Chapter 21

After a few more days of hunting, Lou failed to absorb any more of the minotaurs’ ability. Thankfully, Gi-Gyu’s mind had also cleared by then, so he finally left the Tower.

“Was it around here?” Gi-Gyu murmured. He became reckless and indifferent after hearing his mother’s diagnosis, but he never forgot to pick up the crystals during his hunt. After his frenzied hunt, not only did he obtain a truckload of crystals, but he also got two items. Since he couldn’t carry around so many crystals in his bag, he hid them in some secret corner of the 19th floor.

“Found it,” Gi-Gyu murmured when he spotted an area that was covered with different colored sands in a strange pattern. Gi-Gyu purposely threw the sand there from a different floor to mark where he hid his bags. Without a word, he squatted down and began to dig the area with his hands.

-Gosh, you’re acting so pathetic. Are you going through your hormonal teenage years all over again?

-Master’s mother is gravely ill. I completely understand how you must feel, Master.

-But does that give him the right to go mad and behave recklessly? How could he go hunting without taking any precautions? You need to act even smarter in difficult situations like this. So what if her situation seems? Don’t lose yourself—focus! Focus and find a way to way out! If you don’t, you know you’ll regret it after your mother passes away.

Even as Gi-Gyu dug the ground, Lou’s words stabbed his heart like a knife. Tears began streaming down his face, but he didn’t stop digging. After a little while, he finally struck gold and found the ten sacks full of crystals.

Gi-Gyu tied them all together, one by one, into a straight line. His power stat had increased dramatically, but the bags’ collective weight still burdened him down. He murmured, “I better go see Mother now.”

-Alright.

-I am always at your command, Master.

Gi-Gyu headed toward the portal while barely managing to drag the tied-up bags. There were quite a few people near the 19th-floor portal, so Gi-Gyu elicited a volley of murmurs from them.

“Look at that man,” one player whispered.

“What the?! Are those all filled with crystals?” another player asked in shock.

“Wow… Who is he? Does he live in the Tower or something?” the first player wondered with curiosity.

All of Gi-Gyu’s bags stacked together could dwarf a human five times the normal human size. So, it was no wonder the people stared at him in shock.

“Hehe, they look really heavy. Can we help you?”

When Gi-Gyu turned around, he caught several sly-looking players examining him with narrowed eyes. Some of them were even blatantly eyeing the bags he was carrying with interest.

‘Red Players, huh…’

Gi-Gyu knew instinctively who they were. They belonged to a group of criminal players that treated the Tower as their home base. They were notorious for taking advantage of innocent players, stealing, and even committing murders. The bright red badges on their chest confirmed Gi-Gyu’s suspicion.

“They’re from the Smurf Guild!” one passerby player exclaimed.

“Hey, let’s go somewhere else,” his companion murmured.

“Oh my gosh, that poor man. He’s going to lose all those crystals. It must’ve taken him years to collect that many,” another player muttered with sympathy.

“Well, it can’t be helped. There is no way out if you get caught by the Smurfs.”

“Don’t they usually stay on the 30th floor?”

“And I’m supposed to answer that how?”

The players who were watching the scene with interest before were now running away. They seemed sorry for Gi-Gyu, but that wasn’t enough for them to get involved.

“We’ll help you carry your bags!” The man who spoke to Gi-Gyu first tried to touch one of the bags. The man had a memorable scar near one of his eyes.

Schwing!

Milliseconds later, the man found Lou, in sword form, aimed at his neck. He stammered in confusion, “W-what the?!”

Gi-Gyu said to the man quietly, “Get lost. You shouldn’t covet what doesn’t belong to you.”

The man hesitantly took a few steps back. His companions unsheathed their swords and glared at Gi-Gyu, but none of them was stupid enough to make the first move. They murmured in fear, “H-his eyes…”

Gi-Gyu’s eyes were glowing crimson, and he was enveloped in a bloodthirsty aura. The aura was so intimidating that the Smurf Guild members couldn’t help but take a step back.

Then, an abrupt shout from afar broke the standstill. “What’s going on over there?!”

“He’s from the association! Let’s get out of here!” a Smurf Guild member shouted.

“Let’s go! I’m gonna remember your face, so you better watch yourself in the Tower from now on, unless you wanna die by my hand!” The sly-looking player with the scar yelped before running away with the others.

The area around the 19th-floor portal was under the association’s supervision, so it was always crawling with association members. The association volunteered to patrol this area, so they only sent high-level agents. Even the Red Players seemed afraid of the association. By the time the association employee arrived at the scene, the criminal had left. They questioned Gi-Gyu, “What happened here?”

“Those Red Players seemed interested in stealing my bags,” Gi-Gyu explained the situation calmly. His eyes had returned to normal, and his tone was civil.

“I-I can see why they would be interested,” the association employee stammered, making Gi-Gyu smile bitterly. Indeed, the crystals he was carrying were worth a small fortune; it was no wonder those Red Players felt greedy.

The man from the association asked, “By the way, are you Player Kim Gi-Gyu by any chance?”

‘Huh? He knows my name?’

When Gi-Gyu looked at the agent in confusion, the association employee waved his hands and explained, “Oh, please don’t misunderstand me! I only know because General Manager Oh Tae-Shik has been desperately looking for you. He put up a photo of you on all the portals; I recognized you from the picture.”

“Pardon?”

‘That man! What had he been doing while I was busy hunting?’

It sounded like Oh Tae-Shik had turned Gi-Gyu into a wanted man.

The agent stated, “You just need to follow me, Sir.”

“Alright.”

Gi-Gyu felt certain of this man’s credentials, so he followed the agent silently. As for the crystals, he decided that he could deal with them later.

***

As they walked, Gi-Gyu asked the agent why Tae-Shik was looking for him, but the employee seemed to be at a loss too. The moment they reached the 1st-floor landmark, Gi-Gyu was surrounded by numerous association employees, greeting him eagerly.

“Player Kim Gi-Gyu!” one employee yelled.

“Please come over this way!” another screamed even louder.

“No, come this way!” the third agent shouted.

The first agent who found Gi-Gyu on the 19th floor explained with embarrassment, “The general manager promised to give a bonus this month to whoever brings you in, Player Kim Gi-Gyu.”

“What is wrong with that man?!” Gi-Gyu muttered. It seemed Tae-Shik was hell-bent on making a wanted man out of Gi-Gyu. He pushed away all the agents swarming around him and continued on with the man who found him first. When they reached Tae-Shik’s office, the agent said, “You can go inside now. My name is Heo Sung-Hoon. Please make sure to tell the general manager.”

“Haha, alright,” Gi-Gyu answered with a laugh.

Knock, knock!

The door opened immediately after Gi-Gyu knocked.

“You bastard!” Tae-Shik shouted and swung a fist toward Gi-Gyu’s head. But, Gi-Gyu was even faster and dodged the strike with a swift turn. When Tae-Shik’s hand ended up punching nothing, he muttered, “Oh, how dare you?!”

Unfortunately, when Tae-Shik made a second attempt, his punch found its target; Gi-Gyu couldn’t avoid being smacked in the head this time. Gi-Gyu glared at Tae-Shik by reflex, and Tae-Shik looked right back at him with a sparkle in his eyes.

“This time, you squatted in the Tower for way too long. I can feel the bloodlust oozing from your body. Just get inside already. We don’t have much time,” Tae-Shik explained hurriedly.

“I should be the one getting angry, Hyung,” Gi-Gyu protested. But, he still followed Tae-Shik inside and sat down on the sofa.

Gi-Gyu complained, “What was so important that you made me into a wanted man? By the way, it was a man named Heo Sung-Hoon who brought me here.”

“Sung-Hoon? Got it. I better double his bonus this month,” Tae-Shik replied and nodded, making Gi-Gyu sigh, “Haa…”

Gi-Gyu was still annoyed; after seeing Tae-Shik’s usual goofy behavior, he smiled. When Gi-Gyu put down his bags on the floor, Tae-Shik asked, “Are all those bags filled with crystals?”

“There are two items inside as well. They’re equipment items, but they are of no use to me. I think I’ll just sell them,” Gi-Gyu replied.

“Wait here,” Tae-Shik told Gi-Gyu, made a single call, and three men arrived before long. As the trio carried all the bags out, Tae-Shik promised Gi-Gyu, “They will calculate it accurately and deposit the profit into your bank account. The equipment items will be sent to the auction house, so don’t worry.”

“You have the authority for all that, Hyung?”

“I’m the association’s general manager, after all. This is normal for anyone at this level,” Tae-Shik replied nonchalantly, but Gi-Gyu couldn’t hide how impressed he was. Now that Tae-Shik had taken care of the bags, Gi-Gyu felt much lighter. It was finally time to discuss why Tae-Shik brought him here so hurriedly.

“What’s going on?” Gi-Gyu asked.

“It’s about your mother,” Tae-Shik replied; Gi-Gyu’s eyes became serious. Tae-Shik continued, “You know when the elixir first appeared, right?”

“The elixir?”

“That’s right. The elixir.”

“At the beginning, when the Tower first appeared, the very first player who cleared the 50th floor was Marco Alonso. He received the elixir as a reward; the elixir had only appeared twice since,” Gi-Gyu answered in detail.

“So you know about it very well.” Tae-Shik seemed impressed. There was a reason why Gi-Gyu knew so much about the elixir. It was because he knew early on that this item was the only thing that could cure his mother. He researched the elixir extensively before; in the end, he could only come up with one conclusion: It was near impossible for him to get one.

Tae-Shik said to him, “By the way, there was one similarity between those two gates.”

“That they were both maze type?”

“That’s right.”

Well before these exceptional gates began appearing in abundance, there had been several cases in the past where gates with similar structures appeared. One of these was a maze type, known to be the hardest gate to clear.

Maze gates were in a category and grade of their own; consequently, if a player were to chance upon a newly formed maze type, they weren’t given a priority pass. Instead, any capable player could enter it out of their own violation.

Suffice to say, maze gates were the most dangerous type of gates. There had been countless cases where a single maze type gate housed numerous taxons of monsters. And that was when one didn’t speak of the deadly traps and the boss keepers that were way stronger than the gate that lodged them.

There was a silver lining, though: Maze-type gates’ gate break occurred later than that of all the other types. A maze gate wouldn’t break even after three months of not being cleared. But, they were such difficult gates to clear that three months were not always enough.

Maze gates appeared twice in the past; each time, the rewards for clearing them had been elixirs.

Gi-Gyu stammered, “You’re telling me this now because…”

“Two days ago, a third maze gate appeared in the US. As soon as I heard the news, I sent out your pictures. Do you get it now?” Tae-Shik answered with a bitter smile. He added, “I would love to go inside myself; as you know, anyone at or above the general manager level isn’t allowed to enter a gate except for an emergency situation.”

‘Is hyung for real? Didn’t he say he would charge in if I failed to clear the F-Call Gate in five days? This is a maze type…’ Suddenly, Gi-Gyu realized the reason Tae-Shik said that. It wasn’t Tae-Shik was doubted Gi-Gyu could clear it, but because he was worried the gate might transform into an exceptional type.

Tae-Shik continued, “Gi-Gyu, I believe you have a special power. I also think you’re the only player who has gotten this close to the gates’ secret. But you, clearing a maze gate? I know it’s impossible. Besides, three high rankers have already announced their intention to enter this gate.”

Munch, munch…

Gi-Gyu bit his lips as Tae-Shik spoke, “Gi-Gyu, I just wanted to tell you that you should live a life you won’t regret. Since you now have a chance to get an elixir, I wanted to tell you that you should go, even if it means you might die inside.”

Tae-Shik looked down and continued, “You now have an opportunity, so if you don’t even try, then… I know you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. You will never be content that way.”

“Hyung…”

“So you must go. I’ve already taken care of all the preparations. Now, all you’ve to do is say goodbye to Yoo-Jung and your mother before you leave. Do your best, so you don’t regret it for the rest of your life. You must avoid the high rankers and the guilds at all costs. You must survive on your own. I’ve never been inside a maze gate either, so I can’t give you any advice.”

“Thank you. I really mean it.” Gi-Gyu smiled bitterly. Tae-Shik gave him a similar smile as well. Tae-Shik offered, “Go ahead, freshen up, and meet your mother. Once you’re ready, I’ll have someone help you to the gate.”

Unable to control his emotions, Gi-Gyu lowered his face and left the room. Now alone in his office, Tae-Shik glanced at the empty ashtray and murmured in a lonely voice, “I can’t believe I’m so desperate for a smoke again. I think I’ve done all I can, Mr. Kim.”

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