Ash-Gray Avalon
Early the next morning.
The residents of Eden Camp saw them off with practiced ease.
“We’ll be back within a week this time. Don’t worry, elder.”
At Hyun Si-woon’s words, the old man simply laughed and nodded.
“Just come back in one piece.”
With a powerful flap of wings, Pungjo soared into the sky alongside the elder’s farewell.
Even Hwang Dae-un, who had finally conquered his fear, rode with ease now.
It went much the same as before.
They dismounted on the outskirts of Seoul and immediately sprinted for the Tower.
With their stamina now at 22, they ran at a blistering pace, yet none of them showed the slightest sign of fatigue.
They had already left the realm of ordinary humans far behind.
The plaza before the Tower entrance bustled with Climbers, as always. Fresh survivors poured in every single day.
There was no other choice.
In this ruined world, the only way to live like a human being was to climb the Tower of Despair.
Or, if you were lucky, to stumble across a place like Eden Camp.
“Whoa… Look at that.”
A Climber clutching a lower-tier sword jerked his chin toward one group. Every gaze in the vicinity followed.
A party of six.
“Never seen gear like that. High-rankers?”
“No kidding.”
Whispers rippled through the crowd. Most people here either had no weapons at all or carried only the basic lower-tier starter series. And yet…
“Check out the girl with the bow. It’s glowing faintly.”
The archer was Kang Si-a. She wore a cap pulled low and a sun mask as well—temporary measures after too many people had started recognizing her face.
“And that guy over there… there’s light coming from his chest.”
“That spear doesn’t look ordinary either.”
“They’ve got to be the real deal.”
“I heard on the community boards there’s a team that already cleared the sixth floor… think that’s them?”
Envy, jealousy, and awe mixed in the eyes of every Climber gathered in the plaza.
The murmurs were still rising when someone stepped directly into the path of Hyun Si-woon’s team.
Black uniform. Plain white mask.
An Executor.
Every sound in the plaza died as if someone had cut the feed. Climbers held their breath. An Executor’s appearance always brought terror and tension in equal measure—the merciless judge who executed rule-breakers on the spot.
“Follow me.”
It was the same treatment as the fourth floor. Up through the third, even they had to wait in the regular line. From the fourth onward, they received special privileges.
“Whoa…”
“They’re the real thing.”
“I’ve never seen that before. High-floor Climbers don’t even wait in line? Full VIP treatment. Insane…”
“That’s how it works. High-pass perks start at the fourth floor.”
“Damn. Respect.”
Countless envious stares stabbed into their backs, but the party never once looked over their shoulders.
You have entered the 5th floor of the Tower of Despair.
“Whew.”
The moment they stepped through, Hwang Dae-un let out a hollow laugh.
“Si-a, is this what being a celebrity feels like? I thought my face was gonna get holes burned through it.”
He tried to lighten the mood, but Kang Si-a answered at once.
“Focus.”
She never let her guard down.
“We’re inside the Tower of Despair.”
“Ah—right…”
Hwang Dae-un scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish.
Her words were few, but the rebuke was spot-on. This was the Tower. The slightest lapse in concentration could mean death.
Hyun Si-woon sniffed the air as he surveyed their surroundings. The acrid scent of ash stung his nostrils.
Privilege ability activated.
Save point has been set to the present moment.
“So this is Ash-Gray Avalon.”
Baek Yeon-ho swallowed hard and murmured the name under his breath.
The backdrop was a ruined medieval city. Crimson ash drifted down from a twilight sky, and the walls lay shattered. A river of seething lava carved the city in two.
“My body feels a little heavy.”
Kang Si-a frowned, the first to notice the anomaly with her razor-sharp senses.
“Same here. Is it just me?”
Jang Cha-yul, trained in the martial arts of the Fragrance Valley, reacted just as keenly.
“It’s the debuff.”
Baek Yeon-ho provided the explanation.
“The second any Climber sets foot on the fifth floor, they receive the Ashen Curse as a permanent penalty. That heavy sensation you’re feeling right now is Stage One.”
What had always irritated him about Tower of Despair was that the game never bothered to tell players this penalty even existed.
“Stage One just slows your movement speed. But the longer you stay, the deeper the curse sinks in. Your damage drops, the damage you take increases… and once a certain amount of time passes? Instant death.”
The last words drained the color from every face in the party.
Back then we just called it the Sudden Death Bug.
Baek Yeon-ho remembered the early days. A character running perfectly fine across the field would, without any warning, turn into an ash-gray statue and crumble to dust. At launch it had been branded the worst bug imaginable, driving every player who reached the fifth floor completely insane. The community boards exploded. Was there a sniper hiding somewhere? Invisible one-shot traps? Or was the whole floor just a timed stage?
Theories flew in every direction. The real problem was that if a time limit truly existed, the floor had been designed to be unbeatable from the start. Ash-Gray Avalon was unimaginably vast and labyrinthine. Even taking the absolute shortest path without getting lost, reaching the boss room alone took several solid hours. Add a hard time limit on top of that? It was nothing short of the developers’ malicious declaration: don’t even bother clearing this.
Countless players tore the map apart looking for answers. Some combed every corner like they were hunting lice. Others performed every bizarre action they could think of, convinced some specific trigger started the timer. In the beginning, no one found the cause. One by one they simply set down their keyboards in the face of random, unavoidable death.
Then someone floated the idea that it might be a curse. Using that as a clue, another player finally discovered the location of the item that could lift it—the Saint’s Ashes.
“From now on we have to scour the city for Saint’s Ashes. It’s the only item that can purify the curse. You get them by destroying statues hidden all over the city, and even that isn’t easy. The nearest one should be… wait, where was it again…”
Baek Yeon-ho was still digging through his memories when a calm voice cut in.
“Hyung.”
“Huh?”
“No need.”
“No need?”
Baek Yeon-ho’s brow furrowed slightly. Time was already ticking. Fail to cleanse the curse within one hour and it was instant death—a razor’s-edge situation. The problem was that the person saying this was Hyun Si-woon: the godlike existence he was certain was EndSeeker himself.
“There’s another route here too?”
“Yeah. Normally you have to find all six Saint’s Ashes and cleanse them one by one, right?”
“Right.”
“If we go this way, there’s a method that solves everything at once. Everyone follow me.”
Baek Yeon-ho’s eyes went wide. Another solution besides the Saint’s Ashes? Information that had never appeared on any community board.
“I’ll explain on the way. Move first.”
Hyun Si-woon set off toward the heart of the city without the slightest hesitation.
—Grrraaaaah!
—Bark! Bark!
The fifth floor’s monsters—Ashen Specters and Scorched Guard Dogs—came charging in. Their numbers were greater than expected, and more kept pouring in from the distance.
“Clean them up.”
Hyun Si-woon’s words served as the signal.
“Hyaaah!”
Hwang Dae-un surged forward and swung his blunt weapon. With a heavy whoosh and a sickening crunch, the skull of the charging guard dog simply caved in. It collapsed without so much as a whimper.
“Huh? Why are they so weak?”
Jang Cha-yul and Kang Si-a fared no differently. Spears danced and arrows flew—every strike a one-hit kill. Hyun Si-woon himself never even drew his sword; he simply strolled through the chaos as if taking a leisurely walk.
Baek Yeon-ho barely needed his shield at all.
What the hell is this?
He remembered all too clearly how annoying those Scorched Guard Dogs had been back in the game days. Their flaming charges shredded the durability of most shields in a single rush, and their Ashen Roar shattered party formations in an instant. Quasi-seventh-tier monsters—maybe not full seventh-tier, but their sheer numbers made them far more troublesome.
This doesn’t make sense.
Even knowing the result came from the stats they had raised through Moon Shadow training, their martial arts mastery, and the power of unique equipment, it still left him stunned.
We’ve gotten a lot stronger…
Because they were strong, movement was easy. It felt little different from walking through the middle of Seoul. Roughly twenty minutes later they reached the enormous lava river that bisected the city, and the precarious cliff path that ran along it—a path that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
“Haaah…”
“Hard to breathe.”
The closer they drew, the more the heat clamped down on their lungs. The air reeked of sulfur mixed with something foul and burning.
“Si-woon.”
Baek Yeon-ho spoke up.
“Is this the right place? In ten more minutes we’ll hit Stage Three. Even for us, that’s going to get rough.”
And the moment the full hour expired, everyone would die instantly.
“Yeah, it’s fine. We’re here.”
“We’re here?”
Baek Yeon-ho’s pupils dilated. There was nothing here but lava.
Hyun Si-woon stopped at the very edge of the cliff and turned to face his teammates. An oddly serene smile sat on his lips.
“The fifth floor’s hidden route. The real solution that never made it onto the community boards is right here.”
He pointed with his toe at the lava river far below, bubbling and seething.
Every gaze followed.
“There are two ways to lift the curse. First is hunting down the Saint’s Ashes hidden throughout the city and suppressing it—that’s the method everyone knows. But it’s only a stopgap. The true solution is to erase the curse at its source.”
“The source of the curse?”
“Yeah. The unquenchable fire that destroyed Ash-Gray Avalon. Its origin is this lava river. And deep beneath the river lies the only sacred relic that can completely purify the curse.”
The party members wore expressions of pure confusion. His words sounded logical, yet the conclusion they led to sat completely outside common sense.
Baek Do-hee carefully asked, “Then… how do we get that relic out?”
Hyun Si-woon grinned. The moment Baek Yeon-ho saw that smile, a chill raced down his spine. That particular smile always meant something truly horrific was about to come out of his mouth.
And his premonition proved correct.
“Simple. Once the Ashen Curse reaches Stage Three, you just jump in.”
“….”
“…What?”
“Excuse me?”
A brief silence. Every member of the party was certain they had misheard.
Hwang Dae-un stammered, “H-Hyeong-nim. What did you just…? Jump into that lava? You’re telling us to commit suicide?”
“It’s not suicide. It’s the entry condition for the hidden route. Only those who have been completely consumed by the curse are granted the right to touch its source.”
Hyun Si-woon’s reply was utterly casual—as if he were explaining that you had to cross the street to reach the convenience store.
“A-Are you out of your mind?!”
Baek Yeon-ho shouted in pure alarm.
“Even for you this is too far! The game and reality are different! If we fall in there we just burn to death!”
“You won’t die. I guarantee it.”
“Guarantee it with what?!”
“My life.”
Hyun Si-woon answered briefly. Then, without further explanation, he took another step toward the edge of the cliff as if offering a demonstration.
Truth is, this is the kind of gamble I can only take because I have more than one life.
Hyun Si-woon admitted it to himself with a bitter smile. Regression—his greatest weapon and, at the same time, his deepest secret. If he had possessed only a single life, would he have been able to stand at this cliff’s edge without hesitation? The answer was no. The same would be true for the rest of the party.
“Actually, none of you have to follow me. Do-hee noona.”
“Y-Yeah?”
At the sudden call, Baek Do-hee’s shoulders gave a tiny jerk. Every other pair of eyes swung toward her as well. Hyun Si-woon’s voice had grown noticeably softer.
“Only you need to come with me. You’re the key to this hidden route.”
“…Me?”
Baek Do-hee’s eyes wavered with bewilderment. She was still struggling to process the situation itself, and now she was somehow the center of everything.
Baek Yeon-ho roared, “Hey! What the hell does that mean?! Why does it have to be my sister?!”
“Because in this entire party, only Do-hee noona can purify that curse. Remember what I told you before? That there was a critical opportunity waiting just for her. This is it.”
“…!”
Baek Do-hee sucked in a sharp breath. Hyun Si-woon’s gaze was deadly serious.
“The choice is yours. I won’t force you. But if you find the courage here, you won’t just be a simple healer anymore. You’ll become the most irreplaceable person on our team—maybe even in the entire Tower of Despair.”
Thump. Thump.
Baek Do-hee’s heart began to hammer. Fear clawed at her. The boiling lava before her eyes triggered a primal terror that had nothing to do with reason. Yet at the same time, something hot unfurled deep in her chest—the fear of becoming a burden to the team, the desperate wish to become a greater strength for her comrades, and above all, the fierce desire to live up to the trust her leader placed in her.
Right then—
“Ugh!”
“Kh!”
Their bodies grew even heavier. The Ashen Curse had entered Stage Three.
“We’re out of time.”
Hyun Si-woon’s voice sank into Baek Do-hee’s mind.
“I believe you’ll come.”
That single sentence was enough.
With a sharp push of his legs, Hyun Si-woon no longer waited. As if he had already heard her answer, he launched himself off the edge of the cliff without a shred of hesitation.