Skill Enhancement Ticket (Advanced)

I used the Skill Enhancement Ticket (Advanced).

The enhancement options surfaced in front of me.

"Whoa."

It slipped out of me on its own. They didn't call it Advanced for nothing. The options were a different beast entirely.

A black ash cloud to choke off their sight and bleed them dry—wait, a lava field on the ground? And on top of that...

The third option. It would punch through everything.

I'd already had a bad feeling about the fourth floor.

The first three floors were forest. From the fourth on, the world changed. They called it the City of Stone, and the age was medieval: collapsed walls, collapsed streets, a central plaza, a cathedral quarter. A city already gone to ruin.

The floor itself was bigger, too. Measured in soccer fields, about twenty of them, and the number of people on it had swollen to match.

Unlike the forest, there's no shortage of places to hide.

Wider ground, and buildings everywhere. Hunternet had already said as much. My skill was only rain coming down, so couldn't you just get out from under it?

They weren't wrong. But.

What if I applied Spear of Penetration?

It pierced everything. Defense, of course. The ground, and the buildings too.

The skill description had changed as well. Down at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the bottom sat the Spear of Penetration option. Good. This would be more than enough.

I clocked in, and the mood was wrong. Why was everyone so worked up?

"Oh, Manager! Anything you'd like to eat?"

"Assistant Choi. Manager? You've got to call him Director Kim now!"

"Ah! Right, my mistake! Hahaha!"

"Directooor, you're going to look after us later, right? You are, aren't you?"

The three rookies. Not even a year at the company. The chatty new hires from the department next door.

"Ahem. Me, I'll have you know—I'm a man who doesn't throw his people away. I look after them. So of course, once you're one of mine, you'll be looked after. Isn't that right?"

"Oh my, so you'll raise our incentive rate too, won't you?"

"Directooor, pleeease ask them to bump our pay up just a little, too."

"Tch, knock it off, all of you! The director's already buried in work! Of course he's going to get us a raise! Hahaha!"

They were beside themselves. Everyone else was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worried the company might go under. Did these three simply not know yet, or were their heads just that empty and bright?

Not that they'd have understood even if someone told them. Manager Kim would use anyone at all, so long as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it kept him alive.

I got burned by that once.

I'd been raked over the coals for something I never even did. Like a fool, I told myself I had to keep my mouth shut—Manager Kim had already been a manager back when I was the new hire. Push back while a superior like that pinned his mess on me, and I figured my life at the company would only get harder. Looking back now, the idiot in that story was me.

"Manager Kim is having the time of his life. Ugh. If that man actually makes director, we're in for a headache."

"You're telling me. Look at him. He knows the rest of us have his number, so he's sweet-talking rookies who don't know a thing and puffing his chest out. Tch."

The others were tearing into him too. Anyone in a position to have heard the rumors already had, by the look of it—and from what I could see, Manager Kim had let a few hints slip to the rookies himself.

I can't stand the sight of him. I really can't.

The rookies knew nothing about the state of the company. All they could think about was latching onto Manager Kim's line and sucking down the honey.

That honey only flows if the company stays on its feet.

I shook my head. It turned before I even meant it to. Was it actually time to quit?

Anyway. For now, I was still here. I'd done my work. Slacked off a little, sure, here and there.

The auction house is quiet, though.

I'd made items out of materials from the second and third floors—a grade above the basic gear I'd crafted before. Unlike last time, they were crawling off the shelves.

Is it the price?

The grade had gone up, and so had the number. The old pieces had moved somewhere between four and five hundred thousand won. These were sitting in the million-won range.

On a hunch, I logged into Hunternet and searched "auction house."

There it was. Just as I'd thought—the price.

In this country, becoming a hunter means nothing unless your rank is high. A second job is practically mandatory. That's how bad it is.

I wasn't clinging to the company for nothing.

Put up real results in the Tower and a hunter could make a fortune—but only after a proper escape. Fail it, the way people kept failing now, and the income was zero. You walked in and walked back out with nothing. A second job wasn't optional.

......Should I drop the prices?

I'd listed them to make money. If they didn't sell, what was the point?

Ding—ding—ding—ding—ding!! Ding—ding—ding—ding—ding!!

That was when it hit. Alarms, all at once, with no end to them.

The items were selling. One after another, without a pause. Who on earth was buying like this?

Normally an ID never showed in the auction house. The trades were anonymous, plain and simple—the system handled all of it anyway. But there the name was, bold as anything, and a country marker sat right beside it. An ID reserved for the Korean government.

Ding.

The alarm went off again. A message had arrived from the auction house.

Hm?

The government wanted to buy all of it? And then resell it cheaper.

Doesn't matter to me.

From where I stood, there was nothing to lose. They'd buy at the price I listed and sell it on for less. Which meant I got paid.

Who walks off with the goods doesn't matter. In the end, all that counts is whether they sold, and whether the money reached me.

Better still if the buyers were Korean. And here was the government itself, stepping up to take them. No reason to hesitate.

I accepted. And the amount that came in?

"......"

Two hundred million won had come in.

"Ah. I'm full, and I haven't even eaten."

Lunch hour. Ordinarily I would have had to go eat.

I didn't. The day was warm, the light bright and easy, and maybe it was the money, but I wasn't hungry. So I took an iced americano and went for a walk.

Cheep, cheep—.

Yeah. You guys happy too? Me too.

"Hehe."

The laugh came up on its own. Two hundred million won in a single day. I'd never laid eyes on money counted in the hundreds of millions. Even the deposit on the villa I rented was only eighty million.

I still had forty minutes of break left. Time to spare.

Maybe I should step into the Tower.

I wanted to see what the new option could actually do. Right—I had the time. In and out.

"Enter."

Shhh—.

The fourth floor of the Tower of Trials. The scenery had changed.

Tat-tat-tat-tat. Thud!

Tat-tat-tat. Thud!

Once, the hunters of the great powers had been brazen. They strode the streets without a second thought, and the moment someone came into view—a quick snatch, and the loot was theirs.

Now? They sprinted from building to building and hid themselves as deep as they could.

Hah. We look ridiculous. Can't be helped.

Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians—every one of the great powers was doing it. The reason was simple.

Like this, even if that bastard uses his skill, there won't be a thing he can do.

A directive had come down from the guilds not long ago. Anyone sharing a floor with JUNE was to get inside a building and stay out of the rain.

Tat-tat-tat-tat. Thud!

"Uh—uh?"

"......!"

There was an upside to the new approach. Everyone ended up packed into the buildings.

"Oh, a Korean? Excellent. Fine prey."

"Sh-shit..."

There was always someone already in there. They'd been hiding from the rain too. Run into a Korean on top of that, and—

Hardly any items. One or two at most. No way they beat us in full sets.

Weaker, which made them excellent prey.

And so the great powers robbed the hunters of the smaller nations who had taken shelter indoors. If anything, the hunt had only gotten faster. They were good at it.

KRRRMMMM—.

That was when the sky darkened, out of nowhere. It was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him.

"Heh heh. Go on, then. Rain as hard as you like."

"Idiot. Still planning to use nothing but that?"

"I'm sure of it. He's a solo. No guild. If he weren't, they'd have told him to drop that skill already. Then again, it's the only one he's got, so maybe he doesn't have a choice."

Rain from the sky or fire falling out of it—none of it mattered so long as you stayed indoors.

They all laughed, loose and unhurried, the way you'd watch a pleasant view. Go ahead. Use it all you want. As if we'd be the ones getting hit.

Thud-thud-thud-thud.

Just as expected. The sky flushed red, and a rain of fire poured out of it.

But.

"Huh?"

Shwaaaaa—.

Shwaaaaa—.

Something was wrong. Was that even fire? The shape of it was off.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

"Uh—uh?"

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

They'd hidden indoors, so certain they could wait the rain out.

......It didn't mean shit.