Hall of Ten Thousand Demons Unlocked!

First things first.

I snatched up the rewards and the artifact in a hurry and warped straight home from the Tower.

Before anything else, I pulled up the footage I'd recorded.

"Ugh, this is a disaster!"

The overhead shot was pure gore. Watching it back hit harder than it had inside the Tower itself — which meant the whole thing was completely unusable as video content.

"Do I just send it and eat the scolding…?"

The early part had looked so damn cool, too. The regret was killing me.

"If I go back in, the ogre won't even show up again."

According to the hard-mode seniors, a re-clear meant weaker monsters to match the reduced rewards. And with the stats I'd already gained climbing the Tower, there was no way I'd capture the same pulse-pounding spectacle a second time.

"Ah, screw it! Just edit it and— …yeah, I can't say that."

For a second I almost turned into one of those tyrant bosses, but the kid was too competent to alienate. I had to coax and coddle him. Reason reasserted itself.

"Whatever. I'll just send it, and if he rejects it, I'll re-clear and shoot again…"

Frustrating, but what choice did I have? If it didn't work, I'd settle for a re-challenge video. I forced myself to ship the clear footage to Yeongjae and opened the Climber community.

"Ice Princess noona told me to post the second I cleared ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and got out, so I should leave a note."

I typed up a little survival report: ogre? Handled with ease.

"That should get them to acknowledge how strong I am, right?"

Three days since joining the community. They kept treating this body like some precious newbie — but talking with them had made one thing clear. For people who acted like I was a beginner, the skill gap between us wasn't actually that big.

"Apparently there are people who still haven't even cleared the third floor."

Beep-beep—

For a community, it was surprisingly lively — a little chime rang in the window every time a new comment dropped. Sure enough, the usual dopamine hyenas who had nothing better to do were already swarming.

"Do these people even climb, or do they just stare at the community all day?"

Same faces I'd been seeing for three days straight. One reply, though, kept snagging my eye.

"And that misogynist bastard just keeps running his mouth at me…?"

I made a mental note to meet him in person someday and rearrange his internal organs, then left a short post saying not to worry, I was perfectly fine, and closed the community.

Some of them still seemed to doubt my strength, but that would sort itself out the moment the video hit YouTube.

"Soon enough, they'll all behold this body's power."

Right then—

Ping—!

Pistachio Talk chimed. Yeongjae, of course.

And just like that, the footage was scrapped.

The scolding had been mercifully short, but I'd gone all-out filming that fight. Having it tossed still stung.

"Dammit. Time to check the rest of the rewards."

I went looking for consolation elsewhere, starting with the Ogre's Heart I'd gotten as a reward.

"I definitely pulverized that heart, though. How is it even a drop?"

I'd waved it off as a system-provided reward without thinking, but pure curiosity got the better of me — I had turned that thing into powder.

"Eh, the system knows what it's doing."

I still didn't even know what the Tower truly was. No point sweating the small stuff. I checked what the heart actually did.

"Ohh! It's an elixir!"

Ogre equaled strength. A strength-type elixir — and it was even good for vitality.

"This time I'm doing right by Mom…! A more filial child than me simply does not exist."

Lately Mom had been complaining that Dad's energy was lagging and it wasn't cutting it — and now I had the perfect gift for her.

"I should head down this weekend."

Triumphant homecoming, arms full of gifts. Restoring Father's hair and Mother's happiness? The Filial Heavenly Demon had arrived.

"For short — Filial Demon! Filial Demon!"

I planned my weekend trip home and moved on to the other reward: the Power of Ogre Gauntlets.

"Well, the name's certainly straightforward."

Ogre's Strength Gauntlets. The contents were exactly what I expected.

"Boosts muscle power to an ogre's level, huh…"

Honestly, I didn't need them. With the stats I'd gained breaking through floors, I was already stronger than an ogre! And gauntlets that made it hard to use my fingers were worse than useless for me.

Decision: sell.

"Wonder how much they'll go for."

I figured a Unique would fetch a decent price. Reality had other ideas.

The answers hit like a truck.

The body couldn't handle the boosted muscle power?

So even as an artifact, the market price sat at a measly three million won. I'd heard that if I'd gotten the Wolf King's pelt instead, it would've cleared two hundred million easy.

"You've got to be kidding me!"

The Tower had handed me garbage. Three million wasn't nothing, but with basically no real demand, even selling it would be a nightmare. Another piece of junk destined for a corner of my room.

I trudged off to convert my mana stones, intending to head to the gym after — and then it hit me.

The gym…?

"I've got it!"

The thread of opportunity.

The gym. My identity. The one thing I did better than anyone.

What if I posted a video of myself hitting a 2,500 kg total (boosted by climbing, of course)? Free publicity for the gym that let me train gratis, and a flood of attention for me.

"Everybody wins!"

I fired off a message to Yeongjae on the spot. His reply came back:

Permission granted. Grinning like an idiot, I grabbed my mana stones and bag and headed out.

The next day.

A certain post on a popular community site featured a particular video.

People who'd been quietly obsessed with the Yeongdeungpo Heavenly Demon seized on the post, and once it started spreading, similar threads cropped up across every major community site.

Explosive interest. Exploding view counts. And right alongside them, a climbing subscriber count. Luckily, thanks to Yeongjae's intervention, the channel wasn't stuck with some ridiculous name like "Heavenly Demon Descends," so the jump from viewer to subscriber was seamless.

"Man, hyung's face really does pack a punch, huh?"

Yeongjae, who'd edited the video, thought as much while watching a post meant for simple viral seeding blow past every expectation. The sheer impact of hyung's transformed looks still caught him off guard.

"The problem is everything that face does is so… him."

The first time he'd seen it, the inhuman visuals had genuinely made him blush — but one dose of the words and behavior that came out of that face, and it cross-faded instantly with the old Hyundo. Objectivity about that face had gone out the window.

"Still, even I was impressed by the face while checking the footage."

Stripping out as much of Hyundo's commentary and antics as possible and editing almost entirely around face-heavy close-ups — that had been the real masterstroke. Yeongjae was pretty sure that was the true engine behind the video's success.

"Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands…!"

Thirty-two thousand total.

The subscriber count on the Doyeon HD channel — HD for Heavenly Demon, meaning classified, of course.

All from a handful of sub-one-minute Shorts Yeongjae had tossed up. Overwhelming weight on camera — a 3,000 kg total ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— made to look just prestigious enough. The reaction had been nuclear.

I'd cheated a little with Magi when my strength started to flag, sure. But the response was good, so who cared?

Though… it kind of felt like every part where I actually explained the exercises had been cut?

Anyway.

Just looking at the subscriber spike was enough to fill me up. Sure, the comments were full of "AI" and "staged" accusations, but so what?

"It's real, after all."

A live stream, or people watching this body climb in person — either way, it'd sort itself out eventually.

What mattered more was this.

"I did it!"

I did a little victory dance and selected quest complete.

"Hooo!"

The Magi inside me deepened another layer in purity, and a wave of pleasure rolled through my entire body. Heavier. More overwhelming.

"For a bonus reward, that's insane."

Right now, I felt like I could split an ogre's skull with one or two punches.

"And now for the main event."

A Unique Authority. I activated the newly added skill-form entry on my status window — Hall of Ten Thousand Demons.

A gate bloomed into existence right in front of me.

"Guess I'm supposed to go through."

I stepped through the gate — and a magnificent, towering hall filled my vision.