[Leaflet Ink]
-Current Status: [■■■□□]
'There's no telling what will happen the moment we reach the third floor — better to eat the berry now.'
As someone whose health drains rather faster than the others', I had to prepare in advance.
I stared hard at the health window, then finally opened my material slot.
I pressed the line drawing of the berry in the upper slot and took the material out.
Fwish-
Name: Peculiar Berry.
Description: What might this be, ye ask? There be no poison, so rest thee easy.
[Material absorbed.]
[The leaflet's ink has deepened.]
-Current Status: [■■■■■]
As my health recovered, my body felt a good deal lighter.
The headache that had kept throbbing cleared up cleanly, too.
Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min apparently hadn't taken enough damage to need their berries.
'Jang Si-woon looked like she was suffering badly under the Jangsan Tiger's attack earlier, though....'
Is her loss smaller because her base stamina is better than mine?
If that's the case, I'm thoroughly envious.
"Grrrr...."
The tiger that had defeated the Skeleton Yokai wasn't leaving — it kept circling nearby.
Maybe because it so perfectly resembled the comical form of a tiger from our country's folk paintings, it wasn't frightening at all.
It was hard to believe this tiger had crushed the Skeleton Yokai.
I carefully approached the tiger's front and stroked its paw.
"Thank you for saving us."
"Grrrrr-"
Its round eyeballs rolled smoothly down to look at me.
Then it pressed its huge body flat, laying itself against the ground.
"I think it's telling us to climb on its back?"
Go Gyu-min furrowed his brow and looked the tiger up and down.
"This isn't a cartoon — can this even work? What if we climb on a tiger's back for nothing, fall off, and our heads-"
"When we've passed a quest and we're given no other choice like this, riding it is probably right. That's how it's been the whole way."
"Si-woon, student, cutting off your elders mid-sentence like that! Okay — very sound reasoning."
Jang Si-woon had instantly shut down Go Gyu-min's negative thinking.
Go Gyu-min conceded her point and promptly climbed onto the tiger's back.
Jang Si-woon and I also stepped carefully over the tiger's rippling body and settled onto its hill of a back.
Our bodies swayed alarmingly, so we all anxiously clutched the tiger's fur with both hands.
"It doesn't seem to hurt it at all?"
"Let's just think of it as a steering wheel."
Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon gripped the fur on the tiger's back hard to keep their balance, but....
I still couldn't put proper strength into my hands.
'If this fur somehow got torn out by my hands and ruined that magnificent pattern unique to Korean folk painting-'
THUD-! THUD-! THUD-!
While I was lost in idle thoughts.
The tiger rose to its feet and slowly walked forward.
Perhaps because the whole situation was artificial, it didn't feel nearly as precarious as I'd expected.
Along the path the tiger had passed, new sprouts rose, and trees with snapped trunks straightened their backs again.
"H-hey, where is it going?"
"Don't worry, Si-woon, student. In Sugungga, the tiger came down from a deep ravine in the pine forest. It'll be heading back there."
When the tiger suddenly changed direction, Go Gyu-min explained calmly, as befitted his pansori background.
In the middle of which, my body slid sideways and I nearly fell off.
"Uwaaah-"
"Ji-san, careful! You have to grip the fur harder!"
"Won't it hurt the tiger?"
"What?! Why are you worrying about a tiger many times your size? And anyway, it's all just component lumps or the system!"
At Jang Si-woon's sharp and perfectly sound argument, I had nothing to say and felt sheepish.
Right. Was this the time to be worrying about a tiger's fur?
'Of course, being a tiger straight out of our folk paintings, it's so silly and adorable that hurting it feels wrong...!'
Still, I have to live.
I clenched the tiger's back fur tight and held on.
Even though I'd grabbed quite a fistful, the tiger, sure enough, never made a single sound of complaint.
'Kim Ji-san, you bastard. Pull yourself together. Your heart's gone completely soft for visual charm.'
I bit my lip and firmly steeled my heart.
And in doing so, I noticed something strange.
'...Wait.'
Riding on the tiger's back, I could see far in every direction.
Which meant I could tell whether the road ahead led to forest, or ravine — or sea.
"Mr. Go, didn't you say it would head for the ravine?"
"It should be...."
Go Gyu-min trailed off, flustered.
The tiger's feet were carrying it not toward the ravine, but toward a white-sand beach thick with pines.
Even though past the pines and the white sand stretched an endless blue sea!
'The sea?!'
"Wait, wait. Are we maybe supposed to steer by pulling the fur?"
"There's no way it steers, but let's all try turning it anyway!!"
At Jang Si-woon's and Go Gyu-min's words, I too gripped the fur harder.
Sorry — but now was not the time to consider the tiger's pain.
"Everyone turns right together. One, two, three!!"
"Heave-!!"
We counted off the signal and hauled the fur to the right in unison.
Despite leaning our whole bodies into it and pulling with all our strength, the tiger didn't budge an inch.
The tiger plowed on straight ahead, parting the pines.
The color drained rapidly from all three of our faces.
"It's not working!"
"How should I know?! Si-woon, student, don't yell at me — it makes me nervous!"
Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min, shouting at each other.
Between them, the one trembling hardest was me.
Because.
"Mr. Go, Si-woon. Can you swim?!"
"Freestyle, roughly."
"Same."
Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon nodded.
Not at a competitive level, but it seemed both could swim to some degree.
Haah. A deep sigh spilled out of my mouth.
"I see. I'll do my best."
"What?!!"
Jang Si-woon, more shocked than I was, cried out in horror.
It was the first time she'd ever raised her voice that loud.
'It's not like I ever had the chance to learn to swim.'
I'd just have to flail somehow. Windmill my arms and legs without pause, and something would come of it.
The passage connecting the second floor to the third wouldn't kill visitors outright.
...Probably.
"GRRRRR-!!"
Reaching the white sand, the tiger abruptly launched itself — whoosh — into the sea.
'Who does this without any warning at all?!!'
"We're going in!!"
SPLASH-!!
A huge spray of water rose around the tiger.
Before hitting the seawater, I drew the biggest breath I could.
'Glp...!'
My body sank into the cold water.
I thrashed my arms and legs desperately.
It was so dark before my eyes that I couldn't tell at all whether I was even floating properly.
'Let's try opening my eyes.'
I psyched myself up inwardly and forced my eyes wide open.
My eyes stung, but I bore it somehow.
"!!"
The beautiful sight that met my opened eyes nearly made me swallow water.
The blue depths were filled with corals, brilliant in every color.
And down below, I could see something like an undersea tunnel ringed round with coral.
'There are stairs inside the tunnel!!'
A stone stairway descending beneath the dark sea.
My instincts fired. That was where we had to go.
I pointed my head downward and worked my arms and legs busily toward the stairs at the bottom of the sea.
Swimming for all I was worth, I just barely managed to reach the coral tunnel.
'Urgh...!'
I grabbed the tunnel's mouth and tried to pull myself inside.
Suddenly a school of silver fish swept past in front of me.
This was my limit. I couldn't hold my breath any longer.
"?!!"
Right then, Jang Si-woon seized me by the collar and hauled me bodily inside.
'Th-thank you....'
I sent Jang Si-woon my gratitude with my eyes.
Jang Si-woon gave a small nod — understood.
Below the stairs it was black as pitch, dark enough to be the deep sea.
Even so, I swam toward the floor below the stairs without hesitation.
'I want to breathe — I want to-'
My body was swallowed by the darkness.
***
"Ugh...?"
My blurry surroundings slowly came into focus.
I was lying face-down with my cheek pressed to the floor, drooling freely.
Judging by how my clothes and hair — which should have been soaked through — were nearly dry, I must have been unconscious quite a while.
'This place is....'
I pushed myself upright and looked around.
Behind me were the stairs leading up to the sea; ahead, darkness lay so thick I could barely see.
Having come down beneath the sea, water should have been pouring in — yet before the stairs, only gentle waves lapped.
'Am I alone...?'
A damp, dank space filmed with water-scale. The structure and patterning closely resembled the inside of a Korean palace.
There wasn't the faintest trace of another presence.
"Mr. Go! Si-woon!"
I called for Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon, but there was no answer.
They both swim better than I do. But what if..., what if they hadn't made it down the stairs-
'No. Like on the first floor, we may simply be unable to see each other — or they could have been moved to a third floor in a different dimension.'
They aren't the kind of people who'd be eliminated for lack of swimming.
I firmly convinced myself that Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min were alive.
With no proof, all I could do was believe it in my heart.
'This is no time to worry only about Si-woon and Mr. Go. I need to go up to the third floor — coming down these stairs into the basement may have been the wrong call.'
Of course, inside this tower, every preconception has to be shattered.
Even if these are the stairs from the second floor to the third, ascending isn't necessarily the answer.
But still — with silence stretching on this long, anyone would grow anxious-
"Grrrrr-"
At the familiar sound from behind, I spun around at once.
"Tiger!!"
It was the jakhodo tiger that had plunged into the sea with us.
"You came with us! Wait — how did you get in through the stairs? They must have been narrow...."
"Grrr...."
Suddenly the tiger hacked and coughed, and spat something up.
A pearl the size of my hand. Slick with the tiger's saliva, the pearl rolled about on the floor.
"A pearl?"
Fwish-
[This is thy reward for sweeping away the yokai that fouled the forest.]
[When thou reachest the fourth floor, the shining pearl shall break, and a rare treasure shall appear.]
I read the contents of the leaflet floating in the air, and the corners of my mouth rose.
Like last time, it was probably a tool or perk that would give us an edge in completing a quest.
"Thank you."
Fwish-
[Material Acquired]
Name: Mysterious Pearl.
Description: At the end of long endurance, thou shalt hold treasure in hand.
After the pearl's data disassembled, a drawing of a pearl appeared in the leaflet's item window.
THUD-! THUD-! THUD-!
The tiger leapt into the darkness and soon vanished completely.
I supposed I'd never meet that one again.
Fake jakhodo tiger or not, riding on its back had been genuinely thrilling.
'Come to think of it — there's a knife drawn next to the pearl.'
[Materials Held]
-Mysterious Pearl.
[Tools Held]
-Lusterless Dagger.
From the item list at the bottom of the leaflet, I confirmed the dagger I'd used on the second floor still remained.
I pressed the small drawing of the dagger with my finger.
Fwish-
[Tool]
Name: Lusterless Dagger.
Description: This blade now cuts naught but meat.
'It's completely lost its power.'
I wondered if there was any point in keeping this dagger now.
But one must always prepare for emergencies.
I left the dagger unequipped and closed the leaflet.
"A new vassal!"
"A new vassal has come from the land!"
Just then, whispering voices suddenly rang out through the palace.
Echoes rolled through the wide, empty space.
"Wh-who's there?!!"
I couldn't place where the voices were speaking from.
So I simply lifted my head and shouted into the empty air.
At that, the murmuring voices grew even more excited.
"He smells of the land!"
"A vassal to bring us the rabbit's liver!"
'The rabbit's liver?'
"A new Byeoljubu has come!"
Only then did I understand the meaning of the words buzzing around me.
'This time it connects to the second floor — Sugungga? No... they're not singing pansori, so is it the Tale of the Rabbit?'
Either way, they were calling me the new Byeoljubu — the terrapin.
Then this murmuring must be the voices of the sea subjects and ministers.
"Serve the new Byeoljubu a feast worthy of kings-!"
The surroundings brightened, as if several lanterns had been lit.
It was still gloomy, but thanks to the light I could see a great door standing at the end of a path of black brick.
'I really don't want to go.'
The sea creatures made only sounds — not a snout of them was anywhere to be seen.
The old, desolate Dragon Palace felt like a venue for some test of courage.
"Two land vassals in similar dress, lodging in the Dragon Palace — what fortune!"
At a minister's guffawing, cheering voice, I set off at once.
Two people in similar dress.
Unless the museum was deliberately deceiving me, that meant a visitor. No question.
Trudge- trudge-
"......."
'If I could just meet even one of them — Mr. Go or Si-woon.'
Then the two of us could work the quest while searching for the other's whereabouts.
Walking on, thinking of my scattered companions, I soon arrived before the door.
Between door slats carved with fish patterns, the paper panes glimmered.
Light from within — so something was in there, at least.
"The banquet for the Byeoljubu is served-!"
I pulled the rust-stained door ring.
Creeeak-
TL Notes:
TL Note: Byeoljubu — the terrapin minister of the classic tale, sent ashore to fetch a rabbit's liver as medicine for the ailing Dragon King.