Misunderstanding (2)
"Kkami!"
Jin-soo gave Kkami the order to scout.
"Kaaak!"
Wings snapping wide, Kkami launched into the air and knifed across the sky at tremendous speed.
"Let's move."
Jin-soo tucked Shin Sua under his arm and broke into a full sprint.
"Kyaa! What's gotten into you all of a sudden? What happened?"
"Players mistook the summons for monsters. They're chasing them."
"So this isn't something we can just shake off."
Hearing that, Shin Sua grasped how serious it was. Dismissing the summons would have been the simplest fix. But to do that?
We'd have to abandon every item the summons have gathered.
And that was not the end of it. With the Army Summons and the undead summons, unsummoning them meant giving up only the items they carried. The Dragon Tooth Soldiers were another matter. Letting them go would mean surrendering not only the loot, but the very materials they were forged from—the White Drake teeth and the Bone Dragon teeth.
Everything else aside, I absolutely cannot give up the White Drake teeth or the Bone Dragon teeth.
They were items that held the feat of being the first to slay the Out-of-Spec Monsters of Floor 50 and Floor 100, the White Drake and the Bone Dragon. No amount of points could ever buy them again. Across the entire Tower, Jin-soo alone possessed them.
Not that I mean to give up the rest, either.
Among the items the summons had stockpiled while hunting, there might be rare or unusual class-change scrolls, skill books, and equipment. For Jin-soo—granted two classes by his Blessing, and now holding Skill Synthesis and Skill Sharing—nothing was more valuable than a rare class-change scroll or skill book.
He was still sprinting with Shin Sua tucked under his arm when Kkami shared its vision.
Why have so many of them gathered?
Thousands of Players were spraying attack skills as they hounded his summons.
They think an Out-of-Spec Monster appeared, so Players from the highest-tier city came running.
Jin-soo frowned. He had kept the summons working the remote hunting grounds where Players rarely went, and still it had blown up in his face.
"You put a mask on too."
As he spoke, he drew a mask imbued with a Perception Reduction skill from his inventory and settled it over his face.
"Got it."
Shin Sua took an identical mask from her inventory and hid her face behind it.
Talking them down would be best.
No matter how long they hunted summons, the Players would never obtain the achievements, experience, or items they wanted. Tell them it was a misunderstanding, and the whole mess could be resolved cleanly.
The problem is the ones who won't listen.
The Tower overflowed with every variety of lunatic. Some might refuse to believe him and pick a fight for no reason. Others, convinced they had wasted their effort, might try the thug's trick of shaking him down for whatever they could get.
Those ones, I can educate.
Jin-soo ran toward the summons, and the summons moved toward him, so it was not long before they met.
"Huh? They stopped!"
"Form a perimeter!"
"Hit the Bone Dragon's wings first! Drop it, and the hunt gets easy!"
The Players moved as one and hurled their attack skills. Flame roared, ice cracked, and lightning snarled as every kind of offensive magic tore toward the Bone Dragon's wings.
Unsummon.
Jin-soo dismissed both Bone Dragons.
The two of them melted out of the empty air, their forms vanishing as if they had dissolved.
"Huh? What? Where'd they go all of a sudden?"
"I thought they didn't have a teleport skill?"
"Maybe if we catch that thing, it drops something like a teleport skill book?"
"Spread out and search! Find them, now!"
The Bone Dragons' sudden disappearance left the Players more than a little rattled.
If they'd just scatter on their own, that would be ideal.
From Jin-soo's side of it, recovering the White Drake teeth and the Bone Dragon teeth—the materials for the Dragon Tooth Soldiers—would have been enough.
"Then grab the rest of them, at least!"
"Take all of those down, and the Bone Dragon might show up again!"
Unfortunately, that was not how it went.
Dragon Tooth Soldiers were the classic minions of dragon-type monsters. Demi-Liches, Dullahans, Death Wizards, and Skeleton Knights were undead, the same as a Bone Dragon. It was only natural that the Players would assume the Dragon Tooth Soldiers and the undead summons were connected to it.
And they're not wrong. There is a connection.
The Bone Dragons, the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, and the undead monsters were all Jin-soo's summons.
Did I expect too much?
He had hoped a simple unsummon would settle it. That, it seemed, had been asking too much.
Jin-soo summoned the two Bone Dragons once more.
"KWOOOOAR!"
"KRRRRRNG!"
The difference this time was that he and Shin Sua were riding atop a Bone Dragon's head.
"The Bone Dragon's back!"
"Get back here and close the perimeter!"
"Attack! Attack now! We have to take it before it disappears again!"
The Players flew into an uproar.
"Wait, what's that? A person?"
"There's someone on the Bone Dragon's head!"
"Must be that lich we saw earlier!"
"Looks a little different, though. That lich summoned the undead, Bone Dragon included!"
They had spotted Jin-soo and Shin Sua astride the Bone Dragon's skull, and contrary to his expectation, they took the pair not for Players but for a lich—an undead monster.
The moment Jin-soo's shout rolled out, the Players who had been scrambling froze like stone.
"A Player?"
"The Bone Dragon's a summon?"
"Was that Korean?"
"I think it was."
"Can a Player even keep a Bone Dragon as a summon?"
"If they got lucky with a good class-change scroll or skill book, sure."
"Then what have we been doing all this time?"
"What else? Wasting our time."
The fighting spirit of the Players who had been burning to hunt two Bone Dragons snuffed out at once.
"Looking closer, they don't look like undead at all. More like statues. None of that corpse-feel undead usually have."
"Guess they really are summons."
"And we ran ourselves ragged for nothing. Damn it."
"I sprinted all the way out here until my feet were raw. For nothing."
"Whoever filed that report is not getting away with this."
Once it looked as though the situation would settle easily, Jin-soo unsummoned every summon, Bone Dragons included. Then he quickly gathered up the White Drake teeth and the Bone Dragon teeth—the real reason he had come all this way—and stored them in his inventory.
"Are you Korean?"
Someone addressed him first.
"I am."
Jin-soo admitted it readily. Speaking Korean made it likely one was Korean, but not certain. North Koreans, and foreigners of Korean descent, turned up often enough.
"Hahaha, a pleasure to meet you. I'm Han Sangwoon of the Daehan Guild. Meeting like this must be fate. Might I have a moment of your time?"
Goodwill was written all over Han Sangwoon's face.
He wants to pull me into the Daehan Guild, one way or another.
Even if he failed to bring Jin-soo into the guild, a personal connection was pure profit. From Han Sangwoon's position, the approach was only natural.
"I'm afraid I don't have the time. My apologies."
Disappointment crossed Han Sangwoon's face at the refusal.
"Do you perhaps bear some ill feeling toward the Daehan Guild?"
At the careful question, Jin-soo shook his head.
"Not at all. I maintained a good relationship with the Daehan Guild on Floor 100 as well."
"Ah, I see. Then I hope we can continue that good relationship here. The Daehan Guild's doors are open, so if you ever need help, please come find us anytime."
"Thank you for the consideration."
Jin-soo and Han Sangwoon were still exchanging that warm courtesy when someone cut in.
"Hey, you! Don't tell me you plan to leave us high and dry and just walk off."
"Do you have any idea how much time we wasted because of you? Why'd you mix us up and run us like a pack of mutts? How are you gonna make this right?"
"Robert, we were the ones who jumped to the wrong conclusion. What compensation are you expecting?"
"So the Daehan Guild doesn't need compensation, is that it? Then stay out of it. He's not even with your guild. Don't tell me you mean to stick your nose in."
Han Sangwoon had stepped forward to stop it and received a warning instead. He hesitated a moment, then let out a heavy sigh and turned away.
"All right. Let's talk real compensation. You paying in points? Or you lending us the Bone Dragon?"
Others piled on at Robert's words.
"Hey. The Phoenix Guild isn't planning to pocket the compensation all by itself, is it?"
"If he's lending out the Bone Dragon, it has to be fair for everyone."
"We've got a right to compensation too."
Others, watching the display, clicked their tongues as if the sight turned their stomachs.
"What do they think they're doing? Common thugs."
"Seriously. Have they no shame at all?"
"Both sides made a mistake. You back off, and that's the end of it. Compensation? Please."
The guild masters split. Far more of them, though, were itching to squeeze something out of him.
What tempted them most was the Bone Dragon loan that Robert, guild master of the Phoenix Guild, had proposed.
Summons obey their summoner.
Use a Bone Dragon, and our mobility shoots through the roof.
We could even have it tank boss monsters.
Play this right, and we could milk it for all it's worth.
Guild masters who sided with Robert clustered around him at once.
I wondered. Of course it turned out like this.
Lowlifes who inflated a small matter just to skim a profit existed everywhere.
"Cut the nonsense about compensation."
At Jin-soo's words, the faces of Robert and the other guild masters hardened to stone.
"One look is enough to see they aren't monsters, and you went and misunderstood on your own—now you're shouting? Be grateful I didn't blame you for attacking my summons."
If the other party was a decent person, treating them decently was enough. If they were thugs, Jin-soo had no reason to be the only one minding his manners.
"Ha. This bastard's lost his fear. And I'm supposed to be grateful you didn't blame us for hitting your summons? You saying that with a straight head?"
"The one who's lost his fear isn't me. It's you. And the one who's not in his right mind isn't me, either. It's you."
Jin-soo handed Robert's own words straight back. In that instant, Robert's face twisted like a vengeful ghost.
"What? You crazy? Where do you get off acting high and mighty? Say it again!"
"Why wouldn't I. The one who lost his fear isn't me, it's y—"
Jin-soo was calmly repeating what he had just said when Robert ripped a sword from his inventory, gripped it, and swung for Jin-soo's right arm with lightning speed.
Cold metal sheared through bone and flesh, and red blood sprayed across the earth.
"AAAAAGH! My arm! My arm!"
A pain-choked scream tore out of Robert. His right arm rolled across the ground, still clenched around the sword.
"W-what?"
"How is a summoner—?"
"I didn't even see the sword swing."
Shock flooded the faces of the guild masters who had moved with Robert. They were the top Players of Floor 150. Robert himself ranked among the best three of them.
And that Robert's arm had flown off in the blink of an eye.
I thought it'd be easy, since he unsummoned all of them.
He didn't dismiss them for nothing.
How can a summoner be that strong?
Did he use an item? Or a Unique-grade skill?
The reason Robert had pressed Jin-soo with such confidence, and the reason so many guild masters had backed him, was simple.
Jin-soo had unsummoned his summons.
The way to deal with a summoner was simple. Ignore the summons, and take the summoner.
Jin-soo had already dismissed them. Seize him before he could summon them again, they had thought, and whatever they wanted would fall easily into their hands.
That, it turned out, had been a colossal miscalculation.
"What are you standing around for? Pin that bastard down before he summons anything!"
Writhing in pain, Robert shouted at the other guild masters.
Jin-soo looked them over with an easy gaze and spoke.
"You agreed with him earlier, didn't you? Planning to do it again?"
At Jin-soo's question, the guild masters exchanged glances.