Bait for the Moonlight Clan
"Hahaha."
Baek Yeon-ho collapsed onto the ground with a heavy thud and let out a hollow laugh.
The flute.
They had finally managed to get their hands on that insanely hard-to-obtain item, but the situation was far from good.
For nearly four days they had survived on nothing but coconuts, dates, and water. They had scavenged a few fish the kobolds had caught, but the things were so tiny they barely registered as food.
Hungry. Exhausted.
The rest of the party was in no better shape. Hwang Dae-un was on the verge of losing consciousness, while Jang Cha-yul and Baek Do-hee could only gasp for breath in total exhaustion. Kang Si-a's quiver was completely empty.
Can we even clear this like this?
Even learning the Poison Sword Technique would be a problem in this state. As a veteran, he knew the truth. This was only the prelude. The real nightmare waited in the kobold underground city.
A systematically trained and fully armed kobold army exists down there.
Their coordinated movements and intelligent tactics were on a completely different level from the ragtag packs above. The moment you fought them, you understood exactly why the Tower of Despair earned its name.
And among them, the absolute worst?
The Moonlight Clan.
Just the name sent a chill crawling down Baek Yeon-ho's spine. Among the kobolds, a few mutants existed—beings of an entirely different caliber. Encounter them, and even veteran parties usually wiped. He himself had once mapped their routes, infiltrated, and slain the king.
Hmm.
Baek Yeon-ho was uneasy. Taking down the kobold king in their current condition? Almost impossible. So while they rested, he asked Hyun Si-woon.
But—
"Don't worry about it."
The man was so calm it almost felt wrong.
...Does he have some other method?
"Just trust me and follow. On the third floor, the kobold king isn't the real problem."
"..."
Baek Yeon-ho simply could not keep up with Hyun Si-woon's thinking. Just what was he planning?
Obtaining the flute had been brutal, but finding the hidden location itself was not difficult.
Bwooooo!
The Fang Flute's call rolled across the desert.
Whooooosh!
The wind rose in answer. Sand grains struck one another, producing a strange, resonant hum as if replying to the flute's song. The party, rest finished, watched Hyun Si-woon work in stunned silence.
Whoa.
So this is a hidden...
Just being able to see something like this is a privilege.
To them it was pure fortune. Without Hyun Si-woon they would never have witnessed this, let alone dared challenge the third floor.
Bwooo!
The flute continued to sound. The moment the resonance peaked—
KRRRRRRRUMBLE!
Far off, one face of a sand dune heaved upward as if a living creature were rising from the earth. The mechanism hidden beneath it revealed itself.
"There...!"
"The hidden route?"
"Yeah."
Hyun Si-woon nodded.
Let's go. Time to claim the secret manual of the Poison Sword Technique.
The sand dune rose, exposing the entrance to a black stone structure. From within flowed air that was cool and damp—utterly different from the dry heat outside.
"Haaah."
"I feel alive again."
It felt like stepping out of blazing midsummer sun into a bank with the air conditioning blasting. Even the corners of Hyun Si-woon's mouth curved into a smile.
The path to the manual was easy. Old traps appeared here and there, but Hyun Si-woon spotted every one of them without effort. After walking for some time they entered a fairly large cavern.
In the center stood a massive snake-headed stone statue thickly covered in moss, coiled as if ready to strike. Directly before its gaze, on a worn, flat stone altar...
"That's it!"
"A skill book!"
"The manual!"
An old book lay there as if someone had casually tossed it down.
Poison Sword Technique
The moment a sword-wielding climber picked it up, a passive skill would form. Poison would soak into the blade, and even the very form of one's swordsmanship would change.
"Hmph."
Ha-wol, watching, voiced her displeasure.
"I may not be able to join your climb, but surely you don't intend to learn that pathetic poison-mist nonsense?"
Yeah. Don't worry.
Hyun Si-woon understood exactly what concerned her. The technique was tailored to a kobold's body.
"I won't say more, but do not lower your standing with something like that. Understood?"
Hyun Si-woon quietly slipped the Formless Sword into his inventory.
Then—
"Yeon-ho hyung."
"Hm?"
"Could you pick that up for me?"
"That? You're not learning it yourself?"
"Nope."
Whoever designed the Tower of Despair, every single hidden process was twisted. The hidden thing right in front of your eyes? That was never the real hidden. Those were only decoys or camouflage meant to conceal deeper secrets.
Hyun Si-woon had learned the Poison Sword Technique the first time. Afterward, watching his character's entire swordsmanship warp into something indistinguishable from a kobold warrior's, he had restarted the character from scratch.
And from that came the idea.
Wouldn't the kobolds want this manual?
Especially the Moonlight Clan. Their strength defied imagination. And strength meant an equally fierce hunger for greater strength.
"Hyung, you know the Moonlight Clan, right?"
"Yeah. Those lunatics."
"Honestly, they're stronger than the kobold king, aren't they?"
"True."
The third-floor boss king was manageable enough, but the Moonlight Clan was simply impossible to deal with.
"Then, hyung—have you ever thought about why they still follow the kobold king?"
"Uh..."
Baek Yeon-ho scratched his head.
No.
What kind of maniac thought about that level of detail while playing a game? You just went, "Whoa, super strong monsters—gotta avoid them!" and that was the end of it.
"Normally the weak follow the strong. Especially with monster types like this."
"...I guess so?"
He answered on reflex, still thoroughly confused. What did any of this have to do with the manual?
"The Moonlight Clan are extreme strength-seekers. They're obsessed with becoming stronger—nothing else matters."
Hyun Si-woon continued.
"So they snatch up every secret manual, powerful weapon, poison, and rare elixir they can find. And then..."
He paused. Baek Yeon-ho swallowed without realizing it.
"...they hide them all in a secret lair only they know about."
"...!"
Baek Yeon-ho's eyes went wide. He had never heard anything like this. The Moonlight Clan had a secret lair?
"That can't be right. Back when I was doing third-floor opportunity hunting content, I practically mapped the entire floor."
"It exists. In a very deep place."
Hyun Si-woon spoke with absolute certainty. Baek Yeon-ho's mind began to race.
Moonlight Clan, secret lair, strength-seekers, manuals, weapons, elixirs, and...
The Poison Sword Technique sitting right in front of them!
"Then this manual is..."
"Exactly."
Hyun Si-woon grinned and nodded.
"This isn't a manual the game tossed us to learn. It's bait the Moonlight Clan will covet—and the key that will let us find their lair."
"Hah!"
Baek Yeon-ho froze in place, feeling as if a hammer had just cracked him over the skull. In all his years of gaming he had never once, not for a single second, conceived of such a plan. He remembered the smug satisfaction of learning the Poison Sword Technique and rolling his shoulders. And it turned out the developers had simply reeled him in.
This guy is actually insane.
From the last few days onward, this had already gone far past "veteran" territory. Wasn't this practically developer-level knowledge?
"Let's move. Time to head down into the underground city. At least it won't be hot that way."
Of course, an endless kobold legion would be waiting to greet them.
Outside, the desert heat slammed into them once more. They made for the cave-type oasis they had cleared of kobolds and marked earlier.
Inside the cave, Hyun Si-woon examined the rear wall. Every cave held a path into the underground city.
"This should be it."
Thump. Thump.
He kicked aside a careless heap of kobold junk piled in one corner. Beneath it, a round stone slab appeared.
"Hup."
Pushing the slab aside revealed a dark stairway leading down. Damp underground air and the foul stench of kobolds washed over them.
"Ugh."
"We have to go into a place like this?"
The members hesitated, but there was no other choice. Higher floors would only get worse.
"Stay sharp and follow me."
Hyun Si-woon took the lead down the stairs. It was not completely dark, thanks to the luminous stones the kobolds used. After descending the narrow passage, the stairs finally ended in a somewhat wider space. From here, the true underground city began.
"Shh!"
Hyun Si-woon signaled everyone to halt. At the tunnel intersection ahead, two helmeted kobold sentries with spears yawned and shuffled about. From another direction came the measured tramp of feet and the clink of spears—a patrol.
We can't be spotted.
Get noticed and the entire area would erupt; every nearby force would pour in. The more fighting that broke out by district, the tighter security around the king would become.
There will be moments we have to fight, of course.
But this was not one of them.
Hyun Si-woon began to move. He slipped past the sentries' eyes and disarmed traps cleverly set into the floor. His movements... calling them merely practiced was not enough. He moved as if a map were open inside his head—no hesitation, not a single wasted motion. He even looked relaxed.
How is this possible?
Anyone watching would think he was walking through his own living room.
Is he even human?
...As expected, Hyeong-nim is amazing.
Even while following at his back, the party could not suppress their shock. At the same time they swore once more, deep in their hearts: they would follow him no matter what. From now on, if Hyun Si-woon pointed at soybean paste and called it fermented soybean paste, they would gladly call it fermented soybean paste.
How much time passed?
They reached the outskirts of the city—a relatively open plaza where several tunnels converged, a kind of crossroads. Luminous stones were set more sparsely here, giving decent visibility, but the shadows lay that much deeper.
"This place..."
Baek Yeon-ho's voice was uneasy. He knew. This was a path the Moonlight Clan frequently used.
"Everyone hide over here."
Hyun Si-woon found a deep crevice between rock and wall—space enough for several people to conceal themselves.
After that—
"Yeon-ho hyung."
"Okay."
Baek Yeon-ho drew out the manual of the Poison Sword Technique, walked to the center of the plaza, glanced around, set the book down in the most conspicuous spot on the floor, and hurried back.
Now all they had to do was one thing: hold their breath and wait.
"Will they really come?"
"...What if ordinary kobolds take it?"
"What if there's a whole group?"
The party whispered questions, but—
"That won't happen."
Hyun Si-woon did not waver. The Moonlight Clan preferred to act alone by nature. They were strong enough that they had no need to form packs. And there was no need to worry about ordinary kobolds taking the book. Kobolds could speak, but they could not read. Only the Moonlight Clan understood the concept of a "book."
One hour. Two hours...
Quite a bit of time passed. Plenty of kobolds had gone by without discovering their position. Just as a few of the party members began to nod off—
"...Hup, Oppa."
Kang Si-a whispered and pressed hard on Hyun Si-woon's shoulder.
"It's here."
Something walked slowly out of a tunnel mouth. Its form was similar to other kobolds, yet a soft radiance clung to its surroundings.
"...!"
The Moonlight Clan had appeared.