The Second War
"We won!"
Jang Siwoon herself seemed dazed by it all, shouting louder than she had at any point so far. The excitement in her voice was surprisingly youthful for her age.
"Noona, were you a boxer? Wow, that was insane."
"No. I'm not a pro yet—just a college kid on the boxing team."
Perhaps weak to compliments, Jang Siwoon scratched the back of her neck and gave an awkward smile.
There had been a reason she hadn't pulled out her Perk until now.
With an attack that powerful, I supposed she'd wanted to keep it hidden as long as possible.
...Thank God I'm not on the opposite side of Jang Siwoon.
Until now she'd only thrown words around, never punches, so I hadn't known. But if one of those fists connected, it would've knocked the bones right out of me.
Then again—where had that figure who'd been squaring off against Jang Siwoon disappeared to?
I quietly studied the Student as he made a show of being astonished.
I thought he was just a smart kid. I'd better keep an eye on him.
We'd ended up on the same team this round, but he wasn't someone I wanted to be paired with in the quests to come.
I'd assumed he was merely clever and mature, but he possessed just as much of an adult's cold calculation—and cunning to match.
It might be rude to call a kid that young cunning, but remembering how he went toe-to-toe with Jang Siwoon, I can't help it.
Still, since we were cooperating for now, I decided not to tell Jang Siwoon the truth yet.
This was a quest where we'd be planning strategy and fighting together—mutual distrust wouldn't do.
For now, I'll keep the distrust to myself.
"Siwoon, isn't 'Liver Blow' a boxing technique too?"
"Yeah. It's a one-punch KO move. You probably figured out my Perk, right? If I endure an attack, I can reflect back a single blow even stronger."
Jang Siwoon held a Perk tied to her own background in boxing.
It seemed to carry a penalty of having to weather the damage in exchange for its overwhelming offensive power.
Risky, certainly—but an attack of that caliber could grind an opponent's health down to the wire.
"I figured with this many people watching, I should keep it under wraps as long as I could. But I have to survive first, so this isn't the time to be picky about that."
Just as Jang Siwoon squared her shoulders with pride—
a Leaflet unfolded, displaying something unlike anything before.
Shff—
[TEAM GREECE] Horus, Athena, Poseidon
[TEAM TROY] Seth, Apollo, Habaek
+ 1 Wall Resource
"...?! Lord Zeus. Where did our resources go?"
"Seth prevailed in the standoff, and seized the resource for himself."
"What?! That's not—!"
The Middle-Aged Woman kept protesting that there was no such thing, but Zeus no longer deigned to respond.
At that, the man who had faced off against Jang Siwoon collapsed to the floor and began to sob.
"Ma'am, is now really the time to worry about resources?! I'm about to die here!"
Unable to offer even a scrap of comfort, the Greek Middle-Aged Woman and the Middle-Aged Man simply hung their heads.
The man wailed like a child, tears and snot streaming down his face, but Zeus showed no mercy.
"In the first war, Horus was defeated."
"No, please—!!"
The man, wailing like a scream, suddenly whipped his head toward Jang Siwoon.
Then he crawled toward her, inch by inch.
Perhaps all the strength had drained from his body, leaving him unable to walk on two legs.
"P-please, help me!"
"?!"
The man clung to the hem of Jang Siwoon's clothes.
She couldn't bring herself to shake him off, and only stumbled backward.
"I didn't do anything wrong! I just lost, that's all. What, did I commit some kind of crime here?!"
"...L-let go of me. Please."
"Just spare me, please...!!"
The man bawled at Jang Siwoon like a child throwing a tantrum.
Technically, clinging to a member of his own team would have made more sense given the situation.
But shrunken to that size, the only person within reach of his begging was Jang Siwoon, standing on the same game board.
"Hiihk—"
Then Seth snatched the man by the wrist.
Dragged by Seth, the man was forced to his feet.
"He is not the god of my underworld, but I shall escort you there myself."
"N-no! I said no!!"
"Where you're going isn't the underworld. It's the very bottom of this tower."
Ku-gu-goong—
The earth shuddered, and the ground beneath the man's feet split wide open.
Between the two halves of earth gaped a pitch-black darkness.
Seth led the man and leapt into that darkness.
"AAAAAHHH—"
The man's despairing howl echoed up from the depths.
Then the split earth roared violently back together, sealing itself as if nothing had happened.
"......."
"......."
The man vanished—just as though he had never existed in this space at all.
Everyone who had watched his final moment stood paralyzed with fear, silent.
"Whew...."
Jang Siwoon, who had been inside the game board, returned to her original size.
As she stepped down beside me and the Student, her face was deathly pale.
She had watched a man get swallowed into the darkness from closer than anyone—it was only natural.
"...Siwoon. Are you okay?"
"Ah, well. No. Not really."
True to form, Jang Siwoon didn't sugarcoat it.
At that, the Student cautiously approached her, as if to say the tension could finally ease.
"You did great, Noona."
As though his earlier remarks to me pricked his conscience not at all, the Student faced Jang Siwoon with a perfectly composed expression.
He must realize I'm keeping his true face hidden for the sake of the team's survival.
I didn't like it, but I couldn't simply let the Student's play run unchecked either.
Never mind that he was a minor—so long as he didn't wreck this round, my own play would go smoother in the third.
"We ascend to the heavens for the second war."
Ku-gu-gu-goong—
"GYAAAHH?!!"
Every visitor screamed in unison.
The rumble was incomparably greater than any of the tremors before it.
...It felt as though the geological strata itself were rising upward, like riding an elevator.
Well, technically this war was fought on Olympus above the clouds, so it isn't the strata at all.
My body shook so violently I felt carsick.
The Student lost his balance and nearly toppled over.
How long did it take? Just as I was genuinely about to retch, the upward motion stopped.
"You have arrived at the fifteenth floor of the Museum of Wishes, the Tower."
We could climb this quickly all along?
Hearing Zeus's announcement, an incredulous laugh escaped me.
All this time we'd broken our backs clawing our way up one floor at a time.
Sure, there had been the occasional corridor that let us ascend a floor with ease, or the rare chance to leap up several floors at once.
Still, watching the power of a god hoist us up like it's nothing leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Though, granted, this divine power was itself part of the Tower's system, so I had no real grounds to complain.
"......."
The second war was about to begin.
The game board, its squares once merged, split back into sixteen and restored its original form.
The Student's turn had come, and his face had drained to a chalky white.
He'd just witnessed what happened to that man—no wonder he was terrified.
For a student, it must be a fear too heavy to bear.
"If you're scared, I can go first."
"N-no!!"
At my words, the Student hastily waved both hands in refusal.
His vehement reaction caught even Jang Siwoon off guard; she blinked in surprise.
The Student quickly recovered his composure and continued in his usual shrunken voice.
"Absolutely not. It has to be me."
"...Fine. Whatever works for you."
He was struggling, and he might well ruin the game besides—so I'd thought I was doing him a favor.
It hadn't been pure goodwill, but faced with such fierce refusal, I couldn't help feeling a little put out.
From his standoff with Jang Siwoon to this very moment, he put himself first above all else.
Of course, in a tower where survival is the name of the game, putting yourself first is the right call.
I'd done the same, after all.
But still.
Using a person as a long-game piece you're prepared to throw away while you read the board in a co-op war... he's not the type I want to keep close.
Just as I'd suspected earlier, the Student couldn't be trusted.
Because with that self-centered play of his, I could end up sacrificed too.
"The other side is probably still trying to hide their Perks while taking the win. Just like Siwoon was."
At my words, Jang Siwoon and the Student leaned in, ears pricked.
"But now that they've lost the first round with their Perks hidden, they'll have no choice but to stop hiding anything and lay every card they have on the table for this war."
"But Mister. Team Greece still hasn't gathered a single resource for the Trojan Horse—wood, mana, or stamina."
The Student carefully raised his hand and offered his opinion.
"And if their army respawns at the starting point, Greece has a long, long road ahead of them."
"Exactly. At first glance this war looked disadvantageous for Team Troy—"
From hero balance to the fated storyline of the original myth, I'd assumed the quest favored whichever team claimed the Greek army. But that wasn't so.
"Team Greece has to build the Trojan Horse in the final round. They have to reach the Royal Palace of Troy. And then they have to beat Team Troy there."
"But Team Troy only has to defeat the Greek army at any point on the board and steal their resources—defending the Royal Palace succeeds automatically."
The Student and I traded the conversation back and forth, and smiled.
For every disadvantage we carried in heroes and myth, the structure of the quest itself made it an easier game for us.
"Looks like they've figured it out too, huh?"
Jang Siwoon shot a sidelong glance at the opposing team.
Just as she said, the Greek team had apparently caught on to their structural disadvantage; they were nearly shouting at each other in what sounded more like a brawl than a discussion.
Both the Middle-Aged Man and the Middle-Aged Woman insisted so stubbornly on their own positions that their teamwork looked terrible.
All the better for us.
Dong—
"Let the War of the Gods begin."
The bell tolling the start of the second war.
At Zeus's signal, the Student stepped forward.
"Apollo and—"
The opposing team's runner was the Middle-Aged Woman.
She seemed privately pleased that her opponent was a mere boy; she had to force the corners of her smug mouth downward.
Apparently she wasn't shameless enough to grin openly about drawing a kid—lucky her, she seemed to think.
She clutched her game piece tight in her palm, concealing her god's identity.
"Athena."
Our bracket luck is just murderous.
I clicked my tongue in self-mockery, my face twisting into a scowl.
In the end, I'd been matched against Poseidon. ...Poseidon and Habaek, of all things.
"First, it is Athena's turn."
"Whoaah!!"
Just like Jang Siwoon in the first war, the Student and the Middle-Aged Woman were pulled into the board game.
This time, too, the shrunken visitors began their advance from their respective starting points.
"Jisan. Between Apollo and Athena—who's stronger?"
"Hmm. In war, probably Athena."
Athena was the goddess of wisdom and warfare, after all.
"But since this war is taking place inside the Museum of Wishes, Apollo, god of the arts, won't be any pushover either."
The Middle-Aged Man hurled the dice with wild abandon.
Even with a teammate vanishing before his eyes and terror gripping him, apparently his rash, violent temper remained undimmed.
"One."
"Yes!"
When the die showed a 1, the Middle-Aged Man and Woman cheered in unison.
Their advance had clearly turned passive and cautious.
No doubt they meant to hoard resources until the standoff phase.
But as I'd guessed earlier, they wouldn't hesitate to use skills and special abilities when the moment came.
Because like that man earlier, they could be erased before they ever get the chance to use their Perks.
"You know, there have to be other ways to drain their resources besides standoffs, right? We should be finding them fast."
Perhaps because she'd already fought, Jang Siwoon probed the quest with a sharp eye.
She was right. If resources could only be stolen through standoffs, Troy's sudden disadvantage would be crushing.
And that would gut the war's entertainment value. The Tower would never have designed a quest like that.
◈ Resources remaining until the Trojan Horse is complete: 2
"Tch. Back to square one."
Even though she'd answered the question correctly and won a resource, the Middle-Aged Woman grumbled on and on.
Naturally—she was in the position of having to re-earn what she'd already gathered once before.
"......."
The Student stared at her in silence, unblinking.
That gaze—serene to the point of stillness, cold to the point of frost—was scanning her every habit and tell.
"My turn now."
The Student radiated confidence.