Hell Difficulty Is a Goldmine
Yena stood staring blankly at the wall before she finally snapped back to herself and peered outside. Fortunately, no one was passing by.
"But how am I supposed to cover this up?"
Grunting with effort, she dragged a blanket over and layered it across the hole. It wasn't perfect, but at least it would keep anyone from seeing straight through.
"The repair bill... how's that going to look?"
Just thinking about it made her vision go dark. She could barely afford Magic Stones as it was, and now she had house repairs piled on top of that. But the damage was already done. There was nothing she could do about it.
"...Haa."
She let out a long sigh and looked at the gash again. The cut surface was so unnervingly smooth it sent a chill down her spine. Anyone who didn't know better might have assumed the wall had been built that way from the start.
"I really did this?"
The reality of it was only now beginning to sink in. She hadn't even used a proper weapon. The idea that a single swing of a backscratcher had split the entire wall in two was still hard to believe.
With this kind of power... couldn't I make it work in the Tower too?
The thought surfaced unbidden. If she could use this strength, she might just be able to claw her way out of her current situation.
I could probably take down an F-rank monster no problem.
And at the same time, another memory rose with it.
The Tower she had climbed again and again as a Porter. Just thinking about it was painful—a place she had sworn she would never set foot in again.
...But with the way I am now, maybe I'd be okay?
Yena looked down at her own hands. They were small and startlingly white, as if they had never so much as touched water, let alone a weapon. Compared to the rough, work-worn hands of her past, they were almost adorably tiny. And yet these were the hands that had cleaved a wall in two.
"Let's do this. And then I'm going to survive."
Just as she clenched her fist, stoking her fighting spirit—
Drip.
A nosebleed leaked out.
"...Nnh."
She'd overdone it, apparently.
"I should lie down for a bit before I go."
An hour. No—just ten minutes or so. ...Because even resting cost money.
After that brief rest, Yena stepped out through the front door. She grabbed the parasol tucked in the corner of the shoe rack, then pulled up a map on her phone.
The Tower was only about a ten-minute walk from her house.
"...Why does this feel so far?"
On any ordinary day it would have been nothing, but in this body it might as well have been a marathon. She placed each step with painstaking care. The moment her breathing so much as quickened, she leaned against a wall and rested for a beat.
The heat made the journey even worse. The sunlight wasn't merely warm—it felt like it was trying to cook her alive. If she hadn't brought the parasol, she really might have been in trouble. It wasn't for her skin so much as the simple fact that it was unbearably, oppressively hot. Collapsing from heatstroke would have been a disaster.
Slowly. Slowly.
She could feel people glancing at her as she passed. Maybe the staggering walk looked strange. She didn't have the energy to care.
She had no idea how long she'd been walking when at last the enormous tower rose into view. The Tower of Ordeals stabbed toward the sky, as overwhelming as it had ever been.
...Hah. Hah.
She caught her breath and muttered,
"I finally made it..."
Yena stopped and looked up at it for a moment. Something about the sight felt new. In the old days she had always lagged behind, weighed down by someone else's luggage.
"I'm doing this. I can do this too."
She squeezed her small fist tight, then pressed the button on the Tower Access Device in her hand.
A message appeared.
Enter Floor 1 of the Tower of Ordeals?
The answer was already decided.
"Yeah."
And then—
"...Excuse me?"
Her vision flickered.
When her sight cleared, the scene that unfolded in front of her froze Yena on the spot.
A vast, open cavern. And packed into every inch of it, a sea of shadows.
"...Uh."
Grrrk. Kikik...
Twisted little laughs rose from every direction. She narrowed her eyes and looked around, and there they were: green-skinned monsters bristling with crude weapons, packed in shoulder to shoulder.
"Goblins...?"
It wasn't one or two. At a rough count, there had to be a hundred of them. Each one clutched a rusted sword or a club or something in that family.
⚔ Difficulty:Hell
💀 Monsters Remaining:100
🎯 Clear Objective: Defeat all monsters
The clear objective floated above her head the instant she entered. The moment she read it, the color drained from Yena's face.
"W-wait a second... I'm F-rank..."
She had never set foot in Hell Difficulty in her life. The towers she'd worked as a Porter hadn't even had difficulty settings. And Floor 1 was supposed to spit out two slimes, at most—the kind of tutorial layer you could beat just by flailing your arms around.
"This is a joke, right?"
She muttered it, and a laugh of sheer disbelief slipped out of her anyway.
"Yeah. It's a joke. This is a dream. It has to be."
But while she was still talking, the nearest goblin spotted her and let out a shrieking Kyaaak! That was the signal. Every other goblin turned its head at once.
Dozens upon dozens of red eyes locked onto Yena in the same instant.
Eek.
Her body shrank in on itself of its own accord. She would have preferred to decline this kind of heated attention.
KYAAAAK!
The goblin horde screamed as one and charged. A chaotic tangle of footsteps drew closer and closer.
For a split second she considered running. She couldn't. If she backed down here, there would be no way to get Magic Stones. Without Magic Stones her mana would hit rock bottom, and waiting at the end of that was death.
Worse, the walk over had drained her even further. Her remaining mana was down to 2.3%.
I want to cry. I really do...
Her body was always in the worst possible condition. There was no guarantee that a little rest would make anything better.
Which meant there was only one option.
The only thing she had that even resembled a weapon was the parasol. Yena fixed it at her waist, then let her hand drift up toward the handle.
One time. I have to end this in a single strike.
She took in the oncoming wave of goblins and, inside her head, called up the Sword Princess's movements one more time.
Then the lead pack of goblins was right in her face.
The world slowed down. Even her heartbeat felt sluggish. The goblins' motion, and Yena's eyes tracking it, all stretched into something thick and heavy.
The Zone.
It was the phenomenon that appeared when superhuman focus locked into place at the edge of an extreme. Every expression on the charging goblins burned itself into her vision—the ugly faces with bared teeth and drool running down, the arms hoisting rusted swords, even the puff of dirt where a foot struck the ground, frozen like a still frame.
Yena's hand clamped down on the parasol's handle.
She twisted her hips a fraction and bent her knees. Her center of gravity sank low. Her gaze pinned itself exactly on the lead goblin's brow.
Remember the Sword Princess's movement.
She sucked in a breath and held it completely.
And then—
KRAAAAAAANG!
The slash erupted outward, and the world slammed back to full speed. A tearing roar split the air. The fan-shaped cutting wave swept through the entire formation in an instant.
Shhk.
The sound arrived a beat late. The goblin horde that had filled her vision split cleanly in two and began to collapse.
Silence followed.
Monsters Remaining: 0
"..."
The goblin horde that had been charging in from every direction a moment ago now lay on the floor, not a single one left standing. Yena stared at the scene in a daze, then looked down at a sudden wrongness in her hand.
"...Ah?"
The parasol had shattered, leaving nothing but the handle. It hadn't been able to withstand the force of that last strike, and had come apart into pieces.
"No... that cost money too..."
The words were barely out of her mouth when the world spun. Yena staggered and sank to the ground. A message appeared in front of her.
Intense movement has increased mana consumption!
Your mana is on the verge of depletion!
Exhausting all mana will result in death!
Current Mana: 0.2%
"Urgh..."
Her heart was pounding far too fast. Her whole body was already soaked in cold sweat.
0.2%.
That was a genuinely dangerous number.
"I have to get back..."
But even if she made it home and ordered through Hunter Eats, would it arrive in time? What if she burned through the last of her mana before then?
The questions were still spinning through her head when something caught her eye.
A glint.
Small, glittering stones were scattered where the goblins had fallen. She knew what they were on instinct. Those were Magic Stones.
"M-Magic Stones...!"
Yena dragged her body—already heavy as lead—across the floor, crawling. The will to live was what moved her.
She reached the nearest Magic Stone and popped it straight into her mouth.
Crunch. Crunch.
A small amount of mana has been restored.
Current Mana:0.4%
"One more. Just one more for now..."
She couldn't get any strength into her limbs. Yena gave up on standing and crawled around on all fours. It was surprisingly comfortable, actually.
Gobble. Gobble.
It was an unsightly spectacle, but she didn't have the luxury of caring about dignity right now.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
She chewed and swallowed in a frantic blur, over and over, and only after she'd eaten every last Magic Stone on the floor did she finally let out a breath of relief.
"Hah, hah... I'm alive..."
Mana has recovered to a stable range.
The color had come back to her face in a visible rush. Her body didn't feel as heavy as before, either.
Hmm. I ate about thirty or forty of them, give or take?
They must have all been F-rank Magic Stones. Yena counted them off on her fingers, trying to guess what they were worth.
"Five hundred thousand won apiece, so let's see..."
Mid-count, she sucked in a startled breath.
"Hah!"
The number was staggering. More than ten million won in Magic Stones had just gone into her stomach.
"...Jackpot."
So this was why they called it Hell Difficulty. She never would have guessed the rewards were on a completely different level.
"...Should I just clear Floor 2 while I'm at it?"
Her eyes were sparkling as she muttered it—and then she realized she hadn't even checked the clear reward.
"Let's see..."
Tap. Tap. Yena pressed at the empty air and opened her inventory.
And there it was. A clump of golden coins.
◈ Clear Reward — Tower of Ordeals, Floor 1 (Hell)
◈ Exchange Rate: 1G = 10,000 won
"A th-th-thou... thousand Gold..."
One Gold was ten thousand won.
A thousand Gold?
Ten million won.
Hooooly...
A nosebleed had started to trickle down—probably from all the excitement—but Yena didn't even notice, unable to tear her eyes away from the pile of Gold.