5080
“Let's get the facts straight first. Baek Seol. The Tower appeared in front of Cheonchu Mountain, or on the mountain itself?”
“On the mountain. We've confirmed it.”
“And that's why you came asking me to clear it?”
“Yes. Around these parts, you're the best, Director.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere. There are plenty of people more skilled than me. The world's a big place.”
“Still, you're the surest bet.”
“A Tower on Cheonchu Mountain... Then until it's cleared, nobody can enter or leave the mountain. That's no small inconvenience, is it?”
“Exactly. A lot of people operate on Cheonchu as their home turf. You could say everyone in the area stands to lose.”
“Well... you're not wrong.”
“That's why I came. This is the kind of thing we should put our heads together on.”
At that, Won-goo let out a dry chuckle and formed a smile.
“No. No, it isn't. Baek Seol, even with our relationship being as good as it is, everything between us stays within the bounds of give-and-take. This doesn't fall under that. Why are you trying to sell me drugs?”
A flicker of bewilderment crossed Baek Seol's eyes.
“Director Gong. It's a Tower. You know the sooner it's cleared, the lower the difficulty, don't you?”
“I know it, all right.”
“And yet your reaction today is a little bewildering. You're not thinking about relocating the Shelter, are you?”
“Do you think I'd up and move after working this hard to plant my flag in this Shelter?”
“......”
“Baek Seol. A price only works when you beat it down to a reasonable level.”
“This affects all of Sabbath—”
“Ugh! You're going to keep this up to the very end, aren't you.”
“......?”
Won-goo had finally gone so far as to cut her off mid-sentence.
“A Tower on Cheonchu Mountain. Fine. It's true we all stand to lose. But degrees matter. Who loses more, and who loses less.”
“......”
“Baek Seol. You've got a factory on Cheonchu Mountain. I can see perfectly well why you're acting so desperate all of a sudden, so do we really have to keep playing this boring game?”
Baek Seol bit her lip hard. Her counterpart was reading the shifting board with perfect accuracy.
Baek Seol.
She was one of the survivors who stood to lose the most if access to Cheonchu Mountain was cut off.
Won-goo and Baek Seol sat side by side, drinking tea.
Green tea with honey mixed in.
It was only a green tea bag, but honey was rare these days, and the taste was extraordinary.
The slight bitterness of the green tea paired beautifully with the rich sweetness of king giant hornet honey.
“All right. Now that Relax is done and over with, let's talk openly, Baek Seol. I can offer you two options. One: we take this matter public, put it all on the table, and work through it the slow, careful way. Two: we resolve it very, very fast.”
The reason Baek Seol had come was obvious. She wanted it resolved fast. That was the whole point of her visit.
Otherwise there would have been no reason to come rushing like this. To survivors, Towers and dungeons were lottery tickets.
The difference from an ordinary lottery was that you wagered your life instead of money—but the fact that a clear paid out substantial rewards remained unchanged.
On top of that, the Apocalypse wasn't fully activated yet, so challenge structures like Towers and dungeons still tended to be scarce.
Which meant that the moment a Tower appeared, enormous numbers of survivors would flock to the area.
The Tower had the power to draw in survivors who'd never even heard of the region before.
Because anyone could challenge a Tower.
So long as they were willing to bet their lives.
But Baek Seol wanted none of those flies buzzing around.
Just as Won-goo had pointed out, her operation had a factory on Cheonchu Mountain.
Baek Seol's organization was one of the largest in the area.
Even a single day of halted production would mean devastating losses.
“I do want it resolved quickly. You can do that, can't you, Director?”
“Who knows. How long ago did it appear?”
“Within five hours. That much is certain. I was just on Cheonchu before then.”
“Knowing the creation time—that's convenient. So 163 hours remaining?”
“162 hours and 27 minutes.”
Baek Seol said, checking her watch. She was a hardened field veteran herself. She knew the fundamentals of Towers well enough.
“Then it has to be dealt with inside 162 hours. You understand how dangerous this is, right?”
“......”
Dungeons and Towers had several clearly distinguishing features.
Dungeons descended deep underground; Towers climbed floor by floor.
A newly created Tower gained one additional floor after a week, and its difficulty rose accordingly.
And from then on, the Tower kept adding floors until it was cleared.
No one had ever established the exact interval at which floors were added. Each Tower followed its own pattern, so nothing definitive had been mapped out—but one thing was certain.
One week.
In other words, after 168 hours, a floor was added and the difficulty spiked.
“Just hiring information brokers and gathering intel would eat up a week in no time. You know that.”
“What do you need?”
“You'll be commissioning us officially?”
“If that's what it takes, that's what it takes.”
Baek Seol had already lowered her expectations considerably. And no wonder—a week from now, there'd be no telling when the Tower could be cleared at all.
At that point, the resources on Cheonchu Mountain would be as good as abandoned.
“You're asking us to gather only the bare minimum of intel and go straight in. That's far too dangerous. Do you have any idea what that Tower is?”
“......”
Baek Seol's gaze sharpened. But Won-goo paid it no particular mind. When it came to Tower-related business, personal ties were never grounds for cutting corners.
Besides, Won-goo had been waiting for a Tower to appear on Cheonchu Mountain.
He'd known that a Tower would be generated around this time.
And he knew the Tower in question very well.
The Tower that appeared on Cheonchu Mountain in this era was the Tower of Agony—a structure boasting truly nightmarish difficulty.
Worse, unlike other Towers or dungeons, it wasn't some pre-opening shell that hadn't properly activated.
A Tower at full activation.
But Won-goo already knew about the Tower of Agony, and he knew how to beat it.
Before the floors multiplied too far, he was confident it could be cleared.
Still, Won-goo's principles were ironclad. He never made the difficult look easy, and he never did anything for free.
That applied even to Baek Seol, who was as close to him as anyone.
“Let's do an upfront investment.”
“Upfront investment?”
“Right. This job is far too dangerous, so there's a lot of preparation involved. I need gold coin support.”
“How much?”
“Minimum, fifty.”
“What—!”
Baek Seol shot to her feet and barked.
“I'm not forcing you. Feel free to shop the offer elsewhere. But you did the math before coming, didn't you? You came because you decided I was the best fit for solving this.”
“Director. Demanding an advance payment of fifty gold coins feels like going well past the line, wouldn't you say?”
This time it was Won-goo whose face drained of all humor.
“No. Absolutely not past the line.”
“You don't even know what difficulty that Tower is, and you want fifty coins upfront, just like that?”
“Because we don't know the difficulty. Because we don't know what kind of Tower it is. So I'll put it in the contract instead. If the initial scan by the information broker comes back with low difficulty, or shows it's an unactivated Tower, the coins get returned.”
“So you're certain it's a difficult one, Director?”
“Not certain. That dungeon we hit recently was pretty underwhelming in difficulty for its scale and appearance. It hadn't fully activated yet. That possibility exists here too. But—”
“But?”
“In my experience, structures that appear anchored to a mountain are almost always high-difficulty. You know this. Any quests left on the field right now?”
“Practically none.”
“Exactly. None. And probably genuinely none at that. But Cheonchu Mountain? There was the Number Bridge until just recently. You know that.”
“I do.”
“Right. Mountains, islands—things generated on unusual terrain run harder than the open field. Towers and dungeons are no exception. Do you get it now? That's why I'm asking for fifty. We're not walking in there to die.”
“Fifty is more than I can cover on my own authority. I'll have to consult.”
“Do that. But—”
As he spoke, Won-goo glanced at his wristwatch.
“We take the commission only if you're ready within 120 hours. Go a single hour past that and we walk. Call it petty if you want—I can't help it. Lives are on the line.”
“120 hours...”
“And that's me being generous. So get moving—find an information broker before then and have them sweep the Tower. Confirm whether it's worth the quote, then send the offer. We'll source the broker on our end, too.”
“That's fine. I've already called one. An information broker.”
“Good. Then once it's confirmed, put in the commission.”
Baek Seol gave a nod and slipped out of the office.
“Weren't you two supposed to be on good terms?”
The moment Baek Seol was gone, Mu Beob-sa spoke up.
“Where's that coming from all of a sudden?”
“I just thought fifty gold coins was pushing it a bit far, that's all.”
“You think I did it on purpose?”
“Didn't you?”
“He did. And here I thought you were about to turn her down.”
Jo Mu-sa chimed in.
“Baek Seol, who isn't even one of us, read you perfectly—and the actual crew can't figure you out at all.”
“You're planning to go in, aren't you?”
Jeon Hye-ji cut straight to the heart of it.
“Yeah. I'm going in.”
“Director Gong. The Tower—is it one of those pre-opening ones like last time?”
“This time it's opened. A fully activated Tower.”
“And you intend to enter it?”
“Why wouldn't I? Plenty of prep to do.”
“You knew it was going to appear?”
Hye-ji asked.
“I did. And if the memories transferred to me are right, Baek Seol will come back with those fifty coins before long. Naturally, I plan to squeeze more than that out of her. It's exactly that kind of dungeon.”
Mu Beob-sa, who in the old days would have demanded to know why anyone would willingly enter a hard dungeon, stayed quiet.
Living as one crew, he'd seen a great deal by now.
At the very least, the memories injected into Gong Won-goo's head were real.
Besides, the crew knew better than anyone just how careful Won-goo was by nature.
He didn't do reckless things.
Once again, the crew trusted that Won-goo had a plan.
“Let's start with preparations. Hyun-sung.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Run the equipment check. Load a minimum of one week's supplies into the Trailer.”
“Understood, Boss.”
Baek Seol returned exactly ten hours later.
She came to the office wearing a grave expression.
But this time she'd brought people with her.
Not the usual escorts she occasionally dragged along. These were new faces.
The moment Won-goo registered who Baek Seol had brought with her, his eyes went calm and steady.
“You went all the way up to your superiors, huh?”
“Don't worry about them. They're just here to observe the negotiation.”
“Tch. Still—new faces. How am I supposed not worry?”
“You don't need to. The Director's proposal will be accepted.”
“Ha. That proposal's statute of limitations expired ages ago. I ran the numbers again, and it turns out I need eighty.”
“......!”
Baek Seol's eyes went round, and the expressions of the people who'd followed her in shifted subtly.
“Director!”
“I'm not joking with you, and I'm not playing games. I need eighty. The re-quote came back at that.”
“Director. It's true I was planning to lowball the price early on. Even so, isn't this going too far?”
“Not every information broker has to set foot inside the Tower to gather intel, Baek Seol.”
“......?”
“We sent scouts of our own. Monsters start at Tier 3 and up, and the keyword is 'Agony.' That makes it a high-tier difficulty Tower. And you want us to go in as the advance team and clear it? This needs complete preparation. It's exactly that hard a job.”
Baek Seol bit her lip.
But there was no alternative on the table—not in this situation.
And Won-goo's words were true.
The Tower that had erupted from Cheonchu Mountain was a Tower of considerable difficulty.
“Baek Seol, this isn't me grinding down your price. It's not me padding the job to make a sucker out of you. Like I said—it's an accurate calculation.”
“A sudden jump of thirty coins feels plenty like a game to me, Director.”
“Then think about it. Do I have any reason to pull that on you, Baek Seol? None. And think again. My crew goes in with their lives on the line. You've got serious money riding on this. Which means our goal is the same: clear it safely. Am I wrong? So I'm asking for generous support.”
“And what if you fail to clear it? What then?”
A middle-aged man who had been quietly watching from behind Baek Seol spoke up.
The moment he opened his mouth, Baek Seol's face registered surprise.
“Right. Of course you wouldn't have come all this way just to sit in. Let's introduce ourselves, then. I'm Gong Won-goo of Won-goo's Services.”
“Oh Yong-gu. I run a pharmaceutical company in this area.”
“A pharmaceutical company... Okay. Have a seat.”
What Baek Seol and Oh Yong-gu were running now could pass for a legitimate pharmaceutical outfit. From supplying raw materials to the various pharmacies in the Shelter to distributing all manner of Reinforcement Pills and supplementary boosters.
But that was only by present-day standards. In the old world, it would have been nothing more than illegal drug trafficking.
“No need to sit. I only have one question. If you fail to clear it—can you take responsibility?”
“Responsibility?”
“I mean, if you don't clear it, can you cough the coins back up?”
“If you fail to clear it, you're dead. What's the point?”
“There's a chance of surviving without clearing it, isn't there? In practice, you get cases where people push partway in and bail out of fear, don't you? That's what I'm asking—can you repay the coins then?”
“That goes without saying. Who'd shut their mouth after failing to clear it?”
“Then I take it interest accrues if repayment isn't immediate?”
“Ha... shit...”
The tone was polite, but it was more than enough to grind on Won-goo.
The wry smile on Won-goo's face twisted hard.
“Done.”
“......?”
“We're not taking the commission. Oh Yong-gu, was it, CEO? Let me tell you—feelings matter as much as price. However good an offer is, if it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, a human being doesn't take it.”