Variant Lycanthrope (2)

"Jin-soo, if we head into the city, are you stopping by the Daehan Guild?"

Shin Sua asked.

"No. No point going out of our way."

The moment he dropped in on the Daehan Guild angling for a free bed and a meal, his movements would be mapped, and the odds of running into that chatterbox again would be a flat hundred percent. I can more or less guess what he's after, anyway. Kim Young-cheol's party was almost certainly staring down a breakthrough of Floor 100. He'll want as many strong Players around him as he can gather.

Even if bringing down Floor 100's gatekeeper together wasn't the aim, the Daehan Guild lost nothing by getting close to Jin-soo. Pull him into the guild through friendship and so much the better. Fail at that, and they could still lean on the fact that they were both Korean, stay friendly, and call on him the day the guild found itself in a crisis. That was Kim Young-cheol's way of moving through the world.

He had been the same on the Tower's 200th Floor—an easy, rounded sort of man with no enemies to his name. Not unpleasant. The kind of personality that felt familiar, somehow. He'd built a lot of connections. Those ties must have done him no small service in his climb through the Tower. And I was one of them.

Jin-soo had been among those who grew close to Kim Young-cheol, and before the Regression the two of them had helped each other more than a little. That he still thought well of the man even now said enough. When it came to managing relationships, Kim Young-cheol was exceptional. The Eight Mad Dogs joining the Daehan Guild was probably because they met him in the Starting City. A butterfly effect, born of what Jin-soo himself had set in motion.

Well then. Let's see what we got.

Kim Young-cheol's party had shown up and cut the fight short. Now the variant lycanthrope was dead, and it was time to see what the kill had yielded.

The Lycanthrope Lord's Heart. Not bad at all.

A fairly rare elixir, and it raised every stat—just not equally. Strength, Agility, Magic Power, and Spirit climbed by a mere ten, while Endurance and Stamina jumped by forty apiece. A classic tank elixir. If only I could take it myself.

Unfortunately, elixirs were useless to Jin-soo. I'll give it to Sua. He set the Lycanthrope Lord's Heart aside as Shin Sua's share.

It suited a tank best, but since every stat rose, another class could swallow it without issue. Endurance and Stamina are worth raising no matter the class. Mages and healers had it worse than most. The unallocated stats they gained when a class change and a level-up landed together were dumped automatically into Magic Power and Spirit, so aside from elixirs they had no way to grow Endurance or Stamina at all.

He could have sold it at the auction house and been done with it. There was no need for that anymore. We're long past having to hawk elixirs just to scrape together points. Once points were plentiful, he had stopped selling them and poured the investment into Shin Sua instead.

You can't swallow them forever, anyway. An elixir was still a drug. Take the same kind over and over, and tolerance set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in. The effect dwindled, and dwindled, until the stats stopped rising altogether.

And then there's caliber. Elixirs had grades of their own. One drawn from a monster of low accumulated karma lost its effect sharply—or failed outright—once a Player's own caliber climbed past a certain level. Put simply, the profit is in forcing down low-caliber elixirs while your level is still low, right up to the edge of tolerance.

The catch was that at low levels you didn't have the points to buy inferior elixirs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in those quantities. And by the time your level was high and your purse was fat? Your caliber has climbed so far that low-grade elixirs do nothing at all. High-grade ones were still an option, but the loss was permanent. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠total stats you could ever gain from elixirs shrank for good.

If they could raise stats without limit, they wouldn't trade at prices this modest. Elixirs were expensive enough. To anyone on the Tower's upper floors, though, that price was pocket change. If high-level Players had swept the market clean, mid- and low-level Players wouldn't even have gotten a look.

They didn't sweep it. The gap in caliber made inferior elixirs useless to them, so they never bothered to buy. And because they never bought, mid- and low-level Players could still afford them at prices that only stung a little. I'd eat them just fine, if I could.

Jin-soo's blessings saw to that. No matter how many elixirs he swallowed, his stats never rose. Investing them in Shin Sua, his only ally, was the rational choice.

"You eat this."

He handed her the Lycanthrope Lord's Heart and turned to the rest.

No job advancement book. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠skill books are almost all tank-exclusive. He would change into a tank class later, learn them, and then fuse them through Skill Synthesis. A quick sort, and he was about to move on to the next hunt when he caught sight of Shin Sua standing there with the Heart in her hands, staring at nothing.

"You're not going to eat it?"

It was a small, gem-like elixir. Swallowing it was no trouble.

"Do I even deserve to take this? I think it'd be better if you ate it, Jin-soo."

She said it with her head bowed low.

Is it because I've been dumping every elixir on her lately? He assumed she felt burdened, being the only one who got to take them.

"Eat it. You've more than earned it. Don't let it weigh on you."

Before the Regression, Shin Sua had been called the Holy Saintess—the greatest healer in the Tower. Feed her elixirs early and often, and she would outshine even that past self. Of that he was certain.

"Have I, though? I don't feel like I'm any help to you at all."

The lack of confidence in her voice told him he had guessed wrong. It isn't just the burden. She's lost her confidence. Her self-esteem had fallen with it. Is it because I picked up healer class skills? The Shadow Healer's existence probably played a part as well. Both of us are dark-attribute. The Shadow Healer, and me.

A dark-attribute healer and a holy-attribute healer overlapped in nothing but recovery skills. And even if Jin-soo later acquired a holy-attribute healer class, his class level would be a mere 2, limiting him to basic skills. Even casting the same blessing, the buffs Shin Sua can use outnumber mine by more than ten to one. More decisive still: no matter how high his class level climbed, no matter how many healer skills he stockpiled, he could never match her gift for casting at the exact right moment and landing the effect exactly where it was needed.

Some things effort can cover. Others belong only to people born with the talent. Those were things stats and skill levels couldn't measure. Identical stats, an identical class, identical skill levels—none of it guaranteed identical results. It had been the same when Jin-soo fought five Shadow Summons that matched his stats exactly. By stats and skill levels alone, he should never have been able to beat them. He should have lost, no question. And yet the victor hadn't been the five Shadow Summons. It had been Jin-soo.

The same goes for Shin Sua. Right now the gap in stats and skill levels was too wide for her to shine. Once the right conditions were in place, the whole picture would turn a full one-eighty.

"I was no help in the last fight either. All I did was hide."

But Shin Sua didn't know any of that, and her confidence had crumbled. Right. There was that, too. In the battles against the Shabel Guild and the Yellow Dragon Guild, she had laid blessings and protections on him, then done nothing but hide. From his side, it had only been to keep some stray blade from killing or maiming her. From hers, it could easily feel as if she were useless.

And the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set drove my defense through the roof. The buffs she could give were genuinely strong. His stats were simply so high that they barely showed. Pile that armor's massive defense on top of it, and her confidence had nowhere to go but down.

"Hiding? You did more than your share."

He said it with absolute certainty.

"I don't think so."

She murmured it, barely above a breath.

"If you'd been close, you could have recast a blessing or a protection the moment it faded, or thrown heals and purifications in real time. The situation just didn't allow it then. It's different now."

"That's..."

"Hear me out first."

He cut her off. Give her the floor now and she would only tear herself down, dig a hole, and crawl into it alone.

"You're getting stronger fast. You know that, don't you?"

"That's only because of your help."

The rapid level-ups, the pile of elixirs, the achievements, the skill books—every bit of it had come through him.

At words so full of sincerity, Shin Sua's eyes trembled hard. Instinct told her he wasn't lying.

"You really believe in me like that?"

"Yeah."

The certainty in that answer drew a bright smile out of her. She hadn't been able to believe in herself. She had thought herself pathetic and lacking, and nothing else. And still Jin-soo had believed in that same self with all his heart, and backed her with everything he had.

"Thank you."

Swearing she would repay that faith, Shin Sua put the Lycanthrope Lord's Heart in her mouth and swallowed it down.

You believed in me... I'll repay that. Jin-soo, I will never forget today. The way you believed in me—no matter the situation, no matter what happens, I will believe in you. Always.

It had nothing to do with the mana contract binding her to Jin-soo. This was Shin Sua's own resolve. Her own oath.

"Shall we get moving again?"

"Yeah. Let's."

She answered him with real strength in her voice.

All right. Time to dig a little deeper into Army Summons. For that, he needed monsters to hunt.

"Leo."

"Nyaaaaa!"

The call and the roar came as one.

"Grrrr!"

"Kyaaaang!"

It wasn't long before monsters came charging in.

"Hm?"

The numbers, though, were disappointing. Barely past twenty. This had been lycanthrope ground. Everything else had been hunted nearly to nothing. Kill them first. Test after.

A pack that size didn't need Jin-soo. The Shadow Summons, the Army Summons, and the stone golem finished the cleanup between them.

He turned the skill on an ordinary monster, hunting the exact limit of its slots.

"Huh?"

The skill had failed.

What? I don't even have a slot left to turn one ordinary monster into a summon? For a moment he wondered if any of this was real. Making the variant lycanthrope filled the roster exactly? So I can't turn even one normal monster into a summon? Something was off.

Wait. Could it be—?

A hypothesis surfaced. To test it, he dispelled the weakest of the Army Summons, then cast the skill on an ordinary monster once more.

Shaaaaak!

In an instant, one ordinary monster was reborn as a summon with a body like black obsidian. Jin-soo immediately cast Army Summons on another.

And once again, the skill failed to activate.

So that was it.

Dragon Tooth Soldiers ran on an overall slot capacity, and the share each summon claimed scaled with its strength. Kin skills, he had thought. Sovereign Necromancer and Dominator Necromancer would of course work the same way.

They didn't.

The slot limit on Army Summons had almost nothing to do with a monster's strength.

Six.

That was all it was. The hard cap on how many summons the skill could hold.