Breaking Through the Lower Floors (1)
The 23rd floor was, once again, an undead floor.
It was a floor he was sick of and wanted to leave as quickly as possible. But once he broke through the lower floors, things would no longer end in a single room.
The layout of each room grew increasingly complex, and even accounting for the tower's time distortion, it was common to spend an entire day inside the Magic Tower.
The faint sense that the tower itself was beginning to recite its own story suggested it was time to leave the lower floors behind.
You have entered the 23rd floor.
Time Limit: 2 hours 30 minutes.
23rd Floor Clear Condition: Offer 12 Flesh Golems as sacrifices to enrage the Black Mage.
The deeper one went into the lower floors, the more complex and demanding the clear conditions became. The floor layouts themselves began to unfold like divided stages.
That was precisely why clearing all 100 floors within 300 days was no easy feat. Since the Incheon Magic Tower, only one other tower had ever been cleared worldwide—four times in total.
Even with tens of millions of players worldwide throwing themselves at the challenge, the number of cleared Magic Towers could be counted on one hand.
The missions themselves were no longer simple “defeat the monsters” tasks. Some floors required defending a village within a set time or standing watch through the night—floors that demanded time, mental fortitude, and physical stamina.
The temporal pressure required to climb the tower itself was beginning to mount.
This floor, too, could be seen as a test of courage, resolve, and mental strength.
A narrow corridor just wide enough for a single person to stand. It resembled a maze of twisting alleys made from dark red bricks.
What had to be found inside that maze were the Flesh Golems—specifically, a floor with a bizarre gimmick where the golems would burst out from both sides of a blocked path the moment you rounded a corner at full speed.
Flesh Golems. They were grotesque monsters that made you frown the instant you laid eyes on them. Their sheer size, nearly three meters tall, was oppressive enough, but that was only the beginning.
They were horrific chimeras stitched together from the skins and organs of humans, animals, and monsters alike. Fighting such creatures—whose very presence evoked both terror and revulsion—in narrow passages where forming a proper formation was impossible was no simple task.
But that was only the standard strategy.
The maze could simply be cut straight through.
“Summon!”
The Holy Sword slowly materialized above Choi Junseok’s head.
His target was the straight-line path through the maze. He intended to bore straight through the twisting corridors vertically.
The record for the fastest clear of the 23rd floor is 8 minutes 21 seconds.
It was by no means a slow time, but compared to Choi Junseok, it felt excessively leisurely.
Whoosh—!
The Holy Sword shot forward in an instant, shattering the maze walls and carving a straight line through them.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Walls exploded one after another, and the tremendous vibrations shook the ground as if an earthquake had struck. Yet Choi Junseok immediately summoned Lee Nayeon’s sword, Caliburn, and pointed it forward.
“Nayeon! You probably won’t be able to take out all twelve—”
Status windows popped up in his vision all at once.
Congratulations!
You have cleared the 23rd floor.
Clear Time: 12 seconds.
Would you like to register anonymously on the Hall of Fame? (Y/N)
The additional effect of ‘Fairy of Retrieval’ has activated.
Mid-floor clear rewards have been granted.
Special Condition Achieved! — ‘Clear 5 floors with the highest record’
Rewards for achieving the special condition have been granted!
Would you like to return? (Y/N) You will be automatically returned after 30 minutes.
Lee Nayeon, who had been stretching in anticipation of swinging her sword, turned to look at Choi Junseok and furrowed her brows. Even her glare carried a striking beauty, like watching a visual actor’s performance.
“…They’re all dead?”
Haha.
— Of course they are, you fool. We’re still in the lower floors.
“Calm down… I’ll let you use your sword on the 24th floor.”
“If that is your will.”
It was the right call if he wanted to level up. The 24th floor clear was left entirely to Lee Nayeon swinging her sword alone. Even so, it was naturally another record time.
“Phew… I was getting frustrated. I feel alive again.”
Watching Lee Nayeon smile while her face was smeared with the blood of the Black Mage’s undead disciples was somewhat chilling. Yet she was dressed in athletic wear that didn’t hinder movement at all, giving the impression she had simply gone for a light jog.
If only the blood wasn’t dripping from the sword in her hand.
The moment an anonymous F-rank solo clear was etched into the Suseo Magic Tower Hall of Fame as a new record, the followers of the Function Cult—already fanatically excited that Function was alive—watched as their cult leader stepped onto the stage wearing a familiar mask.
The middle school gymnasium was packed to the brim with cult members. Of course, among them were National Intelligence Service agents, detectives, and undercover police officers disguised as followers.
When the cult leader appeared on stage, the crowd erupted into fervent chants of “Function!”
“Function! Function! Function! Function!”
It was a truly fanatical atmosphere. If things had gone according to the leader’s plan without issue, this would have been the turning point where the group evolved into a full-fledged pseudo-religion.
When the leader raised his hand, the excited atmosphere instantly settled. The followers looked up at him with eager anticipation. They expected a speech that would transform their excitement into blind devotion, proclaiming that he had returned alive.
But the words that came from the leader’s mouth lacked their usual force. He seemed deflated.
“There is something I must confess before all of you.”
In that moment, the followers’ fervor, which had overcome death itself, turned to doubt.
A different atmosphere. An ominous energy. And then the words that left his lips:
“I am… not actually Function.”
Everyone stared in stunned silence, doubting their own ears and whispering to those beside them. The gymnasium filled with murmurs.
The leader continued as he removed his mask.
“I impersonated Function and faked my own death!”
The intelligence agents and police officers felt a sense of relief at his statement, which aligned with their guidelines—until his next bombshell.
“Function discovered me and made contact! ‘How dare you impersonate me? I shall find you now and punish you!’”
That was right. The cult leader was simply someone who harbored such boundless affection for Function that he had dreamed of becoming him. Though he couldn’t possibly have met the real Function, he clung to that obsession to the very end, speaking as if he were the first apostle to witness a god.
‘Emergency situation. Emergency situation.’
As several agents relayed the situation through microphones hidden in their sleeves, the bewildered followers were drawn into his words.
“Function spoke to me! ‘How dare you sully my name? Must you atone with your death? Then I shall give you one final mission! Bring blessings to the world in my name! If you do so, I shall destroy the Suseo Magic Tower and Korea’s other towers in succession for your sake!’ Ahh! My brothers and sisters! That is right—I have become the first apostle to hear his voice!”
Some left in protest. Others sank to the floor in despair, staring blankly upward. Yet all of them listened to the confession of the man who had once been their leader.
“And so I offered my repentance to him! Ahh! O great one, in what direction should we proceed? Then he spoke! ‘If you perform good deeds and acts of service in my name, I shall forgive your foolish sins!’”
The situation seemed to be taking a strange turn, yet it was somehow moving exactly toward the outcome the agents had intended when they sent him onto the stage.
Instructions came through the hidden earpieces of the agents from headquarters.
“Stand by for now. Let’s observe the situation a little longer.”
“And so I have stepped down from the position of cult leader and decided to follow Function’s will as I move toward a brighter world!”
At the same time, inside the Player Management Agency.
Director Mun Gwon-su, who had been scrolling through related news on his phone, heard a knock at his office door.
Knock knock knock—
“Come in.”
The person who walked in through the slowly opening door was, of course, Kang Jinsu.
“Function is about to break through the lower floors. He’s cleared up to the 24th floor. With S-rank and SS-rank summons at his side, it doesn’t look like he’ll hit his limit anytime soon.”
“…However?”
“As Function’s public appearance becomes an established fact, I think the Agency needs to start preparing accordingly.”
“By preparation, you mean that project.”
Team Leader Kang Jinsu nodded slightly. A strange sense of resolve hung about him.
“Understood. I had a feeling the time would come eventually.”
“I didn’t expect the project that was put on hold because of Yu Junhyeok to be revived under Function instead.”
“Ah, and the government has decided to purchase the tower clear rights. The payment will be made without shortage of whatever Function desires. It’ll take some time to execute, though.”
Kang Jinsu’s lips curled into a faint smile as he replied.
“Function seems to think of that item as a blank check.”
“…A blank check is impossible. We estimated the loss amount through Chinese intelligence and calculated the price based on that.”
“And… he wants tax exemption benefits.”
“Tax exemption… is difficult. We’ll handle it through installment payments with related tax exemption privileges. So, how much does he seem to want?”
“It looks like it’s in the hundreds of billions.”
“…If hundreds of billions go to a single individual, you do realize the National Tax Service or a hearing would immediately summon him, right?”
“He’s not that well-versed in politics or the ways of the world.”
“Demanding hundreds of billions in cash tax-free… Well, I’ll think of a way to handle it through installments. Is this because of that penthouse?”
“It seems so.”
This was hardly the behavior of a player who had only just escaped the lower floors and was about to challenge the 25th floor.
“Being able to challenge the 100th floor immediately is a significant advantage, but conversely, it’s useless to any nation that hasn’t secured the forces to clear the 100th floor. More than anything, it’s a gamble where failure means death.”
“That’s right. Return scrolls can’t be used either. Clear or die.”
“These days, there aren’t many players with that level of grim sense of duty.”
Honestly, attempting the 100th floor of a Magic Tower was an extremely rare occurrence worldwide. If someone of Yu Junhyeok’s caliber hadn’t poured his time, stamina, and money into nurturing juniors and instilling in them a sense of pride and duty to save the country, even attempting it would have been unthinkable.
And that was despite the standard 100th floor challenge allowing emergency escape via scroll if death seemed imminent.
Even if the law mandated that players climb the towers, it wouldn’t change anything.
“Do you think there’s a player willing to throw themselves at the 100th floor under clear-or-die conditions? I don’t. That’s why the value of that item is closer to something inflated by China. Even so, budgeting over 10 billion won was done with its value, his achievements in Japan, and maintaining friendly relations with Function in mind. You need to convey that properly.”
“Yes. Understood.”
And at that moment, there was another knock at the director’s office door.
“Wait a moment. We’re in the middle of a conversation.”
“This is an emergency. Is Team Leader Kang Jinsu here?”
“……?”
It was quite rare for someone to seek out the team leader from the director’s office, but what emergency would prompt them to look for the team leader before the director?
“The cult leader who was impersonating Function has been abducted by an unidentified group.”
What on earth was this about now?
The director and Kang Jinsu’s brows furrowed sharply.