Resignation

I stepped onto the seventh floor, and the world had changed around me.

Right. This was the one they said was built like some giant kingdom.

A vast kingdom raised inside a volcano. A gate of black metal, fifty meters high, with lava falls pouring down on either side. It was overwhelming before I even crossed the threshold.

Some of the analysts had gone so far as to say the place was probably tied to the dwarves.

Awfully quiet, though.

That aside, the people I was looking for were nowhere in sight. Word was the floor was a war zone right now.

I'll make a few more loops. I'll find you. Just wait.

Out, and back in. Not this one either. Out again. I kept at it, and then—

Kill messages, popping up out of nowhere. And every last one of them, dead at a Chinese hunter's hands.

......So this is the place.

Hunternet hadn't been exaggerating. It was a mess in here, the kill feed stacking line after line. Good. In that case—

Now where are they hiding.

I swept a look around. Where I was standing now—

The foundry district?

THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.

Nothing like the entrance I'd seen at first. Enormous blast furnaces, still running, and even standing still the heat slammed into me.

Pat-pat-pat-pat!

"Run! We have to run!"

"The Chinese who were outside the castle—they're coming!"

"What in the world is going on!"

Japanese hunters, just then, breaking into view. If what they were shouting was true...

So you lot were outside.

Okay. Location confirmed. I moved.

Once I'd closed enough of the distance, I brought a burning rain down on their heads.

SHAAAAA—

"Hm."

Something was off. The kill feed was popping just fine, and yet... those names weren't anywhere in it.

I've seen them so many times they're burned into my eyes, and they're not here at all. Did I only take out the other Chinese?

So they'd weathered my attack? Off the back of those Heroic-grade items?

A flutter of cloth.

That was when it happened. The cloak snapping in the air. A shadow sliding into motion.

RUMBLE—

And with it, a vibration rolling through the ground. Ah. So this was that option? The Shadow of Disaster option? It had cast Sinkhole in my place.

KRA-KOOOOOOM!

The sound that followed was enormous. They'd said thirty percent of the power, and it really was just that. Only the stretch around the castle gate came down, like the entrance itself had been punched open.

And the messages that followed. Yeah. These were the ones. They'd been caught in Sinkhole.

All right, then.

I took the gear everyone had made such a fuss about. I wanted to look it over immediately, but first this place needed cleaning up.

Gulp. Gulp.

Not a lowest-grade mana potion. A low-grade one. Not ten percent back—twenty. I sipped it slowly and turned the problem over.

Where do I start bringing it down.

I mapped out how to sink the volcanic giant kingdom.

Shanghai, China.

The hunters who had entered the seventh floor came back.

"......So you've returned."

The first to arrive were the bait hunters. In other words, the ones carrying junk.

"Yes. He showed up."

"I see."

Only one thing left. Dealing with JUNE. The guild master waited in silence.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

That was when more of them returned—the ones who had gone in equipped.

"......The result?"

He checked at once. Had they done it, or not?

"......"

"......"

"......"

Dead silence. The guild master tilted his head.

"......Why isn't anyone talking?"

"Th-the thing is..."

"We don't even... know how it happened..."

"I can't... remember..."

The guild master's face hardened by degrees. ......Surely not. It couldn't be.

His eyes slid over them. Something was off. Why did they look so light?

"......Where is all of your gear?"

"P-pardon?"

"What? Hey! Where did it go!"

"I—I definitely had it on me!"

No equipment. They had come back practically bare, and they themselves hadn't even realized it.

"I-I definitely had it! A rain of fire poured out of the sky! And with the shield you gave us, we blocked it perfectly!"

"That's right! None of us took a scratch from that attack! And then we...... wait. What did we do after that?"

"We held out until the effect was nearly gone, and...... when I opened my eyes, I was here?"

"????"

What kind of nonsense was this. Had these bastards lost their minds.

"......Can you not speak straight?"

"I-it's true! We definitely blocked it, and we were just about to attack, so why are we...... here?"

"I think the ground shook, too, all of a sudden..."

"What? The ground shook?"

Huh. Hold on. This sounded a lot like the reports from the sixth floor.

The ground shook. When I came to, I was outside. Which means...

There was only one answer. These men had been taken down by JUNE, and so thoroughly they couldn't even get their heads straight. Which meant—

......No. Don't tell me he took every piece of gear they had equipped!

One of the Tower's rules. Kill an opponent, and you claim their bag. But crush them with overwhelming power, and every piece of equipment they were wearing is seized as well.

"......"

Even so, the odds of that seemed low. They were climbing the same floor—how wide could the gap really be? It would be another matter if an ordinary S-rank were slaughtering F-ranks.

What hit these men was definitely his second skill. Which means that power is monstrous. In the end, even the Heroic-grade items...... all of them, taken......

Thud.

The guild master of the Heavenly Dragon Gate sank to his knees, his face blank.

The seventh floor.

After I'd dealt with the Chinese, I didn't leave.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

Okay. Mana was full. In that case—

RUMBLE!

KRA-KOOOOOOM—!!

And the target?

A grinding roar. CRASH. KRA-KOOM! Dead center of the kingdom. The barracks district and the foundry district—both of them caved straight in. And that wasn't all.

The kill messages kept climbing without a pause. The number, though, was a little on the low side.

Three casts in total so far, counting the one the cloak had used. And still only a little over four thousand.

The cast point was different from the first time—I didn't sink the whole floor—and the Chinese had already killed plenty besides.

First, there was the limit of the designated range. Coming up to the seventh floor, it wasn't only the scenery that had changed. The floor itself was several times larger, of course, and the number of people who could enter had jumped by a full eight thousand.

I'd had no choice but to narrow it, given where I was standing. Even at maximum range, wiping a place this vast in a single cast would have been impossible. It was that huge.

Well. Even so, this isn't bad. And the kill count wasn't what I was after, anyway.

Truth was, kills hadn't been the goal this time. First had been the Chinese hunters' items. Those, of course, I'd already taken.

The next goal was materials. As expected, I'd picked up a few. With these, I ought to be able to craft.

A flutter—

That was when it happened. The cloak moving on its own. A shadow stretching long. And then—

SHAAAAA!!

Fire Rain, cast by itself. A rain of fire poured down beyond Sinkhole's reach. Thanks to that...

Okay. Event monster down too. I could head out now. Time to clock in.

I was back in the parking lot. The time was 8:46. Hm. I ought to get going soon.

Maybe I'll just check the items first.

Still, I should look at what needed looking at. I opened my inventory at once and went through what had come in.

"Whoa. What is this?"

I looked over the Heroic-grade items. Five in total, and every last one of them was ridiculous. That shield in particular was something else.

Invincible for five seconds? And it applies to allies around the caster, too?

So that's how they'd tanked Fire Rain. Sinkhole would have been useless against it, though. Invincible or not, the ground was dropping out from under them...

The sword's good. So are the armor and the charm-type pieces.

Everything else was high-level too. The only thing I could actually use, though, was the shield. The rest meant nothing to me.

So what was I supposed to do with them? Only one answer. Sell them.

I contacted my best client, a government official. There was a reason for going that route.

Post them openly on the auction house and the Chinese will just buy them right back.

I didn't want that. I hadn't taken the stuff for nothing.

The government was different, though. Sell them this way, and Korean hunters could get their hands on them. Good for me. Good for Korea.

The reply came back right on the dot. And with it, payment for the materials from last time.

......Five hundred million?

I hadn't even sold all of it. Just in case, I'd kept some back for myself. And that was still five hundred million won...

Making money like this is no joke.

Sums in the hundreds of millions were starting to feel trivial. In the old days, ten years of saving might have gotten me to three hundred million. These days, one trip into the Tower and I was dealing in hundreds of millions.

I got to work, handled the usual tasks, and took a short break.

Still no price on the Heroic-grade items. Figures. Those aren't the kind of things that get settled quickly.

I waited quietly for the notification. It was taking longer than I'd expected.

"Ahem. Say, Assistant Manager Jeonghwan?"

That was when Manager Kim came up beside me, quiet as anything. No—Dept Head Kim, now.

"Yes? What is it?"

"Nothing major. Dept Head Choi mentioned she'd passed the Team 2 hunter management roster over to you, Assistant Manager Jeonghwan. That right?"

The hunter management roster. The client list, in other words. It was the most basic document in this company's work, and the most essential—without that roster in hand, you couldn't do a thing. That was how much it mattered.

"Yes. I received it not long ago."

"You did? Perfect. Hand it over to Supervisor Mina."

"......Excuse me? The management roster? But, Manager, that's normally something a department-head-level manager is supposed to hold, isn't it? I'm only keeping it because the people above me are about to resign. And you're telling me to give it to Supervisor Mina?"

It was absurd. This was the team's core document, and he wanted it in a supervisor's hands?

"Ah, we've decided that's how it'll be from now on. You know as well as I do that I'm moving up to General Dept Head. Which means I've got far too much on my plate. The work has to be divided."

"Then I'll keep managing Team 2 the way things are. If you'd like, I can cover Team 1's roster as well."

"N-no, no. I'll handle Team 1 myself."

Hadn't he just said he was busy? The intent was obvious at a glance.

He keeps Team 1 firmly in his own hands, and hands only Team 2's roster to a supervisor on Team 1?

A greedy man to begin with. From the look of it, he meant to gut Team 2's influence and jerk them around however he pleased. ......What a cheap way to play it.

"Well. Sure."

But fine. Let him. In the past I would have fought it somehow—lose this, and it was as good as losing my leverage. I didn't care anymore, though. It didn't matter to me whether I stayed here or not.

"Hah, that's our Assistant Manager Jeonghwan. Good. Then when you hand it over, make sure the transition's thorough, too."

"......Hold on. The transition? That's something Team 1 ought to handle themselves. Why would I be doing it?"

"......"

This guy was trying to slide the work onto me again, nice and quiet. Taking the core documents and the handover on top of them? A person ought to have some shame.

"No, Assistant Manager Jeonghwan. Did what I just said sound like a request to you? You've got it wrong. It's not a request. It's a notice. You do know I'm the General Dept Head now, don't you?"

"......"

What was this guy even saying.

"Ah, right, slipped my mind. Without the hunter management roster, the workload drops quite a bit, doesn't it? Then for this round of salary talks, we'll just say Team 2 isn't part of them. Everyone's going to have so much free time, after all. Team 1's about to get extremely busy."

Oh. So this was the excuse for not raising their pay. And Team 1 would get a bigger bump instead? In other words, cut Team 2 and look after only Team 1.

"What?"

Manager Kim's eyes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠went wide. Shocked or not, it didn't matter. There was nothing left for me to regret.

"I've already organized my work. Look through this and there shouldn't be any issues. Sort out the rest yourselves. I'm leaving."

"W-wait. Assistant Manager Jeonghwan. What are you saying right now? You're just going to walk out like this?"

Manager Kim was thrown. But only for a moment. All at once he folded his arms, and his expression went cold.

"Resign? Fine. Go ahead. But you don't just walk out. The handover has to be perfect. You wait until we find someone, you train them until they can do the job flawlessly, and then you leave. Otherwise, don't expect severance or anything else. Do it my way, though, and I'll put in a word so you can collect unemployment."

"......"

Hm. Unemployment benefits? I wouldn't be getting those anyway. Not with the money coming in from the auction house. And he was acting like he was granting me some grand favor.

"Manager Kim."

"What. You have something to say?"

"I think you're under some kind of misunderstanding. I'm not making a request. I'm giving you notice."

"H-huh? No. That's not what I—"

If I said I was doing it, I was doing it. What did permission have to do with it? My reaction must not have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been what he expected, because he folded. Not that I cared either way.

The chair rolled back.

"I'll be going, then."

"Assistant Manager Jeonghwan! Just calm down a second! I think there's been a misunderstanding...!"

And that was how I quit the company.

Truth was, I already knew the rest of the team had made up their minds as well. Rumors have a way of reaching everyone in the end.

In a way, I'd fired the signal flare for them. Nothing good was going to come of staying in a place like this for long. Go on, then—try running things with those three new hires. How long they'd last, I couldn't say.

I'll go home and look over the rewards I didn't get to check.

The event reward. The event monster reward. And the achievement reward.

Ah, so much to do. I was a full-time hunter now.