The main conference room at the headquarters of the Tower Management Agency had been neatly prepared for a special announcement, and behind the podium hung a banner bearing the logo of the Tower Management Agency alongside the national flag of the Republic of Korea.
It was the day they would announce the awakening of an S-rank Admiti, a rarity in the country, and the venue was filled with excitement.
The inside and outside of the building were under strict control by security personnel dispatched from the agency, and various security teams—Admiti, android, and human guards alike—were monitoring the event hall in several layers.
The main conference room, packed so tightly with reporters and officials that there was no room to step, was filled with tension and anticipation.
At some point, as the reporters checked their cameras, recorders, and the like while waiting for the announcement,
Tap— whoong.
Along with the distinctive feedback noise of the microphone, Commissioner Ahn Yonggeon’s voice rang out.
“Good day. I am Ahn Yonggeon, Commissioner of the Alien Defense and Tower Management Agency. Today, I am pleased to introduce the new tenth S-rank Admiti who will bring new hope to our country.”
Even as the commissioner’s introduction continued, every gaze turned toward the seat behind him.
Every eye was pouring onto Jeong Suho.
Suho found the position maddeningly uncomfortable, but endured it with superhuman patience.
‘Ugh... This is something I have to get through once. Just once...’
When he became too nervous and uncomfortable, he would evacuate to the subspace storage while still in a seated position, rest for a bit, and then return.
In any case, even if he spent eleven days in the storage, not even 0.1 seconds passed outside. No one noticed, and this method proved quite helpful.
“Although he has not been known to the public due to various circumstances, the potential Admiti Jeong Suho has shown thus far has been remarkable. The government, including the Alien Defense and Tower Management Agency, will spare no support so that Admiti Jeong Suho may demonstrate his abilities to the fullest...”
Commissioner Ahn Yonggeon, Director Kim Gyusik, and several other government officials attended the press conference announcing the emergence of a new S-rank Admiti, a matter that could have a significant impact on national security and public safety.
After finishing his lengthy introduction, the commissioner looked at Suho with proud eyes and said,
“Now, let us hear his story directly. Admiti Jeong Suho will answer your questions himself.”
When Commissioner Ahn Yonggeon finished speaking and stepped back, only then did Suho stand before the microphone.
Papapapapapapapat—
Amid the flashes pouring down for more than ten seconds, Suho delivered the lines he had practiced for a long time.
“Hello. I am Jeong Suho, the newly awakened S-rank Admiti.”
Papapapapapapapat—
“For the safety of this country and its people, I intend to spare none of the abilities I possess. I ask for your support and encouragement on the journey ahead.”
As soon as Suho’s brief yet powerful greeting ended, the reporters’ questions came pouring in.
- What was the process and trigger for your awakening?
“Well... I happened to make a wish with my most desperate longing, and this is what happened. The person next to you.”
- What are your plans going forward? Is there a clan you are considering joining?
“I have no thoughts of joining a clan yet. Still, if I were to join one, the first place I would consider is the Sanarae Clan.”
- Why the Sanarae Clan?
“Isn’t it the best? Yes, next to them, the woman holding the red phone.”
- Could you describe in detail what you felt at the moment of awakening?
“Uh... There wasn’t anything special. I just thought I had died. After that, I thought I was in a dream. But I was alive. And it wasn’t a dream, it was reality. That’s all. Yes, the person in blue over there.”
- What is your awakened class? And what are the limits of your abilities?
“You’ll know soon enough when the official announcement comes out, but it’s in the production and support category, and the official class is ‘Item Collector.’ As for the limits of my abilities... Well. I haven’t tested those limits yet myself.”
The moment those words came out of Suho’s mouth, the heat in the press conference grew even hotter.
- It has been revealed that Item Collector is the world’s first class of its kind. What kind of ability is it, specifically?
“The specific activation method is a secret, but I’ll say only that, as a result, it is an ability that allows me to bring out items from the Tower.”
- Compared to other S-rank Admiti, what do you think is your unique strength?
“Well... All Admiti have their own special strengths. I simply possess a bit more of the Tower’s wealth.”
Even after the promised hour had passed, the reporters’ questions showed no sign of cooling.
In the end, Commissioner Ahn Yonggeon returned to the stage and took the microphone.
“Thank you all for your passionate interest in joining us today. We ask for your continued encouragement and support in the future.”
Along with his closing words, the press conference hall filled with applause, and soon the internet caught fire from the news the reporters uploaded in real time.
[The Country’s Tenth S-rank Admiti, Awakening of the World’s First Class Announced!]
[S-rank Admiti Jeong Suho, the Beginning of a New Hope for the Republic of Korea!]
Thousands of comments appeared on every article that poured out.
└ My heart is swelling with pride. Our country has 10 S-ranks now!
└ I support Admiti Jeong Suho. Please protect the safety of the people!
└ Even so, it’s just one person. Aren’t people expecting too much from a single S-rank? There are mountains of other problems too.
└ True. It’s a show, a show. A smoke screen show to expand the agency’s budget.
└ The Tower Management Agency had better support him properly... The people are watching!
└ What’s the point of being an S-rank Admiti if they don’t support him properly? He won’t be able to do much.
└ They’re going to burn through tax money again under the pretext of support.
└ What are you talking about? Support is obviously necessary. Let’s see if you can say that after a Tower collapses.
└ There isn’t much info released about Item Collector... I’m super curious...
└ It’ll be released soon enough.
└ He seems nice, not flashy. Good impression too.
└ True. He’s handsome. Come to think of it, all S-ranks are good-looking.
└ Right? Do S-ranks awaken their looks too?
└ Come to think of it, wasn’t the one who turned the OnTower auction house upside down the new S-rank too?
└ Oh, I thought that too.
With a single press conference, Suho rose from an unknown awakened to a nationwide star, and even to the ranks of a virtual hero.
Afterward, calls came flooding in from countless companies and clans with good intelligence networks. Fortunately, he had prepared sub-numbers and phones in anticipation of this day, and all outside contact was directed there.
Regarding that, the newly assigned manager from Towerpia Management stepped forward to respond to and filter all contacts on his behalf.
The birth of the Republic of Korea’s tenth S-rank Admiti, and news placing particular emphasis on that fact, was featured as a topic in news around the world.
In addition, as the unidentified top-tier items that had appeared in the Republic of Korea’s OnTower auction house and the global OnTower auction house were brought back into the spotlight, Suho truly became the focus of the entire world.
* * *
“Hooah... Those few days felt like a year...”
“An official announcement is quite a troublesome affair.”
“Uh... Yeah.”
“Then couldn’t you simply not have done it?”
Too exhausted to even answer Rabi’s question, which sounded as if she genuinely had no idea, Suho silently flopped down onto the bed.
Rabi fluttered over and sat on Suho’s stomach as he lay there.
With both hands pillowing his head and his chin slightly raised, Suho met Rabi’s eyes.
“Rabi, don’t you get bored here? Or lonely?”
“Hmm, I’m not quite sure what it means to be bored or lonely. I suspect those are concepts that exist only among humans.”
“How can that be? Are you a robot?”
“If a robot means a machine device designed to operate autonomously or semi-autonomously in order to carry out various tasks, then I am most certainly not a robot.”
“No... Who said you’re a robot? Yeah, I know you’re not a robot, but I’m asking because it just feels like you often don’t experience the emotions I know. Like you have curiosity, but no emotions?”
“If human emotions are complex mental and physiological states that include subjective experience and responses to external stimuli... then we Cheongryong race also possess such domains. It is simply that the domains and categories differ from the emotions humans feel.”
“Hmm... Is it like dolphins or bats hearing sounds humans can’t because the frequencies are different...?”
“It may be similar. After all, in terms of lifespan, the forms of groups we create, the abilities we possess, the scope of our stage of activity—everything is quite different between us Cheongryong, an upper species, and humans, who are lower lifeforms.”
“Tch, you’re always calling humans a lower species. Then doesn’t that make you, the one managing the storage of a lower species like me, even lower?”
“I am merely stating objective facts. A zookeeper who manages a chimpanzee enclosure is not a lower species than the chimpanzee.”
“Agh... Fine, you’re so great.”
* * *
Having exhausted all his energy at the press conference and been wrung completely dry, he rested thoroughly for a while in Dream Village inside the subspace storage before coming out. Of course, time still had not passed outside.
The communities were still noisy,
and his family had to practically turn off their phones due to the flood of calls.
And sure enough,
he received contact from Cheon Yangwon, that greedy woman, as well.
But Suho deliberately refused to answer any of her calls.
He also repeatedly told Seongsik, his younger brother Jiho, and Suji to block contact from her.
No one knew how they had found out, but representatives from various institutions and clans frequently came to Suho’s home, so the Sanarae Clan’s security level shot up as well.
Fortunately, around that time, he was able to receive part of the order for one thousand android units.
The first delivery consisted of about two hundred units.
In addition to himself and his five family members, Suho attached plenty of security androids to Seongsik and his family, Narae and her family, and Joshua’s family as well.
* * *
Not long after the official S-rank announcement ended, the long-awaited opening of TDM followed.
Though it was an offline shop, it was a “reservation-only premium shop” that could not be entered and used by just anyone like an ordinary store, so they needed media outlets to announce the opening.
Since Suho was already a star heating up the country and the world, arranging an interview with a specialized media outlet and distributing an article was not difficult.
[World’s First S-rank Item Collector, Jeong Suho’s “Transcendental Dimensional Materials; TDM,” the Transcendent Dimensional Materials Shop, Grand Opening!]
Through the hottest specialized Admiti media outlet, the information spread first to Admiti, then to the general public in an instant.
The TDM website introduced in the interview had to suffer connection errors for a long time due to the surge in traffic.
TDM’s online reservation team, fully prepared with a clear online reservation system and procedures, mobilized all related AI and the work androids they had assigned, but even then they were nearly unable to handle the flood of reservations.
“This is huge...”
Suho muttered as he looked over the incoming data.
“Suho-nim! You need to decide how much volume you can handle in a day. How far we should take reservations, and where we should cut them off...”
Contrary to the reservation team’s concerns, there was no limit to the volume Suho could handle.
If there was a limit, it lay only in how much TDM could categorize and organize, and how many customers the store could process in a day.
“For now, accept all reservations. And categorize them according to the criteria we discussed in advance. Make sure to apply the standards for what needs to be filtered out too. We’ll make selections after that.”
TDM’s opening was achieving results beyond expectations.
* * *
“Today, we have gathered to discuss a special topic. It concerns the premium shop opened by an S-rank Admiti currently receiving the world’s attention both domestically and internationally—Admiti Jeong Suho. We have with us Dr. Choi Jaehyeon, an Admiti industry expert, and Professor Lee Gyeongsik of Tower Materials Engineering at Hanjae University. Welcome.”
“Hello. I’m Choi Jaehyeon.”
“I’m Lee Gyeongsik. Thank you for inviting me.”
“First, Professor Lee, how do you think the opening of S-rank Admiti Jeong Suho’s shop will affect the Admiti industry and Tower climbing?”
“It is still too early to jump to conclusions, as almost nothing is known yet about what kinds of items he will put forward. However, judging from the items that are presumed to have been sold by Admiti Jeong Suho at the OnTower auction house thus far, the opening of his shop appears to hold meaning beyond that of a mere sales outlet. This shop, which sells high-grade items, is highly likely to establish a new standard across the overall Admiti industry. In particular, given that it is a premium shop operated by reservation, we can expect high-end service and quality.”
“I see. Dr. Choi, how do you view it?”
“Admiti Jeong Suho’s reputation itself carries powerful brand value. High-grade items are highly rare by nature, so by operating on a reservation basis, he can provide exclusive value to a limited clientele. This will hold great appeal for high-end buyers, and will naturally enable a premium pricing strategy. He has launched a very smart business. From an economic standpoint, I believe the probability of great success is very high.”
“Thank you for your insight. However, the OnTower auction house is already active. Though not widely known, high-grade item shops already exist as well. In spite of that, what do you think is the reason for operating such an offline shop, and a reservation-only one at that?”
Dr. Choi answered.
“I see it as a differentiated sales strategy aimed at the very small number of top-tier Admiti. And it can also be viewed as a natural attempt to preempt exclusive sales rights for them.”
“Ah, then it will become a limited and selective market that mid-to-high rank or lower-rank Admiti cannot access?”
“Of course. It has no choice but to become that way.”
As the broadcast continued with the panelists making baseless guesses however they liked,
Professor Lee happened to pinpoint the heart of the matter.
“In any case, one thing is certain.”
“What might that be?”
“The fact that Admiti Jeong Suho has planned and proceeded to open an exclusive shop to sell items means that his Item Collector ability is beyond our imagination.”
“In what sense?”
“Think about it. The fact that he can open a shop is circumstantial evidence that he has too many items. The fact that a shop can be formed because the quantity of items produced by a single person is sufficient is something unprecedented, even when looking at global Tower market and Admiti-related statistics.”
With Suho’s TDM opening and the related broadcasts, the world became noisy once again.
└ Wow, the news is actually fun to watch these days. Wow, this is insane.
└ Is our country becoming an Admiti powerhouse too? Wow, I’m tearing up. Are we finally paying back all the humiliation we’ve suffered?
└ Humiliation? What humiliation?
└ Did you come from the 20th century? Do you know how much our country has had to mind the moods of the Admiti powerhouses? There were multiple times we had to receive support because a high Tower appeared.
└ Where’s the guy who said we’re expecting too much from just one S-rank? Come out again.
The people were excited too.
News of TDM’s opening perhaps caused an even greater stir than Suho’s S-rank announcement.