Trial and Error
It was a hollow clearing sunken like a basin—a wide open center walled in on all four sides by a dense, suffocating forest.
In the middle of that clearing, Kim Mu-saeng was bustling about without a moment to spare.
Floor 6: The Forgotten Relics
📍 Objective: Protect the divine idol at the center of the ruins.
🛡 Idol Damage: 0%
⏳ Time Remaining: 10:32:51
On this floor, a total of four monster waves surged over the span of twelve hours. True to its moniker—the "Monster Surge"—swarms of hundreds poured in all at once, hell-bent on pulverizing the idol to dust. The assault itself was fiercely dangerous, but because the waves adhered strictly to an exact three-hour interval, modern Awakened generally cleared it with ease simply by forming a standard party.
"Traps are all laid down, so..."
For Mu-saeng, it was no different. Even if he wasn't running it with a party, a veteran dungeon sherpa had nothing to sweat as long as he knew their exact paths and behaviors inside out.
[Hmph. Bustling about over such useless junk...]
"Useless? It might not be enough to trip up a Guardian, but this is more than enough to torment critters below the 10th floor. And if I can halt them for even a split second...?"
Mu-saeng gave a wire rigged near the trap a playful pluck—twang. The cord ran up into a barrel perched high upon the shattered masonry of the ruins. What mattered wasn't the barrel itself, but the dark liquid sloshing inside.
"The venom squeezed straight out of Sraken's Poison Fang splashes right over their heads. Pffthaha."
He had rigged seven of these linked snare setups the moment he stepped onto the 6th floor. The reason he had spent an hour and a half scrambling around without catching his breath was crystal clear.
"Oh, right. I need to check this out first."
Naturally, he knew that the 6th floor's quest was to defend the divine idol. Even if client commissions for the 6th Dungeon had been scarce, he had still guided parties through it nearly thirty times. Whenever he briefed his clients that the sacred effigy they needed to protect was merely a stone pillar reaching up to a person's waist, a nagging question had always crossed his mind: What kind of deity looks like a featureless post? He had brushed it aside back then, but now...
"I'm right, aren't I, Wahsh?"
[Indeed.]
The geometric figures and cryptic inscriptions finely etched into the sides of the stone pillar followed a distinct, calculated pattern. And an object bearing that exact same design was resting in Mu-saeng's hand right now.
"Yeah... This entire ruin has something to do with magitech."
The Guardian's core was still pulsing with brilliant light. Compared to the smooth, crude core of a common stone golem, it was obvious at a glance how much intricate craftsmanship had been poured into this relic.
No matter how many stone golem cores someone has handled, they'd never connect the dots on the spot here. Mmhmm, exactly.
'The Forgotten Relics.' This place was fundamentally tied to magitech. Which meant...
Mu-saeng bolted toward the scattered debris, rifling through every pile of ancient rubble he could find.
Roughly an hour later.
[Why on earth are you attaching eyes, a nose, and a mouth?]
"In things like this, appearances are half the battle. You think farmers slap faces onto scarecrows just for fun? If you want to scare off sparrows, you need an imposing look right off the bat. If the monsters flinch and hesitate for even a second just from looking at it, that's already pure profit."
Standing before him was a makeshift figure roughly his own size. The wooden rods serving as its left and right arms were completely mismatched in length. Its legs were no better—their lengths barely matched, while one was twice as thick as the other. Any passerby would have laughed and asked if a middle schooler had slapped it together for a failing art project, but...
[...An utterly primitive notion.]
Every single component forming this construct had been salvaged from the remnants scattered across the site. In essence, it was assembled entirely from ancient magitech scrap. Cobbling together a human-sized chassis out of components he had never touched before in his life in under an hour was an achievement Mu-saeng couldn't help but admire.
"Heh, let's just wait and see whether it's primitive or not. Alright, then—"
Outward polish didn't matter in the slightest.
Clack!
What mattered was getting it running. Having carved out a hollow receptacle in its chest, Mu-saeng gently slotted the Guardian's core into place.
"Mage Maia's Magitech... activate."
With a broad grin, he triggered the skill.
A low, resonant hum swept through the air. The Guardian's core flared with a blinding radiance. Creak, screech—
And finally, just as the clumsy contraption gave its very first twitch—
A violent commotion erupted from the surrounding woods. The assault occurring roughly every three hours—the first wave had begun.
[One hundred and twelve. Imps. Their individual caliber is—]
"Around goblins or kobolds. I know. It's usually around a hundred and fifty, so there are fewer than normal. Lucky break."
With Wahsh tallying the enemy count in an instant, there was little reason to tense up.
Creak— Screee... ch!
At last, the magitech construct Mu-saeng had cobbled together rasped out a sound.
"Cre... ator. Kim Mu... Orders."
"...Huh?"
The voice carried a distinctly ominous timbre. And it didn't take long to realize that bad feeling was completely justified.
"Kieeeek!"
"Kyah, kki-it!"
"Kkigurrrr..."
The imps were being shredded by the second. Meanwhile, the 'thing' Mu-saeng had brought to life using the Guardian's core was displaying movements that defied all comprehension.
[...Is this truly what you intended, Kim Mu-saeng?]
"...I honestly can't believe my eyes."
Calling it a clumsy flail wouldn't even do it justice. Its left arm had already torn clean off at the socket and gone flying. Tottering on uneven pins with only its right arm dangling limply, its gait was worse than a blackout-drunk old man.
"Kieeeek!"
"Guardian! Over there! Attack that imp!"
"Target. Con—"
It couldn't even finish a sentence. Its voice broke into static, yet one thing remained undeniable. Whoooosh—
Just when the surrounding air seemed to compress under an abrupt vacuum—
BOOOOOM!
The Guardian shot toward the imp like an artillery shell.
[Kkyakyakyakyat! Its leg fell off! The leg!]
"I have eyes, Wahsh, you don't need to narrate it!"
The problem was that the supporting leg had snapped clean off the torso and remained planted upright in the dirt. Deprived of its pivot, the torso couldn't maintain momentum; it tumbled through the air—crash, roll, bang—skidding across the dirt in an undignified heap before it could even reach the imp.
"Kki?"
"Kkit! Kkit! Kkit!"
A cluster of imps scurried over, gleefully jabbing at the fallen Guardian's battered, ragtag frame with their crude weapons and kicking its head like a ball.
"Hey, back off, you little bastards! No matter how ugly it looks, I made that!"
Mu-saeng immediately scooped up the stones scattered at his feet and hurled them. Naturally, they weren't ordinary pebbles. Every stone had been thoroughly coated in Sraken's Poison. Having already verified its lethal efficacy back on the 1st floor, a few swift tosses of these toxic projectiles wiped out the imps and cleared the field in seconds.
"Tar... get. In... capable."
Mu-saeng gathered the remnants of the Guardian, which still couldn't string together a coherent sentence. A heavy, deflated sigh tore from his chest.
"Haaah... Right, well. I didn't expect a masterpiece on the first try."
He hadn't built it with proper tools or blueprints to begin with. Yet telling himself that this was the natural outcome of using the skill for the very first time offered little consolation. Because Mu-saeng knew the truth better than anyone.
[Did you honestly believe a primitive intellect like yours could master it on the first attempt?]
"That stings, but I suppose you're right."
The skill description had stated it plainly: outcomes varied based on the user's Knowledge and Magic stats.
Even with my stats doubled through Steel Bone, this is all I get? Or does it calculate purely off base stats? Tch.
Even using a core personally crafted by Sorcerer Maia... Even using salvage that was bona fide magitech wreckage... This was the miserable result.
The chassis couldn't withstand the core's output? No, it's not just that. The whole thing was fundamentally botched from start to finish.
Mu-saeng sank into contemplation. Wahsh hovered silently, watching him.
He's sitting right before the idol, entirely lost in thought...?
"Kkwoooo..."
"Kki-gat—"
Agonized shrieks rang out in every direction like a scene from the underworld. Mu-saeng had rigged continuous poison mist sprayers along every bottleneck leading toward the idol, melting the imps into puddles before they could even draw near. Yet he didn't spare them a single glance.
This fellow didn't pay me the slightest mind when driving that primitive vehicle either... His focus runs terrifyingly deep.
Drifting smoothly through the air, Wahsh floated toward the construct. Only its head and torso remained, utterly paralyzed and useless. It was a laughable, pathetic failure. By all rights, it deserved nothing but mockery.
Furthermore, he doesn't fear trial and error. Rather than agonizing fruitlessly, he takes action first. When it goes wrong, he adjusts as he goes...
He didn't wait around for perfection. Attempt. Identify the flaws. Modify. Attempt again. A relentless mindset that repeated until the desired outcome emerged. The sheer drive to undergo trial and error without fearing failure.
As an Administrator of the Tower, Wahsh recognized this all too well.
He's like us. No, even among those wretched bastards ruling atop the Tower, none approached trial and error with such relentless diligence.
This exact mindset and behavioral loop was the quintessential temperament required of a true Tower Administrator.
"Ah, wait a second. I don't actually have to build the damn thing myself, do I?"
Mu-saeng proved it once again.
[Kkwak? What do you mean?]
Wahsh tilted his head. Mu-saeng had run the trial, found the error, and immediately pivoted. What was the best course of action under these circumstances? Which direction yielded the absolute optimal result?
A fragment of magitech left behind by Maia, the Last Sorcerer.
Enables the crafting, operation, maintenance, and dismantling of mana-infused items.
※ Outcomes vary based on Knowledge and Magic stats.
"Can't I just skip the crafting phase and jump straight to operation? Maintenance... well, doing minor field repairs should be easy enough, right?"
His own crafting ability was terrible. But what if he operated something engineered by an expert? Manufacturing a car from raw parts was an absurdly difficult feat. Even with all the components laid out, practically nobody could assemble a vehicle from scratch. Driving one, however? Handling minor roadside fixes when a small fault cropped up was well within reason.
[...Then who do you plan to entrust with crafting it?]
Wahsh immediately pointed out the glaring flaw in his logic. Mu-saeng had already considered that.
"That is the tricky part. There is... Metalline."
The manufacturer's mark stamped upon the artifact he had seized from Korea One Way Group:
Designed by METALLINE.
Currently the largest and most prestigious artifact manufacturing conglomerate in the world. With their technical prowess—capable of forging powered armor functional even within the high-mana density of the Tower—they might possess the craftsmanship to build a proper Guardian.
"Wonder if hauling ten billion won to their doorstep would convince them. Nah, even with that much, they might just show me the door."
Money was the only bottleneck. If he liquidated every artifact hauled out of the 66th Dungeon, could he find another angle? Mu-saeng turned the problem over in his head.
"Ah."
Then another thought struck him. Ten billion?
[Didn't someone offer you an even larger sum, Kim Mu-saeng?]
The figure Wahsh recalled. That staggering number. Geum Soo-ah had explicitly dangled fifteen billion won on the table under various conditions. Yet that wasn't what had just surfaced in Mu-saeng's mind.
"Right, there was that too. But no, that's not what I'm thinking."
[Kkwak? It isn't?]
"Wahsh! The hidden clear condition for this floor was clearing it with the idol damaged to ninety-nine percent, right?"
[Y-Yes, that's true, but why bring that up all of a sudden—]
"Alright. Let's pack this up first."
Mu-saeng approached the Guardian's mangled remains and carefully extracted the core. After securing it inside his Pocket of Anything, he grabbed a sturdy wooden pole from the ground and began ruthlessly bashing the divine idol without hesitation.
[Why do that now?! If you drop it to ninety-nine percent beforehand and even a single stray imp grazes it—]
"Aigoo, who has the patience to wait around for that? If I'm going to do it, I might as well get it over with fast! I'll shave it down to ninety-nine percent myself!"
The 6th floor's hidden condition was to clear the stage with the idol at ninety-nine percent damage. Rationally, any climber would let an imp slip past during the fourth wave, let it whittle down the idol's durability under close supervision, slaughter the monster, and quickly bring the structure to ninety-nine percent right before the clear triggered. Mu-saeng had zero interest in dragging things out that long.
Thwack! Thwack! Crash!
Watching Mu-saeng relentlessly pulverize the sacred pillar, Wahsh glared through his horn-rimmed spectacles with sharp, beady eyes.
[Failing at ninety-nine percent doesn't just mean missing the hidden condition, Kim Mu-saeng! Failing a quest in the Tower means death!]
"I know. You might find it hard to believe, but you see—"
"—among dungeon sherpas, they used to call me the Ace. Because I've never failed a single run."
Sweep through the 6th floor as fast as humanly possible and get out. All for a grander ambition, for a far more definite purpose.
"I need to move quickly so I can slaughter them the very second each wave spawns."
Roughly three hours separated the end of the first wave from the arrival of the next. Not merely around the idol, but throughout the ancient ruins and across every winding path through the enclosing forest...
[...Y-You merciless bastard.]
Across more than three hundred critical choke points, snares and deadfalls of every conceivable design were laid. Clearing the 6th floor was now quite literally a matter of time.