I'm a Ridiculously Strong Awakener
The official car carrying the two of them pulled away from the helipad. Minjun turned his head a little and looked out the window—a dense forest of towers, a downtown laid out in clean, meticulous order. Come to think of it, this is my first time in Seoul. He watched the scenery whip past, eyes bright with wonder.
Busan, where he lived, was a metropolitan city in its own right, with a bustling downtown of its own. Even so, the sheer scale of the capital of Korea set his chest fluttering.
"Mr. Kim Minjun."
Kwon Taesan, seated right beside him, called his name as if he had something weighty to say.
"Ah, yeah."
Minjun, still sightseeing out the window, turned his head. Faced with the Association President's rather grave expression, he chose his words with care.
"I will ask you directly. The player of Extreme Difficulty who has recently thrown the world into an uproar... that would be you, would it not, Mr. Kim Minjun?"
It came in from a completely unexpected angle. Inside, he was rattled, but he did his best not to let it show. Why is he asking this now? He stole a glance at the man's face. This wasn't some casual probe. The face was full of certainty.
"...Why would you think that?"
"As I am sure you are already aware, Extreme Difficulty in the Tower of Trials is uncharted territory. Not a single ranker or Awakener anywhere in the world has ever challenged it."
As if he had been waiting for the question, Kwon went on with a faint smile.
"An Awakener climbing a difficulty so absurd would, without question, be a being possessed of special ability and power that shatter everything commonly accepted as fact."
"So you're saying that special being is me?"
"Is that not the natural inference? When you underwent your mana examination, an incident without precedent in the entire history of hunters worldwide occurred. The measuring device went berserk."
At those words, something unfamiliar prickled in Minjun's chest. The Association President held power in Korea that no one could afford to ignore, and a heavyweight like that was now laying out, at length, exactly why Minjun was special. An inexplicable sense of superiority tugged the corner of his mouth upward.
"If you're going to say it with that much confidence, it'd be rude of me to keep making excuses."
He held his expression as humble as he could and spoke evenly.
"Yeah. That's right. I'm the player currently climbing Extreme Difficulty."
"Haha. As I thought... my prediction was correct."
At so clean an admission, the President's eyes trembled. The car eased to a smooth stop with a soft screech of tires, and when Minjun stepped slowly outside, his eyes went wide all over again.
This was the Korean Hunter Association Headquarters. A building of staggering scale filled his entire field of vision. It wasn't merely splendid, or cool. It carried the overwhelming force of a medieval palace fused with a cutting-edge scientific installation.
"This way, if you please."
He followed President Kwon Taesan and his secretary. After passing through several rounds of strict security, they arrived at a laboratory at the very heart of headquarters. Whoa. Feels like I just walked onto a movie set. He looked around at the wonders with curious eyes—enormous experimental apparatuses that looked complicated at a glance, and between them elite researchers, the sort who looked like they'd gone to Seoul universities at the very least, hurrying back and forth.
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kim Minjun. I am Oh Yoonseong, Chief Researcher at the Korean Hunter Association Headquarters."
A tall young researcher came over and greeted him.
"Allow me to briefly explain the special precision examination you will be undergoing."
He unpacked the complicated magitech terminology as simply as he could. Yeah. I don't understand a single word. Regrettably, Minjun failed to comprehend even one syllable of the explanation. Figuring it was basically just a physical, he listened lightly and nodded along as if he understood.
"The examination is complete. Thank you for your trouble."
"Ah... yeah."
Finally over. Minjun stepped out of the examination device, which looked like a transparent glass tube, and under the guidance of the researcher who had just run the test, he caught his breath in a lounge. He was leisurely topping up his sugar with the finest snacks prepared in advance when the door clicked and Oh Yoonseong came in, beaming.
"Mr. Kim Minjun, we will be moving you to the next examination room."
"Huh? Didn't the exam just finish?"
That exhausting thing, again?
"The examination we will be conducting this time is for the golem who accompanied you. Charlotte."
"Charlotte?"
Munching on a cookie, he followed. As they walked a high-ceilinged corridor, he heard how this test would proceed, and the summary was dead simple. The Association would pit a prepared monster against Charlotte, then measure the combat power and energy generated in the fight.
"This way."
What awaited them was a massive mechanical apparatus fitted with an enormous door.
"This live examination will be conducted inside an instant dungeon generated by this device."
The moment a hand touched the control panel, a raucous mechanical whine rose and the door swung wide. A blue mana gate rippled, shedding a faint glow.
"Charlotte, hold on a second before you go in."
"What is it, Master?"
Minjun stepped close and whispered something at her ear.
"...Anal... virgin... sex."
"......!!"
Charlotte's pupils blew wide, as if they might burst.
"U-understood! I will devote everything I have, so you must keep the promise you just made, Master!"
"Obviously. A man doesn't go back on his word."
"I will go and cut them all down this instant!"
Fighting spirit blazing, she strode into the gate with proud, imposing steps.
"M-Mr. Kim Minjun? What in the world did you just..."
"Well. There's that sort of thing."
Don't try to find out. If you know, you'll get hurt. He offered the curious researcher nothing but a meaningful smile.
"Ah, you've arrived."
The front of the control room was packed with enormous monitors. President Kwon Taesan and his secretary, already waiting, welcomed him warmly.
"Real-time feed from inside the instant dungeon is connected!"
With a flash, the large monitors—black until a moment ago—lit up all at once. Across dozens of split screens, Charlotte's imposing figure appeared from multiple angles.
"The more I look, the more astonishing it is. That fluid movement, the fine texture of the skin. No matter how I look at her, I cannot believe she is a golem."
Oh Yoonseong stared at Charlotte on the screen as if appreciating the artwork of the century, eyes full of scholarly fervor and fascination. Then he whipped his head around toward Minjun.
"Mr. Kim Minjun, did you use some manner of special material when you created her?"
"It is hardly unreasonable for Chief Oh to be so excited. In truth, I am curious as well—the secret method by which you alone, Mr. Minjun, created a golem perfectly indistinguishable from a human."
As if he had seized an excellent opportunity, the President, standing beside him, slipped the question in with perfect ease.
"......"
But Minjun's mouth did not open easily. His face said he was in serious trouble, and he clamped his lips shut like a mute who had swallowed honey. No, think about this like a normal person. The truth is Charlotte was made from a real doll I bought so I could get off. How the hell am I supposed to say that? If he spilled a truth that made even him dizzy just thinking about it, what came next was as obvious as watching a fire.
"Ahem..."
He felt cold sweat running down his spine. After a couple of pointless coughs and a long moment of agony, he forced an answer out.
"Th-that's classified, tied to my unique ability... answering would be a little difficult."
"Ah, I see. A miraculous secret art of that kind could hardly exist without its circumstances, or its constraints. I will not commit the discourtesy of prying too deeply."
Kwon Taesan wore a faintly disappointed look and took a step back. Whew. I almost died a social death. Minjun let out a deep sigh of relief on the inside.
"Live examination, begin!"
Minjun's gaze went to the main monitor at the center. Charlotte stood in a firm stance, leveling her sword with a chill edge, and before her eyes a swarm of grotesquely shaped goblins appeared. They'd said the difficulty would rise step by step. Stage one was so obvious there was no need to watch, and it was over in the blink of an eye—a sharp slash, a clean cut. The stages that followed weren't much different. Compared to the monsters he had faced on Extreme Difficulty, the things here were far too fragile. They died almost the instant they appeared, not lasting even a second.
"Th-this won't do! Release every restriction immediately and raise the difficulty to the maximum!"
Judging that they would never get a proper result, Chief Oh—startled as he watched the monitor—barked urgent orders at the researchers in the control room. A mechanical whine rose, and in that moment the space around Charlotte on the screen rippled red.
"Kuoohhhhh—!!"
A moment later, what descended before her eyes with a rending roar was a wyvern, a lesser kin of dragon. Th-that's actually dangerous, isn't it? Can Charlotte even win? A ferocious pressure came through even from the other side of the screen, and worry surged up in Minjun first. But the moment he saw her clearly, it melted away like snow.
Her eyes didn't waver an inch, even before the massive wyvern. Her sword was thrust out straight, as if she meant to end it in a single stroke, and her stance was rooted in the ground, unshakable.
"Kuoohhh—!!"
The wyvern opened its hideous maw wide and dove. Fully intending to swallow her—so much smaller than itself—in a single gulp, it plummeted toward the ground. But Charlotte, sword in hand and posture lowered, didn't so much as twitch. It wasn't that she was afraid. She was simply waiting, quietly, for the moment: the perfect golden timing, when the most fatal damage could land. The very instant that enormous shadow reached the tip of her nose, she swung. With a sharp, ripping sound, a blade-flash bursting pure white cleaved the wyvern, and it collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud—a hunk of meat split clean in two.
"......"
"......"
An examination ended in a single stroke, to an absurd degree. Inside the control room, a silence deep enough to choke hung in the air. In that shocking stillness, only one person kept his calm. Heh. Now that's my golem. Minjun looked at Charlotte, who had put on a splendid show, with deep satisfaction, and as she slid her sword back into its sheath with a matter-of-fact motion, he clapped for her.