Cheonmadong
Kugung!
The stone door began to tremble.
"Why—why is it doing this?"
Why the hell was it suddenly going berserk all on its own?
What had I even done? All I'd managed was to circulate the tiniest trickle of energy from the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
No way…
Had it reacted to the Heavenly Demon Divine Art?
"Is that even possible?"
I'd heard of hidden pieces that only activated if you were carrying a specific item. But a place that responded to a particular trait? That was something I'd never once heard of.
Of course the Tower still hid countless secrets no one had uncovered, so a couple of trait-reactive hidden pieces existing wouldn't exactly be shocking.
"Hmm."
No matter how I looked at it, that interpretation was way too optimistic.
Barring weird exceptions like mana exhaustion, every awakener only ever received a single trait. Which meant "Heavenly Demon" was a unique, one-of-a-kind trait that belonged solely to me. And yet here was a door that reacted to the Heavenly Demon Divine Art that came with it?
That would mean the Tower had prepared a private room just for me.
Yeah, right.
That was pure self-importance talking.
The Tower might not treat everyone equally, but at least on the surface it kept up the appearance of fairness. There was no way a place like that would leave a custom-tailored space for one specific individual.
I just got lucky and hit the conditions by chance.
In this case, the opening condition was probably just handling mana above a certain threshold while standing on the stone door.
Whichever answer was correct, the door had opened. I no longer had to waste brainpower fretting over whether to smash the thing or not.
"Ah. Standing here is a bad idea."
If I stayed put, the second the door opened I would drop straight through. I had no idea what might be lurking below, so the smart move was to step aside and wait for it to open all the way.
Kugugugung!
After a short wait, a thunderous roar filled the air as the massive stone door finally opened.
"…It doesn't drop down. It slides to the side."
It looked for all the world like a pair of swinging doors, yet it slid smoothly open like a sliding screen.
Once the door was fully open, a staircase revealed itself beneath.
"A staircase under a stone door, huh."
Pretty classic setup.
No telling what might jump out, so I'd better move carefully and stay on full alert.
"If things go south…"
Do you wish to move to the Reward Room?
I could use that message to bail anytime I wanted.
I carefully set foot on the stairs and began descending.
Kugung!
"Huh."
The moment I finished the descent, the stone door rumbled shut again with the same heavy grinding sound.
Fwoosh!
"Torches flaring up out of nowhere, huh."
Classic as hell.
And that was exactly why I liked it. It was basically advertising, "This is a secret place!" to anyone with eyes.
I kept walking down the stairs for a long while. Just as I started wondering how deep they'd dug this place—
Ding!
A cheerful chime rang out and a system message appeared.
You have entered a hidden space: Cheonmadong (Heavenly Demon Cave).
"Huh?"
Cheonmadong?
Just in case, I pulled up my status window and compared the characters of my trait, Heavenly Demon, against the name. They used the exact same characters.
Was this place really prepared just for me?
Who do they think I am?
Sure, I'd been on a hot streak lately, racking up SSS ranks one after another. But I still didn't feel like the Tower was about to give me the full VIP treatment.
And besides…
That was honestly kind of a lot of pressure.
I was just a young guy who wanted to make bank without getting famous, okay?
Fwoosh!
Whether I felt burdened or not, every torch in Cheonmadong blazed to life at once, driving back the darkness.
"Oh…"
The space that emerged under the flickering torchlight felt strangely familiar.
And of course it did.
"Looks just like Seokguram Grotto."
The structure was identical to the Seokguram Grotto in Gyeongju that I'd visited on a field trip back in elementary school, before the Tower appeared.
There was just one difference.
"Is that a corpse?"
Instead of a Buddha statue sitting in the center, there was a skeleton seated in the lotus position. And not just any skeleton—one wearing a mask of an oddly elaborate design.
"Ugh."
The vibe radiating from the skeleton was so unsettling that I decided not to touch it right away and searched the surroundings first.
There was nothing.
Hoping there might be another hidden space, I knocked on every wall and pressed every suspicious spot I could find. Still nothing.
The only things in this room were me and the skeleton.
For a place with such a grand name as Cheonmadong, the setup was painfully sparse.
Just to be thorough I even cast a detection spell. Nothing registered.
"So that means the reward of this room is that thing."
Which meant the clothes and the mask the skeleton was wearing were the loot.
"Hmm."
In other words, if I wanted the reward, I inevitably had to rummage through those bones.
Something about this feels off.
But what choice did I have? If I wanted the reward, I had to touch it.
I'd done far worse things countless times in this cutthroat Tower. It was a little late to get squeamish over handling a skeleton.
I let out a short sigh and trudged toward the bones.
"But why does the mask look Japanese?"
An oni mask, I think they call it. Exactly that kind of design.
Given the name Cheonmadong and the martial-arts style of the clothes, I'd been privately hoping for something like a face-changing mask from the wuxia genre.
"Just because it's East Asian fantasy doesn't mean everything is interchangeable."
Each culture has its own flavor.
If the Tower had a design team, they needed to take notes. This was a sensitive issue.
"Let's just grab it and get out of here."
With that thought, I carefully reached out—
Grab!
The pure-white skeleton lifted an arm and seized my wrist.
"Hiiik!"
The bones! The bones were alive and moving!
"Heheheh."
It even talked!
The eyes of the masked skull began to glow as if red light were burning within them.
"What manner of creature are you, to disturb this seat's rest?"
Rest? The thing was already a pile of bones—what kind of damn rest was left? If it rested any more it was going to turn into bone powder.
Of course I only thought that. I didn't dare say it out loud.
The aura pouring off the skeleton in front of me was so intense I couldn't open my mouth carelessly.
One wrong word and I'm dead.
It definitely had that kind of power. If it didn't like me, it could casually snap a person's neck without breaking a sweat.
"Will you not answer? Well, even if you refuse, this seat can always…"
The skeleton chuckled and started to rise.
Then it seemed to sense something wrong. It abruptly closed its mouth and shoved its face right up to mine.
"How… how is this even…"
Staring straight at me, the skeleton began muttering to itself as if something had gone terribly wrong.
"What is this? How on earth do you exist?"
It kept murmuring incomprehensible things, sinking deep into thought.
Something was clearly off for it.
Opportunity!
I struck while it was still confused!
"Haat!"
A martial shout infused with demon-dispelling force erupts outward.
I unleashed a roar packed with evil-repelling energy.
I swear I didn't scream because I was scared.
"What is this sudden shout—ugh? Is this not a Shaolin technique? How do you know Shaolin arts…"
Shaolin? What the hell was Shaolin?
I had no idea what it was talking about, but at least I'd confirmed that Lion's Roar worked on it.
"How dare you!"
I fired off Lion's Roar a second time.
"What?"
The second roar didn't seem to affect it much. The skeleton stared at me as if it couldn't believe its ears.
"Do you know who this seat is?!"
I remembered speaking exactly like this when my trait had taken over.
"This seat?"
"Indeed! How dare you look down upon this seat with such insolence—kneel at once!"
In that state I probably would have said something just like that.
If things go south I can just run!
I still had the emergency escape button: transfer to the Reward Room. Losing the reward would hurt, but it wasn't worth more than my life.
"This seat? This seat, you say? Eheheheh!"
The skeleton laughed in a deeply unpleasant way. So there really were things that laughed that weirdly in this world.
"How amusing! This is not the direction this lady desired, yet it is not bad in its own way!"
What the hell was this weirdo even talking about? Why was it getting so excited over a story only it understood?
"Uh, ahem. Th-this seat shall take its leave now. You may continue resting."
It didn't look like it was about to attack me immediately, so I started edging backward as naturally as possible—making absolutely sure it didn't look like I was running away in fear.
"Wait. Hold."
It called out to me as I tried to turn away.
Surely it wasn't going to kill me now of all times?
"Were you not intending to take this?"
It removed the mask it had been wearing until moments ago and held it out to me.
"Huh?"
It was just giving it to me? What kind of scheme was this?
"Y-you mean… you offer it to this seat?"
"Indeed."
The skeleton grinned.
A skeleton smiling sounded completely absurd, but my own two eyes clearly saw it smiling.
"Th-then I shall gratefully accept."
"As you should."
The moment I took the mask, its smile deepened even further.
I was clearly losing my mind. Seeing a skeleton smile? Yeah, I'd gone full crazy.
Do you wish to move to the Reward Room?
I frantically nodded.
I'd gotten the mask. There was nothing left for me here. The clothes it wore looked tempting too, but if I got any greedier I was genuinely going to die before my time.
The instant I nodded, light enveloped my entire body.
"Leaving, are you?"
"A-ahem. Yes."
Watching me wrapped in light, it kept nodding with open interest.
Moving to the Reward Room shortly.
"Th-then fare well."
"Very well."
Its calm reply. The light wrapping my body grew even stronger.
"Let us meet again, Heavenly Demon."
What? How did it know that name—
"What did you just—!"
Before I could even finish the question, my vision turned pure white and the transfer began.
"Eheheheheh!"
The last things I saw before my sight blurred were a skeleton laughing with pure, unrestrained delight—and that grotesque laughter that stabbed straight into my ears.