The Bewildered Novice
The ambushers hadn’t noticed Roman’s movements at all.
They’d been so relaxed…
No.
The moment Roman had accurately pinpointed their expedition timeline, they’d dropped the casual act completely. And the second they sensed his mana surging, they’d thrown everything they had into the fight.
Even so, he’d slipped through.
He hadn’t been followed even a step.
‘Illusion magic?’
The instinct that had named the obvious answer proved Roman had already survived enough Abyss-crawling to be a Regular-grade explorer.
And he reacted instantly.
“Illusion magic! Dispel it!”
One of the mages behind them started chanting the moment he shouted.
“Eyes of Truth, pierce through the false illusions!”
The dispel technique known as Eyes of Truth flared to life, two glowing orbs materializing.
But the figure Roman had assumed would be clearly visible was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn it! It failed! Again!”
“Eh? That’s impossible…”
“Don’t stall! Move!”
“No need.”
A voice from behind them sent a chill racing up the spines of the attackers.
The cold, spine-crawling sensation froze the mage’s thoughts solid.
How…?
The voice was coming from directly behind them.
“Why?”
*Crash!*
The automatic mana barrier shattered, and the same spine-chilling force that had been racing down Roman’s back vanished in an instant.
The mage’s questions scattered forever without resolution.
“You bastard!”
Anger at his fallen comrade?
Or fear that he himself might be next?
The two remaining mages unleashed their spells without a trace of composure.
Roman’s eyes, still tracking the magic circles, darted rapidly, dissecting the power structures.
‘Lightning erupting straight from the body. An element sorcerer who commands the thunder. And this one… telekinesis?’
Both were solid classes.
Thunder-element sorcerers ranked at the very top among element users.
Telekinesis was just as popular—simple to cast, incredibly versatile.
But that was where the analysis ended.
The lightning spell had no directional anchor, scattering wildly across the void.
The telekinesis spell was painfully transparent; the mana circles were still visible to Roman even though the force itself was intangible.
A properly skilled mage could have interfered directly, canceled it, or even flipped the spell against its caster.
Roman didn’t have that level of mastery yet.
But spotting and dodging was ridiculously simple.
Roman’s brain received the coordinates calculated through Axis and shifted his body without hesitation.
“Again!”
Missed.
A Regular-grade swordsman who had already been on high alert after the first failed strike.
Yet even he had dropped his guard long enough to watch Roman vanish from the clock, then reflexively unleashed the accumulated force in his body.
Aura.
It shared the same foundational energy as the mages’ mana, but the different refinement process gave it an entirely different function—pushing the surroundings away like a living shield.
A purely defensive, reflexive release meant to protect only the caster.
The most selfish instinct imaginable.
And, of course, Roman’s attack never touched it.
“Gah!”
Why fight in front?
Back off and finish the rear ones instead.
Roman’s spatial teleportation made it impossible for the front line to cover the back no matter how desperately they struggled.
He had no intention of letting them survive.
Why?
They weren’t some tank monster that only hit in front and ignored healers and damage dealers behind.
Roman’s goal had been perfectly fulfilled.
*Thud.*
Only after the third mage fell did the two Regulars finally get a clear look at Roman again.
Black hair. Black staff.
A hooded cloak fluttered in the night wind.
To the two Regulars, he looked exactly like a reaper.
“…This is supposed to be a Novice?”
Even an Expert’s movement left faint afterimages.
Even a Master’s trail would leave some residue.
But this guy…
“Space-jumping with zero warning or trace. What the hell is he?”
The swordsman’s Regular-grade companion was already devoured by fear of the unknown.
If he didn’t kill that man, he’d die.
The simple logic drove his body forward.
Instead of charging with wild shouts, his mind stayed razor-sharp.
‘Where next? Side? Behind? No way—above?’
‘Block with the shield, then counter immediately. Even if I use body reinforcement, it’ll be slower than aura…!’
They had been Novice explorers with barely any real experience and had been wiped out in one careless moment. Roman was different.
He had prepared to spin at any second, but Roman stayed exactly where he was.
‘Straight-on fight?’
He laughed inwardly.
Novices were Novices, after all.
The lack of experience was glaring here.
They’d crushed three enemies so easily they thought they’d won. The weakness of someone who’d only fought mages and never a fighter class showed in their sloppy stance.
Roman’s mana bullets flew in, but the shield held.
They’d take the flesh.
He’d take the bones instead.
“I’ve got you!!”
“I’ve got you.”
The adrenaline, the luck, and the unexpected reversal from the twisted dance of battle and death had dulled his thinking.
He hadn’t noticed the shrinking distance, hadn’t realized he himself was the one narrowing it.
“I got you.”
*Crack!*
Roman delivered his final mana bullet to the petrified swordsman.
The aura shield was breached, and the bullet punched straight through his body.
It was over.
“Last one…”
“Don’t move!”
The morningstar he’d been holding was nowhere to be seen. The final survivor screamed frantically as he drew a dagger.
“Like this.”
Roman watched the man and muttered quietly.
Hostage negotiation?
Pathetic and completely predictable.
“Luck’s not on your side.”
“Ha, ha-ha, yeah… luck is…”
“Why me?”
Only one in two.
The instant Roman finished speaking, the last man’s neck had already snapped.
The hostage he’d chosen was the relatively smaller Ray.
And Ray had deliberately let herself be taken.
While the attacker’s body was pressed close, she twisted his joints, snapped his arm, and slapped his chin, knocking him out in one clean strike.
Ray tossed the unconscious man to the side with the same motion she’d used to drop him. She glared at Roman.
“Bad luck for you. Good. If you’d been trying to grab Leaf, his head would’ve blown up before you could even finish the deal.”
“…I didn’t think that far ahead.”
Leaf, floating her Undine as usual, cut in with a blunt rebuttal.
Roman thought.
*Even if it wasn’t that far, I would’ve tried something similar.*
Yeah.
That much was necessary just to survive as an explorer.
“Good job. I was planning to leave one alive.”
“No need. You three already ran. One’s enough.”
The first thing the attackers had mentioned—Bugbears rampaging—still nagged at Roman’s mind.
Even if it wasn’t exactly that, he wanted to know which guild they belonged to.
“Then should I wake him up?”
A large water droplet hung suspended above the fallen man’s head.
“No, I’ve got it.”
Ray, who had said she’d finish it herself, sent the Undine back.
The kneeling mage noticed something strange.
“…Huh?”
Ray slapped the man’s cheek urgently.
“Breathing! Hey! I didn’t hit that hard! Don’t die! Wake up! Breathing!”
No response. The man didn’t breathe.
“…Cancel that last part.”
§
Waymarker Tree.
It wasn’t a metaphor. It was simply a colossal tree rising from the wide plain that was rare in the multi-layered first floor.
The reason it was called a waymarker was the countless wooden plaques dangling from its branches.
“Did all those count as waymarkers?”
Wooden plaques, like fruit on a tree, crowded every branch from the trunk, marking which direction and how far to go to find what.
Nobody knew who had first used this tree as a base, explored, and recorded the distances on the plaques.
It had started with one explorer, then spread until it became a tradition—other explorers sharing information that way.
Information was an extremely precious asset.
Starting from the fourth floor, only explorers who had physically entered or paid exorbitant sums for it knew the maps.
But on the first floor, the exception was absolute.
Even for new explorers, the layout of the first floor was shared by everyone.
Through this very tree.
How beautiful a tradition it was.
The grand sight of the tree filled the chest with awe so completely that it even pushed the memory of the garbage ambush last night into oblivion.
“There are a lot of people.”
Leaf adjusted her hood.
It looked uncomfortable.
Meanwhile Ray, a lion beastman, was completely unfazed by the stares.
“I’ve been thinking since we saw you from afar. Damn, this tree is huge. Is it the World Tree or something?”
Ray said it with a sigh, then belatedly clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Ah, sorry. Was that a taboo for elves?”
“No, I’m a half-elf, so it doesn’t matter, I mean, it doesn’t matter.”
The half-elf who still struggled with casual speech—exactly like Ray—flashed a trace of discomfort.
Probably the influence of his past life.
Just like Roman and Ray, he had lived a life where people gossiped about him.
But even though the experience was similar, the effect had been the opposite.
Roman and Ray had only endured it briefly, when their sense of self was already mostly formed.
So instead of cowering, they had chosen to lean harder into the casual speech.
Leaf, on the other hand, had been like that from the moment he was a baby.
He didn’t even notice the formality had been welded to his tongue.
Changing the habit of a lifetime in a village would be hard.
Ray was trying to speak casually on purpose when she talked to him, but Leaf still addressed her as “Ray-ya” over and over.
Roman could guess, at least a little, what kind of life Leaf had lived in the village.
“The World Tree being taboo?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No chance to talk properly with elves.”
In the slave days, the only conversations with elves had been ‘You, bring your boss here’ and ‘Yes!’
The only elf who had ever spoken to him as a friend had been his peer Elowen.
Even that had been short and fleeting; Roman had never gotten to hear about their culture.
“Your home is really far, right? Maybe elves don’t even live there.”
“Yeah. Elves came here to see.”
“Well, Leaf’s fine with it.”
With that opener, Ray continued without bothering to look around.
“The World Tree withered and died when the gods disappeared. From the elves’ perspective, it was like the god they lived with died. For a while they tried everything—sacrifices, rituals, all the nonsense—to bring it back. But… what were the odds?”
After a long time, the exhausted elves finally gave up on reviving the World Tree.
The elves who had gathered around it to form their own nation lost their center and scattered.
“But the belief in the World Tree itself still remains. If I mention it, the fact that the World Tree died comes up too, so they decided not to talk about it at all.”
“I get it.”
It was basically a punchline.
“But… not to that extent. It just feels a little old and uncomfortable talking about it.”
While they were discussing the World Tree, the team reached the Waymarker Tree.
Now that they were standing right in front of it, it was obvious why Ray had brought up the World Tree.
It was indeed enormous.
Enormous.
“There are too many markers. Nothing’s organized, it’s a mess. How do we find what we need?”
“We have to check everything until we find it. Still, I’ll recognize that one.”
Ray pointed to the wooden plaque that marked the entrance to the second floor.
Only that plaque had a special border.
The gate to the second floor was fluid, like a checkpoint on the first floor.
Updating it constantly would make marking it like that the best solution.
“Hmm… no separate marker for the Floating Isle?”
“Would there be? The Floating Isle keeps moving.”
“We can’t even fly magic, right, us?”
That was true.
“But…”
“I’m looking for the Floating Isle.”
A third voice suddenly joined the conversation.
“Yo~ three fresh-faced Novices. You guys have that young energy.”
“Looks just like our old selves.”
The two approached casually, trading lines with each other.
“How’s it going? We’re heading for the Floating Isle too.”
“The roster was a bit short.”
What the hell were these guys?
They reeked of scent.
Scout scent.