Tension settled between them like a shadow that refused to disperse. Grimm didn't speak at first. He stood there, jaw tight, eyes narrowing as Sophia's earlier words replayed in his mind.
His expression darkened as he looked down at the object resting on Sophia's palm. He didn't know what the dark energy swirling inside it was or where it came from, but nothing about it felt right. Even from a distance, he could sense that something was off, something deeply wrong.
He quickly activated Omnivision. A faint shimmer pulsed in the air before his eyes as a transparent blue screen materialized.
---
[ ??? Glove ]
Grade: ???
Durability: 80 / 100
Effect:
→ Absorbs the vitality of enemies upon their death. Stored vitality restores health or temporarily increases physical strength.
→ When stored vitality is depleted, the glove draws directly from the wearer's own vitality.
Skills:
• Vitality Drain (Passive): Killing an enemy absorbs their vitality and converts it into healing or a temporary Strength boost.
• Corrupting Hunger (Passive): The glove carries a permanent abnormality effect. The wearer is slowly corrupted by the dark energy within it, developing a growing craving for bloodshed. Prolonged use worsens mental instability and accelerates physical corruption.
---
Grimm stared at the information, the word insane rolling from his lips before he even realized it.
A grim realization began to sink in. This explained everything: Gerald's bizarre behavior, his unstable moods, all of it. It all made sense now. Gerald hadn't changed on his own. The glove had eaten away at him, both mentally and physically.
Then something else hit him. If Sophia was telling the truth, there were more items like this out there—artifacts containing who-knows-what kind of corruption—and they were in the hands of a fanatic group. He didn't even want to imagine what they were capable of.
Even if the other items didn't have identical effects, the dark energy inside this glove made his skin crawl. Anything with that same energy wasn't just dangerous. It was a walking disaster waiting to happen.
His brows knitted as he processed that, but something still didn't add up. He lifted his eyes. Sophia was watching him quietly, studying his reaction with the same calm focus she always had. She didn't look away like before. Instead, her eyes held a quiet pressure that made it difficult to meet her gaze.
He drew a slow breath. "Why tell me this?" he asked, the question gnawing at him.
This wasn't casual knowledge. It wasn't something strangers shared in passing. This was confidential—dangerous even. Whoever Sophia was, her background was not ordinary. That much he could tell. But giving him classified information like this? There had to be a reason.
Sophia didn't dance around it. She didn't tease or hesitate. She just spoke, as if announcing something already decided.
"Because I've decided to watch you."
Grimm's eyelid twitched. He straightened slightly. "Watch me? Don't tell me…" He left the sentence hanging, feeling the weight of implication settle between them.
Sophia nodded once. "It's exactly what you think. I'll be following you from now on."
His stomach dropped.
She continued, "You have until the tower closes to prove you're not a fanatic or a danger. If you fail to convince me… you won't leave this place alive."
Grimm swallowed hard. Her tone didn't waver. No threat, no theatrics—just a statement of fact. That made it worse.
Being near her already felt suffocating. Now she'd be sticking to him until the tower closed—a little over a week—and he had to somehow make her believe he was a good person to prevent his death?
How was he even supposed to do that? Smile politely while fighting monsters? Sing lullabies to goblins? Drop to his knees and offer prayers each time he took a life?
None of that would fool her. Not for a second.
And he also had secrets. Big ones. Things he couldn't risk revealing. She might not seem like the type to fly into a murderous frenzy over them, but trusting that assumption felt reckless. She came from a powerful background—possibly a dangerous one—and Grimm didn't trust anyone with that kind of deep connections. The last thing he wanted was to wake up tied to a table somewhere with some white-haired crazed scientist muttering about dissecting him to study his abilities.
He forced himself back to reality, his gaze shifting toward Sophia. From her earlier tone, it was clear the topic wasn't open for discussion. Arguing would accomplish nothing; with someone like her, it was better to stay quiet.
Sophia broke his train of thought by flicking her hand. A large pile of items spilled across the ground with a dull clatter. Grimm recognized them instantly—monster drops, raw materials, processed parts—everything he'd been collecting so far. Except this pile was much larger than anything he had.
"Found these where you collapsed," she said.
Grimm guessed it must have been Gerald's group loot.
But he didn't move toward it. He kept his hands at his sides. No greed. No shine in his eyes. Just caution.
"You don't need to hesitate," she said. "These belong to no one now. Unless you want to leave them here to rot. They're worthless anyway."
The last line hit him like a slap. Worthless. God, that hurt more than he wanted to admit. A few million credits—a kind of wealth neither he nor the original Grimm had ever possessed—written off like loose change beneath her shoe.
"Do whatever you want with it," she added before turning away. "Get some sleep. I'll take the first watch."
Sleep. He didn't need much, thanks to his Absolute Body. The rest he'd taken earlier was already enough to refresh him. But he didn't say anything. He needed time to think. With Sophia shadowing him tomorrow, he had to plan every move carefully.
A few hours passed, and it was time for a switch.
When Grimm stepped out of the tent, the night air hit him with a clean, cold breeze that washed away the suffocating weight Sophia carried with her. He inhaled slowly, letting the calm settle in his chest.
The moon hung high above the forest, bright and flawless, almost too perfect to be real. It looked like a painting the tower had placed there just to taunt him with beauty while everything else tried to kill him.
He sighed and looked toward the endless forest. A thought crept into his mind. Should he run? Just bolt into the trees and disappear into the vastness of the first floor? There was no way she'd find him out there. The first floor was too big.
He shook his head almost immediately as the thought surfaced. That was a bad idea. Sophia didn't look like someone who gave up easily. Even if he vanished now, how long would it last? She could set a bounty on him, get every climber on the floor searching for him. Or worse, hunt him outside the tower. She had the kind of background that could make his life miserable far beyond this place.
Running wasn't an escape. It was a temporary delay before death.
He stood there for a long time, thinking through every angle. One hour later, he had nothing. Not a single plan to convince her he was a good person. Not one.
He sighed and decided to check his new loot. A distraction was better than spiraling.
His consciousness slipped into his spatial storage. Ten thousand cubic meters of space opened around him. In one corner lay the pile of new loot. Mostly raw materials. Some common-ranked items. Probably drops from the goblin settlement they'd fought through.
He scanned them carefully. Nothing stood out at first.
Then he saw it.
A ring.
It was tucked between a few pieces of monster hide. Pitch black, smooth as glass, made of an obsidian-like material that seemed to absorb light. Golden runes wrapped around it, glowing faintly like molten magma flowing through cracks in a volcano.
Grimm frowned and observed it closer. "That's strange," he muttered. "This looks expensive. Definitely not something from the first floor."
He raised his hand to activate Omnivision.
And the moment the screen opened, his confusion sharpened.
"What the hell is that…?"