The Owl
Somewhere in Seoul.
The server management room of the abandoned National Central Library.
Crunch. Crunch.
A man sat chewing gum.
His name was Yoon Tae-shik.
Age: forty-eight.
A former police profiler, he was the guild master of Owl.
His gaze stayed fixed on the whiteboard bolted to the wall.
At its center, a single name was written.
★ Wandering Merchant ★
Beneath it, every line of his conversation with Jang Cha-yul had been transcribed without omission.
He had recorded it.
Wandering Merchant… just who the hell are you?
The skill at setting the board was no joke. Simply calculating the TC that existence had raked in so far produced an astronomical figure. And the goods they offered? Items that could fairly be called the work of the very gods who had turned this world into a ruin.
But…
Yoon Tae-shik recalled Jang Cha-yul, the one who claimed to act as that existence’s agent. The tone of her voice, the microscopic lag when choosing certain words, her reaction speed to specific questions—every detail remained etched in his mind.
An occupational disease of sorts.
He slid open his notebook.
Jang Cha-yul
Voice pattern: Stable. Almost no emotional fluctuation. Suggests either rigorous training or a situation free of deception.
Vocabulary: Logical, concise. No unnecessary rhetoric or emotional appeals. Goal-oriented disposition.
Decisive clue: “The leader needs to focus on climbing the tower…”
Climbing the tower…
From that alone, Jang Cha-yul was clearly an Ascender.
Which meant the Wandering Merchant was almost certainly an Ascender as well.
Probably the fourth floor.
The anonymous poster of the earlier partner-recruitment notice had been on the fourth floor. The odds pointed there.
Hmm. Or maybe…
They might have obtained something special—something like the Seraphim’s Vision Owl possessed.
Ptooey.
The instant he spat his gum onto scrap paper—
“Hyeong-nim!”
The iron door of the management room slammed open and a young guild member burst in, gasping for air. Core member, former hacker, callsign Shadow.
“What’s all the noise?”
Yoon Tae-shik furrowed his brow and asked without heat. Ordinary crises never moved him.
“Th-there’s a fluctuation in Seraphim’s Vision!”
“That so?”
His reaction remained flat. An artifact usable once a month. Data shifts were routine. Shadow was not the type to panic over a handful of Ascenders dying or changing floors.
“What kind?”
“Remainers on the fifth floor just increased by six.”
“That so?”
Only then did Yoon Tae-shik’s eyes shift by a fraction. To him, any movement among Ascenders on the fourth floor and above was high-value intelligence.
He slowly crushed out his cigarette and walked to the chamber where Seraphim’s Vision was installed. He had a habit of releasing fragments of its data to the community.
“…You’re right. A party just cleared the fifth floor.”
Meaningful news. A month earlier only four Ascenders had remained on the fifth floor. Now another full party had broken through—meaning one more group was ready to attempt the sixth.
“Posting again this time?”
“Naturally.”
“Then, Hyeong-nim.”
Shadow spoke carefully.
“From this post onward, how about we change our approach a little?”
“Approach?”
“Yes. The way the Wandering Merchant does it.”
Yoon Tae-shik paused.
“We put a mark like ★Owl★ in front of every title and start branding. Looks far more professional than pure anonymity, and it stamps our guild into people’s heads. Once we’re famous, the people who want to buy from us will come—and the high-tier informants who want to sell will seek us out first.”
“Hmm.”
After a brief silence the corner of Yoon Tae-shik’s mouth curved upward.
Not a bad idea at all.
A short while later a post appeared on the community.
[Title] ★Owl★ Breaking News. Another Party Has Cleared the Fifth Floor!
Author: Yoon Tae-shik (4th Floor)
Greetings, fellow Ascenders.
This is Owl, the information guild that keeps its eyes open for truth amid the Tower’s darkness.
As many of you know, the fifth floor—Ash-gray Avalon—is called the Wailing Wall. When we last confirmed the numbers a month ago, twenty Ascenders had challenged the floor; ten of them still lived. Six of those ten had already forced their way onto the sixth floor.
This morning, however, a dramatic change shattered the stalemate.
A new party of six has broken through the fifth floor!
We do not yet know their identities, but every new vanguard party can only improve the information available to all Ascenders. How far will these six new stars climb? What relationships will they form with the existing powerhouses?
Owl will watch and record every step.
All information inside the Tower is power. We intend to share that power with you.
P.S. We welcome every inquiry—purchase or sale of information, tracking of specific individuals or guilds, hidden-piece intel, and more. Absolute confidentiality guaranteed. Guild recruitment is always open; those confident in information warfare are encouraged to apply.
Views exploded within minutes and the post seized the top of the board. The comment section burned hot.
And that post was also read by Hyun Si-woon’s party, who had just exited the Tower and were heading back toward Eden Camp.
Outside the Tower.
A ruined city under a setting sun.
“Haaah.”
Hyun Si-woon stretched his arms overhead.
“Let’s rest a bit before we move.”
At his word the members each found a chunk of collapsed masonry, sat, and started drinking water.
Exactly one week.
As planned, they had perfectly cleared the fifth floor—Ash-gray Avalon—and returned.
Name:Hyun Si-woon
Age:20
Weapons:Sword, Spear, Shield, Bow, Blunt Weapon, Staff
Floor:5
⚡ Strength:19
💨 Agility:19
❤ Stamina:22
🛡 Endurance:19
👁 Sense:20
Job:None
Skills:Fire Bolt, Healing Light, Guardian Barrier
Hyun Si-woon checked the window and allowed himself a satisfied smile. Once again every stat except Stamina had risen by one.
Each party member receives 100,000 Tower Coins.
That confirmed the pattern.
Second-floor clear: 100 TC.
Third-floor clear: 1,000 TC.
Fourth-floor clear: 10,000 TC.
Fifth-floor clear: 100,000 TC.
Exactly one order of magnitude higher each floor.
While they rested and reviewed their windows—
“Whoa.”
Jang Cha-yul’s sudden exclamation cut the quiet. Her eyes were locked on the community window floating in the air.
“Si-woon, holy crap! Check this community post!”
Excitement and shock tangled in her voice.
“Huh?”
Hwang Dae-un turned while still drinking water.
“Noona, find something fun again?”
“Fun doesn’t cover it. This is goose-bump level.”
She gestured urgently.
“The Owl people already know we cleared the fifth and posted about it. Just now! How the hell did they find out?”
“What?”
Every pair of eyes except Hyun Si-woon’s went round.
“That’s impossible. We haven’t even been out of the Tower for an hour.”
Baek Yeon-ho sounded genuinely baffled.
So it was them.
Hyun Si-woon marveled, not for the first time, at Jang Cha-yul’s habit of combing the community even during rest breaks. At the same time the word “Owl” made him flinch. He opened the community window himself and found the post she meant.
They’re for real.
Below the text a clean table even listed the current Ascender distribution by floor.
How do they know this?
They had to possess something—something exclusive, the way his party possessed Lumi. A private information channel no one else could touch.
Useful people.
Inside Hyun Si-woon’s mind the value of Owl Guild climbed vertically.
He could already see the picture.
Yoon Tae-shik.
The man had posted under his real name—probably treating reputation itself as capital—and had begun using ★Owl★ as a signature brand the same way Hyun Si-woon used ★Wandering Merchant★.
They’re moving to monopolize information in earnest.
The more famous they became, the more Ascenders would flock to them. And that would raise the odds of acquiring still more information.
That was the decisive point. Hyun Si-woon possessed unmatched knowledge of the game, yet almost no knowledge of the world outside the Tower of Despair. He knew more than ordinary survivors, but that was the limit.
Hmm.
He decided to keep watching with interest. The thought of contacting them first crossed his mind, yet he judged it still too early.
That night.
National Central Library.
“Cough, cough!”
On a makeshift bed a girl of about twelve years coughed, her face bloodless. Yoon Seo-a, Yoon Tae-shik’s daughter, had fallen ill not long after the world changed.
The doctor dozing at her bedside jolted awake and patted the child’s back.
“It’s all right. Just a light cough.”
“…”
Yoon Tae-shik nodded without a word. He had found the doctor after the collapse and kept him at his daughter’s side in exchange for safe lodging and food.
The reason I climb the Tower.
It was all for his daughter. Rumors of miracles inside the Tower—miracles that made the impossible possible—were the slender hope he still clung to while gathering information every day.
Out of habit he checked the community mailbox.
Hm?
After a long silence a message from Jang Cha-yul had arrived.
The corner of Yoon Tae-shik’s mouth twisted ever so slightly.
Internal circumstances?
His profiler’s instinct stirred.
Ever since forming the partnership with the Wandering Merchant he had met Jang Cha-yul weekly. Between those meetings she had always answered within six hours at the latest.
Yet for an entire week there was nothing.
And now, of all moments, a reply?
Ha. No way…
Lightning forked through his mind. Puzzle pieces detonated into place and formed a single picture.
1. The Wandering Merchant is almost certainly on the fourth floor.
2. External contact was cut for one full week.
3. She herself said the leader needed to focus on climbing the Tower.
4. Today Seraphim’s Vision captured a new six-person party that cleared the fifth floor.
5. At that exact moment Jang Cha-yul finally answered.
Could every one of those facts be coincidence?
Yoon Tae-shik did not believe in meaningless coincidence. Everything connected; finding the links was his profession.
He walked to the whiteboard, uncapped a marker, and wrote beside the name ★Wandering Merchant★ a new phrase.
5th-floor clear party = ?
Under the question mark he drew an equals sign without hesitation and wrote again:
★ Wandering Merchant ★
A breathtaking hypothesis. Yet every scrap of circumstance supported it.
If the hypothesis were true, this was no ordinary piece of intelligence for Owl.
It was a golden opportunity.
The sixth floor…
Owl still had no line of contact with the party that had already broken the sixth. They had tried; there had been no answer. Those people sat too high, had formed their own closed league, and seemed to regard outsiders as nothing but irritating flies.
But the Wandering Merchant… if it’s them…
They were different. They already maintained a partnership with Owl—limited to goods trading, yes, but still a solid link.
That link had to be used.
Time to make contact.
Yoon Tae-shik began composing a reply to Jang Cha-yul.