An Eye for the 1%

"I was going to let you go peacefully if you just handed over what you had…."

This guy.

He was a ragtag thug, but he'd killed someone before — a clumsy, half-baked killing intent flickered off him.

"…No, you're not. I need to see you beg for your life before I feel better."

We were already at a hair trigger, and even now he kept running his mouth. What a talker.

I stroked the hilt of the dagger tucked into my waistband and spoke.

"The people watching must be getting bored."

"……What?"

"Stop chattering and move. You're that slow on the draw? How do you even make a living robbing people?"

"……"

Crunch.

The dagger-wielding man's hand clenched so hard it looked ready to burst.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"…Fine. I'll kill you like you want…!!"

The man lunged, and at the same instant, I drove my foot into the ground.

Through my Eyes of Perception, his movement trajectory rendered itself in sharp clarity.

I began mirroring his movements, adjusting my body's path bit by bit to trace his.

Finally, synchronization completed, and we moved in perfect symmetrical motion toward the predicted point of collision.

Clang!

Sparks flew as the angled tips of our daggers met dead-on.

"……!"

Think about it — two people stabbing at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠each other with blades as small as daggers. What were the odds their edges would strike each other with pinpoint precision?

The man's eyes tore wide open, pupils dilating.

He was plenty shocked, clearly.

Clang!Clang-clang!Clack!

The distance between us was barely a meter.

Even mid-shock, the man never stopped swinging his blade.

We danced like a mirrored video playing in reverse — and at the end of every exchange, sparks scattered where our daggers met, the whole thing looking like an intricately choreographed stunt performance.

"Wh-what the hell!"

The man stumbled backward like he'd been struck by a fever.

"Keep going. I'm just warming up."

I had only just gotten the engine started now.

I abandoned the symmetry and drove forward in step with his retreat.

The physical control and combat experience I'd built climbing to the 60th floor. And the precise trajectories of motion laid bare by my Eyes of Perception.

Combine the two, and it seemed a different kind of feat might be possible.

"Uraaagh—!"

With a scream that was half battle cry, the man swung his dagger wildly.

The gap between his blade and my body was less than a handspan.

At this crushing distance, a slight twist of the wrist could shred an opponent down dozens of different paths — and there, I began twisting my entire body.

Shff— shk— shooosh— shff— shiik—

The sound of blades cutting air rippled through the quiet back alley.

The dagger, glowing yellow in the sodium lamplight, carved irregular arcs through the darkness.

Stabs and slashes rained down without pause, like the cursive of a Russian doctor's handwriting.

I simply dodged every single one of them.

One instant's mistake, and my stomach would tear open, my guts spilling out.

Yet not a single blow got through. I slipped them all.

Even I had to admit it — superhuman movement.

"Wh-what is this…."

The man had soaked through with cold sweat in mere moments.

Humans fear what they cannot understand.

He was looking at me now the way one looks at a monster.

"You— you— wh-what are you…!"

His hands trembling violently, he pointed at me — and then…

"Uraaagh!"

He hurled the dagger with a convulsive scream.

I caught it with ease.

"Your dagger skills and throwing technique are both garbage. So it was a lie after all, wasn't it? Climbing to the 10th floor."

"……!"

Bull's-eye. He flinched hard.

"…How…."

The man's pupils wavered. A bead of cold sweat rolled down his jaw.

Then, shaking as if he'd just unraveled some massive conspiracy, he shouted.

"You…! You're not a Tower Entrant at all…!"

"Huh? I am, though."

"…Th-this is a trap! Why… why me…!"

"A trap…?"

That's called an overactive imagination, buddy.

All I did was take a stroll through the back alley on my way from the terminal to the hotel. You're the one who tailed me. You're the one who followed me in here.

Excited at the prospect of hunting fresh entrants, you probably didn't pay the slightest attention to your surroundings.

Well… there was no real need to correct him.

Whatever a dead man chooses to believe in his final moments is none of my concern.

"Was that everything you wanted to say?"

"Uuuuh…!"

The man crept backward, step by step, then turned his back and started to flee.

"M-murderer—! Help—!"

"What?"

A baffled, hollow laugh escaped me.

You're the one who tried to kill me, you know.

You were thrilled when I walked into this alley on my own two feet.

"Get out of my waaaay—!"

As he fled, the man snatched up cardboard boxes and trash from all around, hurling them wildly in his wake.

"Aaagh!"

"Kyaah—!"

"My home!"

Every time a box went flying, the people hiding inside it were exposed, each of them shrieking.

"Honestly…."

Best to end this before the scene turned into an even bigger disaster.

I chased after him, weaving through the obstacles.

The distance closed rapidly, and within seconds, he was practically within arm's reach.

The man glanced back over his shoulder and screamed.

"Urk— stay back—!"

Then he snatched up the bald woman beside him.

"Keep following me and I'll kill this woman!"

"Kyaah!"

I stopped for the moment.

Pressing a freshly drawn dagger against the woman's throat, the man shuffled backward toward the mouth of the alley.

"Y-yeah. That's it. Stop right there. You okay with this woman dying?!"

"Uuuuk…."

I stood still and studied him.

Eyes soaked in fear, and the corners of his mouth curling slightly upward.

Through that faint smile, I could read his hope: the belief that if he just made it out of this alley, he'd live.

Not happening.

Let a piece of trash like that live, and victims would keep turning up for years to come.

I kept a loose grip on the dagger in my right hand while tensing only my arm, taut as a drawn bowstring.

Hidden beneath my sleeve, no one watching could tell the muscles were loaded.

Through the Eyes of Perception, I examined the next beat of the future.

The moment the man, shuffling backward, dragged the hostage's shoulder along with him —

For one instant, his head was left completely exposed.

Like releasing a bowstring pulled to its limit, my right arm snapped forward in an instant.

A surprise throwing technique with no wind-up whatsoever.

THWIP—!

The launched dagger flew through the alley's chaotic clutter of junk and panicked crowd alike.

Its short flight ended where it landed — dead center in the hostage-taker's brow.

Thud.

The man toppled backward like a puppet with its strings cut.

"…Whew."

Letting out a short breath, I walked over slowly.

My right arm, pushed to its full power, ached dully.

"……"

Gazes bore in from every direction.

Men and women, young and old — everyone was watching me in hushed silence.

"Haah, haah, haah…."

The woman who'd been taken hostage collapsed where she stood, legs giving out, breathing hard.

"Are you alright?"

"Haah…!"

When I asked, her breathing got even rougher, so I left her alone and searched the corpse instead.

A variety of items spilled out of the pockets inside his hoodie.

A pouch of gold, an ID card, assorted blades, sleeping pills, a glasses case….

A glasses case, of all things? I opened it and found a finger-thick syringe filled with a dark crimson liquid.

My brow furrowed on the spot.

I'd need a proper lab analysis to know for sure, but…

That color meant it was a paralytic, nine times out of ten.

The preferred hue of the illegal back-alley apothecaries who dealt in them — the kind of drug used to reduce a person to half a vegetable for trafficking purposes.

"He was worse trash than I thought."

What was in the gold pouch was pocket change.

Nothing useful on him at all, huh.

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I tossed the gold pouch to the woman who'd been taken hostage.

"Huh?"

"Split it with the people whose homes just got wrecked."

It was pocket change to me, but to the illegal squatters of the back alleys, even this was a fortune.

"…Th-thank you…."

With a dazed expression, the woman bowed her head.

Looking at her now — bald, though from neglect rather than choice — she was actually a pretty woman, well-featured beneath the grime.

But… in a back alley like this, a pretty face wasn't much of an advantage.

She'd probably find no end of trouble winding around her.

"Take care."

Well, that was none of my business.

Leaving behind the corpse of the entrant hunter and the stares of the crowd, I made my way out of the back alley.

It wasn't my first time seeing it, but the grandeur of the Sejong Hotel was truly humbling.

"Wow…."

The complex spanned multiple buildings — less a hotel than an entire hotel village — and at its single entrance, the lobby, burly guards strictly controlled the comings and goings of outsiders.

To think I'd be staying here.

For a whole year, no less. For free!

"Hello. How may I help you?"

"I'm checking in."

I handed the concierge my lodging voucher.

"One-year stay confirmed. Do you have a preference for a particular wing?"

"No."

"Then I will assign you a room at our discretion. Shall I take you to your room now?"

"Yes, please."

"Right this way."

The concierge retrieved the room key and began walking ahead of me.

It didn't take long to reach the room. After a brief walkthrough of the layout, the concierge gave a polite bow and departed.

"……"

Luxurious yet utterly silent, the room.

The soundproofing was so thorough that even the smallest noise was sealed out.

This would be my residence for the duration of my climb through the Tower's lower floors.

It was lavish to a degree no one would believe a freshly-arrived newbie had been given.

Might as well wash up first….

I scrubbed down with fragrant shampoo and body wash, then sank into a steaming bath.

Beside the tub, fresh flower petals — as if plucked from a living bouquet that very morning — and bath salts had been laid out.

"Phew…."

In the span of barely an hour, my surroundings had swung from one extreme to the other.

As I soaked in a place that was, frankly, dripping with gold from every corner, my mind naturally drifted back to the back alley I'd just left.

People who shaved their heads for the chance to awaken, camping out in slums without security or sanitation.

I didn't suddenly swell with shallow pity for them.

That was the life they'd chosen, and it deserved respect.

But did they know? That even after suffering through all of that to awaken, there was a 99% chance they'd become supporters — doomed to spend their lives competing for the chance to be picked by a damage dealer?

They probably knew.

And they'd want to become superhuman anyway.

Wielding power beyond human limits was, admittedly, an intoxicating thing.

And then… those who climbed the Tower without end, past the 90th floor, could become demigods.

Beings that neither died nor aged, armed with omnipotent power.

The dream and aspiration of every hunter.

Rankers.

Existences too fearsome to even speak of carelessly…

But I could reach them.

I was someone who had competed on pure skill alone, without a single rare skill, among the 99% damage dealers of my old world.

These world's trash-tier dealers couldn't hold a candle to me.

On top of that, the supporters here were far more skilled on average.

What if a top-tier damage dealer like me handpicked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only the very best supporters and assembled the ultimate party?

There was no doubt in my mind.

I could reach it — the realm of the Rankers.

…For that, though, I'd need to start at the Hunter Academy on the 1st floor.

I planned to get up early tomorrow and take care of registration first thing.

I finished my bath and surrendered myself to the bed.

The mattress was heavenly, and I sank into a deep sleep almost instantly.

The Hunter Academy sprawled across grounds so vast it could fairly be called a small city within Acropolis.

As I headed for the registration desk to apply for admission, ordinary tourists on sightseeing visas were walking the academy's perimeter, listening to a guide's explanation.

"Now, to your left you'll see the Hunter Academy's central building. As the first structure ever built on these grounds, it boasts over 300 years of history…."

"Ooooh…!"

Tourists like these were everywhere, and a whole district of hotels and commerce had flourished around the academy to cater to them.

The Hunter Academy was, in effect, a tourist landmark.

"In the era before the Hunter Academy existed, the mortality rate among awakeners was said to be extremely high. Many were also deemed combat-ineffective due to post-traumatic stress disorder."

Having fallen into step with the tour, I found myself listening to the guide's spiel when a blonde woman edged up beside me and began listening as well.

She looked to be in her early twenties — about my age.

"Today, statistics show that more than 95% of active climbing hunters are Hunter Academy graduates. This place is truly the starting line for every hunter in existence."

"Wow…."

The blonde woman marveled at the guide's explanation, then murmured to herself.

"I wonder if any Rankers are academy graduates…?"

Hmm, good question. I don't know either.

Information about Rankers was scarce almost to the point of nothing.

She must have noticed me staring, because she turned, shot me a sidelong glance, and moved away.

That blonde girl… she's an awakener.

With the Eyes of Perception, analyzing other people's movements had become far easier.

I'd always been able to roughly gauge what class of awakener someone was, and what level they'd reached, from their gait and how they carried their body — but now every minute detail seemed to sharpen into crystal clarity.

And that woman…

A supporter. And a high-caliber one at that.

If she'd been a damage dealer, I wouldn't have cared in the least — but a quality supporter on the market? Now that was interesting.

After all, my plan was to scout support talent at this very academy to build my party.

She must be an applicant for this year's incoming class. Might run into her again.

Since she was listening to the tour guide, there was no way she was already enrolled.

Just as I was watching the blonde woman with keen interest, my eyes suddenly burned as if scorched by flame, and something appeared before me.

"Uuugh…!"

Wait, what?

What is this……?