Those Who Target the 1%
"Oh... yes, of course. Thank you so much! I'll treat you to something really delicious. What do you like? Japanese? Chinese? Western?"
The woman faltered for a moment at my question, then quickly recovered and painted that picture-perfect smile back onto her face.
It was an expression so brimming with goodwill that you'd never believe we'd met mere minutes ago.
Any man too green to know how the world worked would have fallen head over heels for those big, sparkling doe eyes on the spot.
I kept my smile in place and said, "Then how about you thank me with gold instead?"
"...Ah. Gold, you say."
A flicker of displeasure crossed the woman's face.
Then she laughed awkwardly and made a show of opening her purse to dig around for money.
"Gold is great, of course. But honestly, I'm just so grateful. I'd love to invite you over to my place sometime — could I get your contact info, maybe?"
"Skip the invitation. Gold, please."
"......"
The woman's hands stopped moving.
Here was an undeniably attractive woman going this far, and all she kept getting back was cold dismissal — no wonder she was flustered.
Don't get me wrong, I like pretty women too.
But this woman was a gaudy poisonous mushroom.
A textbook honey trap.
She'd seen me come out of the DPS-only counter, so her plan was obviously to manufacture a "chance encounter" like this, create some connection, and reel me in.
Considering there were men watching me from a distance, awkwardly averting their eyes the moment I looked over, the odds were very good that she was backed by some second-rate hunter guild.
It was a classic technique — and classic because it worked.
Fall in love and your rational judgment clouds over; start settling for contracts that shortchange you, just to stay close.
The moment you sign on the dotted line, it's over.
Your entire life as a hunter gets swallowed whole.
Even veterans who'd climbed plenty of the Tower's floors occasionally got taken in by this trick.
In this particular case it was a bit blatant, but....
For a rookie DPS fresh onto Floor 1, walking off with a pretty woman like this and ending up with a ring through his nose was a fairly common occurrence.
"......"
"If you're not going to pay in gold, never mind."
I left the woman frozen in mid-fluster and headed back toward the aerial train.
Except... I hadn't walked ten steps before another pretty woman came scrambling toward me from up ahead.
It looked like we were about to collide, so I sidestepped slightly — and the woman swerved like a heat-seeking missile, determined to land a shoulder check on me anyway.
Thud.
A timid impact for someone who'd been running that fast.
"Oh no...! Watch where you're going!"
"......"
The fox-faced woman had run into me and was somehow the one doing the yelling.
Ah. So this one plays that type?
"Uh... oh! Where are you going...!"
When I simply brushed past her, she visibly panicked.
As I turned back toward the aerial train, yet another new woman came up and spoke to me.
That made three.
"What is wrong with that person? Bumping into you and then... Are you okay?"
Another beauty, really?
This one was gorgeous enough to make your eyes pop out of your head.
What was this place, an elven village?...
"I'm fine."
The woman came uncomfortably close and gently brushed off my shoulder for me.
"Can you believe the nerve on someone like that? Don't let it bother you, okay?"
Overwhelmingly kind for a first meeting.
Bond with the victim by contrast with the aggressor, manufacture a common enemy, build rapport all the way through....
It was so absurd a laugh slipped out of me.
"Haha... isn't this all a little too staged?"
"...I'm sorry?"
"Pick a fight, then comfort me from the side. What's next? You buy me a drink and introduce me to a 'really great guild' you know?"
"...What on earth are you talking about?"
The woman played dumb, feinting with all her might.
I could have just walked away, but... if I wanted to keep this from getting even more tedious, I had to make it clear that I wasn't some naive kid who didn't know how the world worked.
I glanced sideways at the woman who'd shoulder-checked me, still eyeing me from a few paces off, and said, "You're not on the same team as the one who dropped her wallet, are you? That approach was way too old-fashioned."
"......"
Surely that was enough for them to get the message.
I passed the woman standing stock-still and walked toward the aerial train.
Once a decent distance had opened up, I heard the women whispering behind my back.
The one who broke the silence first was the shoulder-checker.
"Ugh, damn it. He dodged out of nowhere — almost didn't get the hit in. And then he just walks off? What did you say to him?"
"...He said we came across as too contrived."
"What? What does he even know. That wasn't contrived, that was destiny."
"You telegraphed it way too hard."
"Bullshit. No matter how sweet you act, that viper look of yours never fully hides, so of course he bolted. That's why I keep telling you — you're supposed to be the one who picks the fight...."
The two of them started bickering back and forth.
Wow.... so this is the kind of circus they'll put on to hook a single DPS.
I'd known it happened, but experiencing it firsthand really did feel different.
Had the supporters of my old timeline all been through this too?
Come to think of it, maybe there was a reason their personalities had curdled into something that bitter....
Leaving the women behind, I made my way to the boarding platform and caught the aerial train bound for the Sejong Hotel.
Except... something about this felt off too?
The terminal was so crowded I couldn't be certain, but someone seemed to be tailing me and boarding the same train.
Was it just a coincidence of destinations, or was there genuinely something malicious behind it....
Watch a little longer and I'd know.
The train began to run along the rails strung between the skyscrapers, the night skyline of Acropolis streaming past the windows.
"Next stop: Sejong Hotel. Sejong Hotel Station."
The train was packed, but not many people got off at Sejong Hotel Station.
I walked forward casually, eyes ahead, while spreading my senses wide to sweep over everyone who stepped off at this stop.
The man who'd disembarked from the next car a beat behind me was still following in the same direction.
So it's that guy.
My senses were now so razor-sharp that no one would believe I'd only just entered the Tower — I could read roughly everything happening around me.
The body-awareness I'd honed climbing to the 60th floor apparently remained even after my body itself had been reset.
So that nagging suspicion hadn't just been my imagination after all.
The man was unmistakably tracking my every step.
If I simply walked into the hotel, he couldn't follow me any further, but....
Where was the fun in that?
From what I'd observed at the terminal, my tail wasn't especially skilled.
His concealment of his presence was clumsy, and the mana I could feel off him wasn't at a level I couldn't handle.
Instead of heading for the hotel, I deliberately turned down a side street.
Once I left the brightly lit main road behind, even at this hour of the night, a dark back alley revealed itself under the sparse streetlamps.
At the mouth of the alley, garbage dumped carelessly from nearby shops lay strewn about in filthy heaps.
Deeper in, shanties built from cardboard boxes lined every inch of the alleyway.
It looked squalid enough to make you wonder how anyone could live here — yet each box held faint traces of human presence.
Acropolis's illegal residents.
A vile stench pricked at my nose — who knew how long since any of them had last washed?
Too destitute to properly wash their faces, but their heads were all, as if by some unspoken pact, sleek and glossy bald domes.
It stemmed from a superstition that shaving off every hair on your body improved mana absorption and raised your odds of awakening.
This was a place even the Rankers who ruled Acropolis had tacitly agreed to ignore — which meant the man tailing me would soon show himself.
And right on cue.
"Well, well. What do we have here."
A man in a black hood pulled down to his brow came strolling toward me, grinning ear to ear.
Now why would he have been tailing me, I wondered.
A rougher style of recruitment pitch?
Or plain robbery, preying on entry hunters?
As if he'd already cornered me, the man opened his mouth with a voice soaked in mockery.
"I was just wondering how I'd lure you out of that hotel.... and here you are, waltzing into a back alley all on your own?"
At the sound of his voice, heads began poking tentatively out of the cardboard boxes nearby.
"What business does someone like you have in a stinking back alley full of nothing but baldies? You know somebody here or something?"
"......"
"Nervous? Don't be. I'm not going to hurt you. Just leave whatever gold you're carrying and your gear right here, and you can go."
The man pulled a dagger from inside his jacket and brandished it with a flourish.
So it was robbery, then.
Acropolis was dazzling on the surface, but all manner of dangers lurked beneath it.
The guilds that used pretty women to bind you with contracts were practically gentlemen by comparison.
At least they operated within the letter of the law.
These Entry Hunter Hunters were the true vermin.
They deliberately targeted entrants trying to settle in for the first time and robbed them blind.
Most entrants arrived loaded down with gold converted from the assets they'd liquidated on Earth — in a criminal's eyes, they might as well have been golden goblins walking around.
DPS types especially, with their high loan limits, came in flush with starting capital. A jackpot ticket, practically.
I pulled a single coin from my pocket and flipped it.
"This is about the limit of what I can spare for charity to a beggar."
My opponent was an entry hunter hunter.
There was nothing to gain from a long back-and-forth, so I deliberately provoked him into attacking first.
"......"
But my breezy composure seemed to rattle him, and the man began glancing around.
"You got backup hiding among the baldies? No... they're all non-awakened...."
"......"
"Or... do you actually think you can beat me? An entry hunter, of all people?"
Man, this guy talks a lot.
"What am I, your teacher? If you're so curious, go find out for yourself."
As I spoke, I pointed a finger at his dagger.
"...You little shit...."
The man ground his teeth and tightened his grip on the blade.
"Don't tell me you think being a DPS means you can beat a supporter from the upper floors? At the entry-hunter level, DPS or supporter, it makes no difference, you punk."
"Hmm. Really? And how far did you climb?"
At my question, the man blinked in momentary confusion.
"...What do you mean?"
"I'm asking which floor you climbed to."
The man hesitated a moment before answering.
"...Floor 10."
"Oh, really?"
One hundred percent bullshit.
Floor 10 wasn't exactly high, but it was a rite of passage that the dregs whose temperaments didn't suit combat could never clear.
And this guy — judging by both his tailing skills and his mana level — wasn't anywhere near that caliber.
Being generous, Floor 9; realistically, he was around Floor 5 or 6.
I snorted and twisted the knife.
"Ah, so that's what Floor 10 is like. Then Floor 10 should be a breeze for me too."
"......You fucking bastard."
Ah. That one definitely hit a nerve.
The man's breathing grew ragged.