Kim Tae-seong immediately checked the skill.
[E-031 Link]
[Unique Skill]
-Allows entry into the 'E-031' dimension.
-Cooldown: One month
-Link duration: 6 hours
-Bound Skill: Summon unsealed
-Bound Skill: Conscription unsealed
-Bound Skill: Salvation unsealed
Only one thing had changed.
The link time had increased from three hours to six.
'......So this could level up too?'
Ordinary Unique Skills had levels.
But with E-031 Link none was displayed, so he had taken it as just a quirk of a skill that had been special from the start.
In reality, there had been a hidden condition.
Just as it had been locked as ??? at first because he had not grasped the unsealing condition, the levels of the Bound Skills appeared to be the condition that raised the Unique Skill's stage. The absurd part, even so, was that no supplementary notation like lv2 was attached.
'The question is, is this especially good news?'
The answer was.
Probably not.
The deal with the E-031 dimension.
It was about calling that world's powerful into his.
Going over there himself held nothing much for Kim Tae-seong to gain.
'Still, since it's come to this, I should give them their reward.'
The skill's level-up.
Thanks to it, the cooldown had been reset.
Conscription applied as well, so he could move straight on to the next stage, but having gotten past the hurdle of Floor 10, he judged there was a need to cycle the E-031 skill cooldown once. The Summon skill required the consent of those summoned. If he fulfilled his deal with Sama Pung, First Elder of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, he could build goodwill with the other summon targets in advance.
He made his decision.
He headed straight to the supermarket.
He took a cart and headed, out of habit, to one aisle.
'First.......'
TAK TAK.
He grabbed a few packs of mana cigarettes.
High-quality B-Grade products at that.
Containing B-Grade mana stone, it was a pricey product costing a whopping hundred thousand won per 'single cigarette'.
Honestly, he would have liked to sweep up A-Grade products, but his wallet would not allow sweeping up A-Grade at a full ten times the price of B-Grade. Still, by putting in five packs holding ten mana cigarettes each, he had enough on hand to make a good show of it for Sama Pung.
He pushed the cart along.
This time Kim Tae-seong headed to the grocery section.
Fresh fruit, vegetables, rice, and even snacks and ramen.
Recalling that the murim martial artists were short on food, he swept things in until the cart was full.
'Even with part of the ecosystem restored, three meals a day must be impossible for them. Considering the Link skill's cooldown is a month, I need to supply as much food as possible every visit.'
Near the cart's handle.
He pressed a red button.
The inside of the cart rippled, then devoured the items within, crunch, crunch.
It was a subspace slot.
Filling one cart was not enough to finish shopping, and so he filled about five carts' worth.
That was enough shopping.
But as he walked, something caught Kim Tae-seong's eye.
He stopped short.
"......They'll need this, right?"
It was baby formula.
Suddenly he remembered his conversation with Namgung Cheol.
The reason he had not given up on life.
The woman's deeply sunken cheeks and the newborn cradled in her arms were vivid in his memory.
With her nutrition too poor to nurse, the baby must not be getting enough nourishment to grow.
"Right, it can't hurt to bring some."
He put in the formula.
They were people he would be on good terms with anyway.
Buying formula, bottles, and the like for a baby was hardly a burden.
At a price that did not even come to a single mana cigarette, Kim Tae-seong finally added a few gifts for the baby as well.
FWOOSH-
Light flared.
It was an unfamiliar lurch.
When he stepped forward, a different environment from before spread out before his eyes.
"......You've already put together quite a setup, haven't you?"
"And you, Savior, how is it that you have come so early?"
It was Namgung Cheol.
As Namgung Cheol said.
He had been scheduled to come a month later.
It was an earlier visit than announced, but what caught Kim Tae-seong's eye first was the state of the surroundings.
Sixteen hundred square meters.
Large, if you called it large.
Small, if you called it small.
But the people had developed that space and already made it into the shape of a small village.
Without enough materials they could not raise proper buildings, but they had built simple houses so each [faction] had somewhere to stay. Crude things of earth and wood at best. But just being able to shelter from rain and wind, a space warmed by nothing more than a bonfire lit in a dug pit, was enough as a refuge.
These were people who had had no homes.
And no food.
In the sight of them moving about at work, hope for life bloomed even in a hopeless environment.
Kim Tae-seong said.
"My skill leveled up, so the cooldown was reset. Let me hand out the supplies first."
"Understood. Su-ho."
"Yes."
Namgung Su-ho.
A familiar face came running.
As the Azure Sky Corps moved in perfect order, the supplies Kim Tae-seong poured out were quickly carried off.
Distribution needed control rather than individuals handing things out, so for now the Namgung Clan took the lead in managing the supplies.
"And these, I brought a few things for the baby."
Things like formula.
He had packed them separately and handed them over.
Namgung Cheol's eyes filled with emotion.
"......Thank you."
"No need to thank me. We're in a relationship of mutual aid."
"No. Simply fulfilling a deal and showing care beyond the basic deal are different matters."
The people were lively.
Those who found fresh ingredients chattered noisily, and people from factions other than the Namgung Clan also stepped up to carry supplies. The people of the Heaven-Breaking Fortress and the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult were nowhere to be seen, but the sight of dozens of people pouring out and radiating happy energy gave Kim Tae-seong a sense of inner satisfaction as well.
Whatever it was.
It was helping people.
That his own gain aligned with goodwill was nothing a human being had reason to dislike.
After all the supplies had been moved.
Namgung Cheol said.
"Would you walk with me for a while?"
A walk, such as it was, only meant circling the edge that sixteen hundred square meters allowed.
The people's voices still bored into their ears, but Namgung Cheol walked slowly with Kim Tae-seong.
"Answering the Savior's call and clearing the tower's trials, I thought a great deal about the old days. We were ferocious back then. No matter how hard and threatening the tower's trials were, we smashed every problem we faced and pressed forward. We were strong. We were truly, truly strong."
He clenched his fist tight.
He had heard it from Kim Tae-seong.
That they were stuck at the twentieth floor.
Murim had been different.
They had toppled the calamity of the twentieth floor in one breath, eyed the realms beyond it, and resolved problems swiftly.
"Perhaps the very fact that we were too strong seized us by the ankle. Had we made full use of the time the trials granted us and regrouped, we would not have committed the folly of eyeing the fiftieth floor so early."
There had been days when they took three or four floors in a single day.
If Kim Tae-seong's world took ample time, the murim martial artists had had nothing in their way.
People hungry for glory.
They proved themselves by clearing the tower.
Kindling competition, calling check and countercheck at one another as in a game of janggi, they carved their names at the top of the tower.
Kim Tae-seong asked.
"Do you regret it?"
"Yes. I regret it very much. So many regrets remain that I could not list them all."
He stopped short.
He halted his steps.
He turned his head and looked at Kim Tae-seong.
"So there is something I must tell you before I come to regret it."
"......"
"To be honest, Savior, your world is very weak. The problem is that even in that weak world, I judge that you belong among the weak."
"I won't deny it."
He admitted it.
D-Grade.
That was Kim Tae-seong's reality.
Without needing it explained, the people of murim had noticed it.
"Paeng Dal told me that during this challenge of the tenth floor there was a gap of about five minutes. The tower is a place where no one knows what will happen, and you cannot be guaranteed complete safety like a flower in a greenhouse. And the Savior's safety is directly tied to the lives of 'all of us'."
When a summon ended.
Those who returned met with Namgung Cheol.
Hearing what had happened inside, Namgung Cheol had felt a chill.
"Had something happened to the Savior in that five-minute variable, we would lose this hope we barely obtained. That must not happen. Never, never take such risks again. In any situation, use us actively, and if necessary, even if it means throwing us into a pit of fire, put your own safety first. If the course was justified, no matter how many die for the Savior, I. No, we will hold no resentment."
He was at a loss for words.
Namgung Cheol's eyes.
Facing the will blazing fiercely in them, he could not readily answer.
It was not wrong, either.
The link between two worlds.
It was Kim Tae-seong.
Kim Tae-seong's death was never a simple matter for the murim martial artists.
But.
"......I have no intention of taking risks needlessly either, but you know, don't you? That the world we live in doesn't always go the way we want."
It was a world where thousands, tens of thousands died every single day.
Guaranteeing safety?
Impossible.
Kim Tae-seong leaned toward caution, but he knew well that this was a world where one could not avoid taking risks.
High risk, high return.
If you did not shoulder risk.
A world where you became truly nothing.
No further explanation was needed; Namgung Cheol was not one to be ignorant of that.
That was why.
Namgung Cheol said.
"Yes. I know. That is why."
Since hearing Paeng Dal's story.
He had already made up his mind.
"On the one chance in ten thousand. If only to prepare for any danger, I will teach the Savior 'the martial arts of the Namgung Clan'."
Namgung Cheol's statement.
For a moment his thinking stopped.
"......You'll teach me martial arts?"
"Yes."
The realm of common sense.
Martial arts were not a matter of being passed down.
Even the 'martial arts skill' holders who represented China had acquired theirs through skills, not learned them from anyone.
He had overlooked it for a moment.
It was not so much stupidity as the realm of the senseless.
Murim had wielded special power from the very beginning.
The high tower they had built up even before the trials occurred was a realm of transmission, stacked layer by layer from the experience of their predecessors.
"Teaching you right now will not give the Savior tremendous power. Our strength is founded on years built up since before the trials broke out, and mastering martial arts is not as convenient and simple as a skill. However, if I pour everything in, it is a different story."
Kim Tae-seong.
No harm could be permitted to befall him.
In Namgung Cheol's eyes, a fierce longing showed.
"Only say yes. With that single consent, I will teach you martial arts with all my strength for as long as you are here."
He handed over the choice.
[Martial arts]
At the crossroads of choice, Kim Tae-seong already knew what answer to give.
In his head.
The wings of imagination spread.
In the tower's trials that Kim Tae-seong would never have dared attempt, Namgung Cheol had shown an overwhelming performance and outright butchered them. It was a realm even those called S-Grade could not handle. He knew he could not gain that much power in a short time, but there was no reason to refuse the advantage of 'martial arts', separate from skills.
The imagining shifted abruptly.
He projected himself onto the figure of Namgung Cheol.
His chest burned hot.
If he could grasp even a little of that power, Kim Tae-seong could do anything.
"Gladly. I will not refuse the Clan Head's kindness."
"Then I will pass down the martial arts to you at once."
"What should I do first?"
"Please sit."
He plopped down on the ground.
Told to sit cross-legged in the lotus position, he awkwardly took the posture.
Behind his back.
He felt Namgung Cheol's hand.
[From now on, you must follow what I say completely.]
Not in his ears.
A voice ringing in his head.
Then.
SHAAA-
[The first stage of martial arts. We have no time, so I will first forcibly shape your body.]
At the energy spreading from his back, Kim Tae-seong sucked in a breath.