Maybe it was being suddenly left alone — my heart was pounding fast.
Still, the tower wouldn't have harmed the two of them in a situation where we hadn't even done anything yet.
I took a deep breath, then used my perk skill.
"Docent, activate. Search: Jangsan Tiger."
Fwish-
=================
[Jangsan Tiger]
A modern Korean urban-legend monster resembling a tiger.
-Traits
Mimics the human voice.
=================
'That's all?'
A weakness, say, or a more detailed appearance.
Was the information on the Jangsan Tiger stored in my brain really this scant?
'I should have read more modern horror stories, not just classical art. Even so, for it to be this hollow.'
Just then, new writing surfaced at the bottom of the leaflet.
=================
-Associated with: white hide, a bell, and a cave.
=================
'That's what Mr. Go said earlier.'
[Perk: Docent]
-Can compile 'information' scattered across the brain's regions into data.
-Knowledge newly acquired in the tower is saved and added in real time.
'That's information I could have memorized without the leaflet writing it down for me.'
I sighed and closed the Docent skill window.
Still, I had firmly re-confirmed one piece of information: the Jangsan Tiger mimics the human voice.
Just then.
"Urgh, ngh...."
"...?!!"
From inside the path that had swallowed Jang Si-woon came the sound of weeping.
A voice soaked through with tears — a slightly higher pitch than her usual brusque tone.
It was unmistakably Jang Si-woon's voice.
"Ji-san.... Ji-san, are you there?"
"......."
"Something suddenly... dragged me in.... Ngh.... I think my ankle is broken...."
"......."
"Is this the Jangsan Tiger's doing?"
'Am I not allowed to even answer?'
My knowledge of the Jangsan Tiger was so thin that all I could do was hold to silence.
The moment we'd spoken of the Jangsan Tiger, she'd vanished into the dark — and immediately, Jang Si-woon was calling out to me.
It was a situation that demanded suspicion.
"Grraahh-!!"
"Aaagh...! It hurts, it hurts!!!"
Then came a beast's howl and the sound of flesh being torn.
Jang Si-woon moaned in pain. In the end, I couldn't bear it, and opened my tightly shut mouth.
"Si-woon!!"
Thankfully, nothing happened.
Is Jang Si-woon really being torn apart by the Jangsan Tiger?
Should I go to save her?
'Think coldly. You came here to fulfill your wish, Kim Ji-san.'
This is no time for the foolishness of throwing my body away to save someone else.
Volunteering to leap into that darkness when a trap is the likeliest answer.
And she isn't even someone dear to me — just a person I met while climbing this tower.
'But setting aside the profit and value of keeping her company....'
Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min are people who acknowledged me.
Through them I learned that even my worthless knowledge could help someone — could be praised.
We aren't close, we aren't dear to each other — but they are people with whom the relationship itself carries meaning.
'And by the quest's terms, the one holding the visitors' lives in its grip is the Skeleton Yokai. The Jangsan Tiger is only a mid-boss.'
The boss that removes visitors from this map after the third sunset is the Skeleton Yokai.
The Jangsan Tiger might damage their bodies, but it wouldn't erase the two of them entirely.
Fwish-
Name: Unbending Dagger.
Description: That blade shall cleave falsehood clean through.
[Tool equipped.]
I summoned the leaflet in my mind and drew the Unbending Dagger from the item window, gripping it tight.
It was a knife, such as it was — yet no text announcing increased attack power appeared.
"It hurts!!"
"Whew."
Weighing both emotion and reason, I made my judgment — and finally moved my feet.
I leapt into the hole that had swallowed Jang Si-woon.
Darkness covered my body for a moment, then the surroundings quickly brightened again.
And the scene that unfolded before my eyes-
"Si-woon...?!"
[Congratulations.]
No Jang Si-woon — instead, out of nowhere, the Curator stood at the center.
The Curator looked at me and clapped lightly.
"Grrrr...."
'So that's what the Jangsan Tiger looks like.'
Beside the Curator, an enormous Jangsan Tiger crouched, coiled in on itself.
The mass of pale fur writhed and revealed its head.
In skeletal build and the shape of its head, it closely resembled a tiger.
If even the Jangsan Tiger was this big, just how huge was the house-sized beast from the quest?
'...What's that?'
Around the Jangsan Tiger, a pale powder lay scattered.
Too finely ground to be shed fur....
'Wait, this isn't the time. Was it the Jangsan Tiger making Jang Si-woon's voice, or not?'
[Yes. It was. Visitor Jang Si-woon is not here. The Jangsan Tiger merely imitated her voice.]
[Visitor Kim Ji-san — you summoned courage out of a beautiful heart.]
[I was moved.]
"......."
The Curator's words came back to me — complete the quests with that beautiful heart.
Was that why it had prepared a testing ground like this?
[You deserve a special opportunity.]
"An opportunity?"
[Behold.]
The Curator stretched out a hand, and just like before, two forked paths formed in the wall.
[Take the right path, and you will meet the house-sized beast at once.]
[Meaning: you will be able to defeat the Skeleton Yokai.]
"And if I take the left path?"
[You will meet Visitor Go Gyu-min and Visitor Jang Si-woon.]
[But you will have to find the path to the house-sized beast all over again.]
"......."
[Either path takes one day to walk to its end.]
'Then after meeting Mr. Go and Si-woon, we'd have only half a day left to solve the quest.'
After meeting Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon, barely half a day to go find the house-sized beast.
No — it could be even shorter than half a day.
"If I take the right path and meet the house-sized beast, what happens to the two of them?"
[You will not have seen it — so the ending, you cannot know.]
"......."
[Now, choose.]
The Curator blurred its answer — claiming not to know the ending.
Was everything the Curator was saying even true? Even that was doubtful.
Still, hearing I could succeed at the quest right away, my heart wavered in spite of myself.
'This is a tower that tests people — shouldn't I strain all the harder to keep a good heart?'
But what if it was counting on exactly that, and had laid a trap along the path to Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon?
My head ached over what to do.
...It was only moments ago that I'd felt grateful to the two who acknowledged me.
The self that leaned toward the right path — that was the self I hated most.
'The urge to survive is only natural. But I didn't want to be someone whose heart turned this quickly.'
Bitter, I drove my gaze down to the floor and clenched my fists.
Hard enough that even the dagger in my hand quivered.
In that instant of movement, the dagger's blade glinted and shone.
'...? Wait....'
Something. On the blade.
[Visitor Kim Ji-san?]
'If what I just saw was right....'
Staring intently at the blade, I tilted the dagger this way and that once more.
The blade was so clear it was like a mirror.
Using the blade as a mirror, I reflected my surroundings in it.
'I wasn't seeing things.'
"Urgh-"
Just then, my head spun hard enough to bring on nausea.
The feeling of my brain and pupils whirling together.
Pressing a hand to my forehead, I barely kept my feet and focused my mind.
'Think it through again. Kim Ji-san. Something — you've missed something.'
[If you do not choose quickly, the entrances to both paths will close.]
The Curator pressed me. Drove me on, so I'd have no room left for doubt.
Paying it no mind, I retraced my memories.
What snagged most was..., the memory of searching the Jangsan Tiger with the Docent ability earlier.
'The entry was thin because that was all the information I had on the Jangsan Tiger.'
Because that was all....
"Docent. Search: Jangsan Tiger!"
At once, the leaflet unfurled before my eyes.
Fwish-
=================
[Jangsan Tiger]
A modern Korean urban-legend monster resembling a tiger.
-Traits
Mimics the human voice.
=================
The Jangsan Tiger entry on the leaflet was exactly as simple and threadbare as before.
Once again, I swung the Unbending Dagger so the leaflet would be reflected in its blade.
"So it was true."
Writing I hadn't seen before was reflected in the blade.
And once I grasped the truth, the words showed themselves even when I looked at the leaflet directly.
=================
-Traits
Mimics the human voice.
Uses illusions to sow confusion.
=================
Illusions.
The illusion had not been reflected in the blade.
"There was a reason you don't show up in the blade."
[Kim Ji-san?]
I leapt — whoosh — landing right in front of the Curator.
"Yaaaahh!!"
Thwack-!
I struck the severed cross-section of the Curator's neck with the back of the blade.
The Curator toppled lightly, just like that, and dissolved into smoke.
And the real scene, hidden from me all this while, was revealed to my sight.
The Jangsan Tiger was pinning Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon down under its two feet, holding them fast.
"Mr. Go! Si-woon!"
When I broke the illusion, the flustered Jangsan Tiger squirmed, its guard slipping.
Seizing that moment, Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon half-crawled out from under the Jangsan Tiger's bulk.
"Yaaah!!"
Jang Si-woon swiftly summoned her leaflet and drew out her tool, the bell.
Then she smashed the bell hard against the Jangsan Tiger's leg.
The blow landed heavily enough that the Jangsan Tiger drew one leg slightly back.
Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon hurriedly pulled themselves fully free from beneath it.
"Quick-witted little thing."
The Jangsan Tiger murmured low — in my voice — and fled into a tunnel hole.
Rattling its body along, it went into the right-hand path.
So the claim that the right path led to the house-sized beast had been a lie after all.
"Ji-san!"
"Young Kim! We were pinned under the Jangsan Tiger and couldn't move an inch — and you just stood there in a daze like you'd been hypnotized! I thought it was all over!"
I tilted the blade to reflect Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon as they called my name.
They showed clear and sharp in the blade.
So that's why it was the dagger that cleaves falsehood.
"Striking with the back of the blade. That's very you, Ji-san."
"Isn't beating a monster with a bell the funnier one?"
"We were already out from under the Jangsan Tiger. There was no need to use its ability."
None of us had the strength left even for a hollow laugh; we all sank to the ground where we stood.
"Seeing how the Jangsan Tiger shows up on its own, walking far just wears out our legs — there's no real point to it."
"Shall we chase it now?"
"I think we should go after we've thought our plan through a bit more. And it's easy to confirm where it went, too."
Go Gyu-min nodded.
I looked down the path the Jangsan Tiger had fled along.
Like Hansel and Gretel's pebbles, a trail of pale powder remained.
"Does the Jangsan Tiger normally shed powder like that?"
"No? I've never heard any such detail."
"Hm. A setting unique to this place, then...."
Something about it felt off, but I hadn't the presence of mind to dig deeper now.
Jang Si-woon stared fixedly at the bell in her hand.
"Apparently me smacking its head with the bell doesn't count as success."
"For it to count as defeated — its will to come near again would have to be broken, at the least."
-Past the one draped in white hide, a beast big as a house shall come down.
"Which means we humans standing against it isn't enough. We have to call it down — that house-sized beast, bigger than us."
"...Exactly one day left, then."
At Go Gyu-min's words, I looked up at the sky.
Through the holes bored in the cave ceiling, the visible sky had dimmed dark.
The second sun had set.
'Damn it — no time even to close our eyes for a moment. We have to finish the quest, fast.'
"We make a plan, and we move immediately."
"I use my ability to block the Jangsan Tiger's sound, and land one good hit."
When Jang Si-woon threw a punch at the air, Go Gyu-min clicked his tongue.
"Si-woon, student. However strong you are, physical attacks alone won't cut it, I'm telling you."
"Who said anything about physical attacks alone?"
Jang Si-woon shrugged — as if to say she wasn't that sort of person.
"I suppress the Jangsan Tiger's ability, Ji-san holds it in place — and that's when Mr. Go calls the house-sized beast."
"How?"
"That fan's ability is one hundred percent the decisive blow."
Jang Si-woon's logic wasn't complete yet — but all of us accepted it.
An unreadable meaning, a terse description.
This fan, bare of any pattern at all, would play the decisive role in completing the quest.
Name: Chirping Fan
Description: The resident bird cries. Let each sing in their own way.
"Hah. So in the end, it's pansori again."
"Calling the beast with sound, then?"
At Jang Si-woon's question, a light flashed through Go Gyu-min's eyes.
Something had come to him — he blinked rapidly.
"The first floor's quest mixed fine art and literature."
"Yes. Since it's a museum, it doesn't seem to confine itself to a single genre."
"Hmm.... A resident bird..., and a house-sized beast comes down...."
Go Gyu-min muttered to himself, groping through his memory.
"If the resident bird is what I think it is — then I think I know what the house-sized beast is, too."
"Really?!"
"It's a passage no one on our side of things could fail to know. But I'm shaky on the painting side.... I'll need young Kim to confirm it."
"Of course. Ask me anything!"
Once the sun sets one more time, the Skeleton Yokai will come to take us.
But we can do it before then.
Watching the resolve harden on Go Gyu-min's face, hope bloomed inside me too.