Chapter 72
did._TITLE: Not Dead Yet?
Not dead?
Yujun never got the chance to land a finishing blow on Choe Gangmin. Ban Soyeon and Cheon Sihyeon were already charging him, so he triggered Rapid Advance and shot forward instead. They crossed once, and the distance between them opened wider than before.
He ran straight for Choe Gangmin, sprawled on the ground, and was on him in a flash, driving his sword down at the man's head—
Clang!
Something blocked it. A shield that had sprung up out of nowhere caught the blade.
Crack!
The shield shattered in its place. In that same instant a formless force slammed hard into Yujun's body.
"Kh—!"
Cheon Sihyeon. The boy fired blast after blast of unidentifiable energy from his hands. It was invisible, and Yujun had no choice but to take two more of them square with his body.
"Why won't you die? You ate three of my attacks!"
"Why are you asking me."
Yujun took hold of his sword, looking comparatively unscathed. As expected—high defense had kept him alive. He drank a potion he'd kept tucked in his pocket. An ordinary player would have been torn to pieces by Cheon Sihyeon's attack.
The gear's holding up nicely.
From there he even brought Ancient Magic to bear, and the fight against the two from Coordination stretched long. Then Choe Gangmin opened his eyes, downed a potion, and the situation turned ugly.
Three of them really is too much.
Paranet had tried to help, but he was nowhere near capable of handling Coordination's members. He was neutralized in short order, and Yujun was left to face all three alone. Blood painted him from head to toe. He drank a potion every time a wound opened, but one bad instant and he could be gone.
Choe Gangmin was the weakest of them. Ban Soyeon and Cheon Sihyeon were strong past any comparison with him.
"I'll give you that. You're seriously strong. One on one, we'd have no choice but to lose."
Ban Soyeon said.
"Any other time, I'd want you in Coordination. But Uncle Gyutae already ordered us to kill you, so that isn't happening."
"What a shame."
Yujun's eyes swept the surroundings in a flash. No more help in sight, by the look of it. If this dragged on, the disadvantage would be his, and cold sweat traced his brow.
Burn a few of the consumables I've been saving, and I might still win...
It wasn't a certain method. Fail, and his life would be the thing at risk. He turned his mind to another way—a way to take three Coordination players at once. One at a time, he could kill them quickly, but their joint assault was vicious. Thin ice. He couldn't shake the sense that his head might come off at any moment.
No way to kill them right now.
His level was low. Far too low. The wall of level 500, and the gap it made, was enormous. Then the answer was simple. Face them once his level was higher.
"Shame it turned out like this, but I'm gonna need you to die."
Choe Gangmin said it with a smug little air.
"A minute ago you were laid out like a corpse. Bounced back quick, didn't you?"
Yujun needled him once. Gangmin's face didn't so much as twitch.
"You're the one who ends up dead. Don't get cocky."
"You sure?"
Yujun opened his inventory. Ban Soyeon's eyes went wide. She shouted and lunged—
"Stop him!"
Too late. Yujun drew the Abyss Entry Ticket and tore it on the spot. A sudden whirl of red light swallowed him and Paranet whole.
Fwaaash—!
Where the light had been, nothing remained.
"No..."
"......"
The three from Coordination couldn't smother laughs that came out hollow.
"The hell? How'd he do that?"
Choe Gangmin asked.
"He have a Space Movement scroll? Those things are stupid rare."
"It wasn't Space Movement."
Ban Soyeon cut the guess off flat.
"What? Not Space Movement? Why not?"
"There's no trace of mana at all. If it were Space Movement, it would have to connect somewhere."
"...Huh. Now that you say it. He didn't use mana, did he? Even an item leaves a trace. So tracking him through space is impossible, then?"
"Noona. We ought to look around real careful. He might've used a stealth skill."
"Not stealth either. He just vanished. That's all."
"Does that even make sense?"
"It happened, so I suppose it does."
"A pun... no, obviously not. Ha. Enough to make a ghost weep."
Choe Gangmin laughed, dumbfounded.
"Is now really the time to laugh?"
"Then what do you want me to do? It's not like we can find him."
For the first time, Ban Soyeon knit her brow.
"Haa. How am I supposed to explain this."
"To the leader?"
"Yeah."
"...Right. What do we even say."
"Tsk. Just in case, we search the area first."
"Yeah. Let's."
Pitch-black darkness. Through the spaces between, tiny insects drifted, shedding light.
Paranet peered about.
"W-where might this be?"
"The Abyss."
"The Abyss? I have never heard the name..."
"You wouldn't have. It isn't well known."
"An item brought us here?"
"Yeah."
"Those scoundrels must be thoroughly rattled."
"Probably."
"And if they should lie in wait? Until the moment we appear again."
"If they do, that suits me. They won't."
"Pardon?"
"By the time we leave here, a long while will have passed."
"What manner of place is this, exactly?"
A faint smile touched Yujun's mouth.
The Abyss. Highest-difficulty content, open only to users above level 400. The level restriction was 400 in name alone—send an actual level 400 in here and they died on the spot. It was a place even the level 500 veterans, max level back then, had barely cleared by gathering in force. That was the Abyss, and Yujun and Paranet were standing in it now. He explained as much to Paranet.
"Th-then are we not in dreadful danger? It feels as though we fled those villains only to walk into somewhere worse."
"We did."
"......And why, if I may?"
"Because the danger pays you back in kind."
"Pays us, you say?"
"Levels climb fast. Skills, traits. And more than anything, consumables drop in piles."
"Mmm......"
Paranet did not look easily convinced. Whatever the skeleton thought, Yujun didn't care. He had meant to come to the Abyss eventually.
No. Not eventually. He had been going to come soon anyway. This had only moved the timetable up a little.
Yujun set his keen senses to work. The air of the Abyss was thick and foul, and through it he could feel the small lives that dwelled here. The Abyss was not the name of any single place. This was a world apart—an entirely different dimension from the one he had left.
Hearing the explanation, Paranet rapped his own skull.
"Is it akin to the Demon Realm?"
"Yeah. Different place from the Demon Realm, but the feel is similar... if you can even call it that. You'll know once you see it."
Yujun simply walked. The air here was familiar, which meant he knew the road.
Good. The start is the same as before.
Small insects, giving off light. Not fireflies. He and Paranet had been walking on in silence when the ground boomed in a steady rhythm.
Thud! Thud!
"Wh-whatever is that?"
"The Gatekeeper Giant."
"A Gatekeeper Giant? Should 'giant' mean that creature there?"
Paranet's bony finger indicated the way. Even through the dark, a living thing enormous enough to see plain as day was striding along. Yujun nodded.
"Tenth Layer. We came to the right place."
"The Tenth Layer?"
"The very mouth of the Abyss. They say if you can't pass here, you aren't qualified to enter the true Abyss."
"Hah. Is there truly nothing Master does not know?"
"I know what I know. There's far more I don't."
He had lost five years. What he didn't know was bound to outweigh what he did. In exchange, he had the choice information down cold.
"Hardly. I have lived decades longer than you, and yet I know nothing at all."
"You were just a man from the old days. Locked in a dungeon the whole time—what would you even—"
"Nnngh. Cutting me to the bone again."
"Where else is there to hit? You're nothing but bone."
Paranet's lip stuck out a mile.
"Master. Are we, by chance, meant to slay that Gatekeeper Giant?"
"Yeah."
"Good heavens."
"You think they call him a gatekeeper for nothing?"
"Can we?"
"This is only the Tenth Layer. The closer you get to the First Layer, the stronger they come, and that Gatekeeper Giant might as well be the weakest thing in the Abyss."
"Dreadfully large, for the weakest."
"And that's all he is."
Yujun cast Ancient Magic. Blue thread slipped from his body and bound the distant giant's feet, thickening as it grew. Mid-stride, the Gatekeeper Giant went over.
BOOOOM! KRUUM.
One tremendous crash. The mass of the thing was so great it felt like an earthquake, and dust billowed up in a choking cloud. Yujun burst forward. Flight magic carried him onto the back of the giant's head, and he triggered Slash.
BOOM!
That was the end of it. The Gatekeeper Giant moved no more.
Paranet, sprinting up from behind, stopped dead.
"Whoa..."
"What are you marveling at. I told you this one's nothing. Those Coordination bastards are just freakishly strong."
"So it would seem."
You have defeated the Gatekeeper Giant!
The door leading to the lower layer has opened.
Find the entrance to the Ninth Layer before the gatekeeper revives!
An entrance leading to the Ninth Layer had appeared.
One step.
Reaching the First Layer was the final objective in the Abyss. Fail that, and there was no returning to where they had come from. Yujun knew where the entrance was, and he found it at once.
Hasn't moved. Same as before.
The way into the Ninth Layer was a space that felt like violet light being drawn into a single point. Yujun stepped into it, and his vision flared bright.
If the Tenth Layer's theme had been darkness and thick smoke, the Ninth was open grassland, sunlight blazing overhead—a backdrop that didn't suit the name Abyss in the slightest.
You have entered the Ninth Layer!
Paranet jumped.
"Master? The unallocated points—they rose..."
"I know."
"You knew of this beforehand?"
"Yeah."
"There. You see? Nothing escapes Master, just as I said."
"Spend the unallocated points first. Drop your guard in the Abyss and you're dead."
"At once, Master!"
Paranet answered with spirit and swept their surroundings. Yujun, for his part, wasn't easing off either. In the Ninth Layer, the Assassin Fiends appeared—peculiar monsters, stealthy, and without form. Not ghosts, and not wraiths. If he had to put a name to them, sleek hunters in invisible suits. Their strength was nothing to dismiss, either. They showed up here in the Ninth, and their levels reached 430.
"Stay sharp."
"Heh heh. Is Master worried for me? I may not look it, but survival is my art. Any threat turned my way, I sense sooner than anyone—on the instant."
"Good. Then point me at them."
"Yes. The danger is directly to our right."
Yujun didn't hesitate. He swung his sword to the right.
Shhk!
Crimson blood spilled out of empty air, and the Assassin Fiend that had been closing on him collapsed to the ground. The shape was close to a goblin's, only thicker with muscle. An Assassin Fiend showed its form for the first time only once it died this way.
Yujun decided to lean on Ancient Magic, the same way he had against Choe Gangmin, and searched for the ones hiding nearby. Faint shapes of Assassin Fiends lying in wait around them came into view.
Well now. This many, hiding this close?
A rough count put them past thirty. These grotesque things had been watching, waiting for any chance to take his life.
In this world's lore, the Assassin Fiends pick out players and eat no one else.
That was why they had tried to kill him the moment they saw him.
Tap!
Yujun kicked off the ground.