The Rank the Tower Could Not Measure

A light flick of his fingers, and the dozens of fireballs crowding the empty air came down all at once. BOOOOOOM—!! The flames swallowed one another and swelled into a massive firestorm, and the two goblins evaporated without even the time to scream, leaving not a trace behind.

A moment later the fire pulled back, and the whole of the first floor lay scorched black. Where the goblins had stood, nothing remained but an enormous crater, as if a meteor had struck the stone.

A message rose before Woojin's eyes.

"......?"

Woojin blinked.

"It can't even assign a proper rank?"

In that instant, a bell tolled through the whole of the Tower.

Woooong—

Woooong—

Woooong—

Every floor. Every lobby. Every hunter's gaze turned, all at once, toward the empty air.

A crimson system message, the first of its kind anyone had ever seen, rose into view.

The lobby stirred at once.

"De... Dekaron?"

"Who the hell is that?"

"A new record? On Floor 1?"

"You're telling me a first-floor record just got announced to every floor in the Tower?"

A short while later, the messages rose before Woojin again.

Messages kept surfacing without a pause, until Woojin's head was on the verge of spinning.

Huh?

S-Rank...?

As far as he knew, the Tower's clear ranks ran from D-Rank to A-Rank. It was not only Woojin. Everyone believed the same.

So the highest rank wasn't A. It was S?

He had never known that.

Then... if that's the case, does this count as a record update too?

South Korea had eaten through every floor below the sixty-first, shaving each one, little by little, up to an A-Rank until nothing remained that could still be refreshed. That was why the nation had been forced to stake lives on climbing the highest floors. But if a record could be updated with an S-Rank—

Couldn't they clear every floor over again, starting from the first, and add still more time to the Grace Period?

The line of thought carried itself forward. What caught was that he had just been given an S-Rank without knowing the exact conditions required to receive one.

Setting that aside—I should check the status window first.

A first clear of Floor 1 was known to bring a climber to level 2. His level had leapt to 15 in a single stroke. The bonus experience that came attached to an S-Rank had to be enormous. Ordinarily, once the next floor blocked you, you raised your level by grinding repeat clears—but at this rate, the grind looked unnecessary.

The gold said the same. A Floor 1 ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clear paid 100 gold, and 1,000 had come in. Tenfold, by the look of it.

Gold is only paid on a first clear, so grinding for it would be pointless.

He pressed the newly acquired trait and looked.

Ah. So that's what it was.

Woojin called up the formulas of other magics he had known in his previous life. Perfect arrays. A perfect flow of mana.

Nothing happened.

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

...As expected.

In this world, it seemed, only magic learned from a skill book could be cast. He was not certain, but this incomprehensible Tower appeared to have warped the laws of physics, so that a spell one had not learned simply would not activate.

In that case—

Climbing the Tower, gathering gold, and buying other skill books will have to come first.

Magic skill books were ruinously expensive. Lightning, the skill after Fireball, cost a full 3,000 gold. So nobody bought it. From where Woojin stood, though, it was a price he could pay. An S-Rank clear paid gold at ten times the rate. The second floor's original clear reward was 200 gold. Clear that floor alone, add it to what he had just received, and he would have 3,000.

"At this rate... it's more than enough to begin again, isn't it?"

The Tower Management Bureau Situation Room.

Every Tower-monitoring instrument in the room shrieked an alarm at once.

BEEEEEP—!

BEEEEEP—!

"What is the situation!"

The Situation Room Director shouted, his voice sharp with urgency.

"It's a new hunter's record!"

"A first clear of Floor 1?"

"No, sir!"

The reporting staffer's voice shook.

"Floor 1... an S-Rank update."

"......What?"

The air in the room froze solid in an instant.

"Did you say S-Rank?"

"Wasn't A-Rank the highest rank the Tower had?"

"That is what we understood as well."

The staffer swallowed.

"But when we checked the system log... it wasn't that the existing top record was broken. An entirely new rank was created."

Someone let out an empty laugh.

"That's absurd."

"The Tower... made a new rank?"

Then another report came up.

"The clear name is... Dekaron."

The Situation Room Director, silent for a moment, opened his mouth as if he had reached a decision.

"Track him."

"Sir?"

Woojin came to a stop before the entrance to the second floor.

"Enter."

Light swallowed his vision. When he opened his eyes, a harsh wasteland stretched out before him, different from the first floor in atmosphere from the very first breath. Rock lay scattered in every direction, and a wind thick with sand blew hard.

A moment later, a system message appeared.

KUUUNG—!

Heavy footfalls carried from far off. Orcs a good two meters tall and then some revealed themselves one after another, rusty axes and clubs in hand.

"Grrrrrk!"

"A human!"

All ten orcs charged Woojin at once.

On an ordinary second-floor clear, the standard was to lure them in one at a time. A head-on fight was suicide. Woojin did not take a single step.

"Ten of them."

If anything, the number felt small. A tiny flame bloomed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over his palm—Fireball, the most basic of spells. But it was not the Fireball the world knew.

At his will, the mana began to rearrange itself.

Compress.

Fwoosh. The great orb of flame shrank instead, down to the size of a fist. In its place, the mana within had been condensed to the extreme.

Spin.

The concentrated mana whirled at tremendous speed, and the fireball began to rotate like something mad. Scarlet gradually took on a blue cast. The heat was fierce enough to warp the very air.

Woojin slowly raised his hand.

Tok.

A flick so light it hardly deserved to be called a throw. The small knot of fire flew into the middle of the orc pack, and the orcs rushed in as if to laugh at it.

"Kahaha!"

"With that little thing!"

The next instant—

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!

A tremendous roar, and the earth turned itself inside out. The blast did not end as a simple detonation. Flame that had been compressed burst outward in every direction and raised a colossal pillar of fire. The ten orcs vanished into the blaze without even the time to scream.

A moment later, all that remained was one vast, blackened crater.

Woojin opened his inventory. His gold stood at 3,000. Exactly right. The corner of his mouth lifted, just slightly.

"Now I can buy it."

He headed straight for the magic skill book shop.

As expected, the heart of the Tower lobby was packed with people. The weapon shop, the armor shop, the potion shop—every one of them full of customers. The magic skill book shop alone was peaceful again today. No. Past peaceful. Dead silent.

The shopkeeper sat with his chin propped on one hand, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Not even a fly in here today.

He let out a long sigh, and in that very moment—

"Good afternoon."

"......!"

The shopkeeper's eyes flew open. He shot to his feet.

"A-a customer!!"

He rose so fast the chair nearly toppled backward, and he folded into a bow that was practically a right angle.

"Welcome, welcome! You've come again!"

"You remember me?"

"Of course!"

The shopkeeper said it as if the question had wronged him.

"Do you have any idea how many customers this shop gets?"

"......"

Woojin went solemn in an instant.

"I'm sorry."

"No! That isn't what I meant!"

He waved his hands in a fluster.

"It's just... I don't have a choice but to memorize the faces."

"......"

"I still remember last week's customer, too."

"You must have had quite a few customers last week, then?"

"......One."

"Ah."

A brief silence settled in. He really shouldn't have asked.

The shopkeeper cleared his throat and turned the subject aside.

"What brings you in today?"

"One Lightning skill book, please."

"...Pardon?"

The owner's expression locked where it was.

"Lightning."

"......Lightning?"

"Yes."

"Do you... do you know how much that costs, saying that......"

"The one that's 3,000 gold."

"......"

"......"

"......One moment."

The shopkeeper dug a finger in his ear.

Did I hear that wrong?

"I'm sorry, but could you say that one more time?"

"The Lightning skill book. Three. Thousand. Gold."

"......"

This time, he had heard it properly.

He's insane.

Skill books past Fireball almost never sold. Most people learned a single Fireball, climbed the Tower's lower floors, and gave up. Even those lucky enough to push a few floors higher wore themselves out on the unfairness of it in the end and switched to another class—far more often than not.

A customer who bought Lightning...

He searched his memory.

When was the last time...?

No matter how he thought, nothing came back. It was possible there had never been one at all.

The shopkeeper asked, carefully.

"By any chance..."

"Did a party provide the gold?"

"No."

"Then a guild..."

"No."

"Don't tell me..."

The owner's voice shook.

"By your own strength..."

"That's how it went."

"......"

The shop went quiet.

The shopkeeper looked back and forth between Woojin's face and the gold in his hand. It really was exactly 3,000. He muttered, his expression blank.

"A mage... this much gold, alone..."

Then he came back to himself and scrambled into the display case in a fluster.

"Please wait just a moment!"

He brushed away the dust. Opened a box. Brushed the dust away again. With great care, he drew out a single skill book.

"......I haven't taken this out in a very long time. The dust has piled up a bit."

Woojin let out a short breath of a laugh.

"It wasn't selling, I take it."

"It wasn't."

The shopkeeper smiled, bitter.

"To be honest... I never once thought this would sell."

He added, stroking the skill book,

"Even so, I kept it on display. I thought that someday, someone might come looking."

Woojin said nothing and held out the 3,000 gold. The moment the pile of coins rose onto the counter, the shopkeeper's hands trembled, just slightly.

"Thank you."

"Come on. What's there to thank me for?"

"......Truly. Thank you."

It was not simply that he had come into a fortune in gold.

For the first time—

a customer had walked into his shop to learn the next spell.

© Pocham #1lyo7