The Only One Who Knows How to Lie (1)
“Everyone, don’t die, okay?” Choi Sung-yoon said casually, handing each of us a small recovery potion.
He sounded almost sympathetic toward us pathetic losers.
“This is a recovery potion. Drink it when you feel like you’re about to die, and you’ll probably stabilize a little.”
Even if the recovery potion is supposed to fully restore you, that doesn’t change the fact that you were already cornered to the point of death. The situation itself stays the same.
“Still, if you run into a decent team, you’ll make it out alive. The boss monsters aren’t that tough on their own. The 0th-floor boss monster…”
“A dark knight.”
“Ah, just a little stronger than that one. That should be plenty. In fact, it might even be easy. There’s a clear gap between human-type monsters and golems.”
“Golems…?” Someone muttered the boss monster’s name.
Golems. The boss monster on the 1st floor. Large creatures that gather materials around a core through unknown forces, forming their bodies. At 90% downgraded, they’re probably only medium-sized instead of truly massive. The description said they’re about the height of a two-story apartment—maybe around 5 meters.
“These are the boss monsters that appear in the test. At downgraded level, they’re about 5 meters tall.”
“5, 5 meters?!” Someone let out a startled noise.
That’s huge. But stupid, slow, and easy to break. The real golems are around 15 meters, so it’s almost meaningless. Still, 5 meters sounds like something you could at least warm up against.
Honestly, I’d never actually seen one before, so maybe that thought was just my own assumption.
“You should be able to handle it. If you sync up with your teammates, you can survive.”
Choi Sung-yoon’s words came off as gentle advice, like telling someone to just quietly get on the bus. Sync up? Forget it. There’s a good chance we all just get wiped out the moment we open our mouths.
We arrived at the training ground. Everyone except humans had already arrived. The dorm was too far, so we had no choice.
The training ground was a long, straight corridor stretching across a huge open field. There were ten separate paths, and ten teams would be tested at the same time.
On a small stage, an elf was climbing up with a clack-clack of footsteps. Elena Trigard.
She didn’t even bother lining up the newbies and just started talking randomly. No one was immersed enough in her role to bother with formalities.
“This is the basic test ground. It’s a space made to judge whether you have the basic value of a player. The test itself isn’t that difficult. Ninety-five percent of you will pass with ease. Unfortunately, this test was created because of that final five percent.”
A test to weed out worthless players. The intent was sad, but I couldn’t argue with it.
Yoo Dahui—the protagonist—was rolling as a 1-star player, failing the test, rolling again, getting rolled by Park Cheol-eon, and rolling one more time before finally leaving the academy. After joining the guild, though, she regressed to the 1st floor and it got way easier.
“The test is simple. You’re randomly placed into teams and each group goes down a different path to kill the boss monster and come back. Not hard at all.”
They didn’t even set a time limit. Setting a time limit would have made the difficulty closer to a number. But for us humans, it was already an unbearable trial.
“Thanks to the ‘Tower of Struggle’ recognizing the academy’s value, we can use the System. It saved us time on team assignment. At this point, you should all be looking at the System messages. The names of your teammates, for example.”
> [TEAM ASSIGNED]
> [JINWU] [GOBLIN] [REMUNOL] [HOOLOG]
Elena snapped her fingers, and a pure white light enveloped everyone.
The newbies who had gathered in the field adjusted their positions according to their assigned groups.
Shit. I thought it was going to be a little spicy based on the name, but this isn’t it at all.
“Krr krr, humans. Humans and a team?! What’s this?”
“Kung! Smells like goblin shit!”
“Ssht, it’s noisy. Shut your mouths.”
“Fuck.”
Green dwarf, yellow dog guy, gray reptile. And a human. A party of hell. Elena had said as much.
“You can go in order of readiness. Advice: you’re all in the spotlight right now. Your ranking is based on how quickly you clear the 0th-floor tutorial.”
“What does ranking have to do with anything?! Me, as a human to the goblin lord…”
“Ah. Did the supervising instructors not explain it?”
The orc in charge shot Elena a look. Elena glared back with a deadly gaze, and the orc trembled.
Elena sighed. “There seem to be some players who didn’t hear, so I’ll explain.”
“…”
“On the 0th floor, you were just a random bunch from the same dimension, same race, or players who clicked with each other… But on the 1st floor, you’re part of a ‘guild’ group and have to live as one. You can go solo, but it’ll be a pain. Being alone is just like that.”
Elena explained what a guild was. A guild where players of similar mindsets gather and live together. In the Tower of Struggle, where you risk your life every single day, solo play is the one-way ticket to hell.
“We’re rating your performance, right? These guilds on the Tower of Struggle aren’t just volunteers. They’ve been coming to the academy every day scouting new players to fit their guild. We evaluate your levels and store them in our records so it’s easy to judge.”
The newbies glanced around. Now it was obvious. The players surrounding us had a completely different atmosphere from the race instructors. They were scanning us like livestock at a market.
“The rank means your value. A high-rank player is someone a guild wants to recruit. A low-rank player is someone the guild has no reason to take. Players left behind without joining a guild are discarded. Discarded players die quickly. The Tower of Struggle is too harsh for someone to survive alone.”
The newbies’ moods suddenly turned serious. Even the goblin who would have burst a head if he’d seen his own kind had gone quiet and was chatting with his teammates.
“Ready teams can leave first.”
The reaction was completely different from earlier. A few groups had already raised their hands and were heading toward the paths, clearly eager to get out of here.
This test could only show ten teams at once. If you thought you wouldn’t die, it was better to leave first. But our team was impossible. We were guaranteed to die.
I had a plan for later. I absolutely could not die.
“Gather up.”
“Krr krr. The human is giving orders to the goblin lord?”
“Yeah. All of you get over here too.”
“Kung! Smell! It’s disgusting!”
“Ssht, this field is weirdly creepy.”
Goblin, orc, kobold. The big three of the trash species. All three of them were the size of elementary school kids. Ranking them by raw stats: goblin < human ≤ kobold < orc. That was just physical condition. Considering the level of civilization in this world, humans were way ahead. Of course, since this world couldn’t use civilizational advantages, the ranking was fair.
“Okay, I’m Kim Jinwu. Strength level 4, agility level 3. You guys hurry and tell me your specs.”
“Specs? Krr krr! Why am I supposed to tell a human?!”
“Ah. Fuck. You first. Remunol.”
He looked like a goblin shaman in clothes. The pathetic pride of a loser. He was going to get smashed like a bug by a golem fist if he didn’t shape up fast.
“Kung! Strength 4, agility 7, mana 1. Kung!”
“Skills?”
His memories were fuzzy, but Remunol seemed to have the kind of skills typical goblins have. The levels weren’t high. Nothing I could learn from him.
“Hoolog?”
“Ssht, strength 4, agility 3. Skills… camouflage. Level 5. Stealth. Level 3.”
“Oh.”
Camouflage. A trait that lizardmen and other reptiles were born with. Missing stealth was a shame, but camouflage alone was more than enough to trick a stupid golem.
“Teach me camouflage. How do you use it?”
“Ssht, you can’t explain it with words. It’s instinct engraved in our kobold blood.”
“Just once. Tell me what the feeling is like. When you’re about to poop, you clench your butt, right? Something like that.”
Hoolog glared at me like I was a weird human. The example didn’t sit right with him. Still, he explained.
Surprisingly decent guy.
“…Focus your thoughts on your skin. You’ll feel the air’s texture touching your skin, and when you breathe in as if drawing in the color the air holds…”
Normally, you couldn’t learn something like that with words. No matter how hard you tried, you’d never see the image. But I followed him anyway.
[‘Camouflage Lv.1’ acquired!]
Because I was a human receiving System corrections. Of course, the skill I learned was far weaker than the kobold’s real version. Even at the same level, its power was noticeably lower. But I got to learn and use it, so that counted.
Stack it up like this and someday I’ll reach the peak of the Tower of Struggle. Like Yoo Dahui said.
“Oh… Ssht, that’s amazing. How did you copy our kobold camouflage?”
“Don’t know. I just did what you said and it worked.”
“But your color is lighter. You’ll get caught if you concentrate too much.”
No need to concentrate. Even glancing at it gave me away. But if I could just buy one moment in that split second, it would be enough.
“Goblin. You’re the only one left.”
“Krr krr! I…”
The goblin shaman hesitated while clutching his staff. Everyone else was speaking, so he couldn’t just stay silent either.
“Krr krr! My strength is 2, agility 1, mana 5. Krr krr!”
“Wow.”
Shit.
“Skills?”
“Skills… goblin sorcery level 4…”
“That’s it?”
“Krr krr!”
The goblin shaman nodded confidently. I really wanted to smash his head in.