A dim, gloomy cave came into view. Before his pupils could fully adjust to the darkness, a faint sound reached his ears.

Swoosh!

'What is that?'

There was no time to think. Every nerve in his body screamed a warning at the sound—a noise that signaled a familiar danger he had encountered countless times in battle.

"Move!"

Most of the players here were strangers to him. He hadn't even dropped his formal manner of speaking with acquaintances like Jeong Cheol and Jeong Seora, yet in that urgent moment, an informal command burst out of him without a second thought.

No one protested or showed any discomfort at the sudden breach of politeness. The instant Kim Buja shouted his warning, the other members of Jeong Cheol's guild felt the same danger and were already throwing themselves aside.

WHOOSH!

All twenty players moved as one. Something huge and razor-sharp sliced through the space where their ducked bodies had just been.

'What the hell was that?'

Again, there was no time to think. They had been suddenly teleported, and a new hologram had popped up. Reading it would help them understand the situation, but any player who had cleared countless dungeons already knew what was happening.

"Light!"

BANG!

At Jeong Cheol's shout, a brilliant light exploded, driving back the darkness in an instant. Instead of wasting time puzzling over their attacker, he made the decisive choice to identify the enemy a second sooner.

Thanks to his quick thinking, they saw it.

A vast, sprawling cave.

And in it, a massive queen spider with dozens of legs.

The fur covering its body and the viscous fluids clinging to it were grotesque enough to make anyone instinctively recoil.

"Form up!"

There was still no time to stand around staring. The queen spider, which had been screeching like metal scraping on metal in response to the light, launched another attack.

It raised what looked like at least five front legs high into the air, then slammed them down. The pattern itself was simple, but because each of the five legs came down in a different direction, anyone who dodged while watching only one could easily get hit by another.

This was especially dangerous with twenty people crammed into one space. If everyone dodged haphazardly, their paths would tangle, and someone would inevitably be crushed under those legs.

On top of that, the same stat adjustment from the solo match applied here.

"Spread out as you dodge! Squad 1, left! Squad 2, right! Squad 3, fall back!"

Even so, as a leader, Jeong Cheol didn't falter in his role for even a second.

The players scattered in an instant. The queen spider's lunging leg attacks looked nasty and powerful, but against a spread-out formation, they were ultimately simple, telegraphed strikes that could be avoided by watching carefully.

Despite the spider being huge and disgusting, they charged in without hesitation and began attacking, their movements so coordinated it was as if they had rehearsed this beforehand.

No matter how things played out, the system would only have spawned a monster that could be beaten with their adjusted stats. Even if the spider had enough strength to send the pesky humans flying into the cave walls just by shaking them off, the fact that it wasn't showing any special patterns yet allowed them to infer its general level.

"Take out the legs one by one!"

They had all been summoned wearing nothing but scraps of cloth and holding basic weapons. It was a simple, bare-bones raid that brought back memories of the old days.

In the middle of it all, only Kim Buja stood there, blankly watching the situation unfold.

"Are you okay?"

Jeong Seora, assigned to Squad 4 and allowed to move independently with only Kim Buja, turned to him. Her eyes swept over him, not so much worried as puzzled.

'What is he thinking this time?'

This was a man who had soloed raids far worse than this. There was no way he was cowering just because he was nearly naked in front of a queen spider, which was the only logical conclusion.

"Ah! Sorry."

After a brief pause, Kim Buja suddenly grinned and shook the Molotov cocktail in his hand.

"That is…"

'Where did you even get that?'

Even in her own embarrassingly bare state, she felt how reassuring it was just to be holding a single weapon. This place hadn't even given them enough cloth to properly cover themselves; it was literally just a scrap tossed over them. She wished the cloth was at least big enough to properly cover anything.

In a place like this, seeing someone holding anything at all was a strange sight, even though the event had only just begun.

But she didn't finish her question. She remembered.

Kim Buja's skill.

The trick he always showed her, suddenly conjuring food out of thin air.

"My ability's actually pretty useful here too, thankfully."

With that, he hurled the Molotov.

It flew fast and smashed against the hard carapace protecting the queen spider's body.

Then it ignited.

FWOOSH!

The small flame looked weak, as if it would just slide off the thick shell and die out, but once it latched on, it grew with a ferocity that belied its appearance.

FWOOM!

In an instant, the flames spread, racing across the giant spider's back as if to devour it whole.

FWOOOOSH!

Before long, the blaze was bright enough to make the earlier light spell seem pointless, illuminating the entire cave as it engulfed the queen spider.

The queen spider thrashed wildly.

To avoid being swept up in the inferno, the members of Jeong Cheol's guild quickly backed away, then all turned to look in one direction.

Kim Buja was standing there, waving with a bright smile.

"What are you doing? Aren't you going to get ready to finish it off?"

'Would we have even been able to kill this thing after hours of fighting? How do we disable its legs? Where are the gaps the shell doesn't cover? Will it use any other patterns? What if it starts shooting webs? What if baby spiders swarm us?'

Those were the thoughts they had been having barely a minute ago. They weren't overreactions; they were exactly the kinds of things one was supposed to consider while running a raid. You solved those problems one by one, the boss eventually died, and that was when you felt the satisfaction of clearing the raid.

That was how raids worked for new players. It was the textbook process, the correct path to the right answer.

And he had shattered it in an instant.

With a single, logic-defying Molotov, he had rendered meaningless the careful formation, the dodging, and the gradual disabling of the queen spider that Jeong Cheol's guild had been working on.

They felt empty and powerless. Any player would. They had been giving it their all, and he hadn't just poured cold water on the raid—he had dumped scalding flames on it and blown the whole thing up.

With a stiff expression, Jeong Cheol finally spoke.

"This isn't a bug, right?"

He let out a dry laugh, knowing how ridiculous the question sounded. The rest of the guild felt the same way.

After a brief moment to accept reality, Jeong Cheol shouted, "Let's finish it!"

There wasn't a shred of anger about their carefully constructed raid being ruined. Pride as a top guild? Players weren't judged by how meticulously they ran a raid or how much they struggled to take down a boss.

They were judged by how fast they killed it.

By how easily they killed it.

Jeong Cheol was not some stubborn, narrow-minded man. He was someone who had practically dedicated his life to gaming, who had a strong will, and who had been decisive enough to risk everything by diving into a dungeon that could have killed him the moment he awakened.

To him, this situation wasn't unpleasant; it was a blessing, a joy.

The other guild members felt the same. A spark returned to their eyes. No player disliked a raid that could be cleared quickly and easily—especially when it was their party doing it.

"Die, you spider bastard!"

"Spit out your loot nice and quiet!"

SCREEEEEEEECH!

Even the ear-splitting shriek no longer felt painful. The queen spider soon collapsed.

6.

Fly was confident. He had accepted his loss in the solo match and moved on, but the team match would be different. He hadn't been lacking; he had simply known too little about his opponent.

He had been missing the single most important thing in any competition: information. Meanwhile, his opponent had seen through his most crucial skills, so it was only natural that his weak points had been exploited.

He accepted it without complaint.

He would not lose next time.

And he would show them the true power of an Elemental Wizard.

The team match was unfolding exactly the way Fly wanted. Rankings would be decided by how many floors each team climbed while clearing boss raids along the way. He had thought it might be fun to do another battle royale with all the national teams thrown together, but this format was satisfying too.

It wasn't just that the Elemental Wizard class itself shone in this setup; the Fly Guild as a whole was made up of comrades who had been together for years, and the more of them gathered, the stronger their synergy became.

The raid began the moment they entered the Tower of Annihilation, triggered by a boss monster's opening attack, and didn't take them long to finish.

At the same time, Fly played his trump card.

GROOOOAR!

The undead summoning that Kim Buja had revealed.

If Fly hadn't used it, no one would have known he had been hiding the skill. But he had already seen its effectiveness with his own eyes, so he decided there was no point in keeping it secret anymore.

If he could gain a competitive edge more efficiently, refusing to use it would be nothing but arrogance and conceit.

Normally, that would have been fine. That was how it had been during the last event and for five years before that. Even so, Fly had always been number one, and no one had ever come close to taking his spot.

But now it was different.

He had lost, if only once, in the solo match. And in the team match, the very person who had beaten him was once again standing across from him as a rival.

He had to give it everything he had. That was the only way to show respect and protect his pride.

When the dead boss monster rose again, his guild members stared at him with wide eyes. But the boss soon collapsed once more.

He let out a breath.

'Still not there yet.'

His curiosity about Kim Buja flared up again. Just maintaining the summon, let alone casting it, devoured an enormous amount of mana. How had that guy dragged an undead boss around all day, leading a horde of monsters until the event ended?

He suspected some kind of trick had been involved, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Of course, that was all it was. Even if Kim Buja used the same method in the team match, Fly would not fall behind this time. With his level rising and items dropping from boss monsters, he could achieve the same rapid growth and wouldn't lose ground.

And this time, there was no way for anyone to interfere with him.

"We'll move out after a five-minute break. Study the hologram rules and regroup."

After that brief announcement, Fly finally turned his attention to the holograms he hadn't had time to read while rushing into the raid.

And he saw it.

[Current Rankings]

1st: Republic of Korea → Floor 3

2nd: United States → Floor 2

He had considered it before: in a place with no one to get in his way, who would have the advantage? The solo match hadn't been the main stage; the team match was where his class could truly show its full potential.

But what he saw now felt like a direct, in-your-face provocation from Kim Buja.

For the first time, Fly's expression twisted.

He understood. He didn't have hard data, but from what he had seen in the solo match, he knew that Kim Buja was strong in the early game. That was a trait of his class as well. Remembering how close he had come to catching up in the final fight, Fly knew there was still plenty of time.

But this wasn't the first time. It was the second. His competitive spirit blazed. Fly made no effort to calm himself down. It had been a long time since he had felt this way.

"Let's go. No more breaks—we're running nonstop."

The real competition had begun.

* * *

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