Adapting to a Ruined World (2)
The thugs froze where they stood.
"……."
Even the boss, who had been running his mouth a moment earlier, clamped his lips shut.
They too had sparred with one another ever since becoming Climbers. That was how they knew exactly how strong the man who had just died had been.
If that had been me standing in front of him… could I have finished it that cleanly?
The answer was no.
Only then did every grim possibility flood in. What if the guy ahead of them had already cleared the third floor or higher?
The boss's grip tightened white-knuckle hard around his sword hilt. There could be no more underestimating the man.
He's killed before.
This wasn't simply a matter of who was stronger. No matter how skilled an opponent might be, if they had never taken a life, the boss had always been confident he could win. Hesitation always bled into their sword strokes.
But this?
That last strike had been far too natural—calm and precise, as if he were merely cutting down a monster.
That changed everything.
"Take that one out first!"
The boss had survived countless brawls; his instincts were still sharp. Among the figures before him, the most dangerous was clearly the one holding the sword. That much was easy to read.
"What the hell are you waiting for, you bastards?! I said hit him first!"
Yet even under their boss's roar, the thugs only flinched. None of them looked ready to move.
Hit him? Hit him how?
If I jump in first and end up like that guy, then what?
If you want him hit, Boss, you go first. Then maybe the rest of us will follow.
These weren't trained fighters—just street punks. Loyalty was a foreign concept, especially when their lives hung in the balance.
Hyun Si-woon didn't wait for them to decide. He launched himself forward.
A complete rabble.
He had no intention of giving them time. Fear was an opening, and openings were meant to be taken.
Cut the head off the snake first.
That was all the emotion he allowed himself. From the moment these men had marked his party for death, he had forced himself not to see them as human.
They're just…
Monsters wearing human skin.
"You useless pieces of—!"
The boss raised his blade on pure reflex, but Si-woon's sword was faster and sharper than expected.
Clang!
Si-woon's edge smashed hard against the boss's blade. A dull scrape of metal, and the man's arm was driven back a fraction. That tiny opening was all Si-woon needed. He twisted his waist and drove in. Lightning-quick, his blade sliced across the wrist that held the sword.
He hadn't even used a martial technique. Simply following instinct had been enough; the gap in skill was that wide.
Slice!
"Gaaaaah!"
The sickening sound of tendons and flesh parting tore from the boss's throat in a raw scream. His fingers went slack; the sword clattered uselessly to the ground.
Clink!
Tsk tsk. A warrior who drops his sword over a little cut to the wrist? You deserve to die, you wretch.
Ha-wol clicked her tongue inside the sword.
Before the boss could even writhe, Si-woon's emotionless eyes locked onto the face beyond the severed wrist—eyes already flooding with terror.
"Ah… aaah…"
Thrust!
No hesitation. Exactly as he had killed the first man, Si-woon's blade punched clean through the throat.
A choked gurgle. The boss's eyes went wide and empty. Thick streams of blood burst free as he toppled forward and collapsed.
The tide of the fight had turned completely.
"Eek!"
"R-run!"
The two remaining thugs lost every shred of will to fight. Only one word remained in their heads: survive.
"Hyaaaaah!"
"Somebody save me!"
They bolted—but Kang Si-a had no intention of letting them go.
Whiiish!
A single arrow screamed through the air and punched clean through the right calf of one fleeing man.
"Gyaaah!"
His leg gave out; he crumpled with a scream. It was a ruthlessly precise shot.
Baek Yeon-ho was already charging the fallen thug. Every member of the party understood without words: their leader wanted these men dead. The cold aura radiating from Si-woon, the total absence of hesitation in his killing intent—it said everything.
If this is the leader's choice, I'll follow it without question.
They tried to tear our team apart and humiliate us. No way I'm letting that slide.
Honestly? It feels good.
All of them found themselves drawn to Si-woon's decisiveness and cold clarity. The most important reason they had formed a team was survival. And to survive, soft hearts were a liability. Sometimes you had to be cruel to your enemies. Anything that threatened the group had to be rooted out completely.
Si-woon was demonstrating that harsh, difficult truth without a flicker of doubt. His ruthlessness no longer looked like mere violence; it registered as clear-eyed judgment made for the entire team's survival.
"Guhhhk—!"
Another thug went down. Kang Si-a's arrow had driven through his thigh. Hwang Dae-un closed in next, eyes blazing with fury.
"You son of a bitch! Die! You're the one who ripped noona's clothes, aren't you?!"
Dae-un steeled his heart and brought his weapon down again and again.
Thud! Crack! Thud!
He hammered the fallen man's skull, thoroughly punishing the one who had tried to take his life. Shock still flickered through him, but regret never came.
And then the last one.
The thug pinned beneath Baek Yeon-ho was trembling so hard his teeth chattered, pure terror drowning him.
Step. Step.
Hyun Si-woon approached, bloodied sword held loosely at his side.
"I—I'm sorry! Please spare me! I-I'll do anything you say!"
The man pressed his forehead into the dirt and begged for his life.
"Just… just let me live…"
Si-woon stopped in front of him.
Spare you?
The filth these men had spewed at Hwang Dae-un and Jang Cha-yul only minutes earlier flashed through his mind. If the tables had been turned, would they have shown mercy?
He didn't bother asking. Of course not.
Instead of questions, he set the tip of his sword against the left side of the man's back—right over the heart.
"P-p-p-please…!"
At Si-woon's signal, Yeon-ho released his hold and stepped away.
Thrust!
The blade punched straight through the heart.
"Khuhk!"
A short, wet sound, and the body went limp.
Huhu. Not bad at all.
Ha-wol watched the entire sequence with clear satisfaction and gave a small nod.
For a first kill, that was remarkably clean. Severing an enemy's breath without hesitation—that is one of the marks of the strong. However.
Satisfaction laced her voice, yet something colder rode beneath it.
Remember this well. What you cut down was not simple life. It was an obstacle that threatened your companions and stood in the way of your survival. You will face such things countless times from now on. Each time, recall this moment so that your blade never grows dull.
Praise and warning in the same breath. Become accustomed to killing, yet never forget its weight? Or was it a lash urging him to grow even colder if he meant to live?
Probably both.
Si-woon gave no answer. He simply flicked the blood from his sword once more.
Adapting to a ruined world…
Perhaps it was nothing more than the endless process of re-examining the meaning of the blood on your own hands.
Their words had been correct.
When a Climber died, every item and TC they carried dropped to the ground. Around the four corpses, faintly glowing items and small bundles of coins lay scattered.
Looks like some old game I used to play.
Si-woon glanced down briefly, then reached for the nearest sword.
Ownerless goods apparently transferred ownership the moment you touched them. And the coin bundles?
Acquired 18 TC.
Broke as hell.
Less than he'd hoped. Then again, they had only been Climbers attempting the second floor.
"Gather everything."
Si-woon gave the order. Collecting the spoils was only natural. The rest of the party moved without a word, sweeping up every last item.
Once it was done, they left the blood-soaked scene behind and headed back toward the abandoned building. The sky overhead was clear, yet the weight of what they had just done settled heavily over each of them.
On the walk back, silence held. Each of them sank into their own thoughts.
Hwang Dae-un stared down at his hands, still stained with blood and brain matter. The sickening sensation of smashing a skull with a blunt weapon remained vivid. Relief washed through him—and right behind it, revulsion.
Do I regret it?
He asked himself honestly. For the first time in his life he had taken a human life, and he had done it with raw brutality. As an elite judo athlete he had slammed countless rivals onto the mat, but this was an entirely different dimension of experience. Guilt would have been natural.
No.
He felt none. Even if he could go back, he would make the same choice.
Those bastards deserved to die.
If Hyun Si-woon hyung-nim hadn't been there… what would have happened to him and Cha-yul noona? Just thinking about it made his skin crawl.
Step. Step.
Si-woon's back moved ahead of him. Dae-un swallowed hard without meaning to. The image of the man cutting throats and piercing hearts without a single moment of hesitation replayed behind his eyes. The sequence of slicing a wrist and then driving the blade into a neck had flowed as naturally as a perfectly practiced form. Those cold eyes had held no emotion at all. After committing murder he hadn't so much as twitched.
A strong person.
As a judoka, Dae-un had met many strong people—Olympic medalists, world champions, the legendary coaches who raised them. Physical strength, mental strength, technical strength… he had seen every kind.
Yet Hyun Si-woon stood beyond all of them. It wasn't simply superior physique or polished technique. It was the ice-cold judgment in crisis, the absolute refusal to hesitate once a goal was set, and the overwhelming charisma that bent an entire team to his will. Above all… that merciless edge optimized purely for survival, the willingness to take an enemy's life without flinching.
I'll follow him no matter what.
Awe began to shine in Dae-un's eyes. Guilt and revulsion faded; in their place, absolute trust and loyalty toward Hyun Si-woon took deep root.
The others felt the same.
Jang Cha-yul walked with her eyes fixed on the ground, clutching the clothes Kang Si-a had given her tightly closed. The horror of those moments still clawed at her, yet at the same time a fierce will to live—something she had never felt so sharply—rose inside her chest. Si-woon's cold execution had been a shock, but in another sense it had been salvation.
If he hadn't been there…
She shook her head hard. She didn't want to finish the thought. What mattered was that they were alive, and that to stay alive they would have to become just as strong.
Kang Si-a and Baek Yeon-ho walked with relatively calm faces, yet a quiet thrill still pulsed inside both of them.
The leader I chose is even stronger than I thought.
Our training isn't a waste after all.
At least if we stay with him, we won't die for nothing.
Each of them digested the day's events in their own way—and every one of them came out of it more positive than before.
The next day.
Before dawn even broke, the members gathered at the training ground. Hyun Si-woon looked them over and spoke. His voice was as calm as the early morning air, yet steel ran beneath every word.
"Exactly one week from now, we head to the third floor."
Eyes widened at the aggressive schedule, but no one raised an objection.
"There's no need to hunt for information. I already know everything. The only thing we focus on is training."
His gaze moved from one face to the next. In truth it was Ha-wol's gaze as well.
"For the next week you're going to experience hell. It may be harsher than what you went through yesterday. But you will endure it. To survive, and to grow stronger. You're ready, right?"
The final question was less confirmation than certainty.
And just as he expected, the eyes that met his burned with fighting spirit instead of hesitation. Yesterday's blood-soaked ordeal had branded the cruelty of the world into them, and at the same time it had sharpened their hunger for strength into something crystal clear. The events of the previous day had woken them to how merciless the world truly was, and had given them an unmistakable reason why they had to become stronger.
"No problem, hyung-nim!"
Hwang Dae-un shouted first.
"I'm ready, Leader."
Kang Si-a answered right after him, voice firm.
"Let's do this. Third floor!"
"Whatever the Leader says, I'll follow."
"Me too!"
The heavy air that had crushed them through the night was gone without a trace. In its place, trust in one another, anticipation for the trials ahead, and a blazing determination to push themselves to the absolute limit filled the empty lot.