The Dragon's Third Eye

"A price…?"

"Yeah. A price."

"…Arrogant to the very end, human."

"You're the one who doesn't know how to ask."

Their eyes struck together in the empty air. Neither looked away.

Shin Haneul's gaze was the steadier of the two.

In the end, you'll have no choice but to bow your head and come crawling.

The one who needed this was the dragon. He was sure of that.

But the other party was not so easily handled.

"I told you. This is not a request. It is a proposal."

"……"

"Enter a soul-binding contract with me, and you may borrow the power of the great dragonkin—even if only in part. Where else would you find a price so immense?"

The power of the dragonkin was certainly strong. Early on, it would be useful enough. But was it indispensable? That was another matter entirely.

Nor was this a sweet story for Shin Haneul alone. The soul-binding contract the dragon meant to forge carried an effect of its own: once its progress crossed a certain threshold, a bond of master and servant took hold. The stronger party became master. The weaker became servant. In other words, he intended to keep Shin Haneul as a servant later on.

He hand-waves whatever benefits him, and only talks up the part that would make the other side lick their lips.

The creature was as black within as he looked without.

"That alone doesn't really tempt me."

"Haha. You've climbed no higher than the second floor of the Tower, and already you do not know how high the sky is. However vast a potential you may possess, at present you are nothing but a seed that has yet to sprout."

"That's for me to judge."

"Then what is it you want? Would you know something of the Tower?"

"Don't need it."

That was entirely sincere. Shin Haneul already knew far more than that. Scraping together a little information now would do him no good at all.

"Dragon Eye."

"…What?"

"Your third eye. Give me that."

"That is…"

"If you don't want to, we're done."

In truth, Shin Haneul needed it badly. Even so, he was confident the other party could not possibly overturn the board.

That dragon, right now, was desperate to make him a subordinate.

When the contract is complete, we'll see who ends up bound to whom.

The dragon believed Shin Haneul had never properly undergone the trial of his potential. He had been startled at first, but he had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠settled on nothing more than luck.

It didn't hold together—and yet it was the more convincing explanation. The odds of the Trial Mirror shattering by pure chance did not reach even 0.00000001 percent. The odds of a being with the potential to one day become the Outer God Slayer—someone who abandoned the trial itself and drove the mirror to choose its own death—were thinner still. No. They were a possibility that could not even be imagined.

Until the contract was complete, the chance of their positions reversing was much the same.

The dragon knew nothing. He thought this contract overwhelmingly favored him. In the end, he would have no choice but to be dragged through the negotiation.

Shin Haneul's finger was just about to move when a voice reached him—urgent, and desperate in its effort not to sound urgent. The dragon's.

"Very well. If you insist, I shall grant you that much as a gift. It is hardly anything remarkable, after all."

Not remarkable? Impossible.

Even with the dragon reduced to a soul, the Dragon Eye was far from useless. He was only desperate not to let his true feelings show.

"I'll accept the proposal."

"A fine choice."

The agreement was struck. At last both Shin Haneul and the dragon smiled, wide and bright.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

What Shin Haneul had shown them went only as far as the moment the Trial Mirror shattered. He had not so much as hinted at the deal with the dragon. That alone was enough to throw everyone into confusion.

Not because the broadcast had ended. Because they could not believe the scenes they had just witnessed.

The early broadcast had felt nothing like this. Every viewer had been watching with total focus, hunting for whatever secret method he was using.

And then—

An incomprehensible sudden move. The chat exploded.

All of them were watching the Tower bulletin at the same time. There, the ends of those who had trusted too much in their own strength—who had charged into the Tower without ever watching Shin Haneul's broadcast—were being logged, one after another.

Among them was one of the handful of S-Rank Awakened in the entire world.

His registered name was Spear King. In truth he was Wang Wei of China, a man granted an SS-Rank class of the very same name. Even on Floor 1 he had seized second place in the world rankings and flaunted his potential—and the moment he set foot on the next floor, he died. There was no one watching who failed to grasp what that meant.

And this man was asking for a more dangerous trial? Saying there was nothing here that pleased him?

Plenty of people voiced their doubts about why he would do such a thing.

The doubts did not last long. The dragon's binding spell—a high-order formula whose abnormality carried even through the screen—he dismantled in an instant.

Everyone had already felt the wall there. And then—

Crash.

The Trial Mirror admitted defeat of its own accord. It simply passed him through the test.

No wonder none of them could gather their wits even after the broadcast ended.

A few of the quicker ones, the instant they saw that scene, threw themselves onto Floor 2.

Must be some kind of cheat!

I have to use it before anyone else!

They were certain Shin Haneul had found something he could take for free.

That thought was half right and half wrong. Shin Haneul was indeed enjoying a regressor's privilege. It simply wasn't the sort of thing just anyone could copy.

"Foolish. My binding spell is not something that can be undone in so crude a fashion."

For everyone else, breaking the dragon's magic was the first problem. They never even got to see the next stage of the trial.

Meanwhile—the United States' provisional Tower Response Headquarters, in the moments just before Shin Haneul cleared Floor 2.

The President was there, and so was everyone who held a key post. They were receiving a briefing.

"Tuvalu, Palau, and the rest. This is the current situation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the nations that failed to clear Floor 1 of the Tower before the time limit."

As the briefer spoke, satellite photographs filled the great screen.

A ruined land. Corpses of something no longer recognizable as anything at all. And monsters, beyond counting.

"This doesn't even compare in scale to a dungeon break."

"In just twelve hours, this…"

"There must have been Awakened who survived. How did it come to this!"

Unlike the relatively small Tuvalu, Palau covered 459 square kilometers. That a single Gate had destroyed all of it was difficult to believe.

"The affected range is absurdly vast, and the monsters are stronger than anything that comes out of a variant dungeon. What is more frightening is that this was only the first wave."

"……"

"Furthermore, another Gate was discovered in Palau today, at approximately ten in the morning…"

The briefing went on. It was more than enough to ring an alarm in the heads of leaders who had been dreaming sweet dreams on the resources pouring out of the Tower.

If something like that starts appearing as often as the dungeons do, then even with several times as many Awakened as we have now, we'd only be buying time until extinction.

If the Tower falls, it's over. To clear that thing, we have to do everything we possibly can.

One floor a day. It's like we've been handed a terminal sentence.

The world had gone mad, but they had to adapt.

And if they could not? The nations that fell behind would simply be destroyed, one after another.

When the meeting ended, the Tower bulletin filled the great presentation screen.

Please.

Please!!

Could Shin Haneul produce the same results as before, this time as well? In the moment every eye fixed on that question—

A brief silence. Then—

"—WHOOO!!!"

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs kicked his chair aside and lurched to his feet. The Secretary of Defense yanked his tie loose and slammed the desk.

"We did it!! We did it!!"

The President's voice was thick with excitement too.

And in the same moment, every one of them understood. So long as this record held, Shin Haneul's importance had grown beyond any comparison with the days he cleared variant dungeons.

A few hours later, that understanding only grew.

"Mr. President. This is bad!!"

"What is it?"

"According to Intelligence… an item called the Nationality Change Right has appeared. It lets whoever recorded first place on Floor 2 of the Tower in each nation change the country their Tower is affiliated with!"

"What…!"

Now the thing they had to put first was clear.

The guarantee that Shin Haneul would remain in the United States had broken. They had to hold on to him, whatever it took.

One slip—one moment of being snatched away—and the nation would fall. If they meant to survive as long as they could in this death race up the Tower.

Twelve hours. That was the time given, each day, to clear each new floor as it opened. Any nation that failed to clear in time had its Tower collapse at once.

There was no one in the world who did not know that much.

Go one step further, and there was a fact known only to the observant, or to those who cared to look. The Awakened who posted their nation's top score had been granted a reward.

The tally ran until the Tower's clear time limit. There was only one exception. Shin Haneul alone, who had posted the highest score of all—999,999—received his reward on the spot.

And if the rankings flipped after that time? Nothing was known yet.

There was another condition as well. A minimum score. One had to clear 1,000 points.

In any case, Floor 2 of the Tower followed the same rule. Only the reward was different.

This was not like the Emergency Escape Scroll. Its shock to society was of another order entirely.

It could not have been otherwise. After the Tower rose, nationality could not be changed. Leave the border, let a certain time pass, and an Awakened even lost their abilities.

And so the Awakened had no choice but to choke down their objections and climb the Tower of whatever nation they belonged to. Now, at last, they had a choice.

"If I go to America, odds are I won't die, right?"

"There's no guarantee Minwoo's Dad keeps pulling the same results. Still… if they're paying, I could immigrate."

"You'd have a hard time getting the national first-place rewards on every floor after this, though."

From that instant, the minds of every nation's record holders began to spin like mad. Which choice would favor them? It might decide the rest of their lives. It might decide whether they lived at all.

And the nations were growing busy as well.

First they had to stop their Floor 2 record holders from leaving the country. Beyond that, they moved aggressively to bring in talent from abroad.

In that market, the United States was the catfish in the pond.

It had the treatment to offer, of course, and perhaps a further merit besides—the chance that the death penalty might never return. With that, it tempted the record holders of every nation.

The weaker countries could only watch, eyes open, as they were stripped clean.

And yet there was one nation that tried to drain talent from even that United States.

The country that, in the original history, had been the greatest Hunter power in the world. The country that had not even finished cleaning up the mana runaway. The Republic of Korea.

Cut loose a few tails, and try to coax Shin Haneul back. A miserable little stunt that hardly deserved to be called a scheme at all.