Economic Revenge Succeeds

Information Communications Officer Simona.

If everything she said about Earth's internet being primitive was true, then I had essentially just acquired infinite money.

In this world, finance and computing were inseparable. Being able to hack anything meant being able to print nonexistent money without limit.

But side effects exist.

Dominate the internet, then print infinite cash? That was an incredibly stupid idea. Everything from ordinary agencies like the National Tax Service to the Illuminati, the Reptilians, the Rothschilds — they all monitored the flow of the world's money. Creating something from nothing would be far too conspicuous.

Stealing from ordinary people didn't sit right with me either.

After a moment of thought, I came up with a perfectly reasonable way to make money.

"Simona. Can you rig the drop rates on game items and then overwrite the logs so nothing remains?"

"Of course, Mother."

Simona answered readily, then added after a beat:

"To gain this much power and want game items with it… how adorable."

The last time anyone had called me adorable was probably when I was seven. It was a word so thoroughly disconnected from me that I was briefly flustered.

"It's economic activity. No — economic retaliation."

I clicked the mushroom-shaped icon and logged into the RPG. Then I dumped money into the gacha pulls.

If Simona made a mistake, it would be a disaster. Fail, and my money vanished. Get caught, and I was looking at iron bars.

"Please, Simona. Make the lowest-probability item drop."

Wasn't this a crime against a perfectly innocent game company?

No. This was fine. This game had been quietly rigging its rates for ages, scamming players and fleecing their wallets — a thoroughly predatory operation.

They happened to be running a lottery-style event, so my character name blasted across the entire world server.

Mushrooms were the in-game currency, and ten billion of them was worth about four million won. I basked in the joy and opened the Mushroom Game Gallery to post proof.

Downvotes piled up to thirty in an instant.

I wasn't cashing out for fried chicken. All of it went toward raising my little sister. So spare me the lectures.

Just like that, MushGallery opinion flipped. MushGallers really were simple creatures.

But even a burger party couldn't purify the heart of one particularly angry friend.

If he was going to reject my olive branch and make an enemy of me, well — what choice did I have?

"Simona. Dox this guy."

"Gwangbae University, Sports Science department, third-year Personal Training major. Student ID 202401548. Name: Kang Tae-ho. Resident registration number 050714-"

"That's enough."

A short while later, every single one of Kang Tae-ho's comments — and his posts — began vanishing.

See, that's why you shouldn't post gallery trash you'd be embarrassed to show anyone.

After handing out the ten burgers, I cashed out about two million won for now. That secured spending money for a while.

But it's still not enough to bring Haneul home.

My little sister had left the house, saying I couldn't properly fill the role of guardian. Calling it running away felt imprecise — she'd gotten her own place and moved out officially.

I'd awakened and gained incredible power, but I couldn't exactly say I'd fully established myself yet. First climb the Tower, become a proper Hunter, and then tell her to come home.

And figure out the appearance thing somehow.

I didn't want to reunite looking like this — a woman wearing my sister's school uniform. If I couldn't turn back into a man, maybe meeting her while wearing a powered suit would work. Like a hero hiding their identity.

Hmm. That idea was actually pretty solid. I'd have to give it serious consideration.

The Tower only allowed one floor clear per day. Since I'd been summoned at midnight, I had no choice but to wait for the next day's midnight reset.

After waiting out the full day, I decided to enter the next floor — Floor 1.

The Tower's physical form existed in reality, but there was no need to hunt down the entrance. Entering the Tower worked the same as the day I'd first been dragged in: from anywhere.

I entered the Tower comfortably, standing in front of the bed in my one-room apartment.

"Tower entry!"

The Tower had a single difficulty. The only place where difficulty varied by person was the tutorial. Meaning that for someone who'd survived Tutorial Hell, Floor 1 would be nose-picking easy.

"I already said I'm going. How many times are you going to ask?"

At my irritation, it finally seemed to understand — a cluster ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of vivid blue light wrapped around my body.

I was inside a pitch-black cave.

Cave exploration was supposedly a high-mortality, dangerous business. I vaguely remembered a few accident videos I'd seen on YouTube.

A torch sat unnaturally in the middle of the cave. Bringing modern conveniences like flashlights or phones into the Tower was impossible. At best, you could bring clothes and shoes. Tools with special functions couldn't enter the Tower unless they were made from materials that originated inside it.

That was why torches were provided for the poor humans who couldn't generate light on their own.

And me? I couldn't generate light either. Firing a round from the Paper Crow would produce a brief flash, but it would also bring the cave down on my head.

But I had a third sense that came with my awakening — mana radar — so darkness was no problem at all.

Is it like a bat's senses?

Something like a bat firing ultrasonic waves and reading the terrain from the echoes? Either way, with mana radar I could map the cave's layout in fine detail. The detection range was fairly wide, too — roughly a ten-meter radius centered on me. That was enough that I wouldn't fall into a hole even if the terrain suddenly changed.

"Alex, deploy."

I pulled a carrier aircraft from between my fingers. A miniature gate opened, and a black paper airplane soared out.

"Fine day, Mother."

"It's almost midnight, though."

I'd entered the moment the reset hit, so the time outside the Tower was around twelve. Not that it mattered inside a dark cave.

"Please assign a mission."

"Search, destroy, annihilate. Wipe out every trap and every monster."

Floor 1's trial was finding the exit gate somewhere in the cave, relying on a single torch. Goblins with daggers hid throughout the caverns, and they'd set primitive traps as well.

The most standard known strategy was simply to navigate carefully and stay alert. Goblins weren't dangerous enemies on their own, but if the pressure of the cave and the traps made you lose your torch, things got truly ugly. Ordinary climbers who weren't Awakened learned to treat their torch as equal to their own life as they pushed through the dark.

"There's an escape hatch for times like that."

I looked behind me. An emergency exit gate stood there — the gate for leaving without clearing Floor 1, for those who gave up. If an ordinary climber snuffed out their torch, the wise move would be to rely on memory and sense to make it back here and escape rather than press deeper.

Of course, I would never need that exit gate.

"Report. One goblin discovered and eliminated."

"Report. One trap discovered and destroyed."

"Report. Two goblins discovered and eliminated."

"You don't have to report every single one. Just tell me if there's something unusual."

"Roger that."

I walked at a leisurely stroll along the path Alex's Paper Crow had already swept clean.

"Mother. This is Crow. I've discovered an entity that is neither goblin nor trap. How should I proceed?"

"Neither goblin nor trap?"

What was that supposed to mean?

"A boulder covered in talismans. It appears to be a door leading to a secret location."

I felt it immediately. The premonition of a hidden.

A Tower without hiddens would be a real shame.

"Hold. I'm on my way."