1.5 Billion?!
After a grand festival of self-brainwashing, my identity had been fully armored as the Heavenly Demon.
This body is the Heavenly Demon.
A being who stood on an entirely different plane from ordinary mortals — peerless under heaven, unmatched on earth.
Armed with the mindset that wherever I went was, by definition, the right path, I strode boldly toward the gym.
Wearing a hat pulled low, sunglasses, and a mask, of course.
Fully geared up for battle.
Someone might sneer that for all my bold talk of being peerless under heaven, I sure looked pathetic in disguise — but they could at least try to understand the position of a Heavenly Demon influencer.
Even when I walked with confidence, eyes gathered on me. My upgraded face and that dazzling pink hair drew aggro from men and women alike. There was no helping it.
But the gym was my precious sanctuary. I had no intention of letting my privacy get trampled even there.
"Ugh, the second I make real money, I'm putting everything right in my house…!"
I daydreamed about stocking every machine imaginable and running sets at home without a care in the world for anyone else's schedule.
Kyaa — that would be absolute heaven.
Lost in that fantasy, I arrived at a climber-exclusive gym before I knew it.
I would have preferred my old gym, but that place was for ordinary normals now. To test the limits of my overwhelming power, I had to seek out a facility built for climbers.
"So this is the place?"
I had come to confirm whether it was the gym advertised by Kim Haeyeon, currently the most famous female climber in the country. A massive building loomed ahead, her face plastered across it.
I had already researched the facilities online. My heart had done a little flutter at the sheer number of machines that looked purpose-built to make it race.
I reached the entrance.
"Oho. Magical power check, is it?"
From the jump, I could feel a powerful message: ordinary people need not apply.
But who was this body?
I drew a surge of potent Magi to my fingertips, set my hand on the device, and ran the magical power check.
Fwoosh—
And then the machine burst into flames!?
"What the hell—!"
Startled, I instinctively slammed my fist down to put out the fire.
KA-BOOM
The device ruptured on the spot.
From inside the building, a man who looked like a manager came sprinting out. At a glance, the situation was completely screwed.
I'm so dead…
At this rate I was going to have to sneak into the Tower illegally just to scrape together some cash for the damages. A climber sneaking into the Tower to climb — people from other countries would find that absurd — but I was a public service agent fulfilling my national duty.
This country was merciless enough to make even climbers serve their sacred military obligation without exception.
Doesn't climbing the Tower benefit the nation? you might ask. But according to public opinion, if you were making that much money, you still had to do your part for national defense. So even climbers had to give their all to military service.
Just look at Juhyeok — a guy who could casually kick a million-won monthly lifestyle was stuck grinding agent work and earning a measly 1.5 million a month.
Of course, people had complained by comparing us to other countries, so there was a legal exemption.
Five hundred million won.
Pay five hundred million and you could skip service.
But where was I supposed to get that kind of money? Only rich kids could pull that off. I was a newbie who'd awakened three days ago, from a perfectly ordinary middle-class family (or rather, I used to be the son of one).
While the manager was on his way out, I ran every worst-case simulation imaginable — and then, unexpectedly, he greeted me with a beaming smile.
"Oh my! Are you here to sign up for our gym, by any chance?!"
Despite having rushed over the second he saw the machine get wrecked from a distance, the face that met mine was full of smiles. For a second I almost wondered if I hadn't done anything wrong at all.
But a normal person was supposed to own their mistakes.
"I'm so sorry! I put my magical power into the machine to get measured, and it suddenly caught fire, so I tried to put it out and…"
"Oh, it's fine! This thing is defective — it does this all the time! You're not hurt, are you?"
"Huh? Ah, no, I'm not hurt."
"Ah, what a relief. We'll clean this up, so if you're here as a guest, may I show you around?"
His tone was almost painfully polite.
Something's up.
Even someone with zero social radar would know this situation was not normal. On a hunch, I removed the gear covering my face and answered.
"Ah — would that be all right?"
In that instant, suspicion hardened into certainty. The manager's face lit up even brighter.
"Of course, please just follow me! Our gym is meticulously designed for climbers with powerful physiques! You're welcome to try everything as much as you like…!"
He launched into explanations of how exceptional the climbers who trained here were, and how outstanding the equipment was. As I followed along listening to his pitch, I realized he wasn't leading me toward the shared training floor — he was steering me toward the private facilities on the opposite side.
"Uh, I thought I was just getting the regular service that everyone uses…?"
The manager's face flashed a quick oops.
"Oh my! Well, we do offer a special private gym service for first-time visitors — but would you rather I show you the general floor instead?"
It seemed my identity really had been made. I was about to turn down the kindness and look away — and then the endless array of machines over there seduced me completely.
Don't tell me I get all of that to myself…?
So he'd figured out who I was?
So what!
As long as I benefited, that was all that mattered. There was no reason to refuse a premium service being handed to me free of charge.
I pivoted on the spot and flipped my stance. The manager looked relieved again and guided me into a private training room.
And then we arrived at the private gym.
Barbells of overwhelming size and weight. Premium machines built to drive electric stimulation into every muscle group imaginable.
This is pure fantasy…!
My eyes went hazy, as if I had slipped into a dream.
At the climber-exclusive gym — better known as Hercules Gym — Manager Kim Hyeonchol was sitting blankly by the front door as usual, greeting guests as they came and went and holding down his post.
He was coasting through another shift, killing time, when a sudden noise snapped his eyes wide open.
Out front, some woman with her face covered was spewing black Magi from her hand and smashing a magical-power measuring device worth millions of won!?
Panicked, he bolted for the exit — and in that moment, the smartphone linked to the destroyed device announced that the rank measurement was complete, and a number appeared on the screen.
Measurement baseline exceeded. Unable to quantify.
It can't even read the value…?
This was unmistakably a top-tier climber. Kim Hyeonchol knew perfectly well that this very device had precisely measured the Magi of high-ranking A-class climbers before. His face swapped over to a full-beam smile in an instant.
Grinning, he sprinted outside.
He poured on the charm with every polite phrase he could muster — and then the items covering the visitor's face came off, and he saw her bare face. That settled it. He knew exactly who she was.
The Yeongdeungpo Heavenly Demon—
Overwhelming looks, and martial might that put even those looks to shame!
He was certain: a star climber had finally walked into their gym after a long dry spell. If he could lock her into a formal membership without letting some other gym snatch her, the performance bonus alone would be incalculable.
Kindness poured off Kim Hyeonchol like water as he worked desperately to keep her from feeling the slightest inconvenience. He worked his tongue for all it was worth, determined to escort her into the highest-grade private VIP room.
And at last, they arrived at the private VIP room.
Midway through the tour she had thrown out an unexpected request that drained the color from his face for a second — but he'd improvised his way past it cleanly!
As he kept explaining, he watched her eyes glaze over with rapture the moment she faced the top-tier equipment. That told him everything. Anyone could see she liked this space.
Watching the Yeongdeungpo Heavenly Demon scan the machines with a dazed expression, then start using them one by one, Kim Hyeonchol's instincts flashed.
In moments like this, the correct move was to read the room and slip out naturally.
He set an alarm on his phone to go off the second she finished working out and left, then carefully muffled his footsteps and exited the room. Until this jackpot VIP finished her session in a good mood, he intended to wait at the counter with pious devotion.
It was a dreamlike stretch of time.
It wasn't that this body couldn't build muscle. It was simply on another level.
With pure physical ability alone:
Bench press — 500 kg.
Deadlift — 700 kg.
Weighted squat — 800 kg!
A total of 2,000 kg across the big three. A body that had ascended to the realm of the gods.
"Mwahahaha!"
And then came a feast of machine after machine…
For the first time since becoming this body, I could feel real load settling into my muscles. Looking at the faint striations carved into my arms in the big mirror, I let out a roaring cheer and finished my workout.
When I stepped out, the manager — who had vanished at some point — reappeared and made me an offer.
In exchange for using my name in their advertising, they would let me use the VIP private room free of charge for two years. So he really had confirmed who I was.
I had planned to operate openly anyway, and there was no reason to refuse free stuff.
"Let's do it. Contract…!"
The full-body burn of an all-time-record session still humming through me, dopamine fully topped off, I signed without a second thought.
And so I arrived home.
I was still flying high on that long-overdue dopamine hit. I was about to post my all-time records for the gallery crowd when—
I saw something I should never have seen.
With trembling hands, I clicked into the posts.
The reward money I could accept — but there was no way byproducts from mere orcs could be that expensive. Except every axe the orcs had carried had been appraised as artifacts. I had beaten more than thirty of them to death myself, so at roughly twenty million apiece, plus the chieftain's weapon at two hundred million, and the rest of the byproducts piled on top — the grand total really was 1.5 billion.
"What is this…!"
1.5 billion?!
"No! It was worth that much!?"
In an instant the dopamine vanished. All that remained inside me was a vast, crushing regret and sorrow…
Effective immediately, the man who does not dwell on the past no longer exists in this world.
1.5 billion? That was the kind of fortune that could slap even Grandpa Heavenly Demon across the face.
With that money I could buy premium protein and eat beef instead of chicken while I train…!
Emotions surged past the breaking point. The Magi boiling inside me shattered its critical threshold.
"Grrrrrrrk—!"
Fallen into qi deviation, foam at my lips, I blacked out.