My wife was having an affair.
I thought the bastard had some nerve, trying to seduce a Hunter’s wife, so I looked into him. As it turned out, he was a C-rank Hunter.
In the world of Hunters, where strength was power, there was nothing I could do.
“You heard, right? We’re getting divorced.”
My soon-to-be ex-wife—no, that bitch—said those words to me with shameless confidence even after I had discovered her affair.
The face I had once found beautiful had aged hideously, and she was barely holding back its collapse with Botox and every cosmetic procedure imaginable.
She was my wife, but to be frank, she had aged terribly.
“Fine. Let’s get divorced. I’m sick and tired of living with a bitch like you too.”
“What did you just say? I spent all these years supporting an F-rank Hunter for a husband, and you are not even grateful. Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was every time I went anywhere because of you?”
Even an F-rank Hunter was not the sort of profession that people openly looked down upon.
After all, being a Hunter carried the noble significance of risking oneself for humanity.
So what the hell was she talking about?
“…Watch your mouth.”
“Why? Are you going to kill me or something? Go ahead! Kill me!”
“Be quiet.”
Every word that came out of her mouth made me feel as though I were going to lose my mind, but I endured it with superhuman patience.
If a Hunter committed a crime such as murder, they were subjected to harsher punishment under the Special Hunter Act rather than ordinary criminal law.
The minimum sentence was life imprisonment, and the death penalty was also possible.
I hated that woman enough to kill her, but I had no intention of ruining my life over someone like her.
“Enough. What is there even left for me to say? Get out of my sight. Let’s never see each other again.”
“That might be difficult. We’ll have to see each other again for the division of assets.”
“What?”
It did not take me long to realize that her words were an unavoidable reality.
“No, Counselor, how the hell can there be a law this screwed up? All that woman ever did was sit around at home before running off with another man!”
Sixteen years of marriage.
And in return, I was about to lose half the assets I had accumulated over twenty-five years of working as a Hunter.
“Even if your former spouse was a full-time homemaker, the court presumes that she contributed to the formation of your marital assets to that extent.”
“Even though she was the one at fault?”
“Of course, you can separately claim compensation for the affair.”
“How much?”
“Based on precedent, I believe you could receive up to approximately thirty million won.”
“…What? That’s all?”
The amount I had to give that woman in the division of assets was a staggering 1.3 billion won, half the value of the apartment.
Meanwhile, the amount she, the party at fault, had to pay me in compensation was a mere thirty million won.
I would give her 1.3 billion won and receive thirty million in return.
It was nothing short of a miraculous exchange rate.
And so the date of the divorce mediation arrived.
Just as my lawyer had told me, the division of marital assets and compensation from the at-fault spouse were treated as completely separate matters in a divorce.
In the end, I truly had no choice but to give that woman half of my assets.
“Fuck. Fuck……”
After using the remaining 1.3 billion won to pay off the apartment loan and cover various other expenses, I suddenly found myself with practically nothing left.
Looking back on it, I suspected this was why that woman had suddenly insisted that we take out an excessive loan and move.
It had all been planned.
Every last bit of it……
In the end, all I had left was twenty million won.
Once I paid the deposit on a monthly rental and covered my immediate living expenses, even that would be gone.
I had thought I had lived diligently and done my best, yet I had lost everything simply because I had chosen the wrong woman.
What kind of pathetic fucking life was this?
If that had been the end of it, I might still have been able to grit my teeth and somehow keep going.
Yes, if only it had ended there……
Misfortunes always came together.
When my father heard about my divorce, he collapsed from high blood pressure, and he needed an enormously expensive operation.
It cost more than I could afford even if I withdrew my entire rental deposit.
“Kang Hyuk, isn’t there anything you can do?”
“…Give me a little time.”
I was told that it would be too late if we missed the proper window for surgery, so I immediately began looking into loans.
“I’m sorry, but it is difficult for professional Hunters to qualify for unsecured loans. Do you have any collateral you could offer separately?”
“All the Hunters I know have no trouble getting unsecured loans.”
“Ah, Hunters who are B-rank or higher are eligible for unsecured loans as an exception. Are you perhaps B-rank or above?”
“I’m F-rank.”
“Ah……”
I had no options left.
My income up to this point was nowhere near enough to cover my father’s massive surgery expenses, and I was a Hunter—a profession the public believed could make someone a fortune overnight.
There was only one thing I could do.
“Enter the Tower.”
After Towers appeared throughout the world, Hunters had been forced to climb them in order to prevent their collapse.
People called those Hunters Challengers.
However, not every Hunter became a Challenger.
Some remained on the lower floors for their own reasons: they lacked the ability, they were too afraid, or they simply did not want to risk their lives.
I had been one of them.
I was the kind of person who repeatedly cleared the same lower floors and remained satisfied with the modest rewards I obtained there.
I had a family to support, and there was little an F-rank Hunter like me could accomplish by venturing onto dangerous floors anyway.
But now, earning money itself had become a matter of survival for me.
To survive, I had paradoxically been forced to expose myself to an entirely different kind of danger.
Even if it meant taking greater risks, I could no longer settle for modest rewards.
I needed a large payout.
In order to survive.
And in order to keep living.
[Please select the floor you wish to enter.]
[1st Floor ]
[2nd Floor ]
[3rd Floor ]
[4th Floor ]
[5th Floor ]
[6th Floor ]
The Tower’s sixth floor.
It was considered a floor that should only be challenged by Hunters with the potential to reach at least D-rank. As an F-rank Hunter, I had never attempted anything beyond the fifth floor.
People might talk about some S-rank Hunter breaking through the fiftieth floor or whatever else, but for me, this was my limit.
Of the traits and skills commonly used to judge a Hunter’s potential, I possessed neither.
However.
Today, I intended to challenge the sixth floor, which had always seemed like an insurmountable wall to me.
The difficulty increased dramatically starting from the sixth floor compared to the fifth, but that also meant the rewards were significantly greater.
[Would you like to enter <Tower 6th Floor>?]
A considerable amount of information about already-cleared Tower floors was publicly available.
Before attempting the sixth floor, I had thoroughly studied its methods and made extensive preparations.
‘I can do this.’
Ideally, I should have run a simulation of the sixth floor before challenging it, but that was effectively impossible for Hunters who did not belong to a guild.
The cost of running a simulation was astronomical.
I was entering the Tower because I needed money. Where was I supposed to find the money for a simulation?
‘Still, I’ve done everything I can to prepare.’
It was strongly recommended that only Hunters assessed as having the potential to grow to at least D-rank attempt the sixth floor or higher, but how many years had I spent struggling my way through the Tower?
By now, I was thoroughly accustomed to fighting the monsters from the first through fifth floors.
Among F-rank Hunters, there was practically no one who could clear the fifth floor faster than I could.
Surely I could handle a floor that was only one level higher.
‘So what if I don’t have any traits or skills? I can do this.’
I believed that without a shadow of a doubt.
More precisely, I had to believe it.
It was little more than desperate self-delusion.
“Yes.”
[Entering <Tower 6th Floor>.]
The instant I gave my consent, my vision went dark. A moment later, a dense forest materialized around me.
Then a notification window appeared.
[6th Floor Mission Overview]
-Eliminate 5 Kobolds.
-Completion Condition: Eliminate all Kobolds
-Failure Condition: Death
There was one major reason Hunters were strongly recommended to be at least D-rank before attempting the sixth floor.
From the first to the fifth floors, only instinct-driven monsters with virtually no intelligence appeared.
They were difficult to deal with, but as long as one knew a few standard strategies, it was possible to overcome them somehow.
Starting from the sixth floor, however, things changed.
Kobolds, which appeared on the sixth floor, possessed intelligence comparable to that of a young child.
More importantly, Kobolds lived and hunted in packs.
“Hoo… Let’s do this.”
The moment I took a step toward the forest, the shrill cries of Kobolds began echoing from every direction.
I had known this would happen, but experiencing it firsthand was an entirely different matter.
-SKREE! SKREEE!
Before long, three Kobolds appeared in front of me.
‘Two of them will wait for an opening and attack me from behind.’
For several days, I had studied the sixth-floor strategies until I was sick of them and had conducted my own analysis as well.
All I had to do was follow the simulation I had already run through in my head.
‘First, I get past the one in front—’
I swung the longsword made of Tower metal at the first Kobold that charged toward me with a shriek.
It was not some incredibly high-grade item, but I had selected a fairly decent weapon from a rental shop.
At least, that was what I had thought……
CLANG!
The sound that rang out made me doubt my own eyes.
‘It blocked it?’
The Kobold’s crude-looking club had stopped my sword.
As though they had been waiting for that exact moment, the other Kobolds charged at me from both sides.
-SKREEE!
I desperately swung my sword again, but the Kobold nimbly evaded my wild swing and slipped in beside me.
WHOOSH!
A club came flying toward me.
Only then did one fact sink into my bones.
I was far weaker than I had believed.
Twenty-five years of experience.
Even though I was only F-rank, I had always taken a certain amount of pride in those years.
But now I understood.
That pride had been absurd arrogance.
Nothing more than a delusion.
THUD!
The club slammed into my left arm, twisting it unnaturally as though the bone had snapped.
“Aaargh!”
Another club came flying toward me, and I turned and fled with only one thought in my mind.
I wanted to live.
This was wrong.
This was madness.
-SKREE!
-SKREEE!
I had climbed the Tower for twenty-five years.
Even if I had spent those years clearing the same floors over and over again, I had believed that experience could not possibly be worthless.
But I had been wrong.
All the time I had spent had been meaningless, and on a floor only one level higher, I was utterly helpless.
-SKREEE!
The Kobolds pursuing me slowly began surrounding me like hunters cornering their prey.
Before I knew it, there was nowhere left to run.
No.
There had never been anywhere to run from the moment I entered a place I should never have come to in the first place.
-SKREEEE!
The Kobolds’ shrieks echoed through the forest like mocking laughter.
Despair washed over me.
I regretted everything.
I regretted entering the sixth floor even though I knew I was not capable of clearing it.
I even regretted the moment I married that damned woman who had ruined my life.
At that moment.
WHOOSH!
THUD!
A stone came flying from somewhere and struck me in the head.
I had forgotten about it for a moment.
Among a pack of Kobolds, there were some known as slingers.
‘…Ah.’
My consciousness vanished for an instant.
When it returned, I was already lying on the ground.
The entire world seemed stained crimson.
I had to get up and run.
I knew I had to.
But my body refused to move.
-SKREEE!
Along with the Kobolds’ mocking cries, an enormous shadow fell over my head.
Time slowed.
For a moment, I wondered whether my life was flashing before my eyes.
But something was strange.
“…Huh?”
It was not my life flashing before my eyes.
The world had actually stopped.
[Your experience points have reached the required threshold.]
[Conditions have been fulfilled.]
[Experience Sale (Lv.1) has been activated.]
.
.
.
[Would you like to sell your experience points?]
[Current Experience: 2,973,546,545]
[List of Purchasable Stats] [Lv.1]
-Vitality
-Magic Power
-Strength
-Agility
*Distribute Evenly
I had no idea what was happening.
But with the desperation of a drowning man grasping at a straw, I forced the words out.
“All… experience points… distribute… evenly.”
[Selling ‘2,970,000,000’ experience points to purchase stats.]
[Current Experience: 3,546,545]