I Heard There's a Martial God Living in Korea.

Japan.

When China lost half its territory and its capital to the Tower Collapse, North Korea was smashed to pieces, and South Korea was left in a miserable state after losing its capital.

South Korea adapted quickly because the Tower-climbing genre had already been popular there.

Japan was a place akin to a holy land for otaku. The moment the world suddenly became a fantasy like something out of fiction, otaku rushed into the Tower, excited as if they were protagonists who had been chosen. They did so solely to become stronger.

Japan, too, had not escaped the damage caused by the Tower Collapse.... But its territory was not nearly as large as China's.

At the same time, Japan had quite a lot of people who had preserved their traditions across generations.

Dojos belonging to various schools existed throughout the country, and martial arts such as aikido, kendo, judo, and karate had continued to be passed down.

Unlike Korea, some people had learned a little through club activities and the like, and martial arts were relatively accessible. So the awakened Climbers climbed to prevent the Towers from collapsing, and when they did collapse, they joined forces to fight the monsters pouring out.

Japan's real damage came from its exasperating bureaucracy and sluggish government response. Even when the Prime Minister should have been acting swiftly, the government focused too much on the danger posed by Climbers with excessive power, while its support for disaster victims was a complete mess.

In the end, the situation became so disastrous that one Climber, unable to endure it any longer, assassinated the Prime Minister.

Relations between the South Korean and Japanese governments remained at their worst.

There were Climbers in every country who had worked to save even one more person during that crisis, and they were the association chairmen of today.

※※※

"Wow~ So this is a shrine."

After arriving at Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, Wakamo looked around like a country bumpkin who had just come to the city. Manager Won Da-hye had a lot to say as Wakamo shamelessly declared that, since she was in Japan, she could walk around the streets and insist she was cosplaying, but she held her tongue.

She had been asked to bring back some soy sauce-marinated crab when the chairman of the Japanese Association came over, after all, so she had to deliver it before it spoiled.

The shrine had existed since the Edo period and was also a place lined with a staggering ten thousand shrine gates called torii. Walking beneath them, Wakamo thought the sight was truly magnificent and gently swished her tail.

Holding a camera, Wakamo happily took pictures with Yu Ying like a tourist who had come on a sightseeing trip.

"This is all part of the experience!! Talking about what I saw and felt on my trip with the viewers during a broadcast is content too!"

"Yesh!"

It was hard to tell whether she had come to enjoy a trip or find content, but as long as she was having fun, wasn't that all that mattered?

From the perspective of the tourists passing by, a giant with fox ears and a fox tail had appeared at a shrine worshiping Inari, so people whispered that she might be a god.

Some people thought it might be an event and tried to take pictures, while others approached Wakamo. But she shamelessly insisted that they had mistaken her for someone else and that she was a tourist.

She even perked up her fox ears as she made the claim.

Anyway, it was cosplay.

Yu Ying was so embarrassed that she could not raise her head. Couldn't Wakamo at least have worn a hat or changed her clothes?

She had not disguised herself only because she wanted to conserve as much Mana as possible. It absolutely had nothing to do with her being busy watching VTuber broadcasts and clipping them whenever she had a spare moment, causing her Mana to drain quickly.

"Wow, so this is a shrine. It's my first time actually coming to one."

"Boss come to shrine fiwst time...?"

It was not as though she were the owner of Inari Shrine, yet the fox god was saying this was her first time visiting a shrine.

When Yu Ying expressed her disbelief, Wakamo claimed it was her first time. She could hardly admit that whenever she came to Japan, she had lined up outside a store from the day before and endured the wait to buy merchandise, then holed up in a hotel to watch VTuber broadcasts instead of sightseeing.

"I heard gods use the main path when they pass through."

"Boss should go left, then...?"

Yu Ying asked why Wakamo was walking alongside her, but Wakamo replied that it would be rude otherwise.

Since they were there, they took some pictures first.

Yu Ying took a picture of the fox god standing beside a fox statue, all the while wondering whether this was really okay.

In the middle of that, she spotted a miko sweeping with a broom and approached her. Could this be a real miko who actually worked at the shrine? Full of anticipation, Wakamo walked over, and the miko hurriedly rubbed her eyes at the sight of a fox god approaching.

She was black, but... a fox.... Could it be a yokai...?

"Are you a real miko?"

The miko was slightly dumbfounded by the polite and courteous question. Sweating nervously, she hiccupped as she answered. How far up did she have to tilt her head to look at someone so tall? Meeting eyes that might have been narrowed or closed, she confessed that she was only a part-time worker.

"Um... I'm doing short-term part-time work. There probably aren't any real miko these days... right?"

There were no Climbers whose profession was miko, either.

"There is one among the VTubers...."

"Boss...."

Yu Ying grabbed Wakamo by the wrist and dragged her away from the miko she was troubling. It would probably be disappointing to a fox god to learn that there were no real miko. Yu Ying was relieved that Wakamo did not try to enter the building and ask whether there were any other gods at the shrine.

Of course, if she had asked, Wakamo would have replied, What do you mean, where are the gods in this world?

"There's something I've always wanted to do when visiting a shrine! This is called an ema. It's a wooden plaque with a picture drawn on it, which you dedicate after writing down a wish. They said the ones at Inari Shrine are shaped like foxes, and they really are! Here, Yu Ying. Write your wish on this."

"I wanna do bwoadcasts with Boss."

Beside Yu Ying, who earnestly scribbled in Hangul, Wakamo also wrote her wish on an ema with a pleased smile.

She sincerely wrote, [Please let me buy limited-edition VTuber figures during this trip], then pressed her palms together and prayed.

Please.... Inari god.... Make this wish come true...!!

She put in 10,000 yen before tax. Surely that was enough for the god to grant a wish like this!!

After that came a leisurely sightseeing period. There was quite a lot to see, more than she had expected. The scenery was nice, too.

"Japanese swords are pretty cool in their own way.... I'd like to have one of those. Would I need a sword-ownership permit...?"

While walking, her eyes were drawn to an elaborately decorated Japanese sword displayed on the shrine wall.

Wouldn't it look cool for a fox god like her to wield a Japanese sword...? She was always in peak condition, so maybe she could carry three swords and try a Three-Sword Style!!

"Boss, where we go now?"

"Since we did a collab with Yangimo in Kyoto, we'll visit secondhand shops to look for merchandise, then go around the collab cafes since the collaboration is still running. After that, we'll visit the figure shops in Kyoto. If we have enough time, I'd like to go as far as Akihabara too."

"I wanna eat lotsa yummy food, Motha!!"

"Permission granted. You may buy everything...!!"

"Wow!!"

※※※

".....Um... is this really all right...?"

"Councilor Tetsuya!!"

"Y-Yes!!"

"Haa─ You're old enough now, and you have a rank to uphold. Shouldn't you straighten your shoulders and act with a little dignity? I heard that old geezer has already found the next chairman. I wish you would understand my plight too, having nothing but sighs to offer because there are no suitable candidates."

A woman in a suit scolded a man with the rank of councilor who looked timid and cowardly at a glance.

She was Watanabe Tomoko, the chairman of the Japanese Climber Association.

Looking out over the city from a high-rise building tall enough to take in the entire skyline, she frowned as she gazed at the Towers standing between the buildings.

She had conquered five Towers, and her best record was Floor 70, making her unquestionably one of the top Climbers in Japan. She had said there was no need to worry. Even so, the fact that they had sent this councilor meant──they had declared that they would do whatever they pleased.

"Did the Japanese Onmyoji Association and that idiot make a move?"

"Y-Yes... They said they were going to exterminate the evil yokai that had crossed over to Japan...."

"How rude of them to treat a Climber from Korea that way. They've crossed the line!! It's practically an insult to me!!"

"I don't understand why the chairman of the Korean Association would release such a monster, though...."

"Because he's the strongest."

He was unquestionably the strongest among South Korea's Climbers, and this was a matter involving a comrade who had fought back-to-back with him and staked his honor on it.

There was no need to doubt it. Watanabe was simply sick, as always, of the Japanese government bastards who had not even thanked the person who had rushed over to help when Japan was in crisis.

Even if every Climber in Korea attacked him at once, that old man would beat them all down and still have strength left over. He was overwhelmingly confident in his abilities─he could see the flow of Mana with his eyes and intuitively grasp danger.

He could tell how many people someone had killed, and he could immediately see through a doppelganger imitating a human appearance.

If someone like that had called her a "good Climber," then he had to be a human-lover of some kind, with no need to question it.

"I was so worried that I had someone follow her. But she seems to be enjoying herself like a tourist.... What on earth was I worried about?"

As the chairman grumbled and wondered whether she should just become a Korean citizen for real, the councilor begged her to please refrain from doing that, at least.

"The people playing around in politics have no sense of reality at all."

The times had changed drastically.

The Climbers did not want to lose the civilization they had grown accustomed to, and they already knew from countless movies and works of fiction what would happen if it disappeared. Some even staged coups to awaken this incompetent country─but unless a Climber was truly overwhelmingly strong, they could not defeat a military unit.

"They treat me like some kind of hunting dog that goes around killing Climbers for them."

"Haha...."

"Then let me ask you the opposite. What if she isn't a yokai, but the real Inari god?"

"Excuse me...?"

"If they're saying they'll exterminate her because she's a yokai, rather than kill her because she's a promising Climber from Korea, what will they do if she really is a god?"

The councilor who had been pushed forward because he was the youngest could not say anything in response to her question. He was merely a scapegoat, not even in a position to represent anyone. But the councilor listening to her could not help thinking: If she really was a fox god....

Even if she was not, this was already a diplomatic issue.

"And besides, we acted as we pleased too. I hear the 【Fist King】 wants to meet her."

".....What?"

"So I told him he could do as he pleased♥"

"N-No, you can't just give him permission like that...."

"So, do you have a problem with it? If you're unhappy, come tell him yourself."

The councilor was driven out by Chairman Watanabe, who coldly dismissed him, saying she had no intention of talking with Manager Won Da-hye and that he should get lost.

The whole matter had been full of problems from the beginning, but sensing that it was about to grow even larger, he could only contact the National Assembly.

The message was.... Japan's strongest man was on his way to meet the fox god!

And he was going there to fight her!!

※※※

A fight between Climbers depended on how much information each side managed to conceal from the other.

Knowing someone's profession did not mean knowing all the [Skills] they possessed. One also had to account for their weapons, consumables, accessories, and armor.

On top of that, this fight was taking place outside the Tower. If you let your guard down because your opponent seemed weaker than you, they could pull out a gun and kill you dishonorably.

Hadn't one of America's Tower conquerors once been killed by an unlucky burst of indiscriminate gunfire while simply passing by?

Conversely, that was why Climbers hardly ever fought one another unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

They were already too busy fighting monsters and climbing Towers.

If someone picked a fight with the intention of killing them, they were probably a Climber trained as an assassin or a weapon created by the government, so it was better to run away.

Of course, if it were the government, they would kill you more smartly with a long-range sniper shot.

"Can't eat any more, ugh...."

Yu Ying had overeaten until her stomach stuck out, and she covered her mouth while trembling.

After entering the hotel they had reserved in advance and unpacking, Wakamo immediately opened a portal and put away all the VTuber merchandise she had bought, including the figures. She had bought so much that she could not carry it all even if she hugged a great armful to her chest.

She swept up every chibi-style character figure called a Nendoroid that had been released for the Virtual Live members. Wakamo kept frantically gathering more until she had nearly devastated the figure shops, then burned with enthusiasm at the thought of turning the studio residence into an exhibition hall.

She had bought so much that she could barely enter her house inside the portal anymore.

She wrapped everything in plastic and started stacking it from the bathroom onward, only to realize that her house was this small....

"I only bought 700 of them!!!"

Of course, that was 700 figures alone. She would not mention how much other stuff she had impulsively bought. Once she regained some composure, her head cooled as she wondered whether she had bought far too much without a plan... but when she saw the mountains of VTuber merchandise piled up before her, the corners of her mouth stretched nearly to her ears.

"Ehehe... This is happiness... Wakamo is happy!!!!"

Wakamo's mood rose past the sky and went HIGH. Her tail puffed up as she turned on a game console, saying she had bought games featuring the VTuber characters too.

There were plenty of games with shoddy gameplay made solely to sell the characters, as well as games that seemed to have been created for the fans, but Wakamo did not care.

"So this is the seventh VTuber game I bought recently!!"

-Yes... Ah, yes.....

-When are we going to hear about your impressions of Japan?

-I've been listening to you talk about VTuber merchandise for two hours.

-Is this a VTuber orientation session?

-Professor, please take your seat so the lecture can begin.

-It's nice that you aren't taking attendance....

-Ichigo started her broadcast too, yeah....

-What is she doing over there?

-The boss bought so many figures that she can't get into her house. I thought I misheard when she said there were 2,800 items.

-....What?

-W-What...? There are that many...?

-If you add everything else to the figures, it is quite a lot, I suppose...? Keychains and various other things....

-What, did she build a pharaoh's tomb? Is she making a VTuber museum?

Her excitement had risen so high that her voice had climbed to the sky as well. Wakamo giggled with her ears flapping and spent nearly four hours chatting with the viewers. It was questionable whether this counted as communication, but her own oshi, the Queen, had shared stories when she traveled to Japan, so Wakamo wanted to do the same and told them what food she had eaten at the collab cafe.

"So, the VTuber in this food—what kind of VTuber is it?"

-Is this review time?

-Wake me when the professor's lecture is over....

-Is all of this going to be on the exam?

-The entrance exam is insane. This semester is screwed, sigh.

-I heard it's open-book?

-Even if it's open-book, I couldn't do it. Fuckㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-No, why do you have all of that memorized???

-Information) The streamer has memorized every publicly available profile.

-She even carries the VTubers' embarrassing pasts. She's terrifying....

The believers went to listen to Ichigo talk about delicious food instead of the barrage of VTuber trivia. Over there, Ichigo was telling her friends about her first impressions of Japan and showing them pictures she had taken, including ones from Kyoto's Inari Shrine.

It was obviously the site of a catastrophic red-pill reveal, but Yu Ying roughly replied as instructed that Wakamo's appearance had been composited onto a VTuber model. The viewers were no longer in a position to nitpick that, so they simply said, Oh, I see, and moved on.

-The fox god visiting Inari Shrine.

-There's a fox god who says she can't use the main path because only gods walk there?

-Is it really okay for the fox god to take a picture beside a fox statue?

-More importantly, it's kind of sad that she was disappointed there was no real miko.

-There's no god or miko at the shrine..... It must feel a little lonely.

-Isn't that shrine the streamer's place anyway..?

-Didn't she go to see her friend? The fox friend who doesn't come out even when called....

-But why doesn't the streamer go to China?

-She'd have to have something left to go thereㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-For realㅋㅋㅋ Everything burned downㅋㅋㅋ

While Ichigo and Wakamo were broadcasting separately and discussing what else they would do in Japan, the believers did not expect much, thinking Wakamo would just go see more VTubers anyway. But after chatting for a while, Wakamo folded her arms and fell into thought.

She had learned taekwondo in Korea─but honestly, she felt she had reached her limits.

Japan had schools that taught all kinds of martial arts with various weapons, as well as karate and judo... Wasn't it full of places where she could learn? Kendo also had many different schools.

She wanted to enroll somewhere suitable and learn a little, but she was worried about whether that would be all right.

One-on-one private lessons could solve the red-pill problem, but how much would it cost to invite a master like that.....

'It isn't just monsters. I might have to fight Climbers in the future too.'

She could simply kill monsters with brute force, but she did not particularly want to kill Climbers, so she wanted to learn various ways to fight.

Manager Won Da-hye said it would take a long time to obtain approval for the [Tower Climbing Ticket], so Wakamo could continue enjoying her sightseeing. The Japanese chairman contacted Wakamo separately and gave her fairly reckless permission to do whatever she wanted, saying it did not matter if she entered on her own and telling her to go ahead and do it....

But Wakamo politely declined because it could become a diplomatic issue.

The [Tower Climbing Ticket] was effectively the first item of its kind to appear in history. Since the Japanese and Korean Climber Associations had checked the item's information and registered it with each other, every Climber in the world probably knew it existed.

Still, no one would try to seize it, since it was exclusive to her.

The value of being able to eliminate the Tower's penalties and climb as though it were your first time was absurdly high.

For a Climber who had already conquered a Tower, it was a chance not only to grow stronger easily by climbing at a reduced difficulty, but also to aim for 『Complete-Clear Floors』.

Why else would foreign countries not urge Wakamo to naturalize?

While climbing one Tower, a Climber had to reset it to climb their own country's Tower, losing all the abilities and stats they possessed.

There was no guarantee that they would recover their lost Skills and stats, and if they did not transfer their items, even those would disappear when the Tower was reset.

Manager Won Da-hye told Wakamo that one country had even sent an agent after deciding it would be fine because Wakamo was rumored to have been strong from the beginning, even if she reset her Tower.

The agent who tried to make secret contact had been dealt with somehow because they could not allow a red-pill reveal. They had not disposed of the agent, right...?

Anyway, if Wakamo could obtain another item like this, some country might appear and threaten her to conquer their Tower instead.

When she imagined it, the scale was ridiculously huge... Though it did not matter much to Wakamo....

If someone threatened her with the VTuber memorabilia that would be displayed in her studio, might she not surrender?

If irreplaceable items burned away and vanished, she might truly become a cursed fox god.

'Considering all that, I want to fight a little more smartly.'

She had used the fact that climbing the Tower restored her Mana to put on a crude display, building up an excessively grand illusion that she was strong.

In reality, her Skills were such a mess that she could not regulate her strength and had to fight with excessive output, shortening her lifespan in the process.

Seriously, if she fought while putting some strength into it, the rhino and the goblins consumed Mana at roughly the same rate, so did she really need to explain any more?

'──And now that I have a studio, performing martial arts I've learned could make for good content too.'

Taekwondo was also performed overseas, even if things had changed a lot these days.

The more techniques she could show, the richer Wakamo's VTuber broadcasts would become.

'I could learn Japanese instruments and dances too.... Maybe I should study various other things as well....'

So tomorrow, she would raid convenience stores for VTuber collab merchandise.

Whatever sort of resolve that was, Wakamo faithfully made her plans.

....

......

"I've been wanting to meet you, fox god."

Wakamo's plans had been perfect until the next morning, when she left the hotel and immediately encountered a dignified martial artist who blocked her path as if he had been waiting for her.

It was an ambitious plan to pitch a tent before dawn, line up, and endure the wait!!!

"──Who are you?"

"People call me by the grand title of 【Fist King】.... But I'm merely a martial artist. I came running from far away because I wanted to meet you.

Would you spar with me?

Even Wakamo, who had no interest whatsoever in Climbers, knew the title of the man asking so politely and courteously.

Japan's strongest Climber, who had conquered the 90th-floor Tower in Osaka, Japan's demon realm, using nothing but his fists...!!

'.....But why am I sparring with him?'

Just how inflated had the illusion of her strength become?

Wakamo sighed inwardly and quietly said goodbye to the merchandise she had been planning to buy....

I'm sorry I couldn't come to greet you, convenience-store collab merchandise....

Wakamo grew depressed, feeling like a complete piece of trash for even considering asking Yu Ying, who was sleeping soundly, to go in her place.