Bardo's Remains

"The deep layer?"

The deep layer.

The most dangerous area in this trial, and the only place where one can farm quest items.

All around us, countless corpses belonging to those who had already failed to farm the area lay strewn about.

"This is amazing. I never imagined there would be a place like this beneath the chapel…. But how are we supposed to find [Bardo's Remains] in such a vast area?"

Although it was clearly our first time here, after wandering around for a short while, we all realized that the place felt strangely familiar.

"It's ridiculously vast, and there are so many forks that the layout is oddly similar to the upper floor, Unni."

She was right.

The environment here was similar to that of the upper floor.

Even the fact that the undead had difficulty finding anyone who hid in the darkness was the same.

Players were supposed to avoid the undead that way, hiding as they searched for [Bardo's Remains] somewhere in this place.

"Hmm, there are far fewer lights, so hiding ourselves should be easier, right?"

Yes, but there were a lot of undead.

Skeletons and Specters wandered endlessly through every corner of this enormous labyrinth.

There were so many that the survivor who had given me information during my first run said he had stayed up for three full days searching for the remains.

"Ugh, but Unni, my head hurts so much. It's hard to breathe, too."

"…Me too. I feel suffocated. I want to get out of here."

Our vision was limited by the darkness.

The stench of rotting corpses hung in the air.

There were also the undead's whispers and mutters, along with the gloomy pressure that weighed on us without us even realizing it.

'I can clearly feel the women's mental strength dropping by the second.'

As expected, Kim Yoorim's cheek began trembling as if she were having a seizure. Joo Ahyeon was trembling too, her hands shaking violently.

They were symptoms caused by accumulated stress finally reaching its limit.

"Huff. Huff. Ah, it's suffocating. It's suffocating, suffocating, suffocating!"

Joo Ahyeon pounded her chest and began acting irritably. It would be dangerous if she didn't relieve that stress somehow, immediately.

'Tch, I have no choice.'

Thud. I set my backpack down on the floor.

Normally, we would have to avoid the undead in this thick darkness and slowly search for the remains.

That was what every survivor had done during the first run, and what Lee Sera had said she had done to obtain the remains.

'But I don't have to do that.'

I took a chem light—in other words, a glow stick—out of my backpack and activated it. Then I placed one in each person's hand.

"Ah…. Amazing. Oppa, you had things like this too? You should've brought them out sooner."

"Wow, the last time I saw one was during national defense training. It's been so long."

Their faces brightened the moment their surroundings lit up.

The tense expressions that had looked ready to snap just moments ago had completely vanished.

'Oh dear. They're so happy that I'm starting to feel a little guilty.'

In truth, I hadn't taken out the lights to comfort them. How much could carrying something like this really relieve their stress?

「You will become like us too!」

「Give me that body…!」

As soon as the area brightened, the undead that noticed our presence in the distance began rushing toward us.

"Huh? Huh?"

The others cried out in utter panic.

"O-Oppa, they're coming from both sides…. I-Is this right? Shouldn't we turn them off now? Unni, how do you turn these off?"

"There is no way to turn them off. It's not a lantern."

"Huh?"

I drew my sword from its sheath.

"And we need to find the remains. How are we supposed to find them without any light?"

"B-but we're going to die before we find them."

"Then we should deal with them before we die, right?"

That was what I had given them the glow sticks for. They needed to be able to see in order to fight properly. That way, they could relieve their stress.

'The best way to relieve stress is to smash everything in sight.'

How else could humans have survived ten years without going insane?

We'd fucked like crazy, of course, but the biggest factor was smashing and beating to death anything and everything in our path.

So this extreme remedy would work well this time too.

"Stay close. We're moving out."

"W-wait a moment."

Patter-patter-patter!

I charged forward. Skeletons and Specters came running toward me from the opposite side.

The skeletons charged with bladed weapons raised over their heads, while the Specters summoned blue magic and prepared to absorb our energy.

'If they charged in that combination, most players would be killed without even having a chance to resist.'

There were even more of them as their numbers swelled while they converged on us. But that was all.

「Give us your blood! Your hot blood…! Guh!」

We had fought skeletons and Specters so often over the past few days that I knew their patterns. On top of that, the difference between their stats and mine was overwhelming.

Whoosh—

I swung my sword faster than the incoming blades, and the undead crumbled without managing a single proper attack.

「Graaagh!」

The Specters had been mixed in among the skeletons, and they were swept up with them and transformed into lumps of jelly.

Three or four were cut down with nearly every swing, so they disappeared far faster than their numbers could build up.

"Can you hold out back there?"

"It's hard with daggers! Their range is too short!"

"Here."

I took weapons from my inventory and threw them onto the floor.

"Just hold out. It'll be over soon."

There were nearly as many enemies surging in from behind as there were on my side.

Even so, perhaps they hadn't survived this long through sheer luck, because although the three women looked precarious, they tactfully retreated little by little while buying time against the undead.

"There are too many Specters now! We can't hold out much longer!"

"We're almost finished here. Let's switch."

We changed positions and faced the undead again.

「Light… why have you abandoned us…? Guh.」

「Graaagh.」

Nearly two hundred undead had gathered, but the passage was narrow, and perhaps because we had experience fighting in the waiting room, they posed no threat at all.

'Thanks to Seoyeon, my mana pool is large enough that I can simply ignore the combined attacks of around ten Specters.'

It was a fighting style no other player could use, but it was possible for me now.

"Hmm?"

After fighting that way for a while, things became quiet behind us. Wondering if something had happened, I glanced back and saw the three of them standing there blankly, staring at me.

"Amazing."

That quiet word perfectly captured their feelings.

Amazement, awe, and respect.

Their eyes held countless emotions as they gazed at me.

"H-how?"

Han Sohee, in particular, had an astonished expression, her face crumpling in a way that was unlike her.

"Just what are you…?"

Since there had been so many enemies and I had people to protect, I had ended up fighting somewhat seriously, and it seemed to have been quite a shock from their perspective.

I cleanly dealt with the final undead, exhaled briefly, and started walking again.

"It looks like we've more or less cleared the mobs, so let's search for the remains calmly from here on."

"Y-yes."

"O-okay, Oppa."

"……"

After that, the women clung tightly to me and sent me even more intense, lingering looks than before.

Even Han Sohee moved close and looked up at me with an odd look in her eyes.

…The remains were much easier to find than I had expected.

"Is that the remains?"

"It looks a little creepy. We won't get cursed just for picking it up, will we?"

We looked down at what appeared to be a rib bone.

Strange characters had been engraved in the bone, which bore the marks of time.

I was probably the only person who knew this now, but in the Selection Process, they called it runic script.

In this world, it was a language imbued with a form of ancient power, a lost art that was occasionally found engraved on items obtained through farming.

Items like that usually fetched whatever price one asked.

'Though junk like this is useless.'

That aside, we had found it so easily that using the chem lights felt almost pointless.

I glanced to the side with a slightly hollow expression.

At one side of the tunnel stood a robed skeleton statue, its hands clasped together as it raised a red flame.

The source of the red light we had seen was this statue. Just like upstairs, statues had been placed here and there at the forks in the path to illuminate the darkness.

The remains had been left all alone at the statue's feet.

-Do you know how fucking awful that quest was? I had to crawl around the floor in the darkness, checking every single bone to see whether it was the right one.

-Damn it. For three whole days and nights, too. The recent trials are nothing compared to that. You guys are unbelievably lucky.

'…Tch. I should have taken that drunkard's words with a grain of salt.'

I had forgotten to account for the bullshit he added.

If I had known the remains would be sitting out in the open like this, I would have used a different method instead of luring the mobs over.

"But this is truly vicious."

"What is, Unni?"

"I noticed earlier that vengeful spirits came rushing from all directions whenever they were exposed to light…. Leaving it right in the middle of the light like this is practically pushing people to their deaths."

"Ha, now that you mention it, you're right."

…Anyone who wasn't exceptionally bold probably wouldn't even attempt to pick it up.

Whoever survived probably burned the remains immediately after picking them up and moved on to the next shelter.

I handed the remains that looked like a rib bone to Kim Yoorim.

"Congratulations. Now that you've obtained it, you can move straight to the shelter."

"Thank you. But what about the others? I'll help you until everyone has obtained theirs."

"There's no need. Burning a single piece lets several people leave together."

"Ah."

<Quest>

Stage: First Trial

Objective: Find and burn a portion of the corrupted High Priest Bardo's remains.

Background: The evil spirits' lair is….

[View Details]

I had heard that the number of people who could leave depended on the size of the bone. Something as large as a rib bone should be enough for all of them to leave.

"Th-thank you, Mr. Minjun."

"Sniff. Thank you, Oppa."

Only when a path out of this place finally appeared right before them did the two women begin crying tears of joy.

"To be honest, I had almost given up. But you went this far to help us…. I don't know how I could ever repay you for this kindness…."

"Yoorim, we're not strangers. You don't need to repay me separately."

"Even so…."

Connections were a kind of investment. Naturally, it looked like a loss in the short term.

But the seeds one planted would eventually return as good fruit.

'…Of course, that wasn't the only reason I had come down to the deep layer.'

At the center of the three-way crossroads, I turned my gaze to one side.

A door studded with skulls stood there prominently.

It was a door found at every crossroads, wherever you went. I had heard about its existence.

-It's unbelievably vast. The deep layer is like an endless labyrinth. But strangely, you can reach the central room very quickly. I don't know what's inside. It looked like a boss room at a glance.

-The corrupted High Priest Bardo, or whatever his name is, might be in there.

I wanted to check the boss room.

That was why I had wanted to come down to the deep layer.

However, [The Evil Spirits' Lair] was a trial even I had never experienced. It also boasted the most vicious difficulty among the first trials.

'The risk is too great for me to explore it alone.'

But I was uneasy about taking the Saintess into a place where unknown dangers might be lurking.

'That's why I brought them along.'

I felt sorry for those who had come down with me, but they were a kind of insurance: a safety measure to help me survive if anything unexpected happened.

Someone might curse me for this. They might ask how I could think only of myself and use the people around me.

But unfortunately, after scraping by in this world for ten years, what I had seen wasn't romance.

It was nothing but humanity's endless descent and corruption, along with its ugly, selfish instinct to survive.

'If I had been a decent human being, I never would have regressed.'

-You who are endlessly selfish! We will initiate your regression to satisfy that ugly desire. May you enjoy the trials you face once again.

The Wish System had analyzed me perfectly.

I had become someone who cared about nothing but himself over those ten years, and I would continue living that way.

…But what if I were granted a little more power?

Shaking my head, I brushed away my useless thoughts and returned to reality.

"Thank you. Sniff. I'll definitely repay you for today. I really will."

"Me too! Just tell me what you want, Oppa!"

The two women, unaware of the sordid truth, looked at me with eyes full of trust, mistakenly believing that I had risked my life to come down here for their sake.

I wasn't particularly fond of melodrama, so I got straight to the point.

"You're going to burn it right away, aren't you?"

"Yes!"

"Then I'll start the fire, so you two get dressed. It'd be embarrassing to enter the shelter naked."

"Ah."

The two women hurriedly began putting on their clothes. While they did so, I took a priest's robe from my inventory, set fire to it with a lighter, and tossed the remains onto it.

Whoosh!

[<Bardo's Remains> burns, and a strange power guides you.]

[You have fulfilled the conditions of the trial.]

[Would you like to end the trial and move on to the next area?]

The same notification that appeared before me must have appeared before the three women as well, because their faces brightened.

When they all turned toward me with grateful expressions, I decided that since I was already helping them, I might as well help a little more and give them a better chance of survival. I took five short spears apiece from the items I had farmed and placed them in their hands.

"Huh? What's this?"

The three women crouched down as if collapsing under the weight of the short spears and looked up at me.

"Take them. If you sell them at the shop in the shelter, they'll help you build up some starting capital."

"M-Mr. Minjun…!"

"O-Oppa!"

"……"

Even more gratitude filled their eyes.

"Then go on, before the fire goes out."

"Yes! Ah, but before that…!"

Joo Ahyeon disappeared first, and as Kim Yoorim was disappearing too, she suddenly realized something and tried to say something to me.

"Maybe we could keep traveling together from now on…."

She never finished the sentence, and they disappeared just like that.

Whether they traveled with me or not, I had to send them off for now.

The Saintess's mental and physical stability was my top priority above all else.

[Would you like to end the trial and move on to the next area?]

When the notification flashed again, I pressed it without hesitation.

[You have refused.]

[However, the strange power still envelops you. You may move on to the next area at any time before the scent disappears. Check the quest window.]

'Good, that's all settled. Shall I get going?'

I turned around to leave the deep layer, but one person who had not yet left stopped me.

"Huh? Han Sohee? Why haven't you moved on? Go on."

"……"

"Han Sohee, are you listening to me?"

The young heiress simply stared at me when I called out to her. Wondering what was going on, I met her gaze and blinked. Only then did she open her tightly closed mouth.

"…Why aren't you leaving?"

"I told you before. My party is waiting up above."

"You stayed because of your comrades? Don't lie to me."

"?"

I was telling the truth. I wasn't lying.

"You may be able to deceive others, but you cannot deceive me."

I scratched my head, wondering what on earth she was talking about, and Han Sohee lowered her gaze before speaking.

"You're probably planning to remain here and farm, just as you did during the tutorial. Am I wrong?"

"……"

…Well, now there was someone else besides Seoyeon who was perceptive.

That was part of it. It was another reason I'd sent Kim Yoorim and Joo Ahyeon to the Saintess without taking them along myself.

"I will remain too."

When I gave no answer, Han Sohee spoke again. She strode closer as she continued.

"In any case, isn't part of me yours? As the owner of this body, take me with you too."

"……"

I silently stared at the chaebol heiress standing before me and boldly making that demand.