10. Undead Leaders(2)
'Got him!'
That was what Keln thought.
The angle, the timing, and the force.
Everything was perfect.
"Not bad. For a bastard scraping by in a place like this."
But what unfolded was different from Keln's expectation and his hope.
Lee Jin-hyeok kicked hard off the ground and shot up into the air.
He slipped into the empty space at the upper part of the X and evaded the attack.
It was a difference of a single sheet of paper.
"......!"
As though mocking Keln's certainty, he slid past the attack far too easily.
But that was not the end of it.
[Mana is consumed.]
[The item <Scale Breaker> begins to howl.]
When mana was poured into it, the blade of <Scale Breaker> began to rotate.
GRRRRRIND—!
'Insane! There's no way!'
Watching the opponent's blade slice through his own helm and armor like cutting tofu, Keln was astonished.
'My helm is an Epic grade item! So how......?'
SLASH—!
Before the question could be answered, he could only collapse with a considerable wound to his head.
"Wh, what is this?"
"A monster......?"
They had been subdued in an instant, and even their leader, who had climbed as far as Floor 5, had been taken down.
From the Scavengers' position, the man could only look like a mad monster.
Only when several bones were broken, the taste of blood and something sickly sweet filled their mouths, and their vision spun did the Scavengers understand.
That they had provoked the wrong opponent.
"I didn't kill you."
Shaking the blood off the <Scale Breaker>, Lee Jin-hyeok looked at the Scavengers.
"I'll give you time to treat it. Apply first aid and you won't die."
***
The Scavenger leader, Keln.
What was the first posture he had adopted while climbing the Tower?
Switching his stance, and being hard on the weak and soft on the strong.
Trampling utterly on those weaker than himself and bowing his head to the strong.
To clear the Tower's trials up to Floor 5, with all their overflowing variables, it was a virtue(?) one naturally had to possess.
At least from the position of Keln, who had no overwhelming talent, strength, or information.
"I'll never act up again."
"I will correct my conduct."
Was that why?
Even while treating their wounds, they were reading Lee Jin-hyeok's mood with great care.
'Hm.'
And Lee Jin-hyeok simply looked at them.
Lee Jin-hyeok was no saint.
While climbing the Tower, and while waging war against <Pure Radiance> for years.
He had killed countless living things.
He had his own line about not killing civilians or the powerless, but he was not the sort to let bastards who picked fights with him off easily.
There was only one reason a man like that had left the Scavengers alive.
To make use of them.
'Right. I figured Scavengers would come if I rested somewhere visible.'
Scavengers.
It was true that they were the worst of the worst, killing beginners and squeezing their points out of them first.
But they were also the finest of specialists at finding a targeted item or location.
Because they hid themselves uncannily well at the sight of someone strong, he had shown himself dressed as a beginner.
It was to make use of them.
'Of course I could find them well enough without them. But it's also true that having them cuts the time down enormously.'
Approaching the men who had knelt of their own accord, Lee Jin-hyeok grinned.
"Hand over everything you have and I'll spare your lives."
[You have acquired the item <Health Recovery Potion>.] x5
[You have acquired the item <Mana Recovery Potion>.] x8
They had even more items than expected.
But Lee Jin-hyeok avoided touching their equipment as much as possible.
They would need it to track down Sacred Relics properly.
"But you won't be needing the points."
[Player <Keln> pays 50,184 points.]
Keln and the rest of the Scavenger bastards had dug up a fair number of items over that time and gained points.
▶Points currently held: 336,836
"They piled up quite a lot."
They had meant to finish this job and go to another floor to settle up, and had been caught at exactly the wrong moment.
Misfortune from their position, good fortune from Lee Jin-hyeok's.
"Good."
Thanks to wringing every point out of them, he could reach his target.
'I should take the items too.'
He left most of the equipment they wore alone, but the pieces he coveted too much to resist he simply took.
[You have acquired the item <Elite Kobold Greatsword>.]
<Elite Kobold Greatsword>
Grade: Rare
Category: Sword
[Attack Power: 40]
'Not bad.'
The <Elite Kobold Greatsword>, a reward obtainable by meeting certain conditions and clearing the Tower's Floor 5 trial.
From the fact that he had one, that bastard Keln was a man of some skill who had passed Floor 5.
[You have acquired the item <Sylph's Leather Boots>.]
<Sylph's Leather Boots>
Grade: Epic
Category: Shoes
[Magic Resistance: 30] [Agility +5]
▶Consumes mana to raise a gust of wind. The gust makes momentary movements faster.
▶May be worn layered over the shoes currently equipped.
"Epic grade, is it. You've got some fine things on you."
"......."
Seeing the man secretly holding back tears, it seemed to have been an enormously precious item.
That was understandable.
It was an Epic grade item, no less, and it had a special effect on top.
'The effect that raises a gust of wind. That effect is considerable.'
The remaining effects were nothing special, but raising a gust to speed up movement could be a decisive variable.
'Though it doesn't seem the gust gets bigger according to the mana you hold.'
He liked the second effect.
That whatever shoe item one had equipped, it could be layered over them in the form of wind.
That meant the player was effectively wearing two pairs of shoes.
'So that's why it's Epic grade.'
By its first effect or its other specs it might be borderline for Epic grade, but being able to layer it was a considerably good effect.
'Keln. This bastard is at the level of having cleared Floor 5. From the way he even put together a mercenary band, he seems to have a fair amount of skill, but.'
Swish.
'Sloppy. Two of the rest cleared the Floor 4 trial and the others all Floor 3?'
After gauging their level, Lee Jin-hyeok slowly approached.
"So then."
Even while reading Lee Jin-hyeok's mood, they were pinpointing locations on the map.
"Did you find the leaders?"
The three leaders.
Lee Jin-hyeok only knew roughly that they were 'around here,' not their exact locations.
So he had put the Scavenger bastards he had just met to work.
Told them to find the things.
"U, um......"
After checking the locations marked on the map.
Keln approached Lee Jin-hyeok with a pale expression.
"Going there right now is not a very good decision...... sir."
"The reason?"
"Well......"
Keln swallowed dryly.
"Recently the black mages have been trying to hunt the three undead leaders."
By Keln's explanation, it went like this.
For reasons unknown, one of the four leaders, Odusasa, had been destroyed.
Because of that, the taut balance between the necromancers who came to Floor 2 and the undead leaders had broken down.
As a result, the necromancer guilds had allied and were planning to merge the three undead leaders into a chimera.
"A horrific hybrid."
Lee Jin-hyeok shook his head.
"To think those three would try to band together."
"They say they have not managed to band together yet. The three undead leaders joined their own forces to stand against the necromancers too."
At those words, Lee Jin-hyeok's eyes gleamed.
'In that case...... the odds are high that the remaining <Fragments of the Imugi's Inner Core> are where those things are.'
But this was not an easy matter.
Three undead leaders clustered together, with necromancers packed in around them.
To get the inner cores he would have to break through all of those forces.
"By what you're saying, doesn't that mean the necromancers and the undead leaders are fighting each other?"
"That is...... true?"
"Then it's an opportunity."
"Pardon?"
Three undead leaders clustered together, with necromancers packed in around them.
"You mean to break through all of that?"
"That's suicide!"
Regardless of what they said, Lee Jin-hyeok simply smiled.
It might look like a crisis, but it was an opportunity.
The <Fragments of the Imugi's Inner Core>, whose locations could not be pinned down.
It was a very good chance to obtain them all at once.
'Well, there's no need to tell these ones what I'm after.'
Lee Jin-hyeok grinned.
"The objective is set. We avoid clashing with the necromancers as much as possible and head for where the undead leaders are."
'This is insane.'
'I think we picked the wrong man......'
Ignoring the Scavengers looking at him, Lee Jin-hyeok raised the <Elite Kobold Greatsword>.
"Let's go. Now."
***
'A specialist really is a specialist. Is that it?'
Chasing down, tracking, and obtaining items of value.
In fact, this was a field Lee Jin-hyeok too had great confidence in.
It was the very secret by which a man with no particular talent had reached first rank before the regression.
Risking his life to gather information and obtain the hidden pieces, the items and skills, that suited him.
Climb the floors, or drop him in an unknown place or on another floor, and no player would do it better than Lee Jin-hyeok.
But here on Floor 2 alone, it was different.
The Scavenger bastards kept out of the necromancers' watch with uncanny skill and read the terrain.
They dug into ruins and facilities buried under corpses to move through secret passages, and even threw off undead along the way.
They did not know Sacred Relics existed, but mark a location on the map and they would deliver him there on their own.
'It's true that it made getting here easy. It saved a lot of time, too.'
Despite being near the necromancers, they rode an ancient ruin's sewer line and arrived at the target.
Countless magic circles, traps, and riddles blocked them, but they solved their way through without hesitation.
If Lee Jin-hyeok was a player who worked across the whole Tower, these men were specialists who had spent years researching 'Floor 2' and nothing else.
And as a result.
"Wow......"
"What is this?"
"My god......"
They were able to arrive at a cave full of scales made of bone.
'This is it.'
Because it was the place Dang So-wol had described, Lee Jin-hyeok could be certain.
This was where the skeleton leader, Skull Lord, had hidden its <Fragment of the Imugi's Inner Core>.
***
Floor 2 <Dead Run>.
Lately this place had been good enough to be called a paradise for novice necromancers.
Countless undead, and excellent biological material in Scavengers and clueless players.
For running all kinds of experiments or developing new magic, it was nothing short of paradise.
As such, a great many necromancer guilds in the Tower came here and conducted all manner of experiments.
Perhaps that was why?
The four leader undead here, the only ones with a 'self,' were under constant threat to their persons.
-The situation is not good.
HSSSSSSS......!
-No, it is the worst.
Dense scales made of ivory-colored bone, and an enormous body.
And as if that were not enough, an enormous undead serpent that had covered its body once more with all manner of bones, like armor.
'Skull Lord' looked at the other leaders with gleaming eyes.
-Go on like this and we will all be reduced to experiment subjects for the necromancer bastards.
-Agreed.
CRACKLE.
From below, the undead serpent 'Flu Flower' crawled out.
Scales covered in purple flowers, and the fact that its head was not a snake's but a 'rat's,' were especially striking.
-The Constellation seems to have many worries as well.
-......That much is clear enough from this message alone.
At Skull Lord's words, yet another serpent crawled out from below.
Dark, murky scales and skin, and three vicious eyes.
It was 'Dead Skin,' which laid a curse turning living creatures into undead by mere contact.
-To think Odusasa would die.
-No one predicted it.
The first Apostle and the strongest of them, the cleaner 'Odusasa,' was dead.
And to a greenhorn player who had only just come up to Floor 2, at that.
-To think a thing that lived for centuries without dying would die like this.
-Nothing could be emptier.
-A greater problem than that is the necromancers' movements. From what the corpse rats I sent confirmed......
Swish.
-The area around us is already packed with necromancers.
All three leaders could tell instinctively.
-That woman?
-Yes.
CRACKLE.
-The Witch of Downfall.
The Witch of Downfall, Majuron.
A necromancer who led the necromancers, and a sorceress, and a witch.
She was a High Ranker currently ranked 82nd, with overwhelming forces and power.
They were pouring every undead in <Dead Run> into it as sheer numbers to hold off the necromancer alliance Majuron led.
But it was nothing more than a stopgap.
Her forcing her way through that mass was only a matter of time.
-Brace yourselves.
Gulp.
-She comes.
KABOOOOOM—!
An intense explosion followed.
What appeared along with it was a silver-haired beauty wearing a witch's hat.
-The Witch of Downfall......
Her face was not clearly visible, but her fair, fine skin and purple lips spoke for her identity instead.
"So you're all gathered here."
Grin.
"This will be fun. Making a chimera out of the famous leader undead."
-Nonsense!
Hearing Majuron's words, the three leaders roared.
-We will not be taken so easily!
At the same time, blue sparks began leaping across Majuron's whole body.