024
Flash!
The burst of light gradually faded.
I slowly opened my eyes.
Then I turned my gaze and took in my surroundings.
The place I stood now was the summit of a towering, rugged mountain of rock.
When I lowered my head and looked down, I saw a massive green wave below.
Goblins.
-Kehrururuk! Kehrk!
-Keeeeeek!
-Kieeeeeeeeeek!
Thousands of them—maybe tens of thousands—were climbing the mountain.
Swarming. Crawling over one another like an ant colony on the move.
Watching that sight, I muttered under my breath.
“Holy crap... there are way too many.”
Ten thousand.
A number like that is hard to really feel in your bones.
But seeing it with my own eyes made my breath catch in my throat.
A literal green tide.
A mass of goblins rolling up from the base of the stone mountain, steadily swallowing everything in its path.
No wonder so many easygoing hunters gave up on the 9th floor.
See this, and you’d understand there was no hope whatsoever—you’d just jump on the return portal and call it a day.
I glanced away.
Past the goblin horde, far in the distance, was a cluster of bright light scattering brilliance into the air.
The escape portal.
Our goal on the 9th floor was to break through the encirclement of charging goblins and make it all the way there.
Just as I was checking the terrain and landmarks around me—
“Hiiiiiik!”
Na Hyeji let out a shriek, trembling all over.
She seemed to be scared stiff by the sheer scale of the goblin swarm.
Clutching my sleeve, she pleaded, “P-please, let’s go! They’re coming this way! We have to run now, before we get completely surrounded!”
That was the textbook strategy for clearing the 9th floor.
Right after you started.
Before the goblins had fully scaled the mountain.
You’d use the terrain and your mobility to punch through the least dense route you could find.
For ordinary hunters, that was brutally difficult.
You’d have to push through a rain of arrows.
Hop from rock to rock.
Cut down the goblins blocking your way as fast as you could.
And then run like hell until you broke through the horde and reached the escape portal.
It had to be hard. It had to be dangerous.
But I didn’t need to do that.
“Hyeji. Remember this.”
“...Pardon?”
“A mage doesn’t go dashing around like some unrefined brute.”
At my words, Na Hyeji went blank for a second.
Then she exploded, “W-what are you talking about? We need to go now! They’re still coming!”
“Let them come. My Fireball is hungry.”
“No, seriously!”
Na Hyeji started whining.
With goblins closing in by the second, my standing there like a statue was clearly getting on her nerves.
But I had my reasons.
If they bunch up, I can kill way more of them in one shot.
The goblin horde was still on the lower, gentler part of the mountain, so the density wasn’t very high yet.
But the higher they climbed, the more the rough, jagged terrain would start bottlenecking them.
Soon they’d be packed tight like commuters crushed into the subway at rush hour.
And if I dropped a Fireball into that mess, the efficiency would be through the roof.
A Fireball into a tightly packed swarm of goblins...
Yeah. That made my mouth water a little.
-Kehrurururuk!
-Kehk! Kehk!
-Kiaaaaaaaa!
The goblins kept coming.
First they were at the mountain’s foot, then the middle slope, and by the time they were really packed in tight—
I finally raised my staff.
Time to start.
I drew up the Blue Dots deep in my chest.
Woooooooom!
A vast number of Blue Dots flowed and rapidly arranged themselves according to my will.
And the pattern I was building, of course, was the Fireball array.
I made an absurd number of them.
Flare! Flare! Flare! Flare! Flare!...
One Fireball rose, then another.
First one.
Then ten.
Then fifty, then past a hundred...
One hundred and fifty large Fireballs.
Rooooooar!
As many as one hundred and fifty Fireballs floated up and began orbiting around me.
The searing flames heated the air.
And the blazing light of the fire scattered an overwhelming sense of presence across the mountainside.
Then—
-...Kehk?!
Freeze.
The goblin horde, dribbling saliva as it climbed the mountain, came to a complete halt.
As if time itself had stopped.
Apparently their brains had short-circuited the moment one hundred and fifty Fireballs suddenly appeared.
I pointed my staff at them.
“Die.”
People always say artillery is the god of war.
Then what was a mage in the Tower supposed to be?
The answer was the sight before my eyes.
Whoooooosh!
One hundred red trails tore through the air with shrieking force.
I unleashed one hundred of the one hundred and fifty Fireballs all at once.
Countless crimson streaks scattered forward and smashed into the goblin horde.
Then—
Flash.
In the split second that a brilliant flare burst forth,
countless explosions erupted simultaneously.
BOOOOOOM—!
An earth-shaking roar and a wave of violence slammed through the mountain.
Explosions and clouds of dirt shot up from every direction.
Shattered green limbs and chunks of flesh were flung across the sky.
The goblin horde that had filled the middle of the mountain was torn apart and scattered to pieces.
The whole mountain seemed to be howling.
-Keeeeeeeeeeek-!
-Kyaaaaaaaak-!
-Kiek-! Kiek-!
The goblins screamed and rolled about in chaos.
They panicked and scattered in every direction.
The green tide that had filled my field of view...
Roughly half of it had been shredded into nothing in an instant.
Whoooosh—.
The aftershock kicked up a thick curtain of dust that rolled in and blocked my vision.
“Wow...!”
A cry of awe escaped me.
I was so excited I couldn’t hold it in.
“Damn! This is magic!”
One hundred Fireballs, and I’d just erased several thousand goblins in a single shot!
Artillery doctrine! You were right all along!
Firepower! More firepower!
Only stronger firepower can tear, smash, and kill more enemies!
A sense of omnipotence surged deep in my chest.
So this is what they mean by the thrill of raw firepower?!
Wiping out thousands of goblins in one go filled me with a savage, primal satisfaction.
The feeling of sweeping away countless enemies with a single gesture of my hand...
It was insanely addictive.
“G-goodness me...!”
Beside me, Na Hyeji stared down at the goblin horde with wide, stunned eyes.
She had every reason to be shocked—after all, several thousand goblins had just been shredded in one shot.
I grinned and said, “So, shall we head down now?”
The intimidation factor was more than enough.
Now it was time to make for the escape portal.
I slowly started down the mountain.
On the way, I ran into goblins here and there.
-Kieeeee!
-Kyaaaaaaa!
They’d been running around in a panic, unsure of what to do.
Every now and then, one would pop out of nowhere.
The way to deal with them was simple.
Boom!
If they were clumped together decently, I blasted them with a Fireball and blew them to bits.
Slashhh!
If they were packed into a narrow passage, I sent out a Wind Cutter and cut them in half.
Puck! Puck! Puck! Puck! Puck!
For goblins scattered all over the place, I gifted them an Air Bullet and punched ventilation holes straight through their foreheads.
And so I walked on at an easy pace, tramping down the mountain without a care in the world.
Na Hyeji, following behind me, muttered in dazed disbelief, “Good heavens... I knew Jiho was strong, but this is...”
“So? Do you finally understand the beauty of the Fireball, Hyeji?”
“I don’t like it because of the corpses, but... seeing this, I kind of get why you like Fireballs so much, Jiho. My God. How did you kill that many goblins all at once...”
She looked around as she spoke.
The place we were passing through now was the middle slope of the mountain.
It was where all my firepower had concentrated.
So the area had been completely wrecked.
Goblin remains were strewn everywhere.
Bits of corpses and flesh were scattered across the stone mountain, and the rocks and earth beneath had been shattered into rubble by the impact.
Total devastation.
I’d ground up several thousand goblins along with the terrain itself.
And somehow, that made me feel proud.
Yeah. This is the kind of thing that deserves the title of Extreme Lunatic Hell Hunter.
What kind of great me was I, if I went hopping around like some easy-mode, normal, hard-tier nobody?
If I wanted to live up to the dignity of an Extreme Lunatic Hell Mage, I should be flattening thousands of goblins from a single spot.
So we kept moving, clearing out goblin groups whenever we came across them, until at last we reached the escape portal.
[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea : 9th Floor)]
You have completed the Tower's 9th floor.
You have slain 2,842 Goblins (1).
You have slain 1,123 Goblin Archers (2).
You have slain 423 Goblin Warriors (10).
Points are being settled.
The Tower's 10th floor has been unlocked.
You are returning.
4,388 kills.
Simple enough.
* * *
Right after returning, I immediately opened my status window.
And then up came the enormous number 9,318.
Na Hyeji, watching it, let out a cry of shock.
“N-nine thousand three hundred eighteen?!”
“Careful with your pronunciation. It sounds like a swear word.”
“No, seriously... good grief... does that even make sense?”
Hyeji stared at me blankly, as if she’d lost the ability to speak.
She’d already seen my overwhelming power just now, but seeing the points laid out in black and white seemed to drive home my greatness all over again.
Adults really do love numbers, after all.
I puffed out my chest and boasted, “Do you feel it? My magnificence?”
“You really are amazing... How did you get nine thousand points from the low floors...”
“It’s me.”
For a noble and great Extreme Lunatic Hell Mage Hunter like me, earning several thousand points from the low floors was only proper.
Anyway, that finished today’s climb.
Time to keep up my daily routine.
I logged into Hunter Gallery and quickly wrote a post.
└ How the hell did you kill 4,000 goblins?
└ Dude, your concept inflation is insane lol. Didn’t you just a few days ago claim you’d killed a few hundred goblins? Now your whole bit is that you killed thousands?
└ Even a high-floor hunter couldn’t kill 4,000 goblins. They’d run out of stamina before they got the chance.
└ What, did you blow something up? How the hell do you kill 4,000?
└└ BlueDot: It’s not a bomb, but it’s kind of similar.
└└ ?
Comments came pouring in one after another.
Maybe the number sounded too absurd.
No one believed me.
Back in the day, there were a few people who at least entertained the idea that I might be a high-floor hunter messing around on the low floors.
But now even that was gone.
Honestly, what a shame.
Hah. As expected of the blind masses, none of them can see the truth. But that’s fine. I shall still graciously save them all.
Most of those Hunter Gallery users were just ordinary people, or easy-mode trash hunters, so of course they had no idea what lay beyond their world.
Anyway.
“So if I clear the 10th floor tomorrow, I’ll be a middle-floor hunter too...”
Middle-floor hunter.
They were the aristocrats of the Hunter world.
The term “middle floors” made it sound almost ordinary, but in truth, middle-floor hunters were high-end laborers—there were only about 2,000 of them in all of Korea right now.
For reference, there used to be around 2,600, but the number had fallen to 2,000.
A fair number had emigrated or died.
Most of them had started as normal-tier nobodies.
Their average monthly point intake was about 10,000.
Considering that low-floor hunters only scraped together a few hundred points a month, that was an impressive rate indeed.
In effect, one of them was doing the work of dozens of low-floor hunters.
That was why reaching the middle floors came with all sorts of benefits.
First of all, a dedicated civil servant would be assigned to you, giving you various conveniences and administrative support.
As a Grade 3 official—roughly equivalent to a colonel in military terms—you could even receive a bit of ceremonial treatment.
On top of that, there was even a pension.
Of course, compared to a hunter’s actual income, that pension was basically a joke.
Still, it meant the state was taking care of you.
There were also after-death honors, like burial in the National Cemetery, and other formalities that were handled with some degree of respect.
And the most important benefit of all?
Full tax exemption!
The 50 percent tax previously taken from loot sales...
would no longer be collected at all.
That was the difference between the low floors and the middle floors.
Low-floor hunters were everywhere, crawling all over the place like insects.
But those who reached the middle floors were a true handful, and that alone made them special wherever they went.
No wonder Japan started accepting immigrants from the 11th floor onward.
If I cleared just the 10th floor tomorrow, I’d be registered as a middle-floor hunter and able to enjoy every benefit and privilege that came with it.
Though, of course, I wouldn’t be the only one receiving those benefits.
I glanced sideways at Hyeji.
“Hyeji. By tomorrow, thanks to me, you’ll be a middle-floor hunter too. Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I’m really grateful...!”
“Always remain grateful, human.”
Na Hyeji really should be thanking me for the rest of her life.
Though if that meant she could finally break her whining habit, I’d be happy enough.
I should hurry up and get a Subspace Pocket so I could work her to the bone...
Anyway.
Tomorrow would be the climb to the 10th floor.
The last floor of the low floors.
The gateway to the middle floors.
And the only floor in the Tower where goblin shamans appeared.
Goblin shamans. It’s been a while since I’ve seen those guys.
I’d only seen them during the tutorial, so this would be the first time in a while.
For some reason, I felt kind of nostalgic about it.
Their first impression had been the absolute worst, sure...
But weren’t they the little guys who taught me how to use magic?
In a way, they were my masters!
Out of respect for my teachers, I ought to kill them as flamboyantly as possible.
“Masters! Watch me! Witness the growth of your Extreme Lunatic Hell disciple!”
Of course, my real master had already died in the tutorial with his skull blown apart by a Fireball.
But goblin shamans were his fellow schoolmates, so to speak—senior brothers to me.
In martial arts terms, they were my sasi.
So I intended to show them the utmost respect as well.
If I poured out every bit of magic I knew...
the goblin shamans would surely be so moved by this junior’s growth that they’d give me a standing ovation, right?
“First I’ll bind them with Earth Manipulation, then pierce their arms and legs with Air Bullet, then cut them in half with Wind Cutter, and after that reduce them to pieces with Fireball...”
“Y- Jiho? What kind of gruesome thoughts are you having?”
“I’m planning to show my seniors how well their junior has grown.”
“?”
Tomorrow, I would conquer the 10th floor.
The middle floors were right in front of me.
---