Heavenly Demon Divine Cult!

Even after back-to-back battles with bipedal wolves and a troll, my stamina still overflowed.

Which meant everything after that was pure slaughter.

I spread my ki sense through the air and scoured the surroundings.

"Found you."

One. Two. Three.

Like counting sheep to fall asleep.

I got so caught up experimenting with every creative technique I could invent that before I knew it, I was soaked head to toe in blood. And by then, my ki sense barely picked up anything at all. I'd methodically cleaned out the monsters one by one, and the forest that had once seethed with killing intent now held nothing but a quiet, empty silence.

"Aww. Already over?"

A few faint traces of presence still lingered, but they were already running, terrified of this body.

"Hmph! I don't chase cowards."

I'd barely finished warming up and there was already nothing left worth hunting.

"It's because I'm too strong, obviously."

Hard Mode Floor 1 was still far too cramped to contain a Heavenly Demon like me.

"Time to leave the Tower."

I checked the watch on my wrist—somehow, two hours had already passed since I'd come in. I hadn't even noticed time slipping by.

"I thought I'd only been thrashing around for an hour…?"

Was it because the mana saturating the Tower was—exaggerating a little—as addictive as cigarettes?

"No wonder Juhyeok clocks into the Tower every weekend even though he doesn't hold a second job."

Climbers always said they were addicted to the Tower. I'd figured it was just about the money, but there was a real reason. Simply breathing in a place this thick with mana made your whole condition feel this good? I was starting to think I might get addicted to climbing too.

I launched myself into the sky to escape and took one last look at the trail I'd left behind.

"Whoa. At this rate I could handle a whole ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠logging operation by myself…"

Craters everywhere, shattered trees beyond counting—it looked on par with a natural disaster. The place was so desolated it might as well have been a war zone, and for a second I wondered if I'd gone too far.

"…Was that a bit much?"

I'd always known I was competitive, but I never imagined my first real brawl as the Heavenly Demon would turn out this savage. My compatibility with the Heavenly Demon Divine Art was even better than I'd thought.

The old me had hated bullying the weak. And yet here I was, weirdly exhilarated by blood-spattering fights against monsters weaker than me. Who knew brawling would suit me this well?

"If I'd known, I would've picked up some combat sports."

Unfortunately, I'd been bigger than everyone else since I was a kid, so my parents had absolutely forbidden anything related to fighting.

It's fine to hit back at anyone who messes with you! But if you go out of your way to hit someone and end up at the police station, we're strangers, son!

I could still hear my mother saying it with that gentle smile. So instead of people, what I ended up lifting was heavy iron plates.

"Well, it's not like my parents were wrong…"

Even I had to admit that with a frame like mine, one punch and I'd be looking at a holding cell.

I drifted through the air lost in idle thoughts until, far ahead, the forest's boundary came into view. Hard Mode rewards were finally within reach.

"I wonder what the reward is?"

According to Juhyeok, the usual Floor 1 Normal Mode reward was a single low-grade mana stone—worth about ten thousand won at current rates.

"Still, I took out a troll. They've got to give me at least a mid-grade mana stone!"

Trolls were famous mid-bosses on Floor 15. A mid-grade mana stone was a fair expectation. Mid-grade stones were trading at five hundred thousand won at domestic exchanges right now. I'd spent a little under two hours wiping out the monsters, which worked out to over two hundred thousand won an hour.

"If I'd finished it in five minutes, that'd be a hundred thousand per minute, huh?"

And there was no guarantee the reward was only a single mana stone.

"Heh. Looking forward to this."

They'd called the rewards massively upgraded, so something even better felt likely. It might seem strange for a Heavenly Demon to suddenly start talking about money—but the more money, the better. Sure, there was government support money too, but I'd already arranged for that to go to the parents who'd raised me this far. As the Heavenly Demon, I wanted to build my ideal world with my own power.

I need to save up fast, build my own place, and finish the perfect home gym.

I was still debating whether to get rich and build a house or just rent a building when I arrived at the forest's edge.

"Done!"

The moment I dropped from the sky, a message window appeared.

"Five mid-grade mana stones! And what's a Potion of Regeneration?"

They'd actually given me five mid-grade mana stones. Two hours of work…

"An hourly rate of 1.25 million won…!"

Just as the message said, the overwhelming results bonus must have kicked in from all the thrashing around I'd done in the forest. I read the description on the Potion of Regeneration—it had that hidden-reward feel—and the effect blew past anything I'd imagined.

It regenerated damaged parts of the body.

And one detail in the regeneration range stood out above the rest: hair follicle regeneration.

"You've got to be kidding me… it can cure hair loss?"

The global hair-loss market alone was worth twenty-four trillion won. Not that past-me had ever looked that up out of future anxiety or anything. But a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠market that size meant this item was absurd.

"Heh. Father, your dutiful child is on the way!"

If I sold it, I could name any price. But I wanted to grant a certain wish my father had once spoken of.

Exactly four years ago. I was twenty. One winter night, the first time Father and I ever drank together. Watching a stylish Afghan Hound walk past the food stall, Father had said:

"Son… just once in my life, I wanted a cool perm like that…"

He'd been drunk, suddenly raking his hand back over his scalp as he said it, and for a moment I'd been thrown—but those words had lodged deep in my chest and never left. And he'd said it about a dog, not even a person. Even Kang Hyundo, man among men, had nearly cried at the sight of him.

So this item was not for sale. I was calling dibs.

And the description didn't say you had to dump the whole bottle for a treatment. If anything was left over, I could share some with the section chief too.

"If everyone's hair starts growing back after this, will they cry from happiness?"

In the real world, researchers were still running every kind of study on troll blood—and the Tower just handed me a finished reagent.

"That's the Tower for you…!"

The Tower was the future. It was already this generous, and the rewards would only grow the higher you climbed, right? Being limited to one climb a day almost felt unfair.

Laden with rewards, I returned home from the Tower. Exactly two hours had passed.

"Time ratio matches what people said."

Hard Mode didn't seem to change that either.

Then a peculiar message floated into view.

"What the hell is this…?"

Recruit followers? Was it telling me to found a cult?

The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult was a name anyone who'd read a few wuxia novels would recognize. Its doctrine was survival of the strongest—the strong take everything. That was basically the Heavenly Demon Cultists' slogan.

"Who would even join something like that?"

You needed healing, benefits, something to draw people in. And the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons…

"Isn't that just the place where Heavenly Demon Cult members get together and scheme?"

I couldn't even fully grasp the reward. At least the quest had no time limit written on it.

"What, take it slow then?"

Not being on a clock was nice. But the part about obtaining a further evolved Heavenly Demon Divine Art kept pulling my eyes—maybe because I was a Climber now. Without meaning to, I was already brainstorming ways to recruit followers.

"Hmm… do I have to walk the streets handing out flyers?"

"…"

Just looking at that flyer copy, the police would be after me in no time.

"Or should I make an online café?"

A gathering of people who worship the Heavenly Demon. Shortened: Heav-Wor-Soc.

"Shortened like that, the name sounds even weirder…"

And an online café was way too outdated. What about YouTube? SNS? Live streams?

Or with this face, I could probably reel in a few dozen male followers on the street for free with a honey trap…

But my identity as a former man rejected that method with extreme prejudice.

"Yeah, no. Absolutely not…"

I couldn't do it that way, and even if I could, how was that any different from a cult's recruitment tactics?

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"Hmm… followers."

Not ten—a hundred, right from the start.

"Isn't that a little much?"

You're supposed to grow step by step, in order. I'd been in a great mood looking at my loot, and then this quest dropped and gave me a headache.

After a long stretch of agonizing, I finally decided.

"Ah, whatever. Later!"

I'd leave it to tomorrow-me.

Thanks to the elixir and the class quest, one message window had been shoved out of sight in an instant—relegated to leftover status by Hyundo's total lack of interest.

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And so, completely ignored by Hyundo, the community window filled with a rising chorus of noise.