Chapter 16 : We absolutely cannot let this slip away

[Did the newbie enter the boss room yet?]

[What floor is the newbie clearing now?]

[Seriously, what do you think the newbie’s growth limit is?]

[The moderator’s gone, so let’s run wild!]

[Yeah~ Don’t get your hopes up~ He can’t clear the floor anyway~]

[The cheetah is smiling… just smiling]

[So is the cheetah’s name GreenUgly?]

[Why Wine-jwa Tower’s efficiency sucks.jpg]

[The world has gotten much better, hahaha. A 2nd-floor scrub is actually hoping to graduate.]

Title: No matter how much the world changes

-How dare a lower-floor scrub talk about graduating first in the presence of the mid-to-upper-floor hyungnims?

Even if it happens, he should just stay quiet as a mouse and then fck off.

The hierarchy is really collapsing, hahaha.

[ㄴ  what are you? Who do you think you are, dividing ranks and lecturing?]

[ㄴ Lower floor, welcome~]

[ㄴ Fact) Lower-floor bstards are faces that change every time anyway, so their legitimacy is lacking. Yeah.]

[ㄴ But you, the original poster, why are you subtly lumping the mid-floor in with the upper floor?]

[ㄴ It’s obvious this is a mid-floor bstard trolling, isn’t it? Hahahaha]

[ㄴ Original Poster) Hahaha~ It’s so cute seeing the lower-floor guys get triggered and come at me.]

[ㄴ Original Poster) If you’re salty, reveal your real name and history and let’s have a delete-account bet, go go?]

Title: Seeing these idiots fight over their floor ranks

• I’m starting to think ‘GreenUgly’, who seems like he’ll meet the newbie first and graduate, is actually amazing…

[ㄴ Seriously, hahahahaha]

[ㄴ No matter how much the mid-floor b*stard screams, he can’t hide his envy of graduation, can he? Hahahaha]

[ㄴ Ah, hahahaha. What’s the point of acting like a good wife on the gallery?]

[ㄴ Getting his graduation NTR’d by the low-ranking GreenUgly, shivers.]

In the middle of the ruined castle.

Someone looking at the gallery let out a laugh.

Bewitching silver hair, reflecting the moonlight, emphasized her presence.

The master of the tower, Jinjo.

For her, who guarded the boss room alone, the gallery was precious nourishment for her heart and a daily routine to endure the day.

She helped a clueless newbie, assisted with the Awakened test, and watched him reach the 2nd floor.

The unfamiliar sensation of helping someone, rather than just killing.

It evoked a feeling in Jinjo that was both strange and familiar.

This too must be an emotion stemming from her forgotten life.

However, she had long since abandoned hope for graduation.

“….Newbie.”

It might come as hope to the boss mobs on the mid-to-upper floors–

But the moderators in charge of the gallery had abandoned hope long ago.

Having discarded even their own identities, they endure day after day with unhinged personas on the gallery.

The ‘Wine-jwa’ persona all originated from that.

“Newbie.”

Jinjo opened her reddish lips and called out the name.

The lingering resonance at the end of her beautiful voice wasn’t too bad.

It was highly probable that it was because he possessed a ‘difference’ from other users.

The newbie is different.

Compared to the monsters who yearned for graduation, forgetting even their own identities.

The newbie, who looked towards tomorrow and lived each day diligently, felt much more welcome.

When you’ve endured hundreds of years alone in this cursed room where no one will come.

“How far will you go?”

A pure curiosity about just how far he could climb tickled her heart.

She had witnessed the despair of countless hunters.

The tower is their utopia and their hell.

She had seen far too many instances where those two contradictory values merged, causing them to lose even their own identities.

Jinjo sincerely hoped that the newbie would achieve as much as possible without losing his sanity.

Even if it was a fleeting hope and dream, she desired even that sweet, momentary instant.

“I will wait.”

The tower’s monsters, full of malice; hunters blinded by greed.

Furthermore, the ‘theme stages’ that would now begin to seriously shake his identity.

Jinjo once again melted into the darkness and perused the BossMob Gallery.

His level had risen.

But more important than that was, of course, the content of the reward from the Hidden Piece.

“…That is.”

“Yes. They gave it to me, saying it was a Hidden Piece, so I just took it.”

Half of it was practically forcibly taken, but the person who could protest, no, the boss monster, had graduated long ago.

‘Is that right?’

It probably was.

The tower’s system itself had confirmed that the condition for graduation, the ‘Hidden Piece’, had been met.

Dooyoon’s gaze turned to the curved sword in his hand.

[Goblin Warlord’s Curved Sword (S)]

Look at this glittering alphabet attached after the name.

Indeed, it bore a powerful rank that resonated with the owner’s heart.

Dooyoon didn’t know much else, but he knew that an S-rank was good.

Because when he asked Mr. Kim, who sometimes had a happy look on his face, Mr. Kim would say he was happy because he got an S-rank

gacha item.

For a moment, he saw an instinctive desire flicker.

“Dooyoon-ah.”

Han Jihyuk called him.

“Yes.”

Dooyoon answered, unknowingly tensing up.

What if he claimed it was too good a weapon for him and insisted he hand it over?

But judging emotionally, higher-level hunters would certainly utilize it better than his low-level self.

However.

‘I don’t want to.’

Honestly, the feeling of reluctance was stronger.

It was an achievement he had earned himself, a reward.

Even if Korea had a strong atmosphere of enforcing collective consciousness, Dooyoon wanted to make this minimal sense of

accomplishment his own.

“It looks amazing. You worked hard.”

“Yes. That look in your eyes is good.”

“….?”

But at the unexpected reaction, a look of bewilderment appeared on Dooyoon’s face.

“To become a hunter, you need to know how to protect what’s yours. Even if it’s a close hunter.”

If you don’t protect it, it gets taken.

Moreover, this place was. The ‘Tower’.

It was teeming with villains who would treat the lives of others as less than pebbles on the roadside for their own gain.

‘Thank goodness.’

Han Jihyuk was actually reassured by Dooyoon’s intense gaze.

“You need to keep that posture, that attitude. That’s how you’ll ultimately protect your own life, Dooyoon.”

“Uh… Yes.”

“Okay, then. Perfect timing. It’s an S-rank weapon, so it feels incredibly reassuring.”

Han Jihyuk shared his honest thoughts.

Since starting as a hunter, he had seen A-rank equipment, but this was the first time he had ever seen an S-rank.

‘A boss mob’s unique weapon.’

That was probably where its value originated.

Because weapons from within the tower were overwhelmingly superior in quality to equipment from outside the tower.

“Dooyoon-ssi.”

This time, Jo Harin stepped forward and asked.

“Besides that, didn’t you also get something called a ‘Magic Stone’ separately?”

“Ah, yes.”

Dooyoon took out a small stone from his pocket.

A bewitchingly colored stone, with a dark red aura swirling around it.

The hunters who saw it unknowingly held their breath.

“That’s great. That’s incredibly valuable, you know.”

“This pebble?”

“Yes. Magic stones are a valuable resource in the industry. They’re used for developing new materials and have various other astronomical

values.”

“Oh.”

“So if you take it back, the Association will reimburse you with a considerable amount of money.”

Numbers don’t lie.

Happy thoughts surfaced in Dooyoon’s mind.

‘This is why people become hunters.’

Jo Harin looked at Dooyoon, who had a pleased expression from his sense of accomplishment, with a peculiar look.

“It suits you well, Dooyoon oppa!”

Seeing Dooyoon holding the curved sword, Jung Ahyeon didn’t miss the timing and said.

“Thanks.”

“Well then, shall we head back for now?”

Now that they had cleared the 2nd floor and confirmed the reward plan.

The hunters decided to leave the tower and return to the Association.

“You’ve worked hard…!”

Upon entering the Association’s interior, Supervisor Choi Geonwoo greeted Dooyoon’s party with a bright smile.

“Supervisor-nim.”

“Dooyoon-nim! I received the news beforehand. That you single-handedly subjugated the 2nd floor’s boss monster…”

“The other hunters covered my back, so I got the chance.”

Dooyoon simply stated the truth.

The 2nd-floor boss room was a section impossible to clear alone.

A battle structure where numerous monsters, including the Goblin Royal Guard, surrounded the challenger.

If there hadn’t been hunters to watch his back, Dooyoon’s life would have been in danger several times.

‘Keruk! A fair fight!’

It felt like the cry of the Goblin Warlord, ‘GreenUgly’, still lingered in his mind.

‘What part of that was fair?’

Sending out the Goblin Royal Guard first to gain a numerical advantage, and only at the very end bringing up the Hidden Piece to make his

claim to Dooyoon.

It was absurd, but GreenUgly had already departed far away.

“Ah, and Supervisor-nim.”

Dooyoon faced the supervisor and delivered important news.

“While clearing the 2nd floor, I also obtained something called a Hidden Piece. Because of this…”

“…Yes.”

Supervisor Choi Geonwoo had also received a prior report that Dooyoon had encountered a Hidden Piece.

When he first heard the information, he was so flustered that his legs momentarily gave out.

A rookie hunter who had just barely cleared the 2nd floor getting a Hidden Piece.

This was undoubtedly an unprecedented major event, at least limited to South Korea.

“Hunter Han Jihyuk-nim.”

Han Jihyuk, receiving Supervisor Choi Geonwoo’s gaze, nodded gravely and sent Dooyoon and the other hunters to the lounge first.

“There’s something I wanted to tell you, just like Dooyoon said earlier.”

In a place where only the two of them remained, Han Jihyuk slowly relayed what he had experienced.

Adaptability that would astound even experienced hunters, combat sense, aggressiveness, and even the ability to acquire information through

the ‘Assistant’ skill.

“This, we absolutely cannot let this slip away.”

Han Jihyuk earnestly emphasized, referring to the situation surrounding Dooyoon.

Supervisor Choi Geonwoo nodded in complete agreement.

The path he was already treading was extraordinary.

What on earth was happening around him?

The surprising thing was that Dooyoon was still in an ‘immature’ state.

A speed that would take other rookie hunters years just to adapt to–

For Dooyoon, it was shortened to a mere few months.

‘What’s next?’

By achieving the Hidden Piece, he had jumped two stages from Level 2 at once.

If he showed this much achievement on a mere lower floor, then in the upper floor sections where even greater rewards lay dormant…

Han Jihyuk and Choi Geonwoo looked at each other as if on cue.

“Will Dooyoon-ssi continue to show interest in clearing floors?”

“He’s crazy about it. He’s actually enjoying it, you know.”

Han Jihyuk replied with a hollow laugh regarding Dooyoon’s aptitude as a hunter.

“It seems like we’re going to be incredibly busy again for a while.”

Supervisor Choi Geonwoo smiled wryly as he recalled the Association’s internal affairs.

“If they find out that a rookie hunter has succeeded in acquiring a Hidden Piece for the first time in years…”

“Those old geezers uptown will raise hell again, won’t they.”

Han Jihyuk also roughly knew about their situation.

South Korea is obsessed with results. Especially when it comes to the hunt business.

The status of hunters from other countries is rising day by day, but South Korea’s progress is uniquely lagging.

What that meant, the hunters of South Korea, including Han Jihyuk, were feeling it more keenly than anyone else.

“Will Dooyoon-nim be able to do it.”

Supervisor Choi Geonwoo dared to try and gauge their future.

“I don’t know. But, Dooyoon is really different.”

He had seen countless hunters die or retire.

But among them, Kim Dooyoon’s presence was exceptional.

That’s why he couldn’t help but have expectations.

About what his future would hold.

‘We can’t lose him.’

Soon, an exchange meeting where hunters from various countries would gather will be held.

A crucial event where they gather in one place to discuss opinions and qualifications for conquering the tower.

And at the same time, it was also a dangerous period where vulnerable hunters could be poached.

“Until then, we’ll have to somehow keep Dooyoon-nim’s heart here.”

“Absolutely.”

To Supervisor Choi Geonwoo, who delivered the meaningful words, Han Jihyuk also strongly asserted.