Minwoo's Dad

999,999 points.

Clearing the floor — hidden quest and all — had been worth it. The rewards alone sat on an entirely different plane from what anyone else received.

The potions were not to be laughed off just because they were the lowest grade. At his current level, their potency rivaled the heals of a Saintess, the highest tier of healer. A wound these couldn't close was a wound on someone already dead, and the mana recovery was no different — it blew past the amount he was even allowed to hold, and then some.

Ted still hadn't been granted a class, which meant recovery potions didn't exist on the open market at all. What Shin Haneul had just taken into his hands was an item that would let him run far more flexible strategies on the floors ahead.

The hundred grams of arcane crystal were the same story. This was a thing fundamentally unlike the mana stones one could pick up in a dungeon. Only the names were similar.

And then the Lunatic Stone.

Was this thing really so common?

Remembering how he had scrambled and clawed in the past just to get his hands on a single one, he could almost manage a bitter smile. Perhaps it was because he had piled up so many achievements. The notification windows came so fast he could barely keep up with them.

And at the very end of the flood:

Once you became a hunter, this registered name — plus your class — was spoken more often than your real one. Climbing records were left under it, and whenever a new record was set, every hunter was notified under that same name. An American record went out across the United States, a continental record across the whole of the Americas, and a world record, naturally, to the entire world.

A registered name was something to choose with great care. Get it wrong, and it chased you to the very end like a brand. The classic case was Ted, a support class who had nonetheless been something of a ranker back in Korea. His registered name was SubinsBoyfriend. All through the Korean rankings, the traces of SubinsBoyfriend — Potion Maker (SSS-Rank) — had never gone away.

After crossing over to Korea he had found a love that burned, and with magnificent nerve he had stamped his girlfriend's name straight into his registration. Six months later, they broke up.

"Why did I ever do that?"

His twenties, his thirties... A long time had passed since the breakup, and still the tag SubinsBoyfriend trailed after him wherever he went.

"If an item that changes your registered name exists, I would buy it no matter the price."

On the off chance someone out there might have one, he gave interviews like that to the press from time to time. And every time, the entire nation sympathized with his sorrow as one.

There were plenty of other registered names to avoid. Styles like ★Magical Girl★, or Lord of Darkness, or Unknown and Identity Withheld. However badly one wanted to look special, most of them only ended up looking ridiculous. Cases like these made one thing clear: a registered name had to be chosen carefully, and then carefully again.

Shin Haneul, however, did not spare this particular matter a single thought. The name he intended to take had been fixed from the very beginning. In this, at least, his previous life had been no different.

The name was his identity itself. He could swear he would not regret it for the rest of his life. Entry complete. The registered name surfaced on the system at once.

"......"

The class name nagged at him a little. That was a problem time would solve. And the clear rewards were not finished yet.

Perhaps this would exert the greatest influence of all upon the world. No. It already had.

999,999 points. Reach the highest score that could exist, and several privileges were granted — one of them applied not only to the individual, but to the entire nation they belonged to. The death penalty meant death. And if that penalty did not exist? It was an immense privilege.

The entrance of the Tower. The Corridor. Several awakened opened their eyes there.

"Uh...?"

"I— I definitely...!"

They had been lucky. Unlike Robert Collins and the others, who had arrogantly ignored Shin Haneul's advice, hesitating for a few seconds had saved their lives — not a narrow escape, but the kind of survival that beats ten deaths to one. A difference of seconds, and they were brought back because Shin Haneul had claimed the highest-score privilege. They took several other penalties in exchange, but that was far better than dying. It went without saying.

"I'm alive! I'm alive!"

Overcome with happiness, they trembled from head to toe. Realizing how they had been revived took a little longer.

And then—

"Oh, thank you!"

"God!"

"This grace... I will... I will repay it!!"

America's awakened, and the American government. Beyond them, the world began to grasp what that record was truly worth.

From the moment the conquest of Floor 1 began, breaking news had poured out across the world. The story that stood above all the rest was the Floor 1 highest-score incident, and outlet after outlet spilled theory after theory about it. The United States and Korea, above all. America cheered an achievement its homeland had made. Korea was disappointed.

Minwoo's Dad (Classless). To anyone looking, he was obviously an awakened of Korean descent.

Opinions like these were not entirely without grounds. Word was beginning to spread that, once a fight actually started, the gap between having a class and having none was enormous.

Before Shin Haneul arrived, the awakened who had stood as the U.S. military's undisputed No. 1 was toyed with by a mere B-Rank — and the video already had millions of viewers. Similar cases were everywhere.

Astonishingly, comments like these were not manufactured opinion. Park Gyeongtae had, in fact, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠awakened an A-Rank class. He simply had not entered the Tower yet. He wanted information from the people who had gone in first.

Go in first, and all you'll do is die.

Anyone could see that latecomers held the advantage in climbing the Tower. Besides, clearing Floor 1 did not let you step onto Floor 2 at once. The time limit for clearing Floor 1 was twelve hours to begin with — which meant entry was only possible once twenty-four hours had passed since Floor 1 was created. Even so, clearing itself took time, so he would have to go in before long. Gathering still more information wouldn't mean much anyway.

His class was Thief (A-Rank). With skills such as Shadow Walk, he was confident he could move among the goblins without ever being spotted. And that was not all. He had a weapon no one else did — at least in Korea, investigation had turned up no one else who possessed it. That weapon was a trait.

Park Gyeongtae thought there was no reason he couldn't do what Shin Haneul had done.

You were always beneath me. It was that way before, and it has to stay that way from now on.

999,999 points? He didn't know what kind of extraordinary play produced a score like that, but he was confident he would manage just as much.

Reality was different.

The registered name KoreaNo.1 was Park Gyeongtae himself. From the moment he started, he had posted a result unworthy of that name. A world ranking? There wasn't one. Anything outside the top one hundred wasn't even calculated.

A humiliating result. A-Rank, and he had still lost to a B-Rank — in the very arena where he ought to have shone brightest. Worse, this was his peak. Only the downhill remained, and that was the most wretched part of it.

No. The most wretched part was not that. It was that he was still drunk on his own potential. In another life he had admitted his limits quickly and opened up a new field entirely — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠director of the Hunter Management Bureau, and after that, president. He had even surpassed Chairman Park Yongseok, the very man whose recognition he craved so badly. Set against that past, this was a truly pitiful thing.

"Thank you, Mr. Shin. If you hadn't been there, we really..."

"Thank you for saving our dad!"

Awakened stood in a line outside the front door of Shin Haneul's house. Their hands were full of gifts of every kind, and sometimes whole families had come along.

"It's all right. I was only lucky."

"Lucky? I was already dead! If it weren't for Mr. Shin, I'd have stayed that way forever!"

"The life I received from you... I'll repay it someday. I swear I will."

The pleading grew so fierce that he ended up accepting a few of the gifts. He finished his polite goodbyes and shut the door — and in that instant:

"Dad!"

A loud voice came from the hall. He turned his head and found Minwoo peeking through a crack in the door. How long had he been watching? Those round eyes were sparkling.

"Dad, you're so cool!"

For a moment Shin Haneul couldn't say a word. It was a simple sentence, but his son's words filled him with more pride than he knew what to do with. And that pride had not even begun to fade when Ted ruined it.

"Mind if I take a shot at Floor 1?"

"Get a class first, at least."

"You set the highest score without one, hyung."

"I'm me."

"......"

Ted's mouth stopped halfway open. It wasn't that he had no rebuttal. The way it had been said — as if it were the most obvious thing in the world — had simply left him with nothing to say. Shin Haneul had even declared that he would challenge Floor 2 the instant it opened.

"You're really going in like this? What are you going to do if you can't clear it without a class this time?"

"It's fine."

Floor 2 was a stretch where, for him, failing to shine was simply not possible. Whether he had a class hardly mattered.

Time's about up.

The Tower's clock was remarkably convenient for Earth. It followed Greenwich Mean Time — which meant, by Seattle's clock, five in the afternoon.

"Dad! Hurry up—!"

With his son's send-off, he stepped into Floor 2 of the Tower at once.

A trial?

The wording was grand, but from where he stood it was nothing. No hardship existed here that could trouble him. What trial could a Tower like this possibly offer the man who had slaughtered the Outer Gods? And if one knew what waited inside, that was truer still.