The clearing missions for each floor are identical across all towers worldwide.
The environments and monster types are the same too.
The 50s floors of the Black Tower are the flying monster section.
From floor 56 to 60, five different attribute wyverns appear.
Wyverns.
The degraded version of dragons.
Sky rulers that feed on ogres as their main diet.
Earth wyverns with high physical power and defense, flame wyverns with fire breath, frost wyverns with ice breath, lightning wyverns that discharge electricity from their bodies, and venom wyverns filled with toxic energy.
Floor 57, where Yoo Cheol-min entered from the broadcasting studio, was where flame wyverns appeared.
[Entering Floor 57 of the Japanese Black Tower.]
[Physical abilities have been enhanced to match your level.]
[Traits and combat skills are now available.]
“Been a while since I’ve been here.”
He had experience, level 66, plus various equipment and numerous skills.
A mission impossible to fail even if he wanted to.
[Floor 57 Mission: Defeat 15 Flame Wyverns.]
[Time Limit: Within 14 hours.]
[Failure Conditions: Death or Mission Abandonment]
The mission appeared.
Rugged mountain terrain.
Numerous wyverns densely gathered around a towering peak.
There’s a prerequisite condition when tackling flying monsters.
Since you can’t fight in the air, you must force them to the ground.
Magic traits and ranged traits have an advantage in this regard.
But close combat?
What can you do?
You’d have to enter with at least a mini crossbow or pistol that qualifies as an inventory item.
But what if your ranged weapon proficiency is mediocre and two come at once?
Nothing to be done.
You have to run.
Since tower clearing is basically solo play, maintaining one-on-one situations is always most important.
Starting the clear.
Taking out his bow from inventory after spotting a wyvern playing alone,
Fwish!
“Kyaak!”
A milky translucent magic arrow hit the wyvern’s belly.
“Good.”
Yoo Cheol-min stayed in place without moving even as the wyvern descended, firing magic arrows at the monster.
While an archer trait player would need to frantically move to maintain distance…
“I’m all-weapon after all.”
Even if the distance closes, he can just swap to melee weapons to slash or stab.
“In other words, it’s a piece of cake.”
Fwish-sh-sh-sh-sh!
He hit the wyvern with rapid-fire skill.
Dozens of magic arrows concentrated on that single one.
With good critical hits, could kill it before it lands,
But then,
Hmm.
Strange.
Not a single critical hit.
Should’ve gotten at least one by now.
Moreover,
Ting!
A magic arrow that bounced off the wyvern’s claws flew astray and hit another wyvern.
“Sigh.”
Add.
Aggro was pulled to another wyvern.
So now two wyverns were descending.
The first one he shot was almost down, and,
“Whew,”
What can you do?
Just have to take down two.
At level 66, he could handle two, maybe three if he pushed it.
Weapon swap.
Bow stored in inventory.
After taking out sword and shield.
Block, dodge, thrust, slash.
Difficult, but he managed to deal with the two.
This time…
Carefully, without letting his guard down.
After waiting a while to select his target,
Just as he was about to fire a magic arrow.
“…heh.”
His nose suddenly itched.
“Haaaachoo!”
The sneeze burst out unexpectedly.
The recoil caused an unintended magic arrow shot.
Fwish!
“Gasp!”
Just his luck, the magic arrow flew right where wyverns were gathered in groups.
“Kak!”
“Krarak!”
“Kyakak!”
Add, more adds.
No less than three came flying at once.
“This is crazy.”
Three is tough…
But he has to take them down.
If he abandons the mission, he’ll just exit the tower.
And where would he exit to?
The broadcasting studio during a live broadcast.
Instead of showing something impressive, he’d be utterly humiliated.
Absolutely not.
He’ll use everything – ultimate skills, finishing moves.
Who cares about cooldowns?
Yet still no critical hits landing.
Am I cursed?
What’s really going on here?
He tried switching weapons just in case, but neither normal attacks nor skill attacks landed critical hits that used to trigger just fine before.
The wyverns’ flame breath spewed forth.
Three directions from three wyverns.
Even dodging was difficult.
Whoosh! Fwoosh! Whoooosh!
“Urgh!”
Sizzle sizzle.
His flesh was getting cooked.
Even so,
Absolutely cannot abandon the mission.
It was a desperate struggle.
Striking with melee weapons, creating distance to shoot arrows or throw javelins, blocking breath attacks with his shield, back to javelins – he killed two with one remaining.
But the last remaining wyvern knocked away his thrown javelin with its claws.
Swaaak!
Clang!
The javelin bounced off in another random direction.
Right into where more wyverns were gathered.
“Damn it! What is this?!! Why does this keep happening?”
His luck couldn’t possibly be worse.
Continuous adds.
Like a train, one after another,
This time five, no, there were more behind.
How many were there total?
This wasn’t possible even at level 66.
Farming – massacring weak monsters.
That is, high-level players hunting weak monsters on lower floors.
That’s only possible with monsters below floor 30.
Once super-sized monsters start appearing from floor 40 or 50, you have to be careful even at level 66.
One mistake and it’s death in the tower.
Yoo Cheol-min gritted his teeth.
At the crossroads of choice,
Fight or flee?
No need to deliberate.
Humiliation is better than death.
To hell with face and pride.
…Let’s run.
Yoo Cheol-min dashed for the safe zone.
The safe zone doesn’t prevent monsters from following.
It’s just a zone where escape is possible.
“Abandon mission!”
[You have declared mission abandonment.]
[Mission failed.]
[Exiting the Japanese Black Tower.]
Spot!
Yoo Cheol-min finally appeared in the studio.
Still during live broadcast.
Worst possible situation.
“Fuck,”
The announcer said something but he wasn’t in the mood to respond.
He turned and walked straight out.
Tomoda, the tower climbing administrator who was waiting outside.
Now promoted to a cabinet government executive for his contribution in bringing Yoo Cheol-min,
“What happened? Why so early?”
“Can’t you see? Why ask when you already know, it’s annoying?”
Failure?
Really failed?
After making such a big deal of things.
“My condition wasn’t great. Had bad luck too,”
It was simply unbelievable.
A level 66 abandoning a floor 57 mission.
“I’ll rest and try again next time.”
“…”
Consulate Tomoda couldn’t say a word.
Just the thought that everything was ruined.
How should they even handle this?
※ ※ ※
Japan was thrown into chaos.
A verified level 66 player.
A player they nationalized despite risking national face had abandoned a mission and exited at mere floor 57.
Could he have been fake?
Were they scammed?
Criticism poured in.
Foolish Japanese government.
Stupid and arrogant Yoo Cheol-min.
Approval ratings plummeted without bottom.
The panicked Kawaguchi cabinet.
They hurriedly dispatched experts to analyze the failure cause, secured flame resistance items and deployed them for the clear attempt.
The second attempt was quiet,
Not even leaking word of the attempt to the media,
Attempting another clear without anyone knowing but.
“Fuck, fuuuck, fuuuuuck!!!”
Yoo Cheol-min had no choice but to abandon the mission once again.
No, why was this happening?
The battles with the wyverns didn’t flow according to his tactics.
Unexpected situations kept occurring.
Was he possessed?
How could not a single critical hit land?
Was the Japanese Black Tower different from other countries’ towers?
This was driving him insane.
What if he couldn’t clear it at this rate.
His anxiety only grew.
Moreover, word of the second clear failure leaked to the media too.
<Player Yoo Cheol-min Fails Second Floor 57 Clear Attempt>
Koreans who rushed to Japan’s largest community site after hearing the news,
└ Thanks for taking that bastard Cheol-min.
└ No returns for change of heart, bastards!
└ What’ll you do? Your tower’s in an earthquake zone.
└ Though I mock, honestly I don’t want tower collapse either. So fight on!
Not just Koreans?
Japanese people also poured out self-deprecating mockery on the boards.
Meanwhile, news from Korea,
<31 Consecutive S++ Rank Clears of Korean Black Tower!>
That’s not all?
<Player Nam Ga-eun Completes Floor 64 Dark Ghoul Clear in 3 Hours>
Next door was celebrating while here was a funeral.
The difference couldn’t be starker.
Meanwhile Yoo Cheol-min failed his third consecutive attempt.
Finally his mental fortitude crumbled.
The Japanese government was helpless too.
Fear of tower collapse slowly began to pervade all of Japan.
※ ※ ※
Juhyeok saw the news too.
Seeing him repeatedly fail floors far below his level, he must have really been hit with bad karma.
Not just Yoo Cheol-min, but Japan’s in trouble too.
Naturalization is an individual’s freedom.
However, it’s not normal to just abandon and flee in the night, not caring whether the Korean Black Tower collapses or not.
If he judged floor 66 too difficult, he should have at least returned everything he received from the Awakened Management Office.
His achievements were worthy of recognition.
But that too was give and take, a relationship of contractual exchange.
Then he should have kept the contract to the end.
Does he think he grew this much by his own merit?
Why doesn’t he know there were countless people’s sacrifices and support both material and spiritual?
If you don’t know that, you deserve what you get.
Even a wimp like me knows that.
“Does that last forever?”
When he asked Gyeon Dallae, who was summoned for floor 32 clear,
“Regrettably, it won’t last eternally. When the karmic balance is restored, things will return to normal.”
“Really?”
Well, they’ll handle it themselves.
Let’s leave the Japanese tower to the Japanese, and Koreans climb the Korean tower.
Just cleared floor 31 the day before yesterday.
Rested one day,
Today is floor 32.
[Entering Floor 32 of the Korean Black Tower.]
The monster to clear is again the Minotaur.
The special point is that the monster type and tower environment are exactly the same.
The only difference between floors 31 and 32 is the Minotaurs’ size.
From floor 31, they were already bigger than Barbarian Gobang.
About 4m?
Floor 32 is supposedly 4.5m.
How big is the floor 35 boss then?
“You mean the Minotaur King? Should be about 6m. Twice bigger than Gobang.”
Truly king-god, king-god.
That’s why they said S++ rank clear was difficult.
This is concerning.
On floor 31, he managed a one-hit kill by using Shadow Step to strike the Minotaur’s back of the head.
But as floors go up, the Minotaurs keep getting bigger.
Moderate size would be one thing, but if it’s terrifyingly huge where you have to crane your neck to look up?
Ah!
After all the effort to persuade Gyeon Dallae.
Would she mock him if he backed out now?
“Ah! I want beef.”
“Gulp, I want some too. Tenderloin and galbi are dancing before my eyes. Hot ox head soup too.”
“Don’t they give tower rewards like 10kg of sirloin?”
“Would they? Such precious beef.”
Gyeon Dallae too,
“Beef is not something to be given to just anyone. Please do not bestow too much on these lowly ones. I fear they might develop bad habits… cheese cake or macarons would be more appropriate.”
Not that she wants to eat it herself?
Decided.
Let’s set a date for beef.
But a beef party in the officetel would be difficult.
Beef tastes best at proper meat restaurants.
Taking Kozak out isn’t a problem.
Assassin class.
He can both stealth and transform his appearance.
He even went alone to Yoo Cheol-min’s penthouse to retrieve items last time.
The problem is Gobang and Gyeon Dallae.
These two are the issue.
Including himself.
…Maybe worth asking?
“Princess Dallae?”
“Please speak.”
“Is there perhaps a technique that can completely change human appearance?”
“There is such a talisman art. However, it cannot actually change reality. It merely deceives human senses.”
“Oh! Princess Dallae can do it too?”
“Just give the command. I always carry ghost paper and mirror needles.”
Perfect.
Should try it after clearing.
Come to think of it, the place is a bit cramped too.
It was fine with Kozak and Gobang, but with Gyeon Dallae being female.
Need a bigger place.
Like Yoo Cheol-min’s penthouse for example,
“…Nah.”
They say a person’s heart is different sitting down versus lying down.
Let’s not get greedy.
That leads to overextending, and overextending leads to big trouble.
[Floor 32 Mission: Defeat 20 Phase 2 Minotaurs.]
Massive Phase 2 Minotaurs appearing everywhere.
But before a party of three summoned beings, they were just worthless cow heads.
Gyeon Dallae turned on her speaker.
Boom, boom-boom, boom-boom!
Ding-a-ling-a-ling!
Swish-swish-swish!
The three-part harmony of drums, bells, and sword.
Whoosh!
The mirror emitting brilliant light,
Gyeon Dallae’s buffs and debuffs occurred simultaneously.
Power overflowed.
Meanwhile the Minotaur herd fell into confusion.
Mooing, they went this way and that,
Like entering a secret cow pen in a game.
“Kiyaaho!”
Kozak dashed out first.
Gobang ran out belatedly.
I too…
Any suitable ones?
Found one.
A Minotaur spinning in place like a top, seemingly lost.
Whirr!
Energy barrier activated.
Holding mace and shield.
But it sure is big.
Seeing it up close only increased his anxiety.
Weight class difference can’t be ignored.
Though they say its axe swings are slow, one proper hit would instantly shatter the energy barrier.
Honestly scared.
The wimp nature creeping back up.
How do I take this down?
Suddenly!
As Juhyeok joined the battlefield, Gobang, Kozak, and Gyeon Dallae subtly moved to his vicinity.
Within distance to act immediately if danger arose.
It seemed like overprotection at first, but soon felt reassuring.
Someday he’d truly become strong enough
To ease their worries.
Well, they’d probably be the same even then.
His fear dissipated.
Like a fox riding a tiger’s back,
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Juhyeok vanished as if sinking right in front of the Phase 2 Minotaur.
The huge axe swung through but hit only the afterimage Juhyeok left behind, a meaningless attack.
Juhyeok was already behind the Minotaur.
To crack its skull, he needed to jump with all his might.
Through repeated mission clearing, the final third form of the Mixed Origin Thunder Staff[1] had been unlocked.
Lightning Flash[2].
The extreme joy form.
An ultimate one-hit kill skill with cooldown due to its power matching its speed.
Swoosh!
Juhyeok leaped.
Mace raised high behind him.
It fell like lightning.
Flash!
Crack!
The Minotaur’s head vanished without a trace.
“Oh!”
The electrifying satisfaction of the Lightning Flash form.
Could get addicted to this.
He’ll get his promised three kills.
And thus Juhyeok’s floor 32 clear of the Korean Black Tower,
[Notice: Floor 32 of the Black Tower (Korea) has been cleared with S++ rank.]
[S++ Clear Reward: Platinum Badge awarded.]
Ended as expected.