Chapter 19
A sweeping roundup of illegal Hunters hiding in Seoul and Incheon.
Two entities had literally wiped out thirty percent of the Wandering Society, which had been eating away at Korea.
“Is this really the place?”
“I felt it faintly, but there’s definitely an entity down here.”
The basement storage room of an abandoned motel in Danwon-gu, Ansan.
Popo and Kuku had been cleaning up the ethnic Korean climbers from the Wandering Society hiding in Ansan. Following the entity’s presence, they made their way down into the building’s basement.
And there, they came face-to-face with a situation they hadn’t expected.
“Why are you here?”
“...Mokgu. You’re Mokgu, right? Huh?”
“You can’t answer. Your vocal cords are torn.”
“...Why would they do this? They left you alive instead of killing you...”
There was an entity locked in a cage, its neck and ankles shackled with chains.
It was called Three-Eye (三目) because it had three eyes.
And Dog (狗) because it took the form of a dog.
Its name was Three-Eyed Dog.
“Mokgu’s in terrible shape.”
“What could they have done to leave Mokgu like this?”
“...I can see signs of torture, too. Mokgu. Where are your brothers? Why are you the only one... Ah.”
A body reduced to skin and bones.
Its tongue lolled out of its mouth, which frothed with white foam.
Its pupils had gone slack, and its nose could no longer distinguish friend from foe.
One of its ears had been cut off, too.
Its tail had been severed halfway, and hadn’t grown back.
The broken entity had been left in that condition inside the storage-room cage.
“Hek... hek...”
“Mokgu. Can you hear me? Mokgu.”
“What happened? Who locked you up here?”
“...Whine.”
The Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost looked around.
The criminal Hunters from the Wandering Society had all already been eliminated.
There was no one left to question.
They would have to hear the whole story from Three-Eyed Dog himself.
“Mokgu’s completely lost it. I can barely sense any intelligence in those eyes.”
“Kuku. Let’s give Mokgu some almond water.”
“Almond water?”
“Yeah. We have our young lady now. We can share some.”
“Oh, right. That’s true. We have the Administrator now.”
Entities who had once been cast out of the Tower treasured almond water as much as their lives.
To sustain their existence, they had to eat humans,
or replenish their supply of almond water.
For that reason, they normally would never have given any to someone else.
But the two entities, taken in by the Administrator, didn’t hesitate to take out their own share and moisten the dying Three-Eyed Dog’s mouth.
Lick. Lick.
Three-Eyed Dog, who hadn’t responded no matter how much they called, tasted the almond water and weakly wagged a tail.
Soon, Mokgu struggled to his feet and drank all the almond water the two entities had given.
At last, Mokgu regained some of the intelligence that had slipped away and spoke.
“Woof!”
[A human... a human said they’d feed me!]
“Food?”
“Woof, woof!”
[At first, they took care of me. But...]
Apparently, at some point, the food started tasting strange.
After a meal or two, Mokgu’s strength began to fade.
Then they started trying to tame Mokgu.
It hurt terribly.
It was agonizing.
“It was the climbers.”
“And they must have connections to some pretty high floors.”
“...Then there can only be one culprit.”
Constellations.
And the Seekers chosen by the Constellations.
They had been conducting experiments on entities who’d been cast out of the Tower.
Popo and Kuku came to that conclusion.
“Their targets were probably the less intelligent children. It wouldn’t have been easy to mess with adults like us.”
“Beast-type entities were probably their main targets. Those bastards...”
“It’s okay now, Mokgu. Let’s go back to the basement together.”
“Whiiine?”
[The basement? Can I really go back? That’s a lie... They lied! Those humans said the same thing. They promised they’d send me back to the basement. But in the end, they just hurt me.]
“You really can go back to the basement. The Administrator has come to the basement! I’m telling you, the Administrator is there!”
“Woof!”
[Liar! There’s no way. The Administrator doesn’t exist... I’m not falling for it again!]
Three-Eyed Dog tried to escape from the two entities.
After years of enduring all kinds of cruelty, Mokgu had developed chronic distrust and anxiety.
Soon, fear took over, and Mokgu began showing strange symptoms.
Blind aggression.
Emotional wounds that two bottles of almond water could never heal.
Three-Eyed Dog started snapping at them through tears.
It was the desperate struggle of an entity with nothing left but the will to survive.
“Oh no... Mokgu’s mind is broken...!!”
“We have to call the Administrator. There’s nothing we can do! Nothing but kill Mokgu...”
“Wait! The young lady can definitely do something. I’ll hold Mokgu down. You go!”
“O-okay! Got it!”
The Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost firmly restrained the rampaging Three-Eyed Dog.
Taking advantage of the opening, Red Mask hurried out of the abandoned motel’s basement storage room.
Twenty minutes later.
“Woof! Woof!”
“Ghk...”
With Three-Eyed Dog’s teeth sunk into her hand, the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost held Mokgu down so Mokgu couldn’t thrash around any longer.
If Three-Eyed Dog got loose in this state, the entire area would be laid to waste.
After drinking two bottles of almond water, Mokgu had regained some strength—enough to become a disaster in their own right.
Clink.
“I heard a dog barking. It’s over here.”
At that moment, Popo, the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost, felt a chill.
She hadn’t sensed anyone approaching,
but something was coming down the stairs into the abandoned motel’s basement storage room.
“...Of all times.”
She did her best to restrain Three-Eyed Dog as she stared at whoever had come down the stairs.
Ready to fight at any moment.
“Oh-ho. Two wayward monsters lost in a place like this.”
Clink.
Clink.
In the silent basement storage room, the metal rings on a ringed staff clanged together.
******
I finally understand why underlings are important.
You need underlings to rack up points faster!
“Getting almond water while lying around. Easy. Too easy! Is it really supposed to be this easy?”
I finally understood exactly what it meant when the quest said the more underlings, the better.
The Tower was practically handing out points!
I’m telling you, the points just keep multiplying!
Even now, I keep giving trivial quests to Mr. Nadim from MyHometownPakistan and Hyeji, but the points coming in are no joke.
====
[A climber has completed several quests in a row!]
[Underling bonus activated!]
[You have received 52 points in commission!]
[You have received 95 points in commission!]
[You have received 88 points in commission!]
====
Points come in with every breath I take...
I’m practically the Bill Gates of points.
I just earned 1,200 points sitting in one spot.
That’s a whopping twelve bottles of almond water.
Even if I just give my underlings quests and sit around waiting, I’m stockpiling a decade’s worth of food for Popo and Kuku!
Ah, the Tower is easy.
“One, two, three... Hek. Hek.”
The entities would be astonished if they saw this.
I want to see Kuku and Popo’s faces.
What kind of expressions would they make when they saw a box full of almond water?
I put on the sunglasses I’d brought from outside the Tower.
Now that I’m rich in points,
I want to savor this feeling to the fullest!
I should do a dance of joy!
“Yippee!!! Points are raining down from the sky!!!”
Good. Let’s get more underlings!
Seeing how many points I’m earning, I can’t wait around!
I should pick my third underling right now!
“You’re my next candidate!”
I struck the pose of someone choosing a PokéXmon.
Your starter matters, after all.
And I only have two underling slots left now.
This time, I want to pick someone impressive and talented, someone who can be the public face of my team.
“Huh? Why hasn’t she commented? Why?”
Actually, I had one person in mind as a candidate.
For some reason, the person I’d assumed would obviously leave a comment hadn’t posted one.
She usually comments on my posts without fail, but not this time...?
Why wasn’t someone I always saw around showing up?
“Did something happen?”
The Korean user I’d been keeping an eye on was ‘Pajoligae.’
It would be great if Ms. Pajoligae, who always praised me so enthusiastically I wondered if she was an overzealous fan, became my underling.
I actually know who Pajoligae is.
One of the gallery-stalking features is called ‘Observer Rank.’
When you view the gallery with Observer Rank, the user’s real name appears beside their username.
So there’s no hiding, even if you try.
And Pajoligae’s real name is Kang Haesol.
She was the female Hunter I’d first observed as soon as I got the Employee Register—and a climber ranked third in all of South Korea.
====
[Pajoligae]
Posts: 563
Comments: 4,038
(Real name: Kang Haesol)
====
Her post-to-comment ratio was perfect.
She was fiercely patriotic, so she’d never betray us.
She was popular with the public, too.
She really was the perfect candidate.
“Let’s see what she’s up to.”
Of course, snooping on someone’s private life is wrong. I know that!
Still, I was a little curious about the private life of Korea’s most popular Hunter.
I hoped she wasn’t having a nice time with her partner or anything.
I took out the Employee Register and casually searched for Ms. Pajoligae’s real name, Kang Haesol.
When I checked what she was doing right now...
“Oh dear. She was in the middle of something.”
No wonder she hadn’t left a comment.
She was in the bathroom..!
There she was, sitting on a hospital toilet in her patient gown, straining away.
I’d somehow ended up seeing something I wasn’t supposed to.
Come to think of it, she injured her arm on Floor 28.
Had she been writing all those praise posts for me with an injured arm...?
That’s both touching and kind of pitiful.
Is there a way I can encourage her?
“Write a quest.”
This is the best way to help someone outside the Tower from the basement.
She never said she wanted to be my underling,
but let’s send her an underling quest anyway.
She might like it.
And Haesol seems to mainly use a sword,
so I could give her a sword manual as a reward from the Basement Level 4 library, right?
******
Kang Haesol had injured her left arm while subjugating the Frost Witch on Floor 28 of the Tower of Trials.
While hospitalized at a Hunter hospital and receiving intensive treatment,
she had quietly carried out the assignments sent by the Tower Management Bureau.
‘I have to blindly praise some unknown Basement Administrator? What is this, North Korea?’
Even as she cursed the Basement Administrator in her heart,
her hands were quickly typing up praise posts for the Administrator.
As she continued praising the Administrator day after day, her thoughts gradually began to change.
She had become captivated by the very praise posts she’d written herself!
‘Could the Basement Administrator really be an amazing person? They must be incredible, right?’
They worked hard to maintain public order,
and had the skill to easily deal with top Hunters from the most advanced Tower nations.
As Kang Haesol let her imagination run wild and gradually grew more familiar with the Administrator in her heart,
a decisive turning point that would change her life completely finally arrived.
She’d taken antidiarrheal medicine almost every day because of frequent meals of low-quality combat rations and irritable bowel syndrome.
The two had combined to leave her suffering from chronic constipation—and then a notification window appeared before her!
Ding!
====
[Your Goal!]
I’ve been keeping an eye on the posts you usually write, Ms. Haesol.
So, how about becoming my underling?
Accept, and I’ll give you a reward, too.
Let’s get along from now on.
[Reward]
Slaughter Maniac’s Secret Manual
Free City Pass
====
“....What is this? I-is this real?”
The first thing she felt was bewilderment.
Then came joy and embarrassment.
‘Could it be... I just got chosen by the Administrator while sitting on a toilet? This is crazy... Why did it have to be now?!’
As soon as she accepted the underling position, the Administrator’s gift landed on Kang Haesol’s knees.
A book engraved with all kinds of mysterious letters and symbols.
It was known as the Secret Manual of the Slaughter Maniac.
“....This is...”
The moment Kang Haesol opened the secret manual left behind by the once-in-a-generation genius known as the Slaughter Maniac, she realized it.
This was a skill book that could bring out 120 percent of her potential—no, 200 percent!
‘This secret manual is perfect for me!!’
With this, she could break through her limits.
At the thought that she could grow even stronger, she cheered with excitement.
“Long live the Administrator!”
Kang Haesol’s reward circuitry broke today.
She’d posted a few shitposts and buttered him up, and got a top-tier skill book for it.
Of course she’d become an unconditional supporter of the Administrator.
She hurriedly finished her business and posted on Babel Gallery.
====
Title: I hereby withdraw my support for the Administrator.
Posted by: Pajoligae
From today on, I’m leaving my former position as a supporter
and becoming one with the Basement Administrator.
Therefore, any attack on the Administrator will be considered an attack on me.
•
•
•
====
A long, gushy post!
Today, she became an ardent supporter of the Basement Administrator.
Or perhaps she had been one long before today.
******
“Whoa, a long letter...”
No, Ms. Kang Haesol, Pajoligae.
Please write letters like this outside the bathroom...
It’s like the letter smells bad.
I can’t even imagine how much she likes me.
Well, with this, I’ve got three people so far.
Now, who should I choose for the last spot...?
“Boss!!”
“Huh? What is it, Kuku? Why are you alone? Where’s Popo?”
“W-well...!”
Kuku panted as she briefly explained the situation.
So you found an entity while cleaning up the bad guys?
An entity in the form of a dog.
A dog with three eyes, so it’s called Three-Eyed Dog.
It sounds like there’s a story behind it.
It must’ve been living as a stray after being kicked out of the Tower... Poor thing!!!
“I’ll take care of everything. Trust me!”
“Yes, sir..!!!”
I have four whole days of leave, too.
An injured entity... We need to hurry and treat it, then bring it back to the basement!
I’ll make sure the dog stops barking soon and get it back to the basement!