Immortality (1)

"Oh."

Her slender hands clapped together with a sharp, satisfying crack.

"Fucking nice."

The moment she'd stepped into the tower, a translucent window had popped up and told her to draw a trait, so she'd pulled without thinking much of it. And on the very first roll, an S+ had dropped. Immortal, no less. The name alone screamed broken.

Immortality inside the Tower of Trials on Hell difficulty—the place that drove every challenger who entered it straight into the grave. Could there be a more contradictory pairing? No. Could there be a more perfect cheat key?

Hell difficulty or not, how exactly were you supposed to stop someone who refused to die?

I'm set.

This life—finally, things were going right.

Nearly twenty years had passed since she'd reincarnated into this world. Being a man turned into a woman. An overwhelmingly beautiful one at that. Big chest included. All of those were major changes, sure. But the biggest difference from her previous life was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠towers.

One day, four enormous towers had simply dropped from the sky across the world, and from that day forward gates began appearing at random everywhere. People called those four world-altering structures the Tower of Trials. Each one carried a difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hell.

Only those chosen as Awakened could challenge a tower, and even then, only once in a lifetime. You picked your difficulty on the way in, and the moment you stepped back out, your growth was finished. The abilities, traits, and physical limits you'd gained inside locked into place permanently.

And once you left, you could never go back in.

One incredibly important shot—and most people still chose Easy or Normal. It hadn't always been that way. Of course some people had tried Hell at first.

But these days, saying you were going into Hell got you told to check yourself into a psych ward. Too many had tried. Not a single one had cleared even the first floor. Failure meant death.

Easy, by contrast, had a confirmed top floor of ten, and clear guides sold for real money. And yet, she had chosen Hell difficulty.

Born with a pretty face—no, an appearance so overwhelming that "pretty" felt like a pathetic failure of vocabulary—she had any number of easy ways to live comfortably without risking her life. So why Hell?

Because men were just like that. One of the 1,957,383 reasons the average male lifespan ran short, probably.

Anyway. The starter lottery handed out the second she entered had spat out an S+ trait. Would you believe her if she said she'd planned it this far?

Everyone's fucked.

Once she walked out of here, the world would no longer see her as just some pretty girl. The first Awakened in history to clear Hell difficulty. A monster carrying an S+ trait. They'd all bow their heads before her power and presence.

Ahhh.

"Hmm."

Level 1 wasn't strange. Level covered overall physical ability, and every Awakened started at one. Not that she'd ever exercised beyond breathing and rolling over in bed, so her "1" probably wasn't quite the same as everyone else's. Barely a difference, though. What she had instead was luck. An S+ from the jump.

The condition that Immortal only worked inside the tower? Irrelevant. Her whole plan was to grow in here and walk out to dominate the world with that power.

She just needed to pocket the clear rewards for Hell difficulty properly. What mattered were levels, the near-supernatural traits, and whatever gear and treasures she'd pick up along the way.

Once she'd checked everything, she started looking around. It was pitch dark. The only thing faintly visible was the stone floor under her feet. It could have been a stone corridor, or a long cave tunnel.

Pulling up the scraps of info she'd seen online: goblins on floor one were the ironclad rule. Their numbers scaled with difficulty, and on Hard they even changed weapons. Floor one had no boss, which was why some people called it a tutorial. You were supposed to get a basic weapon at the start, too—

…Nothing.

No matter how she looked, no weapon had been given to her.

Because it's Hell…

She accepted it and zipped her training jacket all the way up to her throat. Would goblins—or some other monster—just politely wait for her here? Ahead, pure black darkness yawned open, waiting. Looks like she'd have to push into it herself. Standing still forever wasn't an option.

She took a step forward.

"…"

Nothing happened. Staying as alert as she could for whatever might jump out, she carefully stretched her foot out again—

Thwang—

A sharp sound, and something keen punched straight through her chest. It tore through the massive soft tissue barrier and buried itself dead in her heart.

All that came out was a strangled ugh.

How were you even supposed to describe that feeling? Words failed. If she had to try: death itself had driven clean through her body. She was airborne for a split second before crumpling to the floor. Her ears roared. Every other sense peeled away fast. Her vision blackened from the edges in.

Is this… dying?

The thought had barely formed when—

Her stopped heart kicked back to life.

"Gahk…!"

She could breathe again, barely.

"Hah… hah…! Haaah!"

A ragged, animal gasping she'd never made in this life tore out of her on its own. Inside her chest, a residual ache lingered—like something had been forcibly jammed in and ripped back out—fading like an echo.

"Urgh…"

Whether it was her heart hammering like mad or actual nausea, she swallowed down the vomit rising to her throat and groped at her chest with shaking hands. Fingers found bare skin through the torn fabric. No hole. Restored. But blood came away on her palm.

She stared blankly at her hand, then shifted her gaze to the object on the floor.

…An arrow.

What used to be one, more precisely. It had punched dead center through her heart, and the shaft had already snapped clean in two and fallen to the ground. The break was unnaturally neat—as if the arrow had been pushed out from both sides of her body. Nothing about it looked natural.

She tore her eyes from the arrow and looked ahead.

"…"

She hadn't died. The trait worked exactly as described. Heart pierced, body restored, back among the living. She'd simulated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this scenario in her head. So no problem.

She pushed herself up again. No way that arrow was a one-time thing.

What do I do?

Just tank them and run? She couldn't die anyway.

I could do that, but…

…Could she, actually?

Her knees were shaking on their own. She'd thought tensing would stop it, but the tremor climbed her thighs and flooded her whole body instead. Even knowing she wouldn't die—this wasn't something the brain could just accept.

The overwhelming terror of a heart stopping. Not being able to move a single finger. The hollow certainty that everything was over. An experience she never wanted again. Even when she'd been hit by a car and died in her past life, she'd lost consciousness immediately, so why—

In the middle of that spiral, a sound surfaced. The sound right before the arrow had flown. That taut thwang of a bowstring releasing.

If I hear that, can I dodge?

No idea. Might just be a hope she'd forced into existence out of pure fear. The arrow had hit her heart in the same instant she heard it, so hearing, thinking, then moving her body seemed impossible. But she still had to go forward, and she had no other options. She had to try something.

"Hoo…"

She let out a long, shaking breath. I don't die. She repeated it to herself. It just hurts a little.

"Let's go."

She muttered it without knowing who she was talking to, and carefully put one foot forward. Sprinting blind was beyond her. One step. Another. She poured every scrap of focus into her ears. The sound of her soles on stone. Fabric brushing fabric.

Then—

Thwang—

An arrow punched through her left arm in the same breath as the sound.

"Gyaaah!"

The impact staggered her. She clutched the arm with her free hand, reeled, and slammed into the wall. The corridor wasn't that wide.

"Ah, ahh…! Fuck, that hurts…!"

Arm shot. Not dead. So the trait didn't trigger either.

"Shiiit."

A different kind of agony from a direct heart shot. A searing, brand-hot pain.

"Kh…!"

She hadn't dodged that one. The arrow had been aimed at her arm from the start. Coincidence? Or was something out there lining up shots?

The bowstring snapped again.

Thwang— thuck.

Her thigh this time.

"Aaagh!"

Her leg buckled and her knee smashed into the floor. Again—

Thwang—

An arrow grazed her side.

"Ah, wait! Hold on…! Fucking timeout!"

No answer. Just arrows arriving at a steady interval. One more buried itself in her shoulder.

"You son of a bitch…!"

She spat it through clenched teeth, but her voice shook past any control. It hurt like absolute hell. Arm, thigh, shoulder—every place an arrow had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠punched felt like a white-hot iron rod was being twisted inside the wound. Just kill me already, you—

In that exact moment—

Thwang—

A cold arrowhead drove into the center of her forehead. No time even to feel the pain before consciousness snuffed out.

"Hah!"

She jerked upright like someone hauled out of deep water, eyes flying open. Was the pain real? Or was her brain just overachieving at remembering and tricking her? Either way, a residual sting still crawled through her body. What was certain: every arrow that had been stuck in her was gone.

And rising with that certainty—rage.

…You're dead.

Archer goblin, some other monster, or just a trap—didn't matter what was loosing these arrows. Odds were she'd die again first. Didn't care. You're still dead. You want a mutual kill? Guess who actually ends up dead?

You.

That was the fixed ending.

She shoved herself upright and kicked off the floor.

"Shoot more! I'll just come back to life, you bastaaaaard!"

She sprinted full tilt into the dark.

At that same moment, a translucent message appeared simultaneously before Awakened across the entire world, Korea included.

"…Again?"

"God, the tower's such a drama queen."

"Wonder what kind of lunatic it is this time."

The world's reaction was nowhere near awe or excitement.

"Who cares. They're dead soon anyway."

"Been quiet for a while, so I figured."

"Yeah, that's why they went for it."

Similar conversations played out across the globe. And yet, as always, a few people still entertained the "what if."

"But… what if they clear it?"

In the break room of a mid-sized Korean guild, a young woman sitting off to one side asked the question out of nowhere. Short bob cut to her jawline. Her face still held a touch of youth, but her eyes were sharp.

"What happens if they clear it?"

The middle-aged hunter sitting across from her snorted immediately.

"They never will."

"It's just the first floor."

"Just? Not a single human being has walked out of that 'just' first floor alive. You really think it's that easy, want to bet me?"

The woman didn't answer. She just quietly looked up at the text floating on the screen.

That word—attention—scraped at her strangely. It felt less like a suggestion and more like a warning to prepare for something that would one day arrive for certain.

"Even clearing floor one would be huge. Every guild would fight to recruit them."

"The clear intel alone would be worth a fortune."

Listening to the other hunters talk, the woman murmured almost to herself.

"I hope they clear it."

"…Why?"

"The world's getting uglier by the day. Gate Breaks keep increasing, too."

Gate Break. The disaster that hit when a gate collapsed from failed clear or prolonged neglect, spilling the monsters inside into the real world. The woman had lost her family to a Gate Break at six years old.

The middle-aged male hunter seemed to know her history. He was quiet for a moment before speaking.

"…Breaks have been more frequent than they used to be, yeah."

As research into gates advanced, a systematic classification had become possible. Broadly speaking, the consensus held that they weren't far off from the Tower of Trials difficulties—Easy, Normal, Hard.

Of course they refined it further into ranks the way hunters ranked traits, and the hunters capable of clearing those ranked gates got B-rank or A-rank labels of their own.

Which was exactly why everyone eventually ran into the same question.

Did gates on par with Hell difficulty exist?

Maybe they simply hadn't been found yet. Maybe someday a gate would appear that only an Awakened who had survived Hell itself could face. The Hell difficulty Tower of Trials wasn't sitting there for no reason.

"If truly impossible monsters start pouring out…"

"Then… anyone left will be praying. Praying someone walks out of Hell difficulty alive."