There was something people were mistaken about.
They chattered, as if it were common sense, the absurd idea that Kim Tae-seong's climbs were still underrated because they were below Floor 10.
The reality was different.
The first climb.
Right after the eight-minute record was made public, governments everywhere went on emergency alert.
"Someone has broken the ten-minute barrier that even Miracle could not calculate."
America's supercomputer, Miracle.
After countless calculations, Miracle had judged that the shortest Floor 1 record could not go under ten minutes, even including the variable of luck. And yet here was a record that cut it in half. Idiots who belittled this figure simply because it was Floor 1 did not deserve to hold on to power in the present reality.
Therefore.
Governments set their people loose.
Judging that the record holder was an existing ranker, they sought to confirm which of them had newly shot to prominence.
The result.
No one matched.
Among the countless rankers in their intelligence networks, not a single one could be found who came close to the Floor 1 record. Most either lacked that kind of skill or had verified whereabouts at the time. As speculation swelled that it might be an unknown figure, he made the unprecedented move of a direct climb up to Floor 9.
From then on it was a completely different matter.
The competition caught fire.
Thinking they had to find the Unknown first, some governments even diverted manpower meant for the twentieth floor to the search.
The Prime Minister of Japan.
Fujiwara Kenta gave a peculiar look.
"It seems Chancellor Richard has found something."
"Come now- if I had something, would I not have revealed it here? With the problem of the twentieth floor right before us, this is a person who broke records considered impossible by humanity's common sense. Even if not through the 'Avengers Project' the President of the United States spoke of, I only mentioned it in the hope that the Unknown joining us might be the key."
"Well, I agree. Is there perhaps anyone who has something to say about this?"
Eyes rolled round and round.
It was plain that everyone only wanted new information, with no intention of letting slip even a little of what they themselves had learned.
It was a recurring problem.
Just as Haoran said that a One Team breaking down national borders was impossible because of the 'privilege', each nation had a great desire to secure the Unknown first.
If they recruited the Unknown.
If by chance they succeeded in clearing the twentieth floor, they could lead not only in the Monster Wave but in the international situation for some time.
Talk of the Unknown withered away.
A smooth conversation would only be possible if each of them shared information, but since no one opened their mouth, there was nothing to say.
In the end.
"With this, we conclude the third summit."
With President William Taylor's declaration, the leaders of the nations rose from their seats with bitter faces.
The President of Korea.
Jang Tae-ho walked down the hallway.
The young president in his early forties was the symbol of the reform of the Korean government.
"Damned lot."
He clicked his tongue.
His personal secretary, Kim Yu-mi, matched his pace and kept close.
"......It seems there's no clear solution this time either."
"Of course not. The Avengers Project America talks about sounds plausible, but in the end it means America taking the lead and getting every nation's talent into its grip. It's just their dark ambition to hold hegemony over the whole world forever, wrapped up as humanity's problem."
"So in the end, it will be the same as back then."
"Humans are creatures of forgetting who repeat their problems."
Floor 10.
It had been the same back then.
They had spent time like this, and in the end lost countless lives to the Dead Wave phenomenon.
Jang Tae-ho spoke as he walked.
"Any leads on the Unknown?"
"We haven't found so much as a thread yet."
"......Someone who cleared the ninth floor in ten minutes is an expert of unprecedented caliber, S-Grade or above at the very least. I knew from the start the negotiations would fall apart, so it would've been really nice if we'd at least gotten a thread on the Unknown."
Regret welled up.
The German Chancellor's remark.
In truth, it had been everyone's ploy.
Everyone had known this summit would break down, but they had seen it as a chance to learn what information each nation held on the Unknown.
The existence of the Unknown.
It was coveted.
The Republic of Korea was very weak in national power.
The great powers typically held ten or more S-Grade hunters, while the Republic of Korea had three at most.
But if they cleared the twentieth floor with the Unknown on board, they could work the miracle of a rebound on the international stage.
"The reason every country is so fired up over the Unknown is probably the tower's structure, which makes it hard for a 'new face' to shoot up anymore. In a system where the state naturally backs any promising sprout it finds, an expert of that caliber dropping out of the sky isn't a normal situation. Yu-mi."
"Yes."
"We focus not on the twentieth-floor problem we can't solve. We focus on finding the Unknown."
"Understood."
"Convene the Intelligence Agency as soon as we're back home. The biggest gain from this summit is that the other countries don't know anything about the Unknown yet either."
Jang Tae-ho thought.
The utterly absurd fantasy that it would be nice if the Unknown were Korean.
He blew it out of his head at once.
This chaotic world was not so easy that he could run state affairs drunk on fantasy.
The protagonist the whole world was looking for.
Kim Tae-seong was at present on Floor 10 of the tower.
"......Oh, fuc-."
THWACK!
Right in front of him.
He smashed the head of a charging ghoul.
Sama Pung might be dealing with most of them, but due to the terrain, monsters trickling out like this could not be helped.
The one saving grace was the existence of [Cover].
He used the Cover skill.
By summoning a black curtain, he could avoid drawing the monsters' aggro.
He immediately raised his head.
The sight spread before his eyes was nothing short of spectacular.
"Where does this rabble think it is-!"
Sama Pung.
He spun his sword like a windmill.
He raised a great wind and cut through the space in one stroke, and the charging monsters were torn apart where they stood.
E-Grade skeletons?
C-Grade dullahans?
Such distinctions were meaningless.
He split their heads with a single strike.
Even the dullahans violently swinging their own heads could not withstand Sama Pung's powerful sword technique.
The problem was.
JINGLE JINGLE-
Whenever that damned bell rang, the dead rose again and charged in relentlessly.
Paeng Dal was in a corner, protecting only himself.
In the end, this had to be solved by Sama Pung's hard carry.
'The Endless Death Struggle isn't something you solve by holding out. The lich, whose mana should be limited, is endlessly regenerating the dead with the dark zone's infinite mana. In the end, the only way to break through Floor 10 is to punch through this monster wave fast and deal with the lich.'
His eyes gleamed.
"Search."
He searched the area.
The paths of mana stretching out in all directions presented a clear answer as to where they led and where to go.
Kim Tae-seong shouted.
"Not straight ahead, we have to break through the path on the right!"
"The right?"
Sama Pung's gaze snapped over.
He swung his sword and shattered the bodies of three skeletons, then with ghostlike footwork surged swiftly across the space.
There was no sign of fatigue whatsoever.
Ten of them.
A hundred of them.
He butchered them all.
Namgung Cheol's words had not been empty.
The dark zone's sensory interference, the debuff.
Even with the negative mana that had plunged humanity into despair caked thick and binding his whole body, Sama Pung put on a tremendous performance.
[Die!]
A dullahan charged in, THUD THUD.
Against the head it swung violently, the sword Sama Pung thrust in pierced head and heart at the same time.
THWACK!
"Give me more."
WHIRRL.
THWACK!
"You dog bastards, I said come at me more!"
Sama Pung laid bare his madness.
The ominous gleam of his eyes revealed a temperament different from the Namgung Clan's.
He opened the way quickly.
Along the way Kim Tae-seong steadily burst [holy power orbs] with Throw, and through Search he found the right path in a space packed with the dead. As they darted about, he released Cover. He cast Haste on himself to dodge the attacks of the dead, and when the way was blocked again he hid himself from the monsters' eyes with Cover.
Kim Tae-seong was the support.
He did not overdo it.
Bluntly put, he had not the slightest intention of showing reckless bravado with strength that could not even handle a C-Grade dullahan.
At last.
"There-!"
They reached the destination Search indicated.
In the vast space connected beyond it, the lich's thick, dangerous mana was detected.
But then.
FSSSH.
"!?"
The space warped.
The dark zone's mana swallowed the space, and the path that had existed a moment ago vanished.
Monsters following behind.
It was the moment the way of retreat turned into death ground.
'So it really won't grant the way in one go.'
Kim Tae-seong was not flustered.
This situation.
It was within what he had expected.
Sama Pung held off the monsters and shouted in his characteristically curt tone.
"What in the world is going on?!"
"It's the Dark Labyrinth."
The three problems of Floor 10.
[Dark Zone][Endless Death Struggle][Dark Labyrinth]
The most difficult of them, the impregnable Dark Labyrinth, made its presence known.
An S-Grade hunter.
The reason the Lion of Sweden, Bjorn Gustafsson, had failed the climb was not a lack of personal force.
Dullahans, death knights, the lich.
Those were no problem.
Even the monsters pouring in, true to the Endless Death Struggle's reputation, he could handle well enough with his monstrous stamina.
The real problem was.
'The Dark Labyrinth. The strategy guide said the dark zone and the ever-shifting form of the labyrinth drive climbers into difficulty.'
Bjorn Gustafsson raised the white flag.
Accepting that he could not solve it alone, he cleared Floor 10 together with teammates who met conditions 1 and 2 of the strategy guide.
The answer to conquering the Dark Labyrinth was already public.
Namely, multi-search.
Using multiple search-type skills at once and breaking through quickly the moment a [New Path] was generated was the only solution. For that reason a solo climb was effectively impossible. Handling hundreds of monsters alone was a problem in itself, and on top of that there was multi-search, and finally one had to calculate the shortest route and break through as soon as the new path was secured.
Besides, the Dark Labyrinth's generation cooldown was five minutes.
Once past the five-minute mark, the 'path of life' one had thought was a way would turn back into death ground in a moment.
'This is why I mastered Search, a Bronze skill. The problem is that on a solo climb like now, I can't handle this situation alone with multi-search.'
The past few days.
He had racked his brain.
Should he take on a new teammate?
With just one more person, the climb could be much easier.
The conclusion was NO.
Nine years he had clawed through a barren life in which he was not granted even the single Unique Skill everyone else had. People might point fingers and call him selfish, but he simply could not give up the benefits of a solo climb.
Therefore.
THUNK!
"Listen carefully from here on!"
He stuck something into the ground.
"This is a [Magic Alarm]. If a path is generated again at this spot of ours, Elder, you have to come here, break through the path alone, and deal with the lich. Got it?"
"This elder has been told he was bright since childhood."
"Ah, sure-."
He ignored it.
That a path vanished.
It meant a new path appeared somewhere in the labyrinth.
And the locations of those paths sometimes overlapped.
That was the thread of the solution Kim Tae-seong had come up with.
Sama Pung opened the way.
He secured a new path through Search, and right after they arrived there too, the [path] could be seen vanishing.
As expected.
He stuck in another magic alarm.
Though they repeated this many times, Sama Pung, without a hint of fatigue, butchered the tower's monsters as fast as he ran into them.
'This plan. It would've been absolutely impossible if not for the murim martial artists.'
He had once asked Namgung Su-ho this question.
How on earth he did not get caught in the tower's traps.
Namgung Su-ho had answered this.
"When you expand your senses, the five senses sharpen and much becomes visible. If sound bores through a wall that ought to block sound, it means a trap exists beyond it, and the instant of sound when traps trigger grants us room to react."
Magic alarms.
If that alone could have solved it, the Lion of Sweden would have gone in with them packed by the bundle.
The puzzle piece of murim had been added.
After Kim Tae-seong secured the paths with Search and stuck magic alarms at the places presumed to be exits. The tremendous noise ringing the moment the answer was generated would present the answer to Sama Pung. As the noise spread out wailing and struck the walls of the maze, the labyrinth's structure would be drawn temporarily inside the head of a murim master like Sama Pung. Then he could break through alone, without Kim Tae-seong's help.
This situation.
He left it entirely to murim's individual skill.
Kim Tae-seong was certain.
People judged murim only by climb results, but these might be beings for whom this world's grade distinctions were meaningless.
It was then.
The moment they reached a dead end.
From one of the [Magic Alarms] came the signal that a [path] had opened.
Kim Tae-seong shouted.
"Now-!"
WEEEEEEEOOOOOONG-!
Far away.
A magic alarm rang.
Kim Tae-seong had demanded it of Sama Pung.
That at that moment he abandon him and Paeng Dal, break through the path as fast as possible, and blow the lich's head off.
The core of this absurd plan was that he would somehow endure the attacks of monsters he could not handle.
"Hold out well, my moneybags."
BAM-
Sama Pung kicked off the ground.
His figure could not even be seen properly.
It was proof that Sama Pung had not been giving his all until now.
Supposedly out of consideration for Kim Tae-seong following behind, he had shown only a moderate level of force until then.
KRAAK!
KRAAAAAAK!
Monsters charged in from every side.
Kim Tae-seong clenched his teeth hard.
How long would it take to bring down the lich?
Ten minutes?
Twenty?
He did not know.
There was nothing for it but to endure as long as he could.
As Paeng Dal came up beside him, he first set off a magic bomb on the ground to buy time.
BAM-!
"Cover."
He hid himself.
In the thick smoke that rose, he tried to hide behind the black curtain.
The intent only half worked.
As the menacing form of a dullahan punched through, Kim Tae-seong raised his sword to block the swinging head.
CRASH-!
POW!
He landed hard on his backside.
His head spun round and round.
But he was not fool enough to stay sitting.
Seeing Paeng Dal's back as he blocked the way ahead, he tried to get up and support him too.
'......Either I croak, or I hit the jackpot. It's one or the other, isn't it?'
The hunter's path.
It had always been a succession of choices.
Paeng Dal held off the dullahan.
Paeng Dal's skill was better than he had thought, and Kim Tae-seong tenaciously lent his strength from beside him.
He was stabbed, cut, knocked down.
With one minute feeling like ten, before his eyes, before he knew it, more monsters than he could handle were surging in. [Cover] did not work. The limited space and far too many of them. Here, it seemed, holding out for more than ten minutes would be absolutely impossible.
He prayed.
Please, let Sama Pung finish it quickly.
But even so.
[You have passed the trial of Tower Floor 10.]
[Personnel: 1]
[Record: 38 minutes 20 seconds]
[For the first successful solo climb, a special reward applying the symbolism of the achievement is granted.]
"......What the."
Less than five minutes had passed since Sama Pung disappeared.
This was a fast result, far too fast.