Out-of-Spec Monster (2)
Going this far to advise a Player isn't easy. They called her an NPC for convenience, but the waitress was nothing like a character out of a game. She's part of the System, but she isn't an artificial intelligence, and she isn't a machine.
They were living beings who felt joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, and so each of them had a temperament and a mind of their own. Ordinary NPCs think of nothing but how to squeeze points out of Players. They lied when a lie would serve, and when the information was something they were forbidden to falsify, they made sport of Players with cunning wordplay. Anything reliable cost effort—personal rapport, or at least the trouble of a proper tip.
If a small tip buys solid information, that's nothing but profit. Judging by her manner, this NPC waitress was not the sort to play those tricks. Jin-soo asked her a few questions, ordered a meal, and set a little extra down with the tip.
"Thank you. I'll tell the chef to cook it as well as he can. And please don't let what I said pass you by. If you want to live, you must leave this city."
She pressed the warning on Jin-soo and Shin Sua once more, earnest to the last.
The affectionate sort. An NPC who worried over you like that for nothing more than a modest tip was a rare thing.
"Fuck, that bitch has been spouting nothing but bad luck this whole time. My ears are about to scab over, so cut the bullshit and do your damn job, you whore."
The curse came from a Player at another table. The NPC waitress shrank, ducked her head low, and disappeared into the kitchen. Jin-soo's expression hardened, just a little, as he watched her go.
And who is that?
His eyes settled on the man who had spat the abuse.
"Hey! Chink! The hell are you staring at? I wasn't talking to you. That piss you off? What, you already sweet on that bitch?"
"Hehehe!"
"Sweet on an NPC? A ching-chang-chong might go for that. Keh keh keh!"
"You lost your party not that long ago, and women are already catching your eye?"
"Hey, miss. You're a healer, right? How about you dump him and come to our party? We'll treat you real nice."
"Yeah, come over and we'll take good care of you. Just the two of you left, you're gonna have a hard time staying alive. Join us and you won't die on a hunt."
They jeered as they said it, hooking their fingers into the corners of their eyes and pulling them into slits. Jin-soo's face went cold. So did Shin Sua's.
At the other tables, Players watched the thug party and the pair with bright, hungry interest, the way a man watches a fire burning on the far bank of a river.
Thugs. There was a saying that birds of a feather flocked together, and Players were no exception. Thugs make parties with thugs. Like drew to like, they moved as a pack, and the filth they got up to was never a surprise.
They don't even know how frightening an NPC under the System's protection is. An out-of-spec monster—the Bone Dragon—was closing on the city. Why, then, were the NPCs calmly tending their trades? Because neither a Player's attack nor a monster's could touch an NPC shielded by the System. And as a rule, an NPC's combat power sat above that of the Players on any floor of the Tower.
The restriction keeps an NPC from striking a Player first. From the NPC's side, that was hardly a wall. A little provocation, enough to draw the Player's attack, and the restriction could be stepped around. This waitress had only been too soft-hearted to hold her ground. Suppose she had needled them instead, turned it into a quarrel, and lured those Players into hitting her.
They'd have been beaten until the dust flew. In any ordinary circumstance, a Player could never defeat an NPC under the System's protection.
A day-old pup doesn't know to fear the tiger. Thuggish character and thuggish conduct were bad enough. Worse, they had no eye for the strong, and men like that did not live long. They weren't only baiting the NPC waitress. They were throwing racist words and racist gestures at Jin-soo and Shin Sua, picking a fight with both of them.
They act that way because they think they're the strong ones. A thug's habits never varied. Hard on the weak. Soft before the strong. They had decided the NPC waitress, Jin-soo, and Shin Sua were weaker than they were, and they were behaving accordingly. Look only at the surface, and the mistake was an easy one to make. The waitress was nothing but an ordinary woman, and the two who looked like Players were only two.
A normal party ran to about ten. Even a small one was five or six at the least. From the outside, Jin-soo and Shin Sua could easily be taken for losers who had lost their party to monsters and crawled into the city with their lives. And they heard me talking with the waitress. Certain the pair were not Players come from an upper city, the thugs had picked the fight in the open.
Here to hunt the Bone Dragon. Came to an upper city for it. The gear on them said that much. And like thugs, they're counting on numbers.
The Tower kept a handful of maxims. One of them was this: do not judge an opponent by appearances. The age a man seemed and the age he had lived were different things. The strength he showed and the strength he had were different things. Judge by the surface alone, and sooner or later you paid.
There's another about not picking fights with NPCs. And one about not running your mouth. These men had done, one after another, the things the Tower taught you not to do. Now came the bill.
Jin-soo stood.
"Oh? A chink, and he's got his feelings hurt?"
"Yeah? And what are you gonna do about it?"
"Maybe he's about to bow and politely ask us to apologize."
"Now that would be funny. Keh keh keh!"
He crossed the floor toward them, one unhurried step after another.
"Arrogant. Doesn't even know his place."
"Trying to look tough 'cause a woman's watching. That won't buy you a pass."
"He doesn't actually think the inside of the city is a no-PK safe zone, does he?"
"Ching-chang-chong? Maybe he does."
"Then how about we teach him something?"
One of them sent a fist whistling at Jin-soo without warning. The punch stopped dead, caught in his hand.
"Huh?"
"You didn't draw a weapon. I won't kill you."
He tightened his grip, and the bones of the hand crushed.
"AAAAAGH!"
The scream ripped out of the man.
"That little shit dares—!"
"Get him!"
The rest charged. Jin-soo seized the man with the ruined hand by the head.
"Aagh! My head!"
Holding him by the skull, Jin-soo swung the body like a club. The thugs rushing in went tumbling across the floor.
"Ghk! My nose!"
Blood poured red from the one whose nose bone had shattered. The others clutched faces, chests, waists, and arms, twisting in pain.
"You—!"
"That bastard!"
"I'll kill you!"
They spat filth and snarled like animals. The words were savage. Their bodies were not. No one came at him again, and no one drew a weapon. They had realized Jin-soo was stronger than they were.
We picked the wrong fight. Fuck.
Should've known the moment he crushed Colin the tank's fist in his bare hand.
Strength and speed on a completely different level.
Draw a weapon and we actually die.
More than eight years on Floor 100, and I've never seen one like him.
Damn it. Ran my mouth for nothing.
The thugs had become frightened dogs.
"Fuck, you dare lay a hand on us?"
"You picked the wrong people. We're with the American Alliance Guild."
"You think you walk away after this?"
"Come at us if you wanna die!"
All they did was bark. Not one of them dared to rush him.
"First, you take a beating."
With the words, Jin-soo took the Blood-Sucking Sword, sheath and all, and swung it like a club. Every time the scabbard came down, a wretched scream burst out. The thugs stopped resisting. They stopped threatening. They stopped invoking the guild. They stopped cursing.
"Ghk! W-we're sorry!"
"Let us off just this once! Agh!"
"Points! We'll give you points!"
"Items too! Please, stop hitting us!"
"Aagh! It hurts! It hurts!"
"We're sorry! We're sorry!"
All they did was take the blows and grovel at Jin-soo for mercy. He gave no sign of hearing a word. He simply kept hitting.
"Ghk! P-please, spare us."
"Ugh! Ghk!"
"Huuuk! Ghk! Ghk!"
Bones broke. Flesh split. Men who had looked neat and whole a moment before turned to rags in an instant.
When the long beating was done, Jin-soo turned his head and took in the room. The Players who had watched the start of the quarrel with fascinated faces looked away as one, or ducked their heads, fleeing his eyes.
"You want to apologize to me. Sincerely?"
Half corpses now, the thug Players answered at once.
"Yes. We do."
"We're sorry. We're sorry."
"We were wrong. We won't do it again."
"Please forgive us."
Tears and snot running, they flung themselves flat and begged with both hands pressed to the floor.
"Apologizing to me isn't where this ends."
At that they threw themselves down before Shin Sua, and before the NPC waitress just then coming out with the food that had been ordered.
"We were wrong."
"We're truly sorry."
"I must have lost my mind for a moment."
"We will never do it again."
They apologized, groveling. Afterward they stole careful glances at Jin-soo's face, and then, little by little, they began to rise. The apology was made. Now they meant to disappear without a sound.
"What do you think you're doing? Where are you going?"
The bodies inching upright froze like stone.
"We... we apologized, so we thought it might be all right to go now..."
One of them ventured it, and Jin-soo closed his hand around the sheathed Blood-Sucking Sword again. Their pupils shook as if unhinged. Their bodies began to tremble with no regard for what their owners wanted.
What? This isn't the end?
We're getting hit again? No. I don't want to.
At this rate he's going to beat us to death, isn't he?
What the hell do we have to do to get out of this hell?
They spun their thoughts madly, hunting for a way out of the moment, and one quick-witted thug found the answer.
"Please accept this. It's meant as an apology."
He offered, with careful courtesy, the items he had been wearing and the points he held. His companions, as if understanding only now, rushed to present Jin-soo with items and points of their own.
"Please take this too! We're begging you!"
"It isn't much, but at least this!"
Jin-soo did not trouble himself to refuse. He accepted the items and the points they offered up in the name of apology. A sincere apology, after all, was never made with the mouth. It was made with money.
"You book a room?"
He asked it of men who had given over every piece of armor and every weapon and now stood in their underwear.
"Yes! We did!"
"Second floor of this building!"
"The key to room twenty-two... it's here."
They answered with great courtesy and held the key out.
"There's ten of you. And you only booked the one?"
"We're sorry! There's hardly any lodging left..."
"But it's a two-room place!"
"It even has two beds! It isn't enough, but please, accept it!"
Jin-soo took the key with the expression of a man who had no other choice.
"Go on, then."
"Yes, sir! Understood!"
"Th-thank you!"
"We'll be going, then."
"Move, let's go!"
His permission had barely left his mouth before the thugs, stripped to their underwear, were gone from the building at lightning speed, hauling along bodies of broken bone, torn flesh, and bruise after bruise.