Since the dwarf showed no particular hostility to him, one who had learned Airak Martial Arts, it seemed their conflict wasn't that severe, but it was still best to be cautious. Unlike Ainzhar and the Dwarf, there could very well be NPCs who were hostile enough to kill each other on sight.
“Need anything else?”
“I have no money, so this is enough for now.”
“Then get going. You don't want to lose your edge by dawdling around, do you?”
“You don't have to tell me, I was already planning on it.”
Taesan passed the shop and headed for the 2nd Floor. The Dwarf waved his hand to see him off.
“See you on the next floor.”
Thud.
The door closed. At the same time, a System Window appeared.
[This place is a short distance from the entrance of the Labyrinth.]
[It is a place where things that die when stabbed live. The power here is not very strong.]
[The 2nd Floor Quest begins.]
[Defeat the boss of the 2nd Floor and pass through.]
[Reward: Beginner Mana Increase Potion.]
[Secret Reward: ???]
“A Mana Increase Potion?”
It was a potion that increased mana, an extremely precious item not even sold in the shop. They could only be obtained by wandering through the Labyrinth, and even Taesan had only seen a few. A beginner's potion would be a rise of about 10. Since his current mana was only around 15, it was of great value.
This would remove many of the restrictions on his Skill usage. As Taesan moved down the passage in anticipation, Diling. An alert sounded.
It meant someone was calling him. Taesan opened the community forums.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What is it?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Ah. You're here.]
As soon as Kang Taesan posted, comments flooded in.
[Lee Sang [Alone]: It's Taesan! You're alive!]
[Kim Tae-jin [Alone]: Thanks to you, I was able to reach the Fountain of Life! Thank you so much!]
[Kim Jun-an [Alone]: Taesan! I have something to ask!]
[Kim Su-hyeon [Alone]: Taesan! Taesan! Oooooh! It's Taesan!]
In an instant, messages directed at him completely filled his vision. Taesan clicked his tongue and gave a rough reply.
[Kang Jun-hyeok has sent Kang Taesan a whisper request.]
Taesan pressed accept.
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Wow. This is no joke. I can't even get a word in.]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What's going on?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: It's nothing big. Just checking if you were alive.]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: Instead of me, why don't you worry about yourselves?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Me? I'm just stuck here. Ah, really. Thinking about it again gives me chills. Thank you, hyung. Everyone is grateful to you.]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: It was your decision to trust and follow my words, so that's that.]
Taesan had left a guide for the First Floor on the community forums. If they followed the most optimized route to the Fountain of Life, they could survive with a reasonable probability. But he hadn't had high hopes.
A person trapped in an unknown space and pushed to their limits, would they risk their life based on a single post in a community forum from someone they didn't even know? It was an impossible thing. He thought they would be mistrustful and not follow.
However, contrary to Taesan's expectations, most of the Alone Mode players followed his guide.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: It's not my place to say this, but did you really run through here just by trusting a single post?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: We had no choice. Everyone was at their limit. We wanted to grasp at straws, you know?]
Listening to Kang Jun-hyeok, the reason was quite simple. If you don't enter the Labyrinth, you can't get food. Not eating doesn't reduce your health or lead to death.
It only consumes your Stats and Mental Strength, so if you were determined to endure, you could hold out for as long as you wanted. But hunger was a different matter. There were cases of people trapped in disasters, starved to their limits, cutting off and eating their own limbs.
It meant that the pain of hunger was greater than the fear and pain of amputation. Here, you didn't even die, so you had no choice but to live on, endlessly starving. People became devastated.
If they could meet other Players like in other modes, they could at least talk, but that wasn't an option either. In the village outside the Labyrinth, there were only NPCs who gave fixed answers. The Broken Man refused to talk at all.
They could interact to some extent through the community forums, but it was a world of difference from meeting and talking in person. There was no one to talk to. There was nothing to eat.
It was the perfect environment to go insane. In fact, the reason so many Alone Players in the previous world had died haphazardly was that they had given up on survival and entered as if committing suicide. It was in that situation that Taesan had made his post.
A post titled 'First Floor Guide.'
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: You said you didn't have high hopes, hyung, but from our perspective, it was a post we desperately needed.]
Taesan's post contained information. Information that there was a Shopkeeper inside the Labyrinth, that rats similar to capybaras appeared as Monsters on the First Floor, that they only aimed for the ankles, and that if you ran away as soon as you saw one, you could return to the shop.
To the Alone Mode Players, the Labyrinth was an unknown entity. That was a big reason why they couldn't enter. Not knowing what would come out, they were terrified.
But thanks to Taesan, they obtained information. Having shaken off their fear of the unknown, they began to steel their resolve to enter the Labyrinth. Among them, Lee Tae-yeon was the first to try.
Following Taesan's words, she entered the Labyrinth, met the Shopkeeper, and reached the Fountain of Life. She broke through the Labyrinth and survived. Lee Tae-yeon had left many complaints on the community forums.
To those who read the forums, Lee Tae-yeon was a fearful person, just like them. And yet, she had succeeded. That meant they, too, could reach a place of infinite recovery.
It was an incredibly attractive proposition. Spurred by Lee Tae-yeon's success, many Alone Players ran into the Labyrinth. Not everyone succeeded.
Even knowing the guide, the difficulty was not to be taken lightly. The Fountain of Life was quite far from the shop. The probability of encountering a Big Rat on the way was not low.
Still, a number incomparable to the previous world managed to reach the Fountain of Life. The difference was enough to surprise even Taesan. However, reaching it and catching a Big Rat were two separate issues.
Even with infinite recovery, catching a Monster that surpassed one's reaction speed was impossible without innate talent. Most were quenching their hunger with the spring water and continuing to challenge it. Only two had succeeded in hunting.
Lee Tae-yeon.
And the one he was talking to now, Kang Jun-hyeok.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What were you planning to do before my post went up?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Me? I was just planning to run into the Labyrinth. I couldn't stand being hungry. I was going to beat up whatever monster I found and eat it.]
A 17-year-old boy, not even an adult yet. To have already won against a Big Rat, his talent must be similar to Lee Tae-yeon's. But he was a name Taesan had never heard of. He had probably charged at a Big Rat right away and died in the previous world.
He was an irregular who had survived because Taesan had left his post. Would the number of clearers increase dramatically just because he left a guide? In Taesan's opinion, no. Even if they barely managed to catch a Big Rat, they wouldn't be able to go any further down.
The survival rate and the clear rate were separate things. Even in the previous world, there had been a few who reached the Fountain of Life. But besides Lee Tae-yeon, no one had passed the First Floor.
The only ones with a chance to clear it were Lee Tae-yeon and Kang Jun-hyeok.
‘Is he worth nurturing?’
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What are you doing now?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: I just caught a Big Rat and am taking a short break.]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What about Lee Tae-yeon?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: She's probably sleeping right now.]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: Then, have you met the Holy Knight?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Huh? Who?]
He seemed not to know. The past Lee Tae-yeon had met Ainzhar, so it was safe to say that if one stayed at the Fountain of Life, they would meet him at least once.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: A strange old man calling himself 'one who seeks God' will come to you. He's an NPC whose treatment of you changes based on your actions. He'll attack you out of nowhere, but don't freak out and react properly. Then you might be able to get something useful.]
It was uncertain if he would give him Airak Martial Arts, but he might get another Skill. In the early stages, every single Skill was precious.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: Tell Lee Tae-yeon when she wakes up, too.]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Uh...]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What?]
Kang Jun-hyeok seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then, as if he had made up his mind, he left a post.
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Are you okay, hyung?]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What do you mean?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Aren't you giving me too much? I'm grateful for your help, but in the end, we're clearing the Labyrinth together, which makes us competitors when you think about it.]
Taesan paused at the unexpected words. Kang Jun-hyeok continued posting.
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Of course, I'm weaker than you now, but if you give me so much, I might catch up to you quickly, right? I have no intention of doing anything to you, of course, but I was just wondering if you're being too kind. You don't have to just give away what you worked so hard to get.]
Taesan let out a smirk.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: I was wondering what you were going to say, and it was just that?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: I was being pretty serious...]
Taesan understood what Kang Jun-hyeok was saying. No one would want to give away the fruits of their hard labor to others without any conditions. But Kang Jun-hyeok was mistaken.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What kind of competition? We're all just humans from a dying Earth.]
They were not competitors. They were comrades. There would be a few chances to go to the outside world before clearing.
He would realize then what foolish words he had spoken. There were a few who couldn't grasp the situation and ran wild, but all of them ended up dead, either by Monsters or by the hands of Lee Tae-yeon and himself. And another misconception.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: The only reason I'm telling you these things is so you don't die in some strange place.]
Knowing the strategy and being able to execute it were two different things. Lee Tae-yeon clearing Alone Mode was a miracle born from one stroke of luck after another. She herself had said that even if she were to enter Alone Mode again, she wasn't confident she would survive.
A place where even the one who cleared it couldn't guarantee they could clear it again. That was Alone Mode. Even if Taesan told Kang Jun-hyeok about the Secret Rooms right now, he wouldn't be able to clear them.
There was a high chance he would be skewered to death by the final fifteen arrows.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: And you think you can catch up to me just by knowing that?]
Even when he had cleared Easy Mode, he was compared to Lee Tae-yeon. Right now, Kang Jun-hyeok's words felt like a chick telling its owner, 'If you keep feeding me like this, I'll become stronger than you.'
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: Don't get any funny ideas and just focus on working your way down.]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: I guess you're right. I haven't even passed the First Floor yet, so I'm getting ahead of myself.]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: As long as you know. Work hard. I'm going down further.]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Where are you now?]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: The 2nd Floor.]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: ... Wow. I just barely caught a Big Rat. It's only been a week, aren't you going too fast?]
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: What's so fast about it? This is normal.]
As they were talking, a thought suddenly struck him. 'Come to think of it, is it about that time?' About a week had passed.
It was time for the Easy and Normal Mode Players to adapt.
Taesan asked.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: How are the community forums these days?]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Pretty normal. Ah. Lately, people from other modes have started talking to us a bit. But... there are some people trying to pick fights. I'm just ignoring them for now, but I don't know why they're doing it.]
People picking fights. Taesan knew who they were. 'The fools who don't know their place have started to run wild.'
Players from each mode couldn't see players from other modes. They would mistake each other's strength and come to think that their own mode was the most difficult. In the previous world, Taesan had interfered, but since he was gone now, they would surely run amok as they pleased.
He wasn't particularly interested. If they ran wild, he would just deal with them as they came.
[Kang Taesan [Alone]: Good luck.]
[Kang Jun-hyeok [Alone]: Yup. You too, hyung.]
Taesan closed the whisper. The structure of the 2nd Floor was similar to the 1st Floor. It changed every 10 floors, so it wouldn't be much different.
He could see mossy brick walls and floors, and the interior of the Labyrinth seemed similar as well. But Taesan knew from what he had heard from Lee Tae-yeon. That the 1st Floor of Alone Mode was half a tutorial.
That the real start was from the 2nd Floor. A Labyrinth where even the Fountain of Life couldn't be found, where means of recovery were limited. Taesan knew what appeared here.
Taesan walked down the passage. A door came into view. Just past this was a room.
Taesan opened the door just a tiny bit, only enough to check inside.
“Kieek.”
“Karuk. Karuk.”
He saw green monsters. Shaped like humans, they were small. They only came up to Taesan's chest.
Each holding a sword and shield, a bow, and so on, they chattered with each other through their hideously protruding fangs.
“Karuruk.”
“Kek, Kiek!”
When one of them said something, the other monsters burst out laughing. It seemed they had heard a funny joke.
[A Bow-Wielding Goblin has appeared.]
[A Shortsword-Wielding Goblin has appeared.]
[A Shortsword-Wielding Goblin has appeared.]
[A Goblin with a shield has appeared.]
'Goblins.' Green monsters.
Distributed throughout the middle and upper floors, they were the most common monsters that showed up whenever one was bored. The monsters of the 2nd Floor were none other than them.