The city was still peaceful.
Some people were heading to work, while others laughed and chatted on the streets, living their everyday lives.
Among them, I felt as if I had become someone who did not exist.
-Beeeep!
Emergency news was being broadcast repeatedly from a large electronic billboard installed on the street.
[ Wanted: Yoo Da-huin (28) / Suspect in Gyeonggi Namyangju Tower No. 2 Murder Case ]
[ Please report immediately if found. ]
My face on the billboard was painfully clear.
Just two days ago, I had been an ordinary salaryman. Now, my face was plastered across the news, and I had become a nationally wanted criminal.
“...Damn it.”
I pulled my hood low and lowered my head.
It felt as if the people passing by were glancing at the billboard, then looking in my direction.
None of them had probably recognized me, but I felt as if everything would be over the moment my eyes met anyone’s, even for an instant.
I quickly turned away and entered a back alley.
Where should I go?
Returning home was impossible.
My wife had already abandoned me, and it was obvious the police would be watching my family at the funeral hall.
There was no one I could contact.
In any case, mine had been a life with no real connections outside of my family from the very beginning.
Then there was only one choice left.
The tower.
Now that I had become a fugitive, that was the only place where I could survive.
If I was lucky, I might even find “something” inside that could kill me.
If this was a body that could not die anyway, then it would be better to go mad inside a tower.
-Step, step.
I walked toward the outskirts of the city, where darkness had begun to settle.
At the edge of the downtown area, in a vacant lot with few people around, a massive structure stood.
‘A tower.’
The place where the Hunters who had tried to kill me two days ago had thrown me in.
And the place I had returned to again.
The tower was giving off a faint light even in the darkness, and the moment I looked up at it without thinking, I felt dizzy.
It rose to a height I could not even count in floors.
The tower soared as if it would pierce the clouds, endlessly huge, stirring awe and fear at the same time.
“...Can I enter?”
I slowly approached and began looking for an entrance.
But I could see neither a door nor an entryway on the tower.
It simply looked like some grotesque structure stretching up into the sky.
“What the hell? How do I get in?”
I reached out and tapped the wall.
-Tap, tap.
Hard stone.
Nothing changed when I kicked it or pushed against it.
“Damn it.”
At this rate, I had come here for nothing.
I felt like I could escape this maddening reality only if I entered the tower, yet I had no idea how to get inside.
I anxiously looked around.
That was when a thought suddenly came to me.
‘The qualification to enter the tower.’
After killing those Hunters, I had been too dazed to pay attention, but I recalled the notification window that had appeared before my eyes.
‘The User is afflicted with the Curse of Immortality!’
‘You may enter the tower!’
And then I looked at my palm.
Ever since the moment I picked up that jewel, my body had changed.
No matter how many times I died, I came back to life.
“...Then.”
With a faint hope, I reached toward the tower once again.
That was when it happened.
[ Ding! ]
[ The User is afflicted with the Curse of Immortality! ]
[ You may enter the tower. ]
“...I knew it.”
Blue letters appeared in the air before my eyes.
They appeared regardless of my will, like system messages from a game.
I unconsciously stared at the screen.
The message continued to blink.
[ Do you wish to enter the tower? ]
[ Yes / No ]
I had only one choice.
Without hesitation, I reached out and pressed “Yes.”
The instant I did,
-WHOOOOOOOOOOOSH!
a tremendous force swirled around me as if sucking in my body, and my vision distorted.
It felt as if gravity had vanished.
A sensation like floating up into the air wrapped around me.
-CRASH!
At the same time, my body was hurled hard against something.
“...Guh!”
I tumbled across the floor and came to my senses.
And when I opened my eyes, I was already there.
Inside the tower.
Contrary to what I had expected, the inside of the tower was like a dark cave.
Faint crystals hanging from the ceiling glowed blue and lit the space.
The walls were covered in damp moss, and beneath my feet, a strange liquid clung stickily to me.
“Ugh, uuugh...”
There was no time to prepare anything. I shook my head to clear my dizzy mind and glared ahead.
There...
“...Slimes?”
What had appeared before me were three transparent lumps of gel.
Slimes.
They were such common monsters that even I, a non-ability user, knew them well, and at a glance, they looked like the sort of monsters that would only appear in the early stages.
They were about the size of basketballs.
Their bodies wobbled softly like jelly, and because they were translucent, I could faintly see cores that looked like hearts inside them.
[ You have reached the 2nd floor of Namyangju Tower No. 2! ]
[ Subjugation begins! ]
“...Don’t tell me those are my first opponents?”
But it was strange.
A monster had clearly appeared, yet instead of tension, another thought came to me first.
‘Can these things kill me?’
After thinking for a moment, I decided to test myself.
I had been killed hundreds of times by Hunters so far, but it might be different if I was killed by a monster.
I stepped forward.
Then I spread my arms and slowly spoke.
“All right. Come at me.”
-Boing!
One slime sprang up and covered my face.
“Mmph?! Mmph-!”
-SPLAT!
Transparent mucus wrapped around my face and began suffocating me. I could not breathe.
“Mmph, mmph. Mmph...!”
It was an attack I had resolved to accept in order to die.
But instinctively, I thrashed and tore at the slime’s surface, only for the gel-like mucus of its body to slip straight through my hands.
“Gah, gack, cough...!”
In the end, slime mucus invaded my lungs instead of air, and a maddening suffocation and burning sensation overtook me.
My eyes slowly rolled back, and the confusion grew, devouring me and slowly forcing my eyes shut.
-Thud.
I collapsed to the floor, and the slime slowly crawled deeper and deeper into my fallen body through my nose and mouth.
Maybe I could die like this.
Maybe the answer really was to be killed by a monster instead of a person.
The moment I thought that,
-POP!
the slime was flung away.
“Haaah, haaah!”
At the same time, air rushed into my lungs.
“Hah, haaah. Haaah. Hah!”
I panted harshly, braced myself against the ground, and staggered.
Once again.
Once again, I had survived.
“Damn it, goddamn it!”
-THUD!
I clenched my fist and slammed it into the ground, then picked up a stone lying beside me.
“I said kill me! Kill me!”
I gritted my teeth, stood, and took a fighting stance with the stone in hand. This time, all three slimes began wriggling toward me again.
They were even faster and more aggressive than before.
“Kill me! Kill me! Fuck!”
-Whoosh! Whoosh!
I swung the stone and shouted.
-Boing! Boing, boing!
The three slimes leaped at me and latched onto my arms, legs, and once again, my face.
“Mmph, mmph!”
-Thud!
I fell face-first to the floor from the impact of the slimes lunging at me.
-THUD! THUD!
As I felt the unpleasant experience of my breath stopping all over again, I brought the stone down on the slime stuck to my leg.
The first few strikes were blocked by its mucus and slipped away, missing, but each time, the slime grew smaller and smaller.
-THUD! CRACK!
When the stone finally reached the core in its center.
-Pop! Roll, roll, roll...
The slime stuck to my leg burst and vanished, and its core rolled across the floor like a marble.
“Mmph, mmph!”
-THUD! THUD! THUD! POP!
Using the same method, I removed another slime stuck to my arm.
-THUD! THUD!
I tried to remove the slime clinging to my face, but my breath finally gave out, and I lost consciousness once more.
-POP!
Then, once again, the slime was flung off me.
-Slither, slither...
It moved strangely back and forth as if watching me.
Before long, I came to my senses, clutched my head, glared at the slime, and laughed.
“You don’t get it either, do you? You definitely killed me, but I got back up again.”
-Boing!
Whether the slime understood or not, it leaped at me again.
“If you can’t kill me...!”
-GRAB!
I blocked and caught the flying slime with my palm.
“Then just die!”
-THUD! THUD! THUD!
I struck the slime several times and chipped away at its core.
-Pop! Roll, roll, roll, roll...
Then, just like the others, I removed it.
At that moment,
[ Ding! ]
[ You have cleared the tower’s 2nd floor! ]
A notification appeared, announcing that I had cleared the 2nd floor.
───────────────────
[ Floor: 2nd floor ]
[ Climber: Yoo Da-huin ]
[ Clear Time: 1 hour 42 minutes 17 seconds ]
[ Previous Best Record: 8 seconds ] (Shortest tower climb record)
───────────────────
[ Clear Conditions Met ]
▶ Slime (Beginner) x3 defeated
[ Climb Ranking: Lowest ] (Current 153,289th)
[ Ding! ]
[ Clear Time sets all-time longest record! ]
“......”
Clear text appeared as if mocking me.
[ Continue climbing to the next floor? ]
[ Yes / No ]
A system notification appeared, asking whether I would continue climbing.
Of course, I had no choice.
-Press.
I pressed “Yes.”
I won’t stop climbing until a monster that can kill me appears.
***
“Two people died on the 2nd floor?”
“Yes. But something is strange.”
“Of course it’s strange. You just said two people died on the 2nd floor. To three lousy slimes? Even ordinary people couldn’t die to those things if they tried.”
The Korean Hunter Association.
Choi Yong-gil, the president of the Association, answered while picking up the folder handed to him by Lee Dae-hyuk, a Hunter affiliated with the Association.
“...That is strange too, but there is something even stranger than that.”
“Something even stranger?”
-Flip.
As Choi Yong-gil opened the folder he had received and turned the pages, Lee Dae-hyuk nodded and spoke.
“Yes. The thing is... there was only one entrant.”
-Pause.
Choi Yong-gil’s hand stopped turning the page, and he slowly raised his head to look at Lee Dae-hyuk.
“Are you playing word games with me? You said two people died, but only one person entered?”
“...Well, we are still trying to determine how that happened....”
Lee Dae-hyuk was scratching his head, and Choi Yong-gil turned his gaze back down and flipped through the documents.
“...The clear time was over 1 hour and 40 minutes? What kind of Hunter is this? Did you look into him?”
“No, not that far yet...”
“Hold on. Yoo Da-huin?”
-THUD!
Choi Yong-gil paused, threw the documents he had been reading onto the desk, and
-BEEP!
Turned on the TV, switching it to a news channel.
Then,
[ Authorities continue to track 28-year-old Yoo Da-huin, the prime suspect in the Gyeonggi Namyangju Tower No. 2 murder case. Yoo Da-huin, after the previous incident... ]
“Yeah, that’s him! Yoo Da-huin!”
Choi Yong-gil looked at Lee Dae-hyuk and shouted.
“If it’s Yoo Da-huin, he’s the murderer bastard who killed three S-grade Hunters this time! You’re saying that bastard entered the tower?”
“Y-You’re right. It certainly is that murderer....”
-SMACK!
Choi Yong-gil struck Lee Dae-hyuk on the head with the folder he had placed on the desk.
“It certainly is that murderer? Are you joking? You came to report to me without even investigating that much?”
“I-I’m sorry.”
“This bastard, seriously, I ought to—!”
Choi Yong-gil raised the arm holding the folder high.
“Sigh, forget it.”
-Tap.
With a sigh, he put the folder back down on the desk and pointed at Lee Dae-hyuk.
“Contact the government authorities right now and tell them we have discovered Yoo Da-huin’s location.”
“Yes, yes. Understood.”
Lee Dae-hyuk adjusted his crooked glasses, gathered up the folder, and left the room.
“Now. Let’s see how long an ordinary person who isn’t even a Hunter can last inside a tower.”
Choi Yong-gil muttered to himself as he cracked his neck.
“In the end, he’ll fail the subjugation and get ejected. Then we just have to catch you, you bastard... Until then, just try not to die.”
The Hunter Association immediately provided information regarding Yoo Da-huin, the murderer of three S-grade Hunters, and thus Yoo Da-huin’s location was narrowed down to Namyangju Tower No. 2.
However, unless a Hunter who entered a tower had gone in as part of a party, or unless they were on the 1st floor, they were absolutely cut off from the outside world....
All that remained was to wait for him to fail the subjugation inside the tower and come out.
But they did not know.
They did not know what kind of concept the Curse of Immortality could become in a tower subjugation.