Bad Blood
There were always bastards whose words and their hands refused to match.
PK was possible even inside a city. Killing another player didn't get you barred from the gates, the shops, or the inns. But with so many eyes around, almost no one was bold enough to commit it in the open streets.
"Just die."
There was no reason to trust a man who had already tried to kill them and then insisted he wasn't a PK player.
"Kill me and the Minamoto Guild won't sit still!"
The man invoked one of the great guilds by name.
He was speaking Japanese, now that I think of it. Minamoto, maybe? Then why pull something like this?
In Jin-soo's memory, the Minamoto Guild was a pack of opportunists—weak before the strong, strong before the weak, and forever changing faces according to whatever profit was on the table. Even so, he had thought a guild of that size would know where to draw the line for the sake of its own face. He had never once seen a Minamoto player stoop to this kind of PK.
Then again, they were shameless enough.
It was possible they had been doing it all along, and he simply hadn't known before the regression. On every floor of the Tower, fresh climbers were easy meat for the veterans already entrenched there.
"You with Minamoto?"
"N-no. But I might as well be. Let me go, and I'll keep this quiet."
Has he lost his mind?
The dying man suddenly found his spine, as if he had decided Jin-soo was afraid of the Minamoto Guild.
"Yeah? Then killing you clean is simpler."
The color drained from the man's face.
"I told you—they'll retaliate if you kill me! I said I'd let it go if you just released me!"
"Didn't you say you weren't with Minamoto?"
"That's… well…"
His voice trailed off. He dropped his head, then forced the words out.
"The truth is, I'm with the Minamoto Guild's…"
The rest was simple. He was the guild master of an unofficial subordinate guild that took its orders from Minamoto.
"So you handle the work Minamoto can't do in the open?"
"Th-that's right."
"And the PK—Minamoto ordered that too?"
"Yes. In return they take about half of whatever we get."
"What are you, the yakuza?"
Jin-soo clicked his tongue.
I thought they at least kept to some kind of line. Turns out they were doing this behind everyone's back.
PK, hunting-ground control, dungeon monopolies, loan-sharking, unofficial retaliation—every act that would cause trouble if done openly, they ran through subordinate guilds they didn't officially command.
And if it ever blew up, they'd just claim they knew nothing.
"S-spare me and I'll live with my mouth shut. Please. Just let me live."
"Just die."
"A Minamoto officer knows I came here! Kill me and there will be trouble, I swear!"
"An officer knows?"
"Yes. He's the one who told us you were coming."
"Where were you supposed to meet him?"
"After dark. Every time, in that building over there. That's where I handed over the tribute."
The moment the words left his mouth, Jin-soo's sword moved.
A whistle of steel. A wet chop. The man's head left his shoulders.
From the start, Jin-soo had never intended to spare him—Minamoto member or unofficial subordinate, it didn't matter. He had committed PK. Jin-soo had only asked because the Minamoto connection made him curious, and because a root like that needed cutting.
"The Tower really is merciless."
Shin Sua murmured it with a bitter look.
"It is."
Jin-soo agreed with her on that much. In the Tower, strength was everything. Cause and justice weren't wholly absent, but they didn't weigh much. This was a place that ran on the law of predator and prey, where power was the only absolute truth.
"We're picking up bad blood with the Minamoto Guild again."
At Shin Sua's words, Jin-soo let out a short laugh.
Back on Floor 100, during the bone dragon raid, Minamoto had already stabbed him and Shin Sua in the back. They had barely set foot on Tower Floor 150 before the guild tangled them up in something ugly again. He didn't much care.
"This doesn't even qualify as bad blood. Don't worry about it."
The quarrel on Floor 100 was already finished. This time they had simply been attacked first and struck back. By Jin-soo's measure it wasn't a grudge at all—just a petty scrap.
Real bad blood doesn't end at this scale.
Only a string of large clashes, each side killing and being killed, deserved the name. Whether this incident swelled into that or fizzled out, no one could say. What Jin-soo did know was that he had no intention of standing still and taking hits just because the other side was a great guild.
"First, let's get a room."
He gathered the items dropped by the dead PK players and left.
"Struck out again today."
"Complete waste of time."
"It's the job. What can you do?"
"Hang in there."
"Yeah. Head in."
As darkness fell, the Minamoto players who had been waiting on the newcomers swapped duties with the night shift.
How much is today's take going to be?
Kiura, finished with his assignment, wore a smile that filled his whole face.
A low-ranking officer of the Minamoto Guild, he handled the intake of newcomers and managed the unofficial subordinate guilds operating out of the Starting City. For a man who had served as one of the guild master's closest aides on Floor 100, the work was little better than chores. Even if he had strutted around that floor calling himself a senior officer, on Tower Floor 150 he could only be a junior one.
At least they treat me better than a regular member.
Even the guild master had started here as a mid-level officer of the Starting City, so for Kiura's skill this much was something to be grateful for. He still held an officer's seat, after all.
Everyone weaker than that got demoted straight to the rank and file.
And the assignment itself was satisfying enough. It was troublesome, and hard to get any public credit for, but the side income was sweet. He could squeeze bribes out of newcomers and take kickbacks from the unofficial subordinate guilds. He could also stiffen his neck and lord it over the newcomers and the lower guild members, and no one would say a word.
Only two of them today, so the take won't be that big.
He had already passed word to a subordinate guild that two Korean players had arrived. It was something they did often, hunting the points and gear the newcomers carried.
Still, the equipment they were wearing looked expensive. A few tens of millions of points ought to be in it.
He felt no guilt. In a Tower where the strong ruled, wasn't weakness itself the crime? And Kiura believed that thinning out foreign players who might one day become rivals—while they could still be thinned—was good for Minamoto as well.
"Where the hell did those bastards go?"
He had sent his colleagues on ahead and arrived at the meeting place alone, and now his face twisted. The unofficial subordinates, who always waited for him first, were nowhere to be seen.
Something cold and metallic punched into his body.
"Huh?"
A burning pain flared through him. Kiura looked down, and his eyes found the blade that had run clean through his chest and come out the other side.
Why me—?
The thought went no further. His breath cut off, and he died on the spot.
The body that had been Kiura collapsed and rolled across the ground.
The shadow assassin, its target removed, collected the items Kiura had been wearing and the ones he dropped, then melted into the shadow and vanished.
Cleanup's done cleanly.
The shadow assassin returned after eliminating the Minamoto officer who had ordered the attack on Jin-soo and Shin Sua.
There's a dungeon on Tower Floor 150 I absolutely have to clear…
Jin-soo turned his thoughts to the schedule ahead. The ambush was already cleaned up. No need to dwell on it.
I need a clearer read on Leo's combat power.
After devouring the Dark Predator advancement book, Leo had shown him something his own eyes still struggled to believe—effortlessly preying on an opponent's skills and stats.
Do players and magic beasts run on different level systems even when they take the same class? How can he use a mid-tier skill right away instead of a basic one? And why is the effect that good?
Just as puzzling was Leo's attack power, which hadn't risen even after he swallowed skills and stats in a single gulp.
Nothing for it but to test him.
The only way forward was the hunting grounds, and monsters.
Come to think of it, Leo's never once looked afraid of a monster.
Beasts far larger than he was had charged him with killing intent, and Leo had gone on grooming his fur as if nothing were happening. Jin-soo had assumed it was simply because Leo never needed to fight himself.
That wasn't it.
When Leo had rushed the variant ice troll, there hadn't been a speck of hesitation or fear in the movement. Harder still to believe were his speed and the speed of his attacks.
Absurdly fast.
Fast enough that the variant ice troll could barely react.
Not so fast I couldn't have dodged it.
Even so, Jin-soo didn't believe that had been Leo's full strength.
He looked oddly at ease.
Toying with the variant ice troll, Leo had almost seemed to be enjoying himself.
If he hasn't simply lost his sense of fear…
Then he had an unshakable confidence that the variant ice troll's attacks could never touch him.
If he could talk, I'd just ask.
Leo was a shadow beast. His intelligence was considerable, but he couldn't speak the way a person could. The emotions that reached Jin-soo, his summoner, were fragmentary at best—hungry, bored, this is fun, I'm angry. That was as far as they went.
I'll confirm the details at the hunting grounds tomorrow.
He had cut his sleep short chasing the Dark Predator advancement book, and the fatigue had piled up more than a little.
Sleep first.
A full meal and a wash in warm water had only made the drowsiness heavier. Jin-soo sank into the soft bed and fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning, Jin-soo and Shin Sua went straight out to hunt.
First, sweep every achievement I can pick up around the Starting City.
In truth, the achievement work had already begun the moment they arrived on Tower Floor 150. After dealing with the ambushers, he had turned every summon except the shadow assassin loose on the hunting grounds. The assassin itself, once it had eliminated the Minamoto officer and handed over the items, had joined the hunt at once.
Someone might panic if they see a bone dragon.
He had ordered them to hunt as far from the city as possible, where people were scarcest, so it shouldn't become a real problem.
And I told them not to attack players.
If someone froze in terror at the sight of his summoned bone dragon, there was nothing Jin-soo could do about that. He wasn't about to keep his strongest summon off the field just because other players might be startled.
Auto-hunting is the one thing I won't give up.
That was the greatest advantage of keeping many summons. While Jin-soo ate, washed, and slept, their levels climbed on their own, and achievements and items piled up without him.
"Leo."
"Nyaaaaang!"
At Jin-soo's call, Leo threw his voice high and unleashed a wide-area taunt roar.
The ground shuddered under a thunder of footsteps, and monsters poured in from every side, snarling and howling as they came.
Then, without being told, Leo shot forward on his own.
"Kyaaaak!"
Fangs bared, he let out an adorable little hiss and sprayed cat punches in every direction.
His forepaws blurred. Head, shoulder, chest, arm, leg—he hammered the monsters in a continuous storm of blows, and every creature those paws struck began to drop like leaves in an autumn wind, shrieking as they fell.