Spirit Master (1)
The dank, cloying stench of the demons faded away.
In its place rose a clean, invigorating scent.
7th Floor clear reward has arrived!
Huh?
Hyun Si-woon's brow furrowed.
Despair Stone?
It was an item he'd never heard of before. On the 6th floor he'd received a million TC, so the normal reward for the 7th should have been ten million TC, right?
What the hell was a Despair Stone?
Privilege ability activated.
Save Point has been set to the current moment.
"Hyeong-nim!"
"Oh, Si-woon's back too!"
His party members appeared a moment later, faces bright with welcome as they hurried over. They looked like they were bursting with questions—and no wonder. After the opening stretch of the 7th floor, he hadn't crossed paths with them at all. On top of that, the message about a Pioneer had appeared.
Of course, Si-woon had questions of his own.
His eyes went first to the bow in Kang Si-a's hands.
Huh?
It was a type of bow he'd never seen before. The unique-grade bows obtainable on the 7th floor didn't look like that.
— ……What?
Ha-wol's eyes went round as well.
Under Ha-wol's lead, every last one of their questions was answered.
— First of all, the TC you can receive as a clear reward is exactly one million. From the 7th floor onward, TC stops appearing. There's a reason Rankers don't bother coming down to backwater dimensions like this just to farm TC.
Huh.
Restricting the TC supply…… Well, if the Tower just kept throwing around ten million, a hundred million, a billion, there'd be no explaining why Rankers obsess over TC the way they do.
Then what was a Despair Stone?
— It's another currency of the Tower. If TC is the currency of Climbers, think of Despair Stones as the currency of Rankers. Despair Stones can only be obtained as clear rewards as well, so you'd do well to start stockpiling them carefully from now on. Later on, both will have endless uses.
Si-woon shared Ha-wol's explanation with the rest of the party.
Next.
"Kang Si-a."
"Yes."
"That bow. Did you clear all the way to stage five?"
It was different from any bow he knew. Ha-wol, too, had a look that said the weapon was far from ordinary—that it somehow resembled a bow one of her own subordinates had once used, and that she half-suspected exactly who it belonged to.
"I got lucky."
With a modest nod, she roughly explained what had happened. There had been a trial to hit the heart of the forest; when she used Eagle Claw Divine Archery, she could see it. After that she received the bow, and a Ranker named Chu Pung was sealed inside it. That man had called Ha-wol his lord. Even now he was up there trembling with emotion, making a complete fuss.
— Chu Puuuung?!
Ha-wol reacted with equal force.
— So Chu-ong was sealed on the 7th floor! That's it! And Kang Si-a found him? Hah, what kind of fate is this!
Ha-wol's spirit form, unable to contain her joy, spun circles around Si-woon. The cool, analytical demeanor from moments ago when she'd explained Despair Stones was nowhere to be found. She was truly glad—and at the same time, relieved.
In one corner of her heart, a constant anxiety had always lived. A thousand years ago, when Wol-ryeong fell to the Tower Lord's forces and was disbanded, her subordinates had been scattered and sealed in different ways. The terrible hypothesis that some of them might have drifted into the Tower the same way she had—that had been a nightmare for her.
The laws of the Tower were absolute. A Ranker sealed inside the Tower could only be freed by a Climber ascending it. What if her old comrades had been sealed in some deep, remote place no Climber could ever reach? Or if even the clue to unsealing them could never be found? They would remain trapped there forever, suffering. Even if Si-woon finished his climb and her own power was liberated, there would be nothing she could do. That had been the shackle weighing endlessly on her heart.
And yet.
— To think you rescued Chu Pung…… Has heaven truly not abandoned our Wol-ryeong?
Ha-wol knew full well that this was entirely thanks to Hyun Si-woon. If he hadn't raised that girl with her heavenly talent for archery? They would have passed the 7th floor without ever knowing something was hidden there.
— Thank you. Truly.
Chu Pung—the one who chases the wind. He had never been a mere subordinate. From the days before Wol-ryeong was even founded, when Ha-wol herself was still a Climber, they had crossed the line between life and death together as comrades. When she walked the path of the sword, he walked the path of the bow, each guarding the other's back. They had weathered countless brushes with death side by side, and at last stood together at the peak of the Tower—irreplaceable companions. His ranking had been in the top fifty, quite high.
— Tell Chu-ong for me as well. That I'm glad. That once the climb is over, we'll meet in person.
At that same moment.
— Uhehehet! Uhehehehehet!
Chu Pung was practically leaping for joy. From the man called Hyun Si-woon, he could clearly sense Ha-wol's presence. And then—
"Ha-wol says she's glad. She told me to tell Chu-ong that once the climb is over, she'll meet him in person."
The instant that voice drove itself into his mind, Chu Pung trembled with emotion. Chu-ong—that was the affectionate nickname his lord used for him!
Joy. And at the same time, a longing so sharp it cut. Every emotion crashed over him like a storm and burned hot behind his eyes.
— Aah, my lord! How could it truly be……! My looord……!
The distant past flashed by like lightning. The days when he was still a green Climber, and the overwhelming Sword God who always cut through every danger ahead of him. The brilliant age when they became Rankers, founded Wol-ryeong, and looked down upon the world from the peak of the Tower with so many comrades. In every one of those moments, she had been at his side. When he walked the path of the bow, she walked the path of the sword, each guarding the other's back. Without her? There would have been no immortal Chu Pung either.
— Yes. I will wait. My lord.
His heart began to beat again. The heart of an old hawk waking from a long sleep.
— This old man will raise this precious bond that has reached you into the greatest archer in the world.
And so, on the day he finally met his lord again, Chu Pung vowed he would once more become the sharpest arrow guarding Ha-wol's back, just as in the past.
Behind the Tower.
While the party members talked, the area around the Tower had already descended into chaos.
"What is this?"
"……A Pioneer?"
"An altar appeared on the 1st floor? What the hell does that mean? I just cleared the 1st floor a second ago……"
The rear of the Tower was in an uproar, and the front was no better. In particular, the challengers who had only heard stories about the 1st-floor gladiators from their senior Climbers had fallen into complete pandemonium.
"Wait a second. So you're saying if you go in there you just pick one of six—sword, spear, shield, bow, blunt weapon, staff—right? Then what's this altar all of a sudden?"
"I don't know either. We never had anything like that in our day."
"H-how can you just say that all of a sudden…… We came because you said you'd explain everything properly. What altar? What contract? What even is that?"
"Just go check it out. Nothing to lose by looking."
"Th-that's……"
The surroundings were already drowning in uncontrollable confusion.
And the party members had seen the message as well. As if sensing the uproar around them—or as if they had all made a prior agreement—every gaze locked onto Hyun Si-woon. Not a single one of them believed the "Pioneer" could be anyone but him. Spirits. And the man who had vanished for the entire 7th floor. The answer was obvious.
"Hyeong-nim, just be honest. It was you again this time, right?"
At Hwang Dae-un's question, Si-woon nodded calmly.
"Yeah."
"Whoa!"
"I knew it!"
Short exclamations burst from the party. Knowing it in advance didn't make it any less astonishing.
"What kind of stunt did you pull this time?"
"I thought Si-a's new bow was the jackpot, but you were off doing something even bigger, huh?"
"Come on, let's hear it! What broken thing did you grab this time?"
Si-woon calmly drew the Spirit King's Pact from his inventory and held it out.
"A bow?"
"Another bow?"
"Obviously not an ordinary one."
He briefly explained the bow's options—that each shot could summon a lower-rank spirit of the corresponding element, and that it was a growth-type weapon.
"It summons spirits?"
"There are four elements—all four of them?"
"So Hyeong-nim uses a sword, a spear…… practices the bow too, and now commands spirits on top of that?"
"Can we see the spirits?"
Kang Si-a asked, but Si-woon shook his head.
"Later. Not here. First…… let's head back to Eden."
He had been away for quite a while. The Wandering Merchant work, Yoon Seo-a—he needed to return and look after everything again. A proper full rest for the first time in ages.
Owl Guild hideout.
Yoon Tae-shik sat with a rigid face, staring holes through the community window. The coffee in his hand had long since gone cold.
"Hmm."
Because of the recent messages, the Climbers were in complete uproar. The entire top of the board was plastered with posts about spirits and the Pioneer.
The aftershock had come straight for the information guild Owl. The greatest flood of mail bombs since the guild's founding was pouring in. The vast majority were offers to buy information on the current situation.
Not sure if I should be happy about this……
Yoon Tae-shik gave a bitter smile. Even selling basic information for around a hundred TC would bring in enormous short-term profit. The problem was……
We don't have much information ourselves.
He had already rushed guild members to the rear of the Tower. Their job was to doggedly collect information from the new Climbers just emerging after clearing the 1st floor. Of course, this wasn't activity for immediate profit.
Owl pursues every piece of information.
Information that would become common knowledge with time was released on the community to build trust; only the rare information that no amount of effort could uncover was sold at a high price. That was how the information guild "Owl" survived—and it was Yoon Tae-shik's philosophy.
"Boss!"
The Shadow who had been organizing the contents on a PC spoke up.
"Yeah."
"Just received an interim report from the field team. They've interviewed seventy-two new Climbers so far, and sixty of them attempted a contract at the altar."
"And?"
"In the end, only six successfully formed a contract."
"Is that so?"
Yoon Tae-shik's eyes gleamed.
Not just anyone can form a contract?
The sample was small, but the success rate was roughly ten percent. It was clearly a fairly rare condition.
"Explain in more detail."
"The Climbers themselves were pretty bewildered, but the notable point is that the majority who failed the contract testified that nothing happened at all. Even when they approached the altar, not a single message appeared, so they just chose a different weapon."
"Then what about the six who succeeded? Some special method?"
"No. The moment they got close to the altar, a lower-rank spirit was summoned with no particular conditions or choices. Five got a single element; one got dual elements."
"Wait."
Yoon Tae-shik cut himself off without meaning to and pressed his temple. His thoughts tangled into a knot.
The conditions differ per person?
Some people lacked even the qualifications and couldn't attempt a contract at all, while others succeeded with ease. And an extreme minority even handled multiple spirits? This wasn't a simple matter of probability. A clear difference in qualifications existed.
Some kind of innate talent…… Spirit affinity, maybe?
A system where only the chosen could become one—where those without the qualifications from the start weren't even given the chance. This was something they needed to dig into further.
"The spirits' appearances? Confirmed?"
"Yes. The field team got consent from the successful Climbers and took photos. They're cute."
"Share them."
The Shadow sent the mail. The first photo showed a tiny flame lizard flicking its tail on a shoulder; the second captured a water-droplet girl dancing on a palm. Tiny, adorable forms.
Huh. So these are spirits……
Yoon Tae-shik frowned.
The Pioneer.
Who in the world was he? Dealing with just the Wandering Merchant had been enough of a handful—now who was going around pulling this kind of insane stunt?
Yoon Tae-shik thought, not for the first time, that making a living off information was truly hard work.