A Front-Row Seat in the Stopped World

Once Field Exploration Team 1 emptied out of the office, I gathered my things and rose from my desk as well.

Maybe I'll treat myself to a little fieldwork today.

Not that I intended to head straight for the field. There was somewhere I needed to stop first.

A hunter's gear is the bare minimum of exploring, after all.

Truthfully, it was a lesson I'd taken away from Blade Wind Graveyard. My ability was flawless. Every threat in the world surfaced as a red line, and every safe gap glowed plain as day. The problem was my body.

My eyes can see the gaps, but there are times my body can't get inside them.

It was only natural. Seeing something didn't mean dodging all of it. Of course, my sight went beyond mere perception — I could instinctively tell which attacks could be evaded and which couldn't, so getting hit wasn't really on the table. But whether I could push in bolder and force a breakthrough instead of merely watching was another matter entirely.

If my specs had been just a little better back at Blade Wind Graveyard, I might have powered through that ending stretch instead of waiting it out.

In other words, the more I could see, the more valuable agility became. Since I could already map every possible evasion for every movement, even a slight boost in speed and flexibility meant that the same landscape would offer me a completely different range of options.

And if that was the case, the answer was simple.

Raising my physical specs would help too, but that takes time...

Money had come in, which meant it was time to let equipment carry some of the load. I hailed a taxi and headed for a familiar place. The shops inside the Tower had far too many eyes on them, and anything genuinely good ended up custom-made or sold under the table anyway.

So the place I needed was discreet and, above all, reliable. This time, instead of a seller, I headed into the heart of Gangnam as a buyer — to The Archive.

"Welcome, sir. We've been expecting you."

The moment I stepped through the entrance, Manager Jang Hyunwoo was there to greet me. Unlike last time, getting in was no trouble at all.

"I need something on short notice. Equipment specialized in evasion or mobility — do you have anything like that?"

My time was tight, so the business moved fast.

"...Of course. As it happens, we've been holding an item that suits you perfectly."

Jang Hyunwoo asked me to wait briefly, then led me to the special room I'd been shown before. And when that door swung open, I understood that whatever he'd "prepared" was no ordinary stock.

Midas Enterprise... Managing Director Na Heera?

Seated on the luxurious sofa with her legs crossed was a woman in a red suit and sunglasses.

I only wondered why she was here for a moment before deliberately playing dumb and taking my seat.

"I hear you're looking for equipment."

At the same time, Jang Hyunwoo set an elegant box down on the table.

"This is it."

Inside lay a single pair of sleek leather boots. One glance was enough to tell they were far from ordinary — a faint mana wavelength hummed off them, and the craftsmanship was exquisite on its own.

"A next-generation mobility artifact currently under development at the Midas Workshop. It reads the wearer's neural responses to enable instantaneous acceleration — even air-stepping, briefly levitating off empty air."

Na Heera explained with a beaming smile. I merely narrowed my eyes.

Frankly, I was a little uncomfortable.

She calls it a next-generation product in development...

But through my eyes, there was no doubt this was a finished artifact. And she'd brought something like this here, of all places?

"Impressive piece. Though I'd guess the price isn't exactly gentle."

Whatever the condition attached, this was not the kind of item that simply circulated on the open market. The description alone put it in a different league from standard gear. But my liquid funds amounted to barely over 300 million won. Buying that outright would mean paying whatever they asked — and I couldn't easily guess why she'd brought it out at all.

Na Heera just smiled and shook her head.

"Money won't be necessary."

"...Pardon?"

"Didn't I say? It's a test product. We're still short on data — real combat data, specifically. If a hunter as capable as you puts it through its paces, that's a favor to us."

So that's why she called it a test product.

But my eyes weren't decorative, and I hardly needed them to see through this one. The words were dazzling; the substance was obvious. Hand something over for free, and you saddle the recipient with a debt of gratitude. Then there was the political angle: a hunter with a distinctive look making distinctive moves, always on camera. Getting me to wear Midas gear would make me read as part of the "Midas line."

She's got her eye on me, then.

Ordinarily that might have felt like too much pressure, and I might have refused.

But really — why would I?

She was offering it purely to win me over; turning it down would be absurd, and the item was far too good to refuse anyway. As for the politics? I had no intention of playing along that far. I'd simply suck out the honey and leave the hive alone.

With the understanding, of course, that this favor was worth exactly this one item — no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more, no less.

"Then I'll gratefully accept. As for data — you'll be drowning in it."

When I snapped the box up without hesitation, Na Heera's eyes curved into pleasant crescents. She slid a single business card across the table.

"And this is my personal contact. If anything about the equipment bothers you... or if you ever need help, call me anytime."

"I'll keep it in mind."

I pocketed the card and rose from my seat immediately. Lingering would only prolong an exhausting fencing match.

Out on the street, the moment I put the boots on, they reshaped themselves — leaving only a small Midas emblem and otherwise taking the exact form of the dress shoes I'd been wearing. Apparently even the appearance could be customized.

And more than that...

The fit is absolutely incredible.

A sensation as if feathers had been sewn into the soles, my whole body growing lighter.

And above all—

"Hah..."

I looked at the world anew. The road before me, its red trajectories swirling everywhere — the kind of street I'd have judged moderately dangerous just an hour ago.

A slow breath in.

All those red lines, all those movements, registered just as vividly as before — and yet somehow the gaps between them seemed far wider than they ever had, until the whole street felt like a "path" carrying not even a sliver of risk.

Now I was truly ready to go to work.

Whooooosh...

The moment I followed Field Exploration Team 1 out on assignment and stepped into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Tower's dungeon, the sound of cold wind came howling down the skeletal frame of the metal buildings, bleak and mournful.

Zone A-3 of the second floor. Commonly known as the Stopped World.

A world where a city that once built a civilization was transmuted, whole, into metal — taxidermied in place. A forest of rust-proof, silver-gray skyscrapers. On the roads, cars and pedestrians turned to metal statues stood frozen as if time itself had stopped.

An ordinary person would have been crushed by the strangeness of it. My eyes, however, gleamed for a very different reason.

This entire place is money.

There were slithering metal lifeforms, sure — but with my new artifact boots on, and with things so much slower than a Horn Rabbit that dodging was almost insulting, they weren't worth a thought.

I rapped a knuckle against a street lamp standing along the roadside.

Ching—

A clear, crystalline metallic note. It looked barely different from the special alloy I'd seen from [Dokkaebi] not long ago.

A metal that fetched hundreds of thousands of won per kilogram outside — and here, it was the world itself. I could feel it in my skin why [Arc Industry] and the other corporations called this dungeon a gold mine and sent exploration teams on a regular schedule.

"Well then. Time for a little test."

Verification was more or less done. Now it was time to work.

Krrrk.

I lightly pushed up the blade into which Dr. Lee had poured his sweat and craft. To the eye it was just a plain box cutter, but the space around the [Sharpness]-imbued edge rippled, ever so faintly.

Shhk—

I don't even need to put any force behind it at all...!

Snick.

I set the blade against the base of the street lamp and drew it through the way one slices paper. The pole came apart, clean and effortless.

I'd been skeptical even while commissioning it, but out in the field this was something beyond overpowered. I nudged the severed pole over, then opened the leather briefcase I'd set down beside me — the briefcase Dr. Lee had modified with the [Expansion] property.

When I unzipped it, the seemingly ordinary interior space rippled like a black hole, and the entire three-meter street lamp slid inside, whole.

Slooop.

This single pole had to weigh a monstrous amount. The whole haul Team Leader Park worked himself half to death lugging out might have fit into this one bag. If I commuted here as often as the exploration teams did, I might not just afford a VIP hospital suite — I might afford the hospital itself.

With this alone I've probably out-earned my salary ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for the month already.

Wearing a satisfied smile, I headed for the high ground of the city. A pity there didn't seem to be a chance to test the boots — but there would be a next time.

The real exploration could wait. Right now it was time to enjoy today's main event.

Since I'd come in alongside Arc, I not only knew their schedule; I'd also roughly marked the other hunters' positions. Finding them was hardly difficult.

The plaza, is it.

A sensible choice. No matter how rich this place was in resources and how many expedition records it had accumulated, the plaza was no automatic "safe zone."

As usual, they'd apparently gathered in a loose alliance to harvest resources in comfort — but a surprisingly rowdy atmosphere carried all the way up to me.

[Mir] and [Ohsung]... plus [Midas] and [Arc Industry] besides. A considerable force had settled in.

Looking down, I could see the hunters dotted below like scattered points, gathering materials.

Watching it live really is a different feel from watching it through a monitor...

Weeeeng—! Chak!

[Ohsung] stood out, having deployed heavy machinery plated in magic stone.

"Hey, Assistant Manager Kim! Keep the rookies in line, don't push yourselves. Just follow the manual. No reason to take any risks."

"Understood, sir. We'll assume we push into Zone B at most today and pull out once we hit quota."

The [Ohsung] team leader's voice carried as he steadied his people. Up close, it was a scene less like the glamorous face corporations showed the public and more like a day-labor site — yet the place was thick with tension. Mechanically repetitive work, yes, but with safety-first drilled into every step. They moved only within designated zones and defined risk limits, never crossing the line.

Off to one side, in place of heavy machinery, Kim Han-na of [Mir] was supporting a front-line hunter — sifting out what was worth extracting and digging it out with her ability — though she didn't look thrilled about it.

And among them, one group was uniquely loud. No — uniquely unfocused.

"Alright, everybody take a look right here! This is Zone A-3, the 'Stopped World'! God, look at that view. I'm calling it — perfect thumbnail material!"

The hunters of [Midas] Enterprise.

Unlike the other corporations, their business model wasn't resource extraction but broadcasting — they were the odd ones out, branding the hunters themselves. Naturally, their bread and butter was posing somewhere picturesque and putting on monster-slaying performances.

With amplifiers blaring and them shouting at the top of their lungs, the entire metal dungeon reverberated like it had been converted into a nightclub. [Ohsung] was pounding heavy machinery into the ground hard enough to shake the earth while [Midas] hollered for the whole world to hear.

Information analysis supposedly complete, preparations supposedly made — and yet I genuinely couldn't tell whether this was a dungeon or a street market.

And yet, in the middle of that circus, the ones turning in the most eye-catching performance were, unexpectedly, [Arc Industry].

Or to be precise — Park Jin-chul's Field Exploration Team 1, deep in the expedition, exactly as I'd predicted.

"PUSH! Smash anything blocking the road! If we don't hit today's quota, don't even think about walking out alive!"

A booming bellow carried all the way up to my perch.

I sat on the rooftop railing of a building, looking down at the scene — and found my eyes going round without my meaning to.

I couldn't believe it. That Park Jin-chul wasn't just holding his own; he was leading the entire pack.

But the reason became clear in short order.

"...That's—"

A steel gauntlet the size of a grown man's torso. An artifact venting blood-red mana light through the seams of its plates.

Park Jin-chul was wearing the A-rank artifact that had been locked away in the corporate strategy office's vault.

"Whoa, Team Leader! That firepower is insane! How on earth did you get your hands on that artifact — the one Team Leader Kim Doyun made absolutely sure nobody could use, like some iron-fisted old regent, whenever he went to the Managing Director?"

"Who am I? Didn't I tell you, Seok-hyun? There's always a Managing Director above me."

Park Jin-chul preened as he crushed a steel street lamp like taffy.

So he went and brought out something like that...

Frankly, it was a bit of a surprise. Back in the office he'd been flying off the handle without thinking, and I'd fully expected the expedition to end in disaster. I supposed that was what real field experience bought him — he'd thought it through, made preparations, and readied himself properly.

And yet... my eyes saw something else.

No question, the artifact he'd borrowed off Managing Director Han Tae-seok's back was superb, and his tempo was strong. But the cold sweat running down Park Jin-chul's spine carried impatience.

It's not that he's fast because he's good. He's rushing because he's desperate.

The team's morale looked great thanks to the borrowed artifact, but its leader, Park Jin-chul, was in visibly poor shape. The reason painted itself easily.

Even when I'd been on the team, his numbers had hit rock bottom because he'd trampled my plans and charged off on his own — and the moment I was pulled from duty, his head got cracked open and he ended up in a hospital bed. His performance since then? Anyone could guess.

The moment I resigned and was cut from operations, he should have been sweet-talking Han Tae-seok in perfect harmony and pulling in results — but things had gone sideways from the very start. That had to be why he'd begged and pleaded with Han Tae-seok until he pried this precious thing loose for today.

All while loudly declaring that with this one item, he'd detonate a jackpot and claw back every last point of his numbers.

And Park Jin-chul's impatience and desperation could only manufacture one thing: mistakes.

"Hahh... hahh... wait, Team Leader... you're going too fast!"

Assistant Manager Lee Seok-hyun was gasping along, no fewer than three backpacks dangling off him, a tablet clutched in one hand.

What a sight.

The position that should have belonged to the team's youngest, Choi Min-woo, had been crammed full of Lee Seok-hyun — whose specialty was agility, not this. And the workload Min-woo used to carry was no small thing.

Haul the gear. Watch the navigation. Brief the hazards the AI had flagged. Secure the rear guard and the retreat route. All of it had been dumped on Min-woo under the banner of "he's the youngest," and Min-woo — with his iron stamina — had swallowed every bite.

Then Min-woo torched twenty days of leave and bolted, and the whole plate got handed to Lee Seok-hyun.

Karma, truly karma.

And it looked harsher than mere karmic balance required. Park Jin-chul had zero eyes for a lagging teammate. No — he pushed him harder.

"Hey! Can't you keep up? Seok-hyun! If we want to hit quota today, we've got a mountain of road ahead of us~"

Insanity, spoken aloud.

Yes, Zone A-3, the "Stopped World," was considered stable — but that only held for the entrance region. This world was vast, and in a dungeon of this scale, danger spiked sharply with depth. Even outfits like [Ohsung] and [Mir] farmed the outskirts and pulled out — yet Park Jin-chul, blinded by his performance numbers, was doggedly crossing the line.

If I were still running operations, I'd have torn into him even with no visible threat on the board.

The AI, now a glorified tin can, couldn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠make a single judgment of its own — I'd bet it was just parroting its own useless output like a mute bird.

I twisted open the thermos I'd brought and took a sip of warm coffee.

Park Jin-chul never disappoints. He never has, and he never will.

Up on the rooftop railing — a scenic VIP seat — I'd laid out a proper spread, nibbling sweets alongside my coffee.

GUAACK—!

A lunatic marching in to die, artifact and all, courtesy of Han Tae-seok.

And the show promised to be good. The punchline being Park Jin-chul himself.

Right on cue. I'd only been sipping my coffee for a few minutes when the situation turned on a knife's edge.

Buried under an impossible workload, Assistant Manager Lee Seok-hyun had failed to properly secure the retreat route — and Arc's party had already reached the zone that burned crimson in my sight.

Kugu-gugu-gung—!

An Irregular had manifested.

Pedestrian statues that had stood frozen like mannequins turned their heads with a shriek of grinding metal. A flock of transmuted metal pigeons burst skyward as one. The cars on the roads lunged forward all at once, and—

Hah... now THAT'S a first.

Before Park Jin-chul — before the [Arc Industry] party — a metal skyscraper was heaving itself upright.

The Irregular had arrived.

"Ugh — WHAT is that thing?!"

"Team Leader! Our retreat — our retreat route is cut off!"

The field dissolved into pandemonium. The other hunters, already far away, recoiled in horror and scrambled for distance — but for Park Jin-chul and Arc's party, the thing was right on top of them, their mobility was garbage, and there was nowhere to run.

I clicked my tongue at the sight.

"That idiot. That's what you get for crawling all the way in there by yourself."

Even if only the artifact shattered, repairs alone would burn through a minimum of 2 billion won. The future where the [Gigantic Arm] became a lump of scrap iron was crystal clear in my mind's eye.

And at the same time, another thought stirred — that this disaster Park Jin-chul had dug with his own hands might just drop an opportunity into my lap.

After all, opportunity has always belonged to those who prepare for it.