"What is it?"
"Is this man telling the truth? Hasn't he already played the match here before?"
"What are you-"
Now there was nothing left but to ask the Dragon King, who had watched every round so far.
Seeing the man flounder, my instincts fired. This one was hiding something for certain.
But the Dragon King only shook his heavy head, slow and ponderous.
"Truth or falsehood, I shall not answer. A benevolent ruler must, by nature, keep his mouth weighty and his words few."
"S-so stop suspecting people without a shred of evidence, will you."
At this rate, I'd become the villain who suspected an innocent man and stole the second match through a lie.
The peaceful ending would be sunk — because of me.
...But one thing was certain.
If the man's words were true, then he held an unnaturally favorable position in this quest.
'A board where only one side holds all the information is simple. The tower wouldn't want a board that flows to one side's advantage alone.'
"If you are a wise king, shouldn't you treat vassals of unequal standing under equal conditions?"
"...What?"
At my pushback, the Dragon King's body shook, his whole face contorting.
From the enraged Dragon King's frame rolled a sound like cracking thunder.
Patter. Dust-laced flakes of skin crumbled loose from the furrows of his brow.
"Do you dare insult this sovereign?"
The Dragon King's eyes glistened as if he'd kill me on the spot.
For an instant my legs nearly buckled at the knees.
Trying to expose the man's true colors — maybe I was only sinking myself.
Still, if the quest text held, the Dragon King wouldn't harm me directly. He wouldn't kill by his own hand; he'd erase through the boulder.
"If that Byeoljubu was given a trial run in advance, then he should carry a matching penalty. Or grant me a hint."
In my haste, I'd rattled off English the Dragon King couldn't possibly follow.
Even so — being a system of the tower, perhaps — the Dragon King seemed to understand my words.
As the Dragon King sank into thought, the man began to feel the ground shifting under him and flailed both arms toward me.
"Pal. What exactly do you think you're-"
"There is reason in it."
"?!!"
The Dragon King nodded, then turned a ceremonial smile upon the man.
"Byeoljubu of the right. I shall show the boulder that has kept thee company — pray, do not take it to heart."
RUMBLE-
The ground split open, and 'the boulder that had kept the man company' rose up from below.
...A boulder plastered in blood.
His lies laid bare, the man now wore the expression of someone resigned.
"How long, exactly, have you been in this place?"
"Even so — stop talking down to me and treating me like dirt."
"Hah. Fine. How long have you been in this place?"
"...I, I can't even count anymore."
He couldn't count the time that had passed?
Fair enough — inside this museum, tracking how much time has flowed would be difficult.
All the more so here in the third floor's Dragon Palace, a map where you can't even see the sun the way you could on the second floor.
"About..., five — n-no. Six people...?"
"?!"
But what the man was counting wasn't time. It was humans.
'He met six visitors?'
Then where had they all gone, that only this man remained in the Dragon Palace now?
The man knew what end awaits a visitor who loses this match. Which meant.
"Answer. Now."
"I-I've... said plenty. Beyond this, any obligation I have to speak-"
Under my glare, the man shrank in terror and shut his mouth.
Though in truth, it was probably the Dragon King he feared more than my eyes.
The Dragon King had just declared he would treat both vassals fairly — lie again, and a penalty might follow.
In the end the man heaved a sigh deep enough to cave the floor in, and stammered on.
"Th-the thing is...! Once the third match ends, whatever happens after that — however things get handled — is fair game."
"...What?"
The man had used the word 'handled.' Handled.
Watching my shock, the man failed to rein in his excitement and pressed on in a rising voice.
Perhaps thinking he'd gotten the better of me, there was a subtle new confidence threaded through his tone.
"The tower said it would erase the visitor who spoke falsehood at the end of three trials. S-so then — overtime belongs to the challengers, doesn't it...?!"
The sickle in the man's hand flashed, sudden and fierce.
And in the same instant, I recalled the image of him swinging that sickle — skillfully, with that scrawny body.
"So. You're saying you've been killing the other visitors yourself, all this time?"
"In overtime.... Or handling them before the final round — that part was just me panicking...."
"What?!"
When I closed a few steps toward him, the man promptly lost his nerve and cringed away.
For someone who'd committed acts that cruel and that bold, he couldn't even sustain his own bravado.
"Don't come closer! I may look like a dried anchovy, but you — you're not even worth one punch!!"
"Why kill them at all? There could have been other ways to solve it."
"The quest only says three trials — what if overtime just kept going and going and something happened to me?!"
"......."
"Am I the evil one here?! Lose, and one of us gets f—ked anyway! Dying to me here, or becoming a rabbit and having your belly slit open forever — what's the difference?!"
The man defended himself, spraying spit.
And — because he wasn't wrong, I couldn't bring myself to refute it.
A defeated visitor becomes data, endlessly sacrificed and endlessly revived.
From the moment the tower placed a dagger in my hand and a sickle in his, it had surely planned for us to kill each other anyway.
"So — by killing those visitors. Did you actually gain anything?"
"...Just because my opponent disappeared, it didn't raise me to the fourth floor. After that, I stayed put and waited for a new opponent to arrive."
Meaning true success requires that the losing visitor meet their end by the Dragon King's hand.
'Wait. Something doesn't fit.'
"You know that the terrapin smashing his head on a rock and dying is one of Byeoljubujeon's endings."
"......."
"You watched a visitor who lost the match end up like the terrapin, didn't you?"
"...I did."
"Then why didn't you ascend to the fourth floor? That would mean the quest succeeded."
At my question, the man sighed as if the ground might swallow him.
Recalling all his wasted labor, perhaps, he hung his head low and fiddled with the sickle.
"In that trial, my opponent became the terrapin and died — but I never became a true rabbit."
"A true rabbit?"
"In the final match, the lump that has lost its life. Only by offering up a liver can you become the true rabbit."
"......."
By the man's account, the victor's conditions were two.
Win the majority of the three matches.
And in the final match, without fail, place a lump that has lost its life upon the dish.
"Looks like we're headed for overtime this round too."
The man twisted the corners of his mouth up into a sneer.
His smile seemed stained with bloodmarks no eye could see.
"If you pity all the future visitors who'll keep being sacrificed, then just lose to me, pal. You seem so f—king saintly, after all."
"The third match. Begin."
Gong-
The man finished mocking me and moved off to make his final harvest.
There was no time to bristle at his taunting.
A sickle that had already cut down many, against a dagger stripped of its power. Which of us would vanish in a trade of blows was plain as day.
'He was all timidity until just now.... The moment he was certain of victory, the swagger came out.'
Most likely, he was venting on me the humiliations he'd swallowed outside the tower.
Perhaps trying to erase the guilt of repeated killing beneath a sense of superiority.
'If it's the thrill of holding the upper hand over me that has him worked up..., then his explanations are probably not lies.'
The harvests remaining on the map: one egg of the land, one lump that has lost its life.
A final prayer that could only ever end in a draw.
'We each know the other's hand, so overtime will just keep coming — and he'll keep placing the rabbit's liver on the dish.'
If I didn't want to die, I had to point my blade at another person.
'I'm climbing this tower to fulfill my wish. Tasks like this will keep coming — I can't keep playing weak forever.'
Even without killing him directly, if I won this game, the man would be annihilated by the tower.
Just then, one particular rabbit circled round and round in front of me. Was this my opening?
'Even if I found the courage to slit a rabbit's liver free, the man knows my hand anyway.'
In the end, whatever I did, only overtime waited.
And even if I strained myself and killed the man, it wouldn't count as a true victory — I'd be left stranded on this map, exactly like him.
'Kill this man, deceive the next visitor who comes, win, and climb the tower — that's the optimal path.'
I had sworn to do anything to fulfill my wish.
If so — wasn't guilt over destroying a competitor an unnecessary emotion?
Just then, the rabbit that had been quietly circling suddenly looked straight at me and opened its mouth.
"He..., help me...."
"Damn it!!"
It even talks. It was deliberately steering me toward guilt.
Fwish-
[The tool's attack power has increased.]
Name: Whetted Dagger.
Description: Serviceable for splitting a lump.
The 'Lusterless Dagger' had become the 'Whetted Dagger.'
Light ran along the dagger in my hand, and in an instant, the blade turned clean and keen.
'...They're balancing the stats so the gap in attack power narrows.'
It might be a golden opportunity. But.
This wasn't steering. It was temptation.
'Kill the man, repeat the match against new visitors, and someday I might rise to the fourth floor.'
I can't meekly die for him — but neither can I meekly kill for them.
'Someday I may grow used to killing people, grow numb to it. But at least for now-'
"If you don't hurry up, I'm using my perk!"
"......."
The man's bellow jolted me out of my thoughts.
But that threat deserved to be half-doubted.
'He's been resident on this map so long — odds are high he's already exhausted his perk's usage count.'
A guess premised on there being a usage limit, admittedly.
If the man could still use his perk, then I'd have to strike first — point the dagger at him before he could.
'Judging from my own case, each perk carries traits tied to the person's own abilities.'
Which meant his would be developed toward force, or attack power.
So if he used his skill, I died. And if he couldn't — I died anyway.
"......."
I don't want to be absorbed into the tower and used as a quest prop.
I want to fulfill my wish. I want to win.
Damn it — my whole body shook with fear. And then.
[Visitor Kim Ji-san.]
[If you wish to fulfill your wish, slit open another's belly.]
"?!"
The Curator's voice, ringing at my ear.
Startled, I scanned my surroundings — but the Curator was nowhere to be seen.
The man, waiting on me, was scuffing his foot against the dirt with a listless face.
'He can't hear the Curator's voice?'
[Debate ideals, and you will not survive.]
Was the Curator helping me — the inexperienced one, against a man with many matches behind him?
It was pressing on the very things I'd been agonizing over, shaking my heart.
[Kill the visitor.]
[Sacrifice others beyond counting, and climb the tower.]
'.......'
Its piece apparently said, the Curator poured no further words into my ear.
I swallowed hard and spoke to the man. A final negotiation.
"There must be a way for us to climb the tower together."
"......."
"Couldn't we think it through together, just once?"
In truth, it was closer to begging than negotiation.
Even so, one last time, I wanted to look toward a direction where we both lived.
If I imagined running this quest with Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min, then surely-
"Just die, pal."
The man answered instantly, as if the idea wasn't worth discussing.
It was, in the end, the most resolute he had ever looked.
Hah.
Now I had to choose.
The dagger's attack power had suddenly risen, and the Curator had even slipped me covert advice.
Now I was to open human skin with a knife.
'Even so — I'll go my own way.'
[A path the others did not choose.]
[Fascinating.]
[You have passed the Curator's special test.]
The Curator's voice sounded again, and a leaflet unfurled before my eyes.
Fwish-
=================
[Granting supplementary perk.]
[Kim Ji-san]
Perk: Soul Rental
Acquired!
.......
.......
=================
'Soul Rental?'