“Master, this is the information on the situation you mentioned last time.”
“Mm.”
What he had asked the androids Minsu and Minji, who were faithfully serving as his secretaries, to look into was the current state of former Team Leader Han Sincheol.
Apparently, with the money Suho had given him, he had opened a shop of his own, only for it to fail, and the second venture he started had gone under as well.
It seemed he simply had no talent for business.
In a way, it was quite a pitiful life. Suho felt bad for him.
“Honestly... I was hoping he’d get back on his feet properly, but... this guy really doesn’t seem suited for business. Minsu, when TDM Convention expands, we’re going to hire a large number of new employees. Go ask him if he’d be interested in working there.”
“Yes, understood.”
Whether it was TDM or Elysium Heights, the important parts were handled by AI and androids, but even so, there were still many tasks that required human hands.
Because of that, they had quite a number of employees, and even the newest employees earned over 100 million won a year.
After all, Suho simply could not tolerate the people working at his workplace being poorly paid.
* * *
He wanted to get some fresh air.
Lately, he had become far too busy.
He was busy because of aether power generation, busy because of SimCity, busy developing enhanced androids, founding a clan, and now even creating an artificial space habitat...
With major projects already underway, he kept starting new things, so naturally he had no choice but to grow busier and busier.
If it were something he could do alone, like EX-rank crafting, he could shut himself in the subspace warehouse and take his time leisurely amid infinite hours, but most things were not like that.
Most of them, like construction, required the assistance and cooperation of many people.
No matter how much money he had, and no matter how much he possessed, if he was too busy, his work-life balance suffered.
He rested every day at Elysium Heights by swimming, using the sauna, and so on, but that alone was not enough to satisfy him.
Deciding that he should give himself just two or three days of vacation, Suho left messages for the clan members and various other places, then left home.
He considered going somewhere through a dimensional gate, but eventually reached the conclusion that he at least wanted to go somewhere he had never been before.
He debated whether to take the octocopter, his private jet, or something else, then thought of Winky, only to recall the sorrowful fact that Winky was now busy staying with Taewung.
“Tsk.”
He simply put on his powered armor, spread the Tempestbane Wings, and stood on the rooftop.
“Now then... let’s go somewhere I haven’t been. Somewhere I haven’t been.”
As he flicked through the map of the entire Earth that appeared on his visor, one place happened to catch his eye.
That place was Mount Everest.
It had already been fifteen years. He remembered writing down climbing Mount Everest on his bucket list back when he was in middle school.
Perhaps it had been a trend at the time, but one out of every three boys would talk about summiting Mount Everest.
That’s right. If you lived as a human being, you ought to climb Mount Everest at least once. They said it was the highest place on Earth.
The problem was that he had not marked any dimensional gates near Nepal, Bhutan, or Bangladesh... but that did not matter. He had plenty marked in China and India.
Because he had visited China and India several times due to aether power generation, he had marked many coordinates there.
Suho crossed over to India through the subspace warehouse and began flying.
In only a few hours, he arrived at Lukla Village in Nepal.
Suho looked down, his eyes shining with curiosity.
It was because there was a runway at an altitude of 2,840 meters. The village had an airport with towering mountains behind it and a deep valley in front.
A runway just over 500 meters long.
“Wow... impressive.”
He could see a small light aircraft landing on that short runway.
Since he had come all this way, Suho briefly landed in Lukla Village, which sat cozily between the mountains and the valley.
The runway stretched narrow and long along the steep slope beside the village, and its end was quite literally a cliff.
As he looked around and briefly searched for information on the village, he saw many posts titled “The World’s Most Dangerous Airport.”
“Haha, I can see why they’d call it the most dangerous in the world.”
Suho stopped by a small café beside the airport building and ordered a cup of warm tea.
The scenery outside the window was so picturesque it almost felt unreal.
The snow-covered Himalayas stretched endlessly in the distance, and beneath them, Lukla Village sat warmly nestled among green vegetation and small houses.
In contrast to the village’s quiet atmosphere, the sound of aircraft taking off and landing occasionally came from the runway.
As he took a sip of tea, he briefly thought about just how special this runway must be.
This place held meaning beyond simply being a location where airplanes came and went, transporting people.
Because for all climbers, this was the starting point of the Everest journey and the gateway to their dreams.
Thinking that made the village seem even more charming.
After leaving the café and walking over to the village square a short distance away, he saw children running around in groups.
The children, with sun-darkened faces unique to high-altitude regions and eyes full of curiosity, saw Suho in his powered armor and gathered around him with shining eyes.
They even stopped playing and stared at him as if looking at some strange animal. Finding them cute, Suho called the children over and took out toy sets and sports equipment to hand out.
The children, screaming with delight, surrounded Suho and jumped up and down.
“Haha, take care. I’ll come again sometime.”
He patted a few of the children on the head, then spread his wings again.
When he lightly floated into the air and soared effortlessly into the sky, the people watching him nearby were startled and raised their cameras.
But before they could even properly capture Suho’s figure, he had become a dot in the sky.
Lukla Village gradually shrank beneath his feet, and Suho flew into the sky, higher and higher.
“Oho, that must be the base camp.”
The altitude indicated on his visor was 5,364 meters above sea level.
“Hyaa...”
The area around the base camp was covered in snow and ice, and in particular, the Khumbu Glacier spread out right in front of the camp.
Massive blocks of ice were piled irregularly atop the glacier, creating an overwhelming sight in and of themselves.
Not only that, but surrounding it were enormous mountains in the 7,000- to 8,000-meter range, such as Lhotse and Nuptse, boasting scenery that was both silent and majestic.
He had not even climbed to the summit yet, but the jaw-dropping view left Suho clicking his tongue in wonder. It felt as though this would be a sufficiently satisfying trip even if he did not go all the way to the mountaintop and simply saw this place.
“So this is why people make such a fuss about Everest...”
Looking around, he saw colorful tents set up by many climbers scattered across the glacier.
As he watched people checking their equipment, resting, and teams that seemed to be consulting with Sherpas, a few people spotted Suho and approached him.
Since it would be a little troublesome if his identity became known, Suho merely waved at them and increased his altitude again.
The oxygen had already grown thin, but the life-support system of the powered armor that had easily guaranteed his survival even in space supplied everything he needed.
The higher he climbed, the clearer the sky became.
The sheer cliffs of the snowy mountain drew closer, but there was nothing to worry about. The Tempestbane Wings were capable of endlessly precise flight.
He leisurely avoided obstacles as he ascended along the southeast ridge.
He had heard that this route, leading to the summit from the Nepalese side, was the most popular yet also one of the harshest courses.
Relying on the crude knowledge he was learning in real time through searches, Suho moved along the southeast ridge route, sometimes flying and sometimes walking.
It felt strange to pass while looking down from the air at the very path countless climbers had risked their lives to ascend.
When he increased the output of the wings again, he surpassed an altitude of 8,000 meters in just a few seconds and entered the final stretch of the high peak, the area commonly known as the “Death Zone.”
It was a region where oxygen was extremely thin and humans found it difficult to survive, a place that had frustrated countless climbers, but naturally, it did not apply to Suho.
When he finally reached the summit of Everest, the surrounding scenery was unbelievably magnificent.
The sky was infinitely clear and blue, and beneath his feet, clouds spread like a carpet and flowed ceaselessly.
The feeling of standing at the highest place in the world tickled his chest in a strange way.
Of course, the Kármán line was higher, but among land, this place was the highest.
“Phew...”
Suho folded the Tempestbane Wings and set foot on one spot of the narrow summit covered in snow.
A breathtakingly vast panorama unfolded before his eyes.
“Hyaa...”
The color of the sky was one he had never seen in his life. A blue so clear it was almost unreal.
Beneath that blue sky, countless snow mountains stretched endlessly. It felt as though the 8,000-meter giants were beneath his feet.
To the north, the desolate land of Tibet spread out, while to the south, Nepal’s deep blue valleys could be seen faintly in the far distance.
The snow powder, swirling and scattering in the wind, glittered dazzlingly.
Everything felt like a dream.
Suho thought he had truly made the right choice in selecting this as his first vacation destination.
When he wondered how many more famous places like this there were on Earth that he had yet to visit, anticipation welled up within him as well.
“Now, since I’ve come all this way, I should spend a night here before leaving.”
The summit of Everest had issues such as oxygen concentration, temperature, strong winds, blizzards, and other sudden weather changes, and the Nepalese government strictly prohibited long stays at the summit, so sleeping here would be a bit difficult.
He found a spot slightly below, about fifty to a hundred meters down.
It was still within the Death Zone, and camping there was absolutely not recommended due to the risks of hypothermia, pulmonary edema, cerebral edema, and so on, but again, those matters did not apply to Suho.
Most of the terrain was steep and irregular, making it difficult to find a flat spot.
Still, after barely finding a place, Suho settled there and took out a modular house from the subspace warehouse.
A single-story modular house.
It was not an ordinary modular house, but a model equipped with an automatic leveling frame on its underside.
Since a tall building seemed vulnerable to strong winds and blizzards, he took out a small single-story structure.
Chiiiiik— Wiiiing—
Like crane outriggers installed at the front, back, left, and right of heavy machinery frames, the beam cylinders and jack cylinders installed on all sides of the modular house moved appropriately, allowing the building to balance itself and stand.
It was a modular house of considerable weight, but in order to add enough weight in preparation for any strong winds that might blow, Suho added and secured Ovelun steel plates to the lower frame.
Even after that, he connected special wires and drove them firmly into the bedrock below.
“That should do it.”
With this much, he could feel at ease.
The interior of the modular house was set to maintain sufficient oxygen and a comfortable temperature, and inside it, he also deactivated the powered armor and Tempestbane Wings, remaining in a simple tracksuit.
In an instant, the “mobile base” at the summit of Everest was complete.
It was Suho’s “polar-style pension,” where the extreme environment outside did not matter in the slightest.
The view visible through the transparent windows on all sides of the house was still indescribably beautiful.
As he gazed outside in a daze, he lost track of time. The color of the sky gradually deepened, and before he knew it, it began shifting from a blue so clear it stung the eyes into a mysterious orange and red glow.
As the sunlight squeezed out its remaining strength and shone on the summit of Everest, the enormous peak covered in snow and ice began to turn golden.
Long shadows fell over the pure white snow, and as the light in the sky dimmed, the cold swept in.
The indoor temperature of the modular house indicated 22 degrees, but on the equipment screen monitoring external weather conditions, it showed the outside temperature dropping below minus 30 degrees Celsius.
Wiiiiing—
When he opened the ceiling of the modular house, stars densely embedded in the sky appeared through the sunroof panel.
Perhaps because the layer of atmosphere was thin, the starlight was vividly visible in the clear, clean night sky.
Lying down in a tracksuit at the summit of Mount Everest and looking at the stars that seemed about to pour down from the heavens, he found this too to be a new kind of vacation.
“This is paradise...”
It felt as though his accumulated fatigue was being washed away.
Thinking about it, not even two full years had passed yet. Since he had obtained Cheonyangwon.
And yet, in that short time, Jeong Suho’s life had changed so dramatically.
Wealth? Even counting only assets recognized in society, he had more than 5 quadrillion won, and more was scheduled to continue coming in. On top of that, there were still countless goods that could not be converted into money.
Honor? The hero of the Republic of Korea, the savior of Earth, the owner of the world’s energy... By now, he had become fairly famous in his own way. Wherever he went.
Power? Not to mention the president of the Republic of Korea, even the U.S. president and the UN trembled at a single word from Suho. He was in a position where he could issue commands even when facing the head of any country in the world.
Relationships? He had gained more friends than at any previous point in his life. And mostly S-rank Admittees, at that.
Abilities? He had truly gained many abilities as well. In fact, everything above had been obtained through those abilities.
Let’s see. First, the goods of Cheonyangwon that he gained after winning the million-year universe event.
The ability to deposit and withdraw using the subspace warehouse.
The ability to travel between dimensions using the subspace coordinate-changing entrance gate.
A space within the subspace warehouse that was an absolutely safe zone he could enter at any time, and physically larger than the solar system.
Near-infinite time due to the ten-million-to-one time ratio applied inside the subspace warehouse.
After awakening as an EX-rank Immortal Crafter, his aging had slowed even further, and he had gained rapid wound regeneration, immunity to all diseases, and the ability to craft items in every field.
It was not as if he had put in any particularly tremendous effort.
But while starting all sorts of projects to avoid being devoured by emptiness, he had somehow arrived here.
And fortunately, he now had quite a few things he wanted to do.
The smart new city SimCity, the artificial space habitat, the restoration of Earth’s environment, the founding of a super clan, and the tower climb he would attempt in the future—rather than feeling hollow, they stimulated his interest far more.
After spending an exhilarating night at the summit of Everest, Suho woke early in the morning, stored the modular house again, and spread the Tempestbane Wings.
“Thanks for the view, Everest. I marked the dimensional coordinates, so I’ll come often next time too.”
Now he planned to spend his remaining night at Ulawun Volcano in Papua New Guinea.