“We’re here.”
The place Baek Yulheon drove us to—
was a shabby old building.
“Hyeon Chae-rin is here?”
“There were eyewitness reports. I came here myself too.”
“And?”
“She was here.”
At Baek Yulheon’s answer, my sister narrowed her eyes.
“What even is this place?”
At her words, I took another careful look at the building.
A rusted exterior.
Cracked bricks.
I would have believed it if someone told me the place was scheduled for demolition.
Someone was actually staying here?
At least I could never do it.
Apparently, my sister felt the same way.
“Even if she’s lost her mind, she should at least do it gracefully…… I know she’s on the verge of losing her job, but this isn’t some kind of protest…….”
On the verge of losing her job.
My sister became slightly more cautious before saying those words.
Perhaps because she herself had been in danger of losing her position only two months ago.
It seemed she could relate to some extent.
Not that she appeared to have the slightest intention of actually sympathizing.
‘Losing her job…….’
Sigh.
A breath escaped me naturally.
I had already heard from Baek Yulheon why Hyeon Chae-rin had suddenly disappeared.
Apparently, she had failed her 40th Floor challenge five times.
Well, that was still fewer than my sister.
But considering she had supposedly never experienced a failed climb before—
I could understand the shock.
It was like a top student who had received perfect scores their entire life suddenly receiving the lowest possible grade five times in a row.
Comparing Tower climbing, where there were only two outcomes—success or failure—to school grades was not exactly perfect……
but the shock was probably similar.
Unlike mock exams or school tests—
if you failed to climb the Tower more than ten times, your future became practically hopeless.
Your life as an Awakened was effectively over.
There was no guild in the world stupid enough to keep supporting an Awakened who could no longer climb.
“Well, when you put it that way, I suppose it wouldn’t be strange if she went a little crazy…….”
“Huh? Who went crazy?”
“No one.”
I looked away from the building and turned toward Baek Yulheon.
His expression was troubled.
One of his guild members—
and the guild’s second-strongest combatant at that—
had apparently lost her mind.
How could he possibly feel good about that?
I placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Her circumstances are unfortunate, but if she keeps living somewhere like this, her health is going to deteriorate. Then she really will be finished as an Awakened. It might be better to force her into a psychiatric hospital……”
“W-What? A psychiatric hospital?”
“If she’s willing to keep living in a building like this, her condition must already be pretty serious. It would be better to drag her out by force and have her admitted.”
“No, no. Living here……? I think both of you have misunderstood something.”
Misunderstood?
My sister and I looked at each other.
Then, apparently realizing that we had been thinking the exact same thing—
my sister spoke first.
“Didn’t she lose her mind because she’s about to lose her job and start living here like a homeless person?”
“H-Homeless!?”
Baek Yulheon looked genuinely horrified.
I could not bring myself to say anything.
‘……That wasn’t it?’
“Haa…… Fine. I guess I didn’t explain enough.”
Baek Yulheon rubbed his forehead and began explaining.
To summarize his lengthy explanation—
1. This building was the disguised entrance to ‘somewhere.’
2. Hyeon Chae-rin had shut herself away in that ‘somewhere.’
3. Hyeon Chae-rin had not lost her mind.
4. She had shut herself away there because she was trying to find a way forward in her own way.
“Do you understand now?”
After listening to Baek Yulheon’s long explanation, my expression said only one thing.
‘What the hell is he talking about?’
I understood absolutely nothing.
I turned toward my sister.
“……??”
She looked even more confused than I did.
After moving her lips silently for a moment, she quietly raised her hand.
“So…… where exactly is this ‘somewhere’?”
“Exactly! That’s what I want to know!”
The moment I spoke, my sister immediately agreed.
She had probably been wondering where to even begin with her questions.
At her sudden loud voice, Baek Yulheon hurriedly covered her mouth.
“Mmph!?”
“Shh! Shhh!”
With his hand still over my sister’s mouth, Baek Yulheon scanned the surroundings.
As though wary of something.
‘Is someone nearby?’
I looked around as well.
A barren landscape.
Several more buildings similar to this one stood nearby.
It looked like the kind of neighborhood no one would ever willingly visit.
Only after confirming the silence around us did Baek Yulheon finally relax and lower his hand.
“Whew…….”
“……What was that?”
“Ah…… S-Sorry?”
“No. Explain.”
“……It’s a little difficult to talk about it here.”
“Then where would be fine? Should we get back in the car? Because if you stay quiet there too, I think I’m going to get a little angry.”
My sister’s expression went completely blank.
Goosebumps rose across my shoulders.
Baek Yulheon seemed to feel the same way.
“……You can’t make a disturbance around here. No loud conversations, and you can’t even bring a car close.”
“So that’s why we parked so far away and walked here?”
“Yeah.”
Whew.
Baek Yulheon exhaled the breath he had been holding.
“We’re going inside to find Chae-rin. Once we’re in there, I’ll explain everything.”
“……An A-Rank Awakened, a former Awakened, and a Buffer. What exactly are you so afraid of with this much strength?”
He included me too?
For some reason, I felt strangely touched.
And honestly, I was wondering the same thing as my sister.
What could possibly frighten him this much?
With my sister here, even a whole gang of thugs would not stand a chance.
If there was something we genuinely needed to fear—
‘The Management Bureau? Or an Awakened stronger than Sis?’
The first possibility was out.
There was no reason the Management Bureau would be hiding in a place like this.
That left the second.
Baek Yulheon answered with a serious expression.
“Yeah. We should be afraid. If you or I make a mistake here, there might not even be enough left of us to bury.”
“……?”
After hearing that—
my sister stopped pressing him.
That was the end of the joking.
And the end of the conversation.
At Baek Yulheon’s gesture, we entered the building.
The inside of the building was surprisingly clean.
The cracked concrete and rust were exactly as the exterior suggested—
but there were signs that someone maintained the place.
For example—
there were no cobwebs or wild animals anywhere, no matter how carefully I looked.
“……Ugh.”
Apparently, that still was not enough to keep my sister from feeling disgusted.
“Doesn’t it smell strange……?”
“Yeah.”
I noticed it too.
Was it the smell of a sewer?
It was not quite that bad—
but breathing it for long was extremely unpleasant.
Baek Yulheon ignored it and continued wandering around inside the building.
“Where exactly is Hyeon Chae-rin? What are we even doing here?”
“…….”
No answer.
My sister’s stress was rapidly approaching its limit.
‘……This is dangerous.’
At this rate, it was entirely possible that my sister would simply demolish the entire building herself.
Just as her metaphorical detonation button was about to be pressed—
“Found it.”
Baek Yulheon finally broke his silence.
My sister and I immediately gathered around him.
“?”
At the end of his gaze—
there was something resembling a handle.
Attached directly to the floor.
It could not have looked more suspicious.
“What is this?”
“Just watch.”
With a completely serious expression, Baek Yulheon grabbed the handle—
and pulled.
CRACK, CRACK.
“Uuugh……!”
“……Guild Master?”
Veins bulged across Baek Yulheon’s forearm.
Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
Something about the sight felt wrong.
My sister clearly thought so too.
“What the hell!? Is there an elephant tied to the other end? I know you’re old, but you’re still an Awakened. How can one little handle give you this much trouble!?”
He might no longer be active—
but he was still an Awakened.
In his prime, he had even climbed higher in the Tower than my sister currently had.
Yet he was visibly struggling.
‘What is he pulling?’
If the handle had simply been embedded in the concrete—
he could have ripped it out without effort.
He would have torn up the entire section of floor along with it.
The fact that he could not meant—
something was connected to the other end of the handle.
Something beneath the concrete floor.
“Hup……!”
Baek Yulheon let out another shout of exertion.
Wind pressure surged around him.
CLATTER―!
At the same time, the handle began rising.
“A chain……?”
A chain had been connected to the handle.
Under Baek Yulheon’s pulling force—
it rose from the ground like a living snake.
And before long—
RUMBLE!
“W-What is that?”
My sister jumped backward in surprise.
A square-shaped crack appeared beneath the spot where she had been standing.
The entire building began to vibrate.
The square section slowly rose from the floor.
When the shaking finally stopped—
DING―.
An elevator shaped almost like a coffin stood there.
“……What the hell is this?”
An elevator.
There was simply no other way to describe it.
The chain Baek Yulheon pulled had apparently been the trigger that activated it.
My sister assumed a guarded stance, looking utterly baffled.
Baek Yulheon, however, stepped into the open elevator as though this were perfectly familiar.
“Get in.”
“……What is this?”
“The entrance.”
His explanation was concise.
There was no elaboration whatsoever.
Only an order to get inside.
‘……Is this technology?’
I tapped the side of the elevator.
An elevator rising from beneath a concrete floor.
How advanced did technology have to become for something like this to exist?
No—
maybe the better question was why anyone had developed it in this direction.
“Where does this elevator go?”
“Underground.”
……His explanations had been awfully short for a while now.
Would he finally explain once we got inside?
I cautiously stepped into the elevator.
“Sohyeon.”
“……I’m getting in.”
My sister tapped the elevator floor several times, still looking deeply suspicious.
Then she climbed inside with an enormous frown.
Once Baek Yulheon confirmed that both of us were completely inside—
he pressed the only button.
[B 100]
‘……Basement Level 100?’
Before I could even process that—
WHOOSH―.
“Uh……?”
A sensation of weightlessness.
It felt as though my body were floating.
Then—
“Waaaaagh!?”
No.
This was not weightlessness.
We were falling.
The elevator was dropping.
“Guild Master!?”
“Sohyeok, hold on tightly to the handle.”
The handle!?
I frantically looked around.
There was no handle anywhere.
Then something touched the top of my head.
Tap.
“Ah.”
The ceiling.
A perfectly sized handle was attached to the ceiling.
I grabbed it tightly with both hands.
“Waaaaaagh…….”
Only after grabbing it did I calm down a little.
It was still terrifying—
but at least I had something to hold on to.
My sister and Baek Yulheon, meanwhile, were standing there completely calmly.
Were Awakened normally like this?
Did climbing the Tower eventually make people incapable of feeling fear or sensing threats to their lives?
‘I’m an Awakened too.’
No.
Those two were definitely just strange.
Even if I reached the 50th, 100th, or 200th Floor—
terrifying things would still be terrifying.
Floors.
Thinking about the Tower made me notice the number displayed on the elevator panel.
88.
89.
90.
The numbers were changing rapidly.
Those were—
‘Floor numbers.’
Basement Levels 88, 89, 90.
Which meant—
we were almost at the bottom.
“Isn’t this thing going to slow down!?”
RUMBLE!
My voice was swallowed by the deafening noise.
I squeezed my eyes shut and focused entirely on gripping the handle.
Then—
DING.
……yeok.
……Sohyeok.
“Sohyeok.”
“……?”
“We’re here.”
My sister looked up at me with the corners of her mouth raised—
while I was still hanging from the ceiling handle.