The Magic Tower's Spring
“…Are you serious?”
Baek Seo-ha stared back at me, dumbfounded, after hearing the plan.
“You got a better idea?”
“That’s…”
For the first time in a long while, hesitation showed plainly on her face.
It made sense. The plan essentially meant putting my life in her hands.
“Can I really do it…?”
“It’s not a question of can or can’t. You will. If you don’t, I die.”
“…!”
Not that I would actually die, of course. But a healthy dose of pressure did wonders for concentration.
“Weren’t you about to become Sect Leader? Are you really going to fold in a place like this?”
And with that last push, appealing straight to Baek Seo-ha’s pride—
“I will… do it.”
“Good.”
The plan was complete.
“It’s about to come down! Get ready!”
Shin Min-woo announced the barrier had reached its limit. Cracks spread from the edges, widening by the second—
The Mana Shelter is collapsing.
The shelter shattered and broke apart into countless fragments. Wind tore at my skin like it meant to flay it, and blades of sword energy rode the gusts. I narrowed my eyes and readied the operation.
I’m counting on you, Seo-ha.
With how far you’ve come, you’re more than capable of this.
“Haaah…!”
Baek Seo-ha steadied her breath. Mana surged into her sheath, and the blade erupted free in an explosion of force.
To reach that knight, I need a path cleared first. Any attack from this distance just gets intercepted.
So the one who would carve me an opening—
Baek Seo-ha. That’s you.
It was her, and no one else.
“Blue Dragon Seven Forms…!”
Shrrk—!
The silhouette of a blue dragon flickered into being around her. Proof that her mastery of the Seven Forms had reached its apex.
Kyaaaaaaah!
The azure dragon tore through the wall of sword energy, clearing my path forward.
“Gaecheon—Opening Heaven!”
A single sword strike surged skyward and shattered the blade-storm. In the blink of an eye, the road to the knight lay open.
“Go! Lee Tae-hyun!”
“Thanks!”
See? This is why asking you works.
Smirking to myself, I launched into the open air with everything I had. Baek Seo-ha’s strike had bought me only a moment’s pause from the sword energy—it would come howling back soon enough.
I end this with a single attack.
Before I knew it, the knight and I hung facing each other in the empty sky.
The Knight of the Grand Duke.
A monster born from Yoo Sung-wook’s transformation—and a knight-type monster that, before my regression, had stormed the world alongside the Iron Blood Monarch.
“Thank you, Sung-wook.”
Thanks to you, I’ve gained a great deal. The fact that the bastards trying to kill me were the Advent Church. The fact that they were connected to the Iron Blood Monarch.
And now you’re even handing me experience points on my way out. Generous to a fault.
Think of it as payback for all the garbage you’ve pulled until now.
Flame Soul Moon Blade
The spear of Karma Flame pierced through the enemy.
Fire Pierce: Chain
A little. Or maybe a lot.
KWA-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The relentless chain of Karma Flame thrusts shredded the knight’s body to ribbons.
“Ggiii-ggik…!”
Metal ground against metal, shrieking like a dying scream. I paid it no mind.
KWAANG!
I drove the final thrust home.
You have slain the Knight of the Grand Duke, 'Yoo Sung-wook'.
You have gained 300 EXP!
The instant the kill registered, the cloud of dust settled. In the distance I spotted Baek Seo-ha watching me, letting out a breath of relief. I gave her a light wave.
“Hyeng!”
Shin Min-woo hurled something my way.
“Catch!”
“What the… oh.”
“It’s the flag!”
I caught it on reflex—and there it was, a flag fluttering in the wind.
Now that I thought about it, this was a flag-capture match, wasn’t it?
Grin!
Shin Min-woo, you stylish little rascal. No wonder I like you, kid.
I raised the flag toward everyone else watching the scene unfold.
Everything after that moved quickly.
For one, Yoo Sung-wook’s death was written off as a disappearance rather than a confirmed kill. The Knight of the Grand Duke had vanished without a trace the moment I slew it, so there was nothing to prove Yoo Sung-wook had died. I was the only person alive who knew the knight was Yoo Sung-wook, and that he was dead.
Not exactly a pleasant secret to carry.
Seongun Guild, his former guild, came under audit for drug abuse. The informant, of course, was me. The moment the match ended, I filed a formal complaint using the two bastards showing elixir-addiction symptoms as evidence. They’d lost their carefully groomed rising star and, at the same time, found the very existence of their guild in jeopardy.
Not my problem.
Word had it they’d been forcing elixirs down the throats of hunters drowning in illegal loan debt, then running them through high-rank gates like workhorses. Garbage always gets dragged into the light eventually. The only difference is how long each of them manages to hide.
That goes for you too, Advent Church.
Unfortunately, with Yoo Sung-wook dead, I couldn’t pry out any more information—but not every card in my hand was gone just yet.
I have some breathing room until the next match.
Unlike the Round of 64 or 32, the Round of 16 pitted us against the relatively weak Guardian Guild. Having come this far, I wasn’t about to underestimate them—but a guild that spent its energy on solo celebrity activities wasn’t going to change the outcome.
“Which brings us to why I’m here.”
This was Yeouido—home to towering skyscrapers standing shoulder to shoulder with the 63 Building. And among them:
[Magic Tower — Korea Branch]
The Magic Tower could be thought of as an alliance of mages. Its roots stretched back to the earliest days of human Awakening, when mage-type awakened ones were the most powerful of all. They had gathered to research skills and shield humanity—so the story went.
“The world’s first guild,” as it was called.
The Tower’s main branch stood in England, and its influence had spread steadily since—by now it was no exaggeration to say every top-tier hunter nation hosted a branch.
“Ridiculously huge, every single time.”
A structure like a colosseum stacked layer upon layer. Its sheer scale and elegant silhouette overwhelmed anyone who laid eyes on it. Apparently it had become the landmark every provincial visitor to Seoul simply had to see.
If they only knew what went on inside, they wouldn’t be saying that.
Because the Magic Tower was, well…
“Oh.”
Right on cue, a woman in a Magic Tower uniform came into view. An energy drink clutched in one hand, a textbook titled Magic Theory and the Standardization of Skills II in the other.
“My thesis… my thesis… my thesis… why is he calling me into the lab on a weekend…”
A man with no light left in his eyes.
“Eeheeheek! It’s over! We’re done! The presentation deadline’s closing in and we’ve made zero progress!”
Across from him, two people sat side by side exchanging idle chatter.
“You slept in the lab again? You haven’t been home…?”
“…What’s a home?”
Hm.
Yeah, it was roughly that kind of place. Not unlike the hell commonly known as graduate school.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to come here again either.”
But it couldn’t be helped. If you want to see the tiger, you go into the tiger’s den. To see the Tower Master, you go to the Tower.
Stepping through the entrance, a vast main hall unfolded before me. A mystical, antiquated atmosphere—like stepping into the magic school from that cult-classic film of years past.
“Welcome to the Magic Tower. What brings you here today?”
I approached the reception desk at the center of the hall.
“There’s someone I’d like to speak with.”
“That would be a meeting request, then. Did you happen to schedule an appointment in advance?”
“No.”
“May I have your name? I’ll check the schedule and let you know whether it’s possible.”
The receptionist clattered away at a keyboard, recording something. Somewhat disillusioning, seeing a computer in the middle of all this mystique.
“My name is Lee Tae-hyun. The mage I need to see is Ji Yeon-ha.”
“Yes… Lee… Tae… hyun. And the person you’re requesting a meeting with is… Ji… Ji Yeon-ha?”
Only then did the receptionist, who’d been glued to the monitor, snap her head up. In the same motion, she pulled out her glasses and put them on.
“Hup…!”
She sucked in a sharp breath and shot bolt upright from her seat.
“Ah—hey, hey, don’t do that. Really, don’t.”
“I’m so sorry for not recognizing you!”
“No.”
Anyone watching would think I’d drawn a gun on her for not knowing my face.
“No, seriously, I’m fine, so please stop.”
If someone pulled out a camera and spread the video around, I’d be the one who suffered for it. The surrounding gazes looked ready to converge any second, so I hurriedly stopped her.
“Y-yes, sir! Thank you!”
Getting thanked for doing absolutely nothing to deserve it.
It made me wonder, all over again, how I’d ever lived through reactions like that back in my trash-scoundrel days.
“Anyway—is a meeting with Ji Yeon-ha possible or not?”
“Well… Tower Master Ji Yeon-ha is extremely busy right now, so without a prior appointment it would be difficult.”
“If I book one now, how long until the meeting?”
“Fo…”
“Three days?”
“…Four years from now.”
“……”
And that four-year estimate was assuming an appointment with Ji Yeon-ha could even be secured. She was a hard woman to catch a glimpse of, by any measure.
I knew all this coming in, though.
Once you reached Tower Master, even a dozen bodies wouldn’t be enough. Research, personal engagements, managing and running the Tower, overseas duties… It was no accident that Ah Seo-ah in the previous timeline had botched the Tower’s operations and run away. It wasn’t a position you could hold on raw hunter talent alone.
“Hmm… then could I at least pass along a message?”
“N-normally that’s against policy, but…”
The receptionist looked up at me with glistening eyes.
“I’ll quietly… make sure it reaches her… for you, Tae-hyun-nim…!”
She whispered it, shoulders trembling.
It made me feel weirdly like I’d become some kind of villain, but—message delivered, at least.
“Then…”
“Haah…! I’m losing my mind.”
Purple hair shimmered faintly in the moonlight. A beauty mark beneath her eye, a face of bewitching allure—a woman who wore an air of mystery like a second skin.
Tower Master Ji Yeon-ha.
And right now, she—
“This shit is unfixable. I can’t even look at it anymore.”
—was on the verge of scrapping research she’d poured years of her life into.
No—realistically, letting it go long ago would have been the right call. No matter how she looked at it, the research had no future.
But how easy is it, really, to discard a personal project you’d carried for over a decade without a shred of regret?
“Was it truly impossible? Otherdimensional magic…”
Otherdimensional magic.
Magic from another dimension, exactly as the name implied.
It had been her dream ever since she first awakened as a mage-type hunter, long before she ever became Tower Master—but a wall of reality had blocked her path, and the whole thing now sat on the brink of sinking for good.
The absence of otherdimensional materials. And research funding.
Both were punishing prerequisites.
Otherdimensional materials—substances with properties that overturned natural law itself. And alongside them, a mountain of research funding.
She had spent ten years searching, yet never even glimpsed anything resembling an otherdimensional material. The funding, meanwhile, needed to be poured in continuously, like a blood transfusion—and under her current circumstances, that was simply impossible.
“If I converted my personal research into an official Tower research project, I could use Tower funds, but…”
The moment the thought surfaced, she inhaled sharply and shook her head.
“Phew. I should go get some air.”
She threw a light coat over her shoulders and headed for the Tower’s entrance.
“Ah—Tower Master!”
Just before she stepped outside, the receptionist called her back.
“Yoon-ha, was it? Do you need something from me?”
The receptionist’s name came to her lips naturally. This was the kind of woman who personally hand-picked every member of the Tower, down to the last janitor.
“By the way, you look happy about something. What is it? Don’t tell me—got yourself a boyfriend?”
“Th-that’s not it!”
It was a throwaway tease, but the reaction was far bouncier than expected.
“Hehe… There’s someone I’m a really big fan of, and I actually got to meet him in person today. That’s why.”
“Oh my—someone Yoon-ha is a fan of? Now I’m curious.”
“I was so nervous I think I kept stumbling over my words…”
The receptionist let out a small sigh and got to the point.
“Tower Master. Actually, someone asked me to deliver a message to you.”
“Who? The person you’re a fan of?”
“Yes, ma’am…”
Ordinarily she would have brushed off anything personal outright—but since it was a request from one of her own Tower family, she was willing to let this much slide.
“What is it?”
It would be the usual fan fluff, obviously. I’m your fan, I’m rooting for you, I love you. Ji Yeon-ha’s eyes drifted half-lidded in anticipation.
“‘I have an item that may be able to solve your personal research. On top of that, I have a massive business venture that will resolve your funding problem—so contact me immediately, by any and every means available. Signed, Lee Tae-hyun.’”
“……?”
“…That’s what he said.”
Five seconds was all it took for her eyes to go wide as saucers.