Hidden Achievement Unlocked

Three million won, gone in a blink.

"...Hah?!"

Ha Dohyun nearly jumped out of his skin. Good lord. Had he ever encountered anyone this relentless?

As a rule, anyone who felt the need to insist they weren't dangerous was, without exception, the most dangerous person in the room.

...Don't tell me he's planning to hunt me down and kill me.

Anyone who'd watched that forum post go up in real time and still called it the right thing to do was clearly not operating with a full deck.

"Oh no. It was all a trap."

The realization finally landed. Even the offer to meet and treat him to a meal had been bait. The Sword Emperor was, apparently, furious.

"Guess the collaboration brand's going to take a little longer than I thought."

...Still, he wasn't all that worried. His EX-rank artisan ability was the real deal. Once the Sword Emperor cleared the 40th Floor and had no choice but to admit it, he'd be the one clinging even harder.

"Right. For now, climbing the Tower comes first."

He muted the notifications for the time being and set about preparing to enter the Tower. First order of business: opening the marketplace and stocking up on expensive materials.

He burned through most of the remaining eighty-five million. The first day was just the tutorial anyway — nothing but hitting a punching bag. Most people skipped it entirely, if the comments on his post were anything to go by.

"Heh. Hidden pieces are always in the tutorial. That's just how it works."

The comment section only made him more certain. For now, he'd try crafting a single skillbook pushed to the absolute extreme of offense.

"Which means it's the Monomolecular Sword again."

The Monomolecular Sword was simple enough — you just had to refine the property of sharpness to its absolute limit. Every other combination, though, he'd have to discover on his own. In a perfect world, he'd have wanted a balanced kit: offense, defense, movement and evasion, detection. But that all cost money, and even experimenting wasn't cheap. He'd at least given the Monomolecular Sword a try using a scrap of five-hundred-thousand-won leather.

"What? Only ten minutes?"

He'd used a fifty-million-won carving knife and five-hundred-thousand-won leather, and that was all he got.

"Tch. So the materials just aren't that good?"

Nothing you could buy on the Korean marketplace was what you'd call high quality. If the materials had actually been decent, there was no way an EX-rank ability would've produced a measly ten-minute skillbook. Anything you could purchase with won was, by definition, cheap stock. The real goods only traded overseas, in Points — and even then, the United States and China vacuumed up most of it. Using a foreign marketplace meant setting foot on that country's soil, and leaving the country was banned outright. As things stood, Ha Dohyun had no way of getting his hands on materials like that on his own.

"...Tch."

A shame. He picked up a weapon from the marketplace while he was at it — a wakizashi, a short Japanese blade, about a foot and a half long.

A Japanese sword, of all things? ...It was a little cheaper, that was all.

"Mm."

Ha Dohyun closed his eyes for a brief, solemn moment.

"That's right. The nation's on the brink of collapse. Gotta save money."

Buying it cheap was basically looting Japan. ...He had paid for it in won on the domestic marketplace, but still. Anyway.

"Hoo."

He steeled himself and took his place in the center of the room. Time to enter the Tower.

The Tower stood in each nation's capital, but hunters could ignore physical distance and enter through the system. The usual approach was to push the highest floor one level at a time, one day at a time; once you hit a wall, you dropped back down to farm Points on the lower floors.

"Tower entry. Tutorial."

A faint weightlessness washed over him as he closed his eyes.

A sea of green grass stretched to the horizon. Directly ahead, a single red punching bag hung from a steel pole.

"Ohh."

Ha Dohyun opened his eyes and looked around. It was genuinely strange — a green prairie with a red punching bag sitting in the middle of it.

"Grassland map. And they said the punching bag ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠registers as a monster."

Plenty of researchers had reached that conclusion. A scoreboard hung from the steel pole holding the bag.

"So this is the damage meter."

He clenched a fist and drove it into the bag as hard as he could.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud. Thud.

A few more hits, and he still couldn't crack twenty.

"Hoo."

He drew the wakizashi and gave the bag a casual swing. A heavier thud, and the scoreboard updated.

"Yeah, that's about a person's height in numbers."

So what would happen if he brought an S-rank skillbook into it? An innate S-rank skill that cleared 10,000 on this bag was considered outstanding.

"...It's a shame, but it is what it is."

EX-rank or not, he wasn't a combat class. Apparently he had to burn a separate S-rank skillbook just to compete. He activated the Monomolecular Sword.

THUD!

The number jumped impressively the moment the blade connected. And yet—

"Huh?"

...Honestly, he was a little disappointed. Thud. Thud. Thud. He hit it a few more times, and the bag still looked more or less fine.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. How is this leather so thick?"

No matter how hard he swung, the blade wouldn't actually cut. If it was supposed to sever molecular bonds, shouldn't it be able to slice through anything?

"Tsk. Is there another way?"

Ha Dohyun reached into the knowledge sitting in his head. Combat-class hunters awakened with fighting instincts and combat sense already installed. Production hunters, on the other hand, absorbed knowledge and craftsmanship in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠single rush.

"Alright. Let's try a different approach."

Swinging at it wasn't working. Slow, careful work, though — that he could do.

"...Hmm."

He stared at the bag for a long time. And then things he hadn't been able to see before began to surface: the flow of mana itself.

...Ah. So that's what it was.

The method had been wrong from the start. This wasn't something you could just brute-force with an S-rank skillbook. While he was at it, he drew the carving knife from his coat. Very slowly, he began to work the weak point. He worked the weak point.

Ssshk—

Almost the way he'd engrave a skillbook. As the blade sank in, he twisted the flow of mana along with it.

The number appeared at once.

"...?"

Ha Dohyun flinched. What kind of score was that supposed to be? At this point it looked like he'd knocked the punching bag out cold.

A strange thought crept in. They'd said the punching bag was a monster. Wait. Did that mean if he took it down, he could take the leather with him? It was even pre-processed already — which made it perfect material for a skillbook.

...Should I skin it and take it?

By the rules, any byproduct a hunter obtained from killing a monster in the Tower belonged to the hunter. And yet not a single person had ever walked out of here with punching-bag materials. Of course they hadn't — bringing the thing down was supposed to be impossible. Nobody had even thought to try looting it.

...Alright. Let's just peel the hide and take it with us.

With that, Ha Dohyun began carefully cutting away the punching bag's outer leather. He steadied his breathing and focused. The result: a perfectly skinned red punching-bag hide. An enormous haul, as far as skillbook materials went.

"Ah, right. I should take a picture."

He glanced at the scoreboard. No matter how he looked at it, it screamed photoshop. "Whatever." The people who wanted to believe it would believe it, and the ones who didn't, wouldn't.

Click!

He had no intention of leaving it as an official record, though.

"I'm not an attention-seeker."

A photo, just in case — the way the first climbers had documented their achievements. Right after the Tower appeared, the S-rank hunters had apparently swept every floor for first-clear rewards. Cheap bastards, honestly. Just because you got there first, you take every reward?

"Not like I can scoop up the dirt and take that too."

A petty streak of spite flared up. He started cutting away what was left of the steel pole, roots and all, and packing it up. The carving knife had cost fifty million, so he used the wakizashi instead. Thanks to the Monomolecular Sword, it sheared through little by little — though the pole didn't seem to be ordinary steel. It was hard enough that the wakizashi's edge was wearing down fast.

"Ugh. I just bought this today."

Mm. Cheap Japanese junk, after all.

"Heh heh!"

Ha Dohyun felt a quiet swell of pride. Sure, the training room counted as cleared the moment you walked out. But he was fairly certain nobody had ever actually killed the punching bag.

"So I'm the first?"

An achievement actually popped.

"Wait, for real?"

Ha Dohyun was mildly stunned. ...Was it possible that not a single person had ever killed the punching bag in the tutorial? Hold on. Then that meant—

"Don't tell me I just did something even the rankers couldn't?"

The conclusion arrived on its own.

There was even an achievement reward. And not a single option on the list was ordinary. The first two in particular would have made anyone else's eyes roll back in their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠head. A random A-rank skillbook was the equivalent of minting one extra A-rank hunter. Sell it overseas and you'd pocket a serious number of Points.

"Do I even need that?"

He could keep making skillbooks anyway, even if they only lasted ten minutes. Short duration, high material cost — that was the only catch. Both of those, pass.

The third was straightforward: 100,000 Points.

"...Mm."

Given South Korea's current situation, 100,000 Points carried enormous weight. But it was still a one-time payout. Not having 100,000 Points right this second wasn't going to open a Gate in Seoul. Plugging a deficit of over ten million Points required a fundamentally different approach.

"Now, if it were a million Points, that might be a different story."

...He was fairly sure this made him a person of no conscience, but.

"Ah! Wait — is a million Points actually not an option?"

Could he just carve in an extra zero and pick 1,000,000 Points instead? Fine, skip the conscience — at least keep the patriotism.

"Damn. There's no room."

There wasn't enough space to carve in another digit. There might have been just enough to squeeze a 1 onto the front, but—

"Tsk. I don't think this is going to work at all."

That was the feeling he got. The moment he brought the carving knife close, he could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tell: this was a different texture from his status window.

"Because it's not mine, maybe?"

That might be it. Who knew. If the ability developed further down the line, it might become possible. No reason to sit here fussing over it, though. There would be other chances to earn Point rewards from achievements.

Which left the last option. He'd had his eye on it from the very beginning, honestly.

"The Point Shop, huh."

The only nations with national-level access were the United States and China. Beyond that, a handful of individual VIPs from other countries could get in, and that was it. If he picked this—

"...I'd be the only person in the country who can use the shop?"