The Golden Tower, Eldorado (1)
Boss defeated: Agares, Gatekeeper of Hell
Underground Floor 2 cleared!
Experience gained: 5,000
Coins obtained: 1,000
Hidden quest completed! Clear Floor 2 within 24 hours!
Item acquired: Ticket to open the Golden Tower, Eldorado
“Ooooh! Five thousand experience points?! I finally hit level 20!”
Park Minsu shouted with delight, clenching his fist so hard it trembled. The thrill of leveling up sent a shiver through his whole body.
“Congratulations. Good thing you listened to me, huh?”
“…Hmph!”
Park Minsu turned his head away coldly, but a faint smile had already started tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Swish—
He glanced down at the golden ticket in his hand and tilted his head.
“So what is this? Eldorado?”
“A place of complete gambling.”
Kim Jun answered in a calm voice.
“Gambling?”
“The Golden Tower, Eldorado. It’s another tower hidden inside the Tower of Trials.”
Kim Jun pointed at the ticket and continued his explanation.
“There are one hundred floors. Once you clear a floor, three doors appear. If you choose one and go through…”
“Then what?”
“The next floor is decided randomly. You might jump straight from Floor 1 to Floor 100, or you might climb one floor at a time. It all comes down to luck.”
Park Minsu’s eyes widened.
“Whoa! So if you’re lucky, you can go straight to the top?”
“Exactly. But you only get ten chances in total. You have to reach the highest floor possible within those ten attempts.”
As he listened, Park Minsu looked back at the ticket. Its golden surface gave off a strange, subtle gleam.
“So that’s why you called it gambling! If you make it to Floor 100, the reward must be amazing, right?”
“That…”
Kim Jun couldn’t answer.
In his previous life, his best record had been Floor 56.
Floor 100 in Eldorado was territory even Kim Jun, with all his regression knowledge, knew nothing about.
“We’ll have to go and see.”
“Then how do you know all this, hyung?”
For a moment, Kim Jun was thrown off by the innocent question, but he quickly answered with perfect composure.
“Ah, I have a skill called Detection. It lets me identify item information to a certain extent.”
He pointed at the golden ticket and explained it as naturally as he could.
“This ticket is giving off basic information about Eldorado. One hundred floors, random movement, ten chances…that sort of thing.”
“Wow, that’s insane! There’s a skill like that too?”
Park Minsu nodded in admiration.
He didn’t seem to doubt a thing.
Haa…
Kim Jun let out a quiet sigh of relief inside.
Sometimes Park Minsu’s innocence was genuinely a blessing.
Because he accepted things without suspicion, Kim Jun had managed to get through moments like this.
But I need to be even more careful from now on.
He steeled himself.
Of course, Park Minsu and the others were all people he could trust. That had been true before his regression, and it was still true now.
But there was one thing he could never reveal.
That he was a regressor.
Why I regressed… how they died…
Kim Jun’s expression darkened.
Memories of the past, brutal and merciless, flashed through his mind.
The moments when his companions fell one by one.
The helplessness of being the only one left standing.
I don’t want to tell them that. I can’t tell them.
He only wanted to show them a future full of hope. This time, he would protect them all, no matter what.
*
“Wahahaha! Let’s go already!”
The instant they emerged from the underground floor and returned to the surface, Park Minsu suddenly shouted.
“Huh? What?”
Kim Jun was still caught off guard when—
Bang—!
Golden light burst forth, and Park Minsu vanished from sight.
“…Seriously.”
Kim Jun laughed in disbelief. Park Minsu had used the ticket immediately.
“I didn’t even get to explain it properly.”
On the surface, Eldorado looked simple, but it was full of traps.
On each floor, you had only ten minutes to defeat the boss. Fail, and you were instantly expelled.
Still, he shook his head soon after.
“Well, it’s fine, I guess.”
Park Minsu usually looked careless and even a little foolish because of his cheerful, scatterbrained manner, but he was still an S-class hunter.
Before the Tower appeared, he had been a veteran who cleared countless high-difficulty gates alongside Kim Jun.
And now that he had reached level 20, that was even more true.
No matter that he was a tanker with low attack power—he could still handle the bosses on Eldorado’s early floors.
What about me, then?
Kim Jun checked his own condition.
Level 50.
He was at the point where he could undergo a second job advancement.
If things had gone according to plan, I should’ve gone to meet Valderion, the warrior job instructor…
But seeing Park Minsu made him change his mind.
His body still hadn’t fully recovered, but Eldorado’s bosses weren’t that formidable.
Black Flame
Rank: EX
Attribute: Fire + Darkness
Effect: Generates black flame that can never be extinguished
Special: Increases damage dealt by all attributes
Stage: 12/1000
And with the ever-active Black Flame having leveled up as well, Eldorado should be easy enough to clear.
“All right. I might as well go in too.”
Bang—!
A flash of golden light swallowed Kim Jun whole, and the scenery around him changed in an instant.
*
Screeeech—
Along with a metallic shriek that seemed to tear at his ears, a brilliant system window unfolded before him.
The Golden Tower, Eldorado
Welcome to Eldorado!
Current location: Eldorado Floor 1
Objective: Challenge your way from Floor 1 to Floor 100
Rule: After clearing each floor, choose one of three doors
System: The floor you move to will be random, depending on the door you choose
Reward: The higher the floor, the better the reward
Attempts: Ten total challenge attempts (currently 1/10)
Good luck, challenger.
A massive circular hall shimmered in gold from every direction.
Beyond the ceiling, he could see a spiral staircase stretching endlessly upward. The sight was grand enough to call to mind the Tower of Babel.
Was it this flashy before I regressed?
But he only allowed himself a moment to admire it before his gaze fixed on the front.
“Kyu?”
“…”
The boss of Eldorado Floor 1: a rabbit.
Literally just a rabbit.
A cute little rabbit with white fur, red eyes, and a tiny body was tilting its head at him.
ElDorado Floor 1 Boss: Pure Rabbit
Level: 1
HP: 100/100
Time limit: 10 minutes
Crackle—
Black Flame rose from Kim Jun’s body.
“Kyuuuuu—!”
The rabbit charged forward bravely, but the moment it touched the black fire—
Crack.
“S-sorry…”
Kim Jun wore a genuinely apologetic look. It had been such an adorable rabbit.
Eldorado Floor 1 cleared!
Experience gained: 10
Please move to the next floor.
In an instant, three doors appeared before him.
Left door
Center door
Right door
Choose one and enter!
The center door shone gold.
The left door was silver.
The right door was bronze.
Kim Jun stared at the three doors, lost in thought.
In his previous life, his highest floor had been 56. The reward he’d received then had been a +5 bonus to his current level.
It hadn’t been bad, exactly, but it had fallen short of his expectations.
What’s waiting on Floor 100?
If he made it to the very top, there would undoubtedly be a reward beyond imagination.
After all, Eldorado was a special place you could only enter once in your life.
Be careful.
Kim Jun sank into thought.
Was there really no method at all? Did he have no choice but to rely purely on luck?
Someone would probably just walk in without a second thought.
Was there any point in agonizing over this?
“Ah!”
There was.
“I’m an idiot.”
Kim Jun slapped his own forehead.
“I could just use the Thread of Ariadne.”
Item Information
Thread of Ariadne
Rank: A
Unique skill: Guides its wearer to the correct path.
The Thread of Ariadne was a mysterious item that didn’t just guide its wearer through ordinary mazes, but precisely led them along the optimal path they wanted, even in the Tower of Trials—and even in reality.
It was only natural that it would work here in Eldorado too.
“Why the hell didn’t I think of this…”
Kim Jun gave a wry smile.
In his defense, when he had first entered Eldorado in his previous life, it had been not long after Han Suin died.
Back then, Kim Jun had been in complete ruin.
The guilt of failing to protect the person he valued most. The emptiness that made everything feel meaningless.
All of it had weighed down on him.
He couldn’t taste his food, no matter what he ate. Even sleep had become a torment of nightmares.
Simply getting through each day had been difficult enough.
He hadn’t had the luxury of worrying about the optimal choice in a place like Eldorado.
He had simply chosen whatever door was in front of him, mechanically, and fought the bosses with the mindset that dying would be fine.
“Hah.”
Kim Jun steadied his heart, opened his subspace pouch, and took out the Thread of Ariadne.
“Lead me to Floor 100.”
The thread spun and turned this way and that before settling on one direction.
The center door.
“Good.”
Kim Jun opened the center door with confidence and stepped inside.
Eldorado Floor 4 entered!
Eldorado Floor 4 boss: Corrupted Mandrake
Level: 4
HP: 400/400
Time limit: 10 minutes
“Only Floor 4?”
For a moment, Kim Jun looked disappointed.
He’d asked to be led to Floor 100, and this was only Floor 4?
But then he shook his head.
No. The Thread of Ariadne has never been wrong.
Thinking back on his previous life only strengthened that conviction.
The first time he’d started on Floor 2, it had looked insignificant too, but at the very next gate he’d leapt all the way to Floor 30 in an instant.
It seemed there was a hidden strategy for reaching the summit of Floor 100—something that wasn’t as simple as climbing one floor at a time, but instead required the correct sequence and conditions.
After all, it’s an item that shows the optimal route to your final destination.
“Kiiiiii—!”
Then a shrill scream rang out from ahead.
A monster in the shape of a giant plant was uprooting itself and approaching him, its whole body stained purple with poison.
It was a corrupted mandrake.
“Shut up.”
When Kim Jun glared at it, the mandrake apparently sensed danger and began firing toxic thorns wildly.
“Kiiiii—!”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!
Dozens of thorns flew toward Kim Jun, but he simply shifted one step to the side with complete ease.
Thunk. Thunk.
The thorns clattered onto the floor where he had been standing. It was a far weaker attack than he’d expected.
“That all you’ve got?”
Kim Jun shook his head in disappointment and walked toward the mandrake.
He didn’t even need to use a skill.
Just one fist.
Crash—!
One ordinary punch was enough to shatter the mandrake’s trunk completely.
Eldorado Floor 4 cleared!
Experience gained: 40
Please move to the next floor.
Three doors appeared again.
And when he opened the left door, as guided by the Thread of Ariadne—
Eldorado Floor 9 entered!
Eldorado Floor 9 boss: Furious Crystal Golem
Level: 9
HP: 900/900
Time limit: 10 minutes
He had arrived on Floor 9.
Floor 1, Floor 4, Floor 9.
The jump between floors is lower than I expected.
Kim Jun looked at the enormous crystal golem standing before him and thought for a moment.
1, 4, 9… it almost feels like there’s some kind of pattern?
A sequence of numbers that seemed to follow a rule.
It was on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach.
…
But Kim Jun was terrible at math.
“I’ll just bulldoze through for now.”
“Gwooooh!”
Thud!
One simple side kick.
The golem’s massive body slammed into the wall and shattered into fragments.
Eldorado Floor 9 cleared!
24
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