How Am I Supposed to Fasten a Bra?
The world had grown about a handspan taller than she remembered.
Signboards hung from towering buildings, and streetlights seemed to spear straight toward the heavens. The sheer scale of the cityscape felt imposing enough to shrink her spirits. All she had done was lose a few inches of height, yet it felt as if practically everything was viewed through a completely different lens.
"Why the hell are you following me, anyway?"
Baek Seonwoo walked right beside Jiyu, looking down at her from a full head higher. Not long ago, their eyes had met at virtually the same level.
"It's pissing me off."
Every single thing about this situation grated on her nerves. The world she looked upon, the mundane routines playing out before her—every little beat of the day served as an unrelenting reminder that she now occupied the body of a woman.
"Get away from me. Don't touch me."
"Whatever you say," Seonwoo replied nonchalantly, brushing off her pointless vent of frustration.
"And what if I do get close? What are you gonna do about it?"
"Khhk!"
Seonwoo casually closed the distance between them. With her drastically shortened stride, Jiyu truly couldn't do a single thing about it.
"Haaah… Seriously…"
The brief surge of excitement she had felt about entering the Tower to test out her new role had already evaporated. And to make matters worse, there was another pressing reason her mood had plunged into the gutter.
"Ugh… This is so uncomfortable."
Jiyu twisted and squirmed with every step, fidgeting uncomfortably. Seonwoo looked down at her with undisguised pity.
"Who told you to dress like that in the first place?"
"Kgh… Like I had a choice!" Her cheeks flushed red as she whined in exasperation. "How the hell was I supposed to fasten a bra, huh?!"
The women's underwear Seonwoo had brought her remained untouched. Jiyu had been a lifelong virgin who had never once dated. The mere thought of slipping into women's undergarments triggered an instinctive, visceral repulsion—not to mention she genuinely had no earthly clue how to put the contraption on.
"I mean, you could've just winged it. Clothes are clothes."
Seonwoo showed zero sympathy, entirely dismissing her inner turmoil. After all, he had been the one forced to make a late-night run to the convenience store to buy women's underwear. He had even been obliged to purchase one in every single size, since measuring her directly had hardly been an option.
'Give me one of each of these, from here to here, please.'
'Underwear? Sir, these are for women…'
'Yes… I know…'
Seonwoo still couldn't shake the searing memory of the store clerk's pitying, judgmental stare.
"You want to head back and change?"
"N-No… Moving around is fine."
All the humiliation Seonwoo had suffered had been cast aside like a worn-out shoe. While he understood her reluctance on some level, he couldn't help feeling a lingering sense of indignation.
"Can you even clear a Tower dressed like that?"
"That part should be fine, I think. My shortened stride is way more of a problem…"
Jiyu was currently clad in an oversized hoodie and sweatpants Seonwoo had worn back in his younger days. Underneath, in place of regular undergarments, she wore a unisex leotard swimsuit—specifically, the one Seonwoo had used in middle school.
"Good thing I never threw it out. Who'd have thought it would come in handy like this?"
Even before this absurd transformation, Jiyu had been significantly smaller than Seonwoo. Slipping into his old middle school swimwear posed no physical challenge whatsoever. Still, while it was leagues better than wearing a bra and panties, walking around in a swimsuit beneath baggy sweats was mortifying in its own right.
"Ugh! Why can't anything just go right for once?!"
Waking up as a woman out of nowhere was already traumatic enough, but adapting to all the physical changes was proving to be a nightmare. Her shortened legs caused her to stumble and wobble as she walked, and her dramatically lowered vantage point made everything feel suffocatingly cramped. To top it all off, her plan to stop by her apartment to retrieve her personal belongings had fallen apart. Mirae Guild had scheduled Seonwoo's Tower entry far faster than expected, forcing them to double back straight toward his apartment complex.
"Should I have hurried up a bit more?" Jiyu grumbled under her breath.
She tried her best not to show how dejected she was—wallowing in self-pity didn't feel very manly—but mentally, she was thoroughly exhausted. Seonwoo, despite being somewhat oblivious by nature, was sharp enough to pick up on her drooping shoulders.
"Just keep your mind on the Tower for now. Forget the useless baggage."
"The Tower?"
"Who knows? Maybe you'll end up being an S-rank."
"Y-You really think so?"
A faint glimmer returned to Jiyu's face. True to form, she was remarkably easy to handle.
"Ugh… That ability had better not suck!"
Her strides quickened, stretching wider as vigor surged back into her step. Interestingly enough, picking up the pace actually made it much easier to maintain her balance.
"Oh! I think I'm getting the hang of this."
"Congratulations."
Of course, the sad reality was that her faster pace barely matched Seonwoo's casual stroll.
"Whoa… Now that I'm really looking at it, your place is ridiculously nice."
After their endless bickering, the two finally arrived back at Seonwoo's residence: Awakened Palace. Far more commonly known by its moniker, the Magic Tower, it was an ultra-luxurious apartment complex where South Korea's highest-ranking hunters congregated to live.
"Man… Looking at it again, it's insanely tall."
"You literally slept there last night."
When they had left earlier that morning, Jiyu had been too overwhelmed by her circumstances to notice her surroundings. Now, taking it in with a calmer mind, a swelling sense of awe washed over her.
"It really looks completely different from normal apartment complexes."
Where shopping arcades would typically occupy the lower floors of an ordinary residential building, the Magic Tower housed guild offices and hunter-exclusive facilities. Thick, reinforced concrete walls completely enclosed the perimeter instead of standard plate glass, and perched atop that fortress-like base were the sky-scraping residential towers of the elite hunters. It looked remarkably like the Pentagon wearing a soaring, elongated crown, decorated with opulent architectural accents that prevented it from feeling oppressive.
'Could I ever live in a place like that?'
It was the dream lifestyle that every hunter aspired to achieve. Jiyu lost herself in thought as she stared up at the monument to wealth and power.
"What are you spacing out for?"
"Oh, nothing! Let's go!"
Because of the facility's high-security status, they were subjected to a checkpoint, but the screening process took very little time.
"I can't believe we just strolled right in."
While the exterior was stunning, the true hallmark of the Magic Tower lay elsewhere: the permanent Gate situated in the central courtyard. It was an arcane nexus providing direct teleportation to the five Towers scattered across the nation. Billions of won and cutting-edge magical technology had been poured into its creation to deploy hunters immediately during emergencies. Yet members of the top guilds were permitted to use it as part of their daily routine—which explained why competition to join elite guilds was so fierce.
"If you lived here, you could literally just run dungeons all day except when you're sleeping."
"Pretty much," Seonwoo replied with a smug grin.
Deciding it was best to ignore his haughty expression, Jiyu focused on prepping herself for the Gate.
"Oh my! Is that the person from before?"
The passage leading to the courtyard was located on the first basement level. As they boarded the elevator to head down, they ran directly into an unexpected face.
"H-Hunter Kang Mirae?!"
"Wow, you recognize me! What an honor!"
Kang Mirae—an S-rank tanker and the only daughter of the Mirae Group. When her mana aptitude test at birth revealed potential S-rank talent, she had boldly been named "Mirae" right then and there. High-ranking S-rank hunters enjoyed popularity rivaling that of top celebrities, and her family had fully intended to make her the face of their corporate empire. In fact, she had been the direct inspiration behind the "S-rank pretty girl tank" in Jiyu's infamous forum rage post. To bump into someone like that in an elevator was surreal.
"Are you two heading into the Tower together?"
"Y-Yes! That's correct!"
While Jiyu was flustered and fumbling for words, the elevator chimed to a halt.
Ding!
"Best of luck in there!"
With a cheerful wave, she slipped away as the elevator doors slid shut. Even though Jiyu had experienced the cosmic shock of turning into a woman just hours ago, running into an idol like Kang Mirae was enough to leave her genuinely starstruck. Little did she know, she wasn't the only one feeling that way.
'I actually got to see the DPS Gallery idol in the flesh…'
Outside the elevator, Kang Mirae sighed with genuine regret, wishing she had struck up a longer conversation. But the closed doors showed no signs of reopening. Jiyu remained blissfully unaware that, in terms of online notoriety, she had already become a superstar far eclipsing Kang Mirae.
"Remember this place?"
"Of course I do. Don't look down on me just because I'm a C-rank."
Passing through the permanent Gate, the two stepped onto the first floor of the Seoul Tower. Because the Seoul Tower had already been cleared up to exceptionally high floors, the difficulty of the lower sections had been drastically mitigated over the years. As a result, floors 1 through 20 were widely referred to as the Tutorial Tower. Having had her combat role forcefully reassigned, Jiyu needed to start her climb from scratch to test her abilities in a controlled, safe environment.
"Man, it really has been a while."
The interior of the Tower took the form of an ominous, dim labyrinth constructed from dark reddish-black bricks.
"Stay sharp from here on out," Seonwoo said, stepping ahead to take point. "It might be the first floor, but this is still live combat."
"Got it."
Jiyu reached into her inventory and summoned the Star-Dappled Staff.
"This feels so bizarre…"
The staff materialized right above her palm in a burst of soft, pristine light. Artifacts that supported dimensional inventory storage fetched hundreds of millions of won on the market at minimum. Even Baek Seonwoo hadn't been able to secure one yet, judging by the fact that he still carried his heavy bow around by hand. What had initially seemed like a cursed hand-me-down was turning out to be an absolute jackpot.
"Hehe." A bright smile tugged at Jiyu's lips. "Status window."
She brought up her revised stats to see what had changed.
The panel was cleanly wiped, practically bare. But that didn't mean she had been wiped back to a complete blank slate.
"How the heck am I supposed to level up as a Support, anyway…?"
Every hunter began at Level 0 upon entering a Tower. A hunter's official rank and their in-Tower level were two entirely separate systems. No matter how much experience one gathered to level up inside, their level reset to zero the instant they exited into the outside world. While a hunter retained a tiny fraction of permanent physical enhancement through repeated leveling, the only things that truly endured were artifact upgrades and combat experience. That was precisely why wielding a top-tier artifact mattered above all else. Had there not been precedents of hunters obtaining incredible perks through position reassignment, Jiyu would never have been stuck with this staff in the first place.
"We're still early on, so be careful."
The maximum progress a hunter could make without leaving the Tower was ten floors at a time. Beyond that, the leveling grind had to be restarted from scratch. Normally, defeating monsters or contributing to a kill rewarded experience points, with bonus experience granted according to one's combat role. Tankers earned greater experience the more damage they soaked, while Damage Dealers gained more by dishing out high numbers.
"I'll push my level up first, alright?"
Seonwoo nocked an arrow onto his bowstring and moved forward. Since they hadn't uncovered the specific leveling criteria for a Support yet, powering up the primary damage dealer was the most efficient route.
"Follow me. I'll take the lead."
Before Jiyu's eyes was the sharp silhouette of Baek Seonwoo's back, dressed in his tailored suit. It was the same view she had witnessed back when that S-rank Gate had breached. With her shrunken height, his broad frame felt even more towering than it had then.
Seonwoo slipped silently toward the edge of the corridor's corner. It mirrored the precise clearing techniques used in tactical shooters—slicing the pie to check every angle, since an ambush could lurk anywhere. Even though they already knew this floor spawned thirty melee goblins, centuries of ingrained hunter discipline took over.
'I can do this too.'
Holding her breath, Jiyu matched his stealthy advance.
Pat, pat.
"Krrk! Kyargh!"
Guttural chattering echoed from just beyond the turn. Raising her arm, Jiyu aimed the tip of her staff forward.
The Level 0 skill attached to the Star-Dappled Staff was Sacred Chains.
'Is this how I use it?'
As she focused on the skill, a flood of intuitive data imprinted directly onto her mind. It was the cognitive phenomenon known among hunters as "Hunter's Knowledge." Operating on the same arcane principles as mental corruption, it somehow functioned entirely to a hunter's advantage. Not immediately knowing how an acquired skill worked would have been a cruel handicap, making this an essential balance patch built into the Tower's rules.
Chime—!
With a pure, crystalline resonance, a bolt of pristine brilliance shot forward.
"Garrk?! Kh-Krk!"
The moment the beam struck the stone floor near the cluster of goblins, luminous golden chains erupted violently from the flagstones, coiling tightly around the pack of monsters.
"Kiiieeek!"
An arrow whistled through the air, planting itself squarely between the lead goblin's eyes.
"What the hell was that?" Seonwoo asked, blinking in astonishment.
At Level 0, the duration of Sacred Chains was a mere three seconds. Its entire utility was locking targets down for a brief breath of time.
"That's ridiculously good, isn't it?"
From a DPS perspective, there was simply no higher praise. Nothing was easier to pick off than a completely stationary target.
"Honestly, isn't that kind of broken?"
"Keep the compliments coming, why don't you?" Jiyu puffed out her chest, genuinely flattered by Seonwoo's rare praise.
"Whoa… Wait, did your level go up?"
"Yep, it did."
Even though Seonwoo had landed the killing blow, Jiyu's level had ticked upward. She had somehow satisfied the conditions for Support leveling without even realizing it.
"My Level 2 skill is… apparently called Veil of Light?"
Jiyu turned her staff toward Seonwoo. Instinct guided the casting motion naturally.
Chime—!
The staff radiated another burst of gentle luminescence, and instantly, shimmering barriers enveloped both Jiyu and Seonwoo. The protective dome glowed with a sacred azure hue, looking sturdy enough to deflect any stray goblin arrows with laughable ease.
"And what is this now…? Wait, if it works like that…?"
The moment Seonwoo registered the nature of the shield, his expression hardened with fierce resolve.
"Sprint."
Without waiting for a response, he charged headlong toward the remaining horde of goblins.
"Huh?! Wait, why?!"
"We're breaking the record, obviously."
Seonwoo flashed a predatory grin over his shoulder. The current world record for clearing the Tower's 1st floor sat at seven minutes and forty-five seconds. With Jiyu's support in play, shattering that time wouldn't just be possible—it would be a breeze.