Rumble

Boom Crash!

The cave eventually collapsed from the fire.

YuWon and Hargaan, who had been protecting the exit, ran outside in a hurry, getting far away from the cave.

Phew

Hargaan, who had been fighting with everything he had for hours, let out a deep breath before flopping down onto the ground.

Luckily, YuWon saw no injuries on Hargaan. Despite the long battle, it seemed like he had only run out of mana and wasnt too worn out.

Are you okay?

Do you think I would be? Hargaan replied, looking up at YuWon.

Unlike him, YuWon didnt look tired at all. He still looked fully geared to go. Hargaan noted how YuWon didnt only have great skills, but also incredible stamina.

Are you okay?

What do you mean?

We killed a thousand people.

YuWon looked down at Hargaan, who was sitting on the ground. At first, YuWon thought that he had sat down because he was tired, but it turned out that it was from guilt.

This is probably the first time hes killed this many people, thought YuWon.

Hargaan had never experienced war, so obviously he wasnt used to killing peopleeven bastards who deserved to die, like the Jackals.

YuWon nodded his head to Hargaans question. Im okay.

How can you be so nonchalant?

Murder, kidnapping, robbery, slavery. Those were the primary ways the Jackals made money.

Jackals were a troublesome matter for the 1st Floor. They hunted new players and other small groups of players, taking their items and robbing them of their lives. And male or female, any good-looking players were kidnapped and sold off to a slave merchant. The organization was a pestilence.

I can save dozens, even hundreds, of people by killing one of them. Why should I hesitate in taking them down?

Still

It might be more convenient for you if you wallow in half-baked guilt.

Hargaan bit and closed his lips from YuWons words. He looked as if he was hit on the head.

After staying still, dazed, Hargaan shook his head and got up from his spot.

I learned something from this event.

What would that be?

You have a sharper tongue than your looks suggest, and youre pretty smart to boot.

Is that supposed to be a compliment?

Yeah, it is.

YuWon looked at Hargaan, who was now smirking. YuWon had thought this before, but Hargaan had great mental fortitude. The guy was filled with guilt and regret until just a second ago, and now he was looking better after just a short exchange.

You really are a just guy. Perfect for living an exhausting life.

Well you didnt seem like a kind person, but turns out, youre different from how you look.

What do you mean by different?

Even though you had nothing to gain, you went ahead and took care of the Jackals. That wasnt an easy thing to do. It was the same during the Tutorial. You seem to always act with a much bigger picture in mind than me.

The way Hargaan looked at YuWon had changed.

From when I was young, I was told that thats called a great cause.

A great cause. It was something quite embarrassing to hear.

After hearing that, YuWon burst out into laughter.

Youre wrong about one thing.

What am I wrong about?

I dont know what you meant by there was nothing to gain.

Rustle

YuWon shook a thick paper envelope in his hand.

Just look at how much there was to gain.

Hargaans eyes widened after seeing the envelope. He had completely forgotten about it. Inside the envelope were the points the Jackals had made from selling items stolen from the most recent Tutorial on the black market.

Thats

You wanna split it? You did help out.

Ngh

Hargaan lowered his head, grunting at the difficult decision. He then slowly looked up at the envelope in YuWons hand.

Give me some, Hargaan mumbled quietly.

Thats what I thought.

After seeing YuWons smirk, Hargaan lowered his head even further.

The points that the Jackals had collected were gathered by killing and robbing new players. Though there were no owners to return the money to, Hargaan couldnt take it with a clear conscience.

While opening the envelope to count the money, YuWon paused.

Oh, I have something I want to ask you.

What is it?

You were second to me, right? In the Tutorial.

Yeah

Hargaan titled his head, curious why YuWon was asking him this.

After a momentary pause, YuWon asked him, What was the reward?

* * *

Whyyy?!

Slam!

The corner of the table broke off. All the food and drinks fell to the floor, and in an instant, the restaurant became dead silent.

After slamming his fist down because he couldnt hold back his anger, Agamemnon lowered his voice before asking, Why cant I contact him?

He was at a pub late at night, and what he was about to talk about was something that he couldnt discuss while yelling at the top of his lungs in public.

I-Im not sure either. I definitely tried contacting them, but

Did WoonCheon go crazy or something?

Since we sent him a message, Im sure well get a response soon, sir.

And what I want to know is! Agamemnon bit his lip while starting to raise his voice again. He somehow managed to reign his anger in before asking his subordinates with eyes full of fury, When exactly that is going to be.

I-Im not sure about that, sir

Unless hes really gone off the deep end, theres no way that bastard would have run off with our money

The money that the Jackals gave Olympus was a significant sum. It only ever happened once after every Tutorial, but they brought in anywhere from hundreds of thousands to sometimes millions of points.

That amount of points greatly affected the Ares factions financial power, and it was one of the major reasons why Agamemnon resided on the 1st Floor.

Have you tried searching for any traces of him? Has he met anyone? Did he go anywhere?

Were already searching for not just Mu WoonCheon, but any traces of Jackals using our network. Im sure we can find him before the night is over, sir.

Find him no matter what. If we cant, itll be the end for you, me, all of us.

After growling, Agamemnon poured himself another drink.

He was capable of getting rid of the buzz with mana, but at the moment, he couldnt hold back his anger without being drunk.

A few hours passed.

S-Sir Agamemnon!

One of Agamemnons men rushed inside the pub in a hurry.

From his subordinates reaction, Agamemnons face brightened. He thought that maybe they had managed to find WoonCheon.

Did you find him?

W-We did, but

But?

The subordinate gave him a weird response.

Agamemnon quickly expelled the buzz by evoking his mana.

His subordinate tried to dodge his gaze as he pulled out his player kit. And on the player kit

What the?

It showed an image of a collapsed cave and a pile of burnt corpses.

What is all this?

Theyre Jackals.

Jackals? All of them?

It was a huge number. Agamemnon estimated close to a thousand of them. It matched Olympuss estimate of their group size, which meant that almost all, if not all, of the Jackals had been gathered there.

Th-Then WoonCheon as well

Hes probably among them

Agamemnonons switch was flipped. He had to gather all his will to hold back his anger.

What about the collection money?

His subordinate gave no response.

Finally

AHHHHHH!

Agamemnon let out a scream at the top of his lungs.

After returning to the inn, YuWon opened the envelope and checked the collection money one more time.

[384000 points]

There were a whopping 384 bills, and this was after he had split half with Hargaan.

They did quite a number.

380,000 points was an amount that only some Rankers ever got to see. If he used this money, hed be able to buy a set of equipment on par with a Ranker.

Well, I dont have to worry about food or shelter anymore.

YuWon put the envelope back in his inventory. He desperately wanted to run to the Asgardian Merchants Guild right away and exchange this to points. However, that ran the risk of Olympus learning that YuWon was the one who had exterminated the Jackals. And YuWon didnt want to get caught up in something so complicated quite yet on the 1st Floor.

With this money, Ill be able to buy the core materials needed to make the item thatll hold the Dark Divine Crystal, but I still dont have enough to buy the materials for the fine detailing

YuWon couldnt hold back his smile at the mountain of points he had amassed.

Still, I might be able to finish the production of the item sooner than I expected.

The Dark Divine Crystal was currently the highest-ranking item YuWon possessed. As an item that symbolized the Big Three gods of Olympus, it was one of the strongest items that YuWon knew to exist.

Though it was currently only capable of [Stealth] and changing the attribute of the mana

The fragment of the Helm of Invisibilitys true power isnt either of those.

YuWon knew that the fragment was currently slowly taking shape to show its true worth under the greatest blacksmith within the Tower.

The problem is

While laying down on the bed, YuWon put his hand inside his inventory and pulled out the egg the size of a fist. It was pure white with an irregular purple pattern.

[?s Egg]

It is ?s egg. There is no way to know whose egg it is, what will come out of the egg, or how to make it hatch.

Incubation rate : 0.00%

It was truly a puzzling item.

I cant figure out what this items for.

There were quite a few items with unclear descriptions. They were typically incomplete items, but thats because they were only half-made.

Even YuWon, who had a myriad of different magical experiences within the Tower, had never seen an item in the form of an egg with this kind of description before.

This egg is a reward from the Tutorial, and its a reward for having achieved the highest record ever.

YuWon rolled it in his hands while observing it.

Hargaan got the Kings Lightning Glove. Its a pretty advanced item used by Rankers. Using that as a reference, this cant be a normal item

It had to be an item that was comparable to the Dark Divine Crystal. And considering that the Dark Divine Crystal was given for defeating the Chimera Creator, ?s Egg was likely to be an even better item since it was a reward for achieving over 670,000cp during the Tutorial.

But I just cant figure it out.

YuWon scratched his head in confusion.

It was only the size of a fist, and it was an egg of an unknown creature with an irregular purple pattern

The pattern!

YuWon jolted up from his bed. He felt a faint warmth from the egg, and now that he thought about it, this pattern wasnt there when he had first checked the egg.

Wince

His head ached. A nightmare-like memory, one he didnt wish to remember, came to his mind. But now that he had remembered it, the memory sped through his thoughts like a high-resolution video.

It was an event from the not-so-long-ago past. But it was also an event potentially far in the future. That was when YuwWon had seen an irregular pattern like this.

An Outer God

When YuWon mumbled those words

[?s Egg greets you.]

The egg spoke to him.

Only

Fshh

YuWons eyes morphed to a crimson color as he stared at the egg in the palm of his hand.

You What are you?

___