A huge man sat hunched in a cramped two-room officetel, concentrating on something.
“No, Winky. You’ve had your share for today.”
Piii— piii—
As the man rose, something like a fluffy gosling chirped and followed after him.
The baby bird, about the size of two grown men’s fists, toddled over and clung to the man’s leg.
Its claws, sharp for such tiny feet, dug into the man’s sock and supported its little body.
The man looked down at it for a moment, then shook his head.
“Phew... Just one. Seriously, only one more, okay?”
The man crouched down again and pulled one out from what he was clutching tightly in his hand.
Astonishingly, it was a fingernail-sized shard of E-grade Etherium.
The baby bird snatched it up the instant it saw the shard, tilted its head back, and swallowed it.
Then it smacked its lips and stared intently at the man.
“No, there really isn’t any more now. I said there isn’t. This is for tomorrow.”
The man squeezed his eyes shut and stood, heading for the kitchen.
Each time he walked, the floor went thud, thud, and the light fixture his head brushed against swayed this way and that.
Because of the frequent complaints about noise between floors, he tried to walk lightly, but that was easier said than done.
This enormous man was South Korea’s number one tanker, an S-grade Admiti of the Druid class, the Steel Grizzly, Han Taeung.
At 209 centimeters tall and 182 kilograms of solid muscle, possessing an overwhelming physique, he was a druid who could transform into a bear, just as his Admiti alias suggested.
When he transformed into a druid for tanking, he stood three meters tall and his weight instantly increased to seven hundred kilograms—a man with a mysterious ability.
In his transformed bear form, his fur and hide were so thick that he could deflect even weapons wrapped in ether, making him a born tanker.
But contrary to the image he showed to the public and the rumors known to the world, he was an extremely gentle person with almost no aggression to speak of.
The reason he had become the greatest tanker was because he didn’t know how to hit others; he was simply specialized in enduring while being hit.
Even when it hurt, he never said it hurt,
even when things were hard, he never expressed that they were hard,
and he was a kind, slow, softhearted fool of a bear with an absurd amount of affection.
That was the essence of Han Taeung.
Because of his simple-hearted nature, which did not suit his powerful ability, even in the “Wildfire Keepers Clan,” where he served as the main tanker, he was a character who got worked rather hard.
High-grade Admiti who knew this true side of Han Taeung either pitied him or thought him pathetic.
Overall, the most common view of him was that he was “a good guy with solid skills, but a little lacking.”
But he was merely terribly timid, naive, and tender-hearted; there was nothing actually wrong with his intelligence.
Whether Taeung was being exploited by his clan or not, he was still an S-grade Admiti and indisputably the best tanker in the country, earning an income others would envy and living fairly well in his own way. But not long ago, an attack on a tower that had risen in the clan’s territory completely changed his daily life.
It was a 65-floor tower that was not particularly difficult.
He and his teammates steadily climbed each floor, killed the blue griffon, the boss monster on the top floor, and while everyone was busy checking the spoils,
there was one thing that stole Han Taeung’s gaze: an egg in the nest left behind by the dead boss.
From the ether he felt inside, Han Taeung instinctively knew a living creature was alive within it, and as if possessed, he took the egg and left.
After returning home, he wrapped the egg in Etherium and steadily exposed it to heat. After almost a week, the egg cracked and a chick emerged.
As expected, what was born was a baby griffon.
Perhaps imprinting had occurred; although it was a monster, the chick followed Han Taeung like its mother from the moment it was born, and he cared for it with the utmost devotion.
Han Taeung, who liked animals and plants, was affectionate, and had a delicate personality, got along well with the baby griffon, and the two quickly grew close.
He named it “Winky” and looked after it like a pet.
The problem was its food.
The blue griffon chick would not eat feed, meat, plants, or anything else. The only thing it would put in its mouth was Etherium shards.
It was a habit befitting a monster that lived in a tower, but this was no ordinary matter.
Even E-grade Etherium shards, the lowest grade, cost nearly five to ten million won per 100 grams.
When there wasn’t much D-grade Etherium on the market, the price could even jump to forty million won. Higher-grade Etherium was not only expensive; there was extremely little of it available.
Winky ate that expensive Etherium without stopping. At every meal, it devoured a volume far greater than its own body.
Han Taeung’s account, which had held tens of billions of won, was emptied before long, and in the end he had to sell his house and car as well.
To afford Winky’s meals, he cleared out his spacious penthouse and moved into a shabby officetel, and he sold off all the luxury cars he owned.
With that money, he practically swept up low-grade Etherium from the OnTower Auction House and Arcane Arsenal.
This would feed it for a while, but truly only for a while. With the appetite of the creature rapidly growing in size, there was simply no way Han Taeung could handle it.
‘More importantly, when the next tower appears, who am I supposed to leave this guy with while I’m inside the tower...? And what about its meals...? That’s a huge problem too...’
Winky, who had no way of knowing Taeung’s worries, burrowed into his arms, climbed up his arm and onto his shoulder, and rubbed its head against his cheek.
“Haha, you little rascal. Don’t worry. I’ll feed you somehow...”
The huge, gentle bear laughed while holding the baby bird.
* * *
At Arcane Arsenal, Suho’s eyes went wide.
‘Yes, this is it...!’
Gathered there were all the high-grade equipment he had so desperately wanted.
‘So this is why there weren’t many high-end items at the OnTower Auction House...’
He had no choice but to blame his own poor access to information.
“Danbi, do other countries also run offline high-grade item shops like Arcane Arsenal?”
“Oh, of course. You can assume they exist almost everywhere Admiti clans are active. Have you picked some things out?”
“For now, I’ll take this coat, this belt, and these boots.”
“Oho, you chose some interesting ones.”
Suho’s picks were three items: the [Glide Armor Coat], an outer garment that used the power of ether to allow short flights; the [Diatanos Belt], a belt that reflected a certain amount of damage; and the [Skyfall Boots], which reduced fall damage.
Seeing what Suho had chosen, Danbi smiled as if she found it cute. But since Danbi herself was empty-handed, Suho asked in return.
“Aren’t you buying anything, Danbi?”
“I’m fine. I came today to show this place to you, Suho. To be honest, it hasn’t been that many months since I scraped together all my money and bought [Song of the Stars]. I also spent quite a bit recently repairing it. Still, looking at the items today, I do think I’ll have to save up and come shopping sometime. There are a lot of things I haven’t seen before.”
“Oh, I see...”
Was she not as wealthy as he had thought? In truth, Suho didn’t have a good sense of the financial power of S-grade Admiti, so he tilted his head.
When he stood before the counter to pay, the staff placed each item into a sturdy hard case, locked them, and loaded them onto a mobile cart that looked like a camping wagon. Then he handed Suho a card key.
“When you open the cases at home, please use this key. Each case is a sturdy special case, so after removing the items, you should be able to repurpose them as safes without issue.”
“Wow.”
They looked sturdy at a glance, and apparently they really were tough.
“The [Glide Armor Coat] you selected is 60 billion, the [Diatanos Belt] is 85 billion, and the [Skyfall Boots] is 40 billion... for a total of 185 billion won. May I ask how you would like to pay?”
Not knowing what method he should use to pay, Suho was about to call Danbi over when the employee answered quickly and politely.
“You may use a wide variety of payment methods. Cash or card payments are accepted as a basic matter, and we also accept gold.”
What? They accepted gold? This was truly welcome news. After all, he had 100 quadrillion tons of gold piled uselessly in his subspace warehouse.
“We can calculate it at today’s gold price and treat it the same as cash. Ah, and above all, if you pay with Etherium, we offer a 20% discount.”
Suho blinked at the employee.
What kind of free store was this...?
They accepted Etherium and gold!
“Then. I-I’ll pay with Etherium.”
“Oh! Will you?”
At the words that he would pay with Etherium, the employee’s face brightened.
“But wait a moment. Danbi, Danbi.”
“Yes?”
Danbi, who had been looking at other items from a distance while Suho was paying, quickly walked over to him.
“If there’s anything you want, pick it all out. I’ll treat today to commemorate my first visit.”
“What? N-no, the prices here are no joke.”
“An opportunity like this doesn’t come every day. Don’t be polite. Hurry.”
Since he had come to a free shop, he had to flex a little.
* * *
He had not been able to sell items for a while, so it seemed time to post some items on the OnTower Auction House.
In fact, every post on the auction house bulletin board seemed full of people waiting for the Heaven-Beyond-Heaven items Suho listed.
“Should I sell potions again...? Or Etherium? No, that’s boring since I already sold it once...”
In the treasure chest area of his subspace warehouse, Suho walked among the treasures filling the cube-shaped building, repeatedly picking up and putting down the neatly packed items as he muttered to himself.
And as always, Rabi watched him with an expression of disbelief.
“Rabi, should I just go ta-da! and pull out some EX-grade Etherium to sell? The whole world would flip, wouldn’t it?”
Rabi only shrugged, as if she didn’t even want to answer.
“No... Still, I don’t think that’s it. Even when I brought out S-grade, the world was in an uproar. EX-grade without even going through SS-grade or SSS-grade... Phew... This small world would lose its mind, wouldn’t it? Hoo.”
As he wandered this way and that, he arrived before he knew it at the section with the elixir shelves.
“Then should I try selling the anti-aging elixir?”
The thought suddenly occurred to him. If he sold this, how much should he sell it for?
According to the price set when Suho had initially received it, the anti-aging elixir was an unprecedented item priced at the maximum setting: 100 trillion won per milliliter.
Wait, 100 trillion per milliliter... and the appropriate minimum dose is one 300-milliliter bottle... So one bottle would be...
“Thirty quadrillion won.”
Thirty quadrillion won was the cost price of one bottle of anti-aging elixir.
“Haha, khkhk, yes, this is the cost price. The cost price. At this rate, I really ought to put it in a bottle carved out of diamond. Keeping someone at their youngest and extending their lifespan by ten years for thirty quadrillion won... The chaebols’ eyes would roll back.”
But would anyone even be able to buy it? Something that cost thirty quadrillion won.
Even if Suho gave a massive 99.99% discount and charged only one ten-thousandth of the price, it would still be three trillion won.
There probably weren’t many people who could pay even that.
“Ah, screw it...”
Suho put the anti-aging elixir back on the shelf and took only a few bottles of top-grade disease-curing potions with him.
* * *
He had gotten a lot of hints from seeing Arcane Arsenal, the high-grade item shop said to be used only by Admiti of A-grade or higher.
Security maintenance, entry passes, payment methods, packaging containers, guidance and guards—Arcane Arsenal was in every respect an advanced model of the shop Suho wanted to open.
Seongsik, Jiho, and even Seongsik’s older sister were all busily moving around in various ways, but starting a business involved far, far too many things to worry about.
‘Oh, right! This is the kind of time I should use it...’
Suho slapped his knee and called Manager Jang Narae of Towerpia Management.
The call was answered before the ringtone had even sounded twice.
—Hello! Admiti Jeong Suho! This is Jang Narae from Towerpia’s Premium Customer Management Department!
“Hello, Manager. You helped look into Jiho’s addiction treatment process so well last time. Thank you so much. I should treat you to a meal sometime...”
—Oh, not at all! That’s basically what we’re supposed to do! I’m grateful just to hear you say that!
“Even so, I really will treat you to a meal somewhere nice. The reason I called is...”
—Yes, yes, just say the word and I’ll take care of anything immediately!
“Haha, you’re always reliable. I’m planning to start a business...”
As he calmly explained the opening of the shop and asked for advice, a thought flashed through Suho’s mind.
Manager Jang Narae. She was friendly, diligent, quick at handling work, and seemed extremely good at using her connections here and there.
‘Wait, can’t I just bring her over?’
Lightning struck through Suho’s mind, and the things he had intended to ask Manager Jang Narae scattered into fragments and flew away.
It was a complete revision of the plan.