3. Spilling the Tea on Getting Kidnapped While Asleep (3)
Had I ever once told him the name of my skill?
No, I hadn’t.
A faint sense of wrongness kept poking at my nerves.
I never said it—how did he know?
Does he have some ability similar to my Analytic Sight?
“What about the night watch order?”
Well, we’d only known each other for less than a day.
It wouldn’t be strange for him not to reveal all his weapons.
But the thought that he might unilaterally know our skills made me feel uneasy.
“I’ll take the first watch! No-eul, you’re second!”
“Then I’ll be last.”
“But how are we supposed to tell time? You’re not gonna wake me up after staying awake for like five minutes, right?”
“Caught me?”
“……This bastard…….”
We decided the watch order would be Chae Sae-byeok → me → Ju Yeon-woo.
Shift changes would happen once each person’s assigned pile of firewood burned out.
“Take care of it!”
“Don’t worry.”
When it’s Ju Yeon-woo’s turn, I’ll just pretend I can’t sleep and stay awake.
I’m not stupid enough to fully trust a stranger and sleep soundly in a situation like this.
What if he turns out to be a sadistic serial killer who enjoys trapping people and murdering them?
Chae Sae-byeok probably pushed me to second shift because he was thinking the same thing.
“I’m going to sleep.”
Hoping nothing happens, I lay down.
Probably because I was exhausted, I fell asleep almost instantly.
And how much time had passed?
Stinging light kept jabbing at my eyelids.
“Nngh…….”
When I opened my eyes, the warm, dazzling sunlight filtering through the leaves felt vivid.
The light was so intense that the sun must have risen already.
Wait, the sun’s up?
What the—?
I shot upright in panic, and Ju Yeon-woo, who seemed to have been awake for a while, greeted me.
“Ah, you’re up. Good morning.”
“Yeah, good morning…… No, wait—why didn’t you wake me? I was supposed to be second!”
His nod answered the implied question of whether he had taken my watch for me.
“I woke up midway and switched a bit early. After that I couldn’t sleep, and you looked really tired, No-eul-ssi, so I just let you rest.”
“No, still! You must be tired too, Yeon-woo-ssi! You should’ve woken me!”
At my words, his eyes widened slightly before he smiled gently.
“It’s fine. I’m confident in my stamina.”
“……Ugh…….”
There was nothing I could do about what had already happened, so all I could do was earnestly beg him not to do it again.
He nodded obediently, but for some reason I didn’t quite trust it.
“Yaaawn…… What? You two were already up? I’m the last one?”
“Yeah. Get up and let’s move.”
After waiting for the slowpoke Chae Sae-byeok to finally rise, we headed toward our destination.
……Am I being too sensitive?
The fact that he hadn’t done anything while alone on watch strangely dulled my wariness toward Ju Yeon-woo.
No. Snap out of it.
In a situation like this, you can never be too cautious.
“Hm? Must be sleepy…….”
“What is it?”
“No, I thought I saw a tree moving over there.”
While I was lost in thought, Chae Sae-byeok and Ju Yeon-woo were casually chatting back and forth.
Chae Sae-byeok seemed to be talking just to shake off drowsiness.
He should’ve gotten some sleep, but he looked as exhausted as if he’d pulled an all-nighter.
Is it because everything is so unfamiliar?
In that moment, Ju Yeon-woo, who had been walking ahead, stopped.
“We’ve arrived. It’s that way.”
When I looked where he pointed, the scenery was completely different from before.
Ahead stretched a field blanketed in flowers.
At its center stood an enormous ancient tree so thick that even ten adults linking arms wouldn’t be able to wrap around its trunk.
The way the vast field was perfectly encircled by trees in a neat circle made it look almost artificially created.
“I didn’t expect a tree this huge.”
“With all the flowers in bloom? It’s insanely pretty.”
The moment we stepped inside, the air felt refreshingly open.
“The supply box is at the center. Let’s go.”
Even among the flowers, a bright red wooden box stood out.
It looked even bigger because of its vivid color.
We scanned the surroundings as we walked toward the giant tree in the middle.
But……
“Huh? Letters?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t look like Korean…… Someone carved them? Who?”
The closer we got to the tree, the more clearly we could see something engraved on its trunk.
Chae Sae-byeok was the first to notice and brought it up.
“……Are there other people nearby?”
“No? I’m sure there weren’t any?”
“It must have been made by the being that dragged us here.”
When we got close enough, I could finally see the squiggly characters.
They definitely weren’t Hangul, yet for some reason I felt like I could read them.
“……‘Base 7’…… That’s weird. Why can I read this?”
“Right? I’m not the only one interpreting it that way?”
Chae Sae-byeok answered immediately.
So I wasn’t the only one who could read the strange text.
“It might be another special phenomenon like the status window. Let’s read everything engraved below.”
Chae Sae-byeok and I agreed and slowly read the sentences, but Ju Yeon-woo—the one who had suggested it—only gave the text a quick glance.
He reads fast.
I stole a glance at him heading straight to check the supply box, then fixed my eyes back on the text.
The content was a kind of rule set. To summarize:
[Base 7]
[Let’s gather points and pass the trial (2/7)]
– Points can be earned through activities on the 1st floor
– At a base, points can be used to purchase a ticket to the 2nd floor
– At a base, you can check possessed points and exchange for items
Are the points I saw with Analytic Sight related to this?
“So we need to collect points?”
“Yep. There’s also a point acquisition table below.”
At Chae Sae-byeok’s words, I looked at the table.
[Point Acquisition Table]
[Values may change depending on the period]
– Tag acquisition: 100
– First opening of a supply box: 10
– Mirage Wolf kill: 10
– Skull Tree kill: 10
.
.
.
– Human kill: 50
I checked Ju Yeon-woo’s and Chae Sae-byeok’s points again with Analytic Sight.
120 points and 10 points respectively.
Chae Sae-byeok had opened one supply box, and Ju Yeon-woo had been massacring those beasts, so it made sense.
……Mine is probably 0. I haven’t done anything.
“Never mind the table—where do we exchange points? It’s not written.”
“You use the supply boxes in this area.”
Ju Yeon-woo, who had suddenly appeared beside me, answered.
In his hand was something—a plastic container filled with white powder.
“This entire field is the base. As long as you have the intent to check, exchange, or purchase, you can do so. Purchased items are received through that supply box over there, though.”
“You had enough points to buy something?”
“Yes. It seems the beasts we killed were on the acquisition table. Thanks to that, I bought a few necessities.”
“I’m guessing they’re the Mirage Wolves. That’s the only name that matches the image…….”
Saying that, I opened the point shop.
The moment I thought I want to check, just as Ju Yeon-woo said, the point shop appeared.
[Point Shop] [My Points: 0]
[Please receive items through a nearby supply box.]
……As expected, 0.
It was what I predicted, so no surprise.
Might as well check the ticket.
[Item List]
– 2nd Floor Ticket: 100 points
– Bottled Water 500ml: 1 point
– Rice Ball (1): 1 point
– Barley Bread (1): 1 point
.
.
– Salt 100g: 30 points
– Stimulant Powder 100g: 30 points
……Huh?
The moment I saw the ticket price, I froze.
Because……
“Yeon-woo-ssi.”
“Yes.”
“……Didn’t you have enough points to buy a ticket?”
Ju Yeon-woo could go to the 2nd floor right now if he wanted.
No—actually,
[Ju Yeon-woo – 100 points]
He could go even right this second.
“You have plenty of points.”
Our eyes met.
Silence stretched.
His pitch-black eyes stared at me, unreadable, then curved gently as he smiled.
“No. It’s impossible right now.”
The container of white powder in his hand.
Probably salt.
So 120 points minus 30 points.
Normally that would leave 90 points……
But he was the first to open a supply box here.
Meaning he currently has exactly 100 points left.
The window in front of me doesn’t lie.
What’s his angle?
My thoughts were tangling into a mess when—
“To be precise, I don’t have as many points as I’d like. Because I want to move together with you, No-eul-ssi.”
Ju Yeon-woo said something absurd.
“……With us?”
“Yes. You never know what might happen, right?”
“Well, even if we go to the 2nd floor, they probably won’t just send us home easily.”
At Chae Sae-byeok’s words, Ju Yeon-woo nodded.
“Exactly. So I think it’s better to secure allies. We don’t know how the tickets work… but if we use them at the same time, we’ll probably end up in similar places at similar times, right?”
“Even if that’s not the case, having allies from the start is good.”
“Yes. Since we don’t know what life-threatening dangers await, I want reliable allies.”
The allies he’s talking about would be people he can trust with his life.
Does he think we could be that for him?
Then Chae Sae-byeok spoke in a bored tone.
“Allies are great. But I’ve done a ton of group projects, so I know all too well—teammates worse than enemies or ones you can’t trust are a hard no.”
“I don’t think I’d be worse than an enemy.”
“Well…… true, but we’ve only known each other for a day, yeah?”
Until now Chae Sae-byeok had been keeping a light smile to ease the mood, but not this time.
“Let’s be blunt.”
He naturally grabbed my arm, pulled me behind him, and asked Ju Yeon-woo expressionlessly,
“Do you trust us? Because we still don’t trust you.”
