Chapter 11
What a shocking result.
All 15 Seekers who entered the basement had gone missing.
Zero returnees.
[(Breaking News) All 15 Hunters who entered the Tower's basement have gone missing...No survivors]
[The operation to enter the unexplored basement failed...The entire basement raid party has vanished]
[America's hero, Noah Johnson: his death and the stories hidden behind it.]
The whole world was in an uproar.
The incident had revealed the danger of the basement to the entire world.
Not ordinary climbers, but 15 of the world's top 100 rankers—talented people backed by Constellations—had all gone missing?
To make matters worse, posts they'd left on Babel Gallery as they died were dug up, making the situation even more serious.
It meant that, at this point, the basement was impossible to conquer.
It was an inhuman hellscape that rankers still mucking about on the 50s floors had no business even approaching.
====
Title: Just How Brutal Is the Basement?
Posted by: ShanghaiHomelessGuy
I think all 15 of them were pretty well-known on BBG.
But if even people who've reached Floor 50 couldn't do a thing, how hard is that place?
[Comments]
└LetsEatKebab: You can get a sense of it from the post Noah Johnson left before he died.
└HawaiiPickle: Bro, from what I can tell, that place is completely insane.
└YoungBeer: The Seekers were a bunch of broken personalities, but their skills were legit.
└SeongnamFistKing: The Administrator even warned them, and they still went in and died lol
└NewYorkCurry: Wait, that warning really was telling them they'd be killed?
└SushiUmai: Funny seeing the people from the peninsula acting all high and mighty.
====
The international climber community, Babel Tower Gallery, was in an uproar, too.
The 15 Seekers, led by Noah Johnson, one of the climbers who'd reached Floor 60, were some of the most skilled people in their respective countries.
In particular, the reactions from neighboring countries that had looked down on Korea were unsettling.
Meanwhile, Koreans were feeling immense pride that the Basement Opener was one of their own.
Some Korean climbers even began praising the Administrator with something close to religious devotion.
====
Title: I Told You Not to Come In
Posted by: ChungbukSelf-ProclaimedRanker
LMAO, our Administrator personally warned them, didn't he?
Aren't they the weird ones for forcing their way in just to satisfy their own greed?
I raised a glass when I heard that bastard Noah Johnson was dead.
Good riddance to that racist bastard who looked down on Asians lol
Long live the basement! Long live the Basement Administrator!
[Comments]
└BaguetteShrine: Praising a murderer?
└TexasChainsaw: People have died, and this is how you react? Unbelievable.
└Pajoligae: Why? When Koreans were dying three years ago, you laughed your asses off too, you bastards.
└Ansan'sFinestSword: That's just how you Westerners are. You get smacked once and start acting all hurt and miserable.
====
A Tower backwater.
Idiots who die on Floor 20.
The weakest race.
Colonies of China and Japan in the Tower.
And so on.
Koreans on Babel Tower Gallery, who'd been looked down on with every imaginable slur, finally got to let out all their pent-up resentment, thanks to the Basement Administrator.
====
Don't you feel bad for the mods?
Posted by: MaxLevelUp
The Basement Administrator just raided the gallery, so the mods are probably getting chewed out and feeling down already.
Don't you feel bad for the mods, who have to mediate your fights on top of that?
Is it fun to stir up trouble and keep the mods working all night?
Must be a blast. I should try it too lol
[Comments]
└You crazy bastard lol
└You can't make burner accounts lol
└The mods are gleefully banning every Korean they can find
└For the record, even after getting trolled like this, the mods can't step down lol
====
One side was in a full-on celebratory mood.
Elsewhere, the people were collectively having a mental breakdown over a national loss.
Most people thought the basement should be destroyed, but no one could step forward to do it.
In the end, people kept hurling hateful remarks at one another, and Babel Gallery gradually turned into a madhouse.
And at the center of all these problems, the Basement Administrator was peacefully napping and scratching their belly...
“Is someone talking about me...?”
Cheonwoo still hadn't checked the gallery, so they had no idea what was going on.
******
The break room sofa was so comfortable that I dozed off for a bit.
I always get sleepy as soon as I lie down here.
Anyway, now that I'm awake, maybe I'll see what Lee Hyeji is up to.
Lying on the break room sofa and watching my friend suffer through everything on the HR terminal.
This is more fun than I expected.
How do I put it? It's like watching someone else play a game.
-Hyah! Die, you goblin bastards!
Hyeji's spirited battle cry came through the HR terminal's speakers.
As expected, physical work suits Hyeji better than studying.
She studied things that didn't suit her at all just because she wanted to become a civil servant like me.
Now that she's in the Tower, she's practically flying!
The problem is that things went in a slightly different direction than I'd expected...
No, my friend Hyeji, whom I was trying to raise as a mage...
Why are you carrying a grimoire and punching things...?
Why did she even dig out that beat-up old taekwondo uniform and put it on?
Did she pull out the one she wore in middle school?
It's so tight! Your chest is going to pop out..!
“Whoa. That must hurt.”
Lee Hyeji, you fearless idiot.
You're going hand-to-hand against 30 hobgoblins the size of adult men?
No, I even gave you Agni's Heart and three grimoires... I told you to make good use of them...
Please take the mage route where you can coast with a single click!
I went and fed you endgame mage gear, and you're using it to walk the path of a martial artist?
You cheeky...
Martial artist is the weakest, most pathetic class, and you just had to choose that path...
Please, don't go down that path.
No, seriously, don't.
“Good grief, Hyeji. Why are you making things hard for yourself... Good grief.”
I can't help but groan.
The poor girl is absolutely covered in blood!!!
Eee... At this point, I feel worse for the hobgoblins getting beaten up.
I can't tell if they're being burned to death or beaten to death.
The grimoires are trembling in fear because of their owner's bizarre behavior.
I can't watch this anymore.
My stomach feels sick...
[The antipsychotic filter activates.]
“Now this is watchable.”
All the red liquid was replaced with rainbows.
Now that all the ‘things’ bursting out are filtered into candy, it's nice to watch while eating snacks.
-Aaaah! What!? Aaaah!
Ugh, that one looks like it hurts.
Why'd you go hand-to-hand with an orc warrior...?
“Wait, she grabbed that with her bare hands?”
I was absolutely flabbergasted.
My friend Hyeji is a complete idiot who uses martial arts while decked out in endgame mage gear.
But... she's fighting so well that it's kind of a problem.
Turns out the Azure Flame Grimoire gives off blue flames when you hit someone with it.
And it looks like her wounds heal right away thanks to Agni's Heart.
Was this gear setup surprisingly well-suited to a martial artist?
No way.
You're probably the first person ever to use grimoires as nothing but elemental-enchantment accessories.
It feels like common sense is being destroyed.
Yeah... Good job, Hyeji.
Go smash the Tower to pieces with your fists.
Ding!
[Stop the Constellation's minions.]
[A reward will be granted.]
“What? It's over already? I can't even begin to fathom how capable Mr. Popo and Mr. Kuku are.”
What's the deal with our entities' stats?
Were they SSR-tier entities?
I peeked at Constellation Gallery earlier, and apparently a bunch of guys who spend their time on Floor 50 came after me...
They all met their ends on Basement Floor 1....
Well, that's too bad.
I definitely warned them.
If they came in out of their own greed, they can't complain even if they die.
Succeed, and you plunder.
Fail, and you die.
That's the Tower for you.
“All right, all right. Let's check the rewards...”
Two rewards for stopping the Constellation's minions.
One was an almond water vending machine.
The other was a quest issuance license.
Thunk!
A new piece of furniture had appeared in the corner of the break room: an almond water vending machine.
The vending machine looked completely ordinary.
The kind where you put in points and get almond water...
“100 points per bottle?”
But what are points?
How do you earn them?
Ding!
====
[Quest Issuance License]
-You can give quests to climbers!
-When a climber completes a quest, you earn points!
====
So that's how it works.
I understand completely.
So I use the quest issuance license to give climbers work to do.
When a climber completes the quest, points go to me!
“It's subcontracting to set up more subcontracting. The climbers in the field do all the running around for me, an office worker!”
The number of points I get depends on the quest's difficulty.
For example, a quest like ‘Hold your breath for 10 seconds’ is too easy, so even if a climber completes it, I'll only get a fraction of a point.
On the other hand, what if I give them a crazy quest like ‘Solo a Floor 40 boss’ and a climber actually completes it?
Then I'd get a huge amount of points.
But if I want climbers to accept quests difficult enough to risk their lives over,
I'll have to offer rewards that are worth it, right?
Maybe I should offer things from the basement as rewards.
If I let them borrow a grimoire and tell them to hunt a boss monster alone, there should be plenty of climbers willing to try.
I've basically stolen the Constellations' job...!
Robbing the Constellations of their little pleasures...
Well, I'm curious how Constellation Gallery will react.
“Hmm. This could be fun.”
The more almond water I have, the easier it'll be to hire more entities and put them to work.
The usefulness of entities has just been proven today.
And if I leave the unemployed NEET entities kicked out of the Tower on the streets, they'll keep eating people, so they're too dangerous to leave alone.
Assuming the Constellations keep sending their minions into the basement,
the more entities I have, the better.
“All right. Then...”
Maybe I'll try sending a quest to Hyeji first.
There's something I want to tell her anyway.
But what should I make the reward?
“Right, I have this.”
I just got a whole pile of gear from climbers who'd been grinding away on Floor 50!
Climbers backed by Constellations must have some pretty unusual gear, right?
Let's put it to use right away.
******
Tower of Trials, Hell Difficulty, Floor 5.
On the blood-soaked stage, Lee Hyeji panted for breath.
Ba-bam!
[You have overcome the trial.]
[All stats have increased by 10.]
[Your level has increased by 5.]
[You have received 3 random skill boxes.]
•
•
•
Rewards poured down.
Clearing Hell Difficulty yielded massive rewards.
Floors 1 through 10.
Once you pass through this section, you can never return.
This is where climbers are sorted by rank and their potential is determined.
The talented clear Hard and go on to become rankers.
The weak and inadequate tackle the Tower on Easy and live a decent, if unremarkable, life.
And now Lee Hyeji was trying to become one of the few people in the Tower to clear Hell Difficulty.
“If I'm going to do it, I should aim for the top.”
Her one and only male friend had been dragged into the basement and turned into a girl.
Now she was Hyeji's one and only female friend.
Hyeji herself must have been incredibly confused and overwhelmed.
Even so, Cheonwoo had brought her a Mythic-grade item and three Legendary grimoires for her sake.
“To repay Cheonwoo... I have to get stronger.”
Ding!
“Huh? What's this?”
Just as Lee Hyeji was steeling herself,
a quest window unlike any she'd seen before appeared in front of her.
====
[Your Goal!]
You stupid dumbass
If you have a grimoire, use magic
Why do you keep fighting with your fists?
Use magic, magic!
Use fucking magic!
[Reward]
-Noah Johnson's loot
====
“Could this be...?”
The moment Lee Hyeji saw the strange quest window, she thought of one person.
“Hey! Ji Cheonwoo! Are you watching me right now!? No! Cheonwoo! I'm really sorry! I tried using magic, but it's seriously too hard! I feel like my head's going to split! Stupid idiots like us can't use magic! But I'll keep trying, so please!
Keep watching me!!!
”
A pearl necklace on a pig, plain and simple.
A Mythic-grade item and three Legendary grimoires had ended up in the hands of an idiot!
“Ugh. Lee Hyeji, you stupid idiot. I knew this would happen.”
At Hyeji's shout as she struggled to make use of the Mythic-grade item,
Cheonwoo, who was in the break room, laughed in disbelief.
Knowing her friend was watching her,
Hyeji smiled broadly, feeling a strange sense of relief.
Idiots are happy just saying hello to each other.