Chapter 47

Chapter 47

[S-Rank Hunter Baek Cheon-myeong Breaks Through the Second Floor Realm]

[New Records Even in the Second Floor Realm, the World Is Shocked]

[Will Baek Cheon-myeong Conquer the Tower? Opinions Divided]

Once again,

the news was filled with Baek Cheon-myeong.

Kang Ha-min thought interest should have started dying down by now.

But there was no sign of that.

Hunter communities were also full of discussion.

[Hunter Community] Baek Cheon-myeong keeps stealing every Floor Lord position. At this rate, is he going to take all 100 Floors?

Nickname: HowDidILive

Views: 18,492 / Likes: 57 / 11:32

[Comments]

ReI: He's taking every single floor. The Lords above must be losing their minds lol

NoYako: pleasepleasepleasedontcomeanyhigherpleasepleaseplease

DogBeak: But he only takes the Floor Lord position and lets them keep the management rights?

↳Guts: So what? He can take those rights whenever he wants.

↳OUX2: He's still climbing right now, so he's leaving them alone. The moment he gets stuck, that's when the real exploitation ending begins lol

↳LongLiveBaekCheonmyeong: Fool, do not slander our Hunter Baek Cheon-myeong.

↳OUX2: Screw off, Baek Cheon-myeong fanboy. You're disgusting.

Bedris: The next floor is the real issue. You know who's there.

↳OneSword: Ah, the Twenty-First Floor.

↳MagicStoneAppraiser: This is probably as far as he goes.

↳IQ93: Yeah, no way against an active Tower Ascendant.

↳Strongman: He beat Vajra, but a Tower Ascendant is a different story lol

Every day,

online communities were burning with new posts.

Kang Ha-min was also paying special attention to the Twenty-First Floor.

Because...

Tower Ascendant.

The Lord of the Twenty-First Floor was an active Tower Ascendant.

What was a Tower Ascendant?

Someone who had surpassed the Hundredth Floor.

A Demigod.

Of course,

the Floor Lord Hall penalty would lower the Lord's power to the level they had possessed when breaking the Twenty-First Floor record.

But a Tower Ascendant was still an existence of an entirely different level.

That was also one reason Floor Lords changed less often on higher floors.

The higher the floor,

the more likely the reigning Floor Lord was a Tower Ascendant.

There simply wasn't much anyone could do about it.

"Master, you're worrying about pointless things again."

Baek Cheon-myeong spoke while picking up his wooden sword.

"Don't worry. The result will remain the same."

There wasn't the slightest hesitation in his voice.

Climb the Tower.

That goal never changed.

"He can't lose to a mere Twenty-First Floor Lord. That would disgrace Lord's name."

A mere Lord?

The opponent was a Tower Ascendant.

Baek Cheon-myeong was one thing,

but Siriel's personality wasn't much better.

And there was another issue.

"Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong, didn't you say the Gods start managing the Floor Realms from the Third Floor Realm onward?"

"Yes. One God creates one Floor Realm."

"Then the Gods evaluate among themselves how reasonably Hunters climbed the floors they created, and how reasonably they gave up. Their behavior is disgusting as always."

Siriel added her opinion.

"What happens if their evaluation score is low?"

"That God is removed from responsibility for that Floor Realm."

So the Gods were desperate too.

"But what matters more is what Master receives."

"Me?"

"The final reward of a Floor Realm is decided based on how reasonably the Realm's God believes you climbed it."

A Floor Realm final reward.

A special reward that began from the Third Floor Realm.

That was one reason Hunters desperately tried to climb with high scores.

Repeatedly challenging the same floor wasn't only for leveling up.

But because such conditions existed,

brute force alone wasn't enough to climb.

"Then we should try to impress the Realm's God."

"There is no particular need."

"A God's satisfaction is different from a human's. There's nothing we can really control."

"Those bastards all do whatever they want anyway."

Hmm.

Was that so?

Still,

Kang Ha-min wasn't climbing alone.

"There's no harm in putting our heads together and thinking about it."

"Of course, Lord!"

Siriel answered with a bright smile.

Seeing Siriel always respond positively filled Kang Ha-min with strange confidence.

Meanwhile,

Baek Cheon-myeong merely shrugged.

"Master seems worried, so this body will finish quickly."

With those words,

Baek Cheon-myeong challenged the Twenty-First Floor.

The Third Floor Realm.

"Hunter Kang Ha-min will enter the Tower."

Baek Cheon-myeong stepped inside.

[Welcome, Hunter Kang Ha-min, to the Twenty-First Floor of the Tower.]

[Hunter Kang Ha-min's entry has been confirmed.]

[The difficulty of the Twenty-First Floor has been set to Hell.]

[Rewards will increase according to the increased difficulty.]

A desolate land appeared.

Endless ruins stretched into the distance.

Collapsed skyscrapers rose toward the sky like bones.

Half-destroyed roads held only traces of civilization.

Most had already been buried beneath sand.

Rumble, rumble, rumble.

A low, rough sound of wind came from far away.

A yellow-brown sandstorm approached from beyond the horizon.

It was a gigantic sandstorm large enough to swallow the entire ruined city.

[Sandvinus, God Who Commands Sandstorms, expresses joy.]

Sandvinus.

It seemed this was the God in charge of the Third Floor Realm.

"There are people inside."

Baek Cheon-myeong sensed human presences inside the city.

If a sandstorm that large swept through,

even the ruins would be destroyed.

Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong.

"Very well."

He raised his wooden sword above his head.

Whoosh.

The moment he swung downward,

a slash of wind shot forward.

BOOOOOOOOM!

The massive sandstorm,

which looked like a giant wall of sand,

split in two.

The storm separated to both sides

and disappeared.

Beneath the fading sandstorm,

Baek Cheon-myeong turned his head.

People slowly emerged from the ruins.

Confusion filled their faces.

They had clearly believed the sandstorm would swallow them.

Then it had suddenly disappeared.

Naturally,

they had no idea what was happening.

"Is that a Mechanical Demon?"

"...But it looks human."

Whispers spread among them.

Baek Cheon-myeong narrowed his eyes.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Then heavy vibrations began echoing.

"...Run!"

"It's the Mechanical Demon army!"

The people immediately panicked and fled.

Apparently this happened often,

because they escaped with practiced speed.

Baek Cheon-myeong watched them for a moment

before turning his head.

Something was moving beyond the ruins.

There were so many that counting them was meaningless.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

Mechanical sounds spread like waves.

Creatures barely retaining the shape of humans emerged through the sand.

Bodies made of mixed flesh and metal.

Black mechanical parts and silver wiring showed through cracked skin.

Where their eyes should have been,

a single red light glowed faintly.

[Mechanical Demon (機械鬼)]

Those were the creatures the people had screamed about.

What the hell are those?

Kang Ha-min recoiled.

Mechanical monsters that barely resembled humans.

Some crawled on all fours.

Others spread mechanical wings.

Every one of them looked grotesque.

"I don't know what they are."

"But one thing is certain."

Baek Cheon-myeong's wooden sword flashed beneath the sunlight filtering through the sand clouds.

"They're enemies."

A conclusion very much like Baek Cheon-myeong.

The moment he kicked off the ground,

sand exploded outward.

Baek Cheon-myeong disappeared

and instantly arrived before the Mechanical Demon army.

His wooden sword flashed.

BOOOOOOM!

Baek Cheon-myeong swept through the Mechanical Demons one after another.

Maybe the purpose of this floor was to protect those people from the Mechanical Demon army?

Kang Ha-min was trying to analyze the floor in his own way.

Then,

"Woof!"

Aji's bark reached Kang Ha-min's ears.

"Aji?"

Aji had come out through the door to the Tower's Secret Floor.

His tail wagged as though he had something to say.

"I'm busy right now. What's wrong?"

Baek Cheon-myeong was in the middle of climbing the Tower.

Aji was smart enough to know that,

so he usually stayed quiet.

If he had come all the way out to get Kang Ha-min's attention...

"Did something happen to the Returnees?"

"Woof!"

As expected.

Something had happened.

Kang Ha-min quickly put on his mask and stood.

Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong, wait a moment. I think something happened with the Returnees.

[Go. This body will continue climbing.]

That was very like Baek Cheon-myeong.

Kang Ha-min decided to leave this side to him.

Then he immediately entered the Heavenly Spirit Medicinal Forest.

"Ah, Mr. Kang Ha-min!"

Ha Cheol-ryong was already waiting there.

"Mr. Ha Cheol-ryong, did something happen?"

"There is something I need to tell you about Astra."

Astra.

The moment that name came up,

Kang Ha-min reacted.

If Ha Cheol-ryong had something to say about Astra...

"Is it about Astra?"

"Yes. I just received information that Astra's Chinese branch is targeting Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong."

The Returnee organization Astra.

They had already targeted Baek Cheon-myeong through the Korean branch.

But the Korean branch had disappeared without a trace.

It seemed they had decided to use the Chinese Returnees this time.

They want social chaos and to stop people from climbing the Tower.

From Astra's perspective,

Baek Cheon-myeong was the first person they needed to remove.

"More importantly, Mr. Ha Cheol-ryong, you were still in contact with Astra?"

Ha Cheol-ryong flinched at Kang Ha-min's question.

"Ah, yes! I thought something like this might happen, so I intentionally kept one of my companions connected to their communication network!"

Tension filled Ha Cheol-ryong's face.

Cold sweat poured down him.

Ah.

Kang Ha-min hadn't meant to frighten him.

He had just asked.

Being someone's superior really wasn't easy.

"I'm not scolding you. Do you know anything about the Chinese Returnees?"

"Ah, yes! As far as I know, the Chinese Returnees are also working with the Chinese government."

"The Returnees are working with the government?"

"They were originally hostile, just like we were in Korea, but I heard they eventually reached an agreement with the Chinese government."

They reached an agreement with the Chinese government.

Kang Ha-min's eyes narrowed.

"They're using the Returnees to eliminate S-Rank Hunters from other countries."

"Yes. That's correct."

The matter with Vajra Tenzin had been the same.

Their methods were filthy.

From Astra's perspective,

reducing the number of S-Rank Hunters was important.

Kang Ha-min could understand why they had joined hands with the Chinese government.

Understanding it didn't make their methods any less filthy.

From the Chinese government's perspective, Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong is an obstacle.

China didn't want Korea's Hunter market to grow.

What they wanted was to swallow Korea.

Mr. Shin No-seop is probably blocking every recruitment offer sent to Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong.

If they couldn't have him,

they would remove him.

China's intention was obvious.

But if they did it openly, it would cause an international incident.

Just like with Tenzin,

they intended to use Returnees so they could deny involvement.

What should he do?

If he left them alone,

they would definitely keep causing trouble.

The Korean Returnees dragged Yu A-rin into it even though she had nothing to do with them.

There was no reason the Chinese Returnees would be different.

Rather than waiting for them to do something,

it might be better to strike first.

But...

Baek Cheon-myeong was currently climbing the Tower.

This was the Third Floor Realm,

so Kang Ha-min had no idea how long it would take.

He wanted to solve this before innocent people were dragged into it.

"Lord, Lord."

A voice reached him.

Siriel was standing there with shining eyes.

"Shall I do it?"

Ah.

He had Siriel now.

Unlike Baek Cheon-myeong,

Siriel still hadn't even gone outside to look around.

That made Kang Ha-min somewhat nervous.

Still,

even Baek Cheon-myeong acknowledged Siriel's strength.

In that case...

"Yes. Let's handle it ourselves."

It was worth trying.