Thinking Danbi had a clever plan, everyone followed her words. Tankers with tankers, healers with healers, and classes with poor or virtually nonexistent damage began fights that seemed as if they would never end.
The dealers, on the other hand, began a perilous battle with their lives on the line.
All the doppelgangers seemed to possess specs identical in strength and technique to the Admitee they had copied.
‘I’m sure of it...!’
The weapon Danbi had glimpsed in the hands of her own doppelganger was [Song of the Stars].
“Song of the Stars” was a weapon Danbi had obtained in the Tower long ago, and it had been her main weapon for a long time. So it was understandable that the doppelganger had it.
At a glance, every doppelganger was fighting with the exact same weapon as the target they had copied.
The only thing the creature had failed to copy was Danbi’s sword [Snow Ice], which Suho had made for her. Snow Ice was not an item created by the Tower.
Chwaaaaaak!
When Danbi infused it with aether, the ice sword “Snow Ice” shone, scattering white snowflakes.
And then,
Kagagagang──!
When [Song of the Stars] and [Snow Ice] clashed fiercely, Snow Ice cut through Song of the Stars with ease.
Danbi had thought Snow Ice was S-rank, but in truth it was an SS-rank sword, and could not even be compared to the A-rank Song of the Stars.
With the sword sent flying, the balance of power collapsed, and Danbi’s doppelganger was no longer a match for her.
It felt unsettling to kill someone who looked exactly like herself, but she clenched her teeth and cut off its head.
Then she ran to help those who were locked in one-on-one battles with their own doppelgangers.
First, she helped the berserker Bjornsson and brought down his doppelganger,
and while the freed Bjornsson helped the martial artist Zhang Wei take down his doppelganger, Danbi helped the dual-sword fighter Lucien Dubois take down his.
At that point, the tide of battle tilted exponentially.
They then rescued the greatsword swordsman Diego Hernandez, the assassin Katerina Ivanov, Thomas Harris and Joshua Evans, and even the archer Seo Yoonjae.
Once all the dealers were freed, they finally had a chance to catch their breath.
“...By the way, what a sight.”
“Hahahaha!”
The dealers snickered as they watched the buffer Haruta Takeda and his doppelganger, who were doing nothing but casting debuffs on each other, as well as the healers who looked like they were sparring with their own doppelgangers by whacking each other with their staffs.
“Hey!! Don’t laugh! Help me! Eek!”
The healer Emilia Rossi screamed as she grabbed her doppelganger by the hair and shook it.
When the pain made it feel as though all her hair would be ripped out and she cast a heal on her own head, the doppelganger did the exact same and healed its own head.
Chuckling, the dealers stepped in and defeated all the supporters’ doppelgangers,
and after they took down the toughest and final doppelganger, Han Taewoong’s doppelganger transformed into a grizzly, an altar on the now defenseless top floor rose with a grrrr sound.
“Phew, that was long.”
“Let’s hurry up and finish this so we can go.”
“Still, we cleared it incredibly fast... There’s still more than a month left before the deadline.”
“Everyone did so well. This was the best teamwork of my Admitee life.”
While they congratulated each other and exchanged warm words, Kang Hojin took out a hammer, spun it once in his hand,
“Hup!”
Kwaaaaang────!
and smashed the altar in a single blow.
The rewards were quite generous.
Beneath the altar were a dagger of unknown grade, several items, and multiple pieces of aetherium that appeared to be around A-rank. In addition, the liquid pooled here and there seemed to be potions.
Of course, they were very good rewards, but to people who already had better things in overflowing abundance, they merely looked so-so.
In the past, they would have jumped for joy at rewards of this level, but seeing how indifferent they themselves felt, everyone experienced a strange unfamiliarity.
This was all because of Jeong Suho.
Still, money was money, so after taking every last item, piece of aetherium, and potion, they threw themselves into the portal that had appeared beside the altar.
Once the top floor was cleared, there was no need to return all the way to the first floor to exit. A portal that allowed them to leave immediately opened.
One by one, they threw themselves through the portal and emerged outside, where the command headquarters and base camp were located,
and when the final person came out, the form of the Tower standing in midair like a hologram wavered and disappeared.
Everyone had safely completed the raid.
* * *
The sixteen-person raid party exited to cheers and applause from all the personnel waiting at the base camp, and together with all the people who had protected the base camp and support base for that long stretch of time, they commended one another for their hard work.
“Thank you for eliminating the Tower!”
“Ad-nims, you all worked so hard!! We’re glad everyone is safe!”
“You’re the ones who worked hard. It wasn’t just a day or two—thank you so much for guarding this place around the clock for such a long time.”
“What we did can’t even be called hardship compared to the Ad-nims who struggled inside the Tower!”
“It was an honor to protect the base camp of an S-rank multinational alliance team!”
After warmly celebrating the successful Tower raid and encouraging one another, they waited for Suho just as they had last time.
Upon hearing the news that the raid team had completely cleared the Tower and exited, Suho dropped everything and rushed over.
This time, too, he came riding Winky. While they were flying toward the base camp, the creature spotted Taewoong from far in the distance and accelerated so quickly that Suho nearly fell off.
“Waaah! Great work, everyone!”
Suho spread both arms wide and ran over to welcome the safely returned raid team.
Only after confirming that every single person had returned and that each of them was healthy did Suho finally relax.
Whoooooooong───
A helicopter—no, to be precise, an electric octocopter—arrived a step later than Winky and Suho, and landed gracefully in the open lot of the base camp.
Suho’s octocopter, with eight propellers independently controlled for stable flight, was a larger model equipped with autonomous flight functions, and the interior of its fuselage, far bigger than a bus, was packed with facilities like those of a luxury yacht.
Comfortable seats, a luxurious interior design, and even a shower room and restroom were fully equipped in the octocopter.
“Wow... What is this?”
“I’ve never seen an octocopter before. It’s different from a helicopter or a quadcopter.”
“Awesome, look at the size...”
Seeing the team members burst into admiration at the huge octocopter, Suho felt he had made the right choice in bringing it.
“You need to see your families as soon as possible! Hurry and get on. We can talk when we get home!”
From Suwon’s Paldal District, where the Tower had formed and the base camp was located, to Seoul’s Songpa District, where Elysium Heights stood, was about 28 kilometers in a straight line.
Even by car, it was only about a forty-minute trip, but Suho had gone out of his way to bring the octocopter so they could meet their families and rest even a little sooner.
“We’re departing!”
Shiiiiiiiiing───
The octocopter carrying everyone rose into the air amid the farewells of the base camp staff, and Suho climbed onto Winky with Taewoong as well.
* * *
Only on the third day after each of them had met their families, washed, eaten, and rested in the rooms assigned to them at Elysium Heights did everyone gather in the banquet hall. Suho had called them all together so they could have lunch and talk about everything that had happened.
“Hey, I missed you!”
Bjornsson bumped fists with Lucien Dubois and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
“I know. We were stuck together every day like lovers, and the other day when I slept, it felt empty without you beside me, hyung.”
“Hahaha! You crazy bastard. If my wife heard you say ‘like lovers,’ she’d faint.”
“Karim unni! Emilia unni!”
“Oh, Seoyeon, did you rest well?”
Karim and Emilia also reunited warmly with Seoyeon.
“Why haven’t I seen hide nor hair of you for three days? Were you holed up in your room the whole time?”
Danbi, who had arrived first, chided Park Seoyeon and lightly smacked her. Seoyeon waved her hands.
“Holed up in my room? Not at all. I ate every meal at the main buffet here, went to the theater to watch movies, tried indoor surfing or whatever, went to the spa a lot, shopped, and ran around like crazy. There’s nothing this building doesn’t have. This place is completely insane!”
“Huh? I went to the buffet a lot too, but I didn’t see you. Then again, there were several buffets alone. It’s too big.”
“Right? Our clan leader really built an incredible place. Hehe.”
At that, Danbi furrowed her brows and scolded her.
“Our clan leader? The clan matter hasn’t even been confirmed yet. Don’t get ahead of yourself. It’ll be a pain if Suho-nim changes his mind.”
“Ah, yes, yes, I’ll be careful with my words...”
They began eating a lunch special course where delicacies from land and sea came out endlessly, and only after the meal had progressed quite a bit did Suho appear.
“Ah! Everyone! I’m sorry I’m late. I was the one who called you here...!”
“Ah, Suho-nim! We’re almost done eating! Hurry and sit down!”
“Ah, I’m really sorry. I suddenly had to go to Canada...”
“Huh? Canada? Why there?”
“Canada in that amount of time?”
Those who had clearly seen Suho that morning widened their eyes.
“Aetherium. I delivered an additional two million tons’ worth of E-rank aetherium.”
“......”
“......”
“T-two million tons of aetherium...?”
Had Earth undergone some kind of second cataclysm while they were gone?
It seemed there was a lot they needed to talk about.
As they ate and began chatting, Suho brought up what had happened in the meantime,
and the events the raid team had experienced while clearing the Tower ended up feeling like trivial episodes by comparison.
There was the global-scale news that Suho had been invited to the UN as a special envoy and that the world’s energy production would be converted to aether generation,
the story of how Earth had almost been destroyed by a meteor impact and Suho had stopped it,
and even the news that the mysterious metal blacksteel was being released on a massive scale—none of it was ordinary.
“Haha... We thought we could turn the world upside down by getting 57 kilograms of blacksteel...”
“We should hurry and sell it before the price drops any further. They said it was a billion per kilo, right? Ha, 57 billion for this much blacksteel. Incredible.”
“It’s a billion now, but it’ll fall more soon, won’t it?”
The domestic Admitees also showed particular interest in the talk of the new city construction, which was now seriously underway.
“Wow... Should I move there once it’s complete...?”
“Still... Seoul would be better for now, right?”
“Wait, if you’re not married, you can’t move in at all? That’s not how it works, is it?”
“What about you, Suho-nim? When the new city is completed, will you move there? Elysium Heights is here.”
“I’ll have to go back and forth. I’ve set up places to stay here and there.”
And without exception, everyone’s hearts grew heavy when they heard the news of the 92-floor Tower that had appeared in Japan.
“They say a raid team still hasn’t been assembled...”
“They’re not going to ask us, are they?”
“No way... We just got out.”
“Even if they ask, I’m not going.”
“Me neither. Not even if they beat me to death. If it’s 92 floors, how many days would that take?”
“About 275 days? That’s long... Honestly, putting aside whether I’d be tired or not, who knows what might happen in our country during that time.”
“That’s true too...”
Ava Mitchell and Emilia Rossi, who had brought up the clan topic before, mentioned it again.
“Suho-nim, by any chance, did you think over the clan establishment we talked about last time?”
“Right, you said you would consider it positively.”
Recalling that time, Suho spoke again firmly, without backing down.
“I will make one. I will, but the condition is that I also climb the Tower.”
At those words, every team member seated at the table quietly shifted their eyes, gauging one another’s reactions.
Joshua Evans spoke on behalf of everyone.
“We also discussed that matter quite a bit among ourselves. Very well. We believe Suho-nim will be able to fulfill one person’s role as a support. You have special powers, such as your inventory ability and dimensional gate ability, after all.”
“That’s right. Thank you for viewing it positively.”
Suho nodded with a solemn face, while inwardly cheering.
‘Inventory ability? Sure, I can help with that kind of thing, but what I’m really going to do is fight!’
Though it had been a short aerial battle, Suho recalled his clash with the unmanned fighter jets, and at that thrilling sensation, he clenched and unclenched his fist.
“Then, since there are many current clan leaders and former clan leaders here, I’ll ask for your advice on establishing a clan. Things like what I should start with, what procedures are necessary, and so on.”
In fact, among the sixteen raid team members, as many as twelve were former or current clan leaders.
“Just leave it to us!”
“I can guide you in detail from A to Z!”
As several of them, burning with enthusiasm, made a fuss, the atmosphere of the gathering gradually grew noisy.
The sound was so loud it filled the banquet hall,
and no one heard the muttering of the assassin-class Katerina Ivanov, who was sitting in a corner seat and looking through the Global OnTower Auction House on her phone.
“What is this... In the auction house... Why are there so many S-rank items I’ve never seen or heard of before...”
“Oh, right. What happened to the grading notebooks?”
When Suho asked, everyone’s eyes turned to Danbi.
Wondering if Danbi had been chosen as the overall winner, Suho tilted his head as well.
But it was not that Danbi had won; she opened the bag she had brought and began taking out notebooks one by one.
“I collected all of them right before we attacked the final floor.”
The palm-sized notebooks bore clear traces of the two hundred-odd days they had endured.
Regardless of whether they belonged to men or women, the notebooks were tattered and stained with blood, sweat, dirt, and grime.
“They’ll smell a bit.”
As Danbi said, the smell was considerable. In truth, they were no different from notebooks that homeless people had kept close for a long time.
Suho received the sixteen notebooks with his face twisted in disgust and opened them one by one, only to find that the contents of every notebook were the same.
“...?”
Most of the categories concerned contributions to the raid, and among them, the scoring item about how much one had contributed to the community was overwhelmingly prominent. Every person except the one writing had been checked with full marks.
Suho raised one eyebrow and examined the notebooks before looking at everyone, only to see them all grinning.
“No, what is this? If you do this, I can’t tell who’s better or worse. Ha.”
‘Don’t tell me these people thought I’d give it to all of them if they did this...? How cunning...?’
At their adorable behavior, Suho smiled faintly.