A Hundred-Thousand-Won Secret

Morning was just beginning to break.

Kim Mu-saeng stood atop a rolling hill ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that overlooked a quaint village of around twenty rustic cottages. It was the standard spawn point for anyone challenging the Tower's 3rd floor. Normally, a climber would descend the slope to gather intelligence or prepare their countermeasures if they had already scouted the corresponding dungeon.

"Heheh. Floor three. We're finally on floor three."

Far from heading down toward the village, Mu-saeng spun on his heel and sprinted in the exact opposite direction.

The standard clear condition for the 3rd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠floor was simple enough on paper: eliminate a single target. The objective was to hunt down and slay a werewolf within ninety-six hours. Capable of commanding wolf packs, active exclusively at night, and gifted with cunning intellect, the beast was effectively a boss-tier monster to raw novices. Killing that lone creature was the whole mission.

"Where do you think you're ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠going?" Wahsh questioned, floating beside him.

"The beast doesn't even spawn on the first day anyway, remember? A few stray wolves raiding the outskirts is all that happens. So today, I've got to find that chest first."

Mu-saeng was well aware of how this floor worked. Between his dungeon sherpa runs and having cleared the floor in a party years ago, the details were etched into his memory. Naturally, his mind was occupied by an entirely different prize.

"...A chest?" Wahsh's brow furrowed in suspicion.

Beaming ear to ear, Mu-saeng charged across the grassy terrain without hesitation. "Yeah. Back when I was guiding through the third dungeon, I stumbled across a chest buried in the ground. But for some reason, it wouldn't open. Even when I brought a whole lockpick set, the system didn't even allow an interaction prompt. So I figured, maybe it opens inside the actual Tower? I wanted to check."

As an unwritten rule among Awakeners, the Tower was for growth, while dungeons were for artifacts.

That was the general baseline, at least. It wasn't unheard of to acquire artifacts within the Tower itself. It was widely known that clearing the 19th floor yielded a D-rank artifact. Climbers occasionally bragged about hauling out artifacts from the 20th and 30th floors as well—though none of them ever revealed how they got them. While rare, obtaining artifacts inside the Tower was far from impossible.

The inverse held true for dungeons. Real growth was impossible inside a dungeon. Slaying monsters or butchering dungeon bosses never awarded stat points or unlocked new skills. The sole exceptions were rare consumable artifacts—like the scrap of Sraken's Slough Mu-saeng had swallowed to obtain Poison Resistance (S).

So, what did it mean if a dungeon contained a chest that outright rejected any system interaction?

"Back in the day, I used to mention it to clients who tipped well," Mu-saeng chuckled, "but strangely enough, none of those bastards ever answered my calls after that. I had no way of knowing what came out of it or if they opened it at all, so eventually I just stopped caring. Who'd have thought I'd ever get a chance to come back and check it myself? Haha!"

It has to be an artifact that can only be looted in the Tower!

Even if his deduction had been spot-on back then, Mu-saeng had already cleared the 3rd floor in the past and could never verify it. Now that his climbing record had been wiped clean, his heart pounded against his ribs in anticipation.

"Haaah... And just how did you manage to find that?" Wahsh asked, his voice dripping with reluctant curiosity.

Mu-saeng answered casually, utterly unguarded about the secret's origin.

"When you've run the same dungeon over a hundred times, you get bored out of your skull, right? So I ended up shooting the breeze with the village brats. One of them babbled on about how someone used to live out by the waterfall on that far mountain. I got curious, went out there to take a look, and—"

"Damn it all."

"—Huh? Damn it? What's with the sudden swearing? Why—... Wait."

Mu-saeng trailed off as the realization hit him like a bucket of ice water.

"That is the hidden clear condition and bonus reward for the third floor," Wahsh grumbled.

Without ever realizing it, Mu-saeng had just casually confessed how he had cracked the floor's hidden clear condition all by himself.

"Wait, what?! Son of a—"

The profanity slipped from his mouth on pure reflex.

"—I only charged them a measly hundred thousand won for that tip! I should've squeezed them for an astronomical surcharge!"

He had sold away the secret for pocket change. Floor 3 was merely the tutorial stage, designed to teach fledglings how to handle boss-grade monsters rather than standard fodder. It was an educational floor meant to demonstrate the importance of gathering advance intel and preparing specific counters. He had assumed nothing truly extraordinary could possibly be hidden here.

That was the hidden clear condition all along?!

"No wonder! Those ungrateful leeches took the loot and played dumb so they wouldn't have to give me a cut!"

Everything clicked into place. Whenever he had playfully asked his clients to let him know if anything good dropped, not a single one had ever reached back out. They had scooped up the windfall and vanished into thin air.

"...It drops something good, right, Wahsh?" Mu-saeng asked, his eyes wide.

The hidden clear conditions for the 1st and 2nd floors had awarded raw stat points—amounts that typically required clearing multiple floors to accumulate. If the reward here was an item, there was no way it would be bottom-of-the-barrel F-rank or E-rank trash.

"It is a C-rank artifact."

"Holy crap..." Mu-saeng stopped dead in his tracks.

In his thirteen grueling years as a dungeon guide, the absolute best piece of gear he had ever bought was a B-rank dagger, purchased by pinching every copper he earned. That single dagger had cost as much as a fully loaded mid-size sedan. But a C-rank artifact dropped on the third floor? That was worth the price of a compact car at the very least!

"And I sold that info for a hundred thousand won..." Mu-saeng muttered, gripping his hair in agony.

Wahsh looked at him, shaking his small feathered head in disbelief. "Good grief. That child was programmed never to utter a word unless the player's affinity reached a strict threshold. And you accomplished that purely by accident?"

It was a design deliberate in its cruelty. Adults in the village held no knowledge of the secret; it had been embedded solely within a child. During the day, the village children dashed endlessly across the fields causing mischief, and by evening, they ate early and went straight to sleep. Finding a window to hold an extended conversation with them was practically impossible for ordinary climbers. That was precisely why the developers had entrusted the clue to a human child.

"Kim Mu-saeng. I must admit, I need to reconsider what kind of human you—"

Wahsh began solemnly. Or rather, he attempted to.

"I could have easily charged at least three million won for that intel... Three million! And I let it go for pocket change..."

Had Mu-saeng not been wallowing in grief over his lost consulting fees, Wahsh might have actually praised him.

"...Never mind. There is no need. You are as infuriatingly stubborn as you are primitive." Wahsh glared at the dazed man before letting out a loud squawk. "Kwak! How long do you plan to stand there moping?! If you want to claim the additional reward, you need to get moving immediately!"

"H-Huh? Additional reward? What's that?" Mu-saeng snapped out of his trance.

Wahsh rattled off the extra objective without hesitation. "Slay the werewolf before the sun sets on the first day!"

Mu-saeng tilted his head, utterly baffled. Even after running the 3rd dungeon dozens of times, such a feat sounded downright impossible.

"...Wait, is that even doable? Werewolves only roam at night. On the first day, it's impossible to even spot the damn thing—"

"Kwaaak!"

Wahsh snapped his bill wide open, cutting him off. And as the exiled Administrator began laying out the hidden mechanics of the floor, Mu-saeng stood entirely dumbfounded.

Here on the humble 3rd floor of the Tower, both contractor and Administrator were discovering entirely unexpected sides to one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠another.

"Urgent news regarding the werewolf! Everyone, gather in the square at once!"

Mu-saeng's voice boomed across the heart of the village. The settlement was tiny; even counting every child, the entire population didn't exceed a hundred souls.

"I bring a method to ensure the beast never approaches your homes! Step outside, everyone!"

Wooden doors creaked open throughout the village as wary residents peeked outside.

"What's going on?"

"He doesn't look like someone sent by the royal court..."

"Did the local lord send him?"

No matter how guarded the villagers were against outsiders, news concerning their own survival took immediate precedence. In ones and twos, the villagers began trickling into the square. Mu-saeng scrutinized every single face that appeared—farmers, woodcutters, herbalists, the local grocer...

"The children must come as well! I'm handing out werewolf-repelling talismans crafted by a grand alchemist completely free of charge! Every household must bring their little ones without exception!"

An alchemist, warding talismans, and free! At those magic words, several parents' eyes widened.

"Robin! Robin, where did you run off to?!"

"Asuka! Get over here right now! You can play later!"

The pace of the gathering doubled in an instant.

"Excuse me, sir... My husband went up the mountain at dawn to work. Can I take an extra one for him?"

"Of course, ma'am. There's plenty for everyone."

Mu-saeng had entered the floor at daybreak; the sun now indicated it was roughly nine or ten in the morning. Aside from the few villagers away on daily labor, virtually the entire settlement had assembled. Mu-saeng muttered under his breath, his eyes darting across the crowd.

"That way? That person over there? Ah... right. Got it."

He stepped forward with steady, measured strides. Curious murmurs followed him as he made his way through the villagers.

"Are you truly an envoy from our lord? Warding talismans made by an alchemist don't come cheap. To hand them out for nothing..."

"Yes, yes, that's right," Mu-saeng replied smoothly.

"If you were sent by the lord, don't you have an official token or seal to show?"

"Quiet, old man! Take the ward first and ask questions later. Why be in such a rush to doubt good fortune...?"

A few men still maintained a cautious demeanor beneath their neighborly banter, but Mu-saeng merely smiled, continuing his walk until he halted in front of a small boy wearing round spectacles.

"Mister, are you an alchemist yourself? Is that why you're giving them away for free?" the boy asked, tilting his head with innocent curiosity.

Mu-saeng did not look into the child's eyes. His gaze rested slightly above the boy's head, fixed on empty air.

"This one?" he murmured softly. "Man... this feels pretty filthy. Well, it's just an illusion anyway."

"Huh? Mister, what do you—"

Thwack!

Without a flicker of hesitation, Mu-saeng plunged Sreyken's Poison Fang straight into the boy's chest.

"Eeeeeeek?!"

"W-What is this?! Murder!"

"Murder! What are you doing?! Have you lost your mind—?!"

Panic erupted instantly. Screams and shouts tore through the square as terrified villagers scrambled in chaos. But the uproar died just as swiftly.

The spectacled boy stumbled backward, his lips pulling back in a ghastly sneer.

"Kkyaaaah! How... How did you...?"

With a heavy thud, the child collapsed to the dirt. Then his body began to twist and warp. Limbs lengthened with sickening crunches, clothes shredded against swelling muscles, and coarse, matted grey fur erupted across his skin.

"Aaaah!"

"The beast! It's the werewolf!"

"Merciful heavens! What in the world is happening?!"

The corpse sprawled on the ground was unmistakably the monstrous frame of the werewolf. Standing calmly in the center of the frantic square, Mu-saeng muttered under his breath.

"So that's how it works... But hey, wouldn't it have been way easier if you tracked down the Kobold King like this back then?"

"Idiot," Wahsh's voice hissed in his ear. "Do you not understand the fundamental difference between inspecting a file sitting right in front of your eyes and executing a full search for an unindexed coordinate across an entire sector?"

"Well... of course I wouldn't know that," Mu-saeng retorted with a wry smirk.

On their way to retrieve the hidden chest, Wahsh had explained the floor's underlying mechanism. The werewolf was programmed to randomly possess and manifest within one of the village inhabitants. In other words, as a Tower Administrator, Wahsh could simply scan the data of each villager in line of sight to identify the beast instantly.

"Hey, Wahsh. What happens to the third floor's clear rewards now?" Mu-saeng asked, thoroughly appreciating the absurd utility of Executing with Administrator Authority.

The bonus reward of two points across all attributes applied immediately. He had already tucked away the C-rank artifact secured from the waterfall chest. But what about the standard clear reward?

His innate awakened ability had previously lacked any branching skill tree whatsoever—which had been the exact reason he had abandoned climbing the Tower after conquering the 3rd floor years ago.

"Hmph. Did you think things would be the same as before?" Wahsh scoffed.

"What?"

"Go ahead and choose. Take whatever catches your fancy." Wahsh floated aside with a smug tilt of his bill.

Mu-saeng's breath hitched. Pinpointing the werewolf in a crowd of villagers was merely child's play; this was the true terrifying essence of an Administrator's authority.

"...No way."

The significance had never been the word 'Transmit' itself. It was the transformation from an immutable 〈X〉 into an active 〈O〉. It wasn't that his ability lacked branching pathways—it was that every single branch, across every element and discipline in existence, had just opened before him!

"Wait, just one?" Mu-saeng grinned greedily. "Can't I just master the whole list?"

Before the words had even fully left his mouth, he had to slap his hands over his ears as Wahsh unleashed an ear-splitting tirade of outraged squawks, demanding to know what kind of shameless glutton dared ask for the entire catalog.