005
When I stepped outside, the situation had only gotten worse.
“I can’t take this anymore. I’m quitting this job. I won’t be coming in tomorrow.”
“Hah, seriously. Jiye, do you really not regret this? You’ll be dead in three months if you keep this up, you know? I’m trying to look out for you, so why do you keep acting all coy?”
“Let go of my hand.”
A hunter had my sister’s wrist in a vice grip.
She tried to wrench herself free, but it was no use.
“Get your hands off my sister, you bastard.”
I stepped up beside her with my staff in hand.
The middle-aged hunter’s eyes slid over to me.
“Oh? You’re Jiye’s little brother? The one who went into the tutorial this time?”
“I’ll say it again. Let go and get lost. Right now.”
“Hmm...”
He gave me a quick once-over, then snorted with amusement.
My skinny, muscle-free frame must have looked pretty ridiculous to him.
Of course, I found him just as laughable.
He says he’s an eighth-floor hunter? So what, he’s still from Easy difficulty, right?
I’d cleared Hard and beyond before I got here.
The starting lines weren’t the same.
If a Normal Floor 1 hunter was equal to an Easy Floor 5 hunter, and a Hard Floor 1 hunter was equal to an Easy Floor 10 hunter...
then I, having cleared Extreme, had to be at least middle-floor tier.
On top of that, I had magic.
The hunter in front of me wasn’t my match.
He twisted his mouth and sneered.
“Kid. Eyes down. Even if you’re Jiye’s brother, how dare you look at a senior hunter like me with that attitude—”
“I said let go three times.”
I’d already given him plenty of chances.
There was no point in being patient anymore.
I gripped my staff like a club and swung.
Did he really think a blow from a rookie hunter wasn’t even worth dodging?
The bastard was still standing there with that smug, relaxed look on his face.
Idiot. He was going to regret that.
- Thwack!
My staff slammed into his skull.
“Ghhk?!”
The middle-aged man staggered back, clutching his head.
Only then did his hand fall away from my sister.
His eyes went wide.
“What the... How...?”
“What do you mean, what? You wouldn’t listen, so I hit you. I told you to let go how many times? You only learn after getting smacked, huh?”
“I was told you passed the tutorial today... Then what was that impact? No way, was it Normal?! No, even Normal shouldn’t be this—”
Maybe he’d gotten a concussion from the shock.
He reeled, babbling nonsense.
I swung again.
- Crack!
My staff smashed into his obnoxious hand.
A sharp, sickening sound rang out.
I’d shattered the bones in his hand.
“Aaagh!”
“As much as I’d like to kill you, that’d make things messy, so I’ll let you off here. Now get out.”
“Gghh...!”
Clutching his mangled right hand, he stumbled away in a panic.
What a joke.
Two whacks with my staff, and that was enough to send him running?
I turned to my sister.
“Jiye, are you okay? He didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
“What the hell? Didn’t you just pass the tutorial today? Then how...”
She stared at me, stunned.
She clearly couldn’t believe that I, someone who had only just cleared the tutorial, had beaten an eighth-floor hunter one-sidedly.
I straightened my shoulders and said proudly, “I told you. I cleared Extreme Lunatic Hell difficulty.”
“...”
“Still think I’m joking?”
My sister didn’t answer.
＊ ＊ ＊
After we returned to the semi-basement living room of our villa, I said, “I’ll tell you what I went through in the tutorial.”
Then I carefully explained everything that had happened there.
How the trial opponents had been Goblin Warriors and a Goblin Shaman. How I’d happened to pick up a staff and gained the ability to control the Blue Dots. How that had led me to use magic...
“A Goblin Warrior and a Shaman... A tutorial harder than Hard? And magic, too? That’s impossible...”
My sister still couldn’t quite believe me.
Then again, it would’ve been hard to believe.
Even I, the one who had lived it, still felt like it was unreal. So how could she possibly take it in at once?
Of course, making her believe me was easy.
“Watch this.”
I only had to show her.
I drew up a little of the energy inside me and pulled out the Blue Dots.
I arranged them, then activated them.
- Fwoosh!
A fireball formed above my staff and roared to life.
“Whoa!”
My sister’s eyes went round with shock.
Heh. Her reaction was so good I wanted to show her even more.
I drew out more Blue Dots and created several fireballs.
- Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
In all, five fireballs formed and began to orbit serenely above my staff.
They spun around in circles.
My sister’s eyes darted after them, following their path in frantic little movements.
She was getting a great eye workout.
- Whoosh.
I canceled the spells I’d made and recalled the Blue Dots.
“Well? Pretty cool, right?”
“N-no. This is real? This is actual magic? Magic? Magic??? You’re not pulling some scam with a magic trick, are you?!”
“Ahem. How dare you belittle sacred magic by comparing it to a mere trick. Foolish sister. Open your eyes.”
Whether she was shocked, flustered, or excited...
or maybe all three at once...
she kept muttering the word magic like a broken cassette tape.
I even brought up my status window for her.
[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 1)]
[110 Points]
“See that? 110 Points. The Goblin Shaman was worth 100, and the Warrior was worth 10. That makes 110 in total.”
“...”
“Believe me now? That your little brother cleared Extreme Lunatic Hell difficulty and came out a mage?”
My sister stared at me with a blank face.
She looked like she couldn’t find the words.
I shrugged.
“Anyway, that’s how it is. So what do you think about being my manager?”
“Manager? Me?”
“Yeah. It’s not like you can keep working with that hunter team anyway, right?”
My sister had graduated from a top university and, for a short time, had worked at a major corporation in a well-known division.
Thanks to that experience, or so I’d heard, she was apparently pretty capable as a manager.
If she took on the job of managing me, I could focus entirely on clearing the Tower.
“And we’re family. There’s no one you can trust more than family. If you were my manager, I’d feel seriously reassured.”
Family.
A bond where you trusted and relied on one another more than anyone else in the world.
In terms of skill and trust alike, my sister was the perfect fit to be my manager.
“Rather than getting stressed dealing with those other hunters with their garbage personalities, wouldn’t it be better to take care of a cool, handsome little brother like me? Be my manager. Okay?”
“...Haha. Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll be your manager.”
“Awesome!”
“I honestly don’t know if this is a dream or real life. Magic... what on earth is going on...”
My sister muttered under her breath, still lost in the confusion of it all.
But anyway, I was in a great mood.
I’d secured myself a manager I could boss around to my heart’s content!
＊ ＊ ＊
The next morning, I started taking care of the things I’d planned one by one.
First, I called the convenience store manager.
“—Jiho? You’re a hunter now? Ah... congratulations. The minimum wage you never got paid? Of course! Of course I’ll pay it! I’ll send you a generous amount, so don’t worry about it!”
“If possible, could you send it right away, manager? I need to register as a hunter today and go buy equipment.”
“I’ll send it immediately!”
I demanded the wages they’d been stiffing me on all this time.
When I checked my bank account, exactly 4 million won had been deposited.
The money I’d been cheated out of over more than ten months of part-time convenience store hell had finally come back, with a little extra on top.
Next was the Branch Office for Climber Management.
I took my sister’s beat-up car to get there.
A compact car that was nearly twenty years old.
“Get in!”
“Jiye. This thing isn’t going to blow up on the way there, is it? I’m a little worried.”
“It may be old, but it still runs fine. Do you know how well I’ve taken care of it? Just get in already!”
The car looked so shabby it seemed like it should be sent straight to the scrapyard.
For a moment, I thought, The car’s way too crappy. I should buy her one as a gift once I make a lot of money. If I got her a sleek sports car, she’d love it, right?
My sister had always been unusual for a woman in that she absolutely loved cars.
Every MeTube video she watched was about cars, and even though she wasn’t about to buy any, she knew the specs of all sorts of models by heart.
She was, in other words, a total car nerd.
And yet here she was, driving a car that looked ready to die any second.
It broke my heart.
I really would buy her a proper car once I made a ton of money.
My vow was withdrawn within five minutes.
- Honk honk! Vroooom!
“Jiye! Drive slower!”
“That bastard cut in like a piece of shit! Hey! Hold on tight!”
“Don’t floor it! And stop chasing him! Hey!”
Come to think of it, this woman changed personalities the second she got behind the wheel.
If she drove this aggressively in a wreck like this, who knew what would happen if she got her hands on a sports car.
Sports cars were dangerous. I’d better just buy her a safe luxury sedan instead.
Anyway, that was how we arrived at the Branch Office for Climber Management.
“Mr. Baek Jiho. Please show us your status window.”
“Sure.”
I brought it up.
[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 1)]
[110 Points]
“Confirmed. Here is your hunter ID card. If you want to exchange your Points, please go to that counter over there. As for your government-issued supplies, take this paperwork and pick them up over there.”
“Okay.”
Registering as a hunter was easy.
All I had to do was show the status window and fill in my personal information — my resident registration number, address, and contact details.
It took less than five minutes.
And naturally, the clerk didn’t keel over in shock at my 110 Points.
There were too many cases of Easy-difficulty hunters farming Points and pretending to be Normal or Hard clears to scam people.
Apparently, these days they didn’t judge tutorial origin by Point total anymore.
Which was great for me.
If my identity were exposed now, who knew what would happen to me?
I had every intention of keeping the fact that I was a mage completely hidden for the time being.
Anyway, hunter registration was done.
Now it was time to exchange my Points for cash.
The exchange process was simple.
“Please place your hand on the crystal orb and transfer your Points.”
A crystal orb, about the size of a fist, sat in one corner of the branch office.
It was basically a terminal connected to the Republic of Korea Tower.
When you put Points into it, the state paid out the equivalent amount of money.
I placed my hand on the crystal orb.
Please specify the amount of Points to be transferred to the Republic of Korea.
“All of it.”
Transferring 110 Points to the Republic of Korea.
“110 Points... confirmed. I’ll deposit 1.1 million won into the account listed on your hunter ID card.”
“How long will the deposit take?”
“It should already be in. Please check.”
“Oh.”
Next was...
collecting the government-issued starter gear.
“Here are the standard government-issued supplies: clothing, a sword, and a shield. If you want a different weapon, you’ll need to apply separately. We don’t keep any other weapon stock at this branch office. If you do apply, you’ll probably have to wait about a week.”
“No, this is fine.”
The government-issued starter gear was, as expected, garbage.
Rough fabric clothes, a dull-looking one-handed sword, and a cheap, flimsy shield.
These were low-grade items mass-produced from cheap materials that came out of the Tower.
They had a notorious reputation for being the sort of garbage somebody in the middle was skimming off the top.
Seriously, equipment of such pathetic quality allegedly cost 3 million won at procurement price.
As expected from a country famous for military procurement corruption, even hunter supplies were getting cooked with the same old tricks.
I took the gear and climbed back into my sister’s car.
“Jiye. Where do I buy hunter equipment?”
“There are a lot of stores that deal in hunter goods around Gangbyeon Techno Mart. Let’s start there.”
“Didn’t that place go under?”
“That was a long time ago. These days, the commercial district there is geared around hunters. The security’s a complete disaster, though...”
“Ohh.”
We went to Gangbyeon and bought hunter supplies.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff that’s great for beginners. Take a look!”
“I’ll give you a discount.”
“Only thirty thousand won off right now! If you miss this, there’s no second chance!”
I fought my way through the swarm of pushy salespeople and shopped.
What I bought wasn’t much.
A simple leather cuirass.
A decent-looking one-handed sword and dagger.
A pair of combat boots of acceptable quality.
A leather bag for loot.
And various little tools needed for clearing the Tower.
Altogether, it came to about 4.8 million won.
Since everything was made from materials found on the low floors, it was cheap.
Guess I won’t have to fight naked anymore.
I felt reassured.
That damn tutorial. Blood and chunks of flesh had been splattering all over my bare skin, and I couldn’t begin to describe how unpleasant it was.
As expected, humans needed clothes. There was a reason the basics of survival were food, clothing, and shelter.
Anyway.
After registering as a hunter, buying equipment, and then riding back home in the car,
“Heh heh heh.”
my sister, who was driving, suddenly let out a laugh.
I asked in confusion, “Why are you laughing?”
“No reason. It just reminded me of when you were little.”
“When I was little?”
“Come on. You used to do all sorts of weird stuff because you wanted to learn magic or martial arts or whatever. Once, you climbed the mountain behind our house by yourself in the middle of the night, and the police even called us... You also used to do strange training in your room on your own...”
“Why are you suddenly digging up my cringe black history?”
“Back then, I just thought you’d had a really bad case of middle-school syndrome. But seeing you actually become a mage... it’s kind of amazing.”
It was amazing, all right.
I thought it was amazing myself that I was a mage.
“Now that it’s turned out this way, it makes me think maybe destiny really does exist. If you think about it, isn’t it strange? You, who could see the Blue Dots, ‘happened’ to pick up a staff, and your tutorial opponent ‘just happened’ to be a Goblin Shaman, letting you learn magic...”
“...”
“It kind of feels like some fate led you to become a mage.”
To be honest, I had a similar feeling.
Setting aside the fact that I was born able to see the Blue Dots...
the staff I’d seen in the tutorial, and the Goblin Shaman...
If either one of them had been missing, I never would have become a mage.
Weren’t those just way too conveniently lined-up coincidences?
I had this vague feeling that some transcendent will had guided me onto the path of magic...
But I quickly dismissed it.
“There’s no such thing as destiny. It’s just a chain of coincidences.”
“Really?”
“It’s just the lottery hitting over and over again. Easier to think of it that way.”
I don’t believe in destiny.
The world was too much of a dumpster fire for me to believe in something like fate.
“The whole world’s gone to shit because of the Tower, and people are getting butchered by the hundred million. What destiny are you talking about? So what, the billions who’ve died so far were all just ‘destined’ to die?”
My snappish reply made my sister’s expression turn awkward.
Ah.
Right after I said it, I realized I’d gone too far.
I was being way too nasty.
She was going to be my manager and handle all the annoying stuff for me from now on. I shouldn’t be rude to her.
Just then, as if to change the subject, my sister said, “More importantly... you’ve registered as a hunter, bought equipment, and even found yourself a splendid manager like me. So when are you going into the Tower?”
She was asking about my climbing schedule.
I answered without hesitation.
“Tomorrow. I’m going in tomorrow.”
Everything was ready.
Now it was time to climb the Tower.
I turned my gaze out the window.
Beyond Seoul’s skyscrapers, I could see a giant tower soaring all the way into the sky.
The tower I would climb.