The God of Controls' One-Coin Clear
Tower of the Dead (1)
Inside the capsule, Taeyang muttered.
“Is the stream up?”
“Yeah, it’s live.”
“Okay.”
Thanks to the direct line between the capsule and the mic, he could hear Hyeonhye’s voice even from inside.
After confirming the broadcast was running, Taeyang started fiddling with the settings.
“You really want to go with a public stream?”
“Yeah. We can hide the chat window, so you won’t get interrupted during gameplay.”
“Is it even necessary?”
“There are surprisingly sharp ideas that pop up in chat. It can be helpful.”
Collective intelligence sometimes offered fresh perspectives.
There were often viewers who knew more about the game than even Hyeonhye.
Of course, most of it would be useless noise, but that was something she could filter out.
“You don’t have to watch it. I’ll check and let you know if anything useful comes up.”
“You’re not gonna get swayed by the chat and start giving me weird orders, are you?”
“Do I look like some amateur to you? I’m a major streamer who averages ten thousand viewers, you know?”
“Whoa. Ten thousand people actually watch your stream?”
Taeyang set Hyeonhye’s account as a manager and adjusted the chat window options.
While he was messing with the settings, Hyeonhye let out an impressed sigh.
“Man, I want to try gaming in a capsule like this sometime.”
“You already did.”
“That was just a taste. I only played for a bit and came right out.”
“Dantalion’s sync rate is fixed at ninety-nine percent anyway. What’s the big difference?”
“Still. The feeling is completely different.”
As a former King of Fist pro gamer, Taeyang’s capsule was top-of-the-line.
It had massage functions for long sessions, nutrient supply systems, and even scanned the user’s body to create the optimal environment.
“Can I log in now?”
“Yeah. Ah, wait a second.”
“What?”
Whoosh.
At Hyeonhye’s command, the capsule door opened.
Once the game started, it couldn’t be opened from outside for safety reasons, but before logging in, it was fine.
Hyeonhye stared intently at Taeyang’s face for a long moment.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“This might be the last time I see you… alive.”
Taeyang’s face twisted into a scowl.
“Don’t jinx it. What the hell?”
“Do you really have to do this?”
Taeyang looked at her.
All sorts of emotions swirled in Hyeonhye’s eyes—worry, anxiety, restlessness, regret.
“If you log in now, it’ll be dozens of times harder than usual. There won’t be any new player influx. Floors one through three are meant to be cleared by teaming up with other users, but you’re going in alone…”
Taeyang cut her off in a low voice.
“Hyeonhye. This is about Byeolim.”
There weren’t many things that held value in Taeyang’s life.
King of Fist, and Byeolim.
If he had to pick which was more important, he would choose Byeolim without hesitation.
It was obvious.
She was family.
Hyeonhye smiled bitterly.
“You’re right. This is about Byeolim.”
After a brief hesitation, she closed the capsule door.
There were five character options available at the start.
A mercenary starting with a sword.
A bandit starting with daggers and light armor.
A guard starting with a spear.
A hunter starting with a bow and arrows.
And a monk starting in plain clothes with a single Holy Synergy card.
“Ahem. Hyeonhye, can you hear me?”
— Voice connection established. —
“I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, loud and clear. Which one should I pick? The monk?”
“Yeah. Monk.”
Aside from the starting equipment, there was no difference between the characters.
The given gear only influenced early playstyle.
In that sense, the monk—who started with no weapons and only plain clothes instead of armor—was an extremely high-difficulty character.
It did come with a Holy +1 Synergy card, but synergy effects required at least two or three matching cards to activate.
Taeyang, having chosen the monk, rolled his shoulders.
“Ninety-nine percent sync, huh? This really is something.”
There wasn’t the slightest lag in his movements.
Arms, legs, waist, neck—every part of his body moved with perfect fluidity.
Just one minute after logging in, Taeyang felt a sense of defeat as a King of Fist player.
At least in terms of sync rate and connection quality, Dantalion was in a league of its own.
“Dantalion will be here soon.”
Click.
The moment Hyeonhye finished speaking, the door opened and a man stepped in.
A handsome man with curly hair, holding a book with a red cover in one hand.
The man smiled, the corners of his eyes curving elegantly.
“A newly arrived prisoner. How unexpected.”
Taeyang’s eyebrow twitched.
“Probably because the number of players has dropped sharply. The NPC AI is no joke. And keep an eye on that red-covered book. That’s his real body.”
The man extended a hand toward Taeyang.
“I am Dantalion, the 71st Seat Demon King of Ten Thousand Changes. May I ask your name?”
“……Yoon Taeyang.”
“Very well. Player Taeyang. First, allow me to express my condolences. The Dimensional Labyrinth is no trivial prison.”
Taeyang stared blankly at Dantalion.
Every single shift in his expression felt vividly real.
Dantalion laughed at the sight.
“Haha. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a dumbstruck face. Among all the faces I’ve observed, yours ranks in the top tier.”
Even knowing it was an NPC, he couldn’t stop the irritation from rising.
Just as Taeyang was about to snap back, Dantalion smoothly cut in.
“You must have many questions. I understand. What crime you committed, why you were imprisoned in the Dimensional Labyrinth—you have no idea, do you? There is only one thing I can tell you.”
Dantalion pointed a finger at the ceiling.
“All the answers lie above.”
Then he smiled brightly.
“Climb the Dimensional Labyrinth. With everything you have. The more desperately, the better. I would be most grateful if you would scream in agony, shed tears of blood. That makes for the best entertainment, after all.”
Click.
Dantalion opened the door he had entered through.
It was clearly the entrance to the 1-1 stage of the seventy-two-floor tower that Hyeonhye had described—the Tower of the Dead.
“Please, go ahead.”
There was no further explanation.
Before stepping through, Taeyang suddenly asked.
“Why are you doing this?”
For the first time, Dantalion’s smile vanished.
Then he smiled again and answered.
“You will understand once you climb.”
Taeyang grumbled.
“What kind of tutorial NPC doesn’t even give an explanation?”
“That’s the concept. The NPCs are extremely unfriendly. Still, you can see why it’s so popular, right?”
Taeyang nodded without realizing it.
This overwhelming sense of connection.
It really felt like stepping into another reality.
Once you experienced this, it was impossible not to see other VR games as outdated relics.
The chat window scrolled upward rapidly.
Because all of Dantalion’s characters were automatically customized, it was impossible to recognize faces.
However, physical specs mirrored the player’s real body, so most veteran Dantalion rankers were quickly identified.
Hyeonhye lightly ignored the viewers for now.
She had expected this reaction.
[1-1 Tower of the Dead: Defeat the skeletons and reach the top of the tower.]
The moment Taeyang entered the tower, a system window appeared.
“At least the nice system window explains things unlike that unfriendly NPC.”
Taeyang cracked his neck left and right.
Hyeonhye spoke in a tense voice.
“Move as much as you possibly can. That way I can make a plan.”
Taeyang’s physical ability was a proven fact.
But how well that physical ability would translate inside Dantalion was still unknown.
Hyeonhye didn’t think he would fail.
She just needed to see exactly how well he could perform.
If he was only at the level of a regular skilled player, then honestly, the chances of clearing were practically zero.
And if there was no visible possibility, Hyeonhye planned to tell Taeyang to give up on climbing the labyrinth.
Saving Byeolim was important, but Taeyang’s life was just as precious.
Crack. Crackle.
A pale, sickly skeleton began taking form in front of Taeyang.
Before it could even fully assemble, Taeyang threw a punch.
Thud.
One skeleton crumbled to pieces.
Just like Hyeonhye said, the Tower of the Dead wasn’t a stage meant to be cleared by one person.
The core of the stage was for newly created characters to gather in groups and break through the skeleton hordes using collective strength.
Yet Taeyang had to clear a mission that normally required dozens of players working together.
Of course, there were success stories.
The streamer MESSIAH.
He was famous as an old veteran player.
Even someone like MESSIAH had barely managed to clear the 1-1 stage, Tower of the Dead, while half-dead.
So it was perfectly reasonable for the other viewers to predict Taeyang’s death.
Crrrrrrrrrackle.
“Hyeonhye, do this many usually spawn?”
Although he had watched the footage, experiencing it firsthand was completely different.
Even at a glance, dozens of skeletons looked impossible to handle alone.
“The important thing is reaching the top of the tower. Ignore them and run!”
Hyeonhye’s voice came through the stream.
On screen, Taeyang began to run.
The fully formed skeletons chased after him and blocked his path.
Their agility was anything but skeletal.
New players usually struggled right from the first skeleton.
It had even become standard for three regular players to handle a single skeleton.
Whoosh!
A skeleton threw a punch.
Watching the scene, Hyeonhye unconsciously clenched her fist.
Taeyang simply turned his head, easily dodging the punch, then extended his arm and landed a clean counter on its jaw.
Thwack. Crackle.
The fatal blow caused the skeleton to lose its form and collapse.
“This is easy?”
It was clearly an overwhelming physical performance that didn’t seem like a first-time run.
“Don’t let your guard down and keep running! The numbers will pile up fast!”
“Roger that!”
Even without Hyeonhye’s explanation, the surroundings were filled with skeletons assembling with loud cracking sounds.
Taeyang climbed the floors with quick, nimble movements.
“There’s even more up here.”
The upper floor was already packed with fully assembled skeletons.
The ones that had formed late downstairs began chasing him, creating a literal no-win situation.
“Hey! How many floors was this again? Three?”
“Yeah. Three floors.”
Thud.
Taeyang casually stomped on a skeleton climbing from below, crushing it.
Watching the scene, Hyeonhye couldn’t hide her admiration.
He really is a pro.
Even a simple-looking movement contained technique that bordered on art.
His planted foot was rock solid, his pelvis—which controlled power transfer—was incredibly flexible.
His extending leg struck the target with perfect accuracy and retracted cleanly.
All the while, his vision naturally caught dangerous elements, with a prioritization so precise it would put a supercomputer to shame.
The way he naturally stepped to dodge skeleton attacks and delivered counters with optimal movement sent chills down Hyeonhye’s spine.
“That thing on the opposite side—is that the staircase? If I just get up there, it’s over, right?”
He was even scanning the map in the middle of combat.
“Yes!”
Taeyang looked at his target.
The goal kept getting obscured by the pure white swarm of skeletons.
Taeyang was certainly putting up an artistic fight.
But objectively speaking, he was only maintaining the status quo.
He hadn’t advanced a single step toward the staircase, and the skeletons he had destroyed were regenerating over time.
Just how was he supposed to reach all the way up there?
Gulp.
Hyeonhye swallowed hard, eyes glued to the screen.
“Okay, okay. I see an angle.”
Taeyang smiled.