The following day.
Floor 50. The Forest Where the Elves Stayed for a Time.
Hong Je-hun and Seo I-an had formed a party and entered together. He had followed right behind through intrusion.
“Wow……”
A low exhale of admiration.
“It’s enormous.”
The starting point was the top of a sheer cliff.
Looking around — green filled every direction.
The scent of living grass flooded the space as if it had replaced the air itself, thick and pervasive. The horizon was dyed entirely in layers of green.
“Right. Which is exactly why it’s such a pain.”
Seo I-an’s unfiltered take.
“I have to agree.”
Hong Je-hun, who didn’t swear, subtly copy-pasted her sentiment.
“By the way — you actually came?”
“How’s this for a summoning ticket!”
“Where did you get that?”
“Hidden Dungeon!”
Hong Je-hun had, as expected, questioned how he’d entered Floor 50 without clearing Floor 45.
Seo I-an handled it exactly as they’d rehearsed.
“Does everyone have their communicator?”
“Yep.”
“Yes.”
These were things Yun Jin-gi had rushed over to deliver the day before.
Almost immediately after the words parties are mandatory from Floor 50 had been spoken.
In appearance — a standard watch. The primary function was of course voice communication.
There was also a hologram video feed option.
The feed could be set to include Oh Won-taek as well, so if an emergency occurred inside the Tower, they could activate it to have support on standby.
Apparently he’d been thinking about the hurried security request from before.
Anyway.
“Do we have to wait before it starts?”
“Once you step your foot out over the cliff, that’s when it begins.”
Then, a silent look passed between Hong Je-hun and Seo I-an.
“You can sit here and wait a moment, Master-nim.”
He stepped onto something that resembled a flat stone. A low grinding sound, and the platform began sinking.
“Is this the platform they meant?”
The reason Seo I-an and Hong Je-hun had been insisting he get to Floor 50 as quickly as possible.
Because it couldn’t be cleared without three people.
Because of the platforms.
“Yeah. There are three platform positions, and they absolutely require a living person. Corpse-type objects don’t count — it said the soul had to be present.”
Lian Carter’s minimum three requirement started here — from the very opening of the floor.
“What about the other two? You said there are three total.”
“No idea?”
Seo I-an shrugged.
Question answered with a question.
Right, I-an. That’s fine, you don’t have to know.
He naturally turned toward Hong Je-hun.
But — why was he also——
Shrugging?
“I’m not certain either. They’re randomly generated each time, so we have to go find them ourselves.”
“Right. The positions change every run.”
“……If I go down from here, is there a way back up?”
Going down with Hong Je-hun to be safe would be fine — but the problem was getting back up.
The cliff looked like it would make a mountain goat spit and turn around — that’s not a path.
Not 90 degrees vertical. More like negative-angle overhanging. Not a single handhold or foothold anywhere.
“When you step off the cliff, the platform automatically drops you down to the base. The same way the one you’re standing on right now is lowering you. So start moving from there.”
“Oh, in that case — once you’ve both stepped onto your platforms, signal me via communicator. I’ll do some preliminary scouting in the meantime.”
Everything below the cliff was glittering.
Completely packed with collection zones.
Sitting idly was wasteful.
And this was Floor 50 — Korea’s current highest floor.
Try it first, and whatever was left over would make Park Si-woo extremely happy.
“Ears open. I’ll signal you right after I hit the platform.”
Seo I-an said it with swagger, snapping her helmet on.
At that moment, Hong Je-hun stepped closer to her and reached into his inventory, producing a yellow elixir.
“Want to drink this?”
My hard work——?
That was definitely the Agility elixir he’d given to everyone — the one officially called Elixir of the Wind Spirit’s Breath.
Distributed in equal quantities to all guild members.
“Obviously I’ll take it!”
Seo I-an grabbed it happily.
“But why all of a sudden? Oh — right. You’re a ranged ice-type. Crouching in the back, you wouldn’t really need Agility.”
The usual provocation.
Hong Je-hun smiled as calmly as ever and opened his mouth.
“I just thought it would be better if our Master-nim didn’t have to wait too long.”
Underneath that, anyone listening could hear: I’m obviously the one stepping on the platform first.
“Hey. Want to bet?”
Seo I-an promptly pulled off her helmet, making a hand gesture that suggested she was about to display a very specific number of fingers — possibly just one.
He sprinted out and grabbed her fingers before they could complete the gesture.
The cold touch of steel through the gloves was strange, but stopping further escalation was the priority.
“What’s at stake?”
Hong Je-hun, apparently down for a wager.
“I’ve got everything, nothing to want.”
“I also don’t particularly……”
And so the bet fizzled out.
But he sensed instinctively that these two were about to start an absurd competition with nothing at stake — or rather, with pride at stake.
“No injuries, go steady. By the way — you two are bickering like this before it even starts. Are you sure the clear is actually going to happen?”
He genuinely wasn’t sure.
“Clear has to happen, doesn’t it? Because contribution.”
“The clear will happen. Because we need contribution.”
They thought so alike — so why did they clash this relentlessly?
“In any case. I’ll be back, Master-nim.”
“Ugh, you’re just going to take off first — unfair!”
And so Hong Je-hun stepped his foot over the edge of the cliff.
[Overcome hardship and find all new platforms. Stand on each one.]
— Time limit: 15 minutes.
A timed-attack mission had triggered.
“……They’ll manage. They’re Korea’s top two.”
He sat peacefully on the platform as it slowly descended.
Throwing himself off after them to build speed the way they had — the height was unconscionably terrifying.
Trusting the gauntlet defense and leaping down that drop — a little.
How to put it. It was an ambiguously unsettling height.
Hong Je-hun launched himself off and carved a descending arc.
FWOOOOOOSH.
Wind slamming into his face. The sound cutting through his ears, gradually dulling as they filled.
“Hey! Wait!”
A frantic shout from above. Hong Je-hun glanced up.
Seo I-an.
He was stunned.
Under normal circumstances, they should have been running in opposite directions.
The two remaining platforms after the starting one were positioned at antipodal points — directly across from each other.
“Wait — why did you run this way?”
“Who said you could jump in first, you——”
They shouted almost simultaneously.
One side incredulous. The other furious.
Air resistance and gravity, however, had no interest in their argument.
The ground rushing toward both faces with every passing second.
Hong Je-hun quickly crystallized water vapor into a parachute shape and adjusted his descent posture.
“Are you trying to take the platform that was obviously mine?”
“Depends on how you do.”
Through the visor, Seo I-an’s eyes curved with a savage smile as she released a burst of sword energy upward.
Her body began falling even faster.
Hong Je-hun’s eyes briefly went round in surprise — then he shook his head, reformed the ice parachute into a paper-plane shape, built speed, and veered back in the opposite direction.
If she went that far and still lands on the platform later than me — that would hurt her pride.
The gap between them had widened meaningfully in stats from the Special Floor reward.
A safe, powerful ranged AoE skill set.
And the Special Floor national bonus had been cooldown reduction — precisely what benefited a mage-type like him.
He genuinely did not think he was going to lose this ridiculous competition.
“Still, just in case……”
Even if he won, she’d be furious. If he won decisively — she’d be incandescent.
A small, personal revenge against the person who had shamelessly cut in and stolen his starting position.
He reached into his inventory mid-glide and tipped an elixir back.
Intelligence stat boost.
Before Lim Hyeon-jin joined, I was the only guild member primarily using Intelligence stat — Woo-joo had kept a few aside and handed the rest to Hong Je-hun.
[Intelligence (10) increased from elixir effect!]
It might look like a small number — but set against his current total Mana stat of 225, it wasn’t negligible.
Now he genuinely had zero expectation of losing.
Meanwhile, Seo I-an was thinking the same thing.
“Hmph, fine!”
The expression of someone who’d swallowed tire-dissolved liquid.
She kept muttering it’s fine, it’s fine as if trying to reprogram her own brain, and threw the empty vial to the ground.
An Agility boost elixir.
Woo-joo had distributed it while telling everyone: don’t use this casually outside the Special Floor, boss fights, or genuinely life-threatening situations — it’s hard to gather the materials!
But Seo I-an had decided that right now qualified as genuinely life-threatening.
A corpse was a dead person. Which meant death.
And she was nothing without her pride — effectively a corpse without it.
To stay alive she had to protect her pride, and having shoved Hong Je-hun out and seized the advantage at the start — she absolutely had to find and step on the platform before he did.
With a decisive time gap.
She snapped her helmet back on.
Holographic text appeared above her head.
[Shadow of the Benefactor]
The title from the Hidden Dungeon last time.
Equipped, the title came with one dedicated skill.
Named — with zero creative effort — Shadow of the Benefactor.
A name that screamed we put everything into the performance and left nothing for the title.
Use the skill, enter stealth. While in stealth: all skill damage ×1.5.
Of course there was a catch. First — usable only once per day.
Second — the Awakened who had helped earn the title, the benefactor — Kim Woo-joo — had to be present in the same space.
“As long as I use this now and don’t take a single hit until the boss — that’s it!”
That was why she’d drunk an Agility elixir instead of a Strength one.
And that was also why she had zero intention of losing to Hong Je-hun here.
Meanwhile, at that same moment.
Ding!
[A connected party has equipped a title associated with you!]
— While the connected party wears this title, you may also use a copy of Shadow of the Benefactor!
The title system — he’d forgotten it existed.
He’d seen Seo I-an receive it in the last Hidden Dungeon.
Well — the system had announced it with a bold world notification, so heard was more accurate.
“What is this? This is actually incredible.”
A new category had appeared in his status screen: Titles.
Inside it: the equippable skill Shadow of the Benefactor (Copy).
The name had clearly been produced with the same energy as rolling dice.
Setting that aside and reading the description — he’d receive an effect similar to what Seo I-an was getting.
……Wait. This says it’s half?
If he got ×1.25 skill damage, Seo I-an was getting ×1.5?
Either way — she was getting more.
When the title had first appeared, Seo I-an had shown absolutely no reaction — he hadn’t realized it was this good.
Less a deliberate concealment and more like she’d simply shelved it to read later — but either way.
He continued gathering.
Spirit of the Elves — collecting enough of them would craft a random Elf accessory.
Floor 50, so the resulting gear would certainly be 5-star.
Today, that’s the only thing I’m hunting.
Some time passed.
The area had seemed completely empty.
But far in the distance — a burst of rainbow light, vivid and opalescent.
It looked like a collection zone, but he couldn’t be sure.
Like the Lumen trap — a floor that sank underfoot.
Not this time.
He activated Eagle Eye as a precaution.
[??? Status Screen]
— ???
Oh. What kind of material had question marks?!