Rin had understood it after only a few days.

  People smiled too quickly.

  Allied too quickly.

  And betrayed even faster—without ever calling it betrayal.

  That morning, he sat near a pillar, away from the central plaza. Mi-sun had spoken little since they arrived. Dae-hyun sometimes stared into nothing, as if his mind still refused to accept what came next. Ha-joon watched everything—the flows, the movements, the fear.

  And Rin watched the announcements.

  They now fell at irregular intervals, like hammer strikes against a crowd trying to convince itself it still had “time.”

  [Progress Announcement — Floor 1]

  Exploit validated: “Accumulation of wealth.”

  Participant transferred: Floor 2.

  A breath rippled through the plaza.

  Someone laughed nervously.

  Someone cursed.

  Someone began to run—as if running could generate an exploit.

  Rin didn’t move.

  “They’re climbing…” Dae-hyun murmured. “Again.”

  “Yes,” Rin replied.

  “And we’re staying.”

  Mi-sun cast a cold glance at the crowd.

  “‘Staying’ isn’t neutral,” she said.

  “It’s a choice that kills you slowly.”

  Ha-joon swallowed.

  “What if… what if the exploit is just… being in the right place?”

  Rin didn’t answer immediately.

  He had seen a man teleport because he dealt the final blow to a Demon Rabbit.

  He had seen a woman become “Saint” because she healed in public.

  He had seen the title “Queen of Mercenaries” appear above a stranger whose eyes never trembled.

  Exploits.

  Not victories.

  Signals.

  The System wasn’t searching for merit.

  It was searching for patterns.

  A disturbance rose from the western gate of the city.

  Shouts.

  Quick footsteps.

  A different kind of agitation—one that had nothing to do with hope.

  “It’s from the tavern,” Ha-joon murmured.

  Mi-sun was already standing.

  “Then it matters.”

  Rin followed.

  Not out of curiosity.

  Out of instinct.

  The tavern had become what Rin had understood from the first evening:

  Not a place of rest.

  A place of transactions.

  When they arrived, a dense crowd filled the interior and spilled out the entrance. Voices overlapped—aggressive, nervous.

  Rin pushed through. Mi-sun followed close behind. Ha-joon slipped after them. Dae-hyun trailed more slowly, as if afraid the noise might collapse onto him.

  Then Rin saw.

  An improvised stretcher.

  A man lying on it.

  Not dead yet.

  His breathing was short, uneven.

  His lips the color of ash.

  An NPC official—neutral face, efficient movements—wiped his hands as if he had just handled something broken.

  “…He was left outside,” someone said.

  “‘Left,’” another voice repeated louder.

  “They abandoned him!”

  “It was the contract!” a rough voice answered.

  “You don’t carry dead weight when the hounds are circling!”

  Rin understood before he identified the responsible group.

  A?cha and part of her pack stood there.

  Dirty. Tired. Alive.

  And the way they held themselves said everything: they had gained something—but not enough for it to feel like victory.

  Mikhail stood slightly behind, gaze hard, as if already calculating the arc of the next stone that would be thrown.

  A?cha did not look for excuses.

  She looked at the stretcher the way one looks at an outcome.

  “It was a subjugation mission?” Rin asked calmly.

  A man in the crowd turned.

  “Yes. They took a contract. They brought back proof. They were paid.”

  “And him?” Rin asked, indicating the wounded man.

  Silence.

  One of the mercenaries finally spoke.

  “He panicked. He ran. He drew the pack.”

  A woman nearly spat.

  “So you left him to die.”

  Mikhail stepped forward.

  “No.

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  We left him behind.”

  A murmur of hatred rose.

  Rin felt Mi-sun tense beside him. Not out of empathy. Collective emotions like this always ended in… incident.

  And yet, despite the anger, despite the accusations, despite the man groaning on the stretcher—

  The System said nothing.

  No alert.

  No sanction.

  No “violence prohibited.”

  Rin checked his interface.

  Empty.

  Then a new announcement fell, cold, perfectly irrelevant—as if the universe were mocking them.

  [Progress Announcement — Floor 1]

  Exploit validated: “Discovery of ancient ruins.”

  Participant transferred: Floor 2.

  The contrast hurt.

  Someone was ascending.

  While another was dying.

  And the System… validated.

  Rin felt something shift inside him.

  Not rage.

  Understanding.

  “There will be no justice,” he murmured.

  Mi-sun turned her head slightly.

  “Of course not.”

  “No,” Rin repeated more quietly.

  “I mean—it isn’t built in.

  Law exists. Not justice.”

  A?cha lifted her gaze, and their eyes met.

  No challenge.

  No apology.

  Just shared recognition: they were playing within a structure that did not punish this.

  That was when Rin sensed someone to his left.

  Jin-woo.

  Leaning against a post, relaxed, almost amused. But his eyes… were not a clown’s.

  He was watching faces.

  Fault lines.

  Who accused. Who stayed silent. Who drifted toward Eleanor. Who drifted toward A?cha.

  When someone shouted “murderers,” Jin-woo’s smile flickered—small, almost invisible.

  Then he said, just loud enough for a few to hear:

  “She just followed the rules.”

  Silence.

  It wasn’t a moral defense.

  It was worse.

  It was true.

  And Rin understood why the crowd reacted so badly:

  Because the truth made everyone complicit.

  Jin-woo met Rin’s gaze.

  No wink.

  No joke.

  Just a silent sentence in his eyes:

  Welcome to the Tower.

  At the back of the tavern, a figure moved through the crowd.

  Eleanor.

  And behind her, Marcus.

  They weren’t there to judge. Not yet.

  But their presence changed the air.

  The crowd instinctively turned toward her, as if a single hand placed on a wound could repair… what they were becoming.

  Rin didn’t move.

  He watched the scene the way one watches a map being drawn.

  The mercenaries.

  The cult.

  The opportunists.

  The weak.

  The survivors.

  And at the center, despite himself, his group.

  Not comrades.

  Not yet.

  But pieces that mattered.

  The crowd did not disperse.

  It reorganized.

  Rin felt it before the tone of the voices shifted. It was no longer raw anger. It was something else. A need for meaning. For justification. For sides.

  Eleanor knelt beside the stretcher.

  She didn’t speak at first.

  She simply placed her hand on the wounded man’s chest.

  A shiver passed through the room.

  No blinding light.

  No theatrical miracle.

  Just a gentle warmth, perceptible even from a distance. Rin felt it against his skin, like a subtle shift in air density. The man’s breathing slowly stabilized. Not healed. But alive. For now.

  A murmur rippled through the crowd.

  “She saved him…”

  “Again…”

  “The Saint…”

  The word spread on its own, without Eleanor claiming it.

  Rin checked his interface.

  Nothing.

  The System was watching.

  Or rather… it was allowing it.

  Marcus stepped forward.

  He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

  “Enough.”

  One word. Calm. Firm.

  Silence fell—not out of respect, but reflex. As if people had already learned it was better to listen to him.

  “This man will live,” Marcus said.

  “But what happened today will not disappear.”

  He turned toward A?cha.

  “You accepted a contract.”

  A?cha met his gaze without flinching.

  “Yes.”

  “And you fulfilled it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Without violating the city’s rules.”

  “Yes.”

  Marcus nodded slowly, as if stacking invisible evidence.

  “Then there will be no sanction.”

  A shocked breath passed through the crowd.

  Someone shouted:

  “That’s unjust!”

  Marcus turned his head slightly toward the voice.

  “Injustice is not prohibited here.”

  The word landed heavily.

  Rin felt something freeze in the eyes around him. A cold, unpleasant understanding.

  Marcus continued:

  “This place is not a tribunal.

  It is not a sanctuary.

  It is a neutral zone.”

  He turned toward Eleanor and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “And that is precisely why compassion is a choice. Not an obligation.”

  Eleanor lifted her head.

  Her gaze swept across the crowd.

  “He could have died,” she said softly.

  “And tomorrow, it will be someone else.”

  She wasn’t looking at A?cha.

  She wasn’t looking at Marcus.

  She was looking at everyone.

  “If we accept that ‘following the rules’ is enough… then we have already lost something.”

  A?cha gave a brief smile. Without joy.

  “And if we refuse the rules, we die faster.”

  A murmur of approval rose from the mercenaries’ side.

  Rin felt the fracture.

  Not a clean line.

  A shifting fault, running through the crowd, the alliances, the glances.

  Mi-sun murmured beside him:

  “They’re not talking about the same thing.”

  “No,” Rin replied.

  “They’re not living in the same future.”

  Another announcement dropped, almost indecent in its timing.

  [Progress Announcement — Floor 1]

  Exploit validated: “Accumulation of special items.”

  Participant transferred: Floor 2.

  Heads lifted instinctively.

  “Another one…”

  “Not even combat…”

  “So that counts too?”

  Rin felt Ha-joon tense.

  “Rin…”

  “Yes.”

  “It feels like… no one’s playing the same game anymore.”

  Rin didn’t answer immediately.

  He watched A?cha.

  Then Eleanor.

  Then Marcus.

  Three different answers to the same question.

  None false.

  None compatible.

  Jin-woo, still leaning against his pillar, observed the scene like a living chessboard. He no longer spoke. He didn’t need to.

  Rin realized something simple—and dangerous:

  The city forced no one to choose a side.

  But it made inaction impossible.

  And as more people continued to ascend, exploit after exploit, without apparent logic… staying became a decision in itself.

  Rin inhaled slowly.

  He didn’t yet know what he would do.

  But he knew one thing:

  Whatever he chose, someone else would pay the price.

  Rin didn’t move right away.

  The plaza before the improvised gathering slowly emptied—not because the conflict was resolved, but because each person walked away with something new to digest. A justification. Anger. A sharper fear.

  Mi-sun spoke first.

  “It’s going to get worse.”

  Not a prediction. A statement.

  “As long as the System doesn’t decide, people will do it in its place.”

  Rin nodded. He watched movements, not words. Who walked away with whom. Who avoided which gazes. The mercenaries naturally clustered around A?cha without her needing to say anything. On the other side, those who stayed near Eleanor spoke in hushed tones, almost as if inside a sacred space.

  Two centers. Two gravities.

  Marcus remained in the middle, at equal distance from both.

  “He’s positioning himself as a balance point,” Rin murmured.

  “Or as someone waiting to see which side collapses first,” Mi-sun replied.

  A new system message appeared, floating above the crowd, visible to all.

  [Progress Announcement — Floor 1]

  Exploit validated: “Complete mapping of an external zone.”

  Participant transferred: Floor 2.

  A name followed. Unknown to most.

  This time, there was no surprise. No panic. Just thicker tension.

  “So you can climb without fighting,” someone said.

  “Or without helping anyone,” another added.

  “Or without staying here…”

  The tone of the conversations shifted. Faster. More calculating.

  Rin felt something tightening gently around the city. Not a trap.

  Pressure.

  Ha-joon tugged lightly at his sleeve.

  “Rin… if everyone can just leave like that… why stay?”

  The question wasn’t na?ve.

  It was brutally logical.

  “Because not everyone knows how,” Rin replied.

  “And because those who stay become… the background.”

  Ha-joon paled slightly.

  Jin-woo approached at that moment, hands in his pockets, wearing a falsely relaxed expression.

  “Nice atmosphere, huh?” he said lightly.

  “Feels like a city right before a war. Or right after.”

  Mi-sun looked at him sharply.

  “You’re taking this lightly.”

  “No,” he replied with a smile.

  “I’m taking notes.”

  His gaze slid to A?cha, then to Eleanor, then back to Rin.

  “Tell me… do you think you have to be a good person to climb?”

  Rin met his eyes.

  “I think that has nothing to do with it.”

  Jin-woo let out a short laugh.

  “Perfect. Makes things simpler.”

  He was already drifting away, absorbed into another group, leaving behind a trail of light words and heavy silences.

  The city’s artificial night began to fall—no sky, no stars, just a gradual shift in light.

  Rin stepped back slightly and leaned against a cold wall.

  Mi-sun spoke softly.

  “You see it now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re going to have to choose.”

  Rin closed his eyes for a second.

  He could feel his skill there, in the background. Not active. Present. Like a tool he didn’t dare draw yet—because once used, nothing would ever settle back exactly into place.

  He opened his eyes.

  In the distance, the city continued to function. Smiling NPCs. Lit lanterns. Quest boards updating.

  But something had changed.

  It was no longer a refuge.

  It was a crossroads.

  And Rin realized that if he kept observing without acting, he risked becoming exactly what the System seemed to value most:

  Someone perfectly neutral…

  and perfectly replaceable.