I'm the Only Wizard Climbing the Tower - Chapter 47

Chapter 47

TL: DDTL

Right after returning to reality.

I pulled up my status window.

[Baek Ji-ho (South Korea : Floor 19)]

[24230 Points]

“24,230 points… my daily point intake has finally shot well past 20,000.”

I saved 24,230 South Korean citizens!

Heh heh. How gratifying.

A splendid point yield, befitting an Extreme Lunatic Hell hunter.

All right, let us keep this momentum going!

Let’s clean-sweep everything in the Tower!

Anyway, today was another productive run.

Earned plenty of points.

Acquired plenty of loot.

And on top of that, I tested out several new spells.

Wasn’t I living just a little too diligently these days?

I felt quite proud of myself.

“I do hope people recognize my diligence and devotion.”

Even though I had ascended to the supreme height of an Extreme Lunatic Hell wizard hunter.

I was one who refused to rest on his laurels and kept on improving.

If only the common folk would look upon this one and learn…

A pang of pity struck me.

“Even a magnificent specimen like me works this hard at self-improvement, and yet these so-called hunters. Lazy to the bone!”

Even this great and noble personage filled each and every day to the brim.

And yet the Easy-tier scrub commoners did nothing but huddle together on HunterGal and grumble!

I would have to reforge their mindsets myself.

-Click!

I quickly snapped a photo of the loot.

And wrote up a post.

[Post Title : newbie cleared floor 18 today…]

[Author : Blue Dot]

(Photo of the living room piled high with ramen boxes full of loot)

newbie went to floor 18 today.

turns out it’s a March Floor.

so i had to travel insanely far…

map’s so damn wide it took me like 10 hours…

but on the way i kept spotting orc settlements.

so i just killed em all T_T

felt kinda boring just killing orcs the normal way.

so i tested out a bunch of martial arts while training up my combat power.

so.

i became an electric rat that spits a million volts.

became a lurker.

became Colonel Kilgore who loves the smell of napalm.

and became the Level 5 Railgun flicking coins!

thanks to that i picked up a bunch of new martial arts!

heh heh. feels good to keep improving.

you guys shouldn’t just climb the Tower expecting free stat boosts from floor numbers.

why not train yourselves like this?

they say a drop of sweat today is a drop of blood spared later, right?

today’s me is stronger than yesterday’s me!

let’s all train up!

anyway, today’s haul.

912 Orc axe blades!

97 Orc Fighter armors!

18 sets of Orc Shaman rings!

and for points, 24,230 points…

666.9 million won in total…!

i made way over 600 million won!!!

a few more Tower runs and i can move house.

huntbros, follow my example and climb hard.

and keep up the self-improvement too.

and rake in lots of points to save our citizens!

i’m so proud of myself today i’m gonna grill some beef for once hehe

└follow your example? you telling us to become lunatics?

└so today’s techniques are million-volt lurker napalm railgun? mixing every damn thing together lol

└who the hell is Misaka Mikoto, the electromaster Railgun, third-ranked Level 5 esper of Academy City, you fucking weeb.

└let’s ace the college entrance exam with the Misaka Mikoto study method!

└└what meme is this now, i’m getting dizzy…

└but isn’t floor 18 fucking huge? i heard you gotta cross a distance the size of the korean peninsula, how the hell did you get through it in 10 hours?

└└Blue Dot : i’m an attack helicopter so i can move fast. honestly if i ignored all the orcs i’d get there in 5 hours, but clean-sweeping the orcs cost me extra time…

└└oh right, this guy’s a lunatic isn’t he? shit was so absurd i replied without even thinking.

└i do wanna learn from your aggro skills tho. jealous you became a Beloved Fixed-ID in just 2 weeks, fuck

└└dude, there are better things to envy, you’re jealous of a guy who got famous off larpy attention-whore fabrication? lolololol

└└Blue Dot : don’t emulate my aggro, emulate my diligence and my will to self-improve, i keep telling you

└└so you knew you were baiting all along

└└alright, i’m gonna follow Blue Dot’s example and work on becoming a Beloved Fixed-ID of HunterGal

└└Blue Dot : you pathetic wretches!

…

After looking through the comments.

I muttered under my breath.

“Not a soul emulates my will to self-improvement. Dull-witted fools! Do they not know that a drop of sweat shed today is a drop of blood spared tomorrow…!”

“You’re putting on quite the show again today. More importantly, Ji-ho-ssi? I think you’d better take a look at this.”

“At what?”

“Over there. Something’s wrong with the living room floor.”

“?”

I got up and examined the spot Hye-ji-ssi was pointing at.

It was the familiar living room floor.

Yellow linoleum laid down, with ramen boxes full of loot stacked on top of it.

Hye-ji-ssi pointed at one corner of the floor.

“Every time you step there it makes a squelching sound. I think there’s a leak.”

“A leak?”

I stepped on the spot Hye-ji-ssi had pointed to.

And then.

-Squelch.

Sure enough.

I heard the sound of water.

A large amount of it had pooled beneath the linoleum.

I frowned.

“What the? Why is there suddenly water pooling in the floor?”

I shoved the stacked ramen boxes aside.

And peeled back the linoleum to check.

And there…

“Uh.”

“…Ah.”

Water lay soaked and pooled beneath the linoleum.

No. It wasn’t simply a matter of pooled water.

The floor was split with gaping cracks.

And inside them, the boiler piping had burst and water was streaming out!

I exploded in indignation.

“Is the floor wrecked because the house is too old? Ah! How I hate poverty! What agony, this life, where the house is so ancient it has opened its own indoor water park!”

“Um… no matter how I look at it, this isn’t about the building’s age, it’s just the weight of the loot. We’ve been stacking tons of it there every single day. That’s probably why the floor caved in and the boiler pipes burst.”

“How I hate poverty!”

“Hello…?”

Hye-ji-ssi’s guess was reasonable.

We’d been piling literal tons of goods in one corner of the living room day after day, so the floor had failed to bear it and sunk.

There was no floor below us, and the place was a semi-basement.

I’d assumed nothing would cave in no matter how high I stacked things.

Who’d have thought the boiler piping wouldn’t hold…

Hye-ji-ssi went on.

“Looking at it, this didn’t happen in a day or two, did it? The water’s really soaked through. There’s mold growing all over it too.”

“The house has felt damp lately for some reason. Don’t tell me the floor’s boiler pipes had burst back then…”

It was a spot always buried under cargo, so we’d found it late.

I smacked my lips.

Now that I knew this place couldn’t bear the weight of the loot.

It didn’t look like I could put it off any longer.

“Looks like we’d better move as soon as we can. We’ve saved up a bit of money, and storing loot in the living room was becoming a strain anyway…”

“You’re finally moving?”

“Yes. But I don’t think Power Palace is an option. If I set loot down on the floor there, it’d obviously cave in too. I should move somewhere with a yard.”

Originally, I’d meant to move into Power Palace.

It was because of my dream.

From a penthouse on the topmost floor of a skyscraper.

Gazing down at the common folk scurrying about the ground, an elegant glass of wine in hand!

How was a man supposed to resist that!

But now that I’d witnessed a floor getting wrecked by the weight of loot.

It seemed I’d better look into a detached house with a yard rather than a high-rise apartment.

At least with a yard, loot storage would stop giving me headaches…

It’d make hunter work a bit easier.

Just then.

Hye-ji-ssi asked me something.

“…But come to think of it, we have the Subspace Pouch, so there was never any need to take the loot out and box it up. When the Loot Buyer comes, you could just pull it out of the Subspace Pouch and hand it over. Why have you been unpacking the loot every single day?”

She was right.

Ever since we obtained the Subspace Pouch.

We’d had no further need to transfer loot into ramen boxes.

When the Loot Buyer’s truck arrived, dumping it all out in one go was enough.

And yet all that time I’d doggedly packed the loot into ramen boxes and stacked them in the living room.

The reason.

It was nothing complicated.

“Because I have to photograph it and post it on HunterGal.”

“…”

Come on. How was I supposed to resist bragging.

Just looking at that mountain of loot heaped up in the living room filled me right up.

Hye-ji-ssi shot me a look that said I was pathetic, but I ignored it.

I was never, ever giving up the humblebrag flexing.

Anyway…

‘How much is fixing this floor going to run me? I’d have to fix it before moving out, right?’

It was lucky it was summer.

No need to run the heating, so just shutting off the pipes would keep things under control for now.

In any case.

I’d finished clearing Floor 18.

There’d been the screw-up of the living room floor getting wrecked, sure.

But I’d earned plenty of points, plenty of money, and picked up a whole slate of new spells.

All in all, a satisfying day.

Tomorrow, Floor 19.

* * *

The Climber Management Bureau of the United States of America.

Central headquarters, the Minister’s office.

“Minister. China has begun to move.”

Flutter.

An official laid a stack of documents on the desk.

Documents stamped with the emblem of China’s Ministry of State Security.

The official continued.

“The Chinese have become aware of Baek Ji-ho’s existence. The Hunter Special Task Force under the Ministry of State Security has been convened, and a number of operational Artifacts have been released from storage.”

“Hmm.”

“They intend to abduct Baek Ji-ho. Presumably they mean to snatch him before we can recruit him.”

China had begun to target Baek Ji-ho.

They had at last noticed the existence of South Korea’s sixth Hard-origin hunter.

And were now mounting an operation in earnest.

Judging that a Mid Floors hunter with no meaningful combat power yet could be abducted easily enough, they had rushed the task force into position.

Tsk.

Minister Scott clicked his tongue quietly.

“So the commie bastards have caught on too. And Russia?”

“Fortunately, Russia is quiet. The likelihood of their intervening remains low for now.”

“But they’ll catch on before long as well. It’s time we moved. What of our agent deployed over there? Has contact been made?”

“The National Intelligence Service’s guard is tight, so contact is proving difficult.”

The United States wanted Baek Ji-ho.

Yet they had so far been quite unable to make contact with him.

The protective net of National Intelligence Service agents guarding Baek Ji-ho was meticulous.

Their capacity for refined intelligence warfare might lag behind.

But when it came to the training of its personnel, the National Intelligence Service stood high.

However skilled an American agent might be, slipping past their eyes to reach Baek Ji-ho was impossible.

Of course, that held true only before the Tower.

Now that the implements called Artifacts had been discovered, the means of deceiving those eyes were more than plentiful.

Minister Scott issued a quiet order.

“There isn’t much time. I’ll authorize the release of Grade 1 operational Artifacts. Make contact with Baek Ji-ho and attempt recruitment.”

“Understood, Minister.”

A great variety of Artifacts were found within the Tower.

From the common ones, weapons and equipment for hunters.

To the many potions coveted by the wealthy.

And no small number of Artifacts an operative might use, for disguise, invisibility, illusion, and the like.

So they meant to reach Baek Ji-ho with operational Artifacts.

Minister Scott asked next.

“And the recruitment budget?”

“Approval has been finalized for up to 100 million dollars for now.”

“That’s not bad.”

The money the United States had set aside to recruit Baek Ji-ho.

One hundred million dollars.

An enormous sum, coming to fully 240 billion won in Korean currency.

In truth… even that was on the cheap side for recruiting a Hard-origin hunter.

“He’s still a Mid Floors hunter, correct? That’s why he comes cheap. Had he reached the High Floors or the Topmost Floors, we’d have had to spend several times as much.”

For Hard-origin hunters who had reached the High Floors or the Topmost Floors, hundreds of millions of dollars.

For David, the world’s number one hunter, the United States had gone as far as one billion dollars in recruitment costs.

Baek Ji-ho, by contrast, belonged to a nation on the brink of annihilation.

And was still only in the Mid Floors.

Hence the attempt to recruit him on a budget of a mere 100 million dollars.

Clink.

Minister Scott spoke as he flipped open his Zippo.

“We make contact and recruit him before the Chinese snatch him away. This must succeed. Our nation’s interests depend on it.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, Minister.”

China sent its Hunter Special Task Force.

The United States dispatched an agent.

Ten weeks left until South Korea’s destruction.

The covert struggle of the great powers had begun in earnest.