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“Warrior!”
Shake.
“Warrior, wake up!”
Shake, shake.
“Wa —”
“Touch me again,” Eduan murmurs coldly, “and I’ll slice your hand off.”
Eduan’s assailant squeaks and immediately removes her hand. She hasn’t completely backed away — maybe only a step or two at best — but it leaves him with just enough room to stretch before he opens his eyes.
The first thing Eduan sees is a vast blue sky, unbroken by trees or other structures. Fluffy clouds drift by lazily as Eduan blinks and rubs his eyes, but the view remains unchanged — at least, until a face pops in and blocks it off.
“Excuse me, warrior —”
“Why do you call me that?” Eduan asks as he sits up. He’s mildly pleased when the stranger shuffles back and doesn’t immediately shove her face in his again, but maintains a cold tone as he adds, “And why am I here?”
The stranger blinks at him and creases her brows for a moment, but quickly shakes her head and turns to point behind him. “I was sitting on the beach when you and your companion washed ashore,” she tells him. “Usually, warriors are summoned in town, but I felt something calling me to this place… like I was destined to meet you here.”
Eduan purses his lips at the stranger’s partial non-answer, but ignores it — for now, at least — to look at the sea. There isn’t evidence of a shipwreck or any sort of watercraft, but his clothes don’t feel stiff or waterlogged.
Then again, he doesn’t remember getting on a boat or jumping into the sea to begin with. He doesn’t remember much of anything, which is concerning enough that Eduan closes his eyes and begins shutting out the world, one sensation at a time.
The salty spray. Waves lapping at the shore. Gentle heat bathing his limbs, a welcome reprieve to biting cold and pinpricks of icy light —
—arn—w——ata—upt—
Eduan hisses and clutches at his head. The fragments buzz angrily in his mind, jolting him with lightning that isn’t his whenever he tries to push for more, and he eventually gives up with a sharp shake of his head.
“— like you’re in pain, warrior. Did you want me to lead you and your companion to the town?”
“My companion?” Eduan echoes. “I don’t have companions.”
“I found you together with him though,” the stranger replies with a confused tilt of her head, and turns to look in a completely new direction — one filled with trees and thick bushes, Eduan quickly discovers, which soon rustle and part to reveal…
“Zahard?”
“See, you do know each other!” the stranger delightedly declares. “A wandering minstrel is never wrong when it comes to their intuition!”
From the expression that flits across Zahard’s face, it’s clear that they’re thinking the same thing. Eduan doesn’t want to agree with Zahard on anything — but no matter how unbearably cheerful this wandering minstrel is, she’s still the only visible source of information.
Sure, Eduan could use his powers to survive on his own, but when the inner Tower is such a treacherous place and one small misstep could see him lose his life — or worse, be enslaved by some other power — it’s really not a choice at all.
It doesn’t mean he has to like it though.
It’s why Eduan curls his lip lightly at Zahard before he pointedly turns his back to him and smiles at the wandering minstrel. “That guy and I would rather die than play nice with each other,” he says in his brightest voice, “but you said something about a town, right? If you don’t mind, can you lead me there?”
“Uh —”
“Ignore Eduan. If there’s anyone you should be escorting, it’s me.”
The wandering minstrel splutters and begins burbling about inconsequential matters, like peace and friendship and other useless ideals. Eduan bares his teeth at Zahard, then quickly turns away to place a hand on the minstrel’s shoulder and up the intensity of his smile.
“Come on, let’s get going. You called me a warrior, which means there’s a battle I’ll have to fight for you… right?”
The wandering minstrel darts a glance behind Eduan, but Eduan firmly steers her down the beach — and hopefully towards the town — without a backward glance. There’s likely no way for him to shake off Zahard so easily right now, but who knows what opportunities might crop up in the future?
The minstrel darts another glance back, but doesn’t fight to break out of Eduan’s hold. It might have something to do with Eduan accidentally allowing a few thin forks of completely harmless lightning to crackle along his hand, but what does Eduan know?
“So tell me, do you have a name other than ‘wandering minstrel’?”
“Ah…” The minstrel licks her lips and offers a somewhat shaky smile. “You can call me Mieum…?”
“I was talking to her first, Eduan. Unhand her at once.”
“Ignore him,” Eduan says sweetly. “Now, why don’t you tell me about the town?”
The town, Eduan decides some hours later, is not worth the effort he’d spent getting to it. While he’s had his fair share of adventures and mishaps — or at least, he feels like he has — walking near-vertically up a very steep mountain is something he hopes he’ll never have to do again.
(The only thing satisfying about that gruelling climb, Eduan allows himself to think, is the light sheen of sweat clinging to Zahard’s brow. The stubborn fool might not be panting as heavily as Eduan is, but he’s nowhere near as cheerful and energetic as Mieum.
At this point, Eduan is half-convinced that Mieum is a mountain goat. He’s also half-convinced himself that Mieum will taste as good as a mountain goat if he doesn’t see the town in the next five minutes.)
“What is that.”
Eduan rolls his eyes at Zahard and beams brightly at Mieum, who blinks back at him. “What he meant to ask is, are we any closer to the town now?”
Zahard elbows Eduan aside and says over his outraged squawk, “No, I meant — what is that.”
Eduan viciously elbows Zahard back, but looks in the direction he’s pointing — and gawks.
He knows it looks unbecoming, but how else is he meant to react when he sees a gigantic demonic statue rising out of a mountain crevice?
“Oh, the guardian of the Fruit?” Mieum asks, pointing at the statue. As Eduan struggles to close his mouth and shield his eyes from its metallic glare, Mieum turns to look up at the statue with an unusually solemn expression. “He watches over our town and judges us as we sing of past warriors and guide future warriors to greater heights. If we live a life that is more evil than good, He will eat the fruit and break out of His shell to consume us all.”
“His shell?” Eduan whispers. He squints up at the so-called statue— purportedly the shell of a living, breathing guardian — and suppresses his shudder as best as he can. Beside him, Zahard squares his jaw and lifts his chin, eyes glittering frostily as he stares it down.
“There is nothing to fear, warriors!” Mieum exclaims. Ignoring Zahard’s hissed I do not fear that guardian, Mieum clasps her hands together and smilingly declares, “Those who live a good life and win in the fight against evil won’t wake Him. I fully believe that, with my guidance and your courage, you’ll be able to proceed to a higher stage without disturbing His rest.”
Eduan exhales and allows his shoulders to relax, but furrows his brow in the next moment and repeats, “A higher stage?”
“Indeed!” Mieum raises her hands above her head and looks up to the sky. “If you accumulate good deeds and proceed through each stage, you’ll meet truly great warriors who came before you… or so I’ve heard.”
When Mieum lowers her hands, there’s a wistful edge to her smile, but her voice remains clear and bright as she says, “There are other minstrels who are more knowledgeable than me when it comes to the higher stages and those other warriors. We’re almost at the town, so if you’ll follow me…?”
“I doubt there are warriors more powerful than me,” Zahard snorts.
Eduan elbows Zahard again, ducks to avoid Zahard’s retaliatory punch, and bounces forward with a chipper, “What are we waiting for? Let’s start writing our own legend and show those great warriors the true meaning of greatness!”
“That’s the spirit!” Mieum cheers. “Now, let’s keep that energy up until we get to the town! It’ll be another two hours of walking —”
Eduan stops mid-step, turns slowly to Mieum, and allows electricity to arc through his hair as he growls, “What?”
“— so let’s get going!”
This town had better be paved with gold and treat me to a proper hero’s welcome, Eduan swears silently to himself, but hurries after her before Zahard tries to punch him again.
Although it takes three hours to walk (read: stagger) through the gate and onto a wide road paved with ordinary flagstones, Eduan straightens up with a beaming smile as minstrels sally forth to baptise him in song. “Now this is what I call a true hero’s welcome!” he declares to Mieum, slinging an arm around her shoulders as Zahard stalks past with a deep scowl on his face.
Once the minstrels finish serenading him and disperse, however, it’s difficult to ignore how rustic the town feels. If Mieum hadn’t introduced the monitor of good and evil as they’d made the final descent to the town — and hadn’t that been a surprise, when he’d reached into his pocket and found an odd-looking watch in there — Eduan could’ve easily believed that he’d been inexplicably transported back to the backwaters he'd once called home.
“That was lovely and all,” Eduan comments, after Zahard disappears to goodness knows where and Eduan charms Mieum into treating him to a meal at a nearby tavern, “but where are the pretty women? What is there to do around here?”
“You do good deeds, of course!” Mieum cheerfully replies. Eduan eyes the scroll in her hand, bites back a scoff, and fights not to roll his eyes when her smile momentarily dims. “Then, when you’ve performed enough good deeds —”
“You get sent off in a wave of fanfare and pomp, like a true hero. It’s quite the beautiful spectacle — if you’d like, I’ll take you to watch another warrior’s ascension later today.”
Eduan blinks and turns to the newcomer — newcomers, he amends in his head, once he makes eye contact with Zahard. It’s not Zahard who affably slides into the seat beside Eduan, however, or Zahard who holds his hand out with a cryptic smile and says, “Forgive me for intruding, but I… have been waiting for you. My name is Yu Hansung —”
God will send a disciple to punish ▪▪▪▪▪▪ for that and ▪▪ will cause a stir in this tower.
“— warrior? Warrior, what’s wrong?”
Eduan smiles as best as he can and brings two fingers to his aching temple, but the words are already fizzling into static. By the time he rubs a slow circle into his skin, the sudden headache is gone — as is the memory thought that had cut through the end of Hansung’s self-introduction and the beginning of Mieum’s needless worrying.
Zahard takes one look at his face and scoffs under his breath. Well, that won’t do, a vindictive little voice whispers in Eduan’s head, which is all the motivation he needs to ratchet up his smile and grasp Hansung’s hand with a breezy, “I’m perfectly fine, Mieum. Anyway, I’ll be in your care then, Yu-ssi!”
“Please, just ‘Hansung’ is fine,” Hansung replies with an equally bright smile, before he wraps both his hands around Eduan’s and says, “Now, while I’m sure your local companion — Mieum, was it? — is more than capable of guiding you through each stage, I’d be more than happy to team up with you and your… rather surly companion. If you’ll have Batis and I, of course.”
“Absolutely not,” Zahard mutters, right as Mieum’s eyes sparkle as she exclaims, “Ah, you’re the warrior my sunbaenim was gushing over!”
Eduan eyes the tiny hearts forming in Mieum’s eyes and resolutely turns back to Hansung. Mieum’s admiration of Hansung’s guide is interesting, to say the least, but it won’t distract him from his primary goal.
“If Mieum’s sunbaenim speaks so highly of you, then I’m sure you and I will make an exceptional team,” Eduan says. As Zahard scoffs a little louder, Eduan flags down a waiter with his free hand and generously offers, “Why don’t you have a meal with us before we watch that ascension ceremony and get started on our ‘good deeds’?”
“It’d be my pleasure, Eduan-ssi,” Hansung politely replies.
(Long after they leave the tavern behind — after Zahard cuts Hansung off with his lunch request and Hansung polishes off not one, not two, but five cups of coffee — Eduan relishes in Hansung’s effusive praise and his overall helpfulness. At some point, Zahard stalks off again, but it’s no skin off Eduan’s back. After all, Mieum and Hansung clearly like Eduan better, which is how things should be.
If Eduan ever realises that he never introduced himself to Hansung and that Hansung, in turn, never drops the honorific from his name, he doesn’t mention it. He also doesn’t mention the fleeting sense of wrongness that flashes through his mind once he lays eyes on Hansung’s guide — but it doesn’t give him a migraine, so it’s ultimately insignificant in the grand scheme of things.)
If the town hadn’t been worth the effort to get there then the quests really aren’t worth any effort at all, not when most enemies fall to a single spark from Eduan’s fingers and half of them literally combust before Zahard’s stone-faced glare. The first time that’d happened had been amusing, to say the least — except for Zahard himself, who had directed his glare at them all and stomped off to goodness knows where — but it isn’t long before the novelty of fighting such unbalanced battles wears off.
“It’s strange,” Hansung muses over his umpteenth coffee of the day (Eduan refuses to keep count anymore, so the umpteenth it is). “I remember the Floor of Tests being far more difficult. Of course, that isn’t to say that the quests might get exponentially harder on higher stages, but… were the quests always so simple, Batis?”
“Not that I’m aware,” Batis replies. For all that his voice is low and mellow, Eduan feels a chill crawl down his spine every time Batis speaks, but he manages to keep his smile from slipping off his face as Batis adds, “Then again, I’ve never seen such strong warriors.”
“So how long would you say it’ll be until we clear the grand quest?”
Batis hums at Eduan’s question and rubs his thumb across his bottom lip, but eventually settles with a half-shrug and a somewhat non-committal, “Soon.”
It’s been weeks of battling small fry — just how soon is soon? Eduan opens his mouth to snap, only for a blinding light to stab him in the eyes. A shocked yelp lets Eduan know that he’s not the only one caught off-guard by such an unexpected occurrence, but it doesn’t take long for the intensity to fade to manageable levels.
It is, however, just enough time for Zahard to magically reappear and grunt, “Hurry up, everyone needs to scan the grand quest code.”
“What do you mean, we still have —”
A C-grade quest, Eduan never finishes, because his monitor of good and evil begins pulsing softly with white light.
“I finished them while you were dragging your feet,” Zahard says into the sudden silence. Eduan doesn’t think he imagines the condescension in Zahard’s voice when he adds, “You’re welcome.”
Before Eduan can do anything more than grit his teeth, Hansung downs the rest of his coffee and gets up from his seat. His movements are still as leisurely as ever, more reminiscent of a coffee addict preparing to grab a refill than a warrior embarking on a grand quest, but there’s something peculiar about his voice when he turns to Eduan and says, “So, this is it. Once we clear the grand quest and move on to the next stage… We’ll be one step closer to the end.”
This isn’t bad for a ▪▪▪▪▪ adventure, right?
“— don’t have all day to wait around for you. Hurry up, Eduan.”
Eduan shakes his head sharply and narrows his eyes at Zahard. The bastard lifts a corner of his mouth in a smirk — a smirk, at him! — but Hansung smoothly inserts himself between them and holds out an open scroll to Eduan.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of proceeding, Eduan-ssi.”
“Cheeky brat,” Eduan scoffs, but his lips are curled in a half-smile that reflects Hansung’s pleased grin when he holds out his monitor and scans the grand quest code.
Moments later, after the column of golden light dissipates and the champion villain comes into view, Eduan turns to Mieum and flatly utters, “Remind me of the conditions for clearing the stage again.”
Mieum jolts and tears her gaze away from the villain, though she doesn’t immediately refocus on Eduan. He watches her glance around the town square — at the minstrels lining the town square and serenading them as the top of their lungs, at Zahard’s darkening expression and even at her own feet — but she eventually looks at Eduan and hesitantly offers, “You need to perform good deeds —”
“And how does one perform a good deed?”
“You…” Mieum fidgets, darts a glance at Batis’ expressionless face, and gulps before adding, “You complete quests… by defeating villains…?”
Eduan takes a deep breath and releases it as slowly as he can, but his smile has far too much teeth to it when he points to the champion villain — or what the grand quest is attempting to pass off as a champion villain — and asks all too chirpily, “So how, exactly, does one go about defeating a mirror?”
Mieum gulps and wrings her hands in a clear display of agitation, but obligingly looks at said mirror. It’s a lovely specimen with a perfectly polished surface, muted silver set within a handsome green frame that houses delicate golden vines, but there is no changing the fact that it is still a mirror.
There is no way such a thing would qualify as a normal villain, let alone a champion villain.
“Do you think it’ll curse us with seven years of bad luck if we break it?” Hansung muses aloud. Mieum barely manages to suppress an eep when Eduan directs his mirthless smile at Hansung, but Hansung ignores Eduan’s cutting regard to thoughtfully add, “I could ask the tavern for a pot of salt. Perhaps scattering salt on its surface will negate any bad luck.”
It doesn’t change the fact that there is no honour in fighting an object — worse, an object that doesn’t fight back, Eduan opens his mouth to say.
He gets a single syllable out before Zahard decides to act first — by summoning five baangs of shinsoo and shooting them straight at the mirror.
For all that Eduan’s shinsoo is infused with lightning, its speed is nothing compared to Zahard’s. It zeroes in on the mirror before Eduan can move on to the second syllable and hits the mirror’s surface long before anyone’s minds have registered Zahard’s attack.
There is nothing gentle about it. The light emanating from Zahard’s shinsoo is enough to force Eduan’s eyes shut, while the sheer energy distorting the air around it causes everyone other than Zahard and Eduan to take a step back. If the mirror was a person — or really, any normal object — the shinsoo would’ve likely pulverised it upon impact.
Except Eduan opens his eyes to see the mirror still standing. It’s completely intact — not a centimetre shorter, without a single blemish on its frame or surface — like Zahard hadn’t thrown enough shinsoo at it to atomise even a strong Ranker.
If his skin wasn’t still prickling and the very air wasn’t still rippling with the aftershocks of Zahard’s attack, Eduan might have wondered if he’d hallucinated the past few seconds.
“Stop gawking,” Zahard utters testily. Eduan blinks, shifts his gaze to Zahard, and is just in time to catch the faintest dusting of pink high on his cheeks.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to poke fun at his dear friend, Eduan smiles a slow, toothy smile as he replies, “Well, it’s not every day that the great adventurer is bested, much less by a measly object.”
If looks could kill, Eduan would’ve fallen long before Zahard grits out, “Attack the mirror and say that again, I dare you.”
“And waste my shinsoo like you did? Surely there are better —”
Eduan yelps and flashes to the other side of the town square, narrowly escaping a lethal baang of shinsoo. It’s clearly Zahard’s shinsoo — nobody else in this town had enough power to startle him into reflexively retreating — but the problem isn’t the killing intent behind it.
No, it’s the direction it came from — not from Zahard, who is still standing exactly where he was before Eduan got attacked, but from the mirror spitting out another baang of Zahard’s shinsoo.
This time, Eduan feels the tips of his hair singe in the blast as he snatches Mieum out of the way. She stumbles to the ground as soon as he lets go of her, pupils shaking just as uncontrollably as the rest of her body, but Eduan barely glances at her before he snaps at Zahard, “Now look at what you’ve done! If you’d waited instead of trying to brute force your way through everything —”
“If you have enough breath to argue then you should spend it on defeating the villain —”
“Eduan-ssi, Zahard-ssi,” Hansung smoothly interjects, somehow raising his voice above theirs without any visible effort, “I hate to interrupt, but only two baangs have been released… and Zahard-ssi shot out five, if I remember correctly.”
Eduan freezes, then spins to face the mirror.
He’s just in time to see the last three baangs shoot out from the mirror and zero in on Zahard — who does nothing to get out of their way, because he makes the brilliant decision to counter them with six baangs of shinsoo.
The minstrels shout and dive for cover as the baangs collide in a mess of golden-white sparks. Distantly, Eduan is aware of Hansung throwing out his own shinsoo to shield himself and Batis from the residuals arcing out from the blast, but tiny sizzling holes eat through his barrier and render it useless — though it buys the two enough time to scramble out of the town square and duck behind a building.
Even so, they’re still not entirely safe. Although the building is sturdy and the residuals are nowhere near as strong as they would’ve been before impact, there is still enough power behind them to chip at the walls and send dust flying. It adds to the debris shot loose from the town square’s flagstones, irritating Eduan enough that he wraps his shinsoo around his face in a makeshift mask.
There is, however, an area that is curiously devoid of damage or debris. Even though the mirror has never stopped its reflective assault since it discharged the last of Zahard’s initial volley, the beams never fire behind the mirror — something that many of the minstrels have caught onto, if the heads peeking out from behind the mirror are anything to go by.
Ridiculously enough, some of the minstrels have resumed their inane song. Eduan’s not entirely sure how he feels about their play-by-play of Zahard’s increasingly violent reaction to the mirror’s counterattack, but Eduan glances at Zahard’s pronounced snarl and loses his hold on his shinsoo.
It’s not because Zahard is angry or frustrated. Eduan can’t remember the last time he’d seen Zahard’s face without either emotion.
It’s because there is a spark of excitement beneath the anger wrinkling his nose and tugging at his lips. More than that, it’s the teeth Zahard bares as he summons more and more baangs of shinsoo to overwhelm the mirror’s counterattack — an acknowledgement of a worthy opponent, inanimate as it is, and a renewed thrill for danger.
This isn’t the adventure Eduan had envisioned he would go on with Zahard, when they had begun climbing the tower together, but Eduan can’t help the fond (and incredibly irritated) smile that tugs at his own lips as he manifests Montana Azul and hurls it at Zahard.
He dodges Eduan’s strike — without pausing in his assault on the mirror, the insufferable show-off — and snaps, “Are you blind? The mirror is over there.”
“And the mirror keeps firing your shinsoo back at you!” Eduan snipes back, summoning another lightning spear and hurling it at Zahard. “If you could stop brute-forcing your way through every problem like a stubborn bull —”
“If you could stop overthinking every problem and direct your shinsoo at the mirror so we can be done with this —”
“I hate to interrupt again,” Hansung pipes up in an oddly familiar way, poking his head out from behind the minstrels and giving a little wave when Eduan and Zahard look to him, “but you might want to turn your attention to the champion villain.”
Eduan isn’t entirely sure when Hansung — and Batis — had retreated behind the mirror, but it’s difficult to care when the mirror is glowing rather alarmingly. It’s practically incandescent, in fact, so bright that Eduan has to bring up a hand and shield his eyes.
In that same moment, a hand closes around his wrist and tugs.
Then, before his mind can even process whose hand is touching him, the mirror spouts forth an eye-searing gout of shinsoo.
Even though the light pierces through the gaps in his fingers and sears spots into his vision, Eduan can tell that the pillar isn’t entirely uniform in colour. There are violet-blue forks of lightning that curl around the golden-white body — an amalgamation of his and Zahard’s shinsoo, twined together in a brilliant blast that levels half the town (and would’ve levelled him, had he not been tugged out of the way).
For a few moments, there is utter silence — and then, with a few brittle snaps, the mirror disintegrates into motes of violet and gold.
Eduan blinks and lowers his hand, revealing the full extent of the damage brought about by the mirror. What had once been proud buildings and beautifully lined streets are nothing more than rubble now, bricks and mortar ground to pebbles no larger than his fist. He glances at his monitor of good and evil, half-expecting the outer ring to turn completely black… and spots Zahard’s hand, still clinched tightly around his wrist.
He lifts his gaze to meet Zahard’s. The fingers around his wrist tighten, instead of loosening like a normal person’s would.
“Zahard —”
“Congratulations on clearing the stage, warrior!”
Eduan flashes out of Zahard’s grip and glances wildly around, only to get a scroll to the face. A slender hand — thankfully not Zahard’s — pushes it far enough for Eduan to take in its contents.
As the scroll move on to talk about the next stage, Hansung lifts his lips in a slight smile and says, “Thank you for your hard work, Eduan-ssi —”
“I was the one who overloaded that mirror.”
“— and Zahard-ssi,” Hansung smoothly adds.
He probably would’ve said more, but Eduan almost gets bowled over by the body that slams into him — and the cacophonous clamour of nearly every minstrel hollering their praises. As Eduan peels Mieum off him and fights the urge to cover his ears, Batis pulls Mieum completely off Eduan and murmurs his congratulations.
It’s not a perfect victory. A part of Eduan stings at the sight of all those levelled buildings — unnecessary collateral damage that could’ve easily been prevented if Zahard hadn’t gotten so trigger-happy. He can’t bring himself to look at Zahard again, unwilling to see what his old friend (?) thinks of all this.
Yet as Mieum clings to Batis and babbles her excitement, as Hansung brings his monitor up to scan the now-silent scroll and minstrels sing the last notes of their raucous song, Eduan can’t stop the smile that creeps onto his face.
The time I spent with you was precious.
The thought of all this being ▪▪▪▪ is —
“Try not to destroy half a town in the next stage,” Eduan sniggers loudly enough for Zahard to hear as he brings his own monitor up to scan the scroll. “Unless you want to be known as a tyrant, of course. Then I’ll take these three and leave you to rot in jail.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Zahard snarls as he storms over — but there’s still a hint of a smile in his eyes, and Eduan finds himself laughing as he tries to jostle Zahard away from the scroll.