Chapter 7
"Yeah, Chairman. I took care of it."
......
"What? No, nothing like that. Don't worry, the Tower isn't going to be destroyed."
......
"...I don't know. I have to go train. I'm hanging up."
[ Call Ended ]
After ending her call with the chairman, Hong Yeon-hwa read through the Awakened profile on her tablet, looking tired.
[ Awakened Integrated Database (KAA-DB) ]
▶ Status: Temporarily Registered (Awaiting Detailed Assessment)
※ Access available to personnel with Level 3 clearance or higher
[ Basic Information ]
- Name: Geum A-yeon (金兒鍊)
- Age: 21 (according to her)
- Temporary Assessment Rank: B
[ Ability Information ]
- Class: Unregistered
- Traits: Unregistered
- Skills: Unregistered
[ Notes ]
- Tentatively estimated to be S-rank. (Temporary assessment results; detailed verification required)
- Cleared Lunatic difficulty; currently climbing Floor 2.
- Evidence of a crafting skill confirmed.
"...Finally, that's done."
Having her information entered into the database meant her Awakened registration had been completed properly.
Even if it was only a temporary registration, identifying a Lunatic climber was important to the Association.
"Still, where the hell did a monster like her come from?"
The Association had assessed her as B-rank for now, but its provisional estimate of her rank was S.
Mana capacity exceeding the average for A-rank Awakened.
Mana control more skilled than that of most veterans.
And on top of that, the monstrous record of clearing Lunatic difficulty.
"And she even has a crafting skill..."
Normally, people with crafting classes couldn't climb the Tower without help from others.
They had almost no skills they could use directly in combat.
But that little girl, Geum A-yeon, had a crafting skill and still cleared Lunatic difficulty all by herself.
An inexplicable situation that made no sense by ordinary standards.
The chairman must be going out of his mind over this.
Maybe he'd lose a few more of his already-scarce hairs over it.
"Well... His problems are his problems."
Gotta do what needs to be done.
Muttering that, Hong Yeon-hwa dragged her tired body toward the training room.
Taking down the Floor 20 boss was just as important to her as the Association's work, so she had no time to rest.
"There's nothing better than firepower except even more firepower..."
As always, explosions had all the answers.
And to beat the Floor 20 boss, she needed even more firepower than she had now.
[ Status Window ]
- Class: Pyromancer
- Traits: Embers (A), Fire Resistance (A), Overclock (A), Parallel Processing (B)
- Skills: Inferno (S), Ignition (A), Intermediate Magic (B)
All her traits and skills were geared toward firepower.
She divided her left and right brain with Parallel Processing, then overloaded her brain and nerves with Overclock.
In that state, she endured the heat threatening to burn her alive with Fire Resistance and continued her calculations.
Everything was for the sake of greater firepower.
That's right.
She was a complete lunatic.
A lunatic who was now a little more refined.
"Inferno."
Arriving at the training room, Hong Yeon-hwa summoned her mana in a feeble voice.
Vroooom...
Mana flowed from her heart, down her arm, and out through her fingertips.
The mana she released inscribed complex formulas, tracing the circuits of a massive magic circle.
Parallel Processing.
Overclock.
Then, as her two traits activated, a heat that felt like it could cook her brain began to build inside her head.
But it was fine. She could endure it.
After all, she had the Fire Resistance trait.
Vroooom...
Rather than her overworked body, it was her mana that screamed, letting out a resonant hum.
The formulas were inscribed faster, and the magic circle took shape.
Then more formulas were written over the completed magic circle.
Once, twice, three times...
When a total of five magic circles had been layered together.
Hong Yeon-hwa sensed that something was wrong.
"...Huh?"
Her mana was flowing more smoothly than usual.
No, it wasn't just her mana. Her mind was clear, too.
At this level of Overclock, her head should already have felt foggy and hazy...
Vroooooom──
At that moment, her mana let out a fierce roar like a sports car engine.
At the same time, the magic circles began to overlap at an exponentially increasing speed.
"W-wait...!"
Five layers, six layers, seven layers...
The magic circles continued layering, now beyond her control.
Creak, creak-creak──!!
When the magic circle reached ten layers, it began to groan, unable to hold together any longer.
"Sto─"
Realizing that something had gone seriously wrong, Hong Yeon-hwa tried to cancel the spell.
...And failed spectacularly.
KABOOOOOM──
The training room exploded.
A pillar of flames shot high into the sky.
In an explosion like a small nuclear bomb going off, the blast wave hit a moment later, instantly sending her glasses and hair flying.
"......"
Thud.
Eventually, Hong Yeon-hwa, battered and bruised, sank to the floor as her legs gave out. She muttered:
"That little brat..."
What the hell did she feed me...?
*
*
*
Meanwhile, at that very moment, in a convenience store on the 0th Floor.
Beep!
/This product may only be purchased by customers aged 19 or older. Please show your ID./
"......"
"......"
Slide.
[ Awakened Registration Card ]
Name: Geum A-yeon (金兒鍊)
Rank: B
"......"
"......"
The convenience store clerk looked at the girl in front of them with an expression that said they were dying to teach her a lesson.
"...Put it back and come back with an adult."
"Why?!"
Would that ever work, realistically?
*
*
*
- 39.7: I heard you can buy alcohol with an Awakened registration card
- Sogatamyeontanso: Did you actually believe that?
- 39.7: ;;;;;
- 39.7: You are a truly terrible person
Unfortunately, my attempt to buy alcohol with my Awakened registration card came to nothing.
"Carbon-carbon, did you lie to me...?"
No, she probably hadn't lied.
An Awakened registration card could be used as ID, just like a driver's license in the outside world.
It was just that the convenience store clerk was more Confucian-minded than I'd expected.
"I don't even look that young."
Even if I had a baby face, I looked like a high schooler at most, right?
They could've mistaken me for one and sold me alcohol by accident.
Why was this store in the Tower so strict about selling things?
It's not like I was actually a high schooler.
"Do you think I'm buying alcohol to drink it??"
...Well.
I was buying it to drink it.
I'd have to drink alcohol to work on my trait, after all.
I just wouldn't get drunk thanks to my resistance.
"Tch... I hope you wake up with kidney stones one day."
After laying a terrifying curse on the convenience store clerk with my pettiness turned up to the max, I puffed out my cheeks and opened my status window.
"Status Window."
Flash──!
[ Status Window ]
- Class: Alchemist
- Traits: Drug Addiction (EX), Drug Resistance (S)
- Skills: Transmutation (A), Inventory (A)
Though I hadn't been able to buy alcohol, my status window was a little more impressive now, thanks to the skill I'd recently acquired.
Now that I'd registered as an Awakened—
I selected 'Inventory' from the status window to bring up the skill's detailed description.
[ Inventory ]
- Rank: A
- Ability: Opens an extradimensional space to store and retrieve objects.
- Storage limit: 1 m³
The A-rank skill, Inventory.
The Tower bastards had turned chopstick sterilization into DLC.
To test Inventory's performance right away, I used the skill on an aluminum can lying on the floor.
"Inventory."
Flash!
As when I used Transmutation, something flowed from my chest, down my arm, and out through my fingertips.
I hadn't known before, but apparently this was the power called mana.
The mana gathered at my fingertips and let out a low hum, then soon began swallowing the aluminum cans scattered around the room one by one.
"Wow, wow."
It's better than I expected.
I thought it would just open some kind of portal in midair, at best.
The cans popped into storage as soon as I touched them. It felt like I was playing Minecraft.
And I didn't have to play Tetris organizing my items like in that game where you escape from Tarkov.
Flash!
I used Inventory again and summoned one of the stored aluminum cans into the air.
At the same time, I used Transmutation to turn the summoned can into a spike.
"Transmutation!"
CRUNCH!
Just as I'd expected, a metal spike shot upward through the air like it had been launched.
After summoning it several more times, I had a rough idea of its range, too.
By feel, about two or three meters in radius?
'A 250-centimeter radius... that's within arm's reach...'
For some reason, that range reminded me of the lyrics to some old man's song.
Maybe it was set that way because it really was within arm's reach.
...Anyway.
That more or less solved one of Transmutation's chronic problems: its range.
Pleased with how well it worked, I grinned and immediately opened the Awakened Community.
"Hehehe."
I couldn't keep something this good all to myself.
They say good things are meant to be shared.
[ Your place doesn't have one of these, huh? ]
[ Posted by: 39.7 ]
< Inventory skill test video >
Is this any good?
Got it on my first pull from a Random Skill Box
- Anonymous Climber: What the hell is this supposed to be
- Anonymous Climber: Sigh... He brought something fucking infuriating again...
- Anonymous Climber: Huh?? The Lunatic newbie??
└ Save the Newbies: This bastard isn't a newbie;;;
└ Anonymous Climber: You're not exactly a newbie either, though;;;
- Air Raid Alert: Why am I the only one without Inventory again...
└ Anonymous Climber: Seriously, why isn't this included by default?
└ Anonymous Climber: Lmao, if you're jealous, buy the DLCㅋㅋ
└ Anonymous Climber: "Chopstick sterilization," "Card payments accepted," "Wet towels provided"
- Anonymous Climber: Wow, wow, those fingers, wow
└ Great Mage: Oh dear...
└ Child Enthusiast: Lmaoㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ Anonymous Climber: Please, just... Never mind.
Comments poured in by the dozens in no time.
As expected, the reaction was just what I'd hoped for. I smiled contentedly and kept refreshing the page.
Ding!
"Hweuh?!"
But just then, a notification suddenly rang out.
I let out a scream that was almost a shriek, opened my inbox, and checked the new message.
- Sogatamyeontanso: Hey
- Sogatamyeontanso: Tell me what the hell you fed me
- 39.7: ?
Sure enough, there was a message from Sogatamyeontanso... Hong Yeon-hwa.
But unlike when I'd seen her at the Association, something seemed off about her.
- Sogatamyeontanso: Damn it, 39.7!!!!
- Sogatamyeontanso: What the hell is this candy!!!!
- Sogatamyeontanso: My body's heating up!!!!
- 39.7: ?????
Had she been possessed by the legendary Joy Boy?
Thoroughly flustered by this massive unexpected development, I watched the antics of Hong Yeon-hwa, the A-rank Awakened, without even noticing that my post had made the top posts.
- Sogatamyeontanso: Uwoah?! Uwooooooah!!!!
- Sogatamyeontanso: My brain is vibratingggg!!!!
"W-what...? What is happening all of a sudden...?"
Seeing her look like she was about to awaken as a Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult, I hurriedly tried to figure out why she was having a fit.
'Could it be... this candy...?'
[ Caffeine Candy ]
- Rank: C
- Details: A candy containing the caffeine from ten cans of commercial energy drinks (about 1,000 mg) compressed into a single piece. It stimulates the central nervous system, temporarily inducing an alert state.
Caffeine candy made with my Transmutation skill.
My Resistance skill kept me from feeling much of an effect, but each piece was packed with the caffeine from a whopping ten energy drinks.
Crunch, crunch.
'...Ugh, what is this? Why does it taste so fishy?'
But she'd picked it up and eaten it.
Several of them, at that.
Come to think of it, even if you were Awakened, it was common sense that chugging dozens of energy drinks would cause problems, wasn't it...?
It was lucky she'd at least managed not to run to the bathroom at the Association and do the whole 'Aja-jat, aja-ja-jat' routine.
- Sogatamyeontanso: GYAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!
"......"
Well, she seemed fine enough to crack jokes like this, so thankfully it hadn't done her any harm.
And for some reason, she seemed happy, so maybe it was all good...?
- 39.7: Why are you acting like that;;
- Sogatamyeontanso: But seriously, what was that stuff?
- Sogatamyeontanso: It didn't seem like an ordinary candy.
Maybe she'd finally used up her quota of freaking out, because she was finally coming to her senses and speaking normally.
I gave the overexcited woman a simple explanation of the candy.
- 39.7: It's just caffeine candy
- Sogatamyeontanso: Huh? Really?
- 39.7: But with the concentration increased tenfold
- Sogatamyeontanso: You son of a bitch
- 39.7: Uuuh... don't swear at me...
- Sogatamyeontanso: You crazy bitch
- Sogatamyeontanso: What the hell did you feed me?
Maybe she'd finally realized what kind of candy she'd eaten.
Hong Yeon-hwa was practically fuming as she demanded an explanation from me.
- 39.7: It really is caffeine candy;;;
- Sogatamyeontanso: Bullshit;;;
"...How am I supposed to explain this?"
What was it? Caffeine candy made by concentrating a few dozen energy drinks?
How did I concentrate it? ...Just squished it together real good by hand?
'This is basically Indian street food...'
Another fascinating day in India, India, India.
A bio-concentrator packed with Mom's cooking. The damn seasoning flavor is insane.
Let's just say the hygiene standards are way over the limit.
...Anyway.
Too lazy to explain my skills to Hong Yeon-hwa in painstaking detail, I hastily changed the subject and shut the message window as if fleeing.
- 39.7: Going to sleep, later
- Sogatamyeontanso: ?
- Sogatamyeontanso: Hey, waiiit a sec
[ Message notifications have been disabled. ]
"Phew."
Well, then...
"Shall I get climbing soon?"
Floor 2.
*
*
*
[ Would you like to enter Floor 2? ]
[ Yes ]
Vroooom──
"Uegh..."
Along with the motion sickness from changing floors—which I just couldn't get used to—the same lush green scenery as Floor 1 spread out before my eyes.
But it wasn't exactly the same place as Floor 1; the trees were arranged slightly differently.
There was no open space like a plaza with the sky showing above it, either.
"This isn't the Training Forest. It's Ellinia..."
No, at least that place was bright. Here, the leaves blocked out the sunlight and made everything gloomier.
Maybe it was even spookier because it was getting late...
Rustle!
How long had I been looking around, rubbing my goosebump-covered arms against the cold?
Unlike on Floor 1, I soon heard something stirring in the distance.
I carefully approached the source of the sound and spotted what was making it before long.
"...A flower?"
It definitely looked like a flower.
Only its bud was bigger than most grown men, and it opened and closed like a mouth, lined with teeth.
Its stem twisted and writhed, branching out in every direction like the tentacles of a monster from a magical-girl show.
Gurgle, gurgle...
"......"
Then came a sound that no plant should ever make, oozing from the bright red flower.
I couldn't take it anymore, so I immediately opened the Awakened Community.
[ NSFW) The secret hobby of a high school girl Awakened... More ]
[ Posted by: 39.7 ]
< Photo of a monster shaped like a flower with a mouth >
What is this?
There's a huge-ass flower gurgling at me.
Am I supposed to kill it?
- Anonymous Climber: ?
- Anonymous Climber: What the hell is that ㄷㄷ
- Anonymous Climber: It looks fucking disgusting
- Great Mage: Where's the secret hobby of the high school girl?
└ Anonymous Climber: Come on...
- Save the Newbies: Ah, that one
└ (OP) 39.7: What is it?
└ Save the Newbies: Well, you see...
└ Anonymous Climber: As for the true identity of that flower... More
└ (OP) 39.7: ;;;
└ Anonymous Climber: So that's what it was...
- Sogatamyeontanso: Read your messages, goddammit
As expected, the second I posted, the comments came pouring in.
But because of the Gallery's culture, not a single person actually answered my question properly.
Maybe I shouldn't have used clickbait in the title.
- Speed Vegan: Isn't that a Ferum Flower...?
It was then.
A new comment appeared as I refreshed the page.
"Huh...?"
Their username sounded like they'd be good at explaining, so I replied to the fixed-handle user without thinking.
└ (OP) 39.7: Do you know what that thing is?
└ Speed Vegan: Ah, allow me to explain. That monster is called a 'Ferum Flower,' one of the monsters that often appears as a boss on floors in the teens. Its nickname on Tower Gallery is 'Newbie-Killer.' It looks like Mario's Piranha Plant, but its defining feature is its tentacle-like vines. Its attack patterns mainly involve paralyzing poison; it swallows prey that comes close with its mouth and knocks them out with poison, while it uses its vines to attack prey farther away...
"Ugh."
Damn it.
It's more than three lines.
And where the hell did the spaces go?
But there couldn't be any more helpful information than this right now.
So I fought through my dyslexia and kept reading Speed Vegan's explanation, squinting as my eyes grew increasingly unfocused, when...
Whoooosh──
Along with a sudden whistling sound.
A bundle of thick vines rushed straight toward me.