Chapter 8
[A Summary of Our Fire Chicken's Latest Climb]
The 16th floor had the clackers, the 17th that damn cow-headed bastard, the 18th the soulless dwarf geezer, the 19th that assassin-elf bastard, and the 20th Jaws, the old man of the sea.
Let's skip those for now.
(A pic of Joo So-jeong wearing only a T-shirt and short shorts, with no underwear on at all)
You stupid old-fart wizard bastards!! If you're gonna die, at least use water magic before you do!!!
-Seriously, does it make any sense that she didn't even break a sweat doing taekwondo on the clackers and the dwarf geezer?
-Man, the world is harsh these days.
-Does that mean Mimir-chan saw Fire Chicken all wet?
-Oh, wait, I guess so?
-Aaargh! Share the picture!!
-(Polar bear, you die if you mess around! emote)
[A pic of Fire Chicken all wet]
(A pic of Joo So-jeong just emerging from the seawater on the 20th floor, her skin visible through her clothes)
Look before the mods take it down.
Our Fire Chicken's firepower must be stronger than I thought. Her clothes dried almost as soon as she used it.
-I respect you, sir.
-You can see right through her clothes, but a drawing just barely covers the important bits!!
└That, my friend, is the 'aesthetics of concealment'!
-(Heh-heh emote)
-So why did that Jaws bastard die without chewing her pants off and ripping them up?
└Dude.
└Dude.
└Please hold your breath for just three hours.
"Wow~ Our So-jeong's amazing! A constellation is already interested in you after only reaching the 20th floor!"
Joo So-jeong's body swayed back and forth at Han Mi-reu's excitement on her behalf, and she went limp, whimpering feebly.
The viewers had mentioned the word 'constellation' before, too.
"But what is a constellation?"
"Oh, right. You're a special class, so you should know the basics, shouldn't you? It's easiest to think of constellations as important figures connected to the Towers!"
Some constellations were good for humanity, while others were bad. Apparently, research had even suggested that if they could intervene actively, the worlds they lived in might never have recovered and could have been destroyed long ago when the Towers descended.
But perhaps the Towers around the world placed restrictions on them. It was said to be difficult for constellations to even communicate their intentions to anyone other than special classes. To speak with them, you apparently had to build up your standing by climbing other Towers, too.
"But do special classes all start receiving messages at different times?"
"Hmm... I guess so? I heard one person didn't receive one until they'd climbed a total of 50 floors across the other Towers."
"What about you, Mi-reu?"
"Ten floors."
Was Han Mi-reu incredibly talented, or was the Dragon constellation's standing on another level? Either way, she was definitely amazing.
-Come to think of it, I don't remember the class name, but there was a special class whose constellation told them to massacre an entire village and offer it as tribute.
-Holy shit, what happened?
-They said, 'Are you insane?' cut ties, and quit climbing the Tower.
-They were doomed the moment they openly showed their greed.
"......"
"? What is it?"
"I just got curious about what people whose species changed look like."
Apparently, some people had turned into orcs or beastfolk. It made her a little curious.
"Uh... but people might complain that it's an invasion of their right to privacy..."
"Is that so? Then let's do something else. I think this is the kind of thing they call 'content.'"
"Hmm? What are you talking about?"
"Final... what was it? I want to recreate all the deaths from one of the seasons of that series. With me, of course."
"I've got photos I took with my friends while climbing the Tower, so let's look at those together!!"
-Oh, pictures are fine, I guess haha
-Now's your chance to make an impression.
-There are surprisingly lots of people who've changed in all sorts of ways. It never gets boring.
-Let's go to the housewarming party~
Mi-reu dragged So-jeong along, saying she had the photos saved in an album.
Considering the kinds of deaths in that Final-whatever series, neither Han Mi-reu nor the viewers would want to watch a streamer(?) right in front of them die in all sorts of ways in real life, even if she could revive.
Snuff-film addicts might egg her on to try it, but Han Mi-reu's stream only had (probably) wholesome viewers, so there was nothing to worry about.
"...Hmph."
So-jeong, who couldn't die, wasn't angry.
She was just sulking.
"Are we there yet?"
"Kehk! Just wait a moment! I'll find it soon!"
-How much stuff does she even have piled up?
-Why does it sound like my own closet?
-Fire Chicken eating cake is so cute.
Joo So-jeong cut herself a piece of the chocolate cake Mi-reu had brought her, saying she could eat while she waited. As she ate, she listened to construction-site-like noises coming from beyond the door as background music.
"Found it!! This is the one!!"
Perhaps her physical abilities as an Awakened person came in handy, because it didn't take long to find the album.
The only catch was that Mi-reu herself was a complete mess.
When they opened the album, whose cover had even been laminated for protection, they found photos of Mi-reu with all sorts of people.
More precisely, people who 'didn't look human.'
The first photo to catch their eye showed Mi-reu with four people who looked like mythical creatures disguised as humans.
"These are the special classes I made friends with in China! They're a Qilin, a Phoenix, a Black Tortoise, and a Yinglong! I first met them when the Four Fiends were running wild!"
"Hmm..."
There was a man with a single horn and a cow's tail, a woman wearing flashy clothes and sunglasses, a large dark-skinned man, and a woman with scales on her skin and wings on her back.
"...What are they doing now?"
"Running China. The four of them, together."
"What?"
"The Four Fiends wrecked the government and military bases, then said they'd kill every good person. The four of us took them down together. Of course, once the CCP collapsed, the four strongest people in China naturally ended up running the country instead!"
-The funny thing is, the four of them running things is way better than when the CCP bastards were in charge lol
-I lost it when I heard they got rid of the CCP leadership and the People's Liberation Army just because they were in the way when they were trying to kill immortals
-They cleaned house for them because they were in the way~ hahaha
Apparently, after the CCP and the People's Liberation Army collapsed and the Four Fiends were defeated, life actually became much better than before. They ended discrimination against ethnic minorities, got rid of a bunch of unnecessary dams, and became more active in their relations with other countries. Their international reputation kept improving. In a way, they had restored the people's freedom.
The dams were really just a practical problem because they cost so much to maintain. Besides, magic-stone fuel could replace them now, even without the dams.
"But things got a little troublesome after that. The four of them divided up the country and ruled together, and then some idiots started complaining that they weren't getting a bigger share."
"They're useless."
-That's what you get with people who are greedy by nature.
-I heard they cleaned house because people kept trying to drive a wedge between the four of them, even though they were best friends.
-Anyway, China's all cleaned up now, so that's good!
Looking at the next photo as she read the viewers' reactions, So-jeong saw a muscular figure with green skin.
He was dressed like someone who'd play music at a club to get the crowd hyped.
Han Mi-reu was wearing a similar outfit in the photo, posing right beside him.
-Oh, this idiot lol
-The constellation's a great warrior, but this guy's just a comedian lol
-And then this guy's an orc who's pointlessly good at fighting lol
Judging by the reactions, he seemed to be a pretty funny orc.
What did 'inssa' mean, anyway?
"The next picture is... Oh!"
This time, there was a picture of three people.
Han Mi-reu stood in the middle. On her left was a woman with ghostly pale skin, white hair, deep red eyes like blood, and one protruding fang, looking flustered.
On her right was a cute-looking woman with platinum-blond hair worn straight, a pair of horns, and purple eyes, smiling.
They had one thing in common: they both had big breasts. The woman on the right had the biggest ones, though.
"The one on the left is a vampire, and the one on the right is a succubus! They're the two I'm closest to!"
"Oh... they're pretty."
-Polar bears utterly destroyed
-Aaargh, the Earth is burningggg
-I want to be between them
-Uwoo, ttuya~
-Until the North Pole melts away and the islands are underwater!!!
-Heh-heh.
The viewers' reactions had heated up, too.
She didn't know the details, but the three of them seemed to get along really well.
"Come to think of it... what happened to the vampire? I heard the succubus was helping her parents with work, but..."
"Ah... you mean Sawako?"
When Han Mi-reu mentioned the vampire called Sawako, her expression grew a little sad.
"Sigh... The thing is, that girl was being tormented quite a bit by her constellation."
"What?"
"It kept pressuring her, saying things like, 'Why are you dawdling instead of taking the blood of the strong person right in front of you?' 'Why not make familiars and order them around instead of acting yourself?' 'Why care so much about lowly life-forms?'"
"......"
When she stopped climbing the Tower, the government and even the citizens around her started pressuring her, asking why she wasn't climbing and whether she thought so little of people just because she was a special class. And when they found out she was young and hated fighting people, those government bastards used Awakened people to beat and imprison her, trying to force her to climb the Tower... In the end, I brought her over to Korea, and she transferred right away. Poor Sawako...
-Well, what do you expect from the fucking country of bullying?
-I saw her once before. She didn't have any family and seemed like a little animal, so I felt kind of sorry for her.
-That constellation's a fucking idiot.
-Hey, neighbor. How's the vampire doing these days?
-I heard Japan keeps making a fuss, demanding she be returned?
-She's hiding under the covers, saying she's never going back.
-Of course she doesn't want to go back.
Japan probably wouldn't have accepted her when she transferred, but Han Mi-reu, who was called the strongest Awakened person at the time, took care of it.
It seemed she'd even changed her name to a Korean one, though close friends could still call her by her Japanese name. Apparently, Han Mi-reu and the succubus were that close.
After that, there were the elf and dark elf sisters who rode zebras through Africa, fighting poachers, and a dwarf who worked as the leader of the miners at one of the new mines that had opened after the Towers appeared.
"Are there pictures of the others, too?"
"Tons!"
The introductions to the many other special classes continued.
After seeing so many of them, she found herself a little curious about what they were like in person.