast as they arrived — impacts cracking, blades shearing, bodies thudding into the dirt.

"What's the Stone Golem's level?"

"Two hundred twenty-nine."

"It's climbed a lot."

He had thought it was becoming fairly useful, and the level was higher than expected. Stone Golem was a skill earned by bringing down the gatekeeper of Floor 50. Level 229 was almost too high to believe if all of it had come from hunting between Floor 50 and Floor 100.

Well. Not impossible.

It hadn't been easy, either. Considering how little time Jin-soo and Shin Sua had taken to break from Floor 50 to Floor 100, it amounted to an absurd stretch of power-leveling crammed into a truly tiny span.

At low levels, skill levels shoot up fast.

It had passed 200. From here, the pace of leveling would slowly fall off.

"I kept it out even while we slept. Stone Golem Summon is the highest-level skill I have."

That was the fruit of hunting around the clock alongside the Shadow Summons and Dragon Tooth Soldiers under Jin-soo's command.

"You're doing well."

He could supply the summon-exclusive buffs himself, so it seemed perfectly fine to keep raising the Stone Golem — a general skill — and go on using it as a guard.

The catch is that the Blessing has to produce a class-level lock and a synthesized-skill level lock first.

Whether those would come, and when, even Jin-soo could not say.

"Doing well? I'm a healer. Is this really all right?"

"It's fine. It's fine. Nothing to worry about."

Jin-soo answered her with a smile.

Quite a few healers learned neutral summoning skills and used the summons as guards.

Give it time, though, and most of them give the summons up.

There were two reasons. First, a neutral summon skill book worth using was hard to obtain. Second, it was brutally difficult for a player of another class to raise a summon skill's level.

The level gap with the summon just keeps widening, until the skill gets shelved. That's how it goes for most of them.

There were rare exceptions.

Shin Sua and I will be one of those.

Jin-soo traded idle talk with her through the rest of supper, then sank into sleep.

Even while the two of them slept, the Shadow Summons and the Stone Golem kept diligently hunting the monsters drawn in by the light and the smell of meat, steel biting and bone cracking in the dark.

"Zhang Hong's party has been missing for two days?"

Zhou Tianguo, guild master of the Yellow Dragon Guild, twisted with rage.

"Yes. The guild members in Starting City sent word to that effect."

"What bastards did this!"

His face contorted like a vengeful ghost's. Zhang Hong was his sworn brother, and Zhang Hong's party had also included Zhou Tianyu — Zhou Tianguo's own younger brother by blood.

"I'll go myself. Assemble every elite in the guild."

If someone had done harm to Zhang Hong's party, Zhou Tianguo swore he would never forgive them, whether it was the Daehan Guild, the Phoenix Guild, or the American Alliance.

He formed a force of the Yellow Dragon Guild's elites and a specialist tracking team. The moment they reached Starting City, he set them to finding any trace of Zhang Hong's party, and that evening they discovered the site of a ferocious battle.

"A battle was fought here. Sir Zhang Hong's party appears to have been wiped out."

At the words of the assassin player who had learned a tracking skill, Zhou Tianguo's face flushed crimson.

"My sworn brother and my own little brother are dead..."

Zhang Hong had been with him since Floor 1, a sworn brother as close as blood. Zhou Tianyu was his only kin, reunited with him inside the Tower after countless twists of fate.

"Track them. And catch them, no matter what. Fail, and you die."

Killing intent poured off Guild Master Zhou Tianguo. The members of the Yellow Dragon Guild broke into a cold sweat, threw every pursuit skill they had into the hunt, and set off along the trail of those who had killed Zhang Hong's party.

Jin-soo and Shin Sua kept camping in the open, hunting monsters and clearing hidden dungeons as they traveled. Six days passed that way, and at last they reached their destination.

We got here faster than I expected.

It was the result of moving without rest, aside from time spent eating and sleeping.

"Let's go in."

"Yeah."

Jin-soo and Shin Sua entered the Undead Hidden Dungeon.

"Uwooooh!"

"Grrraaaah!"

"Kworrrk!"

The moment the mission appeared, zombies, skeletons, and ghouls revealed themselves.

Same as last time.

At first, undead monsters of low level and low grade showed themselves. Given time, higher ones emerged — giant zombies, skeleton warriors, fanged ghouls — undead whose level and grade had climbed a step further.

The easiest clear is to break through while the low-level, low-grade undead are still spawning and destroy the Black Mana Orb.

That was not what Jin-soo was after. He had no interest in something like a fastest-clear of the Undead Hidden Dungeon.

Unless it's a time-attack hidden dungeon, finishing quickly doesn't grant any ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bonus reward.

To Jin-soo, the Undead Hidden Dungeon was nothing more than an endlessly restocked hunting ground of undead, a place to raise his level and pile up achievements.

Let's hold out as long as we can.

The Glutton Ant Nest had been a prime hunting ground, and being able to stay only three days had left him bitterly disappointed. The Undead Hidden Dungeon was different. Stay three days or three months — there was no restriction at all. A true jackpot of a hunting ground. So Jin-soo meant to endure right up to the limit of what he could endure.

Fire roared and magic detonated. The moment Jin-soo and the Shadow Mage loosed their attack spells, a ferocious battle broke open.

"Guoooooh!"

"Grrraaaah!"

The undead main force was zombies and skeletons. Ghouls were few.

On the front line, the Shadow Knight, the Shadow Warrior, and the Stone Golem held the line in a solid defense. In the middle, the Shadow Assassin, the Shadow Archer, and the Shadow Mage poured in damage, while in the rear the Shadow Healer and Shin Sua devoted themselves to support, laying down blessings and protective skills. Jin-soo mixed magic attacks with his twin-sword art, striking and pulling back.

The difficulty is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠far too low.

If he put his mind to it, he felt he could destroy the Black Mana Orb this very moment.

I really have gotten stronger.

Before the regression, this was a dungeon he had barely cleared after suffering to the edge of death. Now it was easy — almost too easy. Jin-soo regulated his mana at his leisure and beat the undead down.

Achievements stacked, titles were earned, and then the change came.

Bones cracked and swelled. Hugely bulked giant zombies appeared. Skeleton warriors stepped out, and the proportion of ghouls rose.

The undead grades are finally starting to climb.

Even so, the main force was still ordinary zombies and skeletons.

No need to get impatient.

Zombies and skeletons gave experience, items, and achievements too. There was no reason to be disappointed just because the higher-grade undead were few.

Impacts detonated. Blades sheared. Claws raked. Bone crunched and split. Jin-soo was hunting the undead at his ease when new players arrived before the Undead Hidden Dungeon.