Running at Full Power
When was the last time I'd run with everything I had?
I couldn't remember.
Was it back when my father passed away, before I stopped entering the Tower?
After that, I hadn't done a single respectable workout. I simply woke to the morning alarm, squeezed myself onto a packed subway, and spent every day hunched in front of a monitor like a turtle with its neck stretched out.
I'd lived like livestock. Like a machine part.
Days where I never sprinted with my whole heart, never broke a single drop of sweat, had piled up in the dozens. I'd thought that would never change.
And yet—here on a battlefield more brutal than anywhere else. On the razor's edge between life and death. In a dungeon, no less—where an *Irregular* had appeared—I had started running again.
My heart was beating again.
'...It doesn't feel bad, actually.'
Maybe it was all those years of rest catching up—my heart pounded as if it would burst, hot air rushed in and out of the deepest corners of my lungs. That sensation.
Every time my foot struck the ground, the world seemed to push me away, and [Hermes' Wing Boots] assisted my every movement.
It felt like every cell in my body was screaming, and yet, paradoxically, like senses that had slept for years were waking up one by one.
Acceleration.
And the moment that sensation crossed its threshold—
The scenery around me seemed to slow down, as if it were a lie.
*Kuuooooh...*
The metal giant's fist surging in from ahead was clearly visible.
The wind pressure generated by its overwhelming mass whipped through the world like a storm, but to me it simply looked like slow motion.
'Slow.'
To anyone else it surely wouldn't look that way, but in my eyes at least, it was endlessly slow.
Of course it was.
On the surface, it looked like nothing more than a colossal statue moving as if by magic—but 'movement' always obeys laws.
The moment you read the tell, the moment you read the structure, the completed motion unfolds before you like you're seeing the future.
To me—walking in a world one step ahead, no different from that—everything simply looked infinitely slow.
All the more so when I had the speed to carve into that slowness.
And so, within that slowed world, I read the world itself.
'For solid metal to move, there have to be segments—joints providing flexibility. There has to be a part that transmits the core's power.'
If it were human, it would be the tendons carrying mana.
'Even if the Tower's dungeons connect to other phases and dimensions, they don't run without any laws at all.'
How do I know that?
Ten years.
I never got my hands dirty in the field like the others, but precisely because of that, I'd seen more information from the rear than anyone.
Ten years of analyzing thousands upon thousands of dungeon raid records in real time, giving the best possible orders even for things with no data at all.
Theory upon theory, built by countless senior hunters bleeding for it.
All that knowledge, asleep in the database, was coupling with my ability and converting into combat practice.
"Everything's crystal clear."
Even as I dodged, what was in one sense a far more defenseless target than even a Horn Rabbit came into view—an enormous weak point.
Of course, with its overwhelming durability, in reality it was far stronger than any rabbit—but that was no problem for me.
Inside the giant's armpit. And the seams of its elbow.
Glowing pink—its Achilles' tendons.
But standing before that weak point—known even to it, yet too well-guarded for anyone to exploit—
*Zrrrrk.*
I heard the blade of the cutter knife in my hand slide up.
'No need to destroy the whole body.'
I could just cut one wire. One tendon, along the flow.
*Sweeek—*
Gliding past the giant's fist, I burrowed inside and drew the blade.
The light touch of it, like slicing through a single sheet of paper.
*Saaak.*
*Ting—!*
With a clear, ringing crack of metal, the giant's right arm—the one that had been trying to crush me moments before—lost its strength and went slack.
"Kiiiigiiiiik—!"
It lost its balance and staggered. It flailed its remaining arm, but it was too late.
I used its collapsing knee as a springboard and leapt upward.
*Ta-taht!*
The world I looked down on from the air was still a sea of red—the thing had plenty of fight left in it. Its remaining arm twitched as a future of it rushing toward me unfolded, and even the spot where I now hung turned red.
'But look closely... and the world has always shown me the gaps it never meant to reveal.'
There was no reason to panic.
For me now, even empty air was a road.
This moment was no different.
Curling my body in midair, I dodged the arm it swung, swept along by the wind pressure.
I flowed naturally along the giant's body, drifting serenely through the gray world.
One step. Two. I stepped on its collarbone, kicked off its jaw, crossed over the opposite shoulder, moving like water.
...Everywhere my feet touched, another section went slack, as if drained of strength.
It wasn't a battle. It was a continuous, silent act of disassembly.
Then the half-disabled giant, in a last desperate spasm, tried to shake me off—rocking its collapsed body with a metallic roar.
'Oh, no.'
Within that unstable lurching, I had climbed almost to its head—and now I was forcibly flung into the air.
But precisely because I was airborne, the power source driving that enormous bulk—the bluish 'core' along the spine at the nape of its neck—came into sharper view.
As if to announce its final struggle, everything around the creature turned red.
I should have finished it now.
'Damn it. Easy to use, sure, but the reach really is hopeless.'
No matter how much of the [Omen] concept was embedded in it, at its heart it was a box cutter. No matter how I tried, the blade simply couldn't reach the core.
In that instant of suspension in the air—where the core, the weak point and power source both, was perfectly visible—
Something came to mind.
A snort of laughter escaped me.
Dr. Lee of the black market—when we first met, I'd mistaken him for a senile old man.
But a craftsman was a craftsman after all. No—that old man really was a genius.
'He may seem like a dementia patient, but his talent is undeniable.'
Without hesitation, I pulled a fountain pen from my bag.
A one-time throwaway weapon, made—so he claimed—from the leftover coating of [Omen] concept magic stone scraped onto the cutter knife.
Somehow it felt like the old man had gotten one over on me, as I gripped the 'small change' he'd left behind without reservation.
Fresh air rushed past as I fell through the sky. The pen in my fist gave off a weighty, luxurious grip.
I felt incredible.
I popped the cap, and a chilling blue mana surged and roiled.
I aimed at the single point where the red solid line spread through the creature's body like veins—
at its vital spot where blue light flickered—and swung my arm.
*Shuuuk—!*
The sound of tearing air rang through the canyon.
And the moment that anomalous property—that pen carrying a 'Concept'—made contact, the thick metal armor tore like paper skewered on a spear, driving precisely into the core within.
*Craaack!*
*Kugugugung—!*
Like a stage after the performance ends and the lights go out, when silence falls over everything—the whole world returned to peaceful gray.
The metal giant that had stood piercing the sky could not withstand the shock of its disassembly and came crashing down in a heap.
Dust erupted skyward with a colossal roar.
And at the center of that silent world,
standing on the nape of the giant that had utterly collapsed, I picked up the loot that glittered brilliantly amid the wreckage.
"Hoo..."
I gazed at the giant's completely ruined corpse, but...
'My bag's already full.'
Special-grade metal that had to weigh dozens of tons at the very least. And it was the corpse of an Irregular, no less—a metal giant. Just as I hesitated, reluctant to simply walk away from it, Na Hee-ra's words came to mind: *call me whenever you need help.*
If my bag was full, I just had to call the collection team.
'Of course, since I'm not officially with [Midas], I should put on a show of giving up and covering my tracks.'
After all, the more unaffiliated I stayed, the higher my price would climb.
If I did that, others might snatch a few pieces while the collection team was on its way... but whatever.
Even the collection team wouldn't be able to haul it all away anyway. And Park Jin-chul's [Ark] was in no state to lift a finger right now.
Better to let everyone and their dog cart it off. That's what would make Park Jin-chul's stomach twist in agony.
So the conclusion was simple.
It meant I could leave word behind and clock out, clean and easy.
***
"...Impossible."
Kim Pildu of [Midas], who had been staring blankly at the scene, muttered.
The chat window had already lagged, the comments flooding so fast the words were unreadable.
Domination. Wonder. Awe. Elation.
All kinds of emotions crossed the room, but no one's eyes shone brighter than Kim Pildu's—the one filming it all.
"I mean, that's just not realistically possible, right? By modern exploration standards, no matter how good you are, what a single hunter can accomplish is—"
The chat had even started mocking Kim Pildu's stream itself as child's play by comparison.
But more than any of that—the man in the suit who had shown them that scene, the sight he had displayed... it painted the very image of the traditional hunter-hero that Kim Pildu had dreamed of so desperately, the one he'd thought had died and vanished from the world...
Confronted with an idol that transcended reality and logic, Kim Pildu lost his composure completely, and his true feelings spilled out.
"Should I bow my head and beg him to take me on as an apprentice...?"
Meanwhile, [Midas] wasn't the only one watching.
The hunters of [Mir] and [Ohsung], who had retreated at full speed and were recording intelligence from a distance—even the veteran [Mir] hunters among them, the grizzled ones who had done real frontline exploration rather than this kind of mining, stood with their mouths agape, unable to believe their eyes.
Could a human being really move like that?
Perhaps others couldn't tell, but these were experts—and experts knew.
He wasn't fast. He wasn't as fast as the hunters here. Just an ordinary awakened man—movements not nearly quick enough to suit a hunter.
'But it's different...'
His footwork, his movements, were different. No one could say what it was, but it was as if his motion, one step ahead, read the future—as if he had every variable on the battlefield laid out before his eyes, seizing them all in advance.
And what about that attack?
There was no rear fire support, no expensive flashy artifacts wrapped around him. And yet, before that little toy of a blade, the Irregular was dismantled piece by piece without a single great blow.
Alone, single-handedly. And dressed, as if mocking dungeon exploration itself, in an outfit fit for a salaryman's commute home, he had disassembled what could only be called a calamity—the Irregular.
That overwhelming sense of powerlessness, that pure incomprehensibility of the result—it bordered on reverence.
When the dust settled, the figure of the man standing atop the wreckage came into sharp focus.
He didn't roar. He didn't celebrate.
As if the thing he had felled held no interest for him at all, without so much as a backward glance, he simply turned toward the exit.
Matter-of-factly. As if what was bound to happen had simply happened.
The first to snap back to their senses was Kim Han-na—the one who had coincidentally crossed paths with him back on the 1st floor.
Glancing back and forth between [Ark]'s near-annihilated condition and the masked man in the suit, she bit her lip.
Shock and curiosity could wait. There was something she had to do.
'...I should help.'
The hunters of [Ark].
Even if they'd stood by helplessly reaping what they hadn't sown during the Irregular crisis, this was no situation to abandon them—everyone was watching everyone else far too closely.
Besides, following the lead of the veteran [Mir] hunters, she was already carefully approaching the scene to help manage it—and, privately, to gather more detailed data.
Of course, no one dared lay a hand on the giant's corpse. On the loot.
One look told them the quality was on another level from what had been scraped near the entrance—but there was nothing to be done. From start to finish, everything had been effectively handled by the masked man, so ownership of all of it naturally belonged to him.
So, gathering intelligence and putting [Ark] in her debt while conducting rescue operations—
"...Huh?"
The man, walking toward the exit, stopped briefly as if he'd just remembered something, and said, offhandedly:
"Take it."
"...I'm sorry?"
"I wasn't planning to take it anyway."
The man gestured at the metal giant's wreckage.
Its density was extraordinary—material of tremendous value.
And he was... just going to throw it away, like it was a chore? So freely, without a trace of regret?
The veteran [Mir] hunter—Park Soo-hyun, overall commander of this expedition—asked again as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"Are you truly certain...?"
"Besides, I have no way to carry it out anyway."
The man waved his hand dismissively and turned away without a second thought.
*No way to carry it out*... It was true. Even [Ohsung]—no, even combining every piece of exploration equipment everyone here had brought—they'd be lucky to haul out a few tons.
And yet, an ordinary person would at least have shown some reluctance. Watching him be not just cool but outright cold about it, Kim Han-na's pupils trembled as if an earthquake had struck them.
'There it is again...'
The memory from the 1st floor flashed past.
The way he had hacked apart Horn Rabbits like he was tormenting them—to honor the souls of students he hadn't been able to protect, despite his overwhelming strength.
That image seemed to connect to this very moment.
An ordinary hunter would explore the Tower and its dungeons for wealth, for fame, for growth.
But that man...
Her gaze turned to the [Ark] hunters sprawled nearby.
They had survived by a miracle, thanks to his sudden intrusion. Especially the leader of the front-line party, who was still trembling, his face drained of all sense.
The puzzle pieces clicked together in her mind.
The reason he had risked himself to barge into an Irregular crisis that had nothing to do with him.
The reason he had appeared uninvited on this battlefield with no reward and no growth to be had, felled the Irregular, and vanished as if he wanted nothing in return.
There was only one answer.
'He never cared about riches in the first place... He came here to save people.'
Kim Han-na shivered.
The way he'd said he was "throwing it away"—it felt like nothing so much as a shy excuse to hide his good deed.
The lost romance and heroic spirit of a hunter industry turned corporate.
Who that noble man was no longer mattered. She could easily have guessed that, if she kept chasing him, he'd turn out to be one of the Rankers—but he wanted to do good while hiding his identity.
She didn't want to interfere with the faded romance of hunters that he was bringing back to life.
So quietly, she turned toward the members of [Ark]'s party—who had been moments from annihilation.
And in order to carry on the noble will that 'that man'—more human than anyone—had sought to protect, she embraced the leader of the [Ark] party he had saved moments before.
She held the bleeding, wounded Park Jin-chul tightly, and said:
"Thank you for holding on..."