Chapter 13
Tower of Trials, Floor 10.
The final stage of the trial section you climb alone.
Hell Difficulty's final trial was to hunt an ogre alone.
An ogre was a four-meter-tall monster that could tear people apart with its bare hands—the worst creature in the trial section, and the reason Hell Difficulty's survival rate was so abysmal.
“Phew. That was nothing.”
“Hey! Ji Cheonwoo! You watching? I did it! I cleared the trial section! On Hell Difficulty, no less!”
Hyeji Lee, are you actually insane?
She beat that?
She really did have top-tier talent as a martial artist.
Even if Agni's Heart had been giving her automatic buffs and boosting her regeneration...
The pain was still real. She just gritted her teeth and endured bones twisting and flesh tearing?
You're a true martial artist.
I acknowledge you.
Is this what they call talent?
I opened the break room door and stepped onto Floor 10 to congratulate her.
“As expected of Lee Hyeji. Your body's amazing, even if your brain's a little small!”
“Hey! What the hell is that supposed to mean? And when did you get here?!”
“Aah! Hey! Are you crazy?! Don't hug me! You're getting blood on my clothes!”
“I had a feeling someone was watching me. My instincts were right.”
“Aagh... Wait, listen to me! Blood! I said you're getting blood on me!”
Goddammit, Lee Hyeji, you little...!
You're getting blood on my clothes!
Ugh, the break room doesn't have a washing machine, so doing laundry is such a pain...
Still, I'm glad she looks happy. I'm glad I came to see her.
“Hugging a girl feels way better than I expected. Right?”
“Hey, you! What kind of thing is that to say..!”
“I liked you as my male friend Cheonwoo, too.”
“But I think I like you even more as a girl. Mmm, Cheonwoo smells so good.”
“W-what kind of perverted nonsense is that!? Are you insane? Let go already!”
Lee Hyeji, you gorilla bitch!
Why are you so strong?!
No matter how much I struggled, I couldn't escape Hyeji's grip...
“Ugh.”
“Hehe. Stay still. You weakling, Ji Cheonwoo. You can't beat me anymore, you know? If you behave, big sis will spoil you.”
“Graaah!”
Hyeji started petting me all over with even less effort than it took to twist a kid's wrist and steal their candy!
My pride was wounded.
The great Ji Cheonwoo, being hugged and having his head petted...
If this keeps up, it's going to leave a scratch on my heart.
Former tough guy, current Basement Administrator, me, Ji Cheonwoo, was getting my head petted this carelessly.
I swung my palm to correct my friend's bad habit.
Smack!
“Eek! Hey! W-why would you suddenly hit me in the chest..!”
“Phew. I thought I was going to suffocate.”
“That's sexual harassment...”
“Oh, I'm a girl.”
“Ah..! Right!”
Right. Now you and I were equals—or at least on equal footing.
I, too, had the protection of the law now.
I'd earned the right to touch and hit you right back.
Though I had lost something very important in exchange... Anyway!
“You've achieved the same status as me.”
“That's right, Lee Hyeji. One-sided sexual harassment no longer exists.”
“I acknowledge it, Ji Cheonwoo. I am you.”
“....!!!”
To use that line right now...
As expected of Hyeji. She's my friend, all right.
We'd always had similar tastes in manga, anyway.
We were both friendless loners, and we used to go see anime movies together all the time in college.
“By the way, Cheonwoo, were you watching the whole time?”
“Yeah. I was watching, but they said you'd get penalized if I interfered. So I just watched.”
“I see.”
“Still, I was going to help if you were in danger.”
“That's my friend Cheonwoo. Even if your body's turned into a girl's, your loyalty's still the same!”
“Of course. I'm the same on the inside. Anyway, take this.”
“What is it? There's so much stuff.”
“A gift to celebrate clearing the trial.”
“Whoa..!”
To celebrate her success, I handed Hyeji Noah Johnson's gear, which we'd looted in the basement.
Gauntlets made by a master blacksmith with the Blacksmith class in Germany, along with various accessories.
And a bag enchanted with spatial magic, so the inside was bigger than the outside.
“You're giving me all this? You're the best, bestie!”
“Are you nuts?! I'm not giving it to you for free!”
“Aww.”
“I'm lending you Noah Johnson's gear. Sell the rest, take a 10% commission, and give the remaining money to my mom. I can't get out often.”
“Wow, what a filial son... Wait, daughter. You're a wonderful daughter!”
I didn't have much leave, so even if I wanted to go out, I couldn't leave the Tower often.
It was like the life of a lighthouse keeper.
That's the sorrow of being the Basement Administrator.
But Hyeji, who'd cleared Floor 10, was different.
Now she could go in and out of the Tower whenever she wanted.
“Got it, Cheonwoo. I'll do that. But is this really what I think it is?”
“Yeah. Each gauntlet costs six billion won. That's twelve billion for the pair. Looking at the options, I can see why they're worth that much.”
“Whoa... Whoa, whoa, whoa!!! This is insane. One of these costs more than my house!”
Yeah. It's worth more than both our houses combined.
Honestly, the market price hasn't even been set, so it's worth whatever someone will pay.
Rich Hunters in the West spend tens of billions of won on their gear.
So I was estimating roughly twelve billion won for the pair.
If it went to auction, who knows how high the price would climb.
“Whoa.. But you're really just lending this to me!? Indefinitely?”
“Yeah. In exchange, you'll run some errands for me from now on.”
“Oh, absolutely! Tell me what to do!”
“Then while you're selling the gear, go to the Tower Management Bureau and deliver this.”
“Is it a letter?”
“Yeah. I wrote down the instructions. Just give it to them as is.”
“I'm curious. Can I open it?”
“No!”
“Aww.”
“But even if I say no, you'll open it anyway.”
“How'd you know..?!”
Hyeji tucked the letter safely into her clothes.
A letter from the Basement Administrator.
And the strongest Hunter in South Korea right now to deliver it.
Aren't we kind of amazing?
“Then hurry up and get out of here. You smell like blood and sweat. Wash up before going to the Bureau.”
“Okay! Got it~ I'll be right back! Oh, do you need anything while I'm out?”
“It's all written in the letter. The Bureau will take care of it.”
“Really? Check! Then I'm off!”
Hyeji left the Tower just like that.
The moment I was alone...
Ding!
====
[Your Goal!]
-Find the chef's body on Floor -4.
[Reward!]
-3 days of leave
-1 geun (600 g) of ritual meat.
====
A new quest popped up!
What!? Three days of leave!!
I'd been waiting for leave to show up, so this was perfect.
And if I'm being asked to help a chef on Floor -4, that naturally means Floor -4 is a restaurant or kitchen.
Floor -1 was the hallway and lobby floor.
Floor -2 was the office.
Floor -3 was the library.
Time to head down to a new floor.
But the reward was a little unusual.
In the slot where almond water should've been, a new reward had appeared: “1 geun of ritual meat (600 g).”
There was already an almond water vending machine.
Maybe that meant they weren't going to give almond water as a reward anymore?
“Kuku, Ms. Popo. Have you had enough rest?”
“Yes, miss. Thanks to your consideration, I've had the most comfortable time of my life.”
“Yep! I had a great rest, too!”
“Good. Then I have a new job for you. I'm heading to Floor -4, so you two go outside the Tower. It's an off-site assignment.”
“Is there a human we need to deal with?”
“No, that's not it... Or is it? I need to take out some trash.”
Looking at Babel Gallery and Constellation Gallery, I could see a few people starting to move in a bad direction.
I didn't know where the information had leaked from,
but my name had started coming up.
******
The top floor of the Korean Tower Management Bureau.
The very same conference room where former Director Choi Taeseong had disappeared.
“The pressure to share the identity of the Basement Administrator is growing stronger.”
“It seems the U.S. government isn't going to let this incident slide, either. They've lost Noah Johnson, so they'll demand appropriate compensation.”
“We need to identify the Administrator first. If we leave things like this, we'll lose more talent.”
“We have to protect them before another country reaches out...”
Between the Basement Administrator's takeover of the galleries and the mass disappearance of the basement raid party...
The world was in an uproar over the Basement Administrator.
And ordinary people and climbers alike...
were all curious about the Basement Administrator's identity.
“Enough. Trying to uncover the Basement Administrator's identity is a bad idea.”
The new director of the Korean Tower Management Bureau, Park Seongho.
He looked at the Bureau's newly reshuffled senior officials and let out a troubled sigh.
Some of them had already figured out Ji Cheonwoo's identity,
while the rest were determined to find out, their eyes blazing.
The investigation records former Director Choi Taeseong had left behind before disappearing.
Ji Cheonwoo's name was definitely in them.
But they must never be dug up.
There was no need to poke a hornet's nest.
Ji Cheonwoo was currently the most dangerous Korean in the country.
“Absolutely. We must not provoke him. Under any circumstances.”
“But, Director. We can't keep avoiding the question forever.”
“Fifteen people died in the basement.”
“They were all top Hunters from their respective countries. If we keep silent, they'll exert diplomatic pressure.”
“The U.S. will never let this incident go. We need to prepare some kind of response.”
“I think you're all mistaken about something. Right now, worrying about what the U.S. thinks is the least of our concerns.”
What did it matter if it was the U.S. or China?
If they dug into it, that man would kill them first.
Park Seongho knew exactly how the previous director had been “disappeared.”
“Our policy remains the same as before. Until the Basement Administrator contacts us first, we do everything we can not to provoke him. Understood? That concludes today's meeting.”
Director Park Seongho ended the meeting right then and there.
But he still felt uneasy.
The former director, Choi Taeseong, had essentially been an agent of China.
A traitor who deliberately leaked Hunters' personal information and sold promising young talents to a neighboring country.
‘Back then, they at least didn't attack us openly. But now...’
The difference in their reaction when they considered someone clearly beneath them versus when they saw them as a rival or competitor was like night and day.
If kidnapping and bribery had been China's main methods of attack and relatively mild ways of keeping us in check until now...
now they were starting to respond more aggressively and forcefully.
For example, openly applying economic pressure.
Or even making a show of attacking Korean climbers.
Assassination attempts against Korea's prominent Hunters and rankers, or their families, were happening day after day.
‘What if someone went after Ji Cheonwoo's family...?’
As far as he'd learned, Ji Cheonwoo had only one biological mother.
What if they went after his mother? The mere thought of what might happen sent a chill down his spine.
His opponent was a man who'd done something insane, confiscating grimoires from the entire world, and...
a monster who had casually killed fifteen of the world's top Hunters.
The master of the basement, who might start a war with neighboring countries without a second thought.
“Director, I'm sorry to interrupt your thoughts, but this is urgent.”
“What is it..”
“A woman has appeared, claiming to be the Basement's representative.”
“....What? That makes no sense... Send her away.”
At the secretary's anxious expression, Park Seongho frowned and went to see the visitor.
The moment he met eyes with the woman stuffing her face with premium snacks in the reception room, the words caught in his throat.
“Ah, nice to meet you. I'm a friend of the Basement Administrator. I brought a letter from the Administrator.”
“W-wait a moment. That thing floating behind you is...”
“Huh? This? It's a grimoire.”
“And what you're wearing on your hand...”
“Oh, this? They said it's that Noah Johnson guy's gear.”
“....”
“It really... does seem that she's the Basement's representative, Director.”
“Come on, I really am the Basement's representative. Have you all been getting fooled your whole lives?”
Her voice was bright and carefree, without a hint of worry.
But hidden behind her smiling face were the eyes of a beast.
Park Seongho had seen someone with eyes like that once before.
People who were crazy about climbing the Tower had eyes like that.
In the end, the director took the letter Hyeji handed him,
and after barely calming his trembling hands, opened the envelope...
“.......”
The director couldn't close his mouth.
“Um, Director. Is the letter serious?”
“...It says, ‘The Tower Management Bureau is hereby notified. From this moment on, issue expulsion orders to foreign Hunters... especially unregistered Hunters who are Chinese or of Joseonjok descent, as well as foreign Hunters who have caused trouble within our country.’”
“Excuse me..?”
The letter from the basement, as read aloud by the director.
The secretary's face turned pale in an instant.
“It says, ‘Starting exactly one day after this letter is opened, I'll begin sorting the trash in earnest. A major cleanup... and the normalization of the Republic of Korea...’ It's written in handwriting that looks like a child's.”
“S-sorting the trash..?”
“Yes. He says he's taking out the trash.”
Park Seongho couldn't help but cry.
He had no idea where to even begin cleaning up this mess.
Looks like another night of overtime was guaranteed.
He might as well forget about sleeping.