Chapter 19
Sub-Class.
Kang Ha-min stared at the window in front of him with wide eyes.
A Sub-Class?
What did that mean?
Had something like that even existed?
Kang Ha-min had worked in the Hunter industry.
Naturally,
he knew quite a lot about how Hunters worked.
But he had never once heard the term Sub-Class.
"Master, what happened?"
Baek Cheon-myeong spoke.
He had secretly been feeling proud after watching Kang Ha-min perfectly reproduce the sword path.
Then Ha-min suddenly reacted with confusion.
"Ah, Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong. It says I gained something called a Sub-Class."
"...A Sub-Class?"
Baek Cheon-myeong narrowed his eyes.
His expression clearly said that he didn't know what that meant either.
Even Baek Cheon-myeong had never heard of it.
"Hold on."
If they didn't know what it was,
they simply had to check.
Kang Ha-min quickly opened his Class Window.
[Kang Ha-min]
● Level: 26
● Class: Gravekeeper of a Ruined World
● Sub-Class: Heaven-Destroying Swordsman NEW!
● Rank: Mythic (神話)
■ Unique Skills: Enter Grave Mountain / Rise of the Dead (亡者起立) / Army of the Dead / Grave King's Aura (墓王氣勢)
■ Paths: Corpse Reconstruction / Soul Binding
It was there.
He really had Heaven-Destroying Swordsman listed as a Sub-Class.
"...Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong, when you climbed the Tower, what was your Class?"
"Heaven-Destroying Swordsman."
Kang Ha-min's mouth fell open.
Heaven-Destroying Swordsman.
In other words,
Baek Cheon-myeong's own Class had appeared as Kang Ha-min's Sub-Class.
"How did this..."
Even Baek Cheon-myeong looked confused.
But his eyes quickly changed.
This wasn't bad news.
It was excellent news.
Having a Class meant receiving the System's bonuses for that Class.
The Star-Destroying Sword Style that should have ended with Baek Cheon-myeong
could now be passed on to another generation.
Amazing.
A sword art he had believed no one in his own world could inherit
had found a successor in a world with no connection to his own.
Kang Ha-min had no idea what that meant to Baek Cheon-myeong.
"Master."
And that wasn't all.
"Y, yes?"
"When Master raises other corpses in the future, you may also be able to obtain their Classes as Sub-Classes."
"Uh."
Kang Ha-min opened and closed his mouth.
Now that he could use the Star-Destroying Sword Style,
he had definitely become stronger.
His naturally timid personality might hold him back,
but he was already strong enough to protect himself.
And that wasn't all.
If Kang Ha-min continued accumulating Sub-Classes in the future,
he might eventually obtain a level of power unlike anything else in this world.
Baek Cheon-myeong's eyes shone as he imagined that future.
Meanwhile,
Kang Ha-min was thinking something completely different.
I, I don't really want to become that strong.
He just wanted enough power to protect himself.
"Training."
Again?!
"If Master continues training, you may eventually stand at the peak of this world, no, at the peak of the Tower itself!"
"...I'm not climbing the Tower, though."
Baek Cheon-myeong was the one climbing.
Kang Ha-min wasn't.
Ha-min tried reminding him of that fact.
But Baek Cheon-myeong was no longer listening.
"Hahaha! It's been a long time since I've felt this much motivation toward the sword."
"Master is truly worth teaching."
Baek Cheon-myeong smiled brightly.
You couldn't exactly spit at someone who was smiling that happily.
"H, haha."
All Kang Ha-min could do was use the polite smile he had mastered through years of office work.
What would happen from here?
Nobody knew.
Two days passed.
The Seventh Floor.
Once again,
Baek Cheon-myeong destroyed everything with a single strike.
[Congratulations on clearing the Seventh Floor!]
[You have cleared the Seventh Floor in the fastest time in the world.]
[Clear Time: 6 Seconds]
[Seventh Floor clear rewards will now be distributed.]
[Hunter Kang Ha-min's level has increased.]
The familiar windows appeared again today.
It had finally been one full week since Baek Cheon-myeong first appeared.
Kang Ha-min had been growing at a ridiculous speed.
Still,
his level had risen high enough that the pace was beginning to slow.
[Kang Ha-min]
● Level: 31
● Class: Gravekeeper of a Ruined World
● Sub-Class: Heaven-Destroying Swordsman
● Rank: Mythic (神話)
■ Unique Skills: Enter Grave Mountain / Rise of the Dead (亡者起立) / Army of the Dead / Grave King's Aura (墓王氣勢)
■ Paths: Corpse Reconstruction / Soul Binding
Level 31.
He had finally reached it.
Experience from the lower floors was no longer enough to raise him as quickly.
New skills also no longer appeared every time he cleared another floor.
At this rate, I'll probably get another one soon anyway.
Maybe he had received too many things during the past week.
Even so,
he couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed.
Of course,
other Hunters would probably cry if they heard him say that.
Having better circumstances than other Hunters didn't magically stop disappointment from existing.
"Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong, good work again today."
Ha-min greeted Baek Cheon-myeong as he returned through the Tower door.
Baek Cheon-myeong glanced back toward the Tower.
"Master, starting soon, I won't be able to finish every floor with a single strike like this."
That was unexpected.
"Was there some kind of problem?"
They had already caused errors by sending Baek Cheon-myeong into the Tower through Soul Synchronization.
So it wouldn't be strange if another problem had appeared.
Had the Tower done something?
Had the gods finally interfered?
Or maybe that Void from before...
"It isn't a problem."
"It is simply the natural progression."
"The difficulty will increase again starting from the next floors."
"Even more than this?"
"They kept sending large numbers of monsters using the same method, yet all of them died in one strike."
"The gods are probably becoming bored."
Just as he said,
[Floris, the One Who Bloomed from Flowers, wants something more entertaining.]
[Frost, Lord of the Frozen Lands, desires greater stimulation.]
[Volcano, the One Who Governs Fire, complains of boredom.]
[Stella, the One Who Embraces the Stars, condemns the other gods.]
Recently,
the gods kept demanding more excitement.
They looked completely addicted to stimulation.
"The Tower is influenced by the gods."
"If they complain of boredom, the Tower will inevitably change."
"Ugh. How will it change?"
"It will probably make the floor structures more complicated."
"Something similar happened before."
Just how long had Baek Cheon-myeong been overwhelmingly powerful?
And if he had been this strong,
why had he failed to finish the Tower in his own world?
It felt too heavy to ask directly.
So Ha-min didn't.
What mattered now was how much pressure the increased difficulty would place on Baek Cheon-myeong.
"Will clearing the floors become difficult?"
"Not at all."
"It will merely take longer."
"However..."
Baek Cheon-myeong looked silently toward the Tower outside the window.
"Even this body cannot freely move between the inside and outside of the Tower."
"While this body is gone, Master will be left defenseless."
Why was he treating Ha-min like a child left alone near the water?
You're the one doing all the dangerous things.
As someone who always believed in safety first,
Kang Ha-min felt unfairly judged.
"Still, if you're going to be gone longer, I guess that does make me a little nervous."
Kang Ha-min already spent every day worrying about safety.
"I'll think about it."
Baek Cheon-myeong had finished the Tower for today.
So Ha-min decided to check the reward.
[Seventh Floor clear reward obtained.]
[You have obtained Arcanite.]
A pitch-black crystal appeared.
Blue and purple veins of light slowly swirled inside the strange ore.
"Another Magic Stone."
Still,
this one looked extremely high quality.
"Hmm. It would be good for making a weapon."
Baek Cheon-myeong approached and examined the stone.
"A weapon?"
"An ore of this quality could become an excellent weapon in the hands of a proper craftsman."
Baek Cheon-myeong looked at Kang Ha-min's hands.
"Master doesn't have a weapon yet either."
A weapon.
Having another method to protect himself certainly wouldn't hurt.
"Considering how you used this body's swordsmanship before, you seem rather interested in swords."
"Agh! Let's not talk about that!"
Remembering how he had destroyed his house using an umbrella made Ha-min dizzy.
Baek Cheon-myeong shrugged.
"This body is Master's sword, so when I'm present, it doesn't matter."
"Still, Master should possess a means of protecting yourself."
More importantly,
Kang Ha-min had experienced Body Reforging.
He didn't seem aware of it,
but pure qi was constantly flowing through him.
The Heavenly Spirit Medicinal Forest was recreated perfectly.
There could hardly be a better place to obtain such pure energy.
On top of that,
Soul Synchronization had allowed him to inherit the Star-Destroying Sword Style.
Kang Ha-min possessed far more potential than he realized.
There could hardly be a better starting point.
The cleaner the foundation,
the more it could absorb.
"Besides, Master has nothing else to do right now, correct?"
"...That was unexpectedly painful."
Kang Ha-min was unemployed.
He was technically a Hunter,
but even that work was being handled almost entirely by Baek Cheon-myeong.
Never before in his life had he spent this much time doing nothing.
Maybe because he was naturally used to working,
having so much free time actually made him think too much.
Still,
it was true that he had more time than he knew what to do with.
"Making a sword will take time anyway, so we'll train while we wait."
"We already have an excellent training ground."
Baek Cheon-myeong's eyes quietly shone.
He had found good material in the form of his master.
His expression made it obvious that he had no intention of wasting that potential.
"Ah, but 10 p.m. won't work."
"What?"
"I have to watch a drama called The World of Wives."
That's the famous ridiculous melodrama rerun!
Baek Cheon-myeong was becoming more familiar with modern culture every day.
The world was growing more dangerous.
The suggestion that Ha-min learn to protect himself strongly appealed to his safety-first nature.
In the end,
Kang Ha-min gave in.
"All right. Then let's ask Ms. Yoo Ah-rin about the sword first."
Yoo Ah-rin had plenty of connections in this field.
He decided to use the resources available to him.
The White House in the United States.
A place where some of the world's most important political decisions were made.
Someone was standing there frozen while holding a phone.
The President of the United States,
Adrian Caldwell.
A man who had risen from the military and built the kind of heroic career Americans loved before becoming president.
Normally,
he wouldn't blink even if a bomb exploded in front of him.
But today,
his face was completely stiff.
He had just received one report.
[...Mr. President, based on what we've confirmed, it appears Deus really is heading toward South Korea.]
Deus.
The man the White House had worked so hard to restrain.
"Shit! Deuuuuuus!"
He had finally left for South Korea.
