Code Red: I'm Broke
I sat there, hands trembling, staring at nothing but my smartphone screen.
Balance: ₩37,380
The moment this month's rent and utility bills drained out, my small, precious bank account withered at lightning speed — and today, it finally received its death sentence.
I'd known it was coming, sure, but with the thing staring me right in the face, none of it felt real. I was still heaving sighs and wondering if there was any way out of this when Challenger suddenly started posting weird comments.
Right. Challenger lived in the same twenty-first-century modern world as me — the only difference being that her world had no Tower. Maybe, just like I'd helped the other gallery regulars through their quests, she was trying to repay the favor to me?
Carrying that hopeful expectation, I waited for her next comment.
[This user has been blocked.]
I slapped a six-hour block on Challenger and got to my feet. That's on me for trusting someone like her in the first place.
"Haaah…"
When I glanced up, I spotted the messy pile of magic stones I'd haphazardly dumped in the corner of my room. If I sold those, every one of my problems would vanish — and I'd become a hunter the whole gallery looked up to while I was at it.
"Yeah, and then what, genius?"
I don't have a hunter's license.
Just as I was drowning in sighs, racking my brain for some kind of solution, one idea surfaced.
"Wait — that weapon shop?"
That place where they traded items for magic stones. If I bought a weapon or some armor there and resold it, couldn't I turn it into cold, hard cash…?
Kim Namwoo was entertaining a thought that would've had Choi Su-ah cracking his skull open on the spot, treating it like it was nothing — but thankfully, the last shred of his conscience stepped in before he could sink that low.
"Yeah, no. Not happening."
This sword, after all, was something the shopkeeper had practically handed to me for free because she took a liking to it. Selling it off without a second thought would be pure conscience-lacking depravity. Kim Namwoo, you absolute bastard. How far are you planning to fall just because you're a little short on money?!
Mind made up — and besides, the magic stones slowly colonizing my one-room apartment did need to be dealt with — I stuffed the stones into my bag and headed for the equipment workshop of the shopkeeper who'd given me the sword. I wasn't going there to grift items, obviously. I just wanted to browse and see if I could afford even a pair of knee guards with what I'd saved up.
A hunter's true fortune is a body with all four limbs working properly — so gearing up to protect it is, you could say, a hunter's sacred duty.
I took the subway, walked to the address, and there it was — the workshop looking exactly as I remembered it. Except this time, the entrance was noisy. Apparently I wasn't the only customer today.
"There is no way in hell I'm paying that much for this piece of garbage!"
"Then don't buy it and walk out. Why are you running your mouth so much? What, do you fight with your mouth inside the Tower too?"
"Wh-what did you say?"
The shopkeeper from last time — that frazzled pink hair tied back — was squared off against a man who looked like a hunter. She sold gear to hunters for a living, so I suppose she had to have a somewhat thick skin. Still, provoking a hunter like that couldn't end well.
I braced myself, just in case something erupted and the shopkeeper ended up in danger.
"Who are you calling a joke?!"
"Well, you. Who else?"
"You little—!"
Just as expected, the hunter balled his fists and dropped into a stance, and twin tongues of blue flame bloomed to life around his knuckles.
"Haaah…"
The second I saw it, I grabbed the shopkeeper's arm to run —
Glug-glug—!
— but a swarm of small, adorable little critters popped into existence around her, and at a speed my eyes couldn't even track, the man in front of us found himself sealed inside a box-shaped prison of water.
"Listen up. Hunters who fight with their mouths actually exist in Japan. What were they called again? Pactmakers, or something?"
Grrrumble—
The man thrashed desperately inside the water-made prison, but he couldn't get out, and all he managed was flailing.
[Su-ah, should I heat it up?]
"Don't. If he dies, it becomes a hassle."
Eventually the man ran out of air, passed out, and went limp. Only then did the shopkeeper ease off.
"Now then — looks like our other customer's finally here?"
And of course, me — who had been sneaking toward the exit the moment the guy got sealed in water — got caught red-handed.
"…Could I, uh, maybe go take a look around some other shops first? Haha."
Under the gaze of the shopkeeper, who was smiling with total composure, I had no choice but to step inside the workshop.
I can't breathe.
No, it wasn't that I was actually suffocating like that hunter who'd nearly died a minute ago — it was the shopkeeper's very existence, sitting there smiling at me from across the table, that was cutting off my air supply.
"You like juice?"
"Oh, then orange, please."
"…Sorry. All we've got is grape."
"Can't be helped, I guess."
"……"
But I wasn't the kind of guy to cower and hang his head for no reason, so I decided to keep my wits about me. For the record, I like grape juice too, so I drank what she gave me with genuine gratitude. And I had reason to believe she wasn't going to attack me: after all the goodwill I'd built up last time — enough to get a free sword out of it — I trusted she wouldn't murder an innocent man.
"I knew my eye for people was good. Oh — my name's Choi Su-ah. Legally there's only a one-year gap between us, so just call me Su-ah. And you are?"
"Kim Namwoo."
"Don't get too comfortable with— oh, right, yeah. One-year gap, so this is correct. Hmm hm."
Wait, is she faking her age? She doesn't look it at all?! Same age as the Druid?
"Anyway, that aside. So — can you see the plants?"
"Huh?"
That was a sentence that dredged up my entire school years, but I figured since she was clearly a high-rank hunter, she must've assessed me with some kind of skill. Surely she wasn't making fun of my name like a bunch of elementary schoolers? And honestly, compared to what I'd heard back then, this was nothing.
All I'll say about my school days is this: every single plant-attribute character and monster in every anime the other kids watched — that was my nickname.
'Use Seed Sowing! Seed Sowing, I said!'
'Go, Vine Whip!'
GRAAAAH! I am NOT a Basket Monster!
"You okay?"
"Sorry. Bad memories from when I was little just popped up."
"Ah… my bad. That wasn't what I meant. I wasn't teasing you about your name — it's just that when I look at you with a Demon Eye–type skill, you look really, really strange."
So it was a skill after all.
"It's like there are several people crammed into one body. Last time it was a sword; this time there's a sprout and a woman added to the mix."
"……"
This time I genuinely couldn't help being floored. She could see the gallery regulars? I couldn't even begin to guess what kind of skill that was.
"Anyway, small talk over. So, Namwoo — you're challenging the 5th floor today, right?"
"…Yeah."
Hold on, she knows even that? Don't tell me the Hunter Administration Bureau is onto me too?
My brain was in chaos, but I forced my voice out as calmly as I could manage. It didn't work. Su-ah just laughed.
"Relax. I got lucky and found you. The Bureau doesn't know a thing."
Relief escaped me before I could stop it.
"Judging by that reaction, you know how rotten the Bureau is, huh?"
"Only vaguely."
The moment I said that, her brows slanted down into two angry little elevens, and she launched into the whole saga of the Hunter Administration Bureau. And after hearing all of it, my honest impression was:
"What a hot mess."
"Right?"
Okay, fine — I could wrap my head around the Tower actually being a machine running to wipe out humanity. But the government had been falsifying information to cover it up? Something about it felt both tedious and unbearably preachy. So, in summary:
"The Hunter Administration Bureau is rerolling its account using its own citizens!"
Now I truly understood. Su-ah clearly wasn't a gallery user. Listening to her stretch a story this simple into something long and lecture-worthy, I decided she seriously needed to cut back on real life and pump those community hours up.
"……"
Ignoring her utterly dumbfounded expression, I moved on: so — I'd like to hear the reason you're telling me all this, if you don't mind.
Look, even if I am a promising rookie, I'm a hunter who's barely cleared the 4th floor. I couldn't figure out why someone who'd conquered the 31st floor would sit here patiently explaining everything for a nobody like me.
"Because I see potential in you."
"Sorry?"
"The deadline the Tower set has less than two months left. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I've judged that clearing the 32nd floor within that window is impossible for me."
"Isn't that cutting it a little loose, then?"
"No. Not even slightly."
Hm. So that's how it is?
I hadn't experienced it yet, but Su-ah seemed to be overselling the danger. All she did was spout terrifying talk, like she was deliberately crushing a rookie's spirit — it made it hard to take her at her word, honestly.
"You little brat, you don't believe me."
Then Su-ah pulled a necklace off from around her neck and set it on the table.
"What's this?"
"An item."
—Power shall be granted to the one who fulfills the promise.
Rift of Time : Remaining Uses : 1/3
Ooooh.
Unlike those dinky gag trinkets, this was a textbook, by-the-book artifact. Flashy, fitted with a skill, and with an item description that made absolutely no sense.
"It's an item that lets you train in a space where time flows differently — up to thirty years inside. I've already used this thing twice, and I still couldn't clear the 32nd floor."
"Then—!"
"Right. That's exactly how brutal the 30s are."
"Ma'am! Forgive my rudeness, honored senior! Might I be so bold as to ask your age this year?"
The words flew out of me automatically — spine straightening, full formal register engaged.
"Talk to me like you did before… Your body doesn't actually age in there, you know."
"I could not possibly. How dare a junior spout such reckless words before her senior!"
"I said talk normal."
"Okay."
I figured if I let the joke run any longer I'd end up suffering worse than that hunter did earlier, so I knocked it off.
"Whew. Anyway — use this."
And Su-ah began to hold forth, at length, on why I had to use that item. That I had talent. That Korea had no hope left as things stood. That if we went on like this, countless people who knew nothing would die. That this was the most precious thing she had to give. Her grand speech finally wound to a close.
But here's the thing.
"Nah. I'll pass."
"What?"
Did she think I was insane enough to use that thing? Thirty years in an empty void, training nonstop, without eating, sleeping, or shitposting on the gallery?
Are you unwell, human?