The city had found its rhythm.
A functional rhythm.
The streets filled and emptied in invisible cycles. The same faces returned to the same places. The tavern was never empty, and the central plaza had become a mandatory crossroads—as if the System had subtly nudged everyone to converge there.
Rin walked without rushing.
He wasn’t searching for anything specific.
He was watching what slipped through the cracks.
Conversations were no longer centered on the Tutorial.
They had shifted.
“When I go up…”
“If I stay a little longer…”
“No need to rush.”
Sentences filled with illusions of control.
Mi-sun walked beside him, silent. Since the tavern, she spoke less—but observed more. She didn’t watch the strong.
She watched the ones others followed.
Ha-joon sometimes stopped mid-step, going still. Not out of curiosity.
Out of tension.
As if the air itself was sending him signals.
Dae-hyun stayed a step behind.
Always present. Always alive.
But his gaze often drifted somewhere far away.
And Jin-woo…
Jin-woo was never exactly there.
But always mentioned.
“You know Jin-woo?”
“He told me that…”
“He’s cool, right?”
Rin didn’t like the diffuse feeling spreading through the city.
But he didn’t intervene.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Later—outside.
It happened without sound.
No alarm.
No scream.
A brief, sharp light flared at the center of the plaza.
Rin felt the distortion before seeing it.
A dry contraction of space.
The kind the System used when validating something irreversible.
A man was there.
Then he wasn’t.
In his place, a collective interface appeared—visible to all.
[Condition Fulfilled.]
[Exploit Validated.]
[Access to Upper Floor: Authorized.]
A breath moved through the crowd.
Then, as if the System had been waiting for that exact reaction, another line appeared.
[System Announcement.]
[Progression to the Upper Floor Requires the Completion of an Exploit.]
[The Nature of the Exploit Depends on the Individual.]
[No Universal Condition Is Guaranteed.]
Silence fell heavy.
Not panic.
Something more dangerous.
Rin felt his stomach tighten.
There it was.
Climbing wasn’t a matter of time.
Nor group.
Nor morality.
It was a matter of exploit.
Around him, murmurs erupted.
“An exploit?”
“But… which one?”
“What did he do?”
The plaza became a nervous hive.
Information twisted almost instantly.
“He went outside the walls.”
“Yeah, I saw him come back injured.”
“He killed a monster.”
A word circulated.
Then another.
“A rabbit…”
Rin’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
“Not a normal rabbit,” someone corrected.
“A Demon Rabbit.”
The term spread immediately, carrying a diffuse unease.
“The one with red eyes.”
“The one that attacks when you turn your back.”
“They say it pretends to be harmless…”
The versions already diverged.
“He killed it alone.”
“No, he almost died.”
“The monster was weak.”
“No, it was vicious.”
Rin didn’t intervene.
He understood.
It didn’t matter if the details were accurate.
What mattered was that the name existed.
A Demon Rabbit.
An identifiable monster.
An exploit that seemed reproducible.
In appearance.
Mi-sun murmured:
“So now they’ll all go hunting for the same kind of exploit.”
“Yes,” Rin replied.
“Even if it’s not the right one.”
Ha-joon clenched his fists.
“And if… if we miss the moment?”
Dae-hyun swallowed.
“What if there’s only one chance?”
Rin scanned the faces around him.
Some were excited.
Some relieved.
A few… terrified.
A few meters away, Jin-woo leaned against a pillar, arms crossed.
“Interesting,” he said lightly.
“So you just need to do something… noticeable.”
He smiled.
“Not necessarily heroic. Just… memorable.”
No one knew if he was joking.
He added casually:
“What if some people go up while others stay behind and observe how it works?”
The sentence lingered.
An idea had just been planted.
Rin turned his gaze from the crowd and looked at the city.
The gates.
The ramparts.
The paths leading outside.
Everything had been there from the beginning.
The city wasn’t a refuge.
It was an airlock.
A place where the System allowed humans to self-select.
He understood then that staying wasn’t safety.
It was active waiting.
Dangerous stagnation.
Someone had climbed.
The rules were now visible.
From this moment on—
Not acting became as risky as acting.
Rin inhaled slowly.
The first Floor had revealed its true nature.
Not a battlefield.
A social trap.
And somewhere above them,
One man had opened the way—
Without ever knowing how many others he had just condemned to try to imitate him.
