Chapter 39
#39. Burial Plot
The Tower’s invitation doesn’t discriminate by age or gender.
Naturally, it doesn’t choose people by personality, either. Even a deadbeat loser like me got an invitation.
Anyone who’s served in the military knows this: when you gather a bunch of people who have nothing in common except being men in their twenties,
the average level of human decency is far lower than you’d think, and there are plenty of idiots who swagger around over the most pathetic things.
So what do you think the average would be for people gathered in the alien, closed-off space known as the Trial Tower?
“Aren’t you leaving?”
So it wasn’t all that strange for some asshole to pick a fight out of nowhere like this.
Especially since, from the way I looked, I probably seemed like some pushover decked out in store-bought gear from the Tower’s lowest floor.
Hmm. Thinking about it like that, maybe one of our party’s paladins was just ordinary after all.
“Who’s this guy?”
I pointed at the man and asked Kim Jina, turning my head toward her.
I’d only just arrived, so maybe something had happened before I got here.
“He’s been standing in front of the portal since a little while ago, but he wouldn’t go in...”
“He’s not someone who came here to solo, right? You said it was a party.”
Kim Jina nodded. Then the paladin Kim Min-hyeong came up to me and quietly said,
“Hyung-nim, I think they’re staking out this spot. They’ve got one party member standing guard and controlling the area.”
I’d played plenty of online games myself, so I knew roughly what he meant without needing an explanation.
The man standing in front of the portal was a warrior with a somewhat youthful face, dressed in gleaming plate armor.
If he was brazen enough to openly stake out the spot like this, he probably had strong connections or belonged to a major guild.
His armor looked pretty high-end too. He might not be a ranker himself, but he could know one.
If I stirred things up, I might end up tangled with some filthy bastards, but staking out the spot wasn’t exactly something to be proud of either—so I might as well say something first.
“Looks like none of your party members are here yet, but we’ve all gathered.”
I hesitated a little and said something to the man. He gave me a quick once-over and replied curtly,
“But.”
That was it. What kind of bastard was this? Compared to him, Kim Min-hyeong was downright polite.
“I’m saying we’re using this spot first. We’re going in, so move.”
“I told you, this is our party’s spot. Your spot? Your mom’s grave plot, you bastard.”
The man said that and raised his middle finger without warning. At the same time, my hand shot out.
-Boom!
My fist slammed squarely into the center of his chest, and the sound of an explosion rang out.
**
The way he acted so arrogantly made it clear he had something backing him.
He might have a major guild behind him, he might know a ranker, or maybe he was strong himself.
But the moment I heard that absurd insult aimed at my mother, none of that mattered.
What, your mom’s grave plot?
I’m climbing the Tower alone, busting my ass, just so I can apologize to that grave plot once?
If I didn’t throw a punch after hearing that kind of shit, wouldn’t that be weird? You fucking bastard.
-Crash!
The man, hit by my fist, was sent flying and rolled once across the floor.
My fist stung a little from smashing his solar plexus. I’d thought it was no ordinary gear, and sure enough, it was good armor.
But the fact that he couldn’t even react to my punch and just got sent flying and toppled over meant his specs weren’t anything special.
“You, you fucking bastard.”
The man, sprawled on the ground, spat curses with his jaw trembling and his face flushed bright red.
Just from his expression, you’d think he’d been wronged by the whole world. But who the hell gave you the right to get pissed off and throw a fit?
“You hit me? Do you fucking know who I am? You can tell at a glance you’re just some low-level beggar bastard—looking to die?”
He muttered curses under his breath as he got to his feet. Then, seeing me flexing my fist, he shouted,
“Idiot, did you break your fist? Serves you right for acting like you’re hot shit—do you know how much my armor cost?”
I ignored him and strode over, raising my fist again.
“If you’re going to talk like that, you should’ve worn a helmet.”
-Crack!
“Urgh!”
I punched the bastard square in the jaw. White teeth flew out in a spray.
I hadn’t even hit him that hard, but by the feel of it, not only his teeth but his jawbone had probably been wrecked too.
If it weren’t for his gear, he’d have been gasping for air after that first hit to the solar plexus. What the hell was he so cocky about?
-Murmur, murmur.
As the guy collapsed face-first on the ground again with his jaw shattered, people gathered around him.
They didn’t seem to be his acquaintances, just people who’d come over because a fight broke out. In an instant, the area grew noisy.
The nameless guy writhing on the floor took a potion out of his inventory and gulped it down while dribbling it everywhere.
The potion bottle design was ridiculously flashy. He seemed to use premium stuff not just for equipment, but for consumables too.
“Huff, huff... you fucking bastard.”
After downing the potion, the guy fiddled with his inventory again, then belatedly pulled on a white helmet and grabbed his weapon.
His weapon was a huge two-handed axe, but from the way he held it, he looked less awkward and more like an idiot.
He started a fight by insulting my mother, then after one punch he went straight for his weapon.
“You’re fucking dead, you beggar bastard.”
Was being rich really something to brag about? He was acting all smug, calling me a beggar.
I’ve got more gold than I know what to do with in the Trial Tower, but he didn’t know that, so he was calling me a beggar and whatnot.
But setting that aside, why was he so smug? Was he really stupid enough to think putting on a helmet would solve everything?
-Whoosh!
The guy, thoroughly covered head to toe in plate armor, charged at me swinging his axe.
His stance was dumb, but the way he swung was even dumber. How could he be worse with a weapon than a goblin on the first floor?
I sidestepped the axe in exactly two steps and, clenching my fist, used a skill.
[Iron Wall]
My fist, hardened like iron, smashed into the man’s head.
**
The skills I had leveled up during my closed-door training on the 3rd floor weren’t limited to resistance skills.
[Earth Spirit’s Blessing Lv. 10]
A small earth-element spirit remains by your side.
The skill level increases according to your affinity with the spirit, and new effects are unlocked as the level rises.
- Basic passive effect: Defense + 20
- Additional passive effect: Physical damage reduction + 5%
- Additional active effect: [Iron Wall] skill becomes available
After figuring out how to raise spirit affinity, I was able to level up Earth Spirit’s Blessing significantly.
The method for raising affinity was very simple: just interact with spirit-imbued objects and make contact with them.
Naturally, objects imbued with earth spirits were things like soil, sand, and stone.
For a while, I was able to raise my affinity by chewing on pebbles together with Whiteroll.
Of course, the efficiency wasn’t all that great, so reaching level 10 and unlocking the active effect didn’t happen until the 6th floor.
Anyway, the active skill [Iron Wall] has a simple effect.
It makes a part of your body as hard as steel. Simple, but extremely powerful and useful.
With this skill, I can wear leather armor and still have defense on par with heavy armor.
And, like now, I can harden my fist to increase my attack power as well.
-Bang!
My fist, which already made a loud noise whenever it hit metal, made an especially huge bang this time.
The man in heavy armor, who’d been swinging his axe around, had his neck snap to the side and collapsed.
Even good armor couldn’t absorb all that impact, and the fallen guy lay still for a moment as if dead.
“Pretending to be dead, are you? You want to die?”
-Bang!
I used [Iron Wall] again and delivered a soccer kick to the fallen guy’s head.
Only then did the bastard come to with an “oof” and a groan. He seemed to have a concussion, because he couldn’t keep his body under control.
Seeing that, all I could think was, 'Good thing I didn’t pull out my weapon.'
It was lucky he was empty-handed; if I’d gotten excited and swung a weapon, I might have killed him outright.
“J-Jin-hyuk... you didn’t kill him, did you?”
Just as I was looking at the staggering armored guy and wondering where to hit him next, Kim Jina popped over and asked,
Come to think of it, a lot of people had gathered by then. Kim Jina must have nearly flailed her way through the crowd.
“He’s not dead, and I’m not going to kill him.”
Kim Jina had more or less learned about my situation by searching the community forums, so she said she thought I’d end up killing the guy.
Even so, I wouldn’t just kill someone out of the blue. Honestly, I don’t even have the right to get that angry over an insult to my mother.
After leeching off my mother and making her suffer for years, I’m going to kill someone because I got furious over a mother insult?
There’s a limit to how shameless you can be. I couldn’t do that.
Still, saying she naturally thought I’d kill him—wasn’t Kim Jina taking murder a little too lightly?
I didn’t know the exact situation in the other Towers, but even so, things were probably kept reasonably in check by the control of major guilds.
-Murmur, murmur.
While I was talking with Kim Jina, the murmuring of the people who had gathered to watch the fight grew louder.
“Gil-hoon!”
A man with a face similar to the armored guy sprawled on the ground burst through the crowd.
“Which bastard... which fucking bastard was it... You, you piece of shit!”
The man glared at me with wide eyes, then suddenly pulled a spear from his inventory and took a broad stance with it.
The sound of the spearhead cutting through the air was no joke. They must be brothers—so that was his backup.
Amid the murmuring voices around me, the name 'Choi Gil-hyeon' could be heard here and there.
“Jin-hyuk... that person is a ranker...!”
Yeah, you’ve got one hell of a backer.