I'm the Only Wizard Climbing the Tower - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

TL: DDTL

When I stepped outside, the situation had gotten even worse.

“I can’t put up with this any longer. I quit. I won’t be coming in starting tomorrow.”

“Ha, unbelievable. Ji-ye-ssi, you’re sure you won’t regret this? Keep that up and you’ll be dead in three months, I’m telling you. I’m offering to take care of you, so why do you keep playing hard to get?”

“Let go of my hand.”

A Hunter, gripping Noona’s hand like a vice.

Noona, trying to shake it off and failing.

“Get your hand off Noona. You son of a bitch.”

Staff in hand, I walked over and stood at Noona’s side.

The middle-aged Hunter’s gaze turned to me.

“Oh, so you’re Ji-ye-ssi’s little brother? The one who just went through the Tutorial?”

“I’ll say it again. Take your hand off her right now and get lost.”

“Hmm…”

He gave me a slow once-over, then snorted.

Apparently my physique, without an ounce of muscle on it, struck him as pretty laughable.

But I was looking down on him just the same.

‘A Floor 8 Hunter, was it? He’s still just Easy-origin.’

Me, I’d Cleared a Difficulty beyond Hard.

We don’t even share a starting line.

Normal’s Floor 1, equal in ability to Easy’s Floor 5.

And that’s considering Hard’s Floor 1 only matches Easy’s Floor 10.

Having Cleared an Extreme Difficulty, I must have specs at least on the level of the Mid Floors.

On top of that, I have magic.

The Hunter in front of me is no match for me.

His lips twisted as he ran his mouth.

“Drop those eyes, kid. Ji-ye-ssi’s little brother or not, where do you get off giving your exalted senior Hunter a look like-”

“That’s three times I’ve told you to take your hand off.”

I’d already given him plenty of chances.

No need to hold back any longer.

I swung my Staff like a club.

A blow from a rookie Hunter isn’t even worth dodging, is that it?

He just stood there, expression still brimming with confidence.

Idiot. He’ll regret that.

-Thwack!

My Staff slammed into his skull.

“Guhk?!”

The middle-aged man, clutching his head and stumbling back.

Only then did his hand come off Noona.

His eyes went wide.

“What…? How…?”

“What do you mean, what? Words weren’t getting through, so I hit you. I told you over and over to let go, and you only listen once you’ve been beaten.”

“I’m sure I heard you only passed the Tutorial today…? Then what the hell was that impact? Don’t tell me, Normal?! No, even Normal wouldn’t hit this hard…”

Had the blow rattled his brain into a concussion?

The guy, swaying on his feet, babbling incoherently.

I swung my Staff again.

-Crunch!

My Staff struck that insolent hand of his.

A grisly crackle rang out.

The bones in his hand had been smashed to pieces.

“Gyaaagh!”

“Honestly, I’d love to just kill you, but that would blow things out of proportion, so I’ll let you off here. Now get lost.”

“Grrgh…!”

Cradling his shattered right hand, he staggered off in retreat.

What a pushover.

Two taps of the Staff and he folds; all that trouble for nothing.

I turned to look at Noona.

“Noona, you okay? He didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

“What is with you? Didn’t you just pass the Tutorial today? Then how…”

Noona was staring at me, dumbfounded.

Apparently she couldn’t quite believe that I, fresh out of the Tutorial, had just one-sidedly thrashed a Floor 8 Hunter.

I threw my shoulders back and declared proudly.

“I told you. I Cleared the Extreme Lunatic Hell Difficulty.”

“…”

“Still think I’m joking?”

Noona said nothing at all.

* * *

After we’d returned to the Semi-basement living room of our building.

“Let me tell you about the Tutorial I went through.”

I walked Noona through everything that had happened in the Tutorial, step by step.

How a Goblin Warrior and a Goblin Shaman had appeared as my Trial opponents.

How I’d picked up a Staff by chance and gained the ability to handle the ‘blue dots’.

And how, in the end, I had come to wield magic…

“A Goblin Warrior and a Shaman… a Tutorial Difficulty beyond Hard? And magic, on top of that? No way…”

Noona could hardly believe a word of it.

Then again, it’s the kind of thing that’s hard to believe.

Even I, who lived through it, find it surreal; how must it sound to her?

Of course, making her believe was simple.

“Watch closely.”

All I had to do was show her.

I drew up a bit of the energy inside me and pulled out some ‘blue dots’.

Set them into an array, then activation.

-Fwoosh!

Above my Staff, a Fireball materialized, blazing away.

“Whoa!”

Noona, eyes popping wide in shock.

Heh heh. With a reaction that good, I want to show off a little more.

I pulled out more blue dots and created a whole batch of Fireballs.

-Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh!

Five Fireballs in total came into being, orbiting serenely above my Staff.

Roll, roll.

Noona’s eyes spun busily, tracking the Fireballs along their paths.

Quite the eye workout she’s getting.

-Whoosh.

I canceled the spells I’d made and recalled the blue dots.

“Well? Cool, right?”

“N-no, wait. This is real? Real magic? Magic? Magic??? You’re not scamming me with parlor tricks instead of actual magic, are you?!”

“Tut-tut. To demean sacred magic as mere parlor tricks. O foolish sister of mine. Open thine eyes.”

Shocked, flustered, or excited.

Or maybe all three at once.

Noona, muttering the word magic over and over like a broken cassette player.

I pulled up my Status window for her too.

[Baek Ji-ho (South Korea : Floor 1)]

[110 Points]

“There, see the 110 Points? The Goblin Shaman was 100 Points, the Warrior was 10. That makes 110 total.”

“…”

“Believe me now? Your little brother Cleared the Extreme Lunatic Hell Difficulty and came out a wizard.”

Noona stared at me, face blank.

At a complete loss for words.

I shrugged.

“Anyway, that’s how it is. So, Noona, how about becoming my manager?”

“Manager? Me?”

“Yeah. It’s not like you can keep working with that Hunter team now anyway, right?”

Noona, a graduate of a prestigious university who’d worked, however briefly, at a famous major trading company.

Maybe thanks to those trading company days, I’d heard she was quite capable as a manager.

With her handling my management, I’d be able to focus entirely on conquering the Tower.

“And we’re family. Someone I can trust more than anyone. If you were my manager, I’d feel like I had real backup.”

Family.

A bond of trust and reliance deeper than any other.

In ability and in trustworthiness alike, Noona is the perfect candidate for my manager.

“Better than stressing yourself out cleaning up after Hunters with rotten personalities, isn’t it? Just look after your cool, brilliant little brother instead. Be my manager. Yeah?”

“…Haha. Fine. I’ll be your manager.”

“Awright!”

“I honestly can’t tell if this is a dream or reality. Magic, of all things… what is even happening…”

Noona mumbled on like that, maybe still bewildered by it all, but.

Anyway, I was in a great mood.

I’d secured a manager I could boss around to my heart’s content!

* * *

Morning.

I worked through my planned tasks one by one.

-Oh, Ji-ho. You became a Hunter? Uh… congratulations. Ah, the minimum wage I didn’t pay you? Of course! I’ll pay it, obviously I’ll pay it! I’ll round it up nice and generous and send it over, so don’t you worry!

“Could you send it right away if possible, boss? I have to register as a Hunter today and go buy equipment.”

-I’ll send it this very second!

First, I called the convenience store manager and got back the wages he’d been stiffing me on.

When I checked my bank account, exactly 4 million won had come in.

Everything he’d skimmed over my ten-plus months as a convenience store drone, with a little sweetener on top.

Next up: the Climber Management Branch.

Our ride was Noona’s clunker of a car.

A compact pushing twenty years old.

“Hey, get in!”

“Noona. This thing isn’t going to blow up mid-drive, right? I’m a little nervous here.”

“It’s old, but it still runs just fine. You have no idea how well I’ve maintained it. Anyway, hurry up and get in!”

It’s a car that screams junker from every panel, like it should be hauled to the scrapyard this very day.

A thought struck me.

‘This car is in terrible shape. Once I’m making real money, I should gift her a car. She’d love a slick, shiny sports car, wouldn’t she?’

Unusually for a girl, Noona loved cars.

The MuTube videos she occasionally watched were all car channels, and she had the specs of every car under the sun memorized despite having no intention of buying any.

A so-called car nerd, in other words.

To think someone who loved cars that much was driving around in a thing one step from the scrapyard.

It pained me.

Once I make good money, I’m buying her a genuinely nice car.

My resolution was withdrawn within five minutes.

-Honk honk! Vrooooom!

“Noona! Drive gently!”

“That asshole cut me off like a fucking prick! Hey! Hold on tight!”

“Don’t blast your high beams! And don’t chase him! Ah! Come on!”

Come to think of it, this woman’s personality always did flip the moment she grabbed a steering wheel.

If she drives this rough in a junker like this, who knows what catastrophe a sports car would bring.

Sports cars are dangerous; I’ll just buy her something safe and high-end instead.

At any rate, that was how we arrived at the Climber Management Branch.

“Baek Ji-ho-ssi. Please show me your Status window.”

“Sure.”

I pulled up my Status window.

[Baek Ji-ho (South Korea : Floor 1)]

[110 Points]

“Confirmed. Here’s your Hunter License, all issued. Point exchange is at that window over there. For your issued equipment, take this form over that way and collect it.”

“Okay.”

Hunter registration was easy.

Show the Status window, fill in personal details: resident registration number, address, contact info, done.

It took less than five minutes.

Naturally, the clerk did not keel over in shock at my 110 Points.

Too many Easy-origin Hunters had bought up Points and run scams posing as Normal- or Hard-origin.

Which is why, these days, they apparently don’t gauge a Hunter’s Tutorial origin by Point count anymore.

Suited me just fine.

Who knows what would happen to me if my true identity came out now.

I intended to keep the fact that I was a wizard thoroughly hidden for a good while.

Anyway, Hunter registration was done.

Next: exchanging Points for cash.

The exchange process was simple.

“Place your hand on the Crystal Orb and transfer your Points.”

A fist-sized Crystal Orb installed in one corner of the branch.

It’s a terminal of sorts, linked to South Korea’s Tower.

Feed Points into it, and the state pays out the equivalent in cash. That’s the system.

I placed my hand on the Crystal Orb.

[Specify the amount of Points to transfer to ‘South Korea.’]

“All of it.”

[Transferring 110 Points to ‘South Korea.’]

“110 Points… confirmed. 1.1 million won will be deposited to the account listed on your Hunter License.”

“How long until the deposit goes through?”

“It should already be in. Go ahead and check.”

“Oh.”

Next up.

Collecting the government’s Basic issue equipment.

“Here you are: the standard Basic issue equipment, clothing, a sword, and a shield. If you want a different weapon, you’ll need to file a separate request. This branch doesn’t stock any others. If you do put in a request, expect to wait about a week.”

“No, I’ll just take these.”

The government’s Basic issue equipment was, as expected, garbage.

Clothes of coarse fabric, a dull-colored one-handed sword, a crude-looking shield.

Low-grade junk mass-produced from the cheapest materials the Tower spits out: that’s the government’s Basic issue equipment for you.

‘It’s notorious; everyone says somebody up the chain has to be skimming.’

Word is, gear of that pitiful quality bills at 3 million won a set at supply price.

As befits the land of military procurement scandals, even Hunter supply gear gets the graft treatment.

I collected the equipment and got back into Noona’s car.

“Noona. Where do Hunters buy their gear?”

“There are a lot of shops dealing in Hunter goods around Tikno Mart by the river. Let’s start there.”

“Didn’t that place go under?”

“That’s old news. These days a whole commercial district has built up around Hunters. Granted, public safety there has gone completely to shit, but…”

“Oho.”

We headed to the riverside and bought Hunter goods, too.

“Lots of stuff perfect for beginners right here, come take a look.”

“I’ll cut you a deal.”

“300,000 won off, right now only! It’s now or never!”

Shopping, shoving through the swarming touts.

What I bought wasn’t much.

A simple set of leather armor.

A decent-enough-looking one-handed sword and a Dagger.

Combat boots of passable quality.

A leather bag for carrying Loot.

Plus the assorted small tools needed for conquering the Tower.

All told, it ran about 4.8 million won.

Being equipment made from Low Floor materials, it came cheap.

‘At least I won’t be fighting naked anymore.’

I felt reassured.

That goddamn Tutorial. Blood and chunks of meat splattering all over my bare skin… words can’t describe how revolting that was.

People truly do need clothes. There’s a reason clothing, food, and shelter count as the three essentials of survival.

Anyway.

Hunter registration done, equipment bought, and back in the car on the way home.

“Heh heh heh.”

Noona let out a sudden chuckle from the driver’s seat.

Puzzled, I asked.

“What’s so funny?”

“No, it’s nothing. I was just remembering when you were a kid.”

“When I was a kid?”

“You know. You used to do all sorts of weird stuff, saying you’d learn magic or martial arts. Like climbing the hill behind our place alone in the middle of the night, and we even got a call from the police… and doing those strange training routines by yourself in your room…”

“Hey, why are you suddenly digging up somebody’s cringe past.”

“Back then I just figured you had a severe case of eighth-grader syndrome. Seeing you actually become a wizard now… it’s kind of uncanny.”

It is uncanny, honestly.

Even I find it uncanny that I’m a wizard.

“With things turning out like this, I’m half wondering if fate really exists. Isn’t it strange when you think about it? You, the one who can see blue dots, ‘just happened’ to pick up a Staff, and your Tutorial opponent was, ‘of all things’, a Goblin Shaman, so you could learn magic…”

“…”

“Like some kind of fate was at work in making you a wizard. I get a little of that feeling.”

Truth be told, I’d had a similar impression myself.

Setting aside my constitution that lets me see blue dots.

The Staff I found in the Tutorial, and the Goblin Shaman.

If even one of the two had been missing, I’d never have become a wizard.

Aren’t those lucky encounters a little too convenient?

A vague thought crossed my mind… that maybe some transcendent will had guided me onto the wizard’s path.

But I dismissed it just as quickly.

“There’s no such thing as fate in this world. It’s just one coincidence after another.”

“You think?”

“I just hit the lottery a few times in a row. Easier to think of it that way.”

I don’t believe in fate.

This world was far too much of a wreck for me to believe in something like fate.

“The whole world’s been wrecked by the Tower, people are getting ground up by the hundreds of millions, and you’re talking about fate? Then what, the billions who’ve died so far all died because they were fated to?”

At my prickly answer, Noona’s expression turned awkward.

‘Ah.’

The moment it left my mouth, I regretted it.

That came out way too spiteful.

She’s the esteemed manager who’ll be handling every annoying chore in my place from here on out; I can’t go treating her poorly.

Just then, Noona spoke as if to change the subject.

“More importantly… you’ve finished Hunter registration, you’ve got your equipment, and you’ve even landed an outstanding manager like me. So when are you entering the Tower?”

A question about my Climb schedule.

I answered without a moment’s thought.

“I’m going in tomorrow. Right away.”

All preparations were complete.

Now it’s time to Climb the Tower.

I turned my gaze out the window.

Beyond Seoul’s skyscrapers, a colossal Tower soared to the very edge of the sky.

The Tower I would Climb.