The Goblin Champion (2)

"Kruk?"

The Goblin Champion cocked its head at Jin-soo.

"Krrrrk!"

A bright, hideous smile spread across its face. Then it lunged, and the massive two-handed axe came crashing down.

Jin-soo lashed the axe aside with the sword in his left hand and, in the same breath, whipped the blade in his right through the air. The champion's chest tore open, and red blood poured down in a sheet.

Too shallow. He had meant to split the breastbone clean through, but the Goblin Champion reacted faster than he'd expected, and all he managed was a shallow cut across the hide.

"Kuwaaaaaargh!"

Wounded, the champion erupted in a roar thick with rage, and a blood-red haze coiled around its entire body at the same instant.

Berserk. The skill monsters used more than any other.

The champion poured on a savage assault. Jin-soo dodged, blocked, and let the blows slide past in measured turns, answering with swings of his own, and wounds opened across the creature's body one after another. The Goblin Champion's stats were higher than his, and Jin-soo had not learned a single skill.

The axe became wreathed in that blood-red haze, and the force of the attacks surged with it—not power alone. The speed of the swings climbed as well.

Weapon Enhancement and Attack Speed Increase. Three skills in all.

I don't have any skills I've learned. But I've got the gear. Aggravation.

Jin-soo triggered the option on his Ring of Aggravation.

Every wound he had carved, large and small, tore open at once and sprayed red blood.

"Kuuuwaaaargh!"

Bleeding from head to toe, the Goblin Champion fixed bloodshot eyes on him and drove in harder still. Jin-soo's sword shuddered as if it might fly apart at any moment. It was the cheap longsword handed out as basic gear; of course its durability was miserable. He was only holding the blade together by pouring mana into it. A pure weapon-against-weapon clash would have shattered it on the very first impact.

He committed himself to defense and waited, calm, for an opening. Then the sword in his right hand failed to stop the two-handed axe and burst apart.

"Krrrk!"

The Goblin Champion, as if certain of victory, moved to strike again—and Jin-soo drove the dagger at his waist into its left leg.

"Kieeeek!"

The champion bellowed and swung the axe at him. Jin-soo slipped lightly back, drew a spear from his treasure pouch, and hurled it. The champion smashed the spear in a single blow and closed the distance, but Jin-soo's manner stayed easy.

The Goblin Champion's combat power is exceptional. Its speed, however, was not. My overall stats are lower, but Agility is another matter.

The creature had been chosen as Floor 1's gatekeeper precisely because its agility lagged so far behind its combat power. If the Goblin Champion were quick on its feet as well, clearing Floor 1 would be impossible from the start.

Berserk, Weapon Enhancement, and Attack Speed Increase raised combat power alone. They did nothing for movement speed.

Jin-soo bought time at his leisure, flinging spears and daggers. Between the wounds Aggravation had torn open and the poisoned dagger buried in the champion's thigh, time was on his side. When the spears and daggers ran out, he pulled spare longswords from the treasure pouch, took one in each hand, and kept the fight going—widening the gap, slipping the attacks, blocking just enough.

"Kyaruk!"

The blood-red haze wrapping the champion's body and axe vanished. Berserk and Weapon Enhancement had released, and the speed of the axe had slowed as well.

Attack Speed Increase dropped too. It had clearly run out of the mana to keep its skills going.

Jin-soo, who until then had done nothing but keep his distance and defend, broke into a charge.

"Kyaaaaak!"

The champion roared with fury and swung the two-handed axe. Jin-soo knocked it lightly aside with the sword in his left hand, and in the same instant the blade in his right took the Goblin Champion's head clean off.

The headless corpse toppled with a heavy thud and rolled limply across the ground.

Jin-soo let out a long breath. It had been an Out-of-Spec Monster, its stats higher than his across the board, a foe that should have been impossible to bring down. His weapons had been nothing special, and aside from Aggravation he had neither attack skills nor buffs. Barely two days had passed since he entered the Tower, and his body was still half-green.

Even so, I killed it.

A smile rose to his lips of its own accord.

The rewards are generous, too.

Four titles, three skill books, and on top of that a class-change document. Considering that players, on average, obtained such a document and changed class somewhere around Floor 50, it was a truly staggering reward. He had leveled up more than forty times.

Well, they vanished again almost at once.

A shame. But there was no need to worry.

The blessings promptly spat those generous rewards back out.

Let's see.

Jin-soo called up the information on the blessings.

Every stat had become 222. The buff values, too, had all unified at 12.2 percent.

Total stats, 1,494. That's an enormous jump.

Compared to a moment ago, his stats had nearly doubled.

And if I add the increases to attack, defense, and recovery? It was no exaggeration to say his actual combat power had risen four or five times over in an instant.

There were skill books, too. Goblin's Calamity, Master of Dual Swordsmanship, and Master of Throwing.

All of them passives.

Goblin's Calamity raised attack and defense by 5 percent when the target was a goblin. Master of Dual Swordsmanship raised attack by 5 percent when he used dual swords. Master of Throwing raised accuracy and attack by 5 percent when he threw a weapon.

Nice.

If they had been skills that increased base stats, the blessings would have left them with little use. Percentage increases don't take the penalty from the blessings.

Smiling, Jin-soo picked up the two-handed axe the Goblin Champion had wielded.

I don't fight with axes, but... Set against a level-1 basic weapon, this axe was level 132. I can sell it later.

He stowed the axe in his treasure pouch and turned to the last of the rewards, the class-change document for Blood Demon Swordsman.

Dark affinity.

Jin-soo sank into thought.

Players' classes were broadly divided into the Holy affinity and the Dark affinity. Holy specialized in blessings, recovery, and defense. Dark specialized in curses, aggravation, and offense. A player who advanced into a Holy class could not later advance into a higher Dark class, and a player who advanced into a Dark class could not advance into a higher Holy class either.

Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Even the same common skill changed drastically in power depending on whether one walked the Holy line or the Dark. The branches and power of class-exclusive skills are completely different, too. What matters is whether I make the same choice as before my regression, or a different one.

Before his regression, Jin-soo had reached the pinnacle of the Dark affinity.

And that person was the pinnacle of the Holy affinity.

The first challenger to attempt Floor 2,222, and the first to fail. That person had always been one step ahead of him.

Should I choose a Dark class—a road I've already walked once? He would certainly grow stronger faster than he had before regressing. But if he chose Dark, he would have to give up yet again the advantages of the Holy affinity that he had always regretted missing.

And if I choose Holy... he would have to walk a road he had never taken.

He had confidence, of course. Taking a different path would not erase the experience of having stood at the peak of one field. Still, choosing Holy meant abandoning the Dark advantages he had put to such good use before his regression. And because it was a road he would be walking for the first time, rather than one he had already traveled, there was no guarantee he would grow stronger than if he chose Dark.

The safe road, or the gamble.

Jin-soo fell into deep thought. Then he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠set the decision aside.

No need to decide right this moment.It's not as if the class-change document has an expiration date.

He placed the Blood Demon Swordsman document into his treasure pouch. He would change class after he had settled, in his own mind, which road to take.

For now, I'll match the timing and go up to Floor 2.

Jin-soo checked the time he was still permitted to remain on Floor 1. The instant his stay, counted from his arrival, reached two days, twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds, he turned his steps toward the gateway.

The moment he passed through, a wash of brilliant light wrapped his body.

Floor 2.

The thought had barely formed when the messages came.

A single title snuffed out—

—and the blessings rose, one after another.

So this is Floor 2.

There was no way the blessings would grow this much from devouring a single title. This was the reward for reaching Floor 2 in two days, twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds.

What went up this time?

Jin-soo checked the blessings again.

His stats had risen from 222 to 322.

Huh? At the very end of the blessings, two strange lines had appeared.

Status windows increase to two? And that was not the end of it.

The skill Status Window Switch?

The most perfect solution imaginable had just appeared—so complete that the dilemma he had been turning over only moments ago turned suddenly, almost laughably, hollow.