07. Eldoras (8)

“What? If that’s the plan, I’d like to wear it too? Killing bugs from above would be much more fun than killing time in the rotten air at the bottom of these sewers!”

“Are you quitting? If you go out, it’s obvious that you’ll run amok like a madman. If you act noisy and then even a public security hunter comes out, then it’s a plan and it’s really over. Just be quiet here.”

“… Witch horse, that’s right. The three of us are here. Crew members, though weak, know how to handle it quietly.”

I shook my head quickly, keeping the words the executives were talking about in a corner of my head.

If you leave the underground field, you are on the first floor. And on the first floor, Yuna’s newly formed guild members were hunting.

No matter how new weapons they are armed with, they are the first guild members to match the weapon they are using for the first time. There is also Ha Seok-cheol, who is a semi-S class, but the opponent is the vicious elite group who does not choose any means or methods.

Each one is a skilled person comparable to Ha Seok-cheol, and he will use forbidden weapons like ‘Blood Sacrifice’ without hesitation, so you have to hit them well to counter them with mid-level guild power.

No, it’s not just Yuna. On the lower floors, at most, there were only C-D lower level hunters. In order to have a meaningful resistance against Manma-ryun, you would have to be at least a large guild’s raiding team, but as far as I know, there is no S-class raiding team that is currently in or planning to enter Eldoras Tower.

Well, of course, they must have confirmed the official schedule in advance. It would be too risky to work when an elite raiding team from a large guild like Suseong or Haneulnuri was in the tower.

In the end, it meant that we had to step in to prevent a massacre that was about to happen.

I tried to follow the traces of the three-person sword. Seo-hee, as if she had read that thought, prepared to move, but Ji-soo was still motionless in her place even after the two of us got up.

“Jisoo, what’s wrong? You will miss it!”

“… No, this is an opportunity.”

Her eyes were cold. It wasn’t the eyes of a child of my age that I’d seen while spending my academy life with us. She was the eyes of a regressor who had seen and suffered countless deaths.

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Jisoo’s pupils, shimmering in a deep red light, glared fiercely at one side.

“Look over there. There are only three of them.”

Yes. The three of us here… Only three cadres of 10,000 were left.

Hunter Ryu Jae-hyeon, the hunter. Ice Witch Rachel Bright. Necromancer Shuji Kato.

At that time, a thought flashed through my mind like lightning.

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Jisoo is right. This is your chance. If Jaehyun Ryu is marked by Seohee and Rachel is marked by Jisoo, Shuji Kato will be left alone.

And if it’s just Shuji Kato… With the unique skill of the three-person sword, you might be able to properly feed it.

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Jisoo and Seohee are both quite talented. Even if you can’t beat the hunter hunter and the ice witch, you will be able to bite and hang. Of course, I should never be vigilant, but my analysis skills were also telling me that this plan would succeed with a high probability.

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Jisoo nodded quietly, probably realizing that we had the same thoughts after seeing my expression.

“Remember what our purpose was?”

“It’s stopping the plan of the thousand.”

“Yes. And those three, especially the necromancer, will be the key to conquering the Tower of Ten Thousands. At least at this point.”

I see what you mean.

The surest way to stop the plan is to defeat the necromancer here. Killing one executive level would cut 10,000 rupees of power, so it could be said that killing two birds with one stone. Now that we’re undetected by those three, this was the best opportunity for an ambush.

Manmarin is famous for its introspection. If it wasn’t for Baek Ji-soo’s future knowledge, he wouldn’t have come in contact with the executives like this. If I missed this opportunity now, I might never have another chance.

But then, what about the people who will die without knowing anything?

“Are you going to throw away the people above you?”

“… I don’t mean to throw it away. However, there are priorities for everything.”

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Jisoo pointed at the necromancer with his finger.

“What if they run away knowing that things went wrong while you are away? This is better What if they finally succeed in their plan while we’re gone? What if you activate the event quest, climb the tower, and succeed?”

Low probability. The probability of getting an item that we couldn’t get even after defeating it dozens of times, in the short time we were away. But I couldn’t say no at all. And the exponent, as a regressor, seemed intolerant of even the slightest possibility.

“If you think of the people Hunter Hunters, Ice Witches, and Necromancers have killed so far, and the people they will kill in the future, how many people will die from the top right now? It is nothing.”

“… ….”

“Think about what we came here for.”

It was a cold-hearted remark that was not like Jisoo. Honestly, I couldn’t believe that people’s lives were at stake, and they acted so coldly. The Baek Ji-soo I knew was someone who was fierce and rarely expressed emotions, but he was someone who knew how to value human life.

However, what is here is a regressor who went back in time to prevent the apocalypse. He was a human survivor who had experienced the deaths of countless people and had seen the hell called the future. Only then did I intuit that Jisoo had done this countless times.

For a greater cause, to save more people. I must have survived by throwing away smaller things over and over again.

I organized my thoughts in my mind.

I couldn’t.

I don’t know in detail what kind of heart, what kind of determination, and what kind of life she lived. I could only guess by looking at that piece, but… I didn’t want Baek Ji-soo to live the same life as last time.

If it was the end of abandoning the small things for the bigger things, and if the choice at the end was ultimately a return, then I didn’t think that would be the case.

“I can’t do that.”

“… Why? Are the few people who will die right now more important than the countless people who will die in the future?”

“No. Life is not something to be weighed.”

“What… ?”

If you can get it, it’s right to get it. If I had to choose between killing Manma-ryun and saving people, I wanted to choose the latter.

Besides, the people at the top right now weren’t people I didn’t know.

Kam Sang-woo, Im Ah-ran, and their guild members. I received a lot of help during the fair terrorism.

Ha Seok-cheol, Lord of the Dark Heavens. Although he was a corrupt man, he was not a very rotten man. At least as a Hunter, there was minimal pride. He paid for his sins by losing his guild and being imprisoned, so I have no ill feelings.

And Yuna. Before she made me a gunblade and helped me in an assassin’s raid, she was one of my few friends outside of that self-interested relationship. If Yuna died, it seemed that her heart would be very painful.

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Jisoo made a confused expression at my answer. It seemed difficult to understand right away, but Seo-hee, who was listening to our conversation from the side, sided with me.

“I like Jin Lee’s idea more?”

“Seo-hee and you too?”

“Shouldn’t it be enough to save people and stop the 10,000-thousand-money? And I don’t have time for this. People may be being attacked right now, but we need to move as quickly as possible.”

That’s right. Whether it’s defeating the members of the organization above or ambush the executives here, as time goes by, magic power is supplied to the necromancer, and only we are at a disadvantage.

She let out a small sigh, as if the urgency of not having time and the conclusion of the majority vote of 2:1 eventually softened her index.

“If the two of you agree… Okay.”

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Jisoo still looked dissatisfied, but since the consensus was reached, all that was left was action.

However, she was also concerned about neglecting the executives, so she decided to leave behind one of her familiars with the magic of Jisoo. Her familiar that she summoned was a rather creepy figure with two pairs of bat wings attached to her large eyes.

“I can’t go long. Without me, you won’t be able to withstand the miasma of the plague.”

Leaving her familiar hidden in her mist, we quietly slipped through the cavity.

“Um… ?”

“Why is that?”

“No, I thought it was a rat… Is it an illusion?”

In the middle, Ryu Jae-hyun seemed to sense the presence for a moment, but luckily he was able to escape without being caught. Now, after miraculously crawling through the narrow sewer passage, which is the second one, to the ground, I looked around while breathing in the fresh air that felt like it had been a while.

“It’s quieter than I thought.”

Since the raid was in progress, I expected to hear the sound of knives and screams here and there, but the surroundings were extremely quiet. Seo-hee also closed her eyes, pricked up her ears, and focused on her senses, then suddenly hardened her expression.

“It’s too quiet. As if they were all dead.”

“What?”

In an instant, my spine felt cold and I felt an ominous feeling.

Seohee kept her ears pricked up for a while longer, silently concentrating on the sounds around her, then slowly opened her eyes as if she sensed something.

“I hear a sound from over there. I think there are still people alive.”

“… Let’s go.”

We quickly moved in the direction Seohee pointed out.