Chapter 7
Kim Ju-sik, a Grade 9 civil servant at the Awakened Management Bureau, had recently begun seriously considering quitting.
Grade 9 civil servant.
Once, it was a job countless people desperately sought despite the low pay, for the single advantage of stability. But things are different now.
An era in which civilization itself would collapse if humanity failed to clear the Tower once a year.
Thanks to that, the phrase "job for life" had long since lost its meaning.
No matter how good a job I landed, if the Awakened failed to clear the Tower, we’d all be wiped out together. That was the reality.
Recently, a get-rich-quick mentality had spread throughout society: people would rather gamble on a sudden reversal of fortune than spend their whole lives working themselves to the bone.
And the leading proponents of that mentality were the Awakened—the superhumans climbing the Tower.
The profession of being Awakened had taken the place once held by crypto and stocks.
Maybe that was why the civil service had changed so much, too.
Whereas the civil service used to be a cold place where everyone looked after only their own work, the recent upheaval and massive turnover had given it a certain sense of camaraderie.
In the first place, choosing to be a civil servant in an era like this was impossible without an unusually strong sense of duty.
Even so, there was only one reason Officer Kim Ju-sik was considering quitting.
'The stress is too much.'
Stress from dealing with the public had always been the undisputed number-one reason civil servants quit. But now, the intensity was on another level entirely.
Of course, there were plenty of reasons, but from Kim Ju-sik’s perspective, the biggest problems were twofold.
First, every single person he had to deal with was Awakened—someone even the police couldn’t afford to handle carelessly.
Imagine superhumans right in front of you, flying into a rage, who could easily twist someone’s neck with one hand if things didn’t go their way.
You’d be lucky not to piss yourself on the spot.
Kim Ju-sik himself had felt the terror of death after encountering a particularly nasty petitioner on his very first day. That ought to tell you everything.
The second reason was a little more personal, actually.
'Damn it.'
It was the feeling of being left behind.
The ugly jealousy that welled up every time he saw Awakened people sell a single rock and take home what he made in a month.
Of course, he knew in his head that, as a non-Awakened, he could never reach that level in his entire life.
He knew that, but when he saw people who seemed far less impressive than him casually earning millions of won and laughing about it, he couldn’t stop himself from getting bitter.
And today, Kim Ju-sik’s sense of deprivation had reached its peak.
The cause was a girl whose striking red eyes stood out against her long black hair.
"Next."
The moment the girl he’d called stepped up to his counter, Kim Ju-sik couldn’t help feeling a little flustered.
Had she really come here to handle the transaction herself?
Kim Ju-sik was in charge of buying mana stones. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of won could change hands in a single transaction.
'Are her parents insane?'
In other words, it wasn’t something to casually entrust to a child, like sending them on an errand to the neighborhood bank.
Kim Ju-sik silently cursed the girl’s deranged parents.
Of course, since he was sitting at the counter, he had to treat her like any other visitor, so he kept those thoughts to himself.
"What can I do for you, little girl?"
"I'm here to sell a mana stone."
A curt reply.
She didn’t seem very happy.
"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."
As was typical for kids her age, she seemed to hate being treated like a child.
Her displeased red eyes seemed to be demanding to know why he kept treating her like one.
"All right, let’s see what kind of mana stone you brought."
It would’ve been awkward to change his tone now, so Kim Ju-sik stubbornly stuck to it.
"Mm."
When he treated her the same way again, the girl puffed out her cheeks in displeasure.
She seemed to be expressing her annoyance in her own way, but to Kim Ju-sik, she just looked adorable. She didn’t seem to realize it at all.
"Just a moment."
"Huh?"
He’d expected her to rummage through her pockets or bag, but the girl’s hand slipped naturally into the subspace that opened in midair.
What was this? This little girl was an Awakened?
"Here."
A moment later, the girl took a mana stone out of her subspace and plopped it down on the desk.
A brilliant red glow.
The purer a mana stone was, the deeper its color.
In other words, the fact that it was such a deep shade of red meant...
"A B-rank mana stone?"
The mana stone this girl had brought was at least B-rank.
"Is this your first time seeing a B-rank mana stone?"
The girl snapped at him curtly, as if asking what he was making such a fuss about.
"Please hurry up and settle the payment."
She didn’t forget to hurry him along, either.
B-rank mana stones. Today’s going rate was ten million won per kilogram.
'Ah.'
Once he realized what that meant, Kim Ju-sik wanted to quit even more desperately.
***
"Heh heh."
After I got home, I couldn’t help smiling when I saw the number on my phone screen.
[13,375,620 won]
Thirteen million won!
All I’d done was sell one mana stone, and I’d suddenly made four months’ worth of a convenience-store part-timer’s wages.
"Since I cleared the first floor in ten seconds..."
I’d earned 13 million won per hour—no, per minute, no, per second.
Of course, there was no such thing as a per-second wage.
Anyway, I’d practically made 13 million won with a single click, and I felt like I could fly.
'I feel a little bad.'
To the nameless civil servant at the counter, I’m sorry.
You work day and night for the sake of the country, and I got way too annoyed just because you treated me like a kid.
"Heh heh, with this money..."
I could pay off my overdue rent and even throw away a yogurt lid without licking it clean.
The height of unimaginable luxury!
Of course, I couldn’t actually bring myself to do that. It’d be such a waste.
'That’s how excited I am.'
However, the joy didn’t last long.
"Enough daydreaming."
Unfortunately, I had somewhere else to spend my precious 13 million won.
"I need to gear up."
I’d been lucky enough to get a weapon, but right now, I didn’t have anything that could be called armor.
No matter how strong an Awakened was, they were liable to die in the Tower without suitable armor.
The fact that Super never took off that cloak, even when he slept, was proof of that.
Couldn’t I just block attacks with defensive magic?
If I cast a full-body defensive spell, my mana would be depleted in ten seconds flat.
It was easier said than done. Covering yourself in defensive magic from head to toe was a crazy move that drained your mental energy and mana in no time.
"I don’t need a shield."
Some mages preferred shields, figuring that if they could just block one hit, they’d win.
But I wasn’t one of them.
Aren’t shields clumsy and cumbersome? A mage’s life depends on staying light on their feet.
"Fortunately, the Bureau also offers consignment sales."
Wasn’t that a lot for the Bureau to handle?
What could you do? The Awakened Management Bureau was part of South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense. When the higher-ups told them to jump, they had to ask how high.
"The Awakened-Only Marketplace, OneTop Market."
The country’s number-one shopping mall for Awakened people who climbed the Tower. OneTop Market for short.
The tacky name and the official mascot popping up the moment you opened the app to tout its reasonable prices gave off the unmistakable old-fashioned charm of a government website.
Still, it wasn’t without its advantages.
"The best part is, I won’t get treated like a kid if I buy online."
The biggest advantage was that you could buy things remotely as long as you had an account verified as Awakened.
Of course, that came with the risk of quality issues, but free exchanges and returns within thirty days were guaranteed if you received a counterfeit or defective item.
Unless you knew a craftsman personally, there was no reason not to use OneTop Market.
”So what I need is a robe after all?"
When you thought of mages, you thought of robes.
However, robes were so versatile that everyone from alchemists and rogues to even warrior types used them.
That was because their generous storage space was an especially appealing feature in the Tower.
"Ugh."
Thanks to that, even the cheapest bare-bones robe easily cost more than ten million won.
Ten million won for something with only basic waterproofing and blade resistance.
Considering that other armor with similar performance cost less than five million won, the price was absolutely insane.
"If I’m thinking long-term, I should buy something good the first time."
At the very least, it needed to be waterproof, cold-resistant, blade-resistant, and heat-resistant.
Self-repair would’ve been the icing on the cake, but anything like that easily cost hundreds of millions of won, way beyond my budget.
"Ugh."
With my budget, finding a robe with the features I wanted was practically impossible.
"Let’s look for something else."
Robes weren’t the only kind of armor, and there had to be other useful outfits out there.
So I searched OneTop Market thoroughly for a long time, full of hope.
But listings that met my requirements and cost less than ten million won were nowhere to be found.
A few decent ones popped up now and then, but they sold out right away—or they were things like full plate armor that my current body couldn’t possibly handle.
"Damn, are there really no listings in this country?"
I’d lower my standards now. I could even do without heat resistance. Please, just let me find one decent piece of armor.
After searching for quite a while longer...
"Huh?"
At the frankly unbelievable price of three million won, I’d finally found a piece of armor with every practical feature I wanted: waterproofing, heat resistance, cold resistance, and blade resistance.
It even came in a variety of sizes.
I could wear it right away, without having to get it altered.
[White Martial Uniform]
[A white uniform worn by martial artists. Sturdy, but easily stained.]
"Wow."
The design was nice, and the price couldn’t have been better.
There was only one thing that gave me pause.
'The seller.'
They were a brand-new seller with no transaction history at all.
'That’s probably why it’s still unsold.'
It had all four essential features packed in, and the design was even stylish, yet it cost just three million won.
It was less than a third the price of the bare-bones robe I’d looked at first.
'This...'
It was worth taking a chance on.
If it arrived and the listed features didn’t work properly, I could just report it as a scam listing and get a refund.
"Ah, whatever!"
Whoom!
[Payment complete.]
[Your item is being prepared for delivery to your address.]
"Please."
God, Buddha, please don’t let it be a scam.
For the first time in a long while, I looked up at the heavens and prayed with all my heart.