The Mage Who Would Not Give Up

For a long while, the shopkeeper could not bring himself to take his hands off the Lightning skill book. It was the look of a man sending away something he had kept for a very long time.

Woojin took the book. A blue lightning sigil was etched into the worn cover.

The moment he used it, the book turned to blue light and seeped into his body. A magical formula engraved itself in his mind, and it matched the one he already knew, perfectly.

Lightning. Second-circle lightning-school magic, the very spell the Dekaron of his previous life had used — a slender bolt, hurled in a straight line.

Woojin opened his palm. A thin current crackled and leapt between his fingers, and the shopkeeper, seeing it, nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Y-you can't cast magic in here!"

"Ah. Sorry."

Woojin dismissed the spell at once. What he had just confirmed was enough.

This one's the same, too.

It was no different from Fireball. A skill book had to grant the right to cast before a spell could be used at all, and only then could he bring to bear the applications he had known in his previous life. Amplification. Chain. Penetration. Homing. Dispersion. One simple Lightning could be bent into dozens of shapes.

And inside the Tower, mana lay far thicker than it did outside. Cast the Dekaron way — drawing on the mana saturating the air itself — and there was no chance of it ever running dry.

Bit by bit, I'm starting to look like a mage again.

"How much is the next skill book?"

The shopkeeper's eyes went wide.

"Th-the next one?"

"Yes."

"Next is Ice Spear. The price is ten thousand gold..."

"Ten thousand gold."

Woojin nodded. An S-Rank clear of the third floor would pay three thousand gold, and the fourth would pay four thousand. To gather ten thousand, he would have to clear through the fifth floor at S-Rank.

Won't take long.

The shopkeeper, studying his face, asked carefully.

"Might I ask your name?"

"Dekaron."

"Dekaron..."

The shopkeeper's face went stiff.

"You don't mean the Dekaron who received an S-Rank on the first floor?"

"That would be me, most likely."

"And the second floor, just now...?"

"Yes."

The shopkeeper's pupils shook. A notice had rung through the entire Tower; there was no way he could have missed it. But he had never once imagined Dekaron was a mage — and still less that the man himself was the only customer who had ever bought a Fireball from this shop. He had simply assumed some high-ranking S-class hunter had come down to overwrite the records.

"M-my God."

He caught himself on the counter and swayed.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. My head, just for a moment..."

An S-Rank on the first floor, as a mage. An S-Rank on the second, right on its heels. And every coin of the reward poured into Lightning. This was nothing like the would-be mages he had watched fail, time after time. This was a true mage, walking a road no one else had taken.

The light in the shopkeeper's eyes changed.

"Mr. Dekaron."

"Yes."

"Please. You must come back."

"I will. I'll be back to buy Ice Spear."

"That too, but..."

He paused to choose his words, then bowed deeply from the waist.

Woojin tilted his head.

"Why would I give up?"

"Everyone who chose to be a mage gave up."

Bitterness clung to the shopkeeper's voice.

"At first, they all thought magic would make them strong. But they couldn't endure the price of the skill books, or the long cooldowns. In the end they picked up swords, or bows."

"Can't blame them. I understand. If you want to survive, you don't have much choice."

The shopkeeper looked at the empty case where Lightning had sat.

"Even so, now and then I used to wonder. Whether someday, someone might appear who could truly use magic."

"......"

"I hope today was that day."

In his previous life, magic had been the noblest and greatest of the arts. Noble or commoner, it made no difference — countless people had given their entire lives to becoming mages. In this world, magic had been thrown away for being inefficient and weak. To Dekaron, who had been a tenth-circle archmage, it was an absurdity he could hardly credit.

"Don't worry."

Woojin smiled, faint and sure.

"The magic I learned isn't weak."

He left the shop and went straight for the entrance to the third floor. Long after he was gone, the shopkeeper was still staring at the empty case. Then, for the first time in a very long while, he began to wipe away the dust that had gathered beneath it.

"Enter."

The world before his eyes washed white. A moment later his sight returned, and Woojin was standing in the heart of a dense forest. The trees packed every direction so thickly that even sunlight could barely get through.

Woojin looked slowly around.

The third floor was a hobgoblin and thirty goblin soldiers, wasn't it?

Soon, from beyond the trees, came the sound of regular footsteps. Thud. Thud. Thud. These were nothing like the goblins he had met on the first floor. The ones in the front rank carried great shields that hid half their bodies. Behind them, spearmen stood in ordered rows, and farther back the archers were already drawing their strings. At the very rear loomed a hobgoblin a full two heads taller than the rest — the unit captain, clad in thick armor, a massive greatsword in his hands.

The hobgoblin thrust the blade forward.

"Human spotted!"

"Form ranks!"

Feet pattered. The goblins moved as one. Shield-bearers locked together without a gap, making a wall, and spears slid out through it. The archers scattered among the trees and leveled their bows at Woojin. In a breath, the encirclement was complete.

Woojin watched with open interest.

"Hoh. They even hold formation."

It was an infantry formation he had faced more times than he could count in his previous life. Shields to stop the blow, spears to deny the approach, archers in the rear to pin the enemy down. The basic shape of it wasn't bad — if the one standing opposite them had been an ordinary hunter.

"This works out nicely."

Woojin raised his hand. Current crackled, and blue electricity bloomed between his fingers. Lightning, only just acquired. By design it was a simple thing: one bolt, fired straight, at a single foe. But to a tenth-circle archmage, a magical formula was not a law that had to be obeyed. It was material — something to be taken apart and put back together however he required.

At his will, the mana array that made up Lightning came undone. The bolt, gathered into a single stroke, thinned to thread. Dozens of strands. Then hundreds. Turned to something like a spider's web, the lightning left his fingertips and climbed into the trees. Current leapt from branch to branch and, in an instant, sheeted across the sky above the forest, until it seemed a vast net of electricity had been cast open overhead.

The hobgoblin, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the verge of ordering the charge, sensed something wrong and looked up. The dark forest was shining blue.

"What is that?"

Instinct screamed danger, and he roared.

"Shields up!"

Steel clacked. The goblins hoisted their shields as one. Watching them, Woojin let out a short laugh.

"You mean to stop lightning with those?"

His finger came down, lightly.

Thunder tore the sky in a long rolling crash, and the lightning spread overhead fell all at once toward the earth. It punched clean through the shield-bearer at the very front. The iron shield was no longer armor. It had become a lightning rod, hauling the current in. The bolt that had run him through jumped at once to a spearman, then to an archer, then to the goblin beside that one. Hundreds of strokes swept the entire unit. The tight formation the goblins had prided themselves on was, it turned out, a perfect road for electricity to travel.

"GRAAAAH!"

"Scatter!"

The hobgoblin captain gave the order, but far too late. Every time a goblin dropped, the current — suddenly with nowhere left to go — went looking for the next body. The first. The second. The tenth. The twentieth. They never even managed to run. They charred black where they stood.

In the end, only the captain remained. He flung his greatsword to the dirt, turned, and ran. Nothing was left of the commander who had stood so full of dignity a moment before. He was only a monster now, fleeing to stay alive.

Woojin crooked one finger. Every thread of current still wandering the ground drew together into a single stroke, and a pillar of blue lightning struck the hobgoblin dead-on. The huge body was swallowed whole by the light.

A moment later, Woojin looked around. Blackened corpses, and the acrid stink of scorched flesh — that was all the forest had left. An entire unit, annihilated in a handful of seconds. He shook the last of the current from his fingertips.

"Yeah. Lightning does its best work when they're packed in tight."

A message that had never appeared before had been added at the end. The light in Woojin's eyes changed.

"As I thought."

Renewing an S-Rank was recognized as additional Grace Period as well. The time remaining to the Republic of Korea had grown. In that moment, the meaning of the record he had set changed completely. It was not merely a special grade that paid out more rewards. From the first floor to the sixty-fourth, every floor previously capped at A-Rank could be renewed again. Thirty days a floor. Succeed on all of them, and that was sixty-four months — more than five years of time, bought back.

Of course, there was no guarantee he could take an S-Rank on every floor. But from the feel of things so far, it seemed entirely possible. Woojin smiled, small and quiet.

"Not four months. Five years..."

He might not even have to give up medical school. It wasn't any grand sense of mission, some vow to save every citizen of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nation. It was only this — to protect the peaceful second life that was his.

Tower Management Bureau Situation Room, Republic of Korea.

"Grace Period increase confirmed!"

At the staffer's shout, the situation room turned upside down.

"How many days, exactly?"

"Ninety! Exactly ninety days added to the remaining Grace Period!"

"That include the records from the first and second floors?"

"Yes, sir. Since this is the first time an S-Rank has ever been generated, it appears the records were recognized as belonging to a player of Korean nationality beginning with the third floor."

"Nationality's confirmed?"

"Yes. Korean affiliation is certain."

Sighs of relief drifted up from every corner.

A month. What the Republic of Korea needed more desperately than anything, right now, was time. The elite vanguard that had entered the sixty-fifth floor had been missing for a week, and the A-Rank renewals still left — floors sixty-one through sixty-four — numbered exactly four. Into that despair, an S-Rank no one had so much as imagined had appeared. It was nothing short of a miracle.

"Dekaron's identity?"

"We haven't identified him yet."

"The mage assessment — is it solid?"

"Every trace left at the first- and second-floor sites matches fire-school magic. However..."

The staffer trailed off.

"However what?"

"Fireball doesn't explain it."

The Situation Room Director frowned.

"Keep talking."

"The floor of the first floor melted across a radius of more than thirty meters. On the second, there's a crater over six meters deep..."

"Could it be a high-tier skill? An attack item?"

"Consumable items are penalized in the rank calculation. And a new hunter has no way of obtaining a high-tier skill."

The Situation Room Director frowned a moment longer, thinking, then spoke.

"Can we reconstruct the fight?"

"Impossible. All the observation equipment retains is the state just before reset, after the battle is already over."

"Then what in the world..."

Another staffer shot to their feet.

"Director!"

"What is it?"

"Dekaron has entered the fourth floor!"

"Already?"

Not even ten minutes had passed since the third-floor notice. No rest, no resupply — straight into the next floor?

"Pull up the fourth-floor data."

"Yes, sir!"

The fourth floor's information rose onto the main screen.

In an instant, the situation room went quiet.

Mana-Devouring Bats. Monsters that swallowed magical attacks and turned them into their own strength. The mage-breakers — the things that finally made even those who had stubbornly insisted on remaining mages give up. They were cited as the decisive reason mages had vanished from the Tower's upper floors. No matter how powerful the spell you fired, they ate it. The more a mage attacked, the stronger the monsters became. And so, on the fourth floor, mages had become dead weight, hiding behind their party and unable to do a thing, until most of them converted to some other class entirely.

One staffer muttered, barely above a breath.

"Worst floor there is for a mage..."

The Situation Room Director, watching the screen, spoke.

"So an S-Rank is off the table this time."

No one argued. They were all thinking the same thing.