“Kreeeek?!”
The goblins instinctively sensed the threat.
The prey they had been playing with like a toy until just moments ago was no longer a toy.
The bastards crouched low and gripped the daggers in their hands tightly.
“Hoo....”
I let out a rough breath and gripped the stone that had fallen to the ground once again.
My palm was already slick with my blood.
My strength was gone, and my body was in tatters.
Even so, I had come back to life again.
“If I can’t die....”
I slowly stepped forward.
The goblins reacted at the same time.
The five of them scattered, surrounding me from every side.
“...Then I have no choice but to kill.”
From this point on, it was combat.
A fight to see who would die first.
No, a fight to see who could “kill” first.
-Whoosh!
A nimble goblin lowered its waist and charged in to stab my side.
I barely tried to turn my body away, but
-SLASH!
“Ghk!”
As expected, it was impossible with my low physical ability.
The goblin’s dagger dug into my side, sliced through my organs, and sank deep inside.
“Ghk....”
But thanks to the Pain Numbness Skill, even with my entrails spilling out, I could endure it well enough.
-SQUELCH!
Instead, I pushed my waist forward so that the goblin’s dagger would lodge even deeper.
“Krrk?!”
As the goblin’s eyes rolled in confusion,
-SMASH!
I brought the stone in my hand down on the bastard’s head with all my strength.
One blow.
Two blows.
Three blows.
-SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!
“Keck, krrk, krrrrk!”
The goblin’s skull caved in and crushed inward, and the bastard staggered before collapsing to the floor.
The first bastard.
-Wriggle, wriggle...
My body, which had been falling apart while spilling its guts, began to regenerate again.
Flesh reattached, torn wounds healed, and broken bones fitted themselves back together.
“...Haaah, haaah.”
Another failure.
I had come back to life again.
“Krrrrk!”
“Krrk, krrk!”
The remaining four charged at me at once.
-FWOOOOOOOSH!
The moment I heard the sound of an arrow, I reflexively turned my head.
-SQUELCH!
But I could not dodge it.
“...Gyaah?!”
The arrow pierced my right eye and dug straight into my brain.
The world went black, and my vision shook.
-SLASH!
At that moment, another bastard stabbed my thigh.
My body wavered, and my legs gave out beneath me.
I fell to my knees.
-SQUELCH!
And the last bastard raised its dagger and drove it down toward my heart.
“...Ghk.”
My breath caught in my throat.
This time, I truly felt like I was going to die.
My eyes closed, and my consciousness drifted away.
However.
-Wriggle, wriggle....
My body began to recover again.
-PING!
The arrow that had pierced my eye sprang out, and the stab wounds sealed rapidly.
The moment my heart stopped, it began beating again.
-Slide....
And I stood back up.
“...I really won’t die.”
Now, I did not even feel resignation.
“Kreeeek?!”
The goblins were flustered when I stood up again.
I did not miss that brief opening.
-DASH!
Still on my knees, I picked up the stone that had fallen to the floor.
-SMASH!
My eye was blinded, and I had no sense of direction, but I swung exactly as my arm remembered.
The bastard’s face crumpled, and one of its eyeballs popped out.
The second bastard.
-GRAB!
“Krrk?!”
The moment the one that had stabbed my thigh tried to pull out its dagger, I grabbed its arm with all my strength.
And then.
-CRACK!
I twisted and broke it.
It might have been agile and quick, but once I actually caught it, it was not difficult to snap its scrawny arm with both hands.
“Kyararararararak!”
I did not miss the goblin as it screamed and sank down.
-SMASH!
I struck its head.
And so another bastard died.
The third bastard.
Now there were two left.
The problem was....
“...Damn it.”
My body was already a wreck.
One eye still would not see properly, and my entire body was soaked in blood.
My arm was broken, and my legs had lost their strength.
But it did not matter.
-Slither....
I did not die.
-Crack, crunch....
Because I would come back to life “infinitely.”
Before I knew it, my body had sealed and recovered perfectly.
“Krrk, krrrrk....”
The remaining two goblins retreated little by little as if trembling in fear.
I collapsed forward as if falling apart.
-SQUELCH!
I deliberately took the stab as one bastard drove its dagger into my stomach.
Then, still impaled, I grabbed the bastard.
-THUD!
I slammed its head into the ground.
After confirming that the bastard was half unconscious,
I strangled its neck with all the strength in my arms.
-CRACK!
With the sound of its breath being cut off, another bastard came to an end.
The fourth bastard.
Now, only one remained.
It was the bastard that had been shooting the bow.
“Krrk, krrk-krrk!”
Gripped by fear, the bastard backed away with its hands trembling violently and drew the bow again.
-SQUELCH!
An arrow pierced straight through my chest.
Blood surged out, and my body collapsed again.
-Thud!
But that bastard and I both knew.
It meant nothing.
After all,
“...I won’t die.”
I would come back to life again.
The last goblin backed away with its eyes wide open.
-Clatter!
Its hands were trembling, and now it had even dropped the bow.
Was it completely drenched in fear now?
I slowly walked forward.
“It’s your turn.”
I approached the bastard, and with the arrow still lodged in me, I snatched up the bow that had fallen to the ground.
Then,
-SQUELCH!
“Krrk?!”
I drove the tip of the bow into the bastard’s eyeball.
-SQUELCH! SMASH! SMASH! THWACK! THWACK!
“Keck, krrk. Krrrrk...!”
Again and again.
I struck it with the bow until its skull burst apart.
And so, the fifth bastard.
The battle ended.
[ Ding! ]
[ You have cleared the tower’s 4th floor! ]
───────────────────
[ Floor: 4th floor ]
[ Climber: Yoo Da-huin ]
[ Clear Time: 2 hours 51 minutes 32 seconds ]
[ Previous Best Record: 1 minute 52 seconds ] (Shortest tower climb record)
───────────────────
[ Clear Conditions Met ]
▶ Goblin (Normal) x5 defeated
[ Climb Ranking: Lowest ] (Current 132,002nd)
[ Ding! ]
[ Clear Time sets all-time longest record! ]
That damned all-time longest record.
“I know. I know already.”
-Thud!
I sank to the floor, wiped off my blood-soaked arms and face as if washing my face, shook off the blood, and dismissed the notification window.
Then a new window appeared.
[ Continue climbing to the next floor? ]
[ Yes / No ]
There was no need to hesitate.
-Press.
I pressed Yes.
***
-CRASH!
“So what exactly are you trying to say right now?”
The one who struck the table was a middle-aged man wearing a martial arts uniform that made his trained body stand out.
It was Lee Cheol-heon, the Guild Master of the Typhon Guild, to which the three S-grade Hunters killed in this incident had belonged.
“Aaah— I wasn’t exactly talking in circles.”
By contrast, the man who answered him was behaving in a very delinquent manner unlike Lee Cheol-heon’s imposing impression, with both feet on the table as he stared back while gripping a knife.
It was Oh Yuk-il, an SS-grade Hunter like Lee Cheol-heon.
“The important thing is the ‘why’ and the ‘how.’ Mourning them is all well and good, but there isn’t just one or two strange things here, old man.”
“So, you’re taking the illegal tower climber’s side?”
“Illegal, my ass. Heh-heh.”
-Whirl!
Oh Yuk-il laughed with his shoulders shaking, twirled the knife in his hand.
-THUNK!
Stabbed it into the table, and spoke.
“...Somehow, it looks to me like our dear Hunter Lee Cheol-heon keeps trying to dodge the subject....”
“...What did you say?”
“Three S-grade Hunters died? Hey, I’m sad about that too. Brings tears to my eyes. I can go to the funeral, cry for them, and make my bows. I mean it!”
-SMACK!
Oh Yuk-il kicked back from his seat and stood, continuing.
“...But are S-grade Hunters fucking pushovers? That they’d get killed by some ordinary person off the street— no. By an ‘illegal tower climber,’ and all three of them together like good friends?”
He slowly drew his thumb across his own neck and spoke.
-Grit.
“So what are you trying to say, Oh Yuk-il?”
Lee Cheol-heon spoke through gritted teeth.
“...I think you know better than anyone what I’m trying to say, old man...?”
-Slide.
“I’m saying you probably know how and why those three S-grade Hunters died.”
Oh Yuk-il sneered, slung an arm over Lee Cheol-heon’s shoulder as the man trembled while holding back his anger, and whispered.
“...You’re hiding something, aren’t you, Lee Cheol-heon?”
-BOOM!
And in that instant, Lee Cheol-heon’s eyes flashed blue as he threw a punch at Oh Yuk-il’s face.
-WHOOOOOOOSH...
The scene filled with smoke as if a cannon had been fired, and when the smoke soon cleared, someone could be seen standing between them, blocking Lee Cheol-heon’s fist.
“Enough. I doubt we gathered here to fight among ourselves.”
A man clad head to toe in golden armor.
It was Bae Hyeong-seok, one of only three SSS-grade Hunters in Korea, and the very person who had gathered today’s high-ranking Hunters and convened this meeting.
“Oh my, how scary. Thank you, SSS-grade Hunter sir.”
Oh Yuk-il kept sneering to the end as he returned to his seat, while Lee Cheol-heon glared at Bae Hyeong-seok without withdrawing his blocked fist.
“...Let go. That punk is making a laughingstock of my dead guild members.”
“I am sorry, Hunter Lee Cheol-heon. I have many issues with Oh Yuk-il’s attitude as well, but I cannot say I disagree with his opinion one hundred percent.”
“What...?”
Lee Cheol-heon’s eyes burned with even greater fury, and Bae Hyeong-seok calmly released the hand holding his fist as he spoke.
“An S-grade Hunter is a superhuman. Inside a tower, that goes without saying even more.”
Hunter grades ranged from F-grade to SSS-grade.
Most Hunters could not display one hundred percent of their abilities and strength outside a tower, but even accounting for that, an S-grade Hunter was entirely different from an ordinary person.
They could run one hundred meters in under three seconds, could simply repel most cold weapons, and with their strength, could lift something like a compact car.
To say nothing of inside a tower, where that power could be displayed at one hundred percent.
“But three such S-grade Hunters died to an ‘ordinary person’?”
Bae Hyeong-seok swept his gaze over the Hunters gathered there as he spoke.
It was a gathering of twelve Hunters, all SS-grade or higher.
They sat around the broad table, each in their own posture.
“...Their deaths should rightly be mourned, but speaking logically, this makes no sense.”
“So!!”
-BOOM!
Lee Cheol-heon vented his anger once more by slamming the table and shouting.
-WHOOOOOSH...
“...I asked what you’re trying to say.”
“It is simple.”
Bae Hyeong-seok continued, not intimidated in the slightest by his force.
“You must know. Why three S-grade Hunters were on the 1st floor of that tower, why they were killed by an ordinary person, and how that ordinary person....”
An ordinary person. “Yoo Da-huin.”
The man wanted as a murderer and reported on nonstop across all kinds of media.
And now, to die.
The man climbing the tower.
“...is climbing the tower.”
“You will tell us, here and now, plainly and clearly, everything you know.”
“I must have come to the wrong place. I did not realize a memorial gathering would become a trial.”
“It is neither a memorial nor a trial. We simply have to do what we must as Hunters of Korea.”
-Creak....
As Lee Cheol-heon clenched his fist, a sound like bones breaking echoed through the space.
“So I am asking what being Hunters of Korea has to do with the deaths of our three guild members.”
“Ha, honestly. This is annoying.”
-CRASH!
As Bae Hyeong-seok and Lee Cheol-heon argued, someone kicked a chair.
-CLANG, CLANG, CLANG-CLANG-CLANG....
In an instant, silence fell between them, and only the sound of the chair rolling could be heard.
“We all came here knowing everything, so why the hell do we have to sit here pretending we don’t know? It’s irritating.”
The one leaning back in her chair while kicking another chair away with her foot was the SS-grade Hunter Lee Chae-rin.
“Talk, Lee Cheol-heon. Bae Hyeong-seok, you stop acting so damn obnoxious and pretending you don’t know too....”
She spoke with her face twisted into a deep scowl.
“...Tell us right now what happened to the 'Curse of Immortality.'”