Chapter 55: The End of the 3rd Floor, the Heartless Army (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 55: The End of the 3rd Floor, the Heartless Army (1)
"N-No... Please, please...!"
Leaving the screaming Alex behind, Jinhyuk walked back toward the inner area of the amphitheater.
There was no reason to stay and watch his final moments.
Rumble!
Crash!
Debris fell erratically in the aftermath of the mana furnace's destruction.
It wasn't threatening, but he didn't want to get covered in dust.
[Lv. 2 'Glacial Shaping' has been activated.]
Crackle!
A circular barrier of ice spread around Jinhyuk's body.
The ice shield, adorned with a snowflake pattern, deflected the falling rocks.
Jinhyuk turned his gaze toward the people collapsed on the ground.
They had not yet regained consciousness.
It was because they had taken such massive physical and mental damage.
'Thanks to that, I can rake in some sweet extra profit.'
In a near-disaster situation like this, they wouldn't have had the luxury of gathering their won auction items.
The treasures of the 175th auction lay buried under the rock fragments. Finders keepers.
Jinhyuk strolled through the debris, leisurely farming the loot.
'Since I saved their lives, it's only fair I get compensated this much.'
In fact, it was practically a steal. He was settling their life debt for a mere tens of billions of won.
Of course, some might play the ungrateful victim and demand their bundles back after being saved from drowning.
But he didn't care.
'By the time they wake up, I'll already be on a plane back to Korea.'
Besides, they were all knocked out; how on earth would they know who the culprit was?
At best, the only thing they could do was point their fingers at the Demonic Humans who caused this disaster.
Lalala~
Jinhyuk hummed a tune as he rummaged through the rubble.
Quite a few treasures were damaged, but fortunately, the best ones were intact.
'It feels like I've walked right into a treasure dungeon.'
He also secured the most popular items of this auction: the 'Heart of the Fish Dragon', the 'Unknown Iron Ore', and 'Michelangelo's Safe'.
As a bonus, he also retrieved the crown Alice had put up for auction.
Nice.
This was more than enough.
Jinhyuk pulled out a worn piece of paper from his coat.
It was the 'Subspace Inventory Crafting Recipe' he had obtained from the Corridor.
With materials found outside the Tower or replicas, he wouldn't be able to craft a Platinum or Diamond-grade inventory that could store dozens of tons, but...
'It'll at least save me the hassle of carrying everything on my back.'
That was enough.
['Heart of the Fish Dragon (A)', 'Unknown Iron Ore (B)', and 'Michelangelo's Safe (C)' have been used as materials!]
[You have successfully crafted a Large-Capacity Subspace Inventory (Gold Grade, +5,000kg)!]
With a brilliant flash of light, a yellow-tinted subspace inventory materialized.
Finally, he could stuff all his cumbersome belongings inside.
Right then, rustle.
He sensed a presence among the collapsed people.
"……!?"
Jinhyuk quickly turned his head.
'Someone's awake already?'
Just as the thought crossed his mind, his eyes met a pair of wide, round rabbit-like eyes peeking out from a pile of rubble.
It was a young boy.
His eyes were filled with fear, yet somehow also brimming with awe and admiration.
'…A kid.'
Jinhyuk lowered his guard.
"I'll get you out, so just stay still for a second. Don't move."
"Huh? Okay."
The boy nodded.
In that instant, slash!
A dagger imbued with a blue light sliced through the pile of rubble in a single stroke.
Having calculated the exact angle at which the severed debris would fall, he rescued the boy without a single scratch.
"T-Thank you, hyung."
"Don't mention it. It was nothing."
Jinhyuk chuckled dismissively.
"You're the one who defeated those monsters and the bad guy, right, hyung?"
"Hmm?"
"I saw you before I passed out. It was just like a Marvel movie. It was really... really cool."
A Marvel movie, huh?
Did he think of him as the Avengers fighting Thanos?
Well, to a kid, it probably did look like that. Sweeping away dozens of undead must have seemed like a scene straight out of a movie.
"I want to become a strong player like you someday and climb the Tower. Then, when bad guys try to kill people, I want to show up like a hero and save them... I want to be like that."
Ugh. Hearing it laid out so bluntly like this was a bit embarrassing.
Perhaps because of his innocence, the kid had absolutely no filter when expressing his feelings.
Still, it didn't feel bad.
There was no calculation or pretense in his sincere gratitude.
'Sometimes, this isn't so bad.'
Chuckling, Jinhyuk patted the boy's head.
He had to leave now, just in case anyone else woke up.
But before that, one thing.
"Hey, if people ask who did this later, can you keep it a secret?"
Jinhyuk gently extended his pinky finger.
"I won't say a word! A hero's identity can't be revealed!"
The boy smiled brightly and hooked his pinky with Jinhyuk's.
* * *
On the 3rd floor of the Tower of Trials, there were two places that players had yet to reach the end of.
One was the 3rd-floor boss room, which guarded the path to the 4th floor.
And the other was right here.
A labyrinth known as the 'Cathedral of Hatred', which had driven countless raid teams to despair.
However, contrary to its notoriety, this labyrinth had actually been cleared a long time ago.
By none other than the Demonic Humans.
"Damn it, why did they set up the security devices here to be so tricky? At this rate, even we're going to get caught in them."
A slender, red-haired woman grumbled.
Her voice was thick with irritation.
And for good reason.
The layers of barriers and traps set up to block players' access, along with numerous high-ranking undead monsters, kept even the Demonic Humans—who were familiar with the terrain—constantly on edge.
"Stop your whining, Melena. I'm already in a bad mood because of that stupid doctor."
An Asian man walking beside Melena clicked his tongue.
Though he wasn't large in stature, the cold aura radiating from his body was as formidable as any giant monster.
"Richao, do I really need to care whether you're in a good mood or not?"
"You'd better. If you don't want to die, that is."
"How amusing. You talk as if you're actually stronger than me."
Melena met Richao's gaze head-on.
It wouldn't have been surprising if they drew their weapons right then and there.
"Both of you, that's enough."
A low, heavy voice intervened.
It was a man wearing a black hood.
Unlike Melena and Richao, he had a red inverted cross emblem emblazoned on his right shoulder, with the Roman numeral VII superimposed over it.
"……Understood."
"Tch!"
At the command they dared not disobey, the two reluctantly nodded.
Melena and Richao had been carrying out missions together outside the Tower for ten years now, but they were always at each other's throats.
Then again, expecting Demonic Humans to get along was a contradiction in itself.
They were a group made up of doomsday cultists, sadistic mercenaries who killed for pleasure, and monsters willing to discard their humanity for money.
It was a syndicate formed by those who loathed being bound by law and order.
"Still, even if Alex's skills were lacking, I don't understand how he lost when he had so many sacrifices at his disposal," Richao spoke up.
"Well, that Kang Jinhyuk guy must be one of those veterans. But even so, he's probably just on par with the dime-a-dozen rankers out there."
"Don't let your guard down. He might be someone who climbed even higher than we did."
At the hooded man's words, both of them let out a sharp breath of disbelief.
"No way. Even our executives reaching the 20th floor of the Tower was considered insane. You're saying he went higher than that?"
"I also think that's a bit of a stretch. We chose the virtual reality world of the [Tower of Trials] as a way to evade Interpol and the CIA, so we naturally know more about the Tower than others, but..."
"Exactly. Other guys don't have a special reason like that. They wouldn't have any need to hide in a virtual reality to escape the cops."
It had been eleven years since the [Tower of Trials] was released.
Yet, most people quit the game within three years.
It was only natural.
No matter how much someone enjoyed extreme difficulty, they couldn't afford to waste time on something that crossed the line.
There had to be at least some sense of growth or progress to endure the tediousness.
There was no way any fool would throw their life away on a repetitive, aimless grind.
But why?
A strange tension hung over the hooded man's face.
The intuition and instinct that had brought him to the position of an executive in the Demonic Human Association, and a fear that transcended even that, kept sending him warnings.
That they must never underestimate this Kang Jinhyuk.
He would not let his guard down.
That was a mistake reserved only for the foolish.
In that case...
"You two, go with Cadric."
They just had to crush even the slightest sliver of a possibility.
* * *
The final trial of the 3rd floor of the Tower of Trials.
Jinhyuk stood before the sole path leading to the 4th floor.
"Phew..."
He took a long, deep breath to steady himself.
'Everything is ready.'
He had stored all the items he had requested from Lee Yu-ri in his subspace inventory, and both his physical condition and mana were at their peak.
All that was left was to open his own broadcasting channel before the boss fight.
'Thinking about the future, I need to hoard as many Coins as possible.'
Because views only counted for the very first video watched within a 24-hour window, this market would soon become a brutal red ocean.
It meant that while the top dogs would rake in Coins, players who weren't famous would struggle to get even ten views no matter how hard they tried.
So, he had to establish himself before that happened.
And then, kick away the ladder.
So his competitors couldn't climb up.
'Let's just grind hard for today.'
Although he had turned on the broadcast for this boss raid to draw people's attention, Jinhyuk planned to avoid live streaming as much as possible in the future.
Broadcasting raw, unedited footage was dangerous in many ways.
'As long as I can leave a strong impression on everyone in this first broadcast, I can just upload recorded videos from then on.'
It meant that laying a solid foundation with the first stream would make things much easier down the road.
But right then, as he was brainstorming channel names, a painful and bitter memory suddenly flashed through Jinhyuk's mind.
'Not Colonel Teemo.'
Absolutely not that.
He wanted to escape that nightmare once and for all.
Jinhyuk bit his finger in frustration.
He prided himself on knowing more about the Tower of Trials than anyone else, but there was just one thing.
His naming sense never improved, no matter how hard he tried.
How many minutes passed like that?
As he agonized over it, a name suddenly flashed through his mind like lightning.
"...Unknown."
He muttered under his breath.
Then,
[Would you like to set your channel name to 'Unknown'?]
A status window appeared, asking for confirmation.
"Yeah. Let's go with that."
When he cleared the Libarintos Labyrinth, the system had recommended the codename 'Unknown' to protect his identity.
A word meaning 'the unidentified one'.
At the time, he hadn't cared and just agreed, but thinking about it now, it seemed like a pretty good name.
'Since my main concept is hiding my identity behind a mask anyway.'
[A personal channel has been created!]
[Channel Name: 'Unknown'!]
[Broadcasting functions have been activated.]
[Live streaming can only be used when fighting the boss monster of each floor.]
Current BJ Grade: Normal (90% platform fee applied)
Number of Viewers: 0/1,000
Number of Subscribers: 0
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Jinhyuk's heart began to beat rapidly.
"Why am I getting so nervous over this?"
In the past, the very concept of live streaming was practically nonexistent.
It was because the number of people playing the [Tower of Trials] was so small.
This was practically the first live broadcast of his life.
It would be a lie to say he wasn't nervous.
<Tower of Trials 3rd Floor Boss Raid: Showing you how a veteran who just started streaming clears it.>
A title like this would definitely draw enough attention.
'Well then, shall we get going?'
Jinhyuk did one final check to make sure his geometrically patterned mask was securely in place.
Step.
Then, he took a step forward, heading past the shimmering gate.