My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 01

========== CHAPTER 1 ==========

The world had long since become a banquet hall for monsters.

On the streets where the asphalt had been torn away, the screams and wails of people mixed with the roars of unidentified beasts, playing a symphony of hell.

However, there was a place where that cacophonous noise could not intrude even an inch.

Hundreds of meters above ground, inside the thick soundproof walls of the penthouse, Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 flowed as silently as a ghost.

“Hoo.”

Hunter Yang Ju-yeong, having just zipped up his carrier, exhaled roughly and faced Go Gyeol, who had entered the foyer. There wasn’t a shred of guilt or agitation on his face. Only a profound sense of boredom was etched there.

“Why did you come?”

The low question was as sharp as a blade. Go Gyeol shouted urgently, forgetting his disheveled appearance.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you answering your calls?! Don’t you know the has started?! What about the kids? Where did the others go!”

Unlike Go Gyeol’s bloodshot eyes, Yang Ju-yeong just smirked.

“It’s right in front of your eyes. Why are you asking like it’s something new?”

His gaze shifted to the massive carrier placed at his feet. Inside it was his future, his escape from this country, from this hell.

“…That’s not it, right? You, you’re not trying to naturalize, are you?”

Go Gyeol’s voice trembled desperately. Instead of answering, Yang Ju-yeong tapped the carrier with the tip of his foot. That light gesture felt as heavy as a death sentence to Go Gyeol.

“Can’t you see?”

“Why! Don’t you know what state this country is in right now?! If we don’t stop the ‘Loser Round’, this place is just finished! Everyone is going to die!”

“Hehehe, kkeuk-kkeuk….”

Yang Ju-yeong laughed, his shoulders shaking. At first, it was a small laugh, but it soon spread into uncontrollable, manic laughter. As if he had heard the funniest joke in the world.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Hey. Yang Ju-yeong!”

Despite Go Gyeol’s angry shout, Yang Ju-yeong calmly picked up the whiskey glass from the crystal table. The brilliant amber liquid rippled softly inside the glass.

“Do you think there’s hope here, in this country called the Republic of Korea?”

“Yang Ju-yeong!”

“I don’t want to risk my life on such a stupid thing. My one and only life-”

“The Hunter Bureau will support us! If we just get through this crisis, surely…!”

Click.

With a cold sound, the empty glass was placed on the table. After cleanly draining every last drop of alcohol, Yang Ju-yeong casually dropped a bombshell of truth.

“You still don’t know, even at this very moment. Lee Seung-hwa, Shin Jun-ho, Ban Gi-ung. They’ve all naturalized.”

Go Gyeol’s world crumbled down. His vision blurred, and his legs shook.

Those names weren’t just simple hunters.

They were beings he had personally scouted, rolled through all sorts of dungeons and towers with, and raised with his own blood and sweat—they were like his own sons and daughters.

They were the crystallization of hope into which he had poured his everything.

But they had all naturalized? When? Why did he, their manager, know nothing about it?

As if enjoying Go Gyeol’s reaction, Yang Ju-yeong finally burst into loud laughter.

“Hahaha! I know how devoted you were to us. I won’t deny it. But look, Go Gyeol. When there’s an opportunity to have something better right in front of you, getting held back by some worn-out conscience is just foolish, isn’t it?”

“You… you traitor….”

A beast-like sound leaked through Go Gyeol’s teeth, but Yang Ju-yeong pretended not to hear, checking his luxury watch and acting nonchalant.

“Oops, it’s about time to go.”

“What?”

The moment those words ended, the air screamed and tore open. A black door appeared as space split apart.

It was the skill of an S-rank Teleportation Hunter.

Beyond the wide-open door, foreigners dressed in neat suits were looking this way, smiling as if appraising merchandise.

Yang Ju-yeong lightly lifted the carrier.

“Thanks for everything. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to get such an amazing opportunity.”

“Yang! Ju! Yeong!”

As if mocking Go Gyeol, who was rushing at him while screaming, Yang Ju-yeong lightly turned and disappeared into the door. The door closed without a trace, as if it had never existed.

In an instant, the penthouse was submerged in deep silence again. Only the faint sounds of destruction coming from outside awakened a sense of reality. Bach’s melody was still flowing from the speakers, and the clothes scattered on the floor proved the traces of the traitor who had been here just moments ago.

Thud.

Go Gyeol slumped onto the floor. The S-rank hunters currently remaining in Korea were, in fact, all those he managed. If they had all left, there was no future for this country. Destruction, that was all.

“Hunter Bureau… I have to go to the Hunter Bureau….”

But he couldn’t give up like this. Go Gyeol forced strength into his limp legs and staggered to his feet. It was the very moment that the last shred of responsibility and sense of duty made his body move.

—Cr-r-rack!!

Along with a thunderous rupturing sound, the massive bulletproof glass that reflected the city’s landscape cracked like a spiderweb and burst outward.

And through that gap, a sharp tree branch flew in like a flash of light, piercing Go Gyeol’s heart without a single inch of error.

“Keuhuk….”

Red blood sprayed like a fountain onto his white shirt. The gushing blood poured over the pure white White Jade hanging around his neck.

The once-pure jade absorbed Go Gyeol’s blood with terrifying speed, as if quenching its thirst, and Go Gyeol’s vision quickly turned red.

Darkness arrived along with the pain of his heart being pierced. That was the last thing Go Gyeol remembered.

However.

“…So, are you really going to resign?”

A brutally realistic voice pierced his eardrums.

Familiar yet strange, thick cigarette smoke stung his nose. Go Gyeol lifted his head, creaking like a machine.

A middle-aged man wearing a cheap tie and frowning. The end of the cigarette in his mouth was burning precariously.

‘…Team Leader Han Jeong-su?’

A face he hadn’t encountered even once after resigning, a face he had pushed to the back of his memory. But something was strange.

The deep wrinkles around his eyes were faint, and his graying hair was black. Although he was worn out by the grueling office life, he clearly looked several years younger.

‘Why is this person… here.’

Is it a dream? But the pungent smell of nicotine and the musty air of the office dug into his senses, screaming that it was reality.

“Assistant Manager Go Gyeol. Think about it again. Have you already forgotten how hard it was to get into our company?”

In an instant, Go Gyeol’s heart plummeted to the floor.

Assistant Manager Go Gyeol.

An old job title he was called by years ago, long before he walked the path of a Hunter Manager. And that line was not a single syllable different from what Han Jeong-su had said when he first handed in his resignation in his life.

Go Gyeol pinched his thigh hard under the table so Han Jeong-su wouldn’t notice. Tears welled up at the sharp pain of his nails digging into his flesh. If it were a dream, it wouldn’t be this vivid.

‘It’s… not a dream?’

“Assistant Manager Go Gyeol?”

Perhaps frustrated by his frozen, silent state, Han Jeong-su crushed out his cigarette and urged him on. Go Gyeol stood up abruptly.

“I’ll… be back from the restroom for a moment.”

Turning his back on the voice calling him from behind, Go Gyeol ran into the nearest restroom. His heart was racing like crazy. He didn’t even think to wash his face with cold water and rushed to the mirror.

“This… can’t be.”

In the mirror was an unbelievable face.

The hideous burn scar on his left cheek from a year ago, caused by a Flame Monster while trying to save an F-rank hunter.

The deep wound from two years ago, where his shoulder was bitten and torn by a monster in a dungeon.

The countless traces of glory and pain that had been carved into his body………

Not a single one remained.

It’s clean.

Go Gyeol touched his face with trembling hands. The skin that should have been rough and shriveled was perfectly smooth. This was not a hallucination. It was the sensation of living skin that felt perfectly real.

Then.

If the despair of being betrayed, the pain of having his heart pierced, if all of that was the end, then this is…….

“…Did I… return to the past?”

It was the very moment he muttered that without realizing it.

A hot heat surged from his chest.

Go Gyeol was startled and put his hand inside his shirt. A hard and cool sensation touched his fingertips.

‘Why is… this here?’

It was the White Jade necklace he always wore around his neck when he was a manager.

If he had truly regressed, this necklace shouldn’t be here.

The moment he grasped the necklace in bewilderment, a blue light burst out like a flash in the air, and a translucent message window floated before his eyes.

【The reward of the White Jade has been completed.】

“Reward of the White Jade…?”

As if unable to believe it, he looked down at the small pendant in his hand.

“Did this… did this send me back to the past?”

This pendant, which looked like a simple accessory, was actually an item he had obtained from the Tower in his previous life.

A manager who manages hunters. That was his job.

Most civilian managers stayed in the safe rear, but Go Gyeol was different.

He personally accompanied them into dungeons and towers, taking care of the hunters’ dirty work, devising raid strategies with sharp analytical skills, and sometimes even acting as bait to save them.

This White Jade was a gift from a hunter he had saved by risking his life in that way. It was said to be an item dropped by a boss monster, but no matter how much he had it appraised, nothing special was found, so it was just treated as an accessory.

“So it was this….”

Go Gyeol frowned as he discovered a small red dot like a drop of blood on the surface of the snow-white jade. Originally, this jade was a perfect, flawless pure white.

“Did this appear as the price for regression?”

As soon as his monologue ended, a new message appeared.

【Connecting to the system.】

【…System S7KD87 connection complete.】

【Please state the user’s name.】

In front of the blinking cursor, Go Gyeol took a deep breath. And as if determined, he opened his mouth.

“Go Gyeol.”

【User ‘Go Gyeol’ confirmed.】

【Transmitting past records and information for smooth adaptation.】

“Ugh!”

As soon as the words ended, an intense pain, as if a chisel and hammer were smashing his skull, struck his brain.

It was not a simple headache.

It was a massive torrent of information about how humanity had perished and why he had returned to this time.

“…What a shitty fate.”

20XX, a meteor fell into the Pacific Ocean. The subsequent awakening of humanity.

The conflict between those with power and those without. The disaster that appeared, taking advantage of the chaos, ‘Dungeon’.

The Awakened, who became the only beings capable of stopping the dungeons, called themselves ‘Hunters’ and enjoyed god-like power.

And finally, the harbinger of the apocalypse that rose to pierce the sky, the ‘Tower’.

The Tower proposed a cruel game to humanity. It came with the threat that if they didn’t clear the Tower within the time limit, it would unleash monsters upon the world.

People didn’t think much of it at first.

So, for the selection of the ‘Representative Hunter’ required by the Tower from the 30th floor onwards, they chose hunters based on their appearance rather than their skill or mindset.

This became the seed of all disasters.

The games proposed by the Tower from the 30th floor onwards were too difficult for the hunters selected in that way.

The result was the destruction of the Republic of Korea, and the annihilation of all humanity that spread like a butterfly effect.

It was a tragedy where the citizens chose their own ruin, a tragedy no one could blame anyone else for.

“Assistant Manager Go Gyeol? Are you sick?”

At the colleague’s voice, Go Gyeol snapped back to reality and stood up.

“No. I was just a little dizzy.”

He refused the hand trying to support him and went into the nearest empty conference room, locking the door.

“…System?”

【Speak.】

“What… exactly is the Tower?”

【I am an AI entrusted with the execution of the Humanity Annihilation Project.】

A soulless mechanical voice. Go Gyeol let out a hollow laugh at the unimaginable answer.

“Who, and why, are they trying to annihilate humanity?”

【Information cannot be accessed.】

“Then… did I perhaps awaken?”

【No.】

It was a firm answer that shattered even a shred of hope. He was still a powerless civilian.

“Then what are you? If you’re an AI trying to annihilate humanity, why are you helping me?”

【I am System S7KD87, entrusted with the mission of protecting humanity.】

“Protecting humanity? Does that mean there’s an entity opposing the forces trying to annihilate it? And they planted you inside the item?”

【Yes. It was activated under specific conditions, and since the probability of protecting humanity at the time of activation was 0%, I used ‘Regression’, the final function of the protection program.】

His head felt like it was going to explode from the pouring information. Go Gyeol wiped his face dry and said with a sigh.

“Explain only the information I can access.”

【Accessible information includes the system’s functions, purpose, and activation conditions.】

【To increase the probability of protecting humanity, the system provides the user with optimal hunter selection and guidance.】

‘Selection and guidance.’ Before Go Gyeol could even ruminate on the meaning, a ‘Ding-dong’ sound rang out, and a new window appeared.

〔Mission 1: Recruit ‘Lee Seong-ha’.〕

〔Time remaining: 71:59:58〕

“Lee Seong-ha? Recruit that guy?”

【This is the first condition for protecting humanity.】

“What… if I refuse?”

【If the user refuses the condition, the system will consider that humanity has no intention of being saved and will enter the automatic destruction procedure.】

【Do you wish to destroy the system?】