Chapter 4

“Impossible.”

Contrary to Woojin’s hopes, Raoul’s answer was cold.

“Why?” Woojin asked, looking bewildered.

“Not just anyone can learn my swordsmanship. It’s a legacy skill. Do you still want to learn it?”

‘A legacy skill? What’s that supposed to be?’

“... Of course,” Woojin answered cautiously.

A chill ran through him. The killing intent suddenly emanating from Raoul made Woojin tremble involuntarily.

“You really don’t know, do you?” Raoul nodded, withdrawing his killing intent.

“I couldn’t believe that absurd story about you coming from another world. But seeing you now, you really aren’t from here.”

“... Pardon?”

“A legacy skill is a unique-grade technique that only one person can learn.”

SHING!

He drew his sword.

“Then again, you barely reacted when you heard I was a first-class adventurer. I suppose that explains it.”

Despite having killed so many wolves, the blade was still as sharp as new.

“The rank of first-class adventurer...” Raoul said quietly, “is granted only to those whose experience slaying a dragon has been verified.”

“... A dragon?”

Woojin could not help being astonished.

A Dragon Slayer.

With players still yet to complete even their first class advancement, information about it existed only on the official website. It was a unique class unlocked only by completing a specific quest after advancing to the third-advancement hidden class, Dragon Hunter. It was one of the twelve classes in [Evil Tale] whose details had not yet been released.

To think someone with that rare class was standing right before him. He had never imagined it.

“I had no idea you were someone so extraordinary.”

“Heh heh, hardly. Those are all past glories. These days, wolves frighten me more than dragons.”

“... Pardon?”

“My greed brought disaster upon me.”

He unfastened the shoulder strap of his armor.

“...!!”

Festering wounds were revealed, stretching from his collarbone across his chest and flank.

“In my foolish desire to become a little stronger, I meddled with something I should never have touched.”

“Something you should never have touched...?”

“A dragon’s heart,” Raoul said with a strange laugh.

“The dragon’s mana is eating away at me, little by little. One day, it will consume me entirely...”

Dragon Heart.

It was known as an elixir containing the greatest power in the world, but no one had discovered how to refine it.

“Wasn’t that far too reckless? You already had enough power to slay a dragon. Why would you...?”

“Because it still wasn’t enough.”

“...”

“You and I are no different.”

Woojin was left speechless. Their standards of strength were different, that was all. Their desire was the same.

CLACK!

Raoul pointed his sword at Woojin.

“Take hold of it.”

With trembling hands, Woojin carefully gripped his sword tightly.

KRA-KA-KA-BOOM!

KRA-BOOM!

At that instant, his head rang as though struck by lightning.

Countless scenes swept before his eyes like a panorama. One by one, they became memories, as though being written directly into his mind.

“... Gah?!”

Startled, he hastily stumbled back.

“Wh-what is this...?” Woojin stared at Raoul, his eyes wide.

“My memories of thirty years spent slaying dragons. That is what a legacy skill is. It doesn’t end with simply learning a skill. You absorb all of that person’s experiences and memories themselves.”

Raoul spoke with a faint smile, as though he had anticipated Woojin’s reaction.

“Dragon Heaven. A sword art containing my entire life.”

HUMMM...

His sword began to glow faintly.

“Heh heh... There is only one circumstance in which you can inherit someone’s memories.”

Raoul rose, brushing himself off.

“When that person dies.”

“Ah...”

He lightly patted Woojin’s shoulder and headed out of the cave.

“So I’m sorry, but I can’t teach you my sword art yet. I can’t die just yet.”

Morning light poured through the cave entrance, obscuring his back.

A stranger met on a lonely journey. Without his kindness, Woojin might have died a futile death in another world where no one knew him.

‘Right. Wanting even his life would be childish greed.’

“Is there no cure?”

Raoul shook his head.

“Who knows? They say High Priestess Loren is on the island of the Northern Wall, where the Lion King is. Perhaps she could do something.”

The dragon’s mana was slowly killing him, but the light in his eyes, at least, had not faded.

“Do you have a destination?”

Woojin shook his head.

The objective in [Evil Tale] was to conquer the Labyrinth Tower, but this world had no more floors left for him to tackle. The sole remaining floor floated brazenly in the sky, and he had yet to find a way back into the game.

“Then why not come with me? You have a decent eye and learn quickly enough. I can’t teach you Dragon Heaven, but... I’ll teach you the fundamentals on the way to the Lion King’s stronghold.”

It wasn’t a bad offer. The Dark Forest was vast. Along with gray wolves, it teemed with goblins, orcs, and other monsters even worse than wolves.

Could he survive on his own? He was only just managing to kill wolves, the weakest of them all...

Remembering the wound from the wolf’s bite, Woojin nodded. Next time, those teeth might sink into his throat.

“Thank you.”

After all, the best way for the weak to survive was to stay beside the strong.

* * *

The forest path seemed endless. Before they knew it, the sun had set, and the forest pressed down on them with darkness once more.

... YELP!

Woojin’s sword sliced through a gnoll’s neck.

“Lower your stance. Your sword tip is still wavering. If you covet my sword art, learn the fundamentals first.”

At Raoul’s words from behind him, Woojin gritted his teeth and swung at the remaining gnoll.

“Hah... Hah...”

In moments, three gnolls lay dead before him.

‘This is only a beginner area...’

Yet it was this agonizing. Everything from the dense stands of towering trees to the occasional cries of animals felt so oppressive that he could barely breathe.

“No... runes.”

Woojin slit open the monster’s belly with practiced ease, checked inside, and stood.

“I must have used up all my luck on the first day. Not a single one since then.”

Raoul chuckled at his disappointment.

“As you said, you were lucky. The moon was bright that night. You find plenty of runes on nights like that.”

‘Some sort of time-dependent effect?’

[Evil Tale] had something similar. During the day, monsters grew weaker but yielded less experience. At night, the opposite happened: experience increased, but so did the monsters’ stats.

“Let’s rest here tonight.”

At Raoul’s suggestion, Woojin quietly gathered branches and began building a fire.

“Still, you’re starting to look quite respectable with a sword in your hands.”

As he spoke, Raoul cut meat from one of the gnolls Woojin had killed and placed it in the fire.

“I still can’t use any skills, though.”

“Heh heh, there’s no need to rush. Once you have the fundamentals down, you’ll be able to use them naturally.”

This was their third day traveling through the Dark Forest. In that time, the two had killed a fair number of monsters, with Woojin doing most of the hunting. Since that day, Raoul had taught him everything he needed to hunt: how to hold a sword, footwork, posture, and more.

“You said your world was only just tackling the tenth floor?”

“Yes. Unlike before, a large alliance was going to attempt it together.”

He remembered reading on the community forums that no fewer than five clans were joining forces, led by Kerga of the [Phoenix Corps], reputedly the strongest player currently active, along with the Red Witch of the [Red Tower] and others.

“They may have cleared the tenth floor by now.”

“People here aren’t particularly interested in conquering the Labyrinth Tower. The faster it’s cleared, the bleaker the world becomes.”

At those words, Woojin gazed up at the sky. Far away floated the castle that formed the final, hundredth floor.

‘The game won’t end up like this too, will it?’

The thought sent an involuntary shudder through him.

‘But how is any of this possible?’

A world identical to the game actually existed. No matter how many times he considered it, he could not believe it.

‘But if I haven’t gone mad...’

That raised one question. How had [Evil Tale] managed to create a world identical to this one?

‘Evil Tale wasn’t made by humans.’

Woojin recalled the slogan advertised everywhere at the game’s launch.

[Evil Tale], a virtual reality game created by [Ethan], the world’s first autonomous artificial intelligence.

‘A game made by an AI, not a person.’

There had been all kinds of rumors and talk, but once the game launched, those voices had all fallen silent. The world it had built was simply too perfect.

But now Woojin could see it. If this other world was truly real...

‘The AI didn’t create a perfect world.’

[Evil Tale] had merely copied a real, existing world to perfection.

‘Then...’

Woojin swallowed hard, looking tense.

Perhaps that was where he needed to look for the answer to everything that had happened to him.

‘The AI, [Ethan].’

It was the single entity connecting the game, this other world, and reality.

‘I’m starting to see a way forward.’

Except... the problem was how to get back.

In reality, he accessed the game through a capsule.

‘If this place is just as real...’

To return, he would need a device that could connect him to the game.

The problem was that he had no idea what that might be. There was no way a capsule existed in this other world.

“I have a favor to ask.”

“What is it?” Woojin asked Raoul, drawing his thoughts to a close.

“If it’s around the time of the tenth-floor attempt... she might still be there.”

“...?”

Woojin tilted his head at Raoul’s uncharacteristic hesitation.

“If you do make it back, that is. If you go to the central continent, there should be a small village called [Yorka]. Could you stop by?”

“The central continent... Certainly. Though it’ll be a long time before I’m high enough level to go there.”

“When you get there, you should find a woman named Lea in a small house with a green roof.”

Woojin nodded.

“Would you tell her to be careful not to catch a cold?”

“... Pardon?”

Woojin stared at him, eyes widening at the unexpected request.

“... My mother suffered from pneumonia all her life.”

Woojin nodded quietly.

“I’ll be sure to tell her.”

A gap of fifty years.

Just as he felt anxious about being cast into an unknown future, those who remained in that future had many things they wished to tell the past. He still did not know whether the game he would return to was truly Raoul’s past, but he could not turn his back on even the smallest message Raoul wished to send.

“Thank you. I couldn’t ask for more.”

As though he had finished some difficult task, Raoul sighed and leaned against a tree.

“Don’t talk as though those are your last words.”

“Heh heh, my apologies. We’ll need to keep our wits about us from here on.”

Raoul answered Woojin’s reproach with a wry smile.

The western Dark Forest.

‘That was goblin territory, if I remember right.’

Individually, they were not powerful monsters, but they were cunning. Unlike most monsters, which did nothing but attack, they knew how to keep their distance and flee. Goblins were perhaps the most persistent monsters in the game, endlessly harassing players.

“Don’t worry. I’ve fought goblins before.”

“Goblins? It’s not low-level monsters like those I’m worried about.”

Raoul’s expression hardened a little at Woojin’s words.

“The Faceless Monster.”

Woojin recalled something he had briefly forgotten.

[“Be careful. This is the Faceless Monster’s territory.”]

Raoul had said that when they first met.

“Was it forty years ago? Not long after the tower appeared, a dark mage of House Muren created a monster here.”

He lowered his stance and moved forward cautiously.

“At first, we thought it was just an ordinary creation of dark magic... But what do you suppose it means that it’s still alive now, even after the tower’s ninety-ninth floor has been cleared?”

Unlike his usual tone, Raoul’s voice was low and grave.

“It means there’s no one who can kill it.”

Woojin swallowed hard without realizing it.

“Could...” His voice trembled. “Could that be the Faceless Monster?”

GRRRR...

Ragged breathing rang out, like metal scraping against metal.

Behind them stood a knight holding a rusted sword, beyond a shadow deeper than the darkness.

CREEEAK!

Its mouth and nose had melted into blackened ruin, as though seared by fire. Only the red glow of its eyes stared at them from that face.

“... Goddammit!”

The forest erupted into turmoil once more.