Holy Sword Click, Clear (2)
It was a family dinner, yet her chopstick handling looked clumsy.
Her chopsticks trembled.
After barely managing to scrape up some rice, she spoke.
Choi Junseok and Lee Nayeon had grown quite close in just half a day.
Even after receiving the sword as a gift, Choi Junseok had taken her everywhere she wanted to go until dinner time, showing her around Seoul.
“To summarize, you’ve decided to accept all the support my lord provides while ignoring any requests.”
“…Uh, is that how it works?”
“Yes.”
“No, it’s a bit different. The state… isn’t exactly my lord, is it?”
“How is it not? You pay taxes and receive support and gifts from them. Your residence is territory granted to you. If you’ve been granted land, we call that a vassal contract. An oath of loyalty.”
“Uh, things are a little different in modern times…”
Their growing familiarity was obvious enough that even his mother and younger sister at the same table noticed.
Unable to watch any longer, his mother Lee Jun-hui stepped in to change the subject.
“Alright, alright! No work talk at the dinner table!”
Lee Nayeon tilted her head, clearly not understanding.
Still, she nodded without protest.
Her serious expression as she nodded was at odds with the single grain of rice stuck to her cheek.
“Nayeon, would you like another bowl?”
“…Would that be acceptable?”
“Of course! You said you’re climbing again tonight, right? You should eat plenty.”
“Then I won’t refuse.”
His mother had gone shopping and cooked by hand for the first time in a while.
Ever since she quit the magic stone processing plant.
Between hospital bills and cash flow problems, they hadn’t eaten a proper meal in ages.
The sight of multigrain rice was a welcome one. These days, even ordinary grains cost more than white rice.
Welcome as it was, though… did summons even eat food?
“Miss Nayeon, do you prefer bread or something?”
The question continued over the meal. Both of them were treating Lee Nayeon like an ordinary person.
“No. Rice is delicious as well.”
“…Then why are you only eating rice?”
“Ah… pardon?”
“You’re supposed to eat the side dishes with the rice. I thought the soup might not suit your taste either. I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
Lee Nayeon held the tip of her chopsticks between her lips and scanned the side dishes with a grave expression.
As if inspecting soldiers before a campaign.
“So it was a combination meal.”
“Combination meal?”
“An excellent formation. I can feel the commander’s skill.”
“…Uh, th-thanks?”
Lee Nayeon wore a profound expression.
The combination of rice and side dishes. What an infinite and ever-changing combination.
Her eyes resembled those of a supply officer calculating rations and distribution plans.
“What? Nayeon, you weren’t eating the side dishes either?”
“Hey. You offered her another bowl without even knowing that?”
“…I didn’t know! Mom, who stares at what other people are eating? Seriously.”
His sister immediately took Nayeon’s rice bowl and headed for the rice cooker.
“If you’d prefer a fork, I can get one… Ah, we don’t have any forks at home.”
“It’s fine. It’s only right to adapt equipment flexibly to the local terrain.”
Lee Jun-hui, finding Lee Nayeon’s speech patterns strange, glanced at her son.
Choi Junseok simply kept eating in silence.
“She’s always been a bit unusual. She jumped here from medieval France.”
At Choi Junseok’s casual remark, Lee Nayeon nodded without changing expression.
But it was Lee Jun-hui who got angry.
“Hey! What kind of way is that to talk? To a modern person!”
“Ah, did I hurt your feelings?”
“No. It’s fine. It’s the truth. Even I’m not sure if I can truly be called a modern person… or even a person at all.”
“Oh my, what are you saying? You’re the same as anyone else.”
“…A person.”
Lee Nayeon seemed lost in thought at those words.
Lee Jun-hui didn’t let her dwell on it.
“If not a person, then a goddess? Ahaha! You’re so pretty. You really look just like me when I was young…”
“Wow, Mom, that’s really not it.”
─┼
At the same time.
All five major guilds were searching for the code name Function, but the most desperate was Eden in the east.
One of their top players was grinding their teeth in frustration.
Lee Jiyu, Supersonic Bunny, had not stopped attempting solo clears of the first floor.
Even if she cleared the first floor faster than Function, the hidden reward wouldn’t come to her anyway.
She knew full well that only the first entrant’s record was measured.
Still, it seemed she was determined to take back the first-floor record at least.
It almost looked like she was honoring her vanished summon.
She’d been at it for five days already. If she weren’t a ranker, they would’ve found a replacement by now.
The top raid teams of all five major guilds were taking losses.
Yet because of her fame and recognition, they couldn’t simply order her back to work.
To use her as a resource again, they needed to either bring Function in or eliminate him.
Either way, that bastard Function had become a thorn in their side.
“So what the hell is his identity? If he’s not hiding it or some illegal immigrant…”
“He really is a Korean F-grade Awakened. That’s the prevailing opinion.”
Even after combining every clue they had, there was no sign a foreign player had suddenly appeared.
“Didn’t they say they were importing a bunch of players from India recently? To build the mid-floor elevators. Couldn’t he be one of them?”
“We’ve completed a full investigation. None of them were the first to enter the first floor.”
“What about the possibility of a foreign black agent?”
“We can’t rule it out, but according to internal National Intelligence Service information, nothing came up.”
There was no chance he entered through official routes like ports or airports pretending to be an ordinary person.
Just like during the COVID pandemic when everyone had to pass thermal cameras.
Everyone’s belongings were inspected and judged by appraisal skills before entry.
“In other words, he rose straight from the ground.”
“Correct.”
That made it most likely he was a newly Awakened player within the country.
“Has the government still not found Function’s whereabouts?”
“Well… it seems they have. They’re still pretending to search for the sake of a smokescreen.”
“…What?”
“American brokers who made secret contact were dealt with. They apparently discovered him while tracing those brokers’ contacts. Function.”
Function had already contacted brokers?
What? Then why couldn’t they find him?
“Did you pull the full list of everyone who contacted them?”
“Yes.”
“Then why the hell don’t we know yet?”
The chairman of Eden in the east listened to the report with growing irritation.
It was only natural he felt frustrated.
He’d expected them to find him within a day or two at most.
But the answer he received was unexpected.
“All contact and whereabouts are unclear. This is just my guess, but if we dig any deeper… it could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Did you just say dangerous?”
Was he hearing this right?
Would anyone really try to hide that bastard Function from the combined influence of the five major guilds?
Especially for someone whose only achievement was a few low-floor records?
“If the five major guilds went on strike for even a day, do you know how much national loss that would cause?”
“…”
The magic stones and monster parts players earned from each floor were a major part of the economy, but the biggest loss would be the final failure to clear Suseo Magic Tower.
“And you think that bastard Function is on the same scale as our guild?”
Before any sparks could fly, the report continued quickly.
“All thirteen people who learned Function’s residence while tracking the American brokers have gone missing.”
“…What?”
“It seems someone higher up… is trying very hard to hide him.”
“No matter how high they are, they’re not higher than the Magic Tower. The tower isn’t some easy place you can climb alone. Function’s tail will be caught eventually.”
“You mean the tenth floor.”
The Eden guild leader nodded.
“No matter how much the government tries to hide that bastard Function, in the end a player is still a player. Arms bend inward, and players get information fastest.”
“Yes. The tenth floor requires three people to clear simultaneously.”
“…Right. Even if we exclude the summon he got from clearing the first floor, he still needs at least one more person. That’s it? The sixth floor has the strongest physical attack immunity, and the seventh is magic immunity. His limits will start showing soon.”
Even aside from that, there were many situations during tower climbs that were physically impossible to handle alone.
Before even entering, the recommended number of entrants appeared as a warning.
“As you said, Function will inevitably need to find companions. And when he does, information will inevitably leak.”
He knew that too.
If he waited calmly, he would find him eventually.
The problem was that he wanted to find him quickly before that happened.
If possible, before the other five major guilds did.
“Fine. You can go.”
“Thank you. Then what about the thirty-eight F-grades we’re holding…”
“Let them go.”
“Four of them… unfortunately, what should we do about them?”
“What do you mean? Just grind them up.”
“A few of them are apparently connected to the underworld.”
“So what?”
“Understood.”
He was the representative of a corporation that controlled twenty percent of the player world.
Making a few F-grade players disappear was nothing to him. Not the slightest burden.
But there was one who was different.
That mysterious Fx-grade player.
‘Function…’
A few hours later.
Under the alias Function, whose real name was Choi Junseok, he was calmly holding a strategy meeting with Lee Nayeon before today’s climb.
Team Leader Kang, participating via phone, spoke to Choi Junseok.
- The government is still half-convinced about you.
“Even after setting all these records?”
- There are two reasons. One is that these are the lowest floors, which are hard to even call low floors. The other is doubt about your abilities.
“Ah, so it’s all thanks to my summons?”
- There’s an opinion that’s possible. Of course I don’t doubt you, but I’ve been ordered to verify your limits.
Of course, Choi Junseok understood Team Leader Kang’s true intentions.
There probably hadn’t been any special orders from above to verify anything.
It just meant Team Leader Kang was personally assessing his value.
How much support would be appropriate for someone like him.
Since he was still on the scale without being removed, it meant they were watching to see how much he weighed.
Whether he knew it or not,
two newly built officetels.
Plus six pieces of equipment from the VIP shop.
Just two of those would’ve already drained a significant portion of the Player Management Agency’s reserve funds.
‘And I also know why he’s talking like he’s testing me.’
It was because of the sixth-floor monster, the Giant Slime.
A perfect counter to physical attacks.
But since they knew his summon was an assassin…
- Would you like to see the sixth-floor video footage we sent earlier?
“Yes. I’ve seen it.”
It was a simple structure: a vast plain reminiscent of a soccer field’s grass, with the Giant Slime positioned far in the distance.
It was information that ordinary F-grades rarely received in advance.
Choi Junseok already knew this floor from his previous life, but if he said that, it would look suspicious, so he simply listened quietly.
Besides, he could hear high-level information and various details about the floor that a porter wouldn’t normally know.
Choi Junseok pretended not to know and asked.
“There’s a slime in the middle. It looks pretty big.”
- Correct. It’s a Giant Slime. Physical attacks don’t work well on it, and if you kill it with physical attacks, it splits in half and becomes two. It can divide up to sixty-four times that way.
- They must’ve experimented like perverts again.
- Of course. Everything is data. Climbing is a battle against data.
Climbing is a battle against data?
Choi Junseok thought differently.
It was a battle of whether he could survive the aftermath of summoning the Holy Sword.
“How far did you experiment, exactly?”
- What do you mean by ‘how far’?
“I mean, what level of physical force did you test?”
- Ah, that’s what you meant. S-grade physical ranker Lee Chan-wook, the Flash. We confirmed it still split even against his ultimate skill. If you deliver the finishing blow with physical force, it splits. This formula should be considered a fixed system value…
In that case, there was no problem.
- Of course… the person who’s been exceeding, ignoring, and shattering all previous data is you, but this floor will be difficult.
“Ah… really? I think differently.”
- Junseok. Do you know what players call the floors up to the sixth?
“I don’t.”
- They call it the tutorial. From here on, the scenery you’ll see… is an entirely different world.
Team Leader Kang was trying hard to scare him, but Choi Junseok had already seen and grown familiar with that scenery.
“I see…”
At Choi Junseok’s lukewarm response, Team Leader Kang thought this guy might die surprisingly quickly.
How many people had arrogantly relied on their own skills or bragged about awakening S-grade or A-grade skills only to die meaningless deaths?
- The shortest clear record for the sixth floor is 14.8 seconds, but as usual with tower records, it’s rounded up to 15 seconds.
“15 seconds.”
- Yes. If you want to quickly receive the consecutive shortest clear reward for five floors, you’ll need to clear it within 14 seconds. Any questions?
“No.”
- If you have no further questions, I’ll end the call here. Then. I wish you a safe climb.
Click.
Right after the call ended, Team Leader Kang let out a long sigh and pulled a cigarette from his chest pocket to put in his mouth.
Looking at the clock, it was exactly noon.
As a final moment of leisure before leaving work, he lit his lighter.
Click, click. The flint wheel spun, spitting out sparks.
Among the Player Management Agency staff, there had been jokes going around recently.
Wouldn’t they have to change to twelve-hour shifts and start working nights because of Function?
But Team Leader Kang himself had coldly laughed at that joke and said:
‘Well, Function has passed the tutorial stage now, so he’ll probably start showing his limits soon, won’t he?’
The tower wasn’t some easy place you could keep climbing alone forever.
His colleagues had nodded at those words.
The sixth and seventh floors were now stages where you had to move as a team.
Team Leader Kang took a drag from his cigarette. After changing from slippers back into dress shoes, he picked up the coat draped over his chair and was about to leave when he heard commotion outside his office.
“Emergency! Function! Sixth floor shortest time clear!”
“Single-person fastest clear… time is 5 seconds!”
Shouting from his colleagues running outside the team leader’s office reached his ears.
The time had just hit 12:01.
Team Leader Kang, no longer surprised, calmly put his coat back down.
After taking off his dress shoes and changing back into slippers, he put another cigarette in his mouth.
At the same time, he erased one of his estimated ability values for Choi Junseok from his mind.
Possibility of using physical force = none.
‘Or… overwhelming physical force.’
But.
What did that even matter?
A sigh escaped him naturally.
“Aigoo… when am I ever getting off work.”
Beneath the weakly held cigarette.
Click, click. The lighter’s flint wheel spun uselessly.
At the same time, a call from the director arrived on his phone.