So Boring I Wanted to Die

It had gotten so boring I wanted to die.

“A…a…achoo!”

The icy blast from the air conditioner that had chilled the room brushed my skin, and my body shuddered as a sneeze burst out on its own.

Meonji must have felt a little cold too; it kept clinging to my stomach, rubbing against me and generating heat.

I switched off the AC, threw on some sweats, and got ready to head for the Tower with Meonji.

Just as I was about to leave, the stack of documents on the desk caught my eye.

The list of people who would pay me if I rescued them.

The lowest floor on that list was the twentieth, so just to be safe I decided to check it one more time before I left.

“Hmm… a YouTuber, huh.”

The special notes for the person trapped on the twentieth floor simply said YouTuber, and right beside it was his channel name.

Channel name: Tapganom.

It meant “the guy who only goes to the Tower.” He was the sort who kept recording strategy videos of every floor he climbed.

He seemed pretty popular—about five hundred thousand subscribers.

Tapganom’s last video was of the seventeenth floor.

It had already been several months since any new uploads appeared.

Figuring I could pick up some info on the floors I’d be climbing today and get a feel for the person I needed to save, I clicked on one of his videos covering the eleventh-floor strategy.

I lost track of time watching it and, before I knew it, I had arrived at the Tower.

Today: the eleventh floor.

And if possible, I planned to push through to the twelfth as well.

They’d ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said it was fine to climb as high as the eighteenth, so I figured I’d knock out a few floors in advance, laze around for a while, and then resume climbing later.

“Well then… time to go make some money?”

I gave Meonji a stroke and pressed my hand to the Tower.

Enter!

I shouted the word inside my head.

Unlike the wide-open grasslands that had greeted me from the first through ninth floors, towering trees rose up to welcome me.

I stood in the heart of a dense forest.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves and painted the forest floor a soft green.

“Hmm… it really is different starting from the eleventh floor.”

Until now the rest areas had always been based on open grasslands.

Just minor variations—extra trees here, a few more flowers there.

And the tenth-floor rest area had been a cave, fitting for a boss floor…

Now it was a dense forest.

Exactly like what I’d seen in the video.

In the footage Tapganom had also marveled at the new environment, spinning the camera every which way to capture the scenery.

I walked slowly through the woods, hunting for the little door that led to the combat area.

The ground was soft soil blanketed with fallen leaves that acted like a cushion; every step felt comfortable underfoot.

There, nestled between the tall trunks, was a single small door.

“Found it.”

I took the doorknob and pushed it open, stepping inside.

I still hadn’t watched the part where Tapganom entered the combat area, so I had zero information about what waited beyond.

“Huh?”

Even after going through the little door, the forest still stretched out in every direction.

Startled, I spun around—only to find the door already gone.

“It’s no different from the rest area…?”

Right then, as if to prove me wrong, a howl cut through the air.

Five wolves stepped out from between the dense trees.

But they weren’t ordinary wolves. Horns jutted from their heads, and each of them had three eyes.

“Hmm… so just horned three-eyed wolves, huh.”

Aside from that I couldn’t spot any real difference from regular wolves.

I looked them over with complete indifference. Two of them seemed to take offense and suddenly charged.

I stayed right where I was and held out one of the Meonji from inside my clothes.

The instant I whispered the command inside my head, Meonji ballooned and detonated with a tremendous roar.

The surrounding trees shattered, their trunks already gone; they leaned against their neighbors and toppled.

The blast wind that rose from Meonji’s explosion thrashed the forest trees violently, flaunting its power.

The charging wolves instantly became fertilizer, enriching the soil a little more.

The blood that spilled from them was a deep, dark red—exactly the same shade as the shadowed earth of the forest floor.

Even the three wolves that had hung back a short distance were swallowed by the blast and returned to fertilizer as well.

Every tree that had ringed me vanished as if it had never existed.

I looked up at the wide-open sky, not a single leaf left to block the sunlight.

In the end, even these brand-new monsters were no match for me.

The familiar voice I always heard.

But the reward was far larger than I’d expected.

“Or maybe… am I just ridiculously strong?”

It had taken about the same amount of effort as wiping out goblins.

All I’d done was pop a single Meonji.

Yet the reward was way bigger.

Which meant those wolves really were stronger than goblins…

I just didn’t feel it at all.

I still had one Meonji left.

And with Embrace (E) I could recharge their self-destruct counts using my own mana whenever I wanted.

So I immediately pressed my hand to the Tower again and stepped onto the twelfth floor.

The moment I entered the combat area, seven wolves appeared this time.

“Aaaah… enough already. I get it. I know your level…”

Two extra wolves just meant two extra piles of fertilizer.

“It was so boring I wanted to die.”

This time I clutched Meonji to my chest and charged them myself.

I had no idea how far the combat-area forest stretched, but from the eleventh floor I already knew it was pretty wide.

Meonji’s explosion had shaken even the distant trees, after all.

If these things opened up distance and attacked from range, I’d be the one at a disadvantage.

As I rushed them, the wolves opened their jaws wide like gourmet critics about to sample a delicious meal—

Those jaws never got the chance to close.

A massive explosion erupted from my arms, and the wolves went past “evenly cooked” and straight into ash.

“Heheh…”

I drooled a little at the steadily growing pile of low-grade magic stones.

The second I stepped outside the Tower, a splitting headache slammed into me.

“Ugh…”

It felt like my intelligence had dropped two whole tiers.

Mental fatigue was always the same, but maybe because it had been a while since I last climbed, my head throbbed even worse than usual.

I converted the magic stones into cash at the Association, then finished watching Tapganom’s video in the taxi.

Tapganom’s class was Knight.

A perfectly average class.

He had two skills.

The first was the E-rank Knight skill everyone got: Declaration.

It designated a target as a duel opponent and made every attack you landed on them hit harder.

His unique skill was the B-rank Smokescreen.

Exactly what it sounded like—a skill that blanketed the area in thick smoke.

So Tapganom’s fighting style went like this: he’d use Declaration to challenge someone to a “fair and square” duel, drop a Smokescreen to blind them, then stab them honestly from their blind spot… a thoroughly twisted brand of chivalry.

I rode the taxi back to the hotel and flung my exhausted body onto the bed.

Ever since the night I’d slept completely naked and discovered the sheer greatness of nude sleeping, it had become my new routine.

But tonight I kept coughing, so I was pretty sure I’d caught a cold.

“Well then, tonight I’ll sleep nice and warm!”

So I put on just my underwear—warmer than usual—and drifted off.

I blasted through two floors a day, then cleared just one on the final day, bringing me all the way to the seventeenth floor.

The monsters stopped being only wolves and started cycling through all sorts of animals.

Every single one of them had horns.

Rabbits, bears, boars, raccoons, wolves…

Every kind of animal showed up—except for horses with horns.

After clearing the seventeenth floor I followed the Association President’s advice and paused my climb, spending my days just rolling around doing nothing.

I hounded Choi Ara about when she was going to pay back that billion won, and I killed time watching Tapganom’s old videos.

Before awakening, Tapganom had been a pretty big streamer for the popular game Pocket Monster—or “Jumul” for short—so his videos were perfect for wasting hours.

Today, as usual, I was watching his “Jumul Trainer: Strength Ranking Tier List Based on In-Game Facts” when the phone rang.

Only two people ever called me.

Choi Ara, who owed me a billion, and Kim Rice, the guy who wore a wig.

This time it was the latter.

“Yes, President.”

I answered, and Kim Rice’s serious voice came through.

“Hunter Han Doa. I apologize for contacting you so late. The investigation is finished now. When would you have time?”

Tapganom’s videos were fun, but my body was starting to itch for action again.

“I’ll head over right now.”

That was all I said before hopping into a taxi bound for Hunter Association headquarters.

The moment I arrived, a bunch of suspicious-looking men in black suits were waiting for me.

They escorted me through the building and guided me all the way to the top floor.

The highest floor of the Hunter Association headquarters.

The entire floor was one enormous room.

And I knew that room.

This is the place where ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I told Kim Rice to try jumping…

Seeing it in person made it feel even bigger and more imposing than it had looked on screen.

A long desk sat in the center of the room, and a nameplate that read [Association President Kim Rice] rested ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on top of it.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you here in person. Please, this way.”

Kim Rice offered me a light greeting and guided me toward a soft, expensive-looking leather sofa.

“The request I have for you, Hunter Han Doa, concerns the Tower’s ‘Residents.’”

Kim Rice leaned forward slightly as he spoke.

“Residents. We use that term for two types of people.”

He began, then slowly leaned back into the sofa again.

“The first are those whose abilities fall short, so they end up trapped inside the Tower and have no choice but to live there.”

“The ones who commissioned you for rescue, Hunter Han Doa.”

He added that part.

“And the second are those who commit crimes and then hide inside the Tower.”

“The request I have for you this time is about them.”

With those words, Kim Rice held out a stack of documents toward me.