The greatest advantage of a Pass was that there was almost no restriction on how many pieces of equipment one could rent.
That was why government and corporate rental shops alike were extremely cautious about issuing Passes, and even the lowest-grade Passes cost an enormous amount of money.
In other words, even though the one Deputy Commissioner Park Gi-yong had given me was only a Second-Class Blue Pass, it was still an extremely valuable gift.
And today, I intended to squeeze every last bit of value out of it.
Even a Blue Pass was more than enough for the level of equipment I needed right now.
“You mean everything here?”
“Yes.”
After I selected the equipment I wanted to rent and told the employee, her expression became somewhat strained.
It was understandable.
I had chosen quite a lot of equipment.
“Understood. The total cost will be—”
“Ah, one moment. I’d like to look around a little more first. Is that all right?”
“Excuse me? Ah, certainly. Please let me know once you’ve finished choosing.”
The employee’s gaze toward me seemed a little strange, but I paid it no mind.
One of the reasons Passes were so difficult to obtain was that, every now and then, someone would use one to rent a massive amount of equipment and then disappear without a trace.
‘Now then……’
I turned my attention elsewhere.
It was time to rent the equipment I personally intended to use—the real reason I had come to this rental shop.
When one frequented the same rental shop branch for long enough, there were always a few pieces of equipment that practically never got rented.
The reasons varied.
Some were such high-grade items that their rental fees were prohibitively expensive.
Others simply performed too poorly for their rental price.
And then there were pieces of equipment whose rental fees were reasonable and whose performance was almost excessively good, but whose usage requirements were far too demanding.
The equipment I had come here to rent belonged to that third category.
‘It’s still here.’
After passing the long rows of display cases, I finally found an enormous special display case tucked away in a corner.
Just as I had expected, the item was still occupying its place in the display case because of its demanding usage requirements.
I looked at the name displayed on the case.
[Ogre’s Giant Hammer]
It was a piece of equipment made by modifying the weapon of an Ogre, a boss monster that appeared on the fortieth floor, so that a Hunter could wield it.
Even after being modified for Hunter use, it had originally belonged to a boss-class Ogre, and its weight was beyond imagination.
The weapon itself was so absurdly heavy that both the display case and its supports had to be specially constructed, and I had heard that maintaining them cost a fortune.
Because of that, an employee had once told me that Ogre’s Giant Hammer was the very definition of an inconvenient asset for the rental shop.
Its performance rivaled equipment available with a Black Pass, but the weapon itself was so heavy that a Hunter with an ordinary Strength stat could not even dream of lifting it.
Because its usage requirements were so exceptionally demanding, it had initially been classified as Black Pass equipment before gradually being downgraded over time until it eventually became available with a Blue Pass.
But what else could they do?
The value of equipment was determined by more than mere performance, and everything about Ogre’s Giant Hammer aside from its raw power was terribly inconvenient.
Then why had I specifically come looking for such a weapon?
Because for me, it was probably the best weapon available.
A rental grade covered by my Blue Pass.
Overwhelming performance.
And usage requirements so demanding that I would hardly ever have to worry about someone else renting it first.
Unless someone was willing to lend me a Black Pass-grade weapon for free, there could hardly be a better weapon for me right now.
Since Ogre’s Giant Hammer was stored separately inside a special display case, I had to call an employee over before I could rent it.
“I’d like to rent Ogre’s Giant Hammer.”
“Uh… You want to rent this?”
The employee was visibly startled when I said I wanted the weapon.
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“I’m sorry, Hunter, but Ogre’s Giant Hammer is highly specialized equipment and has certain requirements for its use. Are you already aware of that?”
“Yes. I know.”
Her eyes widened when I said that.
“Excuse me, but we’re required to verify this as part of the procedure. Could you show me your Hunter ID?”
“Here.”
When the employee saw the Hunter ID I handed her, her eyes widened even more than before.
“…Are you Hunter Choi Kang Hyuk?”
“Yes. That’s me.”
“What in the world…… Are you really the person on this ID?”
“Yes. I am.”
The employee looked back and forth between my Hunter ID and my face several times, unable to conceal her shock.
“What happened to you?! Did something good happen?”
This was hardly the first time someone had reacted like this, so I gave her a vague answer.
“Well, a few things happened. Ha ha……”
“I don’t know what happened, but it must have been something good! That’s wonderful. I always knew you’d accomplish something someday, Hunter Choi.”
Perhaps because we had known each other for quite a while, she seemed genuinely happy for me, as though it were her own good fortune.
That was all well and good, but I had more pressing business.
“Before that, I’d like to finish renting Ogre’s Giant Hammer.”
“Ah! Of course. Sorry about that. You do know the usage requirement for Ogre’s Giant Hammer, correct?”
“Of course.”
“This is just part of the required procedure, but could you hold this and squeeze it as hard as you can?”
The employee handed me a grip-strength measuring device designed for Hunters.
As far as I knew, it was not particularly precise, but it was perfectly adequate for estimating a rough stat value.
‘How much strength should I use……?’
The usage requirement for Ogre’s Giant Hammer was an astonishing Strength stat of 50.
A Hunter’s base stats were determined by the highest Tower floor they had climbed.
Put another way, one would ordinarily have to climb beyond the fiftieth floor merely to wield Ogre’s Giant Hammer.
A Hunter who cleared the fiftieth floor was classified as A+ rank, while those who reached the fifty-first floor and beyond were considered S-rank.
There were only a handful of such Hunters in the entire world.
But did that mean one absolutely had to clear the fiftieth floor and become an A+ or S-rank Hunter to reach 50 Strength?
Of course not.
Although a Hunter’s base stats were determined by their Tower progress, climbing the Tower was not the only way to increase them.
Traits, skills, and equipment.
Together with stats themselves, those were the primary elements that made up a Hunter’s strength, and certain traits and pieces of equipment could increase stats.
In fact, South Korea currently had neither an S-rank Hunter who had cleared the fifty-first floor nor even an A+ rank Hunter who had cleared the fiftieth.
Yet that did not mean Ogre’s Giant Hammer had never been rented before.
It was simply that Hunters capable of using it generally had access to other high-grade equipment that was far more efficient, so they had little reason to choose this weapon.
In any case, I gripped the Hunter-use measuring device and applied what I thought was an appropriate amount of strength.
The number on the display fluctuated wildly before finally stopping.
[51]
Judging from the result, I had applied just about the right amount of force.
“Is that enough?”
“Y-You passed. Thank you for confirming.”
I could hardly blame the employee for being flustered.
Officially, I was still an F-rank Hunter.
An F-rank Hunter with 50 Strength?
I could say with absolute certainty that I was the only one in the entire world.
‘There’s a chance information about me will spread because of this… but I’ll have to accept that much.’
Judging from Deputy Commissioner Park Gi-yong’s attitude, he did not seem interested in antagonizing me for no reason.
More importantly, he probably did not want information about me falling into the hands of other guilds either.
And if information about me somehow spread beyond the government anyway?
‘Then it’ll be a little unfortunate, that’s all.’
The employee entered the password for the special display case, and it opened.
“Please transfer Ogre’s Giant Hammer directly from the special display case into your inventory. Because of the equipment’s weight, there’s a possibility that the floor could collapse if it’s taken out anywhere outside the special case.”
“If it’s that heavy, shouldn’t the display case itself collapse?”
“The special display case is designed so that its weight is distributed across the building’s entire support structure. Outside the case, all of that weight would be concentrated in one place, so it would be dangerous.”
“Ah. Understood.”
Following the employee’s warning, I opened my inventory.
“Inventory.”
[Storing ‘Ogre’s Giant Hammer’ in the Inventory.]
────────────
[Ogre’s Giant Hammer]
A giant hammer once wielded by the Ogre, ruler of the Malakas Mountain Range.
Crude in construction, but the destructive power created by its overwhelming weight and durability is genuine.
Usage Requirement: Strength 50 or higher
Special Effect: Weapon-exclusive skill ‘Seismic Wave’ available
────────────
At last, I had it.
“…Someone already rented it?”
Seo-yoon could hardly believe her ears.
She went over to check for herself just in case, only to find that the special display case where Ogre’s Giant Hammer had been stored was truly empty.
Her heart sank.
‘No, who the hell rented it?’
Was there actually another Hunter in Korea besides her who could use the thing?
No, even if someone was capable of wielding it, why would they want to?
Seo-yoon had prepared an enormous amount for this day.
As the heir to a small guild, none of those preparations had been easy for her.
Even so, she had persevered.
She covered herself from head to toe in equipment that increased her Strength stat.
When even that was not enough, she tried every superstition she could find that supposedly granted traits, and by a miraculous stroke of luck, one of them actually worked.
After squeezing out every possible advantage, she had finally managed to reach a Strength stat of 50.
It was the minimum requirement for wielding Ogre’s Giant Hammer.
‘With Ogre’s Giant Hammer, I can clear the thirty-ninth floor.’
There was no abandoning a Tower challenge midway.
That was why Challengers attempting higher floors generally ran virtual simulations before personally entering the Tower.
But……
Seo-yoon had never managed to clear the thirty-ninth-floor simulation even once.
After Tower analysts examined her simulation results, they determined that what Seo-yoon lacked was an area-of-effect striking skill.
Unfortunately, skills were not something one could simply obtain because one wanted them.
And even if there were methods of acquiring one, they were beyond Seo-yoon’s means.
The alternative that had been proposed was a weapon possessing an area-of-effect striking skill.
Equipment with exclusive skills was never easy to obtain.
The tremendous price alone was one problem, but such equipment was usually strictly controlled by the Management Agency or the government and could not even be taken outside authorized facilities.
Seo-yoon was merely the heir to an insignificant small guild, and there were limits to how much money she could spend.
‘If I belonged to a major guild, I wouldn’t even have to worry about things like this!’
Seo-yoon was a Hunter who had climbed all the way to the thirty-eighth floor.
She was properly classified as a B+ rank Hunter.
When Seo-yoon first began climbing the Tower, countless offers had poured in from all over the world.
Governments of powerful nations, guilds counted among the greatest in the world, and many others besides……
She had been that highly regarded as a rising talent.
Unfortunately, Seo-yoon had already belonged to a guild.
A guild that was like family.
No… literally a family guild.
Every time an offer arrived, Seo-yoon had felt the powerful urge to forget about family altogether and join a major guild instead.
Yet she could never bring herself to do it.
Blood ties were truly troublesome……
Then, in the middle of all that, she discovered Ogre’s Giant Hammer.
Overwhelming performance.
A low rental cost.
It had exactly what Seo-yoon needed.
Yes.
Except for one thing.
‘Usage Requirement: Strength 50? Who the hell is supposed to use this thing?!’
There was a reason people said cheap goods came with problems.
Seo-yoon had wondered why Ogre’s Giant Hammer was available for such a low rental grade despite its overwhelming performance, only to discover that its usage requirement was absurd.
And now, after going through hell to barely satisfy that requirement, she had arrived only to discover that Ogre’s Giant Hammer had already been rented?
By whom?
And how?
There was not a single Hunter in Korea who had climbed beyond the fiftieth floor.
Even if such a Hunter did exist, why would someone of that caliber bother renting equipment available with nothing more than a Blue Pass?
‘Who could it possibly be?’
By this point, Seo-yoon could no longer suppress her curiosity.
And it was not merely curiosity.
From a practical standpoint, she also needed to know who this Hunter was.
Someone who had rented the weapon once could always rent it again.
She had assumed she would be able to rent it comfortably in the future without a single competitor, only for an unexpected obstacle to appear.
“…Excuse me, miss.”
Seo-yoon immediately approached the employee.
There was no way she could simply leave things alone.
“Yes, Hunter. How may I assist you?”
“That Ogre hammer. When was it rented?”
“It was rented today.”
“Today?”
Then if she had arrived just a little earlier, she might not have had it snatched away from right under her nose.
“…Then who was the Hunter who rented it?”
“I’m sorry, Hunter, but we cannot disclose the personal information of other Hunters.”
“You really can’t tell me?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Really, really, really?”
“No. I cannot.”
“You’re seriously stubborn.”
Usually, when a B+ rank Hunter pressed someone like this, most people would eventually give in.
Perhaps because the employee worked for the government, however, she was not ordinary.
But Seo-yoon had another way.
“Then when does the rental period end? You can at least tell me that much, right? I need to know when I should come back to rent it.”
“…I really cannot disclose that either.”
“Ugh, fine. I guess I’ll just come here every day, then. That isn’t against the rules, is it?”
The employee merely continued looking troubled.
Not that Seo-yoon cared.
Seo-yoon turned away.
‘I need to at least see the face of whoever this person is.’
It seemed she would practically have to live at the rental shop for the time being.