The Smiling Man
The warped space unfurled once more with a broad sweep, revealing the interior of the Tower that Seong Yujin had seen once before.
The distance from floor to ceiling was roughly a hundred meters. As for the exact floor area, he had no idea. Even he had never fully explored this place they called the Tutorial Floor. Still, there was no mistaking its sheer scale—so vast it defied any easy sense of measure.
About the size of a small-to-medium city, maybe?
Raking through memories of the first round, that estimate felt about right. Or larger.
Yujin didn't panic. He simply scanned his surroundings. Other people stood scattered about—men and women who, like him, had been forcibly dragged into the Tower by the Akasha System. Every face wore the same blank bewilderment, the same total failure to grasp what had just happened to them.
Yeah. That reaction makes sense.
He had looked exactly the same the first time around. Not anymore.
"What the hell? Where is this?"
"W-who are you people?"
"What are you doing?! How did you—!"
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
Chaos of the purest grade. After a few stunned blinks, the crowd dissolved into screaming, cursing panic. Some of them, swallowed by terror, even started throwing punches at each other. A complete free-for-all.
He understood it, more or less. Still—
Still goddamn noisy.
Yujin frowned but never stopped observing.
Exactly the same as back then.
One hundred people shared this space with him. Later it would come out that Korea alone held over two hundred Tutorial Floors just like this one. Simple math put the total number of people "chosen" by the Akasha System at around twenty thousand—dozens of times that once you counted the rest of the world.
And every last one of them was useless.
Whatever the selection criteria had been, they clearly weren't strict. Of all those players who climbed the Tower, only Yujin had ever reached the top.
A bitter laugh rose unbidden, but he couldn't afford to keep living in the past.
Looks like I've still got a little time. Let's check the important things first.
The moment he muttered status window inside his head, the Akasha System painted his information across his vision.
■ Name:『Seong Yujin』
■ Level:『1』
■ Trait:『King of All Arms [S]』
■ Alignment:『Neutral』
■ Title:『None』
■ Skills:『Chronos's Hourglass [EX]』, 『Life's Lantern [S]』
Huh.
This was definitely different from the first round. The trait and skills he had earned by killing the Apocalypse and clearing the top of the Tower were still with him. Everything he had built himself—levels, traits, skills—had been wiped clean.
What the hell is the rule here?
He wrung his brain for an answer and, unsurprisingly, came up empty. Yujin had always been better with his body than with his head.
Screw it. Knowing the reason doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm better off than I was the first time.
He scratched the back of his head and turned to the new gifts he had been dying to inspect.
Let's see…
『King of All Arms [S]』
Allows the user to handle every weapon with mastery.
An S-grade trait. The description was short—typically blunt, almost rude. Even so, Yujin's eyes went wide.
"Holy shit."
The words slipped out before he could stop them, but the panicking crowd paid him no attention at all.
This is insane.
He cast a quick glance around, then let the corner of his mouth curl upward. The phrase "every weapon" barely mattered; he could already handle most things. The real prize was that single word: mastery.
The Akasha System was never generous with its evaluations. If anything, it was stingy. Even after he had solo-cleared the 60th-floor boss, the best the System had offered was "clumsy." And now it was handing out "mastery"? He had never seen that modifier once in his entire first climb—not even after killing the Apocalypse. With a rating like that, he would be able to wield a brand-new weapon at least as well as a high-level-100 player.
S-grade really is different.
Across ten years he had never owned anything better than A-grade, and even those had numbered only three. He had heard rumors that S-grade traits and skills existed, but this was the first time he had ever seen one.
Fucking beautiful.
He forced down the excited hammering of his heart and moved on to the skills.
『Life's Lantern [S]』
At the moment of standing on the brink of death, projects all forgotten memories of a lifetime into reality for 15 minutes. Limited to a single use.
"Uh…"
He didn't grasp it instantly. But ten years of player experience had long since trained him to parse the System's deliberately unhelpful wording. He cranked his sluggish brain into gear and pieced the meaning together.
"Wait—are you serious?"
Shock flooded his face, bigger even than when he had read the S-grade trait.
If I'm right about this…
Calling it a jackpot would be an understatement.
I can use my first-round power?
Only fifteen minutes. A one-time skill. Yet its value was beyond words. The strength he had forged in the first timeline had been enough to make even the Apocalypse—an over-level boss—turn and flee. Being able to call on that power even once meant he could walk away from at least one certain death.
Not that I plan on needing it.
Still, depending on when and how he used it, the applications were endless. One idea had already sparked to life.
"Hmm."
Reward check complete. Chronos's Hourglass [EX] needed no introduction, and the other two were pure gold. An extra item would have been the cherry on top, but wishing for that was greed.
This time I can grow faster and stronger.
Along the way he would also pick up a few useful people and raise them properly.
"Good."
Having roughly sorted his thoughts, Yujin nodded and swept the room again. The chaos still hadn't settled; it would quiet a little only after the Tutorial Floor's manager appeared. In the meantime he scanned faces, hoping to spot anyone he knew.
"Any decent ones get summoned to the same floor as me?"
A handful of names flickered through his mind—the least useless among the countless useless.
First-tier, no question…
The Sword Empress. She had fallen on the 64th floor, yet even Yujin had respected her blade. If she hadn't chosen to sacrifice herself to save the others, she might have reached the 100th floor with him.
And the Battle Fiend.
A maniac who lived for combat. The nickname was a little lame, but the skill was genuine—he had soloed the 70th-floor boss. Mutual destruction in the end, but still.
Battle Fiend's worth keeping.
More faces surfaced: America's Zygote, China's Flame Emperor, Japan's Blade Sovereign, and so on—his personal first-tier recruitment list. Unfortunately none of them were here.
"Tch."
Of course luck wouldn't stretch that far. What were the odds of sharing a Tutorial Floor with any of them among more than two hundred floors?
Still, maybe a few of the ones who died around the 80th floor?
The five-hundred-strong death squad that had banded together for the climb. Not quite first-tier, but solid enough to raise. They had clawed their way that high, after all. The problem was—
I don't recognize a single face.
He had never bothered learning their names or looks. Back then the death squad had meant nothing to him; he had been too busy exploring a hidden zone he had lucked into on the 79th floor.
Should've paid more attention.
Regret now was pointless. All it did was remind him how thoroughly broken his social skills had been.
No choice. I'll figure them out as I climb.
Sooner or later the ascent would throw them together. He would just have to recruit them then.
Then, abruptly—
"Hm?"
One face looked familiar.
"Where have I seen him…"
The memory refused to surface, yet he was certain he had seen the man before. Mid-to-late twenties, hair neatly slicked back, wine-red suit tailored to his frame—the unmistakable look of rich-kid money. He was smiling as he watched middle-aged men beat each other in the middle of the panic.
…Smiling?
These people had just been yanked into the Tower against their will. How many could stand there smiling and rubbernecking a fight? Only someone who had regressed like Yujin… and that was impossible. Chronos's Hourglass [EX] had been awarded solely to the man who cleared the 100th floor.
"What kind of sociopath—"
Ah. He remembered.
Most players aimed to conquer the Tower. A few, however, existed only to unleash their buried desires. People called them villains, and the ten worst of the lot were known as the Ten Evils.
"Jin Taeho."
The man in Yujin's sights was none other than "the Smiling Man," one of those Ten Evils.
"So he was on my floor."
Between the 1st and 40th floors the bastard had murdered more than two hundred seventy people—always targeting the weak. In the end the Sword Empress had cut off his head, but far too many players had already died by then.
"That fucking bastard."
If he hadn't slaughtered so many, maybe more people would have survived to fight the Apocalypse. An overstatement, perhaps, yet not entirely wrong. The body count of the Ten Evils alone ran into five figures. Had those players lived long enough to grow strong, Yujin might not have been forced to watch the world end alone.
Footsteps.
Yujin started walking.
Get stronger. Pick up kids and raise them carefully.
And one more task had just been added to the list.
The Ten Evils, or Ten Pieces of Shit—whatever.
Round them all up and rip their heads off.
He cut through the panicking crowd at a steady clip and stopped in front of Jin Taeho. The man's eyes flicked toward him.
"…May I help you? Do you have business with me?"
The smile vanished, replaced by careful, polite concern. Textbook sociopath—the expression shift was flawless.
"Me? Name's Seong Yujin."
Yujin answered casually and jerked his chin at the man.
"You're Jin Taeho. Right?"
"How do you know my name…"
Confirmed. No more hesitation needed.
He hadn't committed the crimes yet? So he was still innocent? Ethics, morality—
I don't give a single shit about any of that.
If the bastard wanted to plead injustice, he could do it in front of King Yama after he was dead.
"Hey."
Yujin's right hand shot out. Level-1 flesh, nothing more—yet Jin Taeho never even tried to dodge. The move had simply been too unexpected.
"Huh?"
In a blink the Smiling Man's throat was locked in Yujin's grip. A bewildered noise escaped him. Yujin squeezed.
Crunch!
The wet snap of a larynx being crushed filled the air; Jin Taeho's eyes bulged. Yujin could have explained why the man had to die right then, but he didn't bother. Talking was too much trouble.
"Just die."