I'll Become a Hypnosis Brainwashing Combatantization Master!

But then, a [Ninja] appeared...!

The ninja showed up and slaughtered every character.

Game over. No—novel over.

Slap a "Completed" tag on the work, and then...?

The settlement per view jumps from 8 won to 10 won!

But in exchange, total views plummet by 90 percent through pure magic!

And just like that, you get one finished adult novel whose author adores hypnosis brainwashing and combatantization more than anything, yet whose actual ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠skill can't even keep up with half of his own feverish daydreams.

Swap the [Ninja] in that sentence for [Tower], and you've just explained the entire current situation.

Borrowing the words of a starfish living in Bikini Bottom by the sea, it would probably sound something like, "Everybody died" (because a Tower suddenly appeared).

After discharge they still drag you into reserve duty for six whole years.

In a Republic of Korea that educates you twice a year at the local community center or administrative welfare office about the pain of forced conscription, they went and created a Hunter Management Agency.

Or maybe a tiny little political scuffle broke out over some ridiculously cushy-looking Hunter Minister post.

On the grounds that the strongest hunter (among National Assembly members) had to sit in the minister's chair?

National Assembly UFC matches happened several times.

For fairness they even went live with a public vote, and the assemblyman who theatrically yanked out the opposition leader's front teeth with his bare fingers seized the minister's seat.

Or maybe every single person—regardless of age, gender, race, religion, or politics—could now summon a bluish holographic window just by saying "Status Window"?

And anyone who'd done military service always had a [Marksmanship] skill sitting in their skill list, even if the grade varied?

There was even a live broadcast on the National Assembly channel of the Defense Minister and other assemblymen getting split clean in half by the fingers of the first Minister of the Korean Hunter Management Agency.

But honestly, stories that boring don't matter, right??

Isn't the far more entertaining scene the one where I'm currently kneeling on asphalt that gleams like a black latex bodysuit—perfectly qualified to be worn by a freshly brainwashed combatant?

"No, fuck, my jobbbbbb?!"

Here's the problem.

What do you do when you suddenly need firepower?

Uh... hmm... bad explanation. Cancel that.

Let me put it a little more specifically.

Not quite "a weird monster appeared in the park!"

Just a moderate amount of force.

So, assuming the person who needs to arrive as fast as possible is someone carrying a gun that can put lead into another person's body...

Who, exactly, can reach Cheonho Park in Cheonho 2-dong, Gangdong-gu, Seoul the fastest while holding a loaded firearm?

1. A soldier.

2. A cop.

3. Let's all think about it together!

It's a little ambiguous, but if you add one extra condition, the answer "cop" starts looking stronger.

"Within one hour."

Let's tweak the question just a bit more.

"Within one hour, what occupation in the Republic of Korea is capable of cleanly clearing a trial that looks, at a glance, like a first floor—where you're dead certain hostile goblins will pop out the moment you step inside—without taking any damage?"

Cops? Soldiers?

Sorry, both wrong.

The correct answer is right here!

The reserve forces commander who, with nothing better to do on an even hotter summer day, was sitting companionably in front of the Cheonho Park fountain wearing his uniform and carrying a loaded K5 pistol. Kim Chang-rok, sir.

Not my parents or anyone I was particularly close with—more of a slightly awkward relationship.

As a military veteran whose Status Window, unlike those of certain half-sliced assemblymen, actually includes a [Marksmanship] skill?

I proudly showed up for fifth-year reserve training with my neighborhood friends, only to get reported for non-attendance?

I diligently went through the police investigation, got sent over with a "no crime" opinion from the station, and then?

I filed a counter-complaint of my own. A relationship of love and hate, you could say.

Every year innocent victims appeared, protest complaints piled up until even the Defense Ministry—known as an iron rice bowl—finally answered that he was scheduled for replacement: reserve forces commander Kim Chang-rok.

...And that is exactly why he became the gallery master of the Reserve Forces Gallery that treats reserve commanders as the main enemy.

It was simple.

The Tower that suddenly poofed into existence would explode if you didn't clear the first floor within one hour.

And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it exploded pretty wide.

Naturally the Tower sitting at the center of the blast remained perfectly fine.

Cheonho-dong in Gangdong-gu was saved by the sudden action of a certain reserve forces commander who had been sitting on a park bench out of sheer boredom reading a fantasy martial-arts tower-climbing novel...

But the areas where the police moved snappily and threw up "No Entry" police lines around the unidentified, unpermitted illegal structure...

Boom.

That's how it went.

In the Republic of Korea where Status Windows and Towers had appeared—I don't know about other countries, but at least Seoul could be split cleanly in two.

The districts where diligent public authority had strung up police tape...

And the districts where someone curious enough had gone inside and successfully killed a single goblin.

A profession whose Status Window displayed not only Marksmanship but also a Treatment skill.

As a nurse, the workplace I had been commuting to—a urology clinic—was located in the reasonably thriving neighborhood of Jamsil...

After the massive explosion that hit one hour after the Tower appeared.

The hospital phone line? Completely dead.

The manager's personal number? No answer.

The desk deputy? We weren't close enough, so I left a KakaoTalk message, but the "1" never disappeared.

The radiologic technologist hyung I got along with? That guy lived in Pungnap-dong, so he was fine.

The conclusion I reached:

"No, fuck, my jobbbbbb?! My youth employment subsidyyyyyy? Unghiiit???"

After the Towers that throw a tantrum and explode if you leave them on idle for even one hour appeared.

Most people lost their lives.

I, Kim Hyun-woo, lost my job.

...Which, of course, was only the setup for climbing higher.

And at last, I found my true place.

Tomorrow was payday,

next month was the day I received the youth employment subsidy,

and I had even sent a fifty-thousand-won café cake gift card on the deputy's birthday just to stay on his good side!

Yet I succeeded in shaking it all off without a single regret and standing back up.

Naturally I refunded the unused gift card.

"Yes yes. Intramuscular injection going in. It's going to hurt a lot."

"Um... Doctor? Why does an intramuscular injection hurt?"

"Because I'm bad at giving them."

The Status Window was equal for everyone.

Awakening, just like in the web novels tagged Tower Climbing and Hunter, was a tiny bit more equal for certain other people.

[Boring narration about how the awakened people got super strong and started climbing the Towers.]

Of course the first hunter of the Republic of Korea—the National Assembly member turned Minister of the Korean Hunter Management Agency—still sat at rank one on the climbing leaderboard...

But whether the natural phenomenon that had scattered Towers across Earth like thousand-won Daiso toothpicks had already run a few raids itself,

or whether it had been kicked and ignored for being a "healer freeloader," something resembling a Healer Quota System existed.

Simply put—or explained in real detail—the Healer Quota System.

Awakened people could only receive treatment from someone who possessed a treatment skill.

People who used to be doctors or nurses still had passive treatment skills on their Status Windows, so you might think nothing had changed... but a lot had changed.

Either chug expensive potions, or get healed by someone else.

I still don't fully understand the part where they throw a tantrum and explode if you don't clear them within a set time.

But at least I understood the psychology of the people proudly flashing their Rank D hunter IDs while dripping blood at the treatment center built right next to the Tower standing in the middle of Cheonho Park.

Rice farming... no. Resource farming.

Maybe they're the same thing.

Sell the potions you farmed off the lucky first-wave hunters who awakened well,

and if you're hurt badly enough that bandages won't cut it, go get your body patched up at one of the treatment centers the government is running at a reasonable scale.

Isn't that how most Rank E and Rank D hunters are making their living?

That's what the notice posts and info threads on the Hunter Gallery said, anyway.

Wooo. Rice rice rice.

No. Potion potion potion.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kim Hyun-woo. Are the other staff members very busy right now?"

"Why?"

"You've already missed the syringe needle five times just for one transfusion."

Ah. A complaint.

Intramuscular injections, where you just divide the butt into four zones and stab one of them, boast a glorious 25 percent success rate... so they're kind of easy.

But when someone carefully clutches a potion that dropped for drinking and comes in wanting an IV or a transfusion?

You have to slide the needle precisely into a vein... and that part is actually pretty hard.

I even got told that her nephew who works at a Korean medicine clinic could stick it better, but what can you do.

"Are you looking down on me because I'm Rank D?"

Explain that even Rank D awakened hunters have tough veins so the needle doesn't go in easily

→ takes a long time

→ the waiting people split into two camps

→ annoying

→ if I lose the argument my world collapses

→ if it turns into a physical fight I really do get split in half

"There's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no one else but me."

Then leave

→ ends quickly

→ sticks in the memory

→ probability of losing the argument converges to zero

→ if it turns into a physical fight I still get split in half

"What... did... you say?"

"Now now. Take a good look. Rank D hunter what's-her-name... no. Hunter Kim Su-hui."

Instead of adding another annoying sentence, I decided to show her directly.

I pointed at the staff-only lockers next to the hunters who were lying there receiving transfusions while tenderly hugging lower-grade potions wrapped in towels like teddy bears.

There were tons of metal cabinets, but the only locker with a nameplate was Kim Hyun-woo's—just one!

The reason a treatment center sitting right next to a Tower where a culture of treating human lives as disposable was unfolding in real time—specifically a government-run treatment center—had no nurses or doctors with the "Treatment" passive skill was simple!

Because the Tower wanted the Healer Quota System.

The grade of the treatment skill was decided by university graduation scores, or career experience, or maybe both.

Thinking about it that way, the fact that the letter grade I received most often in college became my treatment skill grade was... kind of understandable.

...Haaah.

And by now most of the people who used to be called nurses but were now called healers had already been scouted by the guilds that appeared exactly like tower-climbing clichés.

Blue Dragon Guild... I thought the naming sense was trash, but considering the age of the hero who saved Cheonho-dong, well... maybe that tracks.

Doctors either joined tower-climbing parties as high-grade healers or opened hunter-exclusive medical facilities. One or the other.

If there was an exception?

A urology-clinic nurse who lost his job in the Jamsil Tower mega-explosion but still refused to go back to three-shift ward work no matter how hard he looked—now working at a treatment center?

Of course there had been grade-7, grade-8, and grade-9 nursing civil servants dispatched from the Gangdong-gu public health center. But every single one of them left the moment they finished the minimum civil-service term—netorare... no, the minimum service period.

So did scout offers never come to Kim Hyun-woo, the sole office-and-practical staff member of the Cheonho Park treatment center? You might ask.

Even if I'm trash-tier, it wasn't that bad.

I had cut a few... a lot of deals with professors to give me a D instead of making me retake the class, but I still received offers to join parties or guilds.

The conditions were the problem.

Night shifts? Nights?

I took the Jamsil urology job specifically because I hated three-shift ward work, and now what?

Plus the constant possibility of getting "then die" mid-shift?

There was a non-zero chance of being betrayed by the female hunters I trusted during a climb (big chests—so they must be called tits: ★important), finding a hidden piece, and turning my life around...

But thanks to magic stones electricity bills had gotten cheap,

and a guy who never grew up precious like me?

Would it really be right to leave a house where I can blast the air conditioner all day long for hypnosis-brainwashing adult games?

Absolutely not.

And so Kim Hyun-woo, living next to Cheonho Park and working at the treatment center next to Cheonho Park on his own schedule and clocking out whenever he felt like it,

had only one reason for walking into a convenience store with his friends at dawn.

"Never search 'Molotov cocktail' on Namu Wiki."

Kim Hyun-woo, the Cheonho-dong-resident nurse who lost his job in the Jamsil Tower mega-explosion.

"Never buy a set of soju bottles and towels."

Kang Gi-hun, my friend living in Pungnap-dong—the guy whose life got twisted after graduating from aircraft maintenance during the corona... no, Wuhan pneumonia crisis, only for the company he worked so hard to rejoin to get wiped out by the Jamsil Tower mega-explosion.

"Never mix finely chopped soap and sugar in a 1:2 ratio into them."

Lee Seong-jun, living in Amsa-dong—the son of a department manager at one of those two-syllable Korean conglomerates that novels always rename by changing one character to Chilseong or Hanseong—who just came along because he was bored.

"Never……!"

"No matter what happens……!"

"Imagine throwing them at the goblins that only exist two or fewer on the first floor of a Tower and die to clear it!"

When high-school friends gather, even after ten years, the shit they pull never changes.