The Fruits of Training (2)

"A Pre-Opening Ticket fragment, huh."

Hmm.

I had no idea what a Pre-Opening Ticket even was.

Still, it was a legendary achievement reward.

So it had to be good, right?

I slipped the black ticket fragment from my hand into my pocket and walked over to the goblins, which were dissolving into drifting ash. Where they had vanished, a single gray stone lay on the ground.

A pebble smaller than the joint of my finger. A D-class mana stone.

It was only Floor 1, and the stone was tiny, so you might be tempted to shrug it off — but each one of these little things sold for a solid ten thousand won.

"A hundred thousand won, just like that."

Dad.

Start looking forward to some premium 1++ hanwoo beef.

I moved straight up to Floor 2.

A forest again.

I expanded my qi perception once more, and picked out twenty goblins among the trees.

Whoosh—

Fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish—

I swept them all away with flying blade winds. Against trash mobs like these, I didn't even feel the need to use the martial arts my Master had taught me.

Twenty lowest-grade mana stones.

Two hundred thousand won.

Pre-Opening Ticket 2/5.

Climbing the Tower was as easy as breathing.

In the blink of an eye, I'd earned four and a half million won.

"So that's what two years of crawling through dreams was worth."

Honestly, this much hadn't even counted as a warm-up. Both the search and the slaughter had been absurdly easy.

Still, climbing any further was out of the question.

The Tower itself imposed the limit on climbing.

Clear Floors 1 through 5 again?

No. Absolutely not. A waste of time.

First, I'd go home to my parents' place.

But before that—

I pulled all the Pre-Opening Ticket fragments out of my pocket and pressed them together into one.

What was there to hesitate about?

"I use it."

"...Huh?"

This was supposed to go well, right?

From the moment the Towers first appeared in 1980 until 2027, only three nations in the entire world had failed to climb their Tower.

Fiji, Kiribati, and Vanuatu.

Those weren't the only countries in the South Pacific, but when three hundred thousand monsters came boiling out of those Towers, every nation nearby collapsed along with them. And it wasn't just the South Pacific — many smaller countries that failed to repel invasions of lesser wyrms and sea serpents perished as well.

The Towers of nations whose entire populations had vanished naturally faded away without a trace. And with that catastrophe, the world embarked on a brutal experiment.

The consolidation — or outright annihilation — of small nations.

But.

A Tower could not be erased by annihilation at human hands, only by a nation falling to monsters. Worse, every country that attempted artificial consolidation was struck with a penalty: the difficulty of their Tower climbs increased.

Exactly three nations received that penalty.

The United States, China, and Japan.

Afterward, the world abandoned artificial consolidation in favor of governing the Towers through binding treaties.

There was even a special clause requiring a nation that failed its clearance to hand over an enormous quantity of mana stones to whichever country cleared the floor in its stead.

But.

South Korea had completed every single Tower clearance without accepting help even once. There were many reasons it had managed that, but the decisive one was the existence of Team Superhuman.

A squad of five A-class awakeners and one S-class awakener.

Quite literally the future of the Republic of Korea. And the man who led that team was an awakener named Cho Sang-hyuk.

People said that Korea's Tower clearances began with Cho Sang-hyuk and ended with Cho Sang-hyuk.

The guarantor of the nation's safety. Cho Sang-hyuk's authority stood higher than the president's own.

But.

Cho Sang-hyuk was worn down to the bone.

"Haaah—"

The Awakened Association Headquarters, built in the very heart of Gangnam.

From its topmost floor, the sound of a sigh echoed out.

He had awakened in the year 2000 and begun climbing the Tower, which meant he'd been at it for a staggering twenty-seven years. He was forty-seven years old now.

From Floor 40 onward, every single climb has put my life on the line. Honestly... it's getting heavy.

Sipping the coffee he'd brewed, he read through a report titled Evolving Strategies for Tower Clearance at Higher Floors.

"Does this ever actually end?"

He'd assembled and led the team out of a sense of duty to protect South Korea, but bit by bit, his spirit was failing him.

Retirement.

That sweet word circled round and round above Cho Sang-hyuk's head.

He spoke to his secretary.

"Our clearance dates keep slipping later and later, don't they?"

The secretary answered in a flat, toneless voice.

"The 2025 clearance was in June. In 2026 it was July. This year, September."

Cho Sang-hyuk fell silent for a moment.

How much longer can I hold out? Maybe I can manage 2028. But 2029? 2030?

Haaah—

Cho Sang-hyuk's sigh rang out, heavy as lead.

"I suppose the day's coming when we'll have to accept help."

"Team Leader..."

The secretary, too, chose his words carefully.

"It can't be helped. Find promising candidates among the new awakeners — the newly registered citizens under Association management. Put out a notice that I'll personally train them."

"...Understood, sir."

As if he weren't already the busiest man in South Korea. Every day he endured brutal training, fought tooth and nail to clear the Tower, and waged war against monsters that wanted nothing more than to end his life.

But the secretary couldn't bring himself to stop him.

Because he had felt, plainly, how desperate Cho Sang-hyuk was.

"The coffee tastes even more bitter than usual today."

And then.

·········?

······??

···???

Pwaaaah—!

Cho Sang-hyuk sprayed the coffee clean out of his mouth.

He doubted his own eyes.

The sweeping city view spilled across his desk was drenched in brown coffee, but he couldn't see any of it.

"Floor 1? A legendary achievement? There was even such a thing?"

His secretary was every bit as stunned.

In twenty-seven years of Tower climbing, he had never once seen that notification. No — search the whole world, and there wasn't a single precedent for it.

"Secretary Kim. Show me the clearance records of the other nations' Towers."

"Yes, sir."

Nowhere was there any mention of Floor 48. Naturally so — Floor 48 was due to open on January 1st, 2028.

"Tower inquiry."

"What on earth has happened here?"

As Cho Sang-hyuk saw it, this was far more than a mere head start on clearing one floor.

Every Tower that had appeared across the globe was identical.

The environment of each floor, the monsters, even the difficulty itself.

When New Year's Day arrived, climbers from every nation charged into the newly opened floor, scouted it, and gathered every scrap of information related to the clearance.

Gathering useful intelligence quickly and efficiently had itself become a measure of national power. Tower intelligence was power — and money.

And yet.

A pre-opened Floor 48?

A floor that could not be found anywhere else on Earth. They now held the chance to set foot first into that uncharted territory.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Thump-thump-thump-thump—

Cho Sang-hyuk clutched his pounding chest. A single ray of light had broken through the dark future that had loomed over him, and his eyes filled with hope.

He snatched up the office phone and dialed. He called, urgent, somewhere far away — and the other party ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠answered as if they'd been waiting.

"Minister. Did you see it?"

—I was just about to call you, Team Leader.

"Do you know what this is?"

—No. The government is still assessing the situation. Given that it started on Floor 1, we're assembling an investigation team focused on newly registered awakeners for now.

"Find out as fast as you possibly can."

—Understood.

Not an established awakener under state management, but a new awakener. What if this person's achievement wasn't a one-off flash? What if no one in Korea had to spend every year of their lives with their hearts in their throats?

Immigration to Korea would surge, of course — and the wealth to be made selling clearance intelligence would beggar imagination.

Cho Sang-hyuk spoke to the powerful figure on the other end of the line like a vow.

"Minister... whatever happens, we must not move rashly."

—Of course.

Cho Sang-hyuk hung up and leaned back into his chair. It felt as though a weight that had pressed on him his whole life had lifted, just a little.

There was still so much to do — the Floor 48 scouting, the clearance conferences, all of it. But what was any of that compared to the burden of survival?

Cho Sang-hyuk gazed at the ceiling and slowly closed his eyes.

"I don't know who you are. But truly... thank you."

The community had gone up in flames.

"So that's the kind of thing it was."

And I'm F-class.

Hmm—

So it was an even bigger deal than I'd thought.

After nodding along to myself, I gathered up my mana stones, stepped outside, and headed for the Climbers' Association.

At the item and mana stone trading counter, I pulled a number ticket and sat down to wait. Before long, a middle-aged man settled into the seat beside me.

"Hey there, big fella. You've got quite a frame on you. What rank are you?"

Asking a man's rank before even his name. The sheer audacity.

So this is the world of awakeners, huh?

"F-class."

"Ooh, yikes. Rough break, that. And that there — mana stones?"

I held up the sack of stones in answer.

"Yep."

"Well, I'll be. That's a fair haul for an F-class. How long since you awakened?"

"Two years."

"Tsk, tsk. Two whole years of scraping that together, huh."

"Something like that."

The man curled the corners of his mouth into a crooked smirk.

"Say, why don't you look into my eyes a moment."

Vmmm—

"......"

A skill — Brainwashing, was it?

The wavelength wasn't particularly strong.

Ah. So he's a mid-grade type, then.

Made sense, really. That was why he tried this here. Of course, such cheap tricks had never once worked on someone who had already mastered the Heaven-Slaying Demon Art — and I was not the sort to sit still and take it, either.

I stared at the man with perfect indifference.

"I said I'm F-class. Do I look easy to you?"

"......Huh? How did you—"

"How did I what?"

Soul-Capturing Art.

The mind-binding sorcery of the martial world.

Vuuuum—

My pupils flooded with violet light.

"How many times have you pulled this little racket before?"

The man's expression went glassy in an instant, and he answered obediently.

"F-five times."

Smack—

I slapped him across the face.

"That's for trying to scam me."

"Thank you for your mercy."

"Now go to the Association and turn yourself in."

"Yes. Of course."

As if possessed by a ghost, the man rose and trudged toward the reporting desk. This was why people needed to watch where they lay down before lying down in life. Sigh. Confess your sins and find the light, my friend.

After converting the mana stones into cash, I deposited it all into my account.

An account that had held barely two million won now held six and a half million.

"Ahh. That's the stuff!"

I headed to the butcher counter at a supermarket nearby.

"Welcome in! What can I get for you?"

I smiled at the friendly owner's booming greeting.

"Two pounds of your best premium hanwoo, please!"

"Coming right up! One moment!"

"Please wrap it up nice and pretty! It's a gift for my parents."

"Well now, a filial son, aren't you? You betcha~ I'll make it purty for ya!"

About time I went home and spoiled my parents a little.