010
Early morning, on the way to the Hunter Administration Branch.
In the car my sister was driving, I grumbled to myself.
“Man, having to go to the branch every single day is seriously such a pain. Can’t I just go once every two days? Looks like they’ll cut you some slack up to two days anyway.”
“This is a grave time. Be careful. Going by once a day isn’t exactly hard, so just behave and let’s go. If you screw around, you could end up locked up too.”
“I know that. I’m just saying.”
Because of the Hunter Mobilization Order, I was stuck showing up at the branch for attendance like a prisoner on a leash.
As I sat there blankly in the car,
- Hunters are people too! What do you mean, human rights violations?!
- The government must stop imprisoning hunters and forcing them into the Tower!
- Waaaaah!
some commotion punched straight through the window and rattled my eardrums.
I glanced over and looked outside.
There was a small protest crowd out there.
“Three thousand people died in a single day!”
“My daughter died in the Tower!”
“Hunters are our family, our children! Forcing them into the Tower is wrong!”
“Revoke the Hunter Mobilization Order! Free the hunters!”
They were protesters resisting the government’s Hunter Mobilization Order.
After thousands of deaths had occurred yesterday from the forced deployment of reserve hunters, a handful of citizens had finally risen up.
The crowd was a motley one: civic groups wearing human-rights vests, people who had lost their families, even ordinary citizens who’d been swept up by the others and joined in.
Dozens of people stood in front of the Hunter Administration Branch, raising their voices.
The reaction from passersby was icy.
“What the hell are they going on about? Like we’re all sitting around comfy over here?”
“Somebody’s got to make the sacrifice.”
“We’re looking at the whole country running out of points and dying off in a few months—what room is there for human rights?”
“Their heads are full of flowers, honestly. Tsk tsk...”
Ordinary citizens walked by, mocking the protesters.
With the point shortage now only about three months away, they couldn’t bring themselves to sympathize with people shouting about human rights when the entire nation might be dying within months.
I looked back and forth between the protesters and the pedestrians and muttered, “I can kinda understand both sides.”
Reserve hunters being forced to climb the Tower while effectively imprisoned.
The general public wanting to stretch out their terminal lives even if it meant ignoring the rights of a few.
The rights of the few versus the survival of the many.
The nation had chosen to sacrifice the few for the survival of the many.
Of course, that still didn’t mean anyone could say for certain we’d actually survive.
“Alright. We’re here. Hurry up, pay your points, and let’s go home.”
“Yeah.”
She stopped the car, and I went into the branch.
Then I placed my hand on the familiar crystal orb and exchanged my points.
Please specify the amount of points to transfer to Republic of Korea.
“All of them.”
48 points will be transferred to Republic of Korea.
After I handed over the points, the now-familiar civil servant opened his mouth.
“Hunter Baek Jiho. Forty-eight points confirmed. We will deposit 480,000 won into the designated account. The Republic of Korea will remember your devotion.”
“...That line wasn’t there before. What is it?”
“It’s a message of gratitude to all hunters. Please, keep fighting for your country.”
“Hmm...”
For all that, his attitude was awfully bureaucratic.
Well. Obviously somebody higher up ordered it.
They must have rolled out a new response manual to encourage the hunters.
Then again, three thousand people had died in a single day.
They probably needed to tweak even the smallest send-off line, just to somehow keep hunter resentment from boiling over.
Anyway.
Today’s attendance check was done.
* * *
After leaving the branch, I went straight home.
Then I practiced magic.
Wind Cutter. Activate at minimum size.
-Sshk!
When I used magic against a sheet of paper, it was cleanly sliced apart.
It was a spell I’d been researching since yesterday.
Wind Cutter.
A spell that compressed air into the shape of a blade and fired it forward.
After several attempts, I’d finally completed it.
The key was the shape and angle of the array.
The existing compressed-air projectile spells were just simple circles layered on top of one another.
But while experimenting, I discovered that the shape of the inner circle changed the form of the air being fired.
If the outer circle was made large and the inner circles were drawn as narrow ellipses, getting closer and closer to straight lines...
then I could create a horizontally fired blade of compressed air.
And the result was—
-Sshk!
-Sshk!
I could literally spit out wind like a sword blade.
Which meant I probably wouldn’t need to carry scissors around anymore.
Or wait. If I was using Fireball too, did that mean I wouldn’t need a lighter either?
Of course, I still needed a staff to use magic.
“Anyway... now that I’ve learned Wind Cutter too, I’m ready for Floor 3.”
The reason I’d wanted to obtain Wind Cutter in the first place was Floor 3.
Floor 3 is basically a breakthrough map where you run straight down a corridor.
A long, straight passage.
Rat-hole-like openings on the left and right.
Goblins would start crawling out of those holes one by one.
The climber had to sprint forward fast, shaking off or knocking down the goblins that burst out from either side, until reaching the exit at the end of the corridor.
That was because there were well over a hundred goblins coming out of the holes, making it impossible to kill them all.
But who was I?
The Extreme Lunatic Hell Difficulty Mage Hunter.
Even if dozens or hundreds of goblins swarmed me, I wasn’t scared.
Let alone in a long corridor with goblins swarming everywhere and Wind Cutter in my hands?
Wow. The efficiency is insane.
If goblins came rushing in droves down a straight hallway...
and I just kept slicing them with Wind Cutter...
it was obvious dozens of goblins would die in a single shot.
Heh. Now my mouth was watering.
Just thinking about testing out a new spell made my fingers itch.
It was definitely going to feel amazing.
And then, all at once—
...Wait.
I felt a strange sense of wrongness.
Was I seriously getting excited at the thought of massacring goblins?
“I’m not the type to enjoy killing...”
By nature, I wasn’t all that aggressive.
In twenty-seven years of life, I’d never even had a single fistfight.
I was timid, passive, and easily scared.
In other words, I was a textbook loser.
But after becoming a hunter for only a few days, I was somehow different.
I didn’t feel a thing after killing dozens of goblins.
The splattering blood and guts were disgusting, sure, but not exactly frightening.
It was like swatting away a bothersome fly or mosquito.
It really didn’t bother me at all.
I’d become numb to slaughter.
Even if I’d become a hunter and gained a few combat experiences, was this really a change that could happen in just five days?
It felt like only yesterday I’d been sobbing in terror during the tutorial.
And now I was getting excited at the thought of slaughtering goblins.
Something about me had changed.
“...”
Sitting there dazedly, I kept thinking, and eventually I voiced one conclusion.
“I... became a mage.”
The decisive moment when I changed.
It was probably the instant I became a mage.
I turned my gaze and looked at the staff in my hand.
“The moment I grabbed a staff and became a mage, goblin warriors and shamans started looking trivial. No... to be exact, every living thing besides me started looking lower.”
The instant I gripped the staff and began controlling the Blue Dots, something inside me had changed.
Maybe it was something people called a soul.
Its rank had risen, and it had started to see every living being except me as a step below.
As a result, my personality might have been quietly turning more and more arrogant without me even noticing.
I let out a hollow laugh.
“Fantasy novels always portray mages as rude and arrogant. I think I’m starting to get why.”
When every living thing around you looks like something beneath you...
there’s no way your manners are going to survive intact.
I didn’t know whether this change was good or bad.
Not flinching from combat was a plus as a hunter, at least.
But socially, it didn’t seem like such a great development.
After all, who would want to keep a smug, obnoxious bastard around?
Although... if I think about it, I’ve always had a pretty narrow social circle anyway, so maybe it doesn’t matter?
Then there’s no problem, right?
Problem solved!
That’s enough self-reflection for now.
“Enter the Tower.”
It was about time to do today’s climb.
⊳ Please select the floor to enter.
“Floor 3.”
⊳ Please select the floor to enter.
Flash.
A bright wash of light enveloped me.
* * *
I opened my eyes and looked ahead.
A wide, elongated corridor filled my vision.
The total length was roughly several hundred meters.
Countless rat holes lined both sides.
And goblins were slowly crawling out of them.
-Keruk! Keruk!
-Keru!
One goblin after another emerged from the holes.
One, two, ten, twenty, a hundred...
And all the while, I stood perfectly still.
The proper strategy for Floor 3 was to sprint at full speed the moment you start.
You were supposed to run fast before all the goblins finished crawling out, and ride the escape portal at the end of the corridor.
Then a hunter from a hard difficulty could get out without a single hair on their head being touched.
A normal-difficulty hunter could escape after shoving aside one or two goblins near the end.
An easy-difficulty hunter could get out after barely fighting off a dozen or so goblins in the latter half.
That was the kind of structure it was—difficulty determined by running speed.
But I didn’t run.
Why should a mage go sprinting around like some commoner?
I stood elegantly at the starting point and waited until all the goblins had finished crawling out.
-Keruk! Keruk!
-Keeeeeek!
-Kiiik!
By then, well over a hundred goblins had packed the corridor full.
For a normal hunter, this would have been the moment to give up on the strategy and turn back to use the return portal.
But not for me.
There are about 150 goblins. If I kill all of them, how much is that? One hundred and fifty points, plus 150 daggers. Even after taxes, that’s 3.75 million won...!
All I could see was money.
As I stood there motionless, the goblins finally noticed me.
-Keruk? Keruk! Kerururur!
-Keeeek! Keeek!
-Kyaaaak!
They turned toward me and began screaming in excitement.
They had more than a hundred in their ranks.
And I was alone.
So they were thrilled, thinking I was an easy target.
And I prepared my magic.
First, ten Wind Cutters.
Woom, woom, woom...
The staff burst into a radiant blue glare, scattering light.
Then ten transparent compressed-air blades rose above it.
If I wanted, I could launch them immediately and mow down the goblins ahead of me in one straight line.
Just in case, five large Fireballs too.
Whoooosh!
Five blazing Fireballs rose up and began orbiting around my staff.
My plan was to focus on Wind Cutter for now.
But just in case the killing power was lower than I expected...
if need be, I’d slam them with the large Fireballs and wipe them out through pure shockwave force.
The noise would be a little rough on my ears, but I’d just have to live with it.
And so.
I prepared ten Wind Cutters and five large Fireballs.
Ten translucent blades rippled with a chilling edge.
Five fireballs the size of a human head spat out streaming flames.
With firepower like this, I’d be able to overwhelm those 150 goblins without question.
Having finished all my preparations, I shouted with supreme confidence, “Come on then! I’ll kill you all!”
One hundred and fifty goblins.
I was going to turn them all into minced kimchi!
But for some reason—
-K... keruk?
-Keruk? Keruk?
-Keek...?!
The goblin horde that had looked ready to rush me any second now.
They froze solid.
Like we were playing Red Light, Green Light.
What the hell. Why aren’t they coming?
I tilted my head, confused.
And then—
-Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
-Kyaaaaaaaaah!!!
-Kiiiiiiiiiiik!!!
The goblins all screamed at once and started running away.
Specifically, they piled into the rat holes they’d come from and began crawling back in, one after another, in a frantic scramble.
I could only be stunned.
“No, wait—my minced kimchi!”
My customers were running away!
Who would’ve thought monsters could get scared and flee? I had not seen that coming at all.
Come to think of it, the goblin warrior and shaman I’d met during the tutorial had run away too.
Still, I hadn’t expected even ordinary goblins with low intelligence to run away.
I’d deal with the useless thinking later.
I’ve got to kill as many as I can before they escape through the holes!
For now, I poured every spell I’d prepared into them without hesitation.
-Ssshaaaaaaak!
-Swoosh—!
The ten wind blades and the five large fireballs.
All at once, they cut through the air and charged toward the goblin horde.