Although the realization of everyone's disappearance was alarming at first, no one reacted to it.
If there was any danger, Ji-su would see it coming long before. Plus, the trust they had for the Safe Zone was ironclad. Never in the long history of the Z-Tower's existence had the safety of the Safe Zones ever been compromised.
Which meant no Spector that was capable of mass destruction would be able to get inside in a million years.
It was more likely that the other Z-Streamers had pushed forward to the next Safe Zone, drawing them closer to the Heart of the city.
'That was probably the smart thing to do,' Min-ho thought with a sigh.
Removing his sights from the path ahead, he fell his gaze on Sae-wee as she slept in his arms. If he was being honest with himself, he didn't know what to make of this person.
He didn't know if she was an archangel sent from heaven to save him, or a devil wrought from hell to cause death and destruction.
Somehow, he felt she trailed a fine line between the two. Yet he didn't know what that meant.
It was difficult not to trust her after everything she had done for him. If he was counting, then he would say she had saved him more than twice so far. But despite all of this, it was still very difficult trusting her.
He sighed once more, pushing all of these thoughts aside.
'What matters now is that she wakes up.'
Finally reaching their destination, Jang-book tried to open the door, but couldn't.
"Dammit," he groaned.
Im-hee smiled, then took a step forward, trying as well to open it.
While they struggled with that, Min-ho found his gaze looming over the railing protecting them from tumbling off into the shaft, where they would fall for some time before hitting whatever rested at the bottom.
As he peered down, he felt vertigo as the way down seemed to stretch on forever.
This temple was truly strange, nothing about it made sense. It was much larger on the inside than it was on the outside. And hid many strange things.
CREAK!
The sound of exhales mixed with the creaking and groaning of the door.
Once it was fully opened, the inside was exactly as they left it.
They wasted no time heading in.
The knowledge that the Safe Zone was empty had been common to everyone by now. Yet the primal instinct to be surrounded by four walls, a roof and a door couldn't be shaken.
Min-ho was the last to head in. Once through, Im-hee closed the door behind him. So they were now shut in.
As he took a step forward, Jang-book willed the ground in front of Min-ho to rise. He had called for a large rectangular block, with its surfaces smooth to the touch.
"You can keep her there," Jang-book said, before retreating to his stone tent.
Min-ho hesitated. Though he appreciated the help, something about the red lights of this room along with the block's eerie resemblance to an altar made Min-ho uneasy.
"I think it'd be better if she stayed with Im-hee," Min-ho responded, but got no response in return.
He walked over to the larger tent where Im-hee, Ji-su and Dok-su resided, then he gently laid Sae-wee beside Im-hee.
"Thank you," Im-hee said.
"No worries," Min-ho said, ready to head for his own tent.
"No, I mean… thank you… for what you did back there. You really came through for us." Im-hee said, locking her gaze with that of Min-ho's.
He faltered for a moment, then spoke.
"I just did what I thought was right," Min-ho said, an adamant hater of recognition.
No more words were exchanged, and Min-ho returned to his tent.
Upon lying on the hard floor, he felt once again like he would smelt into a puddle of water.
Almost immediately his lids began to shut, but he fought against it. There was still much to be done.
With a yawn and a tear in his eyes, he called forth his System.
[Name: Mee Min-ho, Rank: E]
[Affinities, Equipment]
[Inventory, Shop]
[Coins: 131,150]
[Developer Options]
Though he had a goal in mind, he wanted to first access his System.
He narrowed his eyes down to his Coins, only to be left astonished. His mouth almost agape.
It was a lot of Coins. So many Coins he could barely believe it.
Due to that hellish Event, he had gotten a whole 50,000 Coins. And thanks to his Affinity, he had gotten twenty percent of both the kills and rewards of his teammates.
Of course Jang-book was the one with the most kills, but the reward of 50,000 Coins was given to everyone.
At this point, he already a hefty amount of Coins. And factoring in his glitched System, that number would only grow.
If he kept going at this pace, they would have accumulated enough power to leave the Z-Tower relatively early.
Keeping these Coins at the back of his mind for now, Min-ho's attention was now placed on the Developer's Option.
It was once again grayed out, yet this was not what bothered him.
Looking at the option, the images of what had happened a while back resurfaced in his mind. He typed in one name but got nine more variants of the same name.
'What the hell was that about?' he thought, his mind running a mile a minute.
He didn't know why the Center acted the way it did. But he hoped that was some sort of error, like a glitch within a glitch.
Hopefully, it was nothing to worry about.
'Hopefully.'
Silencing this thought, Min-ho diverted his attention to his Inventory, to check if there were any items awarded to him which he missed in the heat of battle.
[—Inventory—]
[Inventory Slots: 15, Items Available: 3]
[Item List: Bone Dagger, Commoner's Armor, Blood Burner]
Nothing new, which was a shame.
Staring at the item list, Min-ho felt his heart pulse when he saw the items he did have.
The Commoner's Armor and Blood Burner.
He had completely forgotten he purchased this item when he was in the Event hall. Had he actually been in a fight, there was a chance he would have died a stupid death because he didn't put his damned armor on.
Without putting much thought into it, he willed the armor to expand.
[[Commoner's Armor Set]]
[Equip]
[Sell]
He wasted no time mentally selecting Equip.
[Commoner's Armor Equipped]
He read and heard this notification, but did not feel any different. He even looked down at his body to see if his apparel had changed, but it was still the same. Without the confirmation of his System that he had equipped the armor, there would be no clear indication he had done so.
Unwilling to check his Status screen, he attempted to close the menu, but found his gaze lingering on the potion Blood Burner.
It was a healing potion that would burn away all wounds. It wasn't pleasant, but it got the job done. As he stared at it, he wondered how many of these he would need to ensure Im-hee didn't have to suffer because of them.
A shame one of these cost 5,000 Coins a bottle, and they were only given once a day.
He shook his head, then went back a menu.
He entered the shop and attempted to choose Consumables, but froze in place.
Consumables were very crucial to their survival. But they had a catch.
[——Consumables——]
[Loaf of Bread, Roasted Ram Meat, Raw Meat, A Jug of Water, A Bag of Rice Grains, A Bag of Beans, Potatoes, Onions, Peppers, Salt, Honey, Olive Oil, Cabbage, Broccoli, Asparagus, beets]
[[Loaf of Bread]]
[Description: Bread made from King Uytrium's bakery, its taste and splendor makes for a fine meal after the most treacherous travels]
[Price: 10,000 Coins]
[purchase]
Each consumable was unrealistically expensive.