The Weight of Points
The lower floors of the Tower of Trials were, in a sense, a training facility.
From the 1st Floor to the 10th.
A place that gave new climbers all sorts of situations to experience, molding them into proper climbers one trial at a time.
That was why every floor had a different theme.
They taught you how to hide.
They taught you how to find your way.
They taught one-on-one combat, or fighting against many.
They taught you how to fight as a group, endure as a group, move as a group...
The Tower’s intent was to force climbers through one ordeal after another until they gradually grew stronger.
But none of it really struck a chord with me.
After all, I’d been steamrolling every floor the same way.
Hide?
Why should I cower around like a rat? Why not just kill everything and be done with it?
Run through and break out?
A mage doesn’t run around ungracefully. Just wipe out everything standing in front of me and move on.
Fight in groups?
Why bother? One magnet pet was enough, wasn’t it? I could wipe out the whole lot by myself.
I’d solved everything with nothing but magic, click-click, and a swaggering attitude.
So until now, I’d never really felt much of anything about the Tower’s “intent.”
All I ever did, after all, was kill every enemy I saw and haul out the loot.
No matter what the theme was, it all felt like the same thing in different wrapping paper.
But the 8th Floor had been different.
A floor that made you remember what points meant.
A floor that gave climbers a sense of responsibility.
For the first time, it actually hit home.
That meant climbers had a duty, then. A duty to earn points and save lives.
That was what my childhood hero, Peter hyung, had said.
With great power came great responsibility.
And I had a hellishly great amount of power.
As a hunter from the Extreme Lunatic Hell Difficulty.
Power and potential that couldn’t even be compared to ordinary hunters—power so absurd it was almost ridiculous.
So was it really right for someone like me to keep chasing only profit?
I glanced over.
Then I turned my eyes to the status window.
5460 points.
In money, that was 54.6 million won.
But its value went far beyond that.
Because if I had those points, 5,460 of my countrymen could survive one more month.
Today I hadn’t earned a measly few million won.
I had saved 5,460 lives!
Something inside me seemed to crack open.
My chest tingled, and a hot, emotional surge rose up in me.
I wanted other people to feel this too!
On impulse, I opened Hunter Gallery and quickly typed up a post.
Comments cascaded down in a stream.
Had they understood my sincerity?
There were far fewer snide comments than usual.
For some reason, that made me feel pretty satisfied.
I looked through the comments for a bit, then went to bed.
Tomorrow was the 9th Floor.
* * *
Early the next morning, I went to the climbers’ branch and checked in.
I placed my hand on the familiar crystal orb.
Please designate the amount of points to be transferred to the Republic of Korea.
“All of it.”
5,450 points will be transferred to the Republic of Korea.
The official who checked the crystal orb slowly opened his mouth.
“Hunter Baek Jiho. F-Five thousand...?”
I almost made a “ding” sound effect in my head.
His eyes went so wide that it really did seem like he was making that noise.
He looked at the crystal orb, then at me, then back at the orb, and stammered his words out again.
“...Confirmed. 5,450 points. We’ll deposit 54.5 million won into the designated account...!”
The official’s eyebrows twitched as he spoke.
He must have been shocked by the amount I’d paid.
Well, of course he would be.
5,450 points.
Wasn’t that absurdly high for just one day’s work?
“The Republic of Korea will remember your devotion.”
The official even bowed at a perfect ninety degrees as he saw me off.
This guy usually only gave a slight nod when sending people off.
So 5,000 points really was enough to turn him into a full folder.
“Take care.”
I shuffled out of the lineup.
On the way, I heard nearby hunters whispering.
“Did you see that? Five thousand points!”
“In one day... no, if not one day, then within two at the latest?”
“Is he an upper-floor hunter?”
“What an incredible person.”
“But why is he carrying that stick?”
“Whoa, I’m seeing an upper-floor hunter in person for the first time.”
Everyone was murmuring to one another in low voices.
I heard every word.
That was because the hearing of this Extreme Lunatic Hell hunter was sharp enough to catch even the smallest noise.
As I walked, I muttered softly to myself.
“An upper-floor hunter, huh... Yeah, I guess I can see why they’d misunderstand.”
Upper-floor hunters.
Hunters active in the 31st through 40th Floors of the Tower of Trials.
There were only about sixty of them in total.
Top-tier hunters who earned tens of thousands of points every month.
In other words, people who were genuinely impressive.
And right now, I had paid in a sum comparable to theirs.
It was only natural that they’d look at me with eyes full of respect.
Heh. I let out a small laugh.
Respect from the masses isn’t bad either. Worship me, you commoners.
Honestly, it felt good.
My shoulders were almost trying to ascend all the way to heaven, so I clenched them down hard.
Stuff like this was supposed to be handled with cold indifference, a slick, unfazed exit. That was what made it cool.
I strolled out of the branch and got into my sister’s car.
“Noona, I think I’m really someone worthy of respect.”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“I’m proud of myself for dedicating my life to the nation.”
“Did he eat something weird or what... Should we head back soon?”
We went home.
* * *
Once we got home, I helped my sister process the loot like always.
There wasn’t much to the process.
We just took the loot we’d piled up in one corner of the house and set it outside before the buyer’s truck came.
-Brrrmmm.
We were just stacking everything outside the villa when a one-ton truck rolled up from the alley beyond the housing complex.
An old, beat-up truck with “Tower loot bought at crazy high prices! Fast purchase! Same-day payment guaranteed!” written on the side.
It belonged to the loot buyer my sister had been dealing with lately.
-Screech.
The truck stopped, and a man got out.
He was a middle-aged guy with a warm, friendly face.
“You’ve got a lot of stock today, too. Thanks as always! I’ll process the payment right away!”
“No need to thank me. Then take care.”
My sister and the man exchanged documents with easy familiarity.
Her expression brightened with satisfaction.
The loot buyer she’d switched to recently came immediately when called, never haggled over nonsense, was polite, and paid right away, so she was apparently very happy with him.
As I watched the transaction, I suddenly realized something strange.
But why does that guy always come so fast? He always gets here in ten minutes, at the latest.
This place was a villa complex.
Obviously, it was quite far from where a loot-buying company would normally be based.
So if you called them once, you’d usually have to wait at least thirty minutes, and sometimes hours.
And yet for some reason, this old guy always arrived within ten minutes of being called.
As if he were always somewhere nearby.
And his eyes seem weirdly sharp, too.
On the surface, he just looked like a warm, friendly neighborhood uncle.
But every now and then, his gaze would sharpen strangely, and he’d seem to inspect the area around the house in minute detail.
Almost like he was checking for some kind of threat...
Something about this is fishy... No, forget it. No point thinking about useless nonsense.
I let out a sigh and shook my head.
Maybe I’d seen so much blood lately that my nerves had gone razor sharp.
Lately, I’d been getting that strange sense of unease more and more often.
For example, I’d suddenly feel like someone was watching me.
Or I’d get the impression that someone was following me.
That sort of thing. I’d often had the feeling I was being watched.
Should I go see a psychiatrist or something?
Or maybe... was something actually going on?
While I was lost in those random thoughts...
“I’ll transfer the payment right away. Have a nice day!”
“Be careful on your way back.”
-Brrrmmm.
The truck loaded with loot rolled out of the alley and disappeared from sight.
I shrugged and turned around.
Whatever. It’s probably just my imagination. Time to prepare for the next floor.
It was about time Hyeji arrived.
* * *
Hyeji and I prepared to tackle the Tower of Trials’ 9th Floor.
First, we didn’t bring bags.
We didn’t bring sacks or carts, either.
All we carried were simple weapons and armor.
“So this is finally the 9th Floor,” she said.
“Yeah. The 9th Floor.”
“We... we can clear it properly, right?”
“Of course we can.”
“Don’t just answer me so casually.”
“Then don’t ask so casually.”
Hyeji asked stiffly, her face frozen with tension, and I answered with a bored tone.
She was clearly on edge.
Well, no wonder.
The Tower’s 9th Floor was famous for being both difficult and dangerous.
Great Escape.
That was what hunters called the 9th Floor.
The 9th Floor was, quite literally, an escape map.
But not the kind where you escaped from a little room.
It’s a map where you break out of a massive encirclement.
You started at the summit of a huge rocky mountain.
Then goblins came flooding in from every direction.
And the number of goblins charging in was supposedly in the thousands...
Maybe even over ten thousand.
They said a massive tide of goblins came surging in, wave after wave.
The sight of it supposedly looked like a green wave, and the pressure alone was immense.
The 9th Floor was about breaking through that green wave.
The clear condition was to break through the goblin horde surrounding the rocky mountain and reach the escape portal.
Of course, that wasn’t easy.
For one thing, there were just too many goblins.
Arrows flew in constantly from every direction, wearing on your nerves.
And the goblin warriors mixed among them were dangerous.
But I wasn’t worried at all.
Because I was an Extreme Lunatic Hell Mage Hunter.
In fact, I was looking forward to it.
If there are that many goblins, then this is finally my chance to let the Fireball rip.
I pictured it.
The goblin horde swarming around the rocky mountain.
The barrage of Fireballs raining down on their heads.
With every explosion, dozens, then hundreds of goblins blown apart and bursting to pieces.
The scene of those monsters—basically an army in all but name—collapsing like a house of cards before overwhelming firepower.
Ahhh!
That would be so damn satisfying.
“This time, it’s all-out firepower!”
Who were we?
Koreans!
A nation that owned the artillery ministry!
The people of firepower, weren’t we?
On the 8th Floor, I’d been stuck in a mild state of frustration because I couldn’t use Fireball or Wind Cutter.
I’d wanted to smash and slice everything to bits, but I couldn’t, and it had left me feeling dissatisfied.
But this time, I’d finally have the chance to throw Fireballs to my heart’s content.
A dense, churning mass of goblins surging toward me.
The perfect meal for my Fireball.
It would be a complete stress reliever, no question.
The only problem was...
I won’t be able to take the loot again, will I.
No matter how much of an Extreme Lunatic Hell mage hunter I was, wiping out goblins in numbers that passed a few thousand and came close to ten thousand was physically impossible.
And since I’d have to keep moving to avoid the endless tide of them, I’d probably have no choice but to give up the loot again.
Well, that was fine.
I’d still get plenty of points.
And if I earned a lot of points, I’d save a lot of people, right?
Future Republic of Korea savior me shouldn’t be too fixated on petty loot collection.
Still, loot collection, huh...
I glanced over at Hyeji.
“Hyeji, this time you’re not even playing porter. You’re just getting a 100 percent free ride, so don’t you have anything to say to me?”
“Thank you so much...!”
“Always remain grateful, human.”
The SS-rank porter was on temporary leave.
Come to think of it, Hyeji’s usefulness had been getting kind of awkward lately.
I’d recruited her as a porter, but since she came from an Eaze background, her strength was weak and she couldn’t carry much at all.
She was basically just a half-porter who scavenged items off corpses.
If Hyeji were ever going to do the real porter work properly, she’d need a Subspace Pocket.
But those things were too expensive and hard to get.
That would have to wait for the distant future.
I complained inwardly.
Ugh... I wish somebody would just give me a Subspace Pocket for free.
When you look at mages in novels, some kind old master just hands out magic books and items and artifacts like candy.
I want one of those suckers who just gives me gear.
Why don’t I get that kind of lucky break? I’m a mage too.
Anyway.
It was about time to go.
“Enter the Tower.”
Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: 9th Floor)
Na Hyeji (Republic of Korea: 9th Floor)
Please select the floor to enter.
“9th Floor.”
Entering the Tower’s 9th Floor.
Fwaat-!
The assault on the 9th Floor had begun.
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