The Prophesied Swordsman (1)
The first floor of the Tower.
New recruits materialized at Kairas's summons. Each appeared at different starting points, isolated and struggling to accept the reality before them. Some wailed to be let outside, while others curled up in corners, trembling and insisting it was all a dream.
Yet there was one who was different.
“So this is… how it is.”
He examined the various pieces of armor and weapons laid out in the small room he had entered. Even though no quest had appeared yet, he was already selecting his gear with practiced ease. He donned leather armor specialized for protecting the heart, solar plexus, and vital points, along with a small shield that strapped to his forearm. Then he moved to the weapon rack and grasped a one-handed sword without hesitation.
The way he swung the blade through the air looked far too natural.
A blue window materialized before his eyes.
Clear the Tutorial.
Earth must prepare for the coming disaster. You, including Lee Jin-ho, have been chosen as guardians to protect the planet. Clear the Tower up to the 10th floor to prove your qualifications as Conquerors. The future rests in your hands.
“A disaster……”
Jin-ho Lee’s expression darkened. It was a tale he had heard countless times from his family. In the distant future, a calamity would strike Earth, and preparations had to be made. His clan had spent generations readying themselves according to that prophecy.
Though the message had appeared without warning, all he felt was that the time had finally come.
‘So these are my stats? More focused on agility than strength. It must be quantifying my original abilities.’
Jin-ho focused on the status window that had appeared after the quest. Even he found it intriguing; a hint of interest flickered across his usually impassive face. After confirming his stats and testing his changed physical capabilities, he looked straight ahead.
“That must be the way forward.”
The only passage connected to this isolated room. There was no other choice for him. Without hesitation, he threw himself into the corridor.
Thud, thud!
The gray passage, its ceiling sealed shut, was only faintly visible thanks to an unknown light source. Jin-ho sprinted at full speed, missing nothing, no matter how small. In an instant, an arrow flew past him. He deflected it with his shield as if he had been waiting for it. He twisted away from a flame trap, then kicked off the walls to soar over a pitfall trap.
It looked like a scene from an action movie, but to him it was routine.
Clang!
Whoosh!
Boom!
Traps activated noisily in the space he had just passed through. Yet Jin-ho never slowed, eyes fixed forward. Once he had visually mapped the dangers, his movements became flawless. In the blink of an eye, he cleared the first floor and hurled himself through the gate to the second.
And someone was watching him.
[Kiiiiiiing!]
[I’ll have to dismantle this. Otherwise it’ll be a nuisance.]
Thud!
Thud, thud!
“Hey, you crazy bastard! You son of a bitch!”
The most complex and dangerous trap on the first floor for new Conquerors. Rotating saw blades that inflicted fatal wounds if the timing was missed. The floor had been designed so the solution was visible, yet Jin-ho’s approach was brutally efficient. He ignored traps he could simply dodge and destroyed the rest by stabbing them several times with his sword. Sometimes he even hurled stones to jam the gears.
At first, Yoo Ji-sung thought it was just luck. But when it happened a second and third time, he could no longer stay silent. He watched Jin-ho plow through the traps like a bulldozer, teeth grinding.
“What the hell is that guy……”
Yoo Ji-sung had wanted to enjoy watching his former rival suffer. Even the future’s strongest had to start from the same place. He had planned to settle the past and perhaps build a better relationship. But the sight of Jin-ho already on the second floor, rampaging like a wild boar, made his head spin.
When slimes, young Blood Wolves, and goblins appeared, Jin-ho hesitated for a moment. But only for a moment. His eyes hardened with resolve, and his sword showed no mercy. A hollow laugh escaped Yoo Ji-sung’s lips.
“Kairas, you damn bitch.”
[How rude. I am a god.]
“God or not, you’re still a bitch. Lying to your partner?”
[I do not tell lies. I am a god who knows no falsehood.]
“Bullshit.”
Yoo Ji-sung laughed in disbelief at Kairas’s shameless reply, then pointed at the screen showing Jin-ho.
“Then what the hell is that guy? Does he think he’s some chosen hero or something? The second he enters the Tower he already knows exactly what to do. Not a trace of panic. And his specs are completely different from everyone else’s. That’s only possible if he already knows the future, right?”
[He is indeed a chosen hero. Or rather, a manufactured one.]
“…Manufactured? What kind of nonsense is that?”
[Even before the Tower appeared, strange phenomena were observed on Earth. You know this, don’t you?]
Yoo Ji-sung’s brow furrowed. He couldn’t follow Kairas’s meaning at all.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
[Prophets who foresee the future have appeared, and priests or exorcists who banish evil spirits have existed since ancient times. There are also mediums who summon spirits and allow them to possess their bodies.]
“So… ghosts and prophecies. You’re saying they weren’t lies?”
[Even gods cannot easily foresee the future. Among humans with infinite potential, those who sacrifice their lifespan to glimpse the future occasionally appear. Even then, the visions are often fragmented or twisted into something entirely different. Spirits are aggregates of living will.]
“Hah……”
Yoo Ji-sung pressed his nose bridge, head throbbing. He had never believed in superstitions, so Kairas’s words struck him like a hammer.
Meanwhile, Jin-ho was already more than halfway through the second floor, displaying overwhelming prowess compared to the other new recruits.
“So that’s what kind of human he is.”
[More precisely, his ancestors. A family that prepared for the prophesied disaster. Jin-ho possesses the greatest talent even among them. His parents also held prophetic abilities and must have glimpsed fragments of what the Tower truly is.]
“Fuck.”
The curse slipped out. A wave of futility washed over him. He had believed everyone started equally in the Tower. Jin-ho was the very embodiment of unfairness.
“Now I get why you tried so hard to kill me and why that bastard had to die. He’s literally the protagonist, isn’t he?”
[Correct. And it is unfortunate. Even those with such talent mostly lack the resistance to Marknus’s mana. If more of them had appeared, the future would not have turned out this way. Both Markrun and Marknus, along with your ambitions, would have collapsed. You yourself were one of them—someone with the mana control needed to manage the Tower and the ability to resist Marknus’s mana.]
“Then you should’ve taken better care of me. …Well, it’s all in the past now. Regrets can wait until everything’s over. Roa, show me everything Jin-ho passes through. All the way to the 10th floor. I’m not going to sit here and watch that bastard cruise through with a smile on his face.”
[Understood.]
Yoo Ji-sung clenched his fists as he stared at the screens Roa displayed. When Kairas asked what he was planning, he gave no answer.
‘That bastard. How dare he make my masterpiece look like trash? The work I spent years designing?’
At Yoo Ji-sung’s gesture, the areas Jin-ho had to clear began to change.
‘If it’s been easy mode until now, from here on it’s spicy. You cheat bastard.’
Yoo Ji-sung’s eyes gleamed with hostility toward Jin-ho. He had intended to give new recruits room to grow and adapt, but that consideration was unnecessary for this one. Countless messages from Kairas telling him to stop appeared, but he ignored them all.
‘Something feels different.’
Upon reaching the third floor, Jin-ho sensed the change. While clearing the second floor’s passages and hunting monsters, he had felt an inexplicable discomfort. Now, standing in a forest beneath a blue sky, that unease doubled.
Slash!
“Kieeeek!”
After cutting down five goblins, he leaned against a tree to catch his breath. The number of monsters had suddenly doubled. Plant-type monsters even launched surprise attacks, making things troublesome.
He had expected the difficulty to rise with each floor, but not to this extent.
‘It said it was testing our qualifications as Conquerors. And I’m not the only one. Is that true?’
He had held a sword since he could walk and treated training as daily life. Even he was struggling, so he worried about the others. Would anyone truly succeed in climbing the Tower at this rate?
The thought made him wish for his clan elders’ insight. But having entered the Tower, he could no longer rely on them. Nor was he the type to depend on his family in the first place.
“If they truly want to prepare for the disaster, there must be some way.”
A message announced his level had risen. He opened his status window and allocated points to strength. The increase was immediately noticeable.
‘Incredible. Since it’s the tutorial, the others should have similar stats. They should be able to survive somehow.’
After clenching and relaxing his fist a few times, he resumed walking. Because this floor was a forest rather than corridors, he had to navigate blindly. The quest gave the method, but finding the objective was up to him.
Slash!
Slash!
Jin-ho swung his sword twice through the air. A plant-type monster that had been waiting for prey was sliced apart. The two strikes also left sword marks on a tree. Checking the precise marks at eye level, Jin-ho set off again in search of the altar.
“That crazy bastard. He’s actually insane.”
Yoo Ji-sung couldn’t tear his eyes away from Jin-ho’s clearing method, cursing nonstop. After finding the third floor’s altar, Jin-ho ascended to the fourth and cleared the scorching desert. He overcame the freezing cold zone on the fifth floor and reached the sixth—all in just three days.
Despite the increased monsters and traps, they proved useless. Jin-ho had grown explosively, now strong enough to handle even the 10th floor boss with ease.
“Hoo… In the end, he’s just a tool. A tool for me to use. Nothing more, nothing less. He’s not an enemy I fought in the past. I shouldn’t be bound by the past.”
Yoo Ji-sung repeated the words like a mantra, yet his gaze never left Jin-ho.
“How can I make use of that bastard? If I play it right……”
‘He’ll definitely become a giant no one can ignore. His followers will grow, just like before. They called him a manufactured hero, but in this Tower he’ll become a true one.’
Yoo Ji-sung bit his nails in anxiety. A confrontation like the past could easily arise again.
[I’m not even sighing anymore. Why do you only think about using people? The world is kind.]
“Hah! You’d understand if you were in my shoes! Ever worked as a loan shark’s lackey? Watched your parents die in an accident while paying off debt, then lose your little brother too? It’s the same in the Tower. People can’t be trusted.”
Yoo Ji-sung sneered at Kairas. To him, the words “friend” and “comrade” simply meant people who would betray you at any moment.
Then an idea flashed through his mind.
“Friend? Comrade? Wait a second……”
[You vile human. What are you thinking now?]
“Shut up. I’m thinking. Friend. And comrade. And Jin-ho. Yeah, that’s it. No matter what he does, he can’t escape my sight. If he tries to stab me in the back, I’ll just stab him first. In the past he sacrificed himself to save his comrades, right? If I become his comrade……”
[…How does that even make sense!]
Yoo Ji-sung’s gaze suddenly softened. The way he looked at Jin-ho was no longer hostile. His body no longer trembled with jealousy or resentment.
If the man was too great to make a subordinate, then he would approach him differently.
“Right, Jin-ho. From now on, you and I are comrades. No—friends who know each other better than anyone. The kind of friend who would die for me and lead a faction to support me. My friend… I love you!”
Yoo Ji-sung shot to his feet and spread his arms wide. His expression as he gazed at Jin-ho was that of someone who had just found a long-lost best friend.