Achievement Rewards

"......"

I blinked. What the hell just happened? One skill — how many people was that?

Four hundred and fifty? All in one shot?

And that wasn't even the astonishing part. Once they were dealt with, their bags came to me — ten slots, fifteen, twenty, and on from there. Every kind of bag, heaped together. Hundreds of them.

"......"

No point wandering around anymore.

Out of this many bags, there was no way I didn't have a branch and an empty flask. I'd be swimming in them.

Straight to the exit. No reason to stick around.

I'd already had a taste of someone coming for the back of my head. They didn't call this place a lawless wild for nothing — and I'd walked straight into it the moment I arrived.

So I headed for the exit. The path was peace itself, for the simple reason that the forest had burned to the ground. Nothing left to block the view. Open ground, wide and flat as a plain. No monsters. No people.

"Here it is."

An entrance shaped like a portal. This was the exit.

The Blue House, Republic of Korea. An unofficial meeting dragged on despite the late hour — the matter of Hunter Kim Min-su had thrown the whole place into emergency.

"Hah... so we've been had again?"

"......Yes. Yes, that is correct."

"Hah. Of all things."

The President pressed a hand to his throbbing brow and let his head sink.

"He had nearly reached the exit... and then the American hunter with him suddenly betrayed him..."

"There was no sign of it before that?"

"None, sir. If anything, they say he went so far as to help Hunter Kim Min-su when he was in danger. Told him where all the good materials were, too. That is why he trusted the man — and then, at the very end, he was betrayed."

The President shook his head. What were they supposed to do about a thing like this?

Send them in as a team? Useless. No — harder, if anything. Go in alone, and you faced other individuals. Go in as a team, and you faced other teams. A minor nation's squad against a great power's? The difficulty only climbed past going it alone.

"......If this continues, the gap with the great powers will only widen. Unless we make some kind of move, there is no telling what becomes of our future."

The great powers grew stronger by the day. The weak nations grew weaker by the day. And Korea, of course, was one of the weak.

"But as things stand, there is no solution. The great powers stack materials and items through one successful escape after another, while for the weaker nations the rate of successful escape is next to nothing..."

"These days, more and more people simply wait at the exit and pick off anyone trying to leave."

"It is no different if several enter instead of one. If anything, it only swells the number of raiders..."

The President kept rapping his forehead with his fingertips.

Only a successful escape released materials. Those materials unlocked items. And once items were unlocked? Everyone grew stronger.

"At the most basic level, the supply of materials has to be flowing before items can circulate and the auction house can turn... The fact that our auction house has not even activated is a problem from the very first step."

"But to reach the point of listing items, we would need to bring back an enormous quantity of materials..."

"Ahem."

The problems did not stop at one or two.

That was when it happened. A message, out of nowhere — the Floor 1 clearer's staggering kill count. Every eye in the room flew wide.

"Wh-what in the world ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is this?"

"It seems a Floor 1 clearer has appeared..."

"A kill count of 450? I-is that even possible?"

"Korea? Someone from Korea pulled that off?"

"Kill Man of the United States clearing that place with thirty kills was already a monumental feat... What? Over four hundred?"

A number worthy of sheer disbelief. More shocking still was the active time.

"And what is that? An active time of a mere twenty minutes?"

"......Kill Man's achievement was thirty people over two days, and this is 450 in twenty minutes?"

"Th-that's impossible!"

Was a figure like that even possible? Phones came out at once. The place the assembly members opened was Hunternet — when it came to hunter news, nothing moved faster.

Sure enough, something was already up. And right on its heels —

"Good heavens. Is this real?"

"The System does not lie. I do not know who it was, but a Korean unquestionably did this!"

"Four hundred and fifty kills is a tremendous figure. Ordinarily some two thousand people gather in a single phase — and he dealt with 450 of them in twenty minutes!"

The total population of one Floor 1 phase was two thousand. Of those, four hundred and fifty had been slaughtered by a single person. The number of times that person had died was zero. A truly staggering record.

"Sends a chill through me. At this level... isn't there a chance he is a disaster-level hunter?"

The disaster-level hunter the President had named. The highest grade in existence, at present, was national-power class — a hunter, quite literally, on the scale of a nation's power. But a disaster-level hunter?

"......Well. If we look only at the current figures, the possibility is not zero, but a hunter on a level that is, quite literally, close to a disaster..."

"I-it is not impossible! Look at those overwhelming numbers! At that level, would it not be fair to call him a disaster?"

"For the time being, I believe we ought to watch a little longer."

Opinions split. Disaster-level, or not. And if he was...

"If a disaster-level hunter has truly appeared in Korea......"

A hard gulp broke the quiet.

Every person in the room held their breath and fixed on the President's next words.

I stepped out of the Tower. I was back in the small room I'd been in.

"......"

Exactly as it had been before I went in. Like I'd dreamed the whole thing.

I got 450 kills, didn't I?

Even I knew that was enormous. Ten kills or so was what passed for normal.

…Was there going to be a reaction? I snuck a look at the internet.

The news was nothing but me. Hunternet was plastered with me, too.

"......"

I was dazed myself. Fire Rain — a vicious enough name on its own. I just never thought it would hit this hard...

......Maybe I should check the materials first.

Whatever else, I'd done it. And an absurd haul of materials had landed in my hands.

"Whoa..."

The words wouldn't come. How many ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was this, exactly?

From what I knew, one trip got you ten at the most. Plenty of people came back with even fewer.

And that was hardly all. Escape itself was the problem from the start — Korea's success rate was miserably low. And yet I...

Feels like I went once and scooped up the lot.

I was pretty sure I'd gathered everything Floor 1 had to offer. There was even this. The achievement reward.

Oh — a skill enhancement ticket? Something ridiculous had just dropped.

Normally you wouldn't get a skill point until level 5.

A hunter's level was tied to the Tower's floors. The moment you set foot on Floor 2, you rose to level 2. Step onto Floor 3, and from then on you were level 3. That was how it worked. And an achievement reward had just handed me a skill enhancement ticket?

I can't learn a new skill with it. But it means my skill level sits one stage higher than everyone else's.

Everyone else was still stuck at skill level 1. I'd already be looking at skill level 2 — and on an EX-rank skill that was monstrous even before this. Nothing to agonize over. I used it on the spot.

The skill's level had risen. Three enhancement options came up.

"......Something like this is actually possible?"

Wasn't this just way too broken?