0th Floor (2)
“MVP.”
Kang Junhyeok murmured as he looked at the quest completion window.
Nothing like that had appeared in his previous life.
The mantises had simply disappeared along with a message saying the quest was over.
He was now seeing something he had not seen in his previous life. He smiled in satisfaction.
The mantises had fallen.
The quest completion window had appeared.
With that, the 0th Floor Quest was over.
Realizing that, the people stared blankly at Kang Junhyeok.
Monsters resembling mantises.
They had been enemies no one could resist. No one had even considered fighting them. They had thought running was the only answer, turned their backs, and shoved and tripped one another.
To them, the mantises had been almost like absolute beings.
Yet Kang Junhyeok had killed every mantis they believed to be invincible.
They still could not fully comprehend the situation, but one thing was certain.
The man standing before them was a different kind of being from the rest of them.
“Uh, um.......”
The people hesitantly approached Kang Junhyeok. One of the braver among them cautiously asked.
“Excuse me, um.......”
Just as he was about to ask something.
RIIIIP.
Space split open. The people recoiled in horror. They had become frightened in advance, afraid that another monster like the mantises would appear.
But what appeared was not a monster. It was a girl.
“Ah.......”
For a moment, the people forgot the situation and exclaimed in wonder.
The girl who appeared was extraordinarily beautiful. Her distinct features were perfect, without a single flaw. Her long black hair trailed across the ground, yet not one speck of dust clung to it.
While everyone else stood captivated by the girl's beauty, Kang Junhyeok alone thought calmly.
‘It’s been a while.’
The girl who managed Earth and coordinated its events.
They called her the Administrator.
The Administrator looked extremely bored. She wore the expression of someone who had repeated the same task tens of thousands of times and expected this one to be no different.
But as the Administrator stepped forward and surveyed the area, her expression changed.
“Huh?”
The Administrator tilted her head.
“Why are so many of you alive?”
Those were her first words.
***
The girl was the Administrator.
Her role was to manage the players climbing the Tower.
When the 0th Floor Quest ended, it was her role to guide the survivors and give them an explanation. Naturally, she knew everything that had happened during the quest.
That was why she could not help being bewildered.
“Eighty people survived out of a hundred?”
Until now, the survival rate for the 0th Floor Quests she administered had been 50%. Even the highest had never exceeded 60%. An 80% survival rate was bizarrely high. As the puzzled Administrator looked around, she discovered the mantis corpses, and her eyes widened.
“What? You killed them? This has never happened before?”
The baffled Administrator looked at Kang Junhyeok standing before the corpses.
“Did you do this?”
“Yes.”
Kang Junhyeok answered calmly. Even greater confusion spread across the Administrator's face.
“......Wait. It doesn’t look like any other bastard interfered. Did you kill them by yourself?”
“I did.”
“......Really?”
The Administrator was genuinely astonished.
But she was not surprised that the mantises had been killed.
With a little calm thought, one could realize the mantises were not impossible to kill.
In fact, although no one on Earth, which she managed, had ever killed a mantis, she knew that people in ‘other places’ had succeeded a few times. That alone would not have surprised her this much.
What surprised her was that he had killed all three by himself.
The reason was that the 0th Floor had not been designed that way.
The design of the 0th Floor called for all one hundred people to join forces, or for separate groups to handle one mantis each. It was not designed for a single person to deal with all three.
‘No. More importantly, is it even possible to kill all three alone?’
The mantises' specifications, as the Administrator knew them, were at the level of the 3rd Floor. They were beyond the ability of someone on the 0th Floor with no proper equipment.
For a moment, she suspected he might be lying, but she was the Administrator. She could immediately tell if someone lied. Kang Junhyeok had spoken nothing but the truth.
“What are you?”
The Administrator looked at Kang Junhyeok with an expression of genuine incomprehension. Rather than answer, Kang Junhyeok changed the subject.
“You seem to have come here for a reason. Is it truly all right for you to focus this much attention on me alone?”
“Ah, ah. Mm. Right.”
Only then did the Administrator remember what she had to do. She scratched her head awkwardly, then greeted them elegantly.
“Hello. I’m the being charged with managing your planet. You can just call me the Administrator. If you survive, we’ll probably see each other often from now on.”
The Administrator clapped her hands.
“Now, then! All surviving humans! Congratulations! You have now earned the right to challenge the Tower. You can proudly call yourselves players!”
The system appeared with her words.
[Congratulations! You have successfully survived the 0th Floor Quest.]
[The right to challenge the Tower has been unlocked. You may now climb the Tower.]
[The laws of the Tower now apply to you.]
[You may now use various system functions.]
[The Status Window is now available.]
[The Skill Window is now available.]
[The Title Window is now available.]
[The Community function has been unlocked.]
[Various other functions have also been unlocked.]
“I hope you’ll climb the Tower and live up to Master's expectations! Most of you will die before that, but good luck for now!”
The Administrator smiled brightly and waved.
“Then this is goodbye! Farewell!”
“W-wait a moment!”
The people recoiled in alarm when the Administrator tried to send them away.
“P-please explain things to us! What are we supposed to do from now on?”
“What a pain. You’re latecomers anyway, aren’t you? Just ask the people around you.”
“E-even so, please give us some advice!”
The people clung desperately to the Administrator. They would have to climb the hellish Tower from now on. Their situation was utterly desperate.
Yet the girl before them claimed to be Earth's Administrator. That meant she knew a great deal.
“Please!”
“Give us information!”
They clamored and begged the Administrator. Kang Junhyeok looked surprised.
‘This didn’t happen in my previous life.’
Back then, they had merely nodded blankly at the Administrator's words. They had not clung to her like this.
And Kang Junhyeok was the sole reason for that difference.
He had killed the mantises before more than half the people died. A fair number still perished, but it was not as hopeless as it had been in his previous life.
More importantly, in his previous life, the Administrator had merely given her explanation with a bored expression before leaving. They had never even had an opportunity to speak to her.
But this time, the Administrator had been thrown off by something she had never experienced and exchanged several words with Kang Junhyeok.
The very human side she displayed stripped away much of her mystique. She began to feel like an ordinarily beautiful girl.
That was precisely why the people clung to her, unlike in his previous life.
But they had misunderstood one thing.
The Administrator was not a particularly kind being. She picked at her ear in annoyance.
“Why should I?”
The space that had been as noisy as a marketplace instantly fell silent. The people's faces turned deathly pale.
“U-ugh.”
“G-ghk.”
A simple expression of emotion.
That alone stole the breath from their lungs. A force they could not withstand crashed over them. The smell of urine began rising here and there. The people realized instinctively.
The beautiful girl before them was on an entirely different level from mere mantises.
Kang Junhyeok wore an expression that said he had expected as much.
‘Administrators have such foul tempers.’
She was closer to a created doll than a living being. That made her capricious, and she regarded them as little more than toys. She was not kind enough to soothe those who pestered her noisily.
Kang Junhyeok had also suffered considerably from the Administrator's whims and irritation in his previous life.
With everyone else collapsed in panic, only Kang Junhyeok remained standing unscathed. The sight made the Administrator look even more surprised.
“Even if I pressed down lightly, you’re far too unaffected. What are you, really? A murderer who’s killed hundreds of people? No. Even a bastard like that pissed himself in front of me?”
“We are going to keep meeting from now on anyway, are we not? Let us get to know each other gradually.”
Kang Junhyeok spoke calmly. The Administrator grinned.
“Yes. You’re right. I thought this planet was a dud...... but I found an interesting bastard.”
With those words, the Administrator instantly closed the distance between them. She tilted her head when she came close enough for him to feel her breath.
“What are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“......I feel like you have a familiar scent. No. Am I mistaken?”
The Administrator shook her head and pulled away. The world crackled as though filled with static. The 0th Floor was closing, and they were returning to Earth. The Administrator kept her eyes on Kang Junhyeok until the very end.
“Kang Junhyeok. I’ll expect great things from you. I’ll be watching.”
With that soft voice, Kang Junhyeok returned to his studio apartment.
“It’s over.”
The tension drained from his entire body. Kang Junhyeok let out a short breath and sat on the edge of his bed.
***
Naturally enough, Kang Junhyeok had been concentrating intensely.
All the mighty power of his previous life was gone. Now he was nothing more than an ordinary human one could find anywhere. The slightest mistake could cost him his life.
The mantises were powerful enemies far beyond his current ability to face. Not even the smallest mistake had been permitted. He had concentrated so intensely that his head throbbed.
“Phew.”
After he drank cold water and rested for a while, his mind slowly cooled.
It had been extremely difficult and dangerous.
But the results were undeniable.
He had obtained things he failed to acquire in his previous life.
Not only in terms of power, but in relationships as well.
‘The Administrator's final words.’
They had contained interest and curiosity.
The Administrator viewed his existence favorably.
That was an extremely good thing. She was a being who treated life as a toy, but she treasured and doted upon toys that pleased her.
As a result, those she favored received treatment so good it violated any sense of fairness.
Considering the events that would occur in the future, gaining the Administrator's favor was priceless.
And there was one more thing he had confirmed.
‘She didn’t seem to know about me.’
The Administrator's authority was immense.
She had been given the role of managing a planet by the new master of the universe, and a single word from her could overturn everything.
Her power was such that one of her whims could produce an enormous event.
Yet even she had not noticed that Kang Junhyeok had returned to the past. She had said he smelled familiar, but she did not seem to have recognized it precisely.
‘......Where in the world did you find something like this?’
At least the 90th Floor.
And on or above the 90th Floor, the floor where one could obtain such an item was.
Kang Junhyeok's eyes settled. But only for a moment. He shook his head as if casting the thought aside.
The 90th Floor lay very far away. There was no point thinking about it now.
‘What matters now is.’
It was time to check what he had accomplished and what he had obtained. Perhaps the calculation had finally finished, because a system window appeared before him.
‘How much will I get?’
Kang Junhyeok raised his head eagerly.
The 0th Floor. The only rewards for the tutorial quest were unlocking the system and earning the right to challenge the Tower.
That was what they thought.
But what of it?
The rewards now appearing before him proved that their belief had been nothing more than a misconception.
[Accumulated rewards will be distributed now that the system has been unlocked.]
[Level up.]
[Level up.]
[Level up.]
[Level up.]
[Health + 60]
[Strength + 4]
[Speed + 4]
[Passive Skill : Dagger Arts acquired.]
[0th Floor Quest complete.]
[Your rewards will be determined by your performance.]
[Time remaining : 1 minute 25 seconds.]
[The person who contributed the most to killing the monsters : You.]
[The person who killed the most monsters : You.]
[MVP : You.]
[A remarkable achievement!]
[The Administrator has taken an interest in you.]
[Additional calculation will begin.]
[Calculation in progress......]
[Calculation complete.]
[You have acquired the MVP reward [Infinite Inventory].]
[1,212 Gold has been awarded.]