I Told You Not to Do Bad Things
I'm pretty sure I told her not to do anything bad...
Kang Haesol had harbored a fantasy about the Basement.
What kind of place could the Basement possibly be?
The Manager had to be someone incredibly impressive and awe-inspiring, right?
"I want to meet them. I wonder what the Manager is like?"
There were rumors that Lee Hyeji was close with the Manager.
If she played her cards right, couldn't that connection rub off on her too?
She was in the middle of that daydream when a single message landed on Kang Haesol's screen.
"What... seriously...?"
It was the day she'd arranged to meet Lee Hyeji about tackling the 28th floor.
Out of nowhere, Lee Hyeji's side canceled the appointment.
And then...
"I get to meet the Manager!?"
Her heart rate skyrocketed!
Thrilled at the thought of meeting the Manager of her dreams, Kang Haesol kicked her feet and rolled around before rushing into the Tower—and the moment she set foot on the 25th floor, a strange door materialized before her.
Creeeeak.
Following the instructions in the message, she opened the entrance to the break room and stepped forward—and what spread out before Kang Haesol's eyes was...
What is this.
A wreck of a room.
Half-eaten bags of snacks, soda cans strewn about without a care.
Clothes dangling off the sofa like fruit on a vine, dishes abandoned in the sink.
Cleaning, laundry, dishwashing—not a single thing had been done properly in this Manager-exclusive break room.
It was so thoroughly lived-in that it actually provoked a faint sense of revulsion.
This is the Basement?
There was Lee Hyeji, calmly seated on the sofa sipping a drink, and sprawled across Lee Hyeji's thighs, blankly doom-scrolling the gallery, was...
"Oh. Welcome."
"Uh... who..."
"Me? I'm the Manageeer~?"
"...???????"
"Nice to meet you, Kang Haesol!"
The moment she'd been struck speechless by this far-from-dreamlike vision of the Basement, a tiny little girl greeted her.
"You're the Manager? You?"
"Yep. I'm the Manageeer."
Ding!
[Your Goal!]
Proof that I'm the Manager.
For real lol
[Reward]
None
"...."
Cheonwoo had used her quest-issuing authority to issue a quest directly to her minion Kang Haesol—and thrown in official verification on top of it.
Confirming that she really was the master of the Basement.
"...Wow. Wowowow. Wow..."
"What do you think? This is the break room attached to the Basement."
"......"
There was nothing to say.
It was the polar opposite of the Basement she'd imagined, and the figure before her was nothing like the Manager she'd pictured.
THAT little girl is the Manager who's been stirring up trouble and baiting aggro all this time?
Frankly, if she'd turned out to be some potbellied middle-aged uncle, it would have been easier to swallow!
Grrrrrgle.
"Ngh..."
At the unexpected sight, her stomach began to ache.
This little girl holds the future of South Korea in her hands.
Policy for the entire Tower was being decided in a filthy den like this.
Tension surged up from the bleak reality before her!
It wasn't meeting the Manager of her dreams that had her wound tight—it was witnessing the Basement's true state and despairing at its pitch-black future!
But a professional never lets her true feelings show.
Now that she knew the Manager was a girl with a reed-thin constitution, the right move was to humor her as much as possible.
"Um, I'm... I'm so happy right now that I'm nervous, and my stomach..."
"Sorry? Your stomach what? Cheonwoo, what's wrong with her?"
"Looks like she's got some condition where her stomach hurts when she's nervous."
Clutching her aching belly, Kang Haesol agonized over and over.
And so she arrived at a conclusion.
Think positive. She's a little girl living alone in a place like this. Living on your own isn't easy. I absolutely cannot leave the Manager in Lee Hyeji's hands. I need to look after her myself.
And so Haesol resolved, deep in her heart, to care for Cheonwoo.
It was the very wholesome intention of becoming a guardian for a child abandoned in the Basement.
The Tower of Trials, Landing City.
A resort destination unlocked upon clearing the 20th floor, and a colossal haven built for the convenience of climbers.
It offered every manner of food and entertainment district, its streets lined with facilities catering to climbers' every need.
But there was exactly one thing this city lacked.
Public authority to maintain law and order.
"Insane! Another brawl on the west street!"
"They're slashing each other with knives in broad daylight..."
"H-hey! A healer! Is there a healer anywhere!?"
Lately, an unrestful air had begun to seep through Landing City.
After all, this world was not made up entirely of good Samaritans.
For every soul that valued order and justice, there were those who schemed and strangled and broke others for the profit and pleasure right in front of their noses.
Wherever you go, hustlers, gangsters, and punks are a fact of life.
And they had come to the Tower.
They quickly entrenched themselves in Landing City's key districts and began flexing their influence.
A lawless zone.
Extraterritoriality.
That was the culture slowly spreading through Landing City at present.
Even though the city's opening was still a recent affair, criminals from beyond the Tower had already deemed it the fattest egg yolk of a territory and come swarming.
The moment they caught the scent of money, they'd whipped out their spoons!
And this, at the precise moment the growth-promotion policy sent returnees flooding in at explosive rates.
The "troublemaker seeds" streaming in from every corner of the globe strutted their stuff, built criminal organizations across Landing City, and pulverized public safety.
"From today onward, this street belongs to the Charles Family. Got a problem? Say it to my face, and I'll drill a hole in your skull."
"As of this day, this district will be administered by the Vladimir Council. You will pay your protection fees monthly."
"Hey! No coins, get lost! This is Santiago Cartel territory now!"
The three most infamous organizations in the world—the American, Russian, and South American syndicates—had thrown down the gauntlet first, and before long a swarm of snake bastards was shoving their heads into the ring over Landing City's profits.
Drug runners crossing over from Southeast Asia, and European thug outfits on top of that.
Every last one of them flooded into Landing City to claim a slightly bigger slice of the pie.
Present-day Landing City was, for all intents and purposes, a smelting furnace of crime.
"We can't exactly let these Western punks split such a fine opportunity between themselves, now can we."
Even the Chinese mercenary organization that inevitably appeared wherever money flowed—the Heavenly Dragon Trading Company—had entered Landing City and was quietly expanding its influence.
"What are we supposed to do? Give up on the city? The benefits you can only get here are far too many."
"I feel like I'll die trying to make the protection fee deadline."
"But we can't exactly crawl under some gang's thumb either."
"If only we could make it into Central, where the Rankers keep people safe..."
Ordinary climbers of the Tower now found themselves forced to fight simply to defend their own basic rights.
And into Landing City—a place now riddled with problems in every direction—came three troublemakers...
"Woooow. So this is Landing City!"
"Today I'll personally guide you to the best food spots, so just follow me."
"Wow. If it's worse than you promised, I'm confiscating the Golden Card."
"No! Anything but that!"
The outskirts of the city.
A street currently in the thick of a mafia-versus-gang gunfight.
Ji Cheonwoo had only ever seen it as an event dropping loot, never actually visited; Lee Hyeji had been a food-court street fighter of Landing City in her day but had skipped recent visits to focus on climbing; and Kang Haesol had been hospitalized ever since her failed 28th-floor attempt for injury treatment, lately too busy training in secret arts to come.
"Haesol, do you know this city well?"
"This is only my second time inside Landing City, after my injury."
"Really? Ah..."
"Hey, Lee Hyeji. Get on with the food tour. If it's actually bad, I swear—the Grimoire gets confiscated on the spot."
"Heyyyy! There's no such rule!"
Lee Hyeji walked toward the restaurant with a crushed expression, and Ji Cheonwoo trailed after her while sightseeing.
And Kang Haesol...
Why does the atmosphere here feel so off?
Her instincts flagged something wrong.
She rested her hand on her sword hilt.
Is it that those two can't feel anything yet? Hyeji is still a rookie, and the Manager just doesn't have experience with things like this. Then I need to stay alert. I absolutely cannot let the Manager come to harm.
A sense of incongruity—or of wrongness.
The battle-hone crafted by years of experience.
"Haesol, what are you doing back there? Is your stomach hurting again?"
"N-no, it isn't."
The fact that the street's air hung unnaturally heavy made her lower abdomen twinge, just a little.
"Ta-daa! This is the place I found! Kind of a Japanese-style diner?"
"Whoa. Look at the state of the shop."
"Hey! Shabby places are always the delicious ones!"
"Wait, the owner's a beast-person?"
"Yep. A cat beast-person."
"There'd better not be any fur in the food..."
"Species discrimination is BANNED in Landing City! Ji Cheonwoo, are you out of your mind?"
Most shops in Landing City were run by beings designated by the Tower.
The hidden gem Lee Hyeji had dug up was, as it happened, run by a cat beast-person.
And naturally, like the Floor Guardians, these designated beings were entities climbers could not actually harm.
Which meant the criminal organizations' targets were confined to fellow climbers.
"Boss! Three yakisoba udon here! And three cold ramen too!"
"Ordering that much?"
"I've got the Golden Card, so ordering big is fine. It's free."
"Oh, right!? Owner! Three katsu! And three omelets added to that!"
"....."
Kang Haesol goggled at the pair casually ordering twelve servings' worth of food.
Who on earth was going to eat all of that?
"Ah, we ordered without asking your opinion, Haesol."
"That's quite all right. I eat anything."
"You eat plenty, but your digestion doesn't quite keep up, does it?"
"...Ugh."
Kang Haesol bit her lip.
To poke so persistently at someone else's affliction!
"Food's up, nya~."
"Oooh, smells amazing. The 'nya' at the end of her sentences is so cute!"
"Hey, hey! Photo! We have to take a photo!"
"Photo, what photo. Are you still doing Insta? You used to swagger around saying you'd become an influencer."
"I hit a million followers already."
"Huh? How? I mean, why? You?"
"I farmed aggro as the Basement Manager's minion and hit a million."
"Holy crap. That's entirely thanks to me!"
"Hehe. Which is why I'm treating you."
"Uh, that CARD was mine to begin with!!!"
Mundane chatter.
A peaceful mood.
And yet, even with the food before her, Kang Haesol could not lift her chopsticks.
Something's wrong. The absence of people is one thing, but I'm certain I just heard a scream.
Kang Haesol pricked up her hypersensitive ears.
And then she noticed: five or six men in white suits, making their way toward the shop.
A deserted street.
Screams drifting from somewhere.
White suits stained with a red liquid?
People who looked like nothing but trouble were approaching.
The instant she judged them dangerous, Kang Haesol shot up from her seat.
"Please, you two keep eating."
"Yes? Where are you going? The bathroom? Stomach again?"
"No...! It's not that...!"
She intended to slip outside and put herself between those men and the Manager.
But the uninvited guests entered the shop even faster.
"Well, well. Fresh faces."
"Strolling around without a care—you must have some nerve, huh?"
"Ooh. You're a pretty one."
"Two Asian women? Probably worth quite a bit."
"Come play with us. Yeah? Walk along quietly and we won't hurt you."
Foreign tongues, auto-translated by the Tower itself.
Criminals fresh off a killing leered at Lee Hyeji and Kang Haesol, meaning to toy with them.
"Delicious!"
"...Lee Hyeji. Is the food actually going down right now?"
"Yep? Udon is all about the noodles. You've gotta eat them before they go soggy."
"....?"
Lee Hyeji showed no trace of tension whatsoever.
And Ji Cheonwoo, inexplicably, wore the expression of someone suppressing laughter.
In this situation... she's laughing? Why? Is she insane? These people aren't right in the head...
Something was truly, genuinely wrong.
Kang Haesol had thought the street itself felt off.
But watching Ji Cheonwoo fight down laughter now, she intuited that the problem didn't stop at the street.
"I was bored. Good catch."
"Manager, what are you doing right..."
The Magic Wand of Unfair Dismissal.
The only ones in this shop capable of perceiving Ji Cheonwoo at this moment were Lee Hyeji and Kang Haesol.
And so, wrapped in that perception-dulling filter, Cheonwoo drifted naturally around behind the uninvited guests.
The men had not the slightest inkling that she was moving.
They would likely never notice—not until the very end.
"Lately the Babel Gallery keeps getting complaints about criminal organizations. Word is you people have been going around claiming Landing City belongs to you?"
The gang members still could not perceive Cheonwoo.
Meanwhile, she drew something from inside her clothes.
"What makes you the owners of this city? The Basement doesn't recognize criminal organizations like you."
Eradication of criminal organizations.
The Manager of the Basement drew forth lost article No. 2—the [Employee Records].
And as if chanting an incantation, she pronounced judgment upon the organization's members.
"You all clearly never met a good teacher when you were little. So I'll introduce you to one. Go to the Training Center and come back as brand-new people."
Crreeeeak...
The shop's lights died in an instant.
And from the darkness, something began to crawl out.
Whatever you do, do not look behind you.
Even the NPC beast-person owner, who never so much as flinched at ordinary disturbances, had frozen in terror and hidden beneath the counter.
A long, long arm passed by Lee Hyeji and Kang Haesol, seized the heads of the men who had been threatening them, and dragged them straight in.
The Manager of the Basement understood the city's problems with perfect clarity.