Moonlight Assassination
“Ugh.”
A searing pain tore through his side as if it had been run clean through, and Hyun Si-woon snapped back to consciousness. The sensation of the Moonlight Tribe dagger punching into his flesh was still raw and vivid.
Am I alive?
When he cracked his eyes open, Baek Do-hee’s face filled the center of his vision. Beyond her, the familiar faces of his teammates swam into view.
Which means…
He hadn’t regressed. That, at least, was a relief. He’d been dreading the thought of having to slog through that scorching desert all over again.
“Si-woon, are you okay?”
“Hyeong-nim!”
“I’ll go get some water.”
Hearing the relief in their voices finally let him register where he was—lying in a narrow, dark cleft between rocks. Hyun Si-woon sat up at once.
“W-wait, you shouldn’t move yet—”
“I’m fine, Noona. Thanks.”
Pain? After dying more times than he could count, this was nothing. They’d done a decent job patching him up, all things considered.
“Yeon-ho hyung.”
“Yeah, you good? Head clear?”
“Yeah. What happened?”
He scanned their surroundings. A fissure off one of the tunnels the kobolds used for transit. Holding out in a place like this for any length of time must have been brutal.
Baek Yeon-ho gave him a quick rundown. Roughly a day had passed. Whenever a patrol of the more skittish kobolds came near, they’d silently eliminated them and hidden the bodies.
“We’re hanging on for now, but we’re just about at our limit. They’re going to notice something’s off and start getting suspicious.”
He was right. Give it a little longer and the kobolds would launch a full search.
“Okay. Loot?”
“Hang on a sec.”
Baek Yeon-ho pulled the items from his inventory.
Thud-thud-thud!
Several heavy objects clattered onto the stone. They looked much the same as the ones from the game.
First…
Six thumbnail-sized pills that glowed with a soft, lunar sheen. Hyun Si-woon picked one up.
Name: Moon Soul Pill
Type: Elixir
Grade: Unique
Effect: Permanently increases stats by an appropriate amount.
Trait: Cannot be taken more than once.
Just as I thought.
The corner of his mouth curled up. An absurd elixir that raised stats just by swallowing it. The only downside was that you couldn’t stack the dose.
Back in Tower of Despair, he’d tried to feed them all to his swordsman character, only to discover the limit and end up leveling alt accounts instead. If stacking had been allowed? He would have used infinite regression to push the numbers into the stratosphere.
Next.
Six black-rooted ginseng roots.
Name: Moon Shadow Ginseng
Type: Elixir
Grade: Unique
Effect: Permanently increases Vitality by 3.
Trait: Only effective if Vitality is 19 or below.
Nice.
This one was broken too. But he couldn’t take it yet. Peak efficiency meant waiting until his Vitality hit exactly 19.
We’ll split these later.
Last of all, he laid a hand on ten silver-gleaming chunks of ore.
Name: Sacred Shadow Ore
Type: Mineral
Grade: Unique
Effect: An ore formed deep within the Tower of Despair where mysterious energies have fused in strange ways.
Trait: Material for weapon crafting.
This…
It was a required component for crafting unique class-change weapons from the tenth floor onward. He didn’t need it himself—he already had a growth-type weapon—but the rest of the party absolutely would.
With a smooth motion, Hyun Si-woon swept everything into his inventory. All party items went to the leader first; distribution came later, as needed. That had been agreed when they formed the climbing team.
And finally…
He remembered the silver bow the Moonlight Tribe kobold had dropped when he killed it. He opened his inventory at once—and there it was.
Name: Moonlight Bow
Type: Bow
Grade: Unique
Trait: A series weapon obtainable by defeating Moonlight Tribe kobolds on the 3rd floor of the Tower of Despair.
Attack Power: 20
Durability: 100/100
Special: Arrows make no sound.
Oh.
Hyun Si-woon’s eyes widened.
A unique weapon?
Its attack power alone crushed anything a low-tier climber would be carrying. High durability, and a special effect on top of that.
This is a jackpot.
The average weapon grade for a fifth-floor climber was rare; unique didn’t show up until after the tenth. Being able to field a unique from the third floor was a massive advantage—one that would carve a serious chunk out of the Tower of Despair’s infamous difficulty.
“Kang Si-a.”
“Yes?”
“Take this.”
He passed her the silver bow. For the time being he would be fighting primarily with the sword—he needed to grow the Formless Sword, and Ha-wol was his swordsmanship master besides.
“Th-this is…”
Kang Si-a’s eyes went round the moment the bow settled into her hands. The silken feel of the silver weapon and the extraordinary power thrumming through it made her catch her breath. Then she checked the information—
“Wha—!”
She swallowed a short cry of shock. It was hard to believe. A low-tier climber’s bow hit for 3. This one hit for 20—roughly 6.6 times stronger than what she’d been using.
“Whew.”
Baek Yeon-ho let out a low breath.
“You should be thanking Si-woon. We could’ve just walked out of here. He got himself wrecked like that because he was going after this for you.”
“……!”
Gratitude and guilt warred across Kang Si-a’s face. She’d thought he’d simply been hurt—not that he’d taken the wound for this item.
And more than that—
“You use a bow too, Oppa. How can I take something like this…?”
“You’re better with it than I am. I only use one as a sidearm; it’s your main weapon. Just shut up and take it.”
Hyun Si-woon cut her off without hesitation. Better to put a weapon in the hands of its rightful owner than let it gather dust. Besides, he already had a growth-type bow waiting for him later.
“Don’t feel pressured, and don’t feel like you have to thank me. If that thing had dropped a shield, I’d have given it to Yeon-ho hyung. If it had been a staff, it would’ve gone to Do-hee noona.”
And if it had been a sword? He would’ve sold it on the exchange. Probably would have set off the most ridiculous TC auction in history.
“Still… thank you. I’ll keep working hard.”
Kang Si-a pressed the swell of emotion down and cradled the bow against her chest as if it were something precious. Resolve burned in her eyes. She made a silent vow then and there: she would give this team her absolute loyalty. The others watched her with a mix of envy and quiet pride.
“And everyone—take one of these and eat it.”
Hyun Si-woon handed each of them a Moon Soul Pill.
The Moon Soul Pill. The actual stat gains would vary person to person. Someone already high would see a modest bump; someone lower would jump more. On average, it had raised overall stats by about three points. A colossal leap in combat power, pure and simple.
—Hold it right there.
Ha-wol chose that exact moment to intervene.
—You absolute idiot. Don’t tell me you plan to just chew an elixir like a snack?
“Huh?”
Hyun Si-woon tilted his head and raised a hand, signaling the others to wait.
Then… how am I supposed to take it?
In the game you just double-clicked and it was done.
—…You brute! This lady is struck speechless by your ignorance!
Ha-wol practically spat blood with the force of her outburst.
—If you swallow a precious elixir in that barbaric fashion, you will not absorb even a tenth of its efficacy—let alone half!
Wait. Seriously?
Hyun Si-woon blanked for a second.
—An elixir is pure condensed energy. Of course it must be taken in concert with proper heart-method circulation if you want its true power! If you insist on consuming them, do it later. This lady will guide you properly.
“…….”
Whoa. Without Ha-wol he would have thrown away a fortune. For a man who lived and breathed efficiency down to the marrow, wasting over ninety percent of an elixir’s effect was a nightmare he didn’t even want to imagine.
“Ahem.”
Hyun Si-woon coughed as if nothing had happened and quietly reclaimed the Moon Soul Pills.
“Everyone, hand them back. We’ll take the elixirs properly later.”
The party looked bewildered, but they obeyed without argument. Hyun Si-woon tapped the hilt of the Formless Sword in silent thanks to Ha-wol, then pushed himself to his feet. Pain flared; he ignored it.
“Yeon-ho hyung. Secret passage. Let’s go.”
“Secret passage?”
“Yeah. You’ve all suffered enough. Time to leave the third floor.”
Once Kang Si-a had the unique bow in her hands, the third floor was as good as cleared.
Hyun Si-woon set out again with Baek Yeon-ho to locate the secret route. Like something out of a spy thriller, they swept through the underground city once more—finding the shortest hidden path that led straight to the king’s chambers, pulling concealed levers in the walls, disarming floor traps, and slipping past patrols through the dark.
“Here.”
Baek Yeon-ho whispered, barely breathing. They had reached their destination: a narrow vent-like passage directly above the vast cavern that served as the Kobold King’s audience chamber.
—Kieeek!
—Kieeeek!
From below rose the raucous chatter of kobolds and a faint, rancid stench. Hyun Si-woon nodded, then pulled a horn from his inventory.
Party Assembly Horn.
Good thing he’d secured it. The convenience was off the charts.
After putting a little distance between himself and the king’s chambers, he carefully blew the horn and summoned the rest of the team.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
Kang Si-a, Hwang Dae-un, Jang Cha-yul, and Baek Do-hee materialized in front of him in the blink of an eye.
“Shh.”
Hyun Si-woon pressed a finger to his lips, then pointed at Kang Si-a.
“Only you come with me. Everyone else wait here.”
They moved back through the passage to the ventilation shaft.
“Just listen.”
Hyun Si-woon murmured. Kang Si-a nodded.
“The plan’s simple. The one with the biggest head among those freeloaders down there is the king. Blow his skull open in one shot.”
A direct assassination of the king. Under normal circumstances it would have been nearly impossible. A bow with 3 attack power couldn’t one-shot him, and landing a clean critical hit between the eyes was far from easy.
But…
With the Kang Si-a he knew, it was more than doable. Add a bow with 20 attack power and a silence effect, and it was tailor-made for assassination. Ending the floor without fighting the elites suited him just fine.
“Can you do it?”
She gave a short, firm nod and adjusted her grip on the Moonlight Bow. Moving to the edge of the vent, she looked down and settled into her stance.
I have to make this shot. No matter what.
Kang Si-a’s hands trembled. She was more nervous now than she had ever been standing on the Olympic podium for gold. The lives of every teammate hung on this single arrow. More than anything, she refused to disappoint the man who believed in her.
“Don’t put pressure on yourself. If you miss, we just fight the elites.”
She nodded again.
“Haa…”
She drew a long breath and banished every stray thought. The only thing that existed was the Kobold King. She locked onto him and nothing else.
Perhaps thanks to the bow’s special property, even the draw of the string made no sound. The aim was already perfect—the exact center of the Kobold King’s brow. To Kang Si-a, that single point was all she could see. Linger any longer and her arms would start to shake. The secret to accuracy was confidence and zero hesitation.
I shoot now.
And in that instant—
Sssht!
The arrow left the string without a whisper, flying like a shadow. A silver streak lanced downward.
Then—
Thwuck!
A dull, tiny impact. The arrow was buried dead-center in the Kobold King’s forehead.
“……!”
Hyun Si-woon had watched the whole thing. No matter how many times he saw it, the feat still wrung pure admiration out of him. This was a level of skill no character in the Tower of Despair could ever reach.
Well?
Would one shot be enough? Would the king die?
In the next heartbeat—
Thud!
The Kobold King’s body went rigid and toppled backward. It twitched once, then lay still. Dead.
You have defeated the Kobold King.
You have cleared the 3rd floor of the Tower of Despair.
They had cleared the third floor—so cleanly and so effortlessly that anyone watching from the outside would have called it anticlimactic.