Chapter 19
“So, you still haven't found him?”
The Cheonmyeong Guild, which ranks second among Korea's hunter guilds.
Its HR director, Oh Hyunyoung, said in a low voice.
The up-and-coming rookie who had repeatedly smashed the infamous Marionette Test rankings without using mana.
And the moment he used mana, he seized first place in plain sight.
That mysterious rookie had finally made a debut as a hunter.
The Cheonmyeong Guild, which had narrowly been pushed out of first place by the Blue Wolf Guild.
It was their chance to beat them and boldly rise to number one.
“...Yes. The Chuncheon Association is hiding some information, but this man's identity can't be confirmed anywhere in the capital region.”
“If he's in the same cohort as Hunter Isabel, she'd know him too. Have you tried contacting her?”
She was an A-rank hunter from the White Tiger Guild, Korea's third-ranked guild.
Among the many A-ranks, she was diligent and had a good reputation, so he thought she'd cooperate...
“There's absolutely no cooperation.”
“What?”
“They said they'd take him into their own guild. They told us to try taking him if we can. So, what should we do?”
Sighs and sneers erupted all around the conference room.
“Do they think White Tiger can offer better conditions than Cheonmyeong!?”
“The White Tiger Guild has gotten a bit too cocky.”
“Quiet!!”
“So what have we even done? Wasn't all we did this whole time just trail after one man's backside!?”
When Oh Hyunyoung shouted that, the conference room fell silent again.
Then his secretary rushed into the room carrying a stack of files.
“Emergency report! We've secured Yumia's training camp records!!”
“The training camp records!”
“Was it really necessary to push things that far!”
Training camp records were treated as almost top secret in order to protect hunters.
So even major hunter guilds had to be prepared to bleed a little just to access that information.
“I did this alone. I'll take responsibility.”
“What kind of excuse is that...”
The administrative manager was about to shout that, but Oh Hyunyoung cut him off with a grave expression.
“If we lose another talent to Blue Wolf this time, what do you think will happen to us when the guild master finds out?”
“Urgh...”
“So how is it?”
“An estimated five SSR-grade initial traits. Two SR-grade initial traits.”
“What!? Then that's practically S-rank!”
“So it wasn't a waste of time after all! Good!”
Even being in the upper ranks of A-class was enough to give them hope of overturning the rankings.
There were only three S-rank hunters in Korea, and each one occupied the first, second, and third spots.
But S-rank?
The kind of level that would be enough to lock things down and completely break the power balance among Korea's hunter guilds.
We have to bring them in no matter what.
But the secretary who had been reporting went pale.
“What's wrong? Go on.”
“Um... I'm not sure if this is true, but...”
Oh Hyunyoung faltered.
Training camp records are extremely difficult to falsify.
At least, there had almost never been a forged case until now.
His secretary knew that too. After all, they hadn't hired the sharpest graduate from a top university for nothing.
The fact that he was saying something like this...
“There must be a result that's hard to believe. Go ahead, say it. You know as well as I do that in the world of the Tower and the Abyss, anything can happen.”
But he could not understand what his secretary said next.
“...Apparently, he turned into a woman?”
“What?”
“Biologically, he became female. Even his appearance and body shape changed completely.”
“Seriously... do you think that makes any sense!?”
“What do you mean, he became a woman!!”
It's not like there had never been cases like this.
Right now, even South African A-rank hunter Luaji had awakened his ability and turned into a lizardman, hadn't he?
But... there was one more reason they were screaming.
“Then we have to search again?”
“Kraaah! You want us to do that crap all over again!!”
All of them, including him, had thought they could escape this hell once they found the target.
So they had searched so hard...
Naturally, women had been excluded from the investigation targets.
And now they had to do it again.
That too, for a human whose whereabouts were completely unknown.
Then.
“Find them no matter what and recruit them. Contact them by any means necessary and bring them in. Understood!!”
“Yes, sir!!!”
They had no choice but to find them first.
So that this suffering wouldn't become suffering for nothing.
***
We were standing in front of the Tower entrance.
Since it was that time of day, quite a lot of people had gathered.
Of course, the Tower entrance was usually crowded to begin with.
The reason there had been no one there last time was because I'd asked Isabel to use a different entrance.
Chuncheon has two entrances: one for regular users and another VIP entrance for A-rank and above.
It seemed like that VIP entrance had been made without considering that there would be almost no VIPs coming all the way to Chuncheon.
Thanks to that, it had been a ghost town, which was why I could use it.
This time, it was the regular entrance, packed with people.
'But there was a reason I came to the regular entrance.'
This area has restaurants, cafes, and lodging facilities that are incredibly well developed.
Even B-, C-, and D-rank hunters are still hunters.
The ways to obtain mana stones and artifacts are gate raids, Tower climbs, and Abyss expeditions.
There are those three methods, but in the end, hunters who come out of the Tower tend to have deep pockets.
So the shops that can open here are guaranteed to be of at least a certain quality.
In the first place, shops that can't meet that standard can't even open here.
It wasn't like I came straight here to eat, though; since we still had some time, we went to the cafe in front of it.
Isabel was waiting there.
No, why is she here?
I looked toward Woo Suhyeon.
“I got in touch with her. You said to let you know no matter what when she came...”
I let out a sigh.
Of course, I wasn't unhappy to see her.
“Damn it, I'm going to get nagged again.”
This time, I was planning to keep it quiet and just do the bare minimum before leaving...
“Gyaaah!”
Isabel kept tugging hard at my cheeks.
“Hey! If you were coming, you should've said so!!”
“Mmph... weren't you busy?”
“I'm not busy. You're way better than talking to those dreary old men.”
“Being compared to dreary old men doesn't feel very good.”
We went into the cafe.
Of course, it wasn't a normal cafe.
A building bigger than most large gyms.
A lobby and tables that reminded me of a hotel.
You could use private rooms, and if you ordered food or drinks there, they'd bring them to you.
So what's the difference from a hotel?
This place also uses reinforced materials for all the walls, since hunters may want to demonstrate their abilities.
They'll even bring out training dummies if you ask.
You can even spar here.
It's a hybrid facility in many ways.
The fees are expensive, so I only ever came here with Isabel.
“A-are you Hunter Isabel!?”
“Yes. I'll rent it for today. A large room with a table. Is that all right?”
“Yes. Please follow me!”
The place we were led into was indeed a spacious room with a table.
“Wow...”
“It's big...”
Woo Suhyeon and I went in, marveling.
Isabel looked at us and said,
“So, first of all, I want to ask why your mana increased. Report. In detail.”
***
I explained my power-up to Isabel in far more detail than before.
And about the magic school too.
Because if Isabel was going to help me, it was better to share all the information.
That way, I could help Isabel too.
“This is bringing back memories.”
Isabel would brief me, and I'd listen.
It was the routine we used whenever we were assigned a mission at the training camp.
Because Isabel was far better at handling paperwork, after all.
And back then I was the top student, so I could dump the work on Isabel.
“So that trait really was SR-grade or higher.”
“Well, Dragon Eye was already like that.”
“That said, it's a little hard to call it SSR-grade.”
SSR-grade traits were one of three things: they either produced tremendous output from the start, had an enormous ceiling, or had absurdly good versatility.
In that sense, [Great Mage's Aptitude] might have been an SSR-grade trait.
No matter what magic I learned, I could tell by instinct how to infuse mana into it and what the pattern was.
I even had an instinctive feel for which direction to hold a staff.
The problem was that I didn't actually have any magic-related abilities.
Dragon Eye was a pretty big help, but not to that extent.
“Artifacts?”
“About this much.”
I took all the swords and shields out of my inventory.
“Why are there only swords and shields? Don't you have things like potions?”
“I don't.”
“...You did go to a magic school, right?”
“I realized it just now too, but I think that's weird.”
It's a magic school, but there aren't any magic-related items.
Can that really be right?
“The swords themselves are really good.”
“I told you.”
Come to think of it, even the magic staff I borrowed from Reinhart performed better than the ones in the Tower or here.
Their technology seemed to be better over there.
“Can you get me more?”
“Why?”
“I was thinking I could use them if Muramasa breaks too.”
“Hmm... let's talk about that later.”
For now, getting into the Tower comes first.
“Then why do you have so many shields?”
“To use them like this.”
I pulled out a shield, made a blocking motion, and then shoved it right back into my inventory.
Seeing the shield go in with not even a split-second delay, Isabel clicked her tongue.
“...Wow, that's disgustingly broken.”
“Right?”
At that moment, Woo Suhyeon broke the flow.
“Sorry, but could we go into the Tower first? The regular entrance doesn't open during lunch because of inspections.”
“Ah, right.”
The VIP entrance allows free entry and exit, but the regular entrance has maintenance hours because there are so many users.
Isabel and I walked toward the Tower entrance.
Woo Suhyeon stayed far behind us.
“Oh, and I upgraded Observer, so now I can keep watching.”
“You did that just now?”
There is something called a [Skill Injector].
It's like a syringe that strengthens an existing trait or ability.
For example, if you strengthen [Dragon Eye], it becomes [Dragon Eye+].
It's ridiculously expensive because you have to grind up a huge amount of high-grade mana stones, starting from green mana stones.
But [Observer] was an exception.
Despite being an R-rank trait, it can be used for spectating through the Tower's system.
People with the [Observer] trait usually take on the role of teaching newbies in the guild.
So I heard the guild would back that at the guild level no matter what.
“If I said I had it, I'd have to teach the rookies. So of course I said I didn't.”
...
She's got a surprisingly reckless side too, huh.
I wonder who she learned that from.
Once we reached the Tower entrance, Isabel sent me a party invite so she could use Observer.
[Awakener [Isabel] has requested to join your party.]
[Accepted.]
I accepted the party invite and entered the Tower.
[Would you like to enter Hell difficulty?]
[Y/N]
When I pressed Y, my vision turned blue.
As that mist-like haze cleared, the scenery of the second floor appeared before me.
[Entering Floor 2—the Floor of Traps.]
A floor made of rough stone bricks greeted me.
But something had changed.
[Interference has increased due to dragon mana.]
[Speedrun conditions are being revealed. SSS: 1 minute, SS: 1 minute 20 seconds, S: 1 minute 40 seconds...]
...What?
The speedrun conditions were being listed in front of me.
[Ah, ah, can you hear me?]
“Yeah.”
I snapped back to my senses upon hearing Isabel's voice through Observer.
One minute.
That's a bit tight.
[Entering the first room of Floor 2, the Floor of Traps.]
A wide-open cavern appeared.
“Phew.”
[So, how are you planning to do it?]
Woo Suhyeon had seemed unable to follow what we were talking about earlier.
[Well, it's obvious.]
From afar, I heard the sound of something slicing through the air as it shot toward us.
Isabel continued explaining.
[Take a shield out of your inventory and block when the arrow rain comes down. Then put it back into your inventory and run again.]
[Ah!]
That would definitely let us block the arrows.
And move forward.
A good method.
In fact, a few seconds earlier, I had been planning to use that method too.
[Wait, why the staff...]
But listen.
Now that I thought about it, that would make the speedrun time too tight.
“Casting, Bullet Bullet Bullet.”
—PAPAPAPAPANG!!
I concentrated mana into Dragon Eye.
Dragon Eye tore open and blazed red.
—Kiiii...
Dynamic vision greatly increased. Mana overheating.
One side of my vision turned red.
“Heh.”
Having mana fill a place so close to my brain felt good.
I felt like I understood why Adrian was always smiling.
I ran hard through the arrow rain pouring down relentlessly.
And then.
I ran while batting away every arrow with the sword in my hand.
Isabel and Woo Suhyeon screamed.