All the Admittees and combat forces, including the armored units, stopped chasing the fleeing gorilla and turned toward the griffon.
The danger levels of the two boss monsters were incomparable.
It was practically the difference between a monkey and a winged tiger.
“We can’t catch it... There’s no hope with this force...”
The A-rank tanker gripping his shield was trembling.
“Damn it......”
The dealers were the same.
“In a place like this... fuck...”
They did not look as though they were burning with fighting spirit.
Their faces, every one of them shadowed with deep despair, were no different from those who had already given up.
With their current forces, and outside the Tower where only 15% of their abilities worked, facing a griffon was out of the question.
They would need at least five S-ranks.
As the griffon came flying in and the tankers clenched their teeth and raised their shields, while swordsmen and spearmen lifted their weapons, the attacks of the ranged dealers, who were faster still, flew toward the griffon.
Boom! Kwa-kwa-boom──!
At the same time, the main guns of the tanks spat fire.
But,
Tzeeeeeeeeng────
Something flashed near the griffon’s neck, generating a massive spherical barrier, and every attack bounced off in vain.
“A b-barrier...”
“It’s not just a griffon... It’s a higher-grade griffon!”
“It’s over... We’re all going to die...”
“Fuck! Get a grip! What are you saving your potions for?! Chug them all and pour out everything you’ve got!”
At the shouts of a few Admittees screaming themselves hoarse, the sorcerers and mages began drawing up aether again.
“......!”
Suho, who had been staring blankly at the chaotic situation, finally came to his senses and quickly flew between Winky and the Admittees.
{W-wait!! Don’t attack!!}
Startled by Suho standing between the two sides, the ranged dealers who had been about to cast magic stopped their casting or dispersed their aether.
{Don’t attack!! Don’t attack!!}
Suho turned the helmet speakers’ output up to the maximum and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Cease attack!! Cease attack!!”
“Admitty Jeong Suho will get hurt! Cease attack!”
“Do not fire! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!!”
“They’re ordering a ceasefire!!”
The military quickly relayed the order to hold fire as well.
And for a brief moment, a strange silence descended.
The enormous griffon showed no sign of intending to attack at all, merely hovering obediently with its barrier around it, flapping its wings,
and every response team could only stare blankly at the sight.
Suho’s voice tore through the silence.
{This may be hard to believe... but this griffon is the one I’m raising!!}
Of course, Winky was Taewoong’s griffon, but in the split-second judgment Suho made, he thought saying this would be more advantageous.
In the world of Admittees, and even from a national perspective, Taewoong was not greatly recognized, so Suho thought it would be easier to protect Winky from external pressure if he said the griffon belonged to him.
“H-how can a human possibly have a g-griffon...”
“That’s impossible... To tame a boss monster...”
“My God...”
Every Admittee who had experience facing a griffon inside the Tower shot him looks of disbelief.
{Look!}
Feeling the need to show them something, Suho turned to Winky and said,
{Winky! Sit!}
Then Winky folded his huge wings, descended from the sky, and sat obediently beside Suho.
{Winky! Paw!}
The enormous griffon lifted a forepaw larger than Suho’s entire body and gently made as if to place it on his hand.
At the sight of him acting like an obedient puppy, everyone’s eyes widened to the point of tearing.
From the very beginning, when Winky had flown over, people had been frightened and attacked first; Winky himself had shown no aggression. He had simply come looking for Suho.
Winky pushed his huge head forward and rubbed it against Suho’s body.
Those gathered there could find no words, each caught between astonishment, relief, and bewilderment.
{Everyone, you understand now, right? I’ll explain the details later... So, uh, let’s catch that gorilla running away over there first.}
“Ah, right!!”
“O-oh, no! That’s right!”
The 42nd-floor boss monster, the monster gorilla they had completely forgotten about because their attention had been stolen by the griffon, was already fleeing several kilometers away.
Because of its massive size, it could still be seen clearly even from that distance.
It had gone so far that, if things went wrong, it might escape the encirclement area itself, the isolated zone for the Tower Break.
“Damn it! Move out on mounts!”
“Those with flight equipment, go first!!”
“We can’t let it get away!! Tie down its feet first!”
Dudududududu──
The attack helicopters turned their noses first to chase the gorilla, and the Admittees began moving on their respective mounts.
From the start, this Tower Break had been expected to consist mainly of ground monsters, so there were almost no Admittees with flight equipment.
With [Tempestbane Wings], Suho too could close the distance in an instant, but he was not yet sure whether it was all right to reveal the [Extreme Powered Armor].
After a brief moment of thought, Suho climbed onto the scruff of Winky’s neck.
Then he tightly gripped the chain that was part of Winky’s [Necklace-Type Large Barrier Generator].
“Winky! You see that gorilla over there, right?!”
Kiruruk—
“Let’s go catch that bastard. Can you do it?!”
Krrrururuk—
Whoong— whooooong──
Understanding Suho’s words precisely, Winky rose into the sky with one great flap of his wings.
Kyaaaaaaooooo───!
Then, letting out a long roar Suho had never heard from him before, Winky flew toward the gorilla.
At a tremendous speed,
Winky instantly overtook not only the Admittees moving overland but even the attack helicopters, and drove his huge, sharp talons into the back of the gorilla as it fled, smashing through buildings.
Kyaaaak—
The gorilla thrashed in the tremendous pain of having its back pierced, but unfortunately for it, its arms could not reach its back.
Winky dug his talons in even deeper, firmly grasping the gorilla’s spine with both feet, and soared back into the sky.
After flying quite high,
Pachijijijijiji──────
he sent an electric current through his talons and fried the gorilla.
“Whoa, whoa! That scared me!”
At the flash like a lightning strike, Suho nearly jumped out of his skin.
Fortunately, Winky seemed to have released electricity only through his feet, so no damage reached Suho.
In an instant, the gorilla was charred black, its body turned to charcoal as it went limp.
Kiooooooo───
Roaring long again, Winky seemed intent on confirming the kill of the motionless gorilla monster through fall damage, and hurled it down from high altitude.
“Uh... uuuuh?”
Startled, Suho leaped from Winky’s back, unfolded [Tempestbane Wings], and dove sharply.
If that gigantic monster crashed into the ground, smashing a few buildings would be nothing.
“Damn it! Please work!”
When he activated his ability to store the gorilla monster in his subspace warehouse, the gigantic black body disappeared with a soft swish, still in the middle of its fall.
Because it was already dead and had been judged a corpse, storage was possible.
“It worked... haah. Haah.”
Landing on the rooftop of a building, Suho let out the breath he had been holding in tension.
Kiruruk— kiruk—?
As if fascinated that the falling gorilla corpse had vanished, Winky followed him down and looked around.
The Admittees who arrived only then also floundered around looking for the gorilla, which had disappeared without a trace.
“Hoo...... What the hell was all that... Winky, let’s head back now. Home.”
With Suho on his back again, Winky took to the sky.
* * *
A few days later, a hearing was held.
The Tower Break had been suppressed safely without a single casualty, but because there was still a living monster, the griffon, Suho had been summoned.
Since it had been announced that they would discuss how to handle this unprecedented situation, the hearing had a heavy, tense atmosphere from the start.
Suho sat in a large chair at the center, with committee seats arranged in a circle around him.
It was a gathering attended not only by the Tower Management Agency, but also by a large number of personnel from the Admittee Investigation Committee and the Disciplinary Committee.
A middle-aged man who served as chairman of both the Admittee Ethics Committee and the Monster Safety Management Committee took the microphone.
“Mr. Jeong Suho.”
His voice already gave off a chill.
“There is considerable controversy regarding your ownership of a monster. At present, the tower management ministry and the Monster Management Bureau have no clear statutes concerning this matter, but concerns about social anxiety and danger are growing.”
Suho quietly nodded and said,
“I fully understand that point. However, my griffon is extremely intelligent, and as it was raised by human hands, it is not aggressive toward humans. So if you leave it to me, I will raise it safely and properly.”
At those words, the face of the man presiding over the hearing creased faintly.
“Ahem... Even so, in a situation where the law is unclear, something like this can cause major social repercussions. In particular, if an influential Admittee such as yourself comes to own a monster, it will set a bad precedent, and this may have a negative effect on other Admittees as well. If even Admittees who lack the ability to properly control monsters imitate you, the results will be disastrous.”
“...I agree with that point as well. That’s why I will take even greater responsibility and manage it properly, so as to set an example.”
A murmur briefly arose among the committee members.
As if dissatisfied with Suho’s answer, the man furrowed his brow and raised the intensity of his remarks another notch.
“This issue is not a personal matter, but one directly connected to public safety. Accordingly, I believe the Admittee Ethics Committee and the Monster Safety Management Committee must jointly investigate this issue in greater depth and establish related statutes. Until then, the griffon in question must be separately isolated and detained in a government-managed facility.”
Veins stood out on Suho’s forehead.
“So? You detain the griffon and discuss the law. Then what? Once the law is decided, what do you intend to do?”
“We would have to determine the disposition of the monster in accordance with the relevant laws that are decided.”
“Disposition, you say... What’s the worst case?”
“The worst case... would be euthanizing the griffon in question.”
Suho’s eyes gleamed fiercely.
“Ha. Euthanasia? What harm has my griffon done to anyone that you would euthanize it? Who decided that? By what right?”
“Ahem, as I already stated, this matter concerns public safety and...”
Bang!
Suho slammed the desk and shot to his feet.
“Bullshit! Enough. Decide on whatever laws you want. I will leave this country with everyone who belongs to me and everything I possess. I’ll find a country that will permit me to raise my griffon however I like, and I’ll leave, so keep that in mind.”
At Suho’s roar, the hearing room was thrown into chaos.
Who was Jeong Suho?
Was he not the man who had donated ten thousand tons of gold overnight and saved the country from an economic crisis, the person who, even now, was drastically increasing Tower clear rates with the tremendous Tower items he listed through TDM and the On-Tower Auction House, and, on top of that, the figure negotiating with the government to pour hundreds of trillions of won from his own pocket into building a new city in useless mountain land?
Moreover, there were four S-rank Admittees alone who followed him around like his shadows, and the entire Sanarae Clan, ranked third in the country, was practically under his command.
They still knew nothing at all about his abilities as an EX-rank Crafter, but even with only what had already been revealed, Jeong Suho’s presence was more than enough.
What country in the world would refuse to let him raise a griffon if Jeong Suho said he was coming?
The chairman’s provocation had been absurd.
In the hearing room, which had become extremely noisy with murmurs, Commissioner An Yonggeon hurriedly took the microphone.
“Chairman, stop this! Right now, we are discussing this matter in a situation where there is not even any legal basis. I’m sure there is not a single person here who is unaware of Mr. Jeong Suho’s contributions to this country’s Tower threat issues and his major contributions to other national matters as well. Threatening such a person in this manner is absolutely unacceptable!”
He glared at the chairman and sprang to his feet.
“Chairman, bringing up words like euthanasia so carelessly in this place is a grave mistake. Mentioning such an extreme decision when there are not even proper statutes in place will only bring distrust upon the entire Admittee community. That is what will truly lead to irreversible consequences. Please reconsider whether the country does more for Admittees, or whether they do more for the country, and make that point clear.”
The chairman looked completely cowed by his snarling intensity. Commissioner An Yonggeon turned to Suho and said,
“Mr. Jeong Suho, please calm down just a little as well. Bringing up the matter of the griffon’s euthanasia was a mistake. I will apologize on behalf of everyone.”
At the sight of the commissioner bowing deeply, Suho’s heart softened, if only a little.
“...Understood... I was too worked up as well. But this griffon is like family to me. Please remember that.”
“Of course. As of this moment, the Tower Management Agency will take responsibility for managing the safety issue of Admitty Jeong Suho’s griffon, so all other organizations are to step back entirely. Any and all objections will be received by the Agency.”
Amid an atmosphere still thick with tension, the hearing ended inconclusively, and everyone carefully rose from their seats.
* * *
Thanks to the Tower Management Agency actively exerting its influence, the matter was wrapped up well.
Including the president, numerous ministers spoke in unison about how important Suho’s existence was, and the issue of monster ownership was treated as something minor.
Even so, due to the committee’s persistent requests, related statutes were enacted, and the final conclusion was to acknowledge Suho’s ownership of the monster while attaching many conditions.
1. Regular medical examinations and evaluations of the monster
2. Specified restrictions on activity in certain areas
3. Prior consultation with the Management Agency when using the monster in combat
4. Mandatory enrollment in public safety insurance
5. Periodic reevaluation of custody rights to determine whether the caretaker has the capacity to safely manage the monster in question
...There were many other miscellaneous items besides.
Looking over the delivered documents, Suho gave a faint laugh.
“I’d follow all of this even if they didn’t bother adding these clauses. Right, Winky?”
Krrrururuk—
Eating the SS-rank Aetherium Suho was feeding him, Winky bobbed his head as if in a good mood.
And so, Suho was officially recognized as Winky’s caretaker.