Chapter 4
A vast space resembling a grand temple, lined with countless pillars and filled with a majestic atmosphere.
Leong stood there with his body hunched over, looking utterly miserable.
In front of him stood Uji, the lower administrator of the 20th Floor, who had the appearance of a gorilla.
“Haa… Lower Administrator of the 10th Floor, Leong. You’ve really done something impressive this time. Really impressive. Huh?”
“Hehe. Thanks for the compliment, nya…. You keep praising me so much that I don’t know what to do with myself, nya.”
Leong awkwardly wagged his tail from side to side.
Uji, whose anger had already reached the top of his head, roared.
“What the hell is inside that head of yours?! Do you even know how to think?!”
The thunderous voice startled Leong so badly that he hurriedly curled up his tail.
His body instinctively snapped into an attentive stance.
With his ears half-folded, he nervously glanced at Uji while tapping his claws together.
“I-I’m sorry, nya….”
All of this was because of what Leong had done during the tutorial.
Originally, there was no such thing as a time limit in the tutorial.
After all, it had never been designed to be cleared in the first place.
Either the players killed each other, or they cooperated and killed ten goblins.
Those two choices were the true purpose of the First Floor tutorial.
It was essentially a filter.
Uji sighed.
“Who gave you permission to change the tutorial however you wanted? Have you finally decided to completely ignore the orders from above?”
“N-No, nya…. I just wanted to make things a little more entertaining so the Constellations wouldn’t get bored….”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Hiik!”
A violent gust of wind crashed into Leong along with Uji’s roar.
The surrounding space seemed to distort.
Leong’s fur stood straight up in shock.
“How dare someone of your level casually mention Them?!”
“I-I’m sorry, nya!! Please forgive me, nya!!”
A mere administrator was not supposed to mention the Constellations.
They were not even supposed to consciously concern themselves with them.
No matter how much entertainment they desired, there was not a single Constellation who would want amusement created by breaking the established order.
Uji let out a deep sigh and shook his head.
He himself had only just returned after getting thoroughly chewed out by his superiors.
Thankfully, I managed to calm them down by promising that we’d prepare another event. Otherwise…
It would not have been just Leong’s head on the chopping block.
Uji’s own position would have been in danger as well.
But that was not the real problem.
Lee Suhyeok.
There had been well over 230 goblins prepared.
Even though their stats had been lowered to adjust the difficulty, they should still have been overwhelmingly powerful compared to tutorial players.
That’s how it should’ve been….
Yet one tutorial player had slaughtered every last one of them.
Not only that, he had used his right to a private meeting with an administrator to open the Hidden Shop.
…A dangerous variable like him should be eliminated now, for the sake of the future. Why are the higher-ups ordering us to leave him alone?
The higher-ups had ordered them to simply observe the problematic player.
Instead, they had told Uji to prepare something that would calm the dissatisfied Constellations.
“Haa… Forget the tutorial for now. Are there any problems with the other stages?”
“N-No, nya! I can guarantee that there aren’t any problems, nya…!”
Uji narrowed his eyes.
“You’re sure?”
“Please trust me, nya! I swear on my grandmother’s name, nya!”
Leong stared at Uji with sparkling eyes.
Unfortunately, he did not look trustworthy in the slightest.
If anything, Uji only became more irritated.
“For now, keep watching that player you mentioned. If you find anything suspicious, report it to me immediately.”
“I-I’ll do that, nya!”
“And if you fail again, the higher-ups said they’ll revoke your position as a lower administrator.”
“……!”
Uji stared directly at him.
“You understand what that means, don’t you?”
“I understand, nya….”
Leong left Uji’s space.
He appeared in a dense forest filled with trees.
The moment he arrived, Leong started kicking one of the trees, releasing every bit of frustration inside him.
Pak! Pak!
“Kyaaaagh! This is so annoying, nya! Why does everyone only pick on me, nya?!”
Losing his administrator position meant returning to being an ordinary monster.
Most administrators had originally been monsters of the Tower.
Leong was no exception.
He had once been a monster living on the First Floor.
“Haa…….”
Remembering the past made Leong’s mood sink.
Back then, he had constantly run away, never knowing when another monster might kill him.
There was no way he could give up his current life.
“I don’t want to go back to those days, nya…. Now that I think about it, that Uji bastard isn’t even much different from me, but he acts so damn superior, nya!”
He continued taking his anger out on the tree for quite some time.
Eventually, however, his shoulders drooped.
“Haaah… Still, if they tell me to do it, I have to do it, nya….”
Back when we were still in the middle of climbing the Tower, rumors once spread about Yoo Taeseong.
While I was training, Taesu came to tell me about it.
—You’re training hard even on your day off. Oh, by the way, did you hear about that? I’m talking about Yoo Taeseong.
The moment I heard the name Yoo Taeseong, I stopped swinging my sword.
I wiped the sweat from my face with a towel and asked him again.
—…Yoo Taeseong?
—You know. The rumor going around lately. They say Yoo Taeseong found a Hidden Dungeon in the western forest of the Second Floor.
At first, nobody believed it.
However, as time passed, people had no choice but to accept it.
The change in Yoo Taeseong’s abilities was simply too abnormal.
Ruler of Madness (S).
The lower his health became, the more exponentially his stats increased.
And the more he attacked, the more his wounds healed and his health recovered.
The problem was that overcoming the bloodthirsty madness that came with it was almost impossible.
…Right. He obtained it here.
The Numbering Series.
Artifacts whose power became stronger the lower their engraved number was.
Just before I killed Yoo Taeseong on the 87th Floor, I had clearly seen a ring on his hand.
After all, I had been the one who personally killed him.
—Kuh… What a shame. If I had been just a little faster, I could’ve killed you too.
Crack!
I cut the tendons in his arms and legs so he could no longer resist.
Then I crushed every bone in his body.
And yet, the smile never disappeared from his face.
—Kukukuku…! Yeah. That’s it. That’s exactly the expression I wanted. You look like you’re going insane because you want to kill me so badly. Am I wrong?
Even with blood rising all the way to his throat, he wore a maddened smile.
I would never forget that expression.
—Ahh, but this really is a shame. Now that I’m actually about to die, I’m starting to regret things. If I’d completely lost my mind, maybe I wouldn’t even be thinking like this. Haa… Maybe I shouldn’t have obtained it after all?
Even as he faced his end, there had not been the slightest trace of guilt on his face.
He simply looked disappointed that his entertaining game was coming to an end.
And then he waited for my sword.
Puuuk.
Crack.
The blade pierced his neck.
There was a sharp sound as his neck bone snapped.
With nothing left to support it, Yoo Taeseong’s head rolled across the floor.
That was how he died.
The Numbering Series was a type of artifact bound to its user.
Killing Yoo Taeseong would not allow me to use it.
In other words, I needed to obtain it before he did.
…We had to sacrifice countless people just to kill him.
I won’t let that happen in this life.
I will definitely kill him.
But before doing that, I first had to cut down his followers.
I looked around.
It would take at least two days to reach the western outskirts from here.
Yoo Taeseong should be causing trouble in the north around now.
There’s still time.
A day passed.
Soon, I sensed several people gathered not far away.
“Kyah! P-Please, save me…! P-Please….”
“Kukuku. Why were you wandering around a dangerous place like this all alone, sweetheart? Isn’t that basically advertising for us to come over?”
“We’re not saying we’re gonna do anything bad, are we? We’re just saying we should help each other out! Right?”
Step.
Step.
Step.
The three of them sensed my presence as I slowly approached from deeper inside the forest.
They readied their weapons and went on guard.
Then they spotted me emerging from the bushes.
“…What the hell? Who’s this scrawny bastard? I’m surprised you even made it this far.”
“Damn, you scared me for nothing. We were just about to have some fun, so what do you want?”
There were two heavily built men.
Behind them stood another man with a leaner, sharper appearance.
The one at the back was the leader.
“Run.”
They stared at me.
“I’ll only cut your ankles and spare your lives.”
For a moment, silence fell.
The men exchanged glances.
Then they burst into laughter.
“Bwahahahaha! Hey, did you hear what this bastard just said?! He told us to run!”
“Wow, mister, you’ve really got guts. So cool! What, are you trying to show off because there’s a woman here? Even after coming all the way to a place like this?”
“Haha, what an amusing old man. Hey, you two go ahead without me. I’ll play with this guy first.”
“What? Seriously? Then we’re really going first, okay? Don’t complain later.”
“I told you, go ahead. Honestly, what happened earlier wasn’t enough for me.”
