“Yes, sir. I saw you were in second place.” Yeon-woo thought of the list of names in the Hall of Fame. The name in second place, Nayu, was the Martial King’s real name. Although Yeon-woo was focused on his brother, who was in fourth place, he knew that he would meet the monster like the young Martial King. Although he couldn’t even imagine a younger version of the Martial King, he wasn’t planning on losing to him.

“Are you confident?”

“Should I be confident?”

“What? You scaredy…”

“I know I’m going to win.”

“Huh? Look at you.”One of the Martial King’s eyebrows twitched at the confident answer to his teasing. “Don’t you know that you’ll disappear just like that if you’re too arrogant?”

“I’m sure you know that I’m not good at jokes. I came to this conclusion after analyzing all my skills.”

“You’ll only wake up after you get beaten up by my shadow, huh?”

“I was actually going to ask you: is it all right if I beat your simulation? Even though it’s a trial, it seems disrespectful to fight my teacher.”

“What?”

“Or should I completely dominate your simulation from the get-go? I think it’s possible.”

The Martial King and Yeon-woo had a tense battle of wits. Phante clenched his fists after realizing that there was an acceptable way to beat his father up, and Edora rubbed her temples at the ridiculousness of the situation. “Neither of you are children, so please stop. And Father, didn’t you say you had to do something?”

“I can do that la—”

“The Head Elder was looking for you earlier, what should I do?”

“All right, All right. I’ll go. Do you know how bad his nagging is these days? Don’t you nag me either.” The Martial King sighed at the thought of the angry Head Elder chasing after him and began to walk towards the village. However, before he left, he said to Yeon-woo, “Win. Take first place.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. You should be this confident if you’re going to be my disciple. Hehehe! But Daughter, where did I say I was supposed to go?” The Martial King winked at Yeon-woo and continued teasing his daughter as he left.

As Yeon-woo watched him leave, he repeated the Martial King’s words to himself in his head. The Martial King had told him to win and take first place. The young Martial King hadn’t been able to take first place back then because of who held it: Bivasbat.

Bivasbat was a player who was better known by another name. ‘Allforone.’ Yeon-woo really wanted to battle the simulation of the wall of the seventy-seventh floor. Even if he lost, he would know how much he needed to improve. Yeon-woo clenched his fists without realizing.

Meanwhile, Edora returned with a big sigh, still pressing her temples at the immaturity of the Martial King again. She glared at Phante, who was still excited at the thought of the twenty-first floor, and turned to look at Yeon-woo, sighing again. “I hope you don’t get influenced by these two, Oraboni. It seems like you’re becoming more and more like them…” She sounded sick of it all.

However, Yeon-woo only laughed in response, and his eyes were curved in a smile behind the mask. Edora sighed again. She felt like she was aging prematurely.

“Anyway, I heard that you’re going to climb the Tower again tonight.” Yeon-woo changed the topic. Edora glared at him, but she nodded. She was hoping they could catch up on other things, but the first thing he wanted to talk about was the Tower. It was so like him.

“We’ll take the griffins to the territory of the Abyss Turtle first. I think it’ll go smoothly since they have already been acknowledged by the system. Then, we have to start moving, as well. We’ve stayed here too long.”

“I’ll meet you on the twenty-third floor.”

“The twenty-third floor?”

“I think I’ll stay there for some time.”

Edora realized that he wanted to hang out with them again, just as they had done in the Beginner Zone. A smile appeared on her lips before she even realized it. “OK. I’ll see you there.”

***

Yeon-woo saw Edora and Phante back to the Tower before leaving for the outer section. The siblings asked him why he wasn’t going with them, but Yeon-woo only shook his head. “I have something to get ready.”

The simulations of several monsters were going to appear on the twenty-first floor, including Allforone. Yeon-woo would have to fight them at full power, and he also needed to arm himself with more weapons. ‘And I have to apologize, too.’

Yeon-woo headed to Henova’s smithy. The dwarf was the only person who could deal with the Abyss Turtle’s shell pieces and molted skin. Also, he had to retrieve the swords that he’d commissioned half a year ago. ‘But how should I apologize?’

Yeon-woo thought Henova might throw his hammer at him as soon as he saw him. A lot of time had passed since the date they’d agreed on, and Edora said Henova had even gone to the One-horned tribe to look for him. He had probably been extremely worried, which was understandable. Yeon-woo had done something terrible to a person who had already experienced the pain of losing someone dear to him.

Yeon-woo worried about how he could apologize to Henova. Joking wasn’t going to cut it this time. However, no matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn’t think of how to do it. He was really not good at things like this.

However, when he arrived at the smithy, he found an unexpected sight.

“I’m selling my stock! Items available are a Sword Breaker and nine swords! I’ll show them all so name your price, you fools!”

“Ack! Henova’s doing crazy things again!”

“Fifty thousand points!”

“Are you crazy? You’re bidding that price for something Henova made? One hundred thousand points! Give them all to me!”

“One hundred twenty thousand!”

Henova was shaking the swords on a podium with his stubby arms, and the excited crowd gathered as though they were at an auction. The swords looked familiar to Yeon-woo, but Shanon was the first to realize what was going on, and he shouted, 「Hey, stop him! That’s my sword!」

Yeon-woo smiled wryly when he realized what Henova was doing. ‘He’s planning on selling them all.’ Looking at the swords probably made Henova angry, and his fury had probably only grown when he’d heard of Yeon-woo’s return, so he decided to get rid of them all. ‘His fiery personality really doesn’t change.’

However, Shanon said in a panicked tone, 「Master! Stop smiling and hurry! That Dwarf is going to sell it to some weirdos! Ahh! Someone’s about to buy it, run!」

Shanon had been the most excited about commissioning a sword from Henova. Henova was one of the top five blacksmiths in the Tower, and although he was closely linked to Arthia, many people coveted his weapons.

Even Hanryeong, whose previous swords had the names of gods, was certain that whatever Henova made for him would easily compare to them, and he was looking forward to using the commissioned swords, as well. Seeing Henova selling them off made him want to scream.

Finally, at Shanon’s and Hanryeong’s urging, Yeon-woo used Shunpo to reach the smithy quickly just as the auction was heating up.

“One hundred twenty-five thousand!”

“One hundred twenty-six thousand five hundred!”

“These crazy bastards. Three hundred thousand!”

The players wanted to get weapons made by a true master at any price, even if they had to use their life savings. It was almost impossible for people in the outer sections to have the opportunity to find weapons of such quality otherwise. However, the bids continued to increase.

“Half a million.”

The atmosphere quickly cooled down as everyone turned to the person who had spoken. Those points were enough to keep a small clan running, and they wondered what kind of crazy bastard was trying to stir them up. However, they were all stunned to see Yeon-woo.

“H-Hoarder!’

“Why is he here?”

“Did you forget? The Hoarder is close to Henova.”

“Shit. What can we do when a snake appears among caterpillars?”

The players started to leave, and Henova’s face filled with annoyance. He glared at Yeon-woo, who only smiled back at him. “You…!” As Henova ground his teeth, a hand shot up in the air.

“S-six hundred thousand!”

“Gasp! D-do you have the money?”

“How is he going to...”

The person who made the bid was confident that no one would bid a higher price.

“One million.”

Everyone gasped and paled at the amount that Yeon-woo nonchalantly called out. Yeon-woo crossed his arms and looked around him arrogantly. “There’s no more bids, right? I’ll take it as sold to me.”

Henova ground his teeth again and took out another sword. It was one that Hanryeong had asked for. “This—”

“One million.”

“Fucking…!”

Yeon-woo called out 1,000,000 points before Henova could even finish speaking, and the players turned even whiter. Yeon-woo continued calling out ridiculous bids again and again, and the players wondered if that was even possible.

Yeon-woo pulled out jewels from Intrenian. Although Red Dragon’s subspace storage was filled with precious things, the jewels still constituted two-thirds of the wealth in Intrenian. However, Yeon-woo knew that Henova would return what he received ten times over. In fact, Yeon-woo didn’t even care about that. The gratitude he felt towards Henova was priceless. Henova had been a friend and a father to his little brother, and he would easily give everything inside Intrenian to him if he asked for it.

However, Yeon-woo’s casual bids made Henova grind his teeth even more. “You fucking bastard.”

“Thank you for the compliment.”

“Take it away, you fucking bastard!” Henova threw all the swords in his hands at Yeon-woo. He wanted Yeon-woo to pick them up from the ground, but Yeon-woo crushed his hopes this time, as well.

Yeon-woo extended his hand to wrap magic power around the swords, which drifted lazily into his arms. After he’d comprehended his Consciousness, he’d been able to move lighter items like this.

“Aarrgh!” Henova kicked the ground and turned on his heel to storm inside the smithy. The crowd looked at Yeon-woo with regret, but he ignored them and pulled Sword Breaker from its sheath. Kashing!

The sword felt great in his hand. It shone like the moon and was as sharp as a fang.

“Wow.”

“How can someone make something like that…!”

People exclaimed at the sight, unable to close their mouths. Even Yeon-woo, who had just embarked on the path of the sword, could see it was an incredible item. When he used his Draconic Eyes to look at it, he could hardly see any imperfections.

「No way…even though he’s a dwarf…is this possible? Was it possible for him to make this in a day? It’s easily beyond the S rank.」 Shanon was almost shrieking as though he were looking at a miracle.

[Henova’s Smooth and Twisted Sword]

[Classification: Two-handed longsword]

[Rank: S~SS]

[Description: A sword that the dwarf Henova spent several nights making. Its blade fends off opponents easily, and the sharp edge can rip through defensive armor.]

[*Smoothly Flowing Wind

The blessing of the wind speeds up the blade and increases offensive power while causing the opponent’s offensive power to decrease.]

[*Twisted Wind

The curse of the wind allows the blade to shift heavy wind to create 12 consecutive tornadoes, increasing the potential to destroy the opponent’s armor.]

「Ahhh! You crazy fool, why did you leave this here?」