Seo I-an, inside a foreign Tower rather than a domestic one.
He’d nearly never found her.
Before intruding, he blinked twice.
Something he’d discovered at the Association by accident — Eagle Eye worked in real life too.
[Foreign] Floor ??. Seo I-an. [45:22:13:04]
……45 hours?!
He doubted his eyes for a moment.
He’d assumed the 45 was minutes, but the number after it was too long — he caught that the 45 was hours, not minutes.
“……Something’s definitely happened.”
Right. It had been off from the start.
The nationality listed only as the single noun Foreign, unlike all the other countries.
The floor number not showing up on her entry at all.
And that impossible elapsed time.
Park Si-woo and I couldn’t reach her — probably because her phone battery died……
That thought in mind, he typed Seo I-an’s name into the Community search bar.
On the off chance she’d written something about what she needed.
But either she’d had no time or no opportunity — no such post appeared.
What he did find:
[Title] BUNNY COME HEEEEERE!!!!
[Author] Seo I-an
— WHERE DID YOU GO!!!!!!!!
A post looking desperately for him, uploaded yesterday.
Please stop looking for just the rabbit — write down the specific items you need so the rabbit knows what to bring……
Still, at 45 hours, she probably hasn’t had a proper meal.
He rummaged through his fridge and loaded what he could into his inventory.
Then without looking back, placed his hand over Seo I-an’s name.
Making sure, of course, not to forget the rabbit mask.
There’s…… a delay?
Usually it was an instant blink and he was in. Today, he opened his eyes and it was pitch black in every direction.
Darkness with no light escaping whatsoever.
The darkness seemed to ripple, his sense of direction tilting and warping with it.
He crouched against the disorientation and stayed low for a moment — and then the surroundings gradually brightened, and ahead of him appeared a wall the color of ochre clay.
Sound followed, announcing that the intrusion had properly begun.
[You have intruded into a Hidden Dungeon!]
What’s that?
[Rewards are increased more than 10x compared to a standard boss!]
Oh! That sounds great!
[The 24-Hour Rule applies to Hidden Dungeon intrusions!]
What’s that?
[Even if you call out ‘Exit,’ escaping outside the Tower is impossible within 24 hours!]
Oh! That sounds terrible!
His mood made multiple round trips between heaven and hell in rapid succession.
The landing was firmly in hell.
If you’re going to show me heaven, don’t. The bigger the drop, the harder the landing.
“And there was NO mention of any of this before I came in——!!”
The sudden surge of bewilderment and frustration had him slamming both hands over his face and letting out something that sounded very much like Seo I-an.
Once again, the system’s unfriendliness had rendered him temporarily unable to see.
Then he registered that his hands were covering his eyes, lowered them, and slowly took in his surroundings.
“Wow. Can’t say it doesn’t look like a labyrinth.”
A wide, quiet corridor surrounded by ochre clay walls.
The walls themselves emitted a faint glow, so it wasn’t dark inside.
The ceiling was so high that impossible to see the top wasn’t an exaggeration.
Not suffocating, at least — but the ochre walls were forcing him to make a binary choice about direction.
“This is a problem…… if I’m unlucky, I might not be able to find Seo I-an at all.”
Honestly, he was starting to feel worried.
Seo I-an had been in here for over 45 hours, and as far as he knew, she didn’t carry food in her inventory.
The most she’d have that was edible would be the recovery potions, the EXP boost elixirs she apparently hoarded, and the made-by-Bunny elixirs she’d been stockpiling in preparation for their next meeting.
Obviously none of that counted as a real meal.
At best, it would keep her from passing out.
Anyway.
“But wait — wouldn’t Seo I-an be able to leave after 24 hours?”
Was she still here because she thought she could take the boss if she just kept at it?
But the longer a Tower run went, the lower the clear probability got.
Physical fatigue. Item durability. Mana and aura depletion from skill use. Everything accumulated.
“Quickest way to find out is to find her.”
But how.
Whether to go right or left — he had no idea.
Hint? As if there’d be one.
Sounds? Silence.
Visible reference points? Just ochre wall.
“This is a problem……”
He scratched the side of his head, looked at the wall, and blinked rapidly twice.
Eagle Eye, hoping to locate Seo I-an.
He didn’t find her — but he did find a small red dot on the wall. It disappeared after 3 seconds.
“Does it break?”
Simple curiosity.
He pulled out the light bowgun, applied Rapid Fire and Track, and aimed at the red dot.
— CRACK!!
The wall fractured easily and crumbled.
“Nice.”
No need to navigate the labyrinth. He’d just go in a straight line.
Even if he’d chosen wrong, there was no way Seo I-an would miss a sound that loud.
“Knowing Seo I-an’s personality — she’d be curious enough to come find it, not scared enough to run from it. And the person who needs something is supposed to go to the person who has it, right?”
— CRACK!!
He shattered the second wall and strode forward — not navigating at all, just straight.
— Crack!
Same as before.
He’d been breaking walls in a line as his method of advance, and this was just another wall giving way.
But this time, something new was added to the routine.
A silver line?
A silver line suddenly right up in his face.
There was a faint chill about it — sharp and somehow delicate, and underneath that, an unpleasantly rough edge.
He realized shortly that the silver line was a blade.
“Damn it!! Another ambush!!”
A voice saturated with fury.
He knew exactly whose voice it was — but this wasn’t the moment to express delight at running into an old acquaintance.
“Wait! I’m an NPC! AN NPCCCCCCC!!!”
He waved both hands and shouted urgently — and the line that had been flowing gracefully through the air like water froze in place.
“Oh?”
“Hey, I’m——”
“BUNNYYYYY!!”
He’d been about to finish with Bunny the wandering merchant, but Seo I-an beat him to it with her usual level of intensity.
She pulled back the sword in an instant and was at his side before he could blink, one hand raised in the unmistakable preparation for a high-five——
Of course, the hand stopped well short of making contact. Penalty risk.
“You looked like you might be starving, but you seem pretty lively.”
He’d wanted to check her face but the helmet blocked everything.
What he could see through the visor — her eyes had some light in them.
Good. It didn’t look like anything catastrophic had happened.
“I might look it, but I really, truly am not fine at all. I’m one step from dying of hunger. Literally.”
Should he have not said anything?
Whether it was the sudden self-awareness of how long she’d been going without food, or the rapid loss of tension from seeing a familiar face——
She let the energy go out of her body, folded cross-legged, and dropped straight to the floor where she was.
“Ugh. Exhausted.”
And then Seo I-an attempted to dry-wash her face — through the helmet.
The resulting sound of metal scraping against metal sent a shudder through the room.
Screee! Scraaape!
“Tired and hungry……”
Seo I-an’s voice trailed off — uncharacteristically for her.
The exhaustion was audible in every syllable.
Fair enough. The elapsed time was approaching two full days.
Had she even slept? Properly rested? In a place where anything could jump out at any moment?
“……Here. Eat something.”
He produced a few chocolate bars from his inventory and handed them to her.
Not for free — to be deducted from the advance payment she’d given him.
“Ha. Wait. You’re actually carrying these?”
Either incredulous or amused — a short laugh escaped her.
Choco bar. Hot Break. Snickers. Twix.
Even he could see this was an embarrassingly capitalism-of-Korea grocery list to be producing inside a Tower.
And for moments like this, he had a macro answer that deployed automatically.
“I traded for them with another Awakened.”
The nature of the wandering merchant.
Unlike standard Tower Merchants who dealt exclusively with one Awakened per floor, the wandering merchant interacted with many different Awakened — and he used that to his advantage.
Entirely fabricated lore, naturally.
“Sure, sure. Anyway — thank you! I feel like a human being again!”
She must have been far hungrier than she let on.
She answered without really listening, pulled off her helmet, and without glancing at him once, started demolishing the chocolate bars at a pace that could only be described as inhaling them.
“……You’re supposed to chew those.”
Not swallow.
“I am chewing.”
She said so, so he’d take her word for it.
“By the way. Bunny.”
Having apparently finished off every variety of chocolate bar in quick succession, Seo I-an wiped the corner of her mouth and addressed him.
“Yes.”
“Can I seriously not get out of here unless I kill the boss?”
Why are you asking me that?
And as soon as he registered the question — something felt off.
It wasn’t as though she’d lose all her contribution and be unable to leave.
She wasn’t even mid-fight right now — she could leave comfortably.
Pull up the status screen, click Tower Status, click Exit, confirm through the two Yes prompts — simple.
Is there some kind of restriction on her?
The thought arrived suddenly.
The 24-Hour Rule that had appeared when he intruded.
That a person couldn’t escape the Tower within 24 hours of entering even by calling out Exit.
If the same rule had applied to Seo I-an when she’d entered — that would explain why she’d been stuck in here starving.
“Do you want to leave?”
When asking directly felt too blunt, there was always the option of turning the question around.
“What kind of question is that? Exit hasn’t worked for a WEEK!”
Oh.
His mouth fell open. Not even a small sound came out.
His restriction was 24 hours. Hers appeared to be one full week of no exit.
The different timing was probably because he’d entered through intrusion rather than the standard entry method.
“Hey, Bunny. Do you know how long I’ve been in here?”
He recalled the elapsed time he’d seen before entering.
“At least 45 hours.”
“What the hell, that much time has already passed?!”
He was the one who should have been shocked — yet somehow her expression looked more stunned than his.
She genuinely hadn’t known.
Oh. That would make sense.
“Awakened Seo I-an — is your phone battery dead?”
“Yeah.”
Right. That was why she had no idea how much time had passed.
And in a labyrinth where you couldn’t see the sun rising and setting, her sense of time would have been completely lost.
“Full charge. 15 TC.”
And with that, he quoted roughly 100,000 won to charge her battery, and pulled up his inventory screen.
He looked at Seo I-an and blinked quickly twice, activating Eagle Eye.
[Eagle Eye Activated!]
[Seo I-an Status Screen]
— Currently unsure exactly what’s happening, but trusting you regardless!
She still trusted him.
Somehow that was a little touching.
More importantly — I guess other people’s inventories aren’t visible to me. I wondered if it would show up since it’s attachment-type.
The Inventory-Attached Wireless Portable Charger he’d bought from Ragcho a while back.
He hadn’t needed it once until now — it had been sitting in his inventory as decoration — and here was the occasion.
Ragcho had said something about the higher the floor, the longer the stay inside the Tower tends to be~, which was why he’d bought it……
He still hadn’t personally experienced that yet.
He’d never stayed long in a Tower until today.
But today — depending on how things went, he might.
24 hours.
If Seo I-an couldn’t clear the boss before then, that was entirely plausible.
“You’ve got everything, don’t you? Plug me in.”
He took her phone, connected it to the charger.
The phone, completely out of power, managed to display a charging indicator as energy reached it.
“I’ll give it back once it hits about 5%. Text the people around you first.”
He remembered Park Si-woo’s desperate Community post searching for Seo I-an and mentioned it.
But.
“Why would I?”
As if completely unaware that the people close to her might be worried about her sudden disappearance.
The purest, most genuine confusion came back at him.
Oh, this woman.