Chapter 6
[Title: Is This Heavenly Demon Bastard Korean?]
[Title: Heavenly Demon <<< 100% from that country]
[Title: Our country is doomed.]
[Title: Why can't magic types make the rankings?]
“Hmm.”
After carefully reading all ten pages of the long, informative posts on Wizard Gallery...
It seemed my arrival—the Heavenly Demon—had caused a much bigger stir than I expected.
‘I thought it would become a hot topic, but...’
I hadn't expected things to get this crazy.
I was hoping for a few mild reactions like 'The first-floor Nightmare rankings changed. Seriously? Wow, that's amazing.'
I hadn't wanted the kind of crazed response that went, 'Hey! The first-floor Nightmare rankings changed! Super got triple-S'd! Get lost, you washed-up has-been!'
“But what's this theory about me being Chinese?”
Just because I used Heavenly Demon as my username, people assumed I was Chinese. Was it against the rules for a Korean to use Heavenly Demon?
“This is all that bastard Blood Demon's fault...”
With a Chinese ranker called 'Blood Demon' standing right there, people naturally mistook someone with a similar name, 'Heavenly Demon,' for a Chinese person, too.
At the same time, since Blood Demon was so universally despised, Heavenly Demon was naturally branded unlikeable, too.
“Blood Demon is the problem.”
Nothing ever goes right because of that bastard.
I'd never met Blood Demon in person, but I already hated him.
To be fair, I hadn't liked him much to begin with.
Anyway, at this rate, I was going to lose my nationality.
‘This is so unfair.’
All I'd done was remove a comma from the username I'd always used. At the time, Heavenly Demon was the only name that came to mind.
“Hmm, what should I do?”
Should I post a proof shot right now saying, 'Hey, you bastards, it's me, the Heavenly Demon, and I'm Korean to the bone'?
“No one's going to believe me.”
Even on Wizard Gallery, there were tons of attention seekers claiming to be the real Heavenly Demon.
Of course, every last one of them was a fake. I'm the real Heavenly Demon.
'Maybe I should've taken a proof shot back then.'
But the Tower only resembled a game system. It wasn't an actual game.
You couldn't post your status window or records as if they were screenshots, so people usually took pictures of the Reward Room with their phone cameras to prove their achievements.
Naturally, I'd been so dazzled by the SSS-rank clear reward that the idea of taking a picture hadn't even occurred to me.
If a billion won just fell right in front of you, who'd be crazy enough to turn on their camera before picking it up?
So right now, I had no way to prove that I was the real Heavenly Demon.
“I guess I'll have to prove it on the second floor.”
After clearing the first floor in ten seconds, not climbing to the second floor wasn't even an option.
Once I cashed in all the loot I had, I planned to head straight for the second floor.
‘If I set a record on the second floor, I'll get even more famous.’
Besides, Lee Jian had no option of keeping quiet and going unnoticed without proving who she was.
‘I need to become famous if I want to make money.’
If I were a sponsor, I'd support a well-known Awakened whose name everyone recognized. Would I invest in some Mr. Lee from Anyang, Gyeonggi-do, whom I'd never heard of?
So I was going to become famous.
To achieve my goal, and one day make everyone kneel equally before the name Heavenly Demon.
America would watch its step, Japan would court me, and China would fret nervously. Something like that.
“For that...”
There was one thing I had to do right now.
“Let's go.”
I picked up my phone.
***
The next day, as soon as I woke up, I headed straight for the Awakened Management Bureau.
I'd bought a new T-shirt, pants, and shoes, all fitted to my body.
It cost a fair bit, but let's call it an investment in the future.
Besides, even more money was supposed to hit my account today.
‘Still, I was a little worried since I ordered everything in a hurry.’
I guess there was no need to worry.
It was only a matter of going from clothes that looked ready to slide off any moment to clothes with a little room to spare, but they felt much more secure.
‘It took a lot of very human soul-searching before I could press the order button.’
Even if my body had turned into a girl in her early to mid-teens...
Was it really mentally healthy for me—a perfectly respectable man in my mid-to-late twenties—to shop for girls' clothes myself?
It was a difficult question to answer.
After a fierce debate in my head, the side arguing 'It's more dangerous to keep wearing clothes that drag on the ground like this' won out.
Still, the opposition's argument that 'choosing girls' clothes myself is physically unbearable' was given some consideration, too.
So I settled for a compromise.
‘Thank goodness unisex designs are so good these days.’
Otherwise, I would've had no choice but to buy girls' clothes myself.
Long live unisex clothing.
Anyway, thanks to all that, I now looked like a girl my age wearing clothes that actually fit.
Compared to all the stares I'd attracted whenever I wore baggy clothes, it was a huge improvement.
“Ah, we're here.”
After getting lost in one pointless thought after another, I'd arrived at the Bureau before I knew it.
The Awakened Management Bureau.
An agency established under the Ministry of National Defense just six months after the Towers appeared.
It had been created at an unprecedented speed, and was now busier than any other institution in South Korea.
Awakened registration, compiling Tower guides, exchanging mana stones—it handled most tasks related to Awakened people.
A true all-purpose agency.
How did I know the place so well?
‘Because I've been here more times than I can count.’
Back when I was still a genius mage and a healthy young Korean man...
I'd stopped by whenever I was bored, wondering if I could find a cure for mana depletion syndrome. I'd even received a recruitment offer from the Bureau because of it.
‘Of course, I turned it down.’
I'd lost all interest when I saw those lunatics trying to get around the salary cap they'd set themselves by plastering all kinds of bizarre poison-pill clauses into the contract.
So I turned them down.
At the time, the contract was full of conditions I could never hope to meet, and if I failed to meet them, I'd be stuck with a salary no better than a convenience-store part-timer's.
‘I wonder if they'd offer me better terms now.’
My abilities had changed, so the terms they offered would certainly be different. But I had absolutely no intention of joining the Bureau.
Apart from the government support, being affiliated with the Bureau offered practically no benefits.
And even that supposed benefit was incredibly vague.
‘Super gets plenty of support without being affiliated with the government.’
Just look at Super. Super is a freelance Awakened who operates an independent guild, and yet receives astronomical support that puts most government-affiliated rankers to shame.
When you thought about it that way, the title of being affiliated with the government was little more than a heavy shackle.
‘Actually, what does any of this matter?’
I was getting ahead of myself when nobody had even offered me a drink.
I shook off those pointless thoughts and stepped into the Bureau.
“Here, please get in line properly!”
“If you haven't checked in at the kiosk, getting in line won't do you any good! Please check in at the kiosk first!”
As soon as I opened the door, a wave of noise and bustle hit me, like I'd just stepped into a marketplace.
“Ugh.”
No matter how many times I saw it, I just couldn't get used to the scene.
I had no idea there were this many Awakened people in South Korea.
I almost felt sorry for the staff, who were running around like their feet were on fire trying to manage the crowds.
‘Let's see.’
What I had to do today was exchange a mana stone for cash.
A B-rank mana stone, at that.
Actually, you could get a better price by selling mana stones at a private exchange rather than the Bureau.
Even so, there was a simple reason I chose the Bureau.
‘At least at first, I should find out the exact market rate.’
Right now, I looked like a little girl.
If I went to a private exchange looking like this and tried to sell a mana stone, would they really give me a fair price?
I'd be lucky if they didn't slash it in half.
So for my first transaction, it made sense to find out the official price at a proper exchange.
That way, even if a private exchange tried to lowball me later, I could say, 'The official price is about this much, you know?'
“Next.”
After waiting for a little while, I heard someone call my turn.
I walked straight up to the counter.
“Yes, what can I do for you... What brings you here, little girl?”
The employee's tone changed completely when he saw me.
Just a moment ago, his voice had sounded utterly lifeless. Now he was speaking in an exaggeratedly high-pitched tone, like he was talking to a child.
“I'm here to sell a mana stone.”
I replied curtly.
“A mana stone? Little girl, that's far too expensive and dangerous for you to be carrying around.”
“That's none of your business, mister.”
Whether it was expensive or not was none of his concern.
“All right, let's see what kind of mana stone you brought.”
From his tone, he clearly didn't believe me at all, but that didn't matter. I'd let the result speak for itself.
“One moment.”
Without hesitation, I opened my pocket dimension and shoved my hand inside.
“Huh?”
The employee's eyes went wide as he watched my hand disappear into thin air.
His eyes looked ready to pop out if someone gave him a light tap on the back of the head.
“Here.”
A moment later, when I took out the B-rank mana stone and plopped it down on the counter, the employee's mouth fell open.
A fly could practically fly right in.