“Something like a commander — the person who leads from above the team.”
He put deliberate weight on above.
On the chance that someone with a desire for authority might accept a title without needing payment.
“That kind of position…… I think there are better candidates.”
Either Hong Je-hun had no desire for authority, or he didn’t like the hassle.
Either way, getting him to take the title without compensation was going to be difficult.
But giving up on Hong Je-hun as sub-leader wasn’t an option.
Think about it. Whatever happened, Seo I-an would be on the team.
Like some sort of wildfire incarnate.
And she would categorically not follow the orders of someone weaker than her.
So then — he was the one she seemed to follow somewhat, but he was going to be busy.
Did he just get to sit back and watch people fight in the Special Floor?
He needed contribution too.
And from what he’d seen — once Phase 2 kicked in, gatherable spots had started activating across the floor. That interested him.
One more reason to push for Hong Je-hun as sub-leader: he was a ranged attacker with aerial mobility.
Which meant, even though they were both ranged types, Hong Je-hun had a significantly broader field of view than he did, stuck to the ground.
And his calm, measured temperament made him a natural fit for coordinating a team.
By every measure, Hong Je-hun was the right person.
There was no way he was putting Seo I-an in as sub-leader no matter how desperate things got.
So he decided to push more firmly.
“I wouldn’t be asking empty-handed.”
He smiled — not entirely by intent, but it came out looking rather sly.
“A standing 10% discount on all purchases from the wandering merchant rabbit.”
Large or small, depending on how you looked at it.
But it accumulated.
And it was something he could concede.
In exchange for Hong Je-hun taking all the fuss and hassle off his hands.
“……Is that even possible?”
“The wandering merchant says it is. With some limits.”
Unlimited discount abuse: prevented by design.
Now just get Hong Je-hun on board.
With him signed, the setup would be complete.
“Oh — by the way, would any of the team members happen to be people I know?”
A question worth noting.
Maybe worth keeping a roster ready?
He was already getting asked this fairly often.
He’d probably be asked more.
A few days later.
The so-called Association secret room.
The place you had to come up in a separate elevator.
Today, Woo-joo, Team Lead Oh Won-taek, and Yun Jin-gi were sipping iced café mochas — he’d brought them — and going over developments.
Then Yun Jin-gi, out of nowhere, brought up the guild name.
“How about Outlaw?”
“Sleek, easy to say, and it has a strong feel to it, doesn’t it?”
Outlaw. The word was self-explanatory.
The gleam in Yun Jin-gi’s eyes told him this had been the product of genuine deliberation.
It was better than Woo-joo Guild, TowerheadSyndrome, and TeamOneHitGoToHeaven — he adopted it on the spot.
“That works. Outlaw it is.”
“We’ll use that going forward as well.”
For reference — the current official team name?
Special Floor Response Management Dedicated Special Strategy Task Force Team.
Obviously no one was actually going to say that out loud.
“By the way — have you gathered the team members?”
Oh Won-taek, now familiar enough to feel warm rather than intimidating, asked.
“For now — Seo I-an, Hong Je-hun, and Enchanter Park Si-woo.”
Park Si-woo had been brought aboard too.
It hadn’t required much conversation.
Once he’d revealed he was the rabbit, Park Si-woo had seemed to have already suspected it — and agreed with minimal resistance.
The terms had come together well.
He’d prioritize sourcing materials Park Si-woo needed. In return, Park Si-woo would prioritize taking his commissions.
“……Oh?”
Oh Won-taek briefly made a stunned sound and froze at the names listed.
“Wow. That’s an insane lineup.”
Yun Jin-gi’s eyes lit up in admiration.
“Pretty good, right?”
Every name was a known quantity.
No weak links in the roster.
“More than pretty good——”
“This is basically the Avengers, hyung!”
Their enthusiasm was contagious. He found himself smiling along with them.
“Sounds like everyone’s assembled. Don’t you think, team lead?”
“Perfect!”
“What’s perfect about it?”
Three people felt a little thin for perfect.
Three-person TF team?
Elite squad, fine, but——
Was that really enough?
“As I said before — in the Special Floor, it’s a few heavy hitters who set the pace for everyone else!”
He remembered.
Oh Won-taek nodded in agreement.
“And Woo-joo-nim has already recruited both of Korea’s co-top-ranked Awakened, hasn’t he? Not just one — both of them.”
There was a reason for that.
Korea didn’t have one unchallenged number one.
Hong Je-hun and Seo I-an — a two-pillar system.
Bring in only one of them.
What happens when they disagree inside the Special Floor?
Firepower splits.
Like the Association having a mainstream and a minority faction — the other Awakened would have no idea which direction to follow.
And in the end——
Neither approach would work.
A total collapse, predictable as anything.
The above line of reasoning, condensed:
“Bring in only one and have it go sideways — that’d be a problem.”
One sentence. And both Oh Won-taek and Yun Jin-gi nodded with complete understanding.
“Quite right. In practice, Hong Je-hun-kun tends to defer to Seo I-an-yang when there’s a disagreement……”
Yun Jin-gi trailed off, and Oh Won-taek shook his head and added:
“But once either of them digs in on something — it becomes completely unmanageable.”
And then came a specific example.
Apparently there had been a Special Floor where destroying four pillars first would immediately break the boss’s defensive barrier.
That time — Hong Je-hun had pushed for hitting the pillars first. Seo I-an had been adamantly against it and focused entirely on the boss.
Both had reasonable arguments.
Hong Je-hun thought destroying the pillars and then hitting the boss was more efficient.
Seo I-an thought that in less than ten minutes, attacking the barrier directly was the more efficient approach.
Hitting pillars didn’t raise contribution — hitting the barrier directly did. That was Seo I-an’s angle.
Result: outside the ranking. Neither approach worked.
Firepower division was the obvious cause.
And this lineup, if it went well, would prevent that from ever happening again——
Hence those genuine smiles on both their faces.
“Well understood. I’ll do my best.”
But while they’d been talking about Seo I-an, something had been drifting through his mind.
“Oh — about the car. Would it be possible to try it for a bit and then swap it for something else?”
“Preferred model?”
Oh Won-taek answered willingly.
“Something sturdy. Something that survives a head-on with a dump truck.”
He mentioned he’d reach out when he’d settled on a specific model.
Oh Won-taek cheerfully handed over a sheet of vehicle suggestions — and several of the options were military-grade tanks in civilian chassis, which meant he was going to need a fair amount of time to think it over.
Floor 28.
The pleasant chirping of insects drifting pleasantly into his ears. The cool, clean smell of soil and greenery in a breezy jungle.
Weather: successful roll.
“Hey! I’m Bunny, the wandering merchant!”
The floor’s owner: Lim Hyeon-jin.
Light brown straight hair, a bright and endearing face — a female A-rank Awakened whom Hong Je-hun had recommended.
He’d said she was someone who would be an asset to the team — and even vouched for her personally — so Woo-joo had come to check.
But an A-ranker on a repeat run of Floor 28.
That was on the low side for an early-generation Awakened.
The average for early A-rank Awakened was the mid-30s.
“Wow! It’s the rabbit!”
She greeted him with a smile as warm and clear as sunlight.
“You’re real! I thought it was just a rumor!”
She clasped her hands together and bounced in place like a fangirl who’d just run into her favorite celebrity in person.
But he wasn’t in a position to offer fan service like an idol.
“Would you… maybe be willing to sign something for me?”
“……Sure.”
Not an unreasonable request, so he went with it.
Call it building rapport with a prospective guild member.
“Thank you so much!”
A clear, bright voice rang out through the jungle.
Like sunlight slipping through the trees, her words seemed to come with a faint sparkle attached.
Someone recommended by Hong Je-hun.
He’d assumed she’d be similarly composed and measured — not at all.
Where Hong Je-hun was like a cool autumn breeze, Lim Hyeon-jin was the opposite: spring sunshine.
The kind that left no shadows in whatever it touched.
“But today — instead of wandering merchant, could you do the mercenary service?”
She smiled brightly.
“I don’t mind — but Awakened Lim Hyeon-jin-nim can clear this alone, can’t she?”
Repeat run, not first-time clear.
There was no way she couldn’t.
“I can! But I want to ride the bus!”
Her sparkling eyes made him briefly at a loss for words.
So first he was going dark, and now apparently he’d become a bus driver.
“The mercenary fee is 500 TC, right?”
She held out 500 TC like it was obvious.
“Why do you think that?”
Just curious where the number came from.
“That’s what the going rate for Mercenary Bunny commissions is!”
Complete certainty in her tone.
……Somehow, without his knowledge, a market rate had formed.
But 500 TC felt cheap.
Looked easy but his finger joints were screaming from overuse.
“Is that okay?”
“……Fine.”
He accepted it in the end.
It wasn’t a difficult request, and on a repeat run, the supplementary damage effect served him better than the encouragement effect anyway.
“Then I’ll leave it in your hands!”
……
He had assumed he’d only need to handle the boss.
Not every single regular mob too.
Monkeys. An endless wave of them.
Swinging through vines, shrieking and chittering, completely chaotic.
“Ugh…… it’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet of monkeys. Why are there this many?”
He’d always wanted a powerful single-hit offensive skill. That was still true.
But today had updated the wish.
Wide-range AoE was also sounding quite appealing.
Yes.
Floor 28 Jungle.
Staggering numbers of regular mobs.
Rapid-firing enough that his fingertips had gone numb.
A truly miserable number.
He’d received payment, so he couldn’t exactly walk it back.
Eventually his finger joints staged a formal protest.
He was working them open and closed, trying to loosen them up, when Lim Hyeon-jin looked over with concern.
“Bunny-nim! Are you okay?”
Not okay.
But a professional didn’t show weakness.
“A bit — actually, quite a lot. And fast.”
Fast.
What that meant: optimal conditions for him to tire out as quickly as possible.
The skill Track.
Whatever he aimed at, the shot connected.
Even if the target shifted slightly, the projectile curved and hit.
But the prerequisite was that the target had to be in his line of sight.
In other words, the target had to be visible to him at the moment of firing.
If it slipped out of view — the shot missed entirely.
And right now, his field of vision was already narrowed by the rabbit mask.
Following the quick, erratic movements of the monkeys was far more tedious than it should have been.
“Shall I handle the boss alone?”
“……We’ll do it together. No refunds. But let me catch my breath first.”
“Can NPCs get tired?”
Pure curiosity in her eyes.
He found himself pausing to think.
Does Ragcho get tired?
He didn’t know.
But he did know she could sulk.
There had been that time he’d barely managed to win her back with the cat toy Hong Je-hun had suggested.
“NPCs — well. System restrictions.”
He used the cheat code to dodge a question he couldn’t answer honestly.
So what happened with the boss?
A quick, clean finish.
The moment Lim Hyeon-jin’s skill Vine Snare locked the boss’s ankles in place, he comfortably stacked full damage onto the reverse scale.
Easy, risk-free, and tidy.
The entire jungle, which had been a cacophony of shrieking just moments before, went silent like a switch had been flipped.
“Bunny-nim! Thanks to you I set a new record!!”
“Congratulations.”
Obviously.
He’d sacrificed his finger joints for this.
The effort he’d put into cutting down the clear time.
Ragcho had said the maximum contribution a hidden party member could earn was 50%.
He was certain he’d hit that full 50%.
He’d taken out not just the boss but virtually all the regular mobs himself.
Which meant the remaining 50% of contribution went to Lim Hyeon-jin.
And that meant he needed to push the clear time significantly below her usual repeat-run average.
She couldn’t come out of this with a worse reward than she normally got.
Wait — the reward feels off? Like I was in a party and contribution got split?
HOXY — is the NPC rabbit actually a party member?!
That line of thought could not be allowed to spread.
Even Seo I-an — who knew he was the rabbit — hadn’t been told that the Hidden Party Member mechanic was in play.
Once someone knew he was taking a share of their contribution, no one would welcome him showing up in their Tower anymore.
“But Awakened Lim Hyeon-jin-nim — with your ability, you could party up and run higher floors, couldn’t you? I’d think no one would turn you down.”
He said it from personal experience.
Lim Hyeon-jin’s trait was a buffer — the type that strengthened party members.
Right before the boss fight, a prompt had appeared: [Lim Hyeon-jin-nim wishes to bestow upon you the Blessing of Fluffy Koubel!] — prompting him to accept or decline.
He’d accepted, and his damage output had surged instantly.
This is why Hong Je-hun recommended her.
And in the Special Floor, with forced party conditions in place — her trait would shine.
The potential was enormous.
Someone worth recruiting by any means.
“Oh — thank you for saying that, Bunny-nim! But…… other Awakened are reluctant to party, I suppose…… heh.”
She glanced away slightly, a little embarrassed.
He couldn’t understand it.
Why would people be reluctant to party with her?
Because contribution gets split.
But if a clear became guaranteed — and the clear time got cut — the total reward pool increased. Contribution might get distributed, but the actual reward you walked away with went up.
And levels were everything. Pushing floors faster was more valuable in the long run.
Still, people were reluctant to party with her?
One hypothesis surfaced.
“Awakened Lim Hyeon-jin-nim — you know Hong Je-hun-nim, right?”
“Of course!”
She brightened at the name.
“It seems like you’re reluctant to reveal your trait because you’re worried other Awakened might target you — but have you not told Hong Je-hun-nim either?”
Hong Je-hun had clearly figured it out.
That was why he’d recommended her.
But she apparently had no idea, and had been keeping her trait hidden even from him.
If Hong Je-hun — someone who clearly wants to climb — had met a buffer like her, and still hadn’t proposed a party, that could only mean he was waiting out of consideration for her.
“That’s……”
She hesitated, then made up her mind — she tightened her hand into a fist and spoke.
“Je-hun-nim knows. And he’s the one who told me to keep it hidden.”
Oh? That was unexpected.