36
[You retrieved it well. Both of you have passed the 1st stage.]
At the fairy's affirmation, Baek Woo-jin and Jang Hye-na looked at each other once.
"That ended smoothly."
"It did. If anyone had jumped out, I was ready to crack their skull open."
They had discovered the corpse of a woman who appeared to have been murdered not by a monster, but by a fellow human, and her corpse served to tighten their slightly loosened tension once again.
However, contrary to their worries, from acquiring the second marble until returning to the starting point, they didn't even encounter another Awakener, let alone find any significant traces.
[If you're done talking, I'd like to send you to the 2nd stage area. Is that okay?]
The being called a fairy, the tower's helper, was more friendly to the human challengers than expected.
The two gathered their respective bags they had placed on the floor.
[Then, I hope you have good results in the 2nd stage as well~!!]
The moment the fairy finished speaking, just like when they first entered the tower, their field of vision changed in an instant without any warning. It was a place with many surprising aspects in many ways.
'Anyway, a cave after a forest.'
It was a cave that looked wide enough for about ten people to walk side by side without any problem, and considering the endpoint was not visible from the starting point where they were standing now, it seemed quite long as well.
[Hello hello~!!]
In front of Baek Woo-jin, who was examining the glowing ores embedded in the cave ceiling at regular intervals, a fairy with a different charm from the one seen in the 1st stage suddenly appeared and greeted him.
[Congratulations on passing the 1st stage!]
"Thanks."
[Ehehe~!!]
Even though he just answered lightly, the fairy seemed so happy about something that it flew around distractedly for a while.
[The 2nd stage is simple! Just follow this path and reach the end, and you pass!]
"I see."
[Yeah yeah! But you know…….]
Even though it must have clearly known that they were the only two in the space, the fairy needlessly looked around, then slipped over his shoulder and tickled his ear with a tiny, whispering breath.
[I think it'd be best if you left your backpack behind…!!]
With those last words, the fairy disappeared as stealthily as it had appeared.
"Is it a trap?"
Among the things Jang Hye-na, who had gotten separated and was not with him now, talked about last night, there was also content about a situation similar to this.
She had said that if a piece of advice sounds like it's no big deal at first glance, nine times out of ten, it's a section with hidden traps.
'But then again, taking those words at face value from the start would make me a weirdo.'
Baek Woo-jin followed the fairy's advice and first put down the backpack he was carrying on the floor. Then, to replenish the mana consumed in the 1st stage, he opened a mana potion and drank it.
"I'll take this……."
While his mana was being replenished, he sorted out the potions he would take with him and the ones he would leave behind in his bag.
'I don't know about the rest, but I definitely need to take this.'
He packed the Geumnahui-brand strength enhancement potion, which was currently being favored even at the Busan branch, into the small pouch strapped to his thigh. Besides that, he also packed a few mana potions and a potion that temporarily increased poison resistance, among other things.
He only took things that he personally judged would be absolutely useful in situations where physical movement alone couldn't provide a solution.
"Let's get a feel for things first."
He stuffed a few leftover potions, which he had kept to throw and check, inside his coat, grabbed his weapon, and stood in front of the starting line. Then, he reduced the range of his senses, which he had spread to their maximum width, by half.
As the range decreased, the amount of information transmitted at once also decreased, and with the extra leeway compared to usual, it became possible to examine the surroundings more carefully.
Tap! Tap!
Before crossing the line, he tapped the surrounding floor a bit strongly with the shaft of the halberd he held in his hand.
'It's better to be cautious until I find a trap.'
He first used his circular spread senses to confirm there was nothing abnormal ahead, and just as he was about to take a step forward, slowly advancing by meticulously tapping the surrounding floor once more with the long shaft of his halberd—
"This is……."
Baek Woo-jin, who was moving forward slowly but without interruption, sparkled his eyes as he looked at a spot about five steps away.
To the naked eye, it looked like an ordinary floor with no abnormalities, but the inside, viewed with his second sight, was completely different.
A width of about two or three steps.
A small space stretching long from the left wall to the right wall.
Baek Woo-jin, who had been walking in the center of the path, carefully closed the distance toward the wall.
The moment the range of his expanded senses touched the wall, the inside of the ordinarily looking wall was vividly projected, and the information flowed into his mind.
The space in the floor extended to the wall, and inside it was completely filled with intricately intertwined gears.
"Heave."
Baek Woo-jin diagonally propped the shaft against the wall, lightly hopped onto it, and jumped. And he was able to peek at what was prepared in the passage that extended from the floor to the wall, and from the wall finally to the ceiling.
The wire caught on the ends of the gears on both walls was hooked onto a trigger-like part of a box-shaped object installed on the ceiling.
It was a trap where, the moment the floor was stepped on, the gears hidden in the walls would turn, the ceiling would open, and dozens of very thin needles would be shot from the square device on the ceiling.
And not just ordinary needles, but needles heavily coated with something at their tips.
"Better than expected."
The value of the ability he had risked his life to obtain had risen even further, which naturally put him in a good mood.
"All clear."
Just in case, he grabbed the shaft and reached it out over the trap, but as expected, the trap did not activate. Having confirmed that much, Baek Woo-jin returned to his original spot and put the bag he had left behind back on his shoulder.
Finding every single hidden trap, Baek Woo-jin avoided them all by lightly jumping over them or casually going around them.
"I'm worried about Hye-na-ssi."
Baek Woo-jin, who even had the leisure to briefly examine the trap's structure and deliberately threw a potion at it out of curiosity about its power, only remembered the existence of Jang Hye-na, who was not by his side now, when the destination began to appear right before his eyes.
"She's a tanker, so she'll still pass."
Unlike fragile me, her equipment is fully supported by the guild, after all.
Arriving at the dead end, Baek Woo-jin grabbed the doorknob that was clearly attached there with the meaning of "open and enter," turned it, and pushed the door open.
'Am I first?'
The place he entered after opening the door was a very large cavern.
Walking moderately toward the center, Baek Woo-jin put down the bag he was carrying, sat comfortably on the floor, and looked around.
The number of doors in the cavern was a total of 20.
Since I opened one and came out, 19 remained.
'I'm bored.'
He lay down using his bag as a pillow to pass the time for a bit.
"Fuck!!"
One of the closed doors opened, and a battered middle-aged man rushed in with a loud shout.
Confirming it wasn't Jang Hye-na, Baek Woo-jin only briefly scanned the middle-aged man's appearance and closed his eyes again.
Belatedly noticing Baek Woo-jin's presence, the middle-aged man swallowed once at the sight of Baek Woo-jin, who looked perfectly fine, lying sprawled right in the center of the gathering place for passers—a figure that seemed very far from ordinary—then quietly closed the door he had come through and slumped down on the spot.
"It's the end, right?! Tell me it's the end!!"
"Kyaahack, ptooey!!"
"A-anyone have a potion left?! I'll repay you tenfold once we get out!!"
Baek Woo-jin, who had been lying down undisturbed even as people increased one by one, slightly raised his body and looked for the man desperately seeking a potion.
"Here."
"Ah!!"
When he took out a recovery potion from his bag and shook it, the man with a fist-sized arrow stuck in his shoulder hurriedly approached.
"T-thank──"
"ID card."
"Pardon? Ah, t-that, here……."
Perhaps in immense pain, the man kept furrowing his brow and distorting his eyes, yet he rummaged through his clothes, found his ID card, and held it out.
"Thank you!"
The man who received the potion boldly yanked out the arrow, sprinkled the potion on the gaping wound, and drank the rest as it was.
"Keugh!!"
Cold sweat streamed down the man's face from the pain of the wound rapidly healing, but Baek Woo-jin calmly held out his own ID card in front of the man and spoke.
"That's a high-grade one. Once we get out, I'll send you my account number, so please deposit the money."
"Y-yes, sir……!!"
The man didn't have the guts to rip off a public official—especially a young public official who clearly didn't look like an ordinary person.
Like that, while waiting for Jang Hye-na, he even made a tidy profit, and he lay back down to wait again for a moment.
"Kaahack, ptooey!!"
At the familiar female voice, Baek Woo-jin raised his body.
"Why does this damn exam always test things that put tankers at a disadvantage, huh? Ptooey! Ptui!!"
Although she was quite late, Jang Hye-na appeared looking pretty much fine, save for slightly singed hair and soot around her face, and Baek Woo-jin stood up from his spot.
"Hye-na-ssi."
"This f*cking...?"
Jang Hye-na, who was about to show off her crude vocabulary that completely belied her pretty face, clamped her half-open mouth shut and turned her head when she heard Baek Woo-jin's voice.
"Woo-jin, what the hell? Why are you so unscathed?!"
Having thought to share the truly fucked-up and difficult ordeals they went through as fellow challengers, Jang Hye-na had quickly run toward him, but belatedly realizing that Baek Woo-jin's condition was not just fine but *too* fine, the target of her anger, which had risen to her throat, shifted from the exam to Baek Woo-jin.
"You worked hard. First, please drink this."
"Thanks. I appreciate it, but!!"
"There, there."
"Mmph."
They say you can't spit on a smiling face.
When he said she worked hard and even opened the potion cap himself to bring it to her lips, Jang Hye-na mumbled with her lips for a moment, but eventually withdrew her glare at Baek Woo-jin and quietly drank the potion.
"Phew~! Now I feel a bit alive again…."
"You worked hard."
"Excuse me. We took the same exam, you know?"
"It hurts."
Because Baek Woo-jin accommodated her well, Jang Hye-na's mood quickly improved.
And as the slightly relaxed Jang Hye-na started chattering away like a machine gun about what happened beyond the door, not long after, one of the few remaining closed doors opened.
"…Are all young kids these days like that?"
"I'm not sure."
When the appearance of the woman who had just opened the door and come out was as neat and clean as Baek Woo-jin's, Jang Hye-na unnecessarily looked back and forth between Baek Woo-jin and the young woman walking out with half-closed eyes.
[Great job everyone!!]
Just as the woman walked a few steps after coming out the door, the fairy who had advised Baek Woo-jin that it would be better to leave his bag behind appeared above his head.
[The 3rd stage requires you to form a party! The other areas are still conducting the test, so it'd be good to build some rapport in the meantime, right? Then I'll come back later!!]
The fairy spat out only what it wanted to say like a machine gun and disappeared again.
"Phew, at least I get to be carried again for the final stage."
"I wouldn't go that far."
"No. You are carrying me. You have to carry me. Got it?"
Baek Woo-jin shrugged his shoulders once.
"Um……."
And the passers gathered one by one around Baek Woo-jin and Jang Hye-na.
Since the fairy had given advance notice that they had to form a party forcibly for the last stage, Baek Woo-jin didn't push away the people approaching and moderately accepted them.
Lightly introducing only his name and leaving the rest to Jang Hye-na, the woman who had passed last entered the range of Baek Woo-jin's senses as he was watching.
"Hye-na-ssi."
"What is it?"
"Come this way for a moment."
Since Baek Woo-jin and Jang Hye-na firmly held the initiative in this area, no one dared to say anything to Baek Woo-jin for taking Jang Hye-na away.
"What's the matter?"
"It's an important matter, so please answer seriously."
"…Understood."
At his extremely serious expression, Jang Hye-na also wiped away her playfulness and nodded her head.
For reference, Baek Woo-jin didn't take Jang Hye-na very far, so the passers gathered in the center also perked up their ears, pretending not to listen as they waited for Baek Woo-jin's words.
"Are you wearing makeup right now?"
"Of course I did……."
"You did."
Jang Hye-na stared blankly for a moment at Baek Woo-jin, who was examining her face from various angles with a serious expression, then.
"Is that the important question?"
"Yes. Thanks to that, I could se──"
Smack!
Jang Hye-na's elbow dug accurately into Baek Woo-jin's side.
"Keugh…."
"Hah, seriously."
Grabbing his side, Baek Woo-jin scratched his cheek as he watched the back of Jang Hye-na, whose earlobes were slightly red as she continuously fanned her face and walked back toward the people.