Tracking

It was when I was about to test the magic I’d seen in the erased memory once more.

Fwoosh-.

I could hear, very faintly, the sound of something slicing through the air.

I reflexively looked up. Had a few months as a hunter improved my reflexes? Maybe.

Dozens of purple streaks were flying toward me.

Magic arrows that could pierce through concrete walls.

It was obvious who the target was without even looking.

“What the hell is this?”

I remembered seeing something similar before. When had that been? Right, back when the Tower was sealed off.

They were exactly the same color and shape as the tracking magic that had been fired from around the world in the search for me.

“If it’s tracking magic, shouldn’t it just bounce off?”

I still had the IP-tracking prevention magic I got from Maggakno.

Thanks to Maggakno being such a boomer, he couldn’t even understand IP, and I ended up escaping not only the internet but all kinds of tracking.

Why was tracking magic flying at me again now?

There was only one reason I could think of: the cataclysm patch after clearing the 50th floor.

It seemed that had once again stirred people’s curiosity. Annoyingly enough.

“Something feels off....”

The moment I tried to ignore it, a streak of unease rose in my heart.

I recalled what I had seen in the erased memory.

I don’t know who it was, but the being that had possessed me seemed to have fought a transcendental being.

In the process, it had destroyed all the items and drained my body’s mana dry.

But would Maggakno’s magic still be the same?

“Come to think of it, it was already broken.”

When I destroyed the large-scale tracking magic cast on the Tower.

Maggakno’s magic had cracked a little too.

Thanks to that, one out of ten times it would revert to a normal IP.

I couldn’t use it for stirring up trouble because it was too hard to control, though....

“It wouldn’t be strange if the crack got bigger.”

While I was deciding, the tracking magic was already right in front of me.

I hurriedly reached out.

Shrrrk!

A thin wall rose up. A sand wall imbued with mithril’s high magic resistance.

The tracking magic was blocked silently and easily.

Sadly, I couldn’t tell where the magic had been fired from. I had no means of tracing it back.

Maybe it hadn’t all come from one place.

There were plenty of places that would be curious about my identity. At this moment, I might be the most talked-about person in the entire world.

Thinking that, I didn’t feel bad at all.

“I should ask the government to handle this.”

I was no longer the person I had been a few months ago.

Now the government was desperate to help me however it could.

If I didn’t accept help now, when would I ever get it?

“Should I check the magic status first?”

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

Normally, Maggakno’s magic was almost fused with my body, so it wasn’t visible.

To see it, I had to push the power of my Insight Eye to the limit.

Sure enough, when I focused mana into my eyes, the magic wrapping around my body became visible.

Black vines densely woven like a shell protected me.

“As expected....”

There was a huge crack in the shell.

It looked as if it had split outward from the small crack it had before.

The magic kept brightening and dimming in cycles. It was unstable at a glance.

No matter how I looked at it, expecting perfect protection was unrealistic.

“I need to test it.”

And naturally, the place for that was the gallery.

I hurried to Hunter Gallery and wrote a meaningless post.

[Title: Test 1]

[Author: ㅇㅇ(444.444)]

[Content: ㅁㄴㅇㄹ]

ㄴ What, a Tower anon? Haven’t seen one in ages.

ㄴ Didn’t he quit the gallery?

The first test was a success.

A few comments even recognized my IP and acted like they knew me.

Was it shocking that I’d managed to quit the gallery thanks to mental immunity?

Of course, I had no intention of doing anything as abnormal and unproductive as leaving the gallery again.

I ran a few more tests. Test 2, Test 3, Test 4....

ㄴ This bastard comes in and spams immediately.

After writing about a hundred test posts and starting to get called a spammer, I was able to get enough data.

“About one-third....”

When the magic first started having problems, it had been one-tenth. So it had suddenly increased by almost three times.

Should I get it repaired? Damn, and after that I ran into him two more times—why didn’t I get it fixed then? Ah. Every time, the situation was moving too fast.

Still, when I last saw him, we’d become something like allies, so I vowed to ask him properly next time.

I organized my tasks in my head once more and quickly caught up on the gallery’s hot topics I’d missed during the days I hadn’t logged in.

Like a prisoner getting out of jail and reading every old newspaper, I carefully went through the gallery’s current-affairs threads.

I found that most of the recent posts were about the 50th-floor cataclysm. There were even posts analyzing why.

Then, among the posts from a few minutes ago, one title caught my eye.

[Title: I think I figured out who Kim1byeol is, what the hell is this...?]

“?”

There was no way I could resist clicking it. I opened the post without hesitation.

[Check this out (a screenshot of the status window showing the ranking record)]

[The time Kim1byeol cleared the 50th floor = almost the same as the time ranking No. 1 was updated.]

[I don’t know because the previous floor records aren’t left, but isn’t Kim1byeol actually ranking No. 1?]

[I think I found something seriously amazing???]

[The government won’t come looking for me, right??? I’m never deleting this post, so if it disappears, assume the government deleted it ㅇㅇㅇ]

“What the hell, why are they so perceptive?”

I swallowed hard.

They figured that out? No, come to think of it, wasn’t it strange that I hadn’t been caught until now?

For now, I decided to check the comments too. I needed to see how much support this claim was getting.

ㄴ Doesn’t the Tower status window not show the clear time?

ㄴ But there’s a place that watches the change in ranking No. 1 24 hours a day, so they record it right away.

ㄴ Sure, for ranking No. 1, but would anyone really keep records of clear times for a backwater place like Daejeon?

ㄴ This case is special. Apparently the reporters camped out from the start and found out the time.

ㄴㄴ Well, this time it was almost certain when she’d enter the Tower because of Japan and China, so that makes sense.

ㄴ I just checked the site and the times are off by a whole hour.... Doesn’t this seem like a stretch? Isn’t it too early to write a post like this?

ㄴㄴ I really want to beat the hell out of that tone of voice.

ㄴㄴ Hm, am I the only one who thinks that because this is the internet, we can’t hit each other?

ㄴㄴ Wow, this guy is really....

ㄴ But it really is exactly one hour apart. But isn’t that even stranger? How can it be off by exactly one hour?

ㄴ If it’s real, that’d be insanely impressive lol.

ㄴ Actually, isn’t Double O also ㅇㅇ?

ㄴ Then would Hunter Gallery be doing it too? Say something that makes sense, you bastard.

“What is it?”

I was flustered. People were suddenly guessing my identity this accurately?

“...Come to think of it, it was something they could figure out.”

If you only knew that the Daejeon Tower clear time matched the time ranking No. 1 was updated, anyone could make that inference.

It was fortunate this hadn’t been exposed until now.

“No, it probably wasn’t just luck.”

There are several thousand Towers around the world.

Among them, who would pay any attention to the Daejeon Tower in the Korean countryside?

If I hadn’t announced that I was the ruler of Daejeon, no one would have noticed even now.

That wasn’t all.

“Maggakno’s magic must have helped too.”

I recalled all the times my identity had nearly been exposed on the gallery.

Even when I directly boasted about some of my achievements, no one believed me.

It was like they were under some kind of group hypnosis.

Of course, some person might have just happened to become obsessed with the Daejeon Tower and watched the times the clear ranking changed for days on end.

But that never happened.

Protection against coincidence. A blind spot in perception.

Wasn’t Maggakno’s magic compensating for this part?

“Then it makes sense that people are only noticing now?”

Because Maggakno’s magic, which had been sealing that subtle gap, had cracked?

Maybe that was why people had started noticing something was off.

Besides, there was also a reason it had to be observed.

Was this also why the tracking magic that hadn’t been flying in for a while was flying at me again?

Everything was explained clearly.

“My head hurts.”

What effect this would have, and how I should deal with it.

It was too complicated. I didn’t even know how to repair Maggakno’s magic right away.

There was one best way at times like this.

“Let’s sleep on it and think tomorrow.”

I was tired. Very tired.

The joyless burden of climbing the 50th floor.

An enormous fatigue was still weighing down my head and body.

If I slept, woke up, and thought about it with a clearer head, I’d know what to do. It’d also be good to talk it over with people.

I stopped thinking and threw myself onto the bed.

I must really have been exhausted, because my eyes closed almost immediately.

That was when it happened.

Whoosh!

The sound of cutting through the air that I’d just heard a moment ago.

I snapped my eyes open and stood up.

Sure enough, the tracking magic from before was flying at me again.

I hurriedly raised a barrier. A sand barrier mixed with mithril, sturdier than the automatic barrier.

Bang!

This time, the magic seemed stronger than before, and I heard a thunderous crash.

“This is a problem.... Don’t tell me it’ll keep coming the whole time I’m asleep.”

Uneasy, I scowled and built walls around the bed so that even if magic came flying in while I was asleep, I could block it without waking up.

It didn’t take long to see that my intuition had been right.

Bang! Boom!

Because the moment I started to doze off, they immediately started pounding on the walls.

“Let me sleep, you shameless bastards!”

Maybe the real purpose of this tracking magic was to kill me by making me tired and irritated?

What a vicious trick this was.

I swore that if I found the source of this magic, I’d definitely get my revenge.

At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to rest comfortably.

I made up my mind.

“Yeah, I was going to reveal it anyway once I cleared the 50th floor.”

There would be almost nothing that could stop me now.

Curious who ranking No. 1 is? Fine. Let’s see. Let’s see whether you can still act so fearless after you know who it is.

I picked up my phone and called Chairman Park.

[Ah, Hunter Kim Hanbyeol? I was already on standby. I figured it must be related to the world announcement.... Did something come up that I could help with?]

“Yes. I need to hold a press conference. Tomorrow? The day after tomorrow? Anyway, as soon as possible.”

[A press conference.... It’s because of the Legendary item reveal, right?]

“That’s part of it, but this time I’m going to reveal that I’m the No. 1 ranking holder.”

[…What?]

I heard something fall on the other end of the line.

[P-Please wait a moment. What do you mean by that? You’re suddenly going to reveal that much?]

“And while I’m at it, I’ll also give a public warning. To the bastards firing tracking magic at me.”

I had no intention of dragging this out any longer.

***

Thanks to my strong request, the schedule was quickly set.

On top of that, tracking magic kept flying at me in the meantime.

But today, that would end too.

I looked at the prepared press conference venue and the reporters in the distance.

I specifically set the venue for this press conference at a sandy beach on the southern coast.

Because I had something to show them.

I slowly took a step forward.