Legendary Promotion
◈ All three slumbering swords have been found!
He threw an uppercut into empty air.
Legendary Hidden.
The rank had been so absurdly brutal he'd wondered what decade he'd ever finish it. And yet here he was, wrapping it up far sooner than expected.
"Hooook...!"
He blew out a rough, heavy breath. The quest was done. All that remained was claiming the reward.
Hurry up already!
As if the system had read his mind, another message bloomed into view.
Enter the Chamber of Swords on the 6th Floor of the Mythic Tower to claim your reward!
No point dragging it out. Enter. Now.
Entering the 6th Floor of the Mythic Tower!
Perhaps because they had found the last sword, every statue in the chamber shifted its pose. One by one they dropped to a knee, paying homage to Seira as she stood at the center of the room.
Light poured from every statue in a long, whispering rush.
Raven's verdant green. Muramasa's violet. Blood Rain's deep crimson. The three lights tangled together, blooming into a flash that was at once dazzling and impossibly heavy.
Oh, damn.
Dozens of level-up messages stacked so fast they made his eyes swim. Among all his hero cards, Seira's levels had always been the hardest to come by — and now this explosive surge. Even watching it happen, he could barely believe it was real.
Conditions for Legendary promotion have been met!
Promotion requires the Collector's Promotion Secretary, or the fulfillment of equivalent conditions!
The strongest knights who once defined an era. Their swords have gathered for Seira Kinkaiten!
The light that had filled the chamber flowed into Seira. And when she had absorbed every last drop of it, a jet-black radiance erupted from her body. For a moment the room was nothing but that light, and Jinhyuk squeezed his eyes shut against it.
A few heartbeats passed.
When he opened his eyes, she stood before him. Demon Sword Tarkan in one hand, Raven and Muramasa and Blood Rain wreathing the air around her — the Commander of the Black Knights, in all her glory.
Just like the level-ups, an overwhelming cascade of messages drowned his vision. Innate traits and unique skills, enhanced and newly acquired, one after another. And at the end of it all, her stats had risen enough to make his jaw drop.
He swallowed hard.
She was already ridiculously strong. Just how much stronger was she going to get?
Upon reaching Level 301, promotion to Transcendent rank will become possible!
With the list of her Noble Phantasms and the notice of her next promotion, the messages finally fell silent.
A brief hush settled over the Chamber of Swords. The promotion effects had been so dazzlingly magnificent that everyone in the room was still standing there, stunned speechless.
Seira stared blankly at the swords floating in the air. Even she could not immediately process a rise of this magnitude.
Power... it's overflowing.
She lifted her head, and looked at the one who had made this impossible ascent possible.
Jinhyuk stood clutching Kancho and Momo's hands in a death grip, swallowing dryly, over and over. The moment their eyes met, the three of them — Jinhyuk, Kancho, and Momo — stuck their thumbs up in unison.
A smile touched Seira's lips. She walked toward him.
You have carried me to greater heights.
Then, slowly, she bowed — a knight's full, formal reverence.
I shall carry you to a place even higher than the heavens.
"Master!"
"Master!"
"Master, sir!"
The three of them followed her lead, and the four of them together made a picture so warm it could have melted steel.
Watching from the side, Darc's mouth curled into a smirk.
Now she's finally starting to look the part.
He had faced Seira before his imprisonment. He knew exactly what kind of monster she had been. When they first reunited, that aura had dimmed considerably — but now the old presence was beginning to return.
"Climbing the Tower's about to get a whole lot easier."
Jinhyuk straightened up and burst out laughing. Momo beamed right along with him, declaring she'd be able to scoop up even more items, even faster.
"Well then, shall we head out and start the descent...?"
Ding!
"Hm?"
A question mark formed over his head. There shouldn't have been anything else left to pop up.
What?!
Still reeling, Jinhyuk threw another uppercut into the air.
Seira's promotion to Legendary alone had been an insane windfall he wouldn't have traded for anything in the world. And now he was getting an utterly broken growth trait on top of it — one that included the Collector himself, no less. He wanted to throw both hands in the air and scream like a madman.
"Hoo."
He took a low, slow breath to calm himself, and smiled as he watched the Chamber of Swords slowly fade around him.
The quest was done. Seira had become monstrously stronger. He'd obtained an SSS+ growth trait. Which meant everyone — Jinhyuk included — was ready. Ready to get obscenely, ridiculously stronger than they already were.
Let's go.
He was already looking forward to the next climb.
Exiting the 6th Floor of the Mythic Tower!
The 10th Floor of the Mythic Tower is now accessible!
Seoul Player Hunter Administration, Republic of Korea.
"Nnngh."
Cheon Seyeon stretched her arms over her head, fresh off resolving a Transition.
"Thank you for your hard work, Hunter Cheon Seyeon."
"You cleaned it up nice and easy again today."
"Oh, please. There weren't even any monsters on that floor."
Seyeon giggled and headed into the break room. Team Leader Jin Yunho waved as if he'd been waiting for her, hard at work with the other team members laying out a late-night spread. A blissful smile spread across Seyeon's face.
"That's our Team Leader Jin!"
She'd been starving to death, and now there was late-night food. And not just any food — jokbal and bossam, braised trotters and boiled pork wraps, the undisputed canon of Korean late-night snacking. How could she not revere Jin Yunho?
He had even mixed the makguksu buckwheat noodles with practiced precision. He pulled out a chair for her.
"Please, eat. It just arrived — still piping hot."
"Thank you! I'd been craving something tangy anyway."
Seyeon bowed her head in thanks and picked up her chopsticks. She was about to take a big bite when something occurred to her.
"Has there been any word from Jinhyuk?"
"No. Not since he left for England. And it feels a little... off, for me to message him first."
Jin Yunho scratched the back of his head. What he wanted was to protect Runner — Yu Jinhyuk — not to monitor him. The last thing he needed was for Jinhyuk to feel like he was being watched, which was why he couldn't quite bring himself to reach out.
"You worry more than his own parents, you know that? I'll send him a CocoaTalk after I eat. It should still be daytime in England."
"Haha... Thank you, as always. I might actually sleep well tonight."
"You haven't even been able to sleep?"
Jin Yunho shrugged. Under ordinary circumstances, he wouldn't have been this anxious.
"The times being what they are. You saw the news too, didn't you?"
"I did. The whole world just about lost its mind."
Queen Elysia Jerry Windsor's live stream had come out of nowhere. The footage hit tens of millions of views in record time and spread across the globe. Of course it did. A queen's assassination and a coup attempt — in the twenty-first century. For an era that lived on sensational content, it was catnip.
"Good grief. The world's gone mad. First a yakuza syndicate in Japan gets wiped off the map overnight, then a coup in England. It's terrifying. Honestly terrifying."
Seyeon assembled a proper combination of jokbal, bossam, buckwheat noodles, and kimchi, and ate with gusto. She chewed for a while, then tilted her head.
"It's like he's cursed or something, the way disaster follows him everywhere he goes. No wonder you've been so worried, Team Leader."
She'd said it without thinking. And yet, for some reason, a strange silence settled over the table.
Seyeon barely managed to swallow what she'd been chewing, and cautiously lifted her eyes.
They met Jin Yunho's. Dead on.
They knew instantly. They were thinking the exact same thing.
"N-no way! It's not like Jinhyuk is Detective Conan on nightmare difficulty. How would he even go around dragging incidents behind him like that?"
"R-right! Haha! I did think it was a bit of a stretch. I haven't slept, so my brain's going to weird places."
"I mean, the timing of his visits and the incidents lining up that perfectly is kind of insane, but that's just too ridiculous, right?"
"Agreed. I'll refrain from excessive speculation. Come on, eat, eat! It's going to get cold."
The two of them started moving their chopsticks again. It didn't sit entirely well, but what else could they do? They just had to hope they were wrong.
Ding!
Cheon Seyeon and Jin Yunho froze.
Ever since the Tower of Despair had appeared, the system had melted into the fabric of daily life. But most of the time it delivered news through the Tower sites. Blunt, unfiltered messages like this, broadcast outright, were vanishingly rare.
Player Runner has cleared the Legendary-grade quest '????'!
The quest name is Hidden and will not be disclosed!
This is the first Legendary clear among all players of the Republic of Korea!
The Book of Achievements has been updated!
A strand of buckwheat noodle slid out of Seyeon's mouth.
The next monarch of the British Crown has been decided!
The timing of the message was exquisite.
There's no way, right?
Cheon Seyeon and Jin Yunho dropped their chopsticks at the same time.
A Legendary quest alone was enough to make anyone's blood run cold — and now the British royal family? He'd saved the Queen?!
Jin Yunho rubbed his eyes.
"Are my eyes working?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing."
Seyeon rubbed her eyes too, shaking her head, hoping that if this was a dream or a hallucination she could snap out of it already.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
Jin Yunho swallowed hard as his phone erupted in a frantic, terrifying barrage of notifications. The fickle system's message had almost certainly been broadcast to the entire world.
Which meant it had begun.
An utterly insane, world-shaking uproar.