“Must be nice.”
“What is?”
“That newly awakened person they say just appeared.”
“Ah, the tenth S-rank?”
“Yeah.”
“It is strange. It’s been ages since an S-rank appeared, but somehow it’s not even on the news and just passing by quietly like this. Only spreading through the industry in whispers.”
“Well, must be top secret.”
“Why?”
“Because there are a lot of countries that would covet an S-rank? How would I know?”
“Anyway, I heard they’re in the production/support line.”
“That’s why I’m jealous.”
“True... Isn’t this the first and only S-rank production support in our country?”
“Why, there’s Old Man Hwang.”
“That man retired ages ago. He was already over eighty when he awakened. He barely got to be active.”
“Fair enough... Well, not the first, but the only one is right.”
“I’m so fucking jealous. Production and support.”
In the lounge of Sanarae Clan, the largest clan in the country and one of the Best 5, two A-rank Admittees, Lee Seojun and Park Dohyeon, were sipping wine with cigars in broad daylight.
It was their day off since they had no Tower entry scheduled, but Sanarae Clan’s lounge had amenities that did not lose out to any hotel lounge or high-end bar.
For the clan members, it was nice to be able to enjoy their preferred luxuries cheaply, and for the clan, it was convenient to have its members close by at all times.
As time passed, more clan members gathered in the lounge one by one, and the common topic was, of course, the “new S-rank Admittee.”
Without exception, every single person expressed envy.
Looking at the situation surrounding the Tower, it was only natural.
Combat-type Admittees who entered the Tower enjoyed all kinds of benefits.
First and foremost, financial benefits.
Second, benefits akin to immunity privileges, leaving them relatively free from legal responsibility.
And since the work was dangerous to them personally, yet absolutely necessary on a national and social level, there was even the honor and popularity of praise and respect given by the people.
Of course, being combat-type did not mean entering the Tower was a compulsory duty.
It was not, but Admittees who did not climb the Tower were clearly excluded from the benefits others enjoyed.
Not only financially.
Instead of immunity privileges, they were tagged as “special surveillance subjects.” Outside the Tower, they only had 10 to 15 percent of the power they could exert, but even that far surpassed the abilities of ordinary people, so they were considered a threat to society.
And was that all?
As a bonus, they were subjected to the contempt and ridicule the public casually threw at them, saying they were not taking responsibility for the power they possessed.
Whether or not to enter the Tower was optional.
If one took the risk, there were things one could enjoy.
If one chose safety, there were things one would lose.
But production and support-type Admittees were free from this restrictive choice.
They did not participate in combat, so it was not dangerous, yet they made a great deal of money.
They were treated well and acknowledged as occupying rare and absolutely necessary positions.
That was why everyone envied them.
“I heard Big Sis is determined to recruit the newly awakened S-rank.”
“Heh, she sure dreams big. The whole world must have their eyes on them.”
“Why not? A clan of our caliber can at least make a move.”
“There are clans specializing in production support, too. Places like that would have a big advantage.”
“Ah... I guess so.”
As they were passing the dull, languid hours,
Beeeeep— Beeeeep—
Suddenly, an emergency alert appeared on all the clan members’ phones.
“Huh?”
“What is it?”
“It says the clan leader’s raid team has exited?”
“Already?”
“Must be an emergency exit. Let’s go.”
In the Tower, it was possible to exit to the outside from immediately after clearing a floor until before ascending to the next floor.
Of course, since the deadline—the maximum allowed time for the raid—continued to tick down inside the Tower, it was not a function they could use without limit.
So raid teams used their exit opportunities only when absolutely necessary, for maintenance, resupply, treatment, and the like.
Before beginning the raid after entering the first floor, they could remain in the waiting room.
After beginning the raid, they could use this opportunity after clearing each floor and destroying that floor’s core, before going up to the higher floor.
In a way, it was an extremely considerate system.
It did not allow them to exit immediately at a dangerous moment.
Even so, having a save point and an opportunity to reorganize on every floor was something that let them breathe a little easier.
But there were restrictions as well.
It was possible for people to drop out from the original number that entered, but additional personnel could not be added.
In other words, if someone was badly injured or died, they could not fill that person’s spot with a new member.
Therefore, there were many things to consider when exiting the Tower, and even if they came out for maintenance, they had to save time.
Sanarae Clan’s elite team, currently raiding a high Tower of seventy floors, was a team climbing the Tower with the clan leader, the S-rank swordswoman Admittee “Frost Sword Lee Danbi,” at the front.
With one S-rank and a number of A-ranks, it was a team that had been climbing the Tower without much difficulty.
The total time limit until the Tower Break was 210 days, and yet they were a swift team that had reached the 60th floor in just around 150 days.
This had only been possible because of the powerful offensive ability of Frost Sword Lee Danbi.
So it was both a Tower and a team that had been expected to complete the raid without much trouble and exit with dazzling rewards in hand.
But now, an emergency exit out of nowhere.
Just one floor ago—in other words, after completing the raid on the 59th floor—they had exited once, finished reorganizing, and re-entered, so everyone could not shake off their unease.
Something must have happened.
The clan members who received the emergency call all rushed over and gathered in front of the lobby.
Not long after, the three people who entered the clan building were the clan leader and the two A-rank Admittees who had come out with her.
Surprisingly, the raid team that had exited was perfectly fine.
No one was injured.
Supplies? They had packed those just one floor ago, so there was no reason they would need any.
And yet the faces of Lee Danbi and the other team members were dark.
“Clan Leader...”
“Uh, Big Sis, did someone get hurt?”
Lee Danbi shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why the full emergency summons...”
Clatter.
Clan Leader Lee Danbi placed her sword on the table in the building lobby, and—
“Huuuh...”
“Kgh......”
Everyone was horrified by the state of the sword.
“[Star’s Song] broke.”
The grades of items that had appeared in this world through the Tower so far were as follows.
E (Normal / Normal)
D (High-grade / Uncommon)
C (Rare / Rare)
B (Heroic / Epic)
A (Unique / Unique)
S (Peak / Zenith)
Experts had speculated that perhaps there were items above that, but it was a meaningless assumption.
Because not a single one had ever appeared.
Some predicted that perhaps they would drop if a Tower higher than one hundred floors appeared.
But if such a thing were to happen, leaving items aside, there would be no greater disaster than that.
Because currently on Earth, there was not a single Admittee qualified to climb above the 100th floor.
In any case, the sword [Star’s Song] of the country’s greatest swordswoman Admittee, Frost Sword Lee Danbi, was not an ordinary blade.
It was an A-rank Unique-grade sword, proudly ranked among the top three swords in the country by sword alone.
An incredibly rare item, and one worth every bit of its value.
The thing that drew out the abilities of Lee Danbi, the clan’s only S-rank Admittee and its most powerful dealer, to their fullest and made her who she was—was none other than [Star’s Song].
But that sword had broken.
This meant that the raid team had lost its strongest frontline damage. Like this, the raid was effectively impossible.
Was there a sword that could replace it? No such thing existed.
“My God...”
“...How... how did this happen...”
“Damage must have accumulated. The moment we entered the 60th floor and poured ether into it, it ended up like this.”
“W-we’ll have to... repair it.”
“That’s the problem...”
The higher the grade of the equipment, the more special the materials composing it were, and naturally, repairs were impossible with ordinary materials.
“There is a technician who can repair it, but the problem is Star Dust.”
“Holy shit...”
“On the way here, I asked the Blacksmith Clan... and they said 100 grams of Star Dust is the minimum amount needed to join the cut surfaces together.”
“I-I’ll look for it!”
“Move! Search the auction houses. The global OnTower auction house too.”
“I’ll request government cooperation.”
“Good. Contact the other clans too. Some of them must have a little, at least a little...”
A war began to find Star Dust, the powder that contained the power of starlight—that ultra-rare material.
* * *
Suho sat down at his assigned desk, holding the complicated chart that new employees were supposedly required to memorize as a baseline.
It listed, in truly meticulous detail, how to respond to Admittee clients and how to care for their daily lives.
“Fuck... receiving packages? Sorting recycling? We even do stuff like this...?”
What was this, a housekeeper?
They had said they cared for the small details of daily life, and sure enough, every miscellaneous task imaginable was included as an item.
“A modern-day slave. A slave... ha.”
Would he have done this even if he had known beforehand this was what the job was like? Suho thought about it for a moment.
The answer came quickly. He probably would have.
He had been unemployed, and his family was going under.
He had never had a choice to begin with.
As he looked over the chart, memorizing it halfheartedly,
it seemed obvious that the important parts, even among everyday tasks, the somewhat substantial ones, had all been taken by the management division,
while only the miscellaneous and annoying work had been passed on to the agency.
For example, if an Admittee client were moving,
the management division would handle things like the housing sales contract and moving-in report,
while the agency would be given the dirty and petty tasks, such as hiring a moving company, cleaning the new place, and disposing of trash.
Looking around, he saw the other new hires who had joined with him diligently memorizing the items.
The future of these guys, who would be worked to death from now on, was clear as day.
Suho was so bored that he tapped the guy sitting next to him to call him over.
His name was... Taeyun, was it?
“Hey, is it memorizable?”
“Ugh... This really won’t stick.”
Taeyun clutched his head and grimaced.
“Want to go out for a cup of coffee?”
“Let’s.”
Suho went up with his fellow new hire to the small artificial garden on the company terrace, each having drawn a cup of coffee.
Suho perched on the railing and asked Taeyun, whose eyes looked hollow, as if he had not slept much.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Here. Inyeon Agency. Are you happy you joined?”
“No need to even ask. I’m happy...”
“Yeah? That’s good.”
“To be honest, if I’d failed this time too... I was really thinking about dying. There’s seriously nowhere to get a job these days. Even after graduating college, how many years did I spend scraping by...”
Taeyun began telling his story.
Ridiculously enough, his circumstances were so similar to Suho’s own that it felt like looking in a mirror.
A failing family with nowhere to lean on.
A bleak career path.
Repeated failures.
The pressure of making a living.
There had been a time when he thought, if there was nothing else to do, he could at least do hard labor at construction sites.
But now, the entire construction labor scene had been taken over by foreign workers.
These days, even the site managers and foremen were all foreigners, so they said Korean young men were not readily accepted either.
In that situation, Taeyun’s enthusiasm after being notified of his acceptance into the agency was different from Suho’s.
His eyes blazed with the motivation of, “I have to work hard!”
After talking for a long while, Taeyun dusted off his backside and stood up first.
“We’ve been here too long. Let’s head down. They say there’s going to be a written quiz starting tomorrow morning and it’ll be reflected in our performance scores, so I should memorize at least half before leaving work. Either way, I feel like I’ll have to stay up all night memorizing it.”
Hope was alive in his eyes, and Suho tried to engrave that gaze into his heart.
* * *
When people began leaving one by one as it was time to get off work, Suho also packed his things and stood.
It felt like he had spent the whole day learning nothing but useless things and memorizing only meaningless ones... Even so, the feeling of belonging somewhere and having done work was not bad.
As soon as he left the office, took the elevator, and stepped out of the company building, the security androids, Minsu and Minji, who had been standing guard nearby, followed after him.
“Are you finished?”
“You’ve worked hard.”
“...Yeah.”
The two people—no, the two robots—were quite good at offering greetings like this.
From their appearance to their natural conversations, it was harder to find differences between them and humans, so if he did not stay alert, he often forgot they were androids.
“I have called the vehicle. It will arrive shortly.”
Minsu reported after calling Suho’s autonomous vehicle.
But oh no—this was right in front of the company.
Suho hurriedly stopped him.
“Wait, wait! I can’t get in here right now. Let’s walk to that alley over there. We’ll get in there. Tell it to come that way.”
“Understood.”
Minsu blinked once, and the Comandorghini EV that had been right in front of them passed by Suho’s group.
Everyone who saw the vehicle let out exclamations.
“Whew, look at that. It’s a Comandorghini.”
“Looks like the new SUV model. Whew, do you know how much that thing costs?”
“How much? Must be nice. I wish I could ride one even once...”
Listening to the sighs of the employees leaving work, Suho also let out a small sigh.
There were too many eyes watching.