Awakened at Rock Bottom

Do Bonghyuk awakened.

It happened at the exact moment the noodles in his cup ramen finished cooking to perfection.

'Huh?'

His hand froze mid-air, chopsticks hovering, while his eyes stayed glued to his phone.

And there was a very good reason the awakening couldn't have come at a better time: the stock chart glowing right in front of him.

The candles were thrusting upward in a blazing, blood-red. A bull run inside a bull run — market mania at its purest. The tickers: Samseon Electronics, Highnex. The very stocks that had made the entire nation rich.

Had he bought any of those red-hot names? As if. No seed money, no way in hell he could buy.

'I'm the only beggar left. Just me. Me alone.'

Everyone was getting rich while he alone stood frozen in place — nights of heartburn, sleepless and seething. Tortured by severe FOMO, Bonghyuk finally made his decision.

'That's it! I'm buying! I refuse to be the only poor bastard on this earth!'

He leveraged everything he had — and then some — into loans.

But when it actually came time to click buy, his hand somehow wouldn't move.

'Wait. Hasn't this thing already run up way too far?'

The stock had climbed as far as a stock could climb. A nasty premonition crept over him: jump in here, and he'd be chained to the peak forever, never to crawl back out.

'Right. The market's drunk on madness right now. It has to crash,'

And so, after long agonizing, what Bonghyuk chose was an instrument that only pays out when everything burns: the inverse.

The result?

Minus 88 percent.

It had been madness. It was madness. But who was there to blame? Just the foolish choice of a small-time nobody who knew absolutely nothing about stocks.

He was genuinely, genuinely contemplating death. He was mid-deliberation, in fact.

And then.

Good grief! He'd gone and awakened.

'This is... for real?'

Right! No law says a man has to die.

And that, out of absolutely nowhere, is how Do Bonghyuk awakened.

Bonghyuk's heart was pounding.

'They say you can make serious money in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Tower.'

Awakening was a blessing. Tower Coin, the currency earned inside, traded at an astronomical exchange rate, and countless Awakeners walked into the Tower specifically to get rich.

Of course, it wasn't easy. You gambled your life for it. Every entry reshuffled the monsters and the dungeon at random, so nobody ever knew what awaited them — the Tower was a place where preparation was impossible, like a roguelike game.

Still, hey — even scratching out a living on the Lower floors ought to be enough to clear his debt, no?

'I'm an Awakener now, after all.'

Bonghyuk chuckled to himself, heh heh, riding on nothing but the dream: 'Pay off the debt, then one day smash everything into the Korean market — and I'm rich!'

Dead of night, corner of a convenience store, noodles swelling into oblivion — and there sat Bonghyuk, bloated with hope, murmuring 'Status Window' in his mind.

A soft shfff — a translucent pane unfurled in the empty air.

Bonghyuk doubted his own eyes.

Shaman? A shaman? Combat skills? ...None?

He was fucked.

Cold sweat trickled down his back.

Awakeners had their own class hierarchy, too.

Healers and buffers, who could support the fight, were the gold spoons. Warriors, mages, summoners — the core combat classes — were the silver spoons. Merchants, blacksmiths, potioners: jobs that couldn't fight a lick but were absolutely essential — bronze spoons. And porters, gatherers, miners, the jobs that might as well not exist, were treated as dirt spoons.

So where did a shaman land?

He hurriedly logged onto AwakenersNet, the network open only to registered Awakeners.

Huh?

A trash class so new it had literally just been born.

Until his ramen had gone completely soggy, Bonghyuk thought long and hard.

'Shit. What do I even do?'

Awakened or not, registration was mandatory. So the next day, he went to the Awakener Management Agency.

The Awakener Management Agency occupied a brand-new building next to City Hall — an institution that hadn't existed ten years ago, now a place people visited more often than the passport office.

He pulled a number ticket and waited thirty minutes. Number 209. The moment he sat down at the counter, a bespectacled civil servant spoke without lifting his eyes from the monitor.

"So you've awakened. Congratulations. And your class?"

"A sha... man..."

"A what? Speak up, please."

The man's tone dripped with irritation.

"A shaman!"

Only then did the official glance up at Bonghyuk.

"A salesman?"

"No. A shaman."

"A shaman?"

He tilted his head.

"Huh. Did we ever have one of those? First time I've seen that class."

He typed Shaman into the class field, then shot Bonghyuk a brief, pitying sidelong glance. Bonghyuk knew exactly what that look was saying.

'Oh dear. Awakened as garbage, did we? Tragic.'

I know. Believe me, I know. Yeah, yeah. I'm screwed.

"Right, then. Class is Shaman. We'll run a physical capability test — head to that booth over there."

Bonghyuk stepped into the cylindrical scanner and back out. A beam of blue light swept over him once, top to bottom, and a bar graph bloomed across ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the screen the official was watching.

Like his inverse stock chart, nearly every bar was groveling along the floor.

The official cleared his throat.

"Ahem. Physical capability... essentially none. And your skill?"

"Divination..."

"..."

"Divination."

"Di... vination. Can it be used in combat?"

"Believe me, if it could, I'd be thrilled..."

Silence.

Tap, tap. A few keystrokes. Then the heavy thunk of a stamp slamming down on something.

And then, handed over: his Awakener Registration Card — a plastic card bearing Bonghyuk's dazed photo and his class.

Along with the card, the official slid one more sheet of paper across the counter.

"Might as well put in an application for this."

The title of the document: Application for Exception to the Awakener Employment Restriction.

And this time, the look in the man's eyes said something else entirely.

'Chin up... good luck out there...'

"...Thank you."

Plastic card and paperwork in hand, Bonghyuk walked out of the Awakener Management Agency. The registration fee alone had been 50,000 won.

He wanted to cry.

Bonghyuk stared blankly at the Application for Exception to the Awakener Employment Restriction.

Awakeners were barred from holding ordinary jobs. The spirit of the law: forget civilian careers — go clear the Tower.

Why, you ask?

Ten years ago, the instant a black Tower had erupted from the heart of Seoul, a message materialized before every citizen's eyes.

One Tower per nation. Fail to clear it, and that country becomes a land of the dead. The so-called Tower Break.

The only scrap of mercy granted was the Break Grace Period: every floor cleared pushed the extinction clock backward.

The Tower stood ninety-nine floors tall.

Fortunately, "Awakeners" had sprung into existence alongside the Tower itself. And over the past seven years, the floors South Korea had cleared were: Lower 99 / Middle 99 / Upper 65 / Hell 6.

All that work had bought roughly nine years of extra time. Seven years and change had already burned past — which left South Korea with about one year and eleven months.

Anyway. For all those reasons, under the lofty principle that Awakeners must clear the Tower for the good of humanity, employment was prohibited. He'd had to quit the convenience store and the delivery app that same day.

He was well and truly fucked.

Thankfully, the exception application did exist. Bonghyuk lay on the bed of his semi-basement studio and searched on his phone for the better part of an hour.

Then the list of required submission documents loaded onto his screen:

'Have they completely lost their minds?'

There was no way one individual could prepare all of that. The process required hiring a legal agent to handle it — and the agency fee, he'd heard, ran a cool fifty million won.

Fuck. FUCK!!!

Cursing was the only thing that came out. His debt was already past fifty million — and now they wanted him to stack another fifty on top?

In the end, Bonghyuk did the thing he hated most in the world and tried entering the Tower.

'Enter...'

The moment he murmured the word, Bonghyuk was no longer in his room.

The Tower lobby. The scene that unfolded when he opened his eyes was a hall like an entire exhibition gallery torn open at the seams, stretching endlessly in every direction. The ceiling was nowhere to be seen; overhead was simply a vast, blinding, dizzying white.

And dead ahead, in the far distance: four shimmering, pitch-black gates. The entry gates for the Lower, Middle, Upper, and Hell difficulties.

And Awakeners — hundreds of them.

"Need a porter for the Lower floors? I'll carry your bags — 0.3 Tower Coin a run!"

"Potions for sale! Mid-grade healing potions, brewed by a Level 7 Alchemist!"

"Lower-floor party recruiting — difficulty minus twenty floors. Need one healer. All loot priority goes to you."

Off to one side, a hulk of a man who looked like a blacksmith hammered away at a summoning anvil; someone had spread out a street stall and gone to hawking wares; someone else stood holding up a sign that read 'Free buffs.'

Bonghyuk soaked in the spectacle for a while. He'd heard all about it online, but seriously — how was this any different from an MMORPG town square?

He let out a long, deep breath and walked, step by steady step, until he stood before the Lower gate.

First clear, so he could start from Floor 1.

Gulp.

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

Should he actually go in?

Nobody knew what would come of it. The dungeon on the other side rerolled at random with every entry — and the shimmering black gate looked unbearably sinister.

He was scared. His feet simply would not move.

'I'm just a regular civilian, dammit!!'

In the end, Bonghyuk turned around without taking that single step.

A corner of the Tower lobby. Bonghyuk sat hunched over, arms wrapped around his knees.

'Maybe I should just die. Yeah. My life's over, looks like.'

Nothing came out but sighs. What now?

That was when three Awakeners passed by him — and nearly punted the crouched figure of Bonghyuk like a soccer ball.

"Gah! What the— it's a person?"

"Hey, hey, watch it. There's someone sitting there."

"You scared me. What's he doing, crouched like that?"

"Huh? You see those every now and then. They awakened, but their class is so garbage they're better off never entering the Tower. Total write-offs."

"Ahhh. Aigoo. Poor sap."

The voices needled something in him.

'Who are you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠calling a write-off, huh?!'

He raised his head, ready to shout —

and in that instant—

Zzzt. Zzzt.

He doubted his own eyes. The face of the man standing in the middle of the three was glowing — incandescent, radiant.

Bonghyuk pressed "Yes" before he knew what he was doing.

Zzzzzzzzzt—

Without warning, some vision began playing itself inside his head, entirely of its own accord.

Uuuhhh?

It felt as though the reins of his brain had been seized outright.

A moment later, a voice that was not his own slid out of Bonghyuk's mouth.

The man whose name had been called stopped dead in his tracks with a jolt.

"The fuck? How do you know my name?"

At that, the woman beside him —

"Must be some info-search skill. Hey, hey, let's go. This place is crawling with lunatics. Don't get tangled up with him."

"Ugh, what a creep. Right before a Tower run, too."

"Drop it. Ignore him. Pick a fight for no reason and we're the ones paying the fine."

Outside the Tower, an Awakener was just an ordinary citizen — state authority applied whether you liked it or not. Deciding he was some psycho spoiling for a fight, the three quickened their pace and vanished.

And at their backs, Bonghyuk spoke.

The man glanced back over his shoulder — then strode away, and was gone.

Left alone, Bonghyuk stared down blankly at his own hand.

'Silver weapons? What the hell was that about?'

'Those words just now... did I say them...?'

© KAY™#13lul