018
I quickly sketched out the array in front of me.
It was a simple structure, so it wasn’t difficult at all.
One big square with four smaller squares inside it. Four even smaller squares inside each of those.
Of course, I didn’t forget to tweak the array, either.
Let’s make the spacing between the particles more precise. And clean up the overall shape while I’m at it.
The array before my eyes had a few awkward, disappointing flaws in it, just like the other arrays I’d seen in the Tower.
I couldn’t just leave it alone.
So I improved the array and activated it.
-Wooooooom...
A spiritual wave radiated from the tip of my staff and began seeping into the surrounding terrain.
Right after that, I felt something strange.
The ground around me feels like it’s obeying me.
It was as if I could move the nearby soil and stone however I wanted.
If I poured in enough Blue Dots, it feels like I could even reshape the terrain itself.
Was this a spell for manipulating the earth?
I tested it out carefully.
-Kwadududuk!
I swung my staff and pulled up the ground.
The earth surged upward quickly, forming a mound of dirt that looked perfect for sitting down and taking a break.
Interesting.
“Whoa! What was that just now?!”
I wasn’t the only one who thought so, apparently.
Na Hyeji, who’d been watching from the side, shouted in surprise.
I shrugged.
“I just learned a new spell.”
“You learned it just now?”
“Yep.”
“Um. I don’t really know much about magic, but... isn’t that usually something hard to learn? That’s what I saw in romance fantasy novels.”
“I’m the Extreme Lunatic Hell Mage Hunter, so I pick things up fast.”
“What even is that...”
Hyeji seemed to be a romance fantasy reader.
Ah, so she was one of those people from the neighboring universe.
I read fantasy too, not romance fantasy.
Anyway.
As I used the spell, I gradually figured out how it worked.
If I keep the array intact like this and move the smaller squares around bit by bit...
...it feels like I can shape it into whatever form I want.
-Kwadududuk! Kwa-duk! Kwadududuk!
At my will, dirt and rock shifted this way and that.
It became a cylinder. Then a right-angled wall. Then even a sphere.
Halfway through, I got a mischievous idea and made a dirt middle finger to show Hyeji.
Hyeji promptly kicked the dirt mound apart.
She muttered under her breath, “Feels like I’ve gone back to elementary school and started playing with clay again.”
The difference was that I wasn’t getting my hands dirty—I was doing it by remote control.
And it used Blue Dots as fuel.
And if I had enough Blue Dots to feed it, I could even alter the terrain itself.
I nodded.
Seems like I’ve picked up a pretty decent utility skill.
I hadn’t properly studied it yet, but if I used it well, it seemed like it could be useful in a lot of ways.
I could raise a pillar or a right-angled wall to block enemy attacks.
Or move the earth under their feet to restrain them.
Either way, I quite liked the spell.
I really had been all offense this whole time. It’s about time I got some defensive or utility magic too.
Up until now, I’d only known how to attack.
Fireball, Air Bullet, Wind Cutter...
They were all powerful, but they were spells I could only use to kill.
Then I’d ended up with earth manipulation magic.
With this spell, I could cover utility and defense to some degree, too.
It would make my abilities that much more complete.
Just as I was busy testing my new magic,
-Rumble, crash!
“...What?”
Suddenly, the dead-end wall directly in front of me began to collapse.
Na Hyeji’s cry of shock rang out.
“Goblins! There are goblins behind the wall!”
What appeared beyond the collapsing dirt wall was a mass of goblins lying on the ground like corpses.
There had to be as many as a hundred.
Had they been in some kind of dormant state all this time?
One by one, the goblins staggered to their feet with vacant expressions and began reaching for their weapons.
In that instant, I understood the exact structure of the 6th floor.
So this is how it worked. As the rooms at the ends of the passages collapsed one by one, the goblins inside came out.
That was why hundreds of goblins hadn’t rushed me all at once, but had instead come in waves at fixed intervals.
The array of Blue Dots I’d discovered must have been a spell used to dismantle those walls.
Anyway, the floor layout was beside the point.
Perfect timing.
I’d been itching to try out my new spell properly.
Now I could test its power.
I started manipulating the nearby soil and rock with a huge amount of Blue Dots.
My target was simple.
Crush them.
-Kwoooorrrrrrr!
From the ceiling, the ground, and both walls on either side, huge volumes of dirt and rubble came pouring down, crushing the goblin horde beneath them.
-Kerrr...?!
-Kek! Kererrerrk!
The goblins screamed in shock.
They flailed their limbs, trying to wriggle free from the piles of earth, but...
There was no way their pathetic strength could do anything against that.
No matter how strong and physically capable a goblin warrior might be, there was no way it could resist pressure measured in tons.
-Crack. Crunch. Creak.
From beneath the dirt, I heard bones snapping and crushing.
The goblins had only just awakened, and before they even knew what was happening, they were buried alive under a mountain of soil.
And a little later—
-Kwoooorrrrrr...
When I controlled the dirt again and cleared it away, what was left was...
The corpses of a hundred goblins, crushed beyond recognition.
Na Hyeji broke into a grin.
“Wow! You even made sure there wasn’t any blood on them? Thanks! That’ll make gathering the loot way easier!”
“...”
Strictly speaking, I’d only been testing a new spell.
But Hyeji was happy, so let’s just call it that.
The 6th floor had been cleared.
[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea : 6th Floor)]
[You have completed the Tower’s 6th Floor.]
[You have defeated 204 Goblins (1).]
[You have defeated 157 Goblin Archers (2).]
[You have defeated 42 Goblin Warriors (10).]
[Points are being calculated.]
[The Tower’s 7th Floor has been unlocked.]
[Returning.]
* * *
After returning to reality—
“Huuuuu...”
Na Hyeji let out a long sigh as she fumbled off her gas mask and protective suit.
She must have been pretty hot, because she was practically radiating the smell of sweat.
“How was it, Hyeji? Are you getting used to porter work now?”
I asked while studying her expression.
Maybe the gas mask and protective gear had really done their job, because her face wasn’t pale like it had been yesterday, and she didn’t seem mentally shaken, either.
Just a little tired from the work, I’d say.
At my question, she nodded.
“I think I can manage. As long as I’ve got equipment, I mean...”
“Ohh...!”
You’ve grown, Na Hyeji!
Sure, she’d had the advantage of good gear, but still.
She’d handled even more gruesome corpses than yesterday, and yet she looked perfectly fine.
For some reason, I felt proud, like all that effort had finally paid off.
Na Hyeji frowned and glanced at me.
“What’s with that look? It’s kind of creepy.”
“I’m just proud of you.”
“Proud of me...? What do you mean, proud...”
She clicked her tongue and tossed the gas mask aside, but I was in a great mood.
We’d collected a ton of loot, I’d witnessed my porter’s growth, and I’d even learned a new spell!
There was no way I couldn’t be happy after getting that much out of the day.
Anyway.
Today’s 6th floor clear had gone smoothly, just like always.
Now it was time for my post-climb routine.
I need to post on Hunter Gallery.
If I didn’t upload a post to Hunter Gallery right after a climb, I got itchy all over.
Before I knew it, I’d become addicted to the community.
-Click.
I took a photo of the cart and bag piled high with loot, then quickly wrote up a post.
More insults poured in, as usual.
I clicked my tongue and muttered, “Hmph. As expected, Hunter Gallery is full of idiots who refuse to face the truth and keep their eyes closed. Is there truly no one here who has awakened?”
At my muttering, Na Hyeji said with a look of utter pity, “You’re trolling on Hunter Gallery again, aren’t you? Don’t you ever get tired of stirring people up all the time?”
“Not at all. It’s fun every single time. It feels new every time I do it.”
“Sigh... how did I end up as a porter for such a crazy person...”
“Still, if you stick with me, you can emigrate. So do your best.”
“That’s true. Honestly, that’s why I’m still here...”
Na Hyeji nodded readily.
South Korea had only three months left.
We had to escape before then.
But low-floor hunters couldn’t emigrate unless they had the wealth of a corporate chairman.
Like it or not, she had no choice but to follow me.
Of course, that didn’t mean I planned to treat her badly.
I believed that if someone worked hard, even in harsh conditions, they deserved to be paid properly for it.
“Hyeji. I was thinking of taking about ten percent of each day’s earnings as your porter wage. How’s that sound?”
Ten percent of the profits.
That was the allowance she and my sister had agreed on together.
She’s my sister’s friend, and she also has to keep my secret. It’s only right to give her this much.
If she were a normal hunter, they wouldn’t be paying the porter—they’d be collecting from her.
After all, they were the ones giving her a ride.
But Na Hyeji was my sister’s close friend.
On top of that, she had to keep the fact that I was a mage under wraps.
And she was suffering a lot more than ordinary porters, too.
So I intended to treat her fairly well.
At my offer, Na Hyeji smiled faintly and shook her head.
“Hey. That’s way too much.”
“Too much? It’s only ten percent. Today that’d be about two million won. For that much work, it seems perfectly reasonable to me.”
“That might be true now, but if we keep going to the 10th floor, the 20th floor... the profits are going to get huge. At that point, just porter work could net me tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions.”
“Well... I guess that’s true?”
“I may not have much shame, but I’m not about to take that much money just for riding on your bus.”
Ding.
I was genuinely shocked.
What... I was offering to pay her, and she was refusing it?
I’d seen plenty of people begging for more money, but this was the first time I’d ever seen someone turn down payment.
“And I’m not exactly hurting for cash, either. I’ve got a pretty decent amount saved up, you know.”
Well, that was true enough.
Before the Hunter Mobilization Order dragged her in, she’d supposedly been a successful prop trader at a securities firm.
She’d been earning a salary in the hundreds of millions of won, so of course she had the means.
Thanks to that, she’d been able to buy all sorts of expensive equipment and work as my porter.
“So you really don’t need to give me a single won. Just split off a little of your points every day so I don’t get taken back into custody. Instead...”
“Instead?”
“Take me with you all the way to the 20th floor. That’s all I ask.”
She didn’t need money at all.
She just wanted a ride.
“I know this is a huge opportunity. Being able to reach the 20th floor safely in this situation... but I can’t take money on top of that.”
“...”
“So don’t abandon me. I’ll keep doing my best as your porter. Okay?”
Ah...
She was voluntarily offering to work as an unpaid porter.
I felt like I could see a halo around her.
I had no choice but to admit it.
I’d misunderstood her all this time.
She was absolutely not some useless loser.
I believe you now, Na Hyeji. You really are an ace porter.
Not a loser at all, but an ace porter.
A porter who volunteered to work for free.
An SSS-rank porter!
-Snap!
I extended my hand to shake hers.
“Please take good care of me from now on, Hyeji.”
“Likewise.”
Clack!
Na Hyeji grabbed my hand and shook it.
It was really hot, and her palm was sweaty and unpleasant.
Hey, wipe your hands before you touch me, damn it.
How dare she dirty the palm of my hand, I— the Extreme Lunatic Hell Hunter— with sweat.
Hyeji had just been downgraded from SSS-rank porter to SS-rank porter.
“Oh, right. There’s one thing I want to ask you.”
“Ask me what?”
“Could you make the corpses a little less messy when you kill them? Even if it’s magic, the loot is a little...”
“That’s a problem.”
“Please...”
She started whining again the second she saw an opening.
Downgraded from SS-rank porter to S-rank porter.
If you keep this up, you’re going to drop back to loser-tier.
Anyway.
Today, the Tower’s 6th floor had been cleared without any issues.
Tomorrow was the 7th floor.
* * *
Headquarters of the Tower Climber Management Bureau.
The vice minister’s office.
A bleak room filled with a large desk, filing cabinets, and all the rest.
The director of the Climber Management Office slowly opened his mouth.
“Vice Minister. We’ve confirmed it. Baek Jiho really is from hardcore difficulty.”
He held out a report as he continued.
“Looking over his climbing progression recorded in the Tower, the amount of points he pays in each day, and his financial records... it’s clear he’s a hardcore-difficulty hunter.”
Swish.
Dozens of papers were scattered across the desk.
Every single one contained records about Baek Jiho.
His basic personal information, his Tower records, his point payment history, the financial records of his Tower loot sales...
Even the various bizarre posts he’d written on the internet until now.
All of his information had been gathered and laid out on the deputy minister’s desk.
The director went on.
“Our country has produced its sixth hardcore-difficulty climber.”