My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 26

========== CHAPTER 26 ==========

[Notification: Selection Match Stage 1 ‘Survival of the Fittest’ has ended.]

[Notification: A 12-hour rest period is granted from the current time.]

[Notification: After the rest period ends, the full-scale entry into the 1st floor of the ‘Tower of Truth’ will begin.]

The giant holographic clock floating in the air began to count down. As the taut tension instantly snapped, groans and ragged breathing erupted throughout the waiting room.

Hunters who had crossed the threshold of death instinctively gathered in groups. Some shouted and ran to find guildmates they already knew, while individual hunters who survived alone scanned their surroundings, looking for a corner to hide in to avoid threats. The massive lobby instantly split into hundreds of small clusters.

Amidst the chaotic crowd, Gyeol was the first to claim a quiet spot by the wall. As soon as he settled in, his party members sat down around him as if by prior agreement.

“Haa, I really thought I was going to die.”

Kang Hoon collapsed next to Gyeol, wiping his sweat-drenched bangs. Lee Seong-ha, who arrived shortly after, straightened his priest’s robes and offered a benevolent smile, though a low sigh escaped his lips.

“Thanks to the Lord’s protection, everyone is safe.”

“Good work, Seong-ha hyung. Everyone, sit over here.”

As Gyeol pulled a few bottles of clean water from his subspace and handed them out, Kang Ji-hyun and Kwon Do-geun also approached and took their seats. Kang Hoon, who was catching his breath while gulping down water, suddenly pointed above his head and frowned.

“But hyung, this… has it been like this since earlier?”

At the tip of Kang Hoon’s finger was a grotesque eyeball floating in the air, twitching its damp eyelids. Hoon waved his hand at it, but the eyeball maintained a constant distance, as if attached by a magnet, and persistently followed Hoon’s face.

“Mine’s the same. It hasn’t left me once since the battle earlier.”

Kang Ji-hyun tapped her eyeball camera with the tip of her staff as if it were unpleasant. The eyeball made a gross, slimy sound as it was pushed back slightly, only to return to her front again.

“This is that broadcasting equipment for the channel, right?”

Kwon Do-geun, who had been staring at the eyeball while wearing his mask, asked. He had stood in front of countless cameras during his acting career, but he seemed unable to adapt to this eyeball that twitched like a living creature.

“Yeah. I told you it’s a 24-hour live broadcast. They’ll be filming you even when you’re sleeping or eating.”

At Gyeol’s answer, Lee Seong-ha rubbed his brow.

“Good heavens, does it follow us to the bathroom too? Lord, this trial is too harsh.”

“Don’t worry, the system automatically censors the important parts. What’s more important is the viewers’ reaction. Millions of people are watching you at this very moment.”

At Gyeol’s words, the party members looked back at the eyeballs above their heads with a renewed sense of awareness. The realization that these eyeballs, which they had thought were just disgusting observers, were actually the eyes of the viewers who held the power of life and death over them, brought a strange sense of pressure.

“Um… but hyung.”

Kang Hoon looked around and spoke cautiously.

“Why is there nothing above Boss’s head? We all have one attached.”

At those words, the party members’ gazes turned in unison toward Gyeol’s head. Just as Kang Hoon said, the area around Gyeol was strangely clean. In this lobby filled with tens of thousands of hunters, Gyeol alone seemed completely excluded from the Tower’s surveillance.

Gyeol calmly took a sip of water and replied.

“I told you. I’m not a candidate for voting. I guess they don’t have cameras to waste on a porter manager.”

Gyeol replied vaguely and showed the tablet screen to his party members. Then, Kang Hoon asked with a voice full of expectation.

“Hyung, have our reactions gone up? Did the curse I used earlier look cool?”

However, the expressions of the party members stiffened as they checked the screen on the tablet. The content they had expected was nowhere to be found.

“……What is all this.”

Kang Ji-hyun murmured in a low voice. The screen was filled with screams, terror, and humanity’s convulsive reactions to the cruelty of the Tower.

[Real-time HunterNet Hot Posts]

[Gore Warning] Original video of the North Gate gargoyle massacre (12 million views)

Is this a selection match for humanity? It’s just a slaughterhouse. How does it make sense for 60,000 people to die in 10 minutes?

The guy who made the Tower is definitely a demon. To broadcast people begging for their lives live.

Stop the broadcast immediately. I’m scared for the kids to see this.

[Urgent] How do I turn this broadcast off?

Even if I unplug the cord, the broadcast continues. I can’t just lock the kids in their rooms.

How on earth can I turn off the broadcast?

The community and news channels were absolutely devastated. Rather than being enthusiastic about the hunters’ performance, people were horrified by the tens of thousands of death scenes unfolding in real-time before their eyes. It was the aftermath of the footage being broadcast without any censorship, showing hunters having their limbs torn apart by gargoyles or screaming while stuck in door gaps.

“Public opinion is at its worst right now.”

Gyeol continued in a dry voice.

“Nobody cares who you are or how well you fought. Right now, people are terrified of how horrible this Tower is, and that they might die just like that. They’re calling it a human slaughter show, not a selection match.”

“Then what about the voting? In this atmosphere, won’t the voting and everything else be cancelled?”

When Kang Hoon asked anxiously, Gyeol shook his head.

“No. When fear reaches its peak, people instinctively look for a hero. A truly strong person to save them from this hell. Everyone is screaming that they’re scared right now, but the moment the 1st-floor raid begins and someone wipes out the monsters overwhelmingly, the atmosphere will reverse.”

Gyeol turned off the tablet and stared coldly at the eyeball cameras around him.

“This fear that humanity feels is our greatest resource. Whether or not we make it into the top 100 depends on how we turn this fear into catharsis in 12 hours.”

Lee Seong-ha looked intently at Gyeol’s profile and clicked his tongue.

“Are you really analyzing even in this situation? Aren’t you scared?”

“I’m doing it because I’m scared. If we fail, it will be a disaster that befalls all of humanity, not just us.”

Everyone fell silent at Gyeol’s calm but pointed words. Breaking that heavy silence, the sound of strange footsteps approached. Along with the sound of clanking armor, a man equipped with quite luxurious-looking gear strode toward Gyeol’s party.

The man’s eyes were bloodshot, and he was covered in blood here and there from the recent battle, but his momentum was confident. Above his head, a disgusting eyeball camera was persistently filming his face.

“Hey, you’re the team that came in through the North Gate, right?”

The man skipped over Gyeol and scanned Lee Seong-ha and Kang Ji-hyun as he asked. Gyeol replied dryly without taking his eyes off the tablet.

“Who are you?”

“Ah, excuse me. I’m Kim Cheol-su, Vice Guild Leader of the White Tiger Guild. I saw you guys moving near the entrance earlier. When everyone else was losing their minds, you moved as if you knew the way.”

Kim Cheol-su’s gaze lingered on the masked Kwon Do-geun and Kang Ji-hyun, who was holding her staff. His eyes narrowed, especially as he examined Kang Ji-hyun’s complexion.

“Don’t tell me… are you Kang Ji-hyun-ssi? I heard you went into hiding, I didn’t expect to see you here. And who is this priest next to you? That thing you did earlier, tearing off a gargoyle’s wing with a steel pipe, that was very impressive.”

As soon as the man spoke to him, Lee Seong-ha activated his ‘saint’ mode again. He wore a gentle smile on his lips and bowed his head slightly.

“You flatter me. I merely lent my humble strength to protect the lost sheep.”

“……For a ‘humble strength,’ the gargoyle’s head exploded quite cleanly.”

Kim Cheol-su let out a scoff as if it were absurd, then immediately pointed at Kwon Do-geun, who was wearing the mask, as if that was what he was most curious about.

“And this friend with the mask. Who are you? That water curtain that blocked the lightning earlier, it was on the level of an A-class hunter. There’s no information in our guild’s data. Are you a rookie?”

Kwon Do-geun looked to Gyeol for a cue instead of answering. Gyeol coldly cut in while still tapping on his tablet.

“You have too many questions, Vice Guild Leader of the White Tiger Guild. We are just individual hunters who are busy trying to survive.”

Kim Cheol-su’s brow furrowed at Gyeol’s dismissive tone. Only then did he check above Gyeol’s head and widen his eyes.

“Wait. You… why don’t you have an eyeball? Everyone else has one, why don’t you? Are you not a hunter? Or perhaps… are you part of the management team?”

As Kim Cheol-su’s voice grew louder, the gazes of other hunters resting nearby turned to Gyeol in unison. The bizarre trait of being a ‘hunter without an eyeball camera’ seemed poised to become the new hot topic in the waiting room in an instant.

Gyeol turned off the tablet and slowly raised his head to look at Kim Cheol-su. In the live broadcast watched by 7 billion people, Gyeol’s black eyes, which even the gaze of the eyeball camera couldn’t reach, shone coldly.

“Well. It’s a vote to select humanity’s heroes, I guess they don’t have eyes to waste on a porter like me.”

“A porter…? Are you kidding? You look like the leader of this party?”

“Leader, what are you talking about. I’m just a manager who watches their backs so these people can climb the Tower well.”

Even with Gyeol’s relaxed response, Kim Cheol-su’s suspicion didn’t seem to be resolved.

Just as Kim Cheol-su was about to press further, Gyeol turned off his tablet and added quietly.

“If you don’t keep your eyes on the prize now, you’ll end up kicking away the only mercy the Tower has allowed. You’ll see soon enough, but the dawn here is closer to a trial than a respite.”

It was just a comment about taking a rest, but it contained a strange conviction and a chilling warning.

Kim Cheol-su flinched and shut his mouth. It sounded like a prophecy from someone who had caught a glimpse of the future.

His instinct as a veteran hunter whispered to him. If he ignored this man’s words, something really bad would happen.

“……I see. Sorry for the interruption.”

Kim Cheol-su backed away with a bitter expression. As he moved away, Gyeol stood up and reached out into the air.

Swoosh—.

The space where there was nothing rippled like water. Gyeol’s hand reached into the ripple, and soon he began to pull out several heavy bags and a large bundle of canvas. A strange noise echoed through the desolate waiting room where 10,000 hunters were gathered.

Click, shhh—!

What Gyeol pulled out was none other than a large base camp tent. And it was a top-of-the-line model with cutting-edge magic shielding functions. As a comfortable shelter was instantly set up on the hard marble floor, the mouths of the hunters watching from around dropped open.

“W-what is that? Is that an Inventory skill?”

“He said he was F-class, but he’s a spatial type? A manager has such a rare skill?”

“Good heavens, you’re going to set up a tent and sleep in this mess? Are you crazy?”

In a survival situation where every supply was precious, the appearance of a luxury item like a tent caused the waiting room to stir once again. The viewers’ eyeball cameras also flocked around Gyeol to capture this bizarre sight.

Kang Hoon, who was moving luggage into the tent, whispered to Gyeol while watching his surroundings.

“Hyung, this… is it okay to reveal this already? The Inventory ability is our team’s trump card. If others find out, they’ll try to keep us in check.”

Gyeol pulled a fluffy sleeping bag from his subspace and replied nonchalantly.

“Curiosity is scarier than containment. There’s no better bait than this to divert the gazes of guys like that Kim Cheol-su who are trying to dig into my identity.”

“Bait?”

“It’s impossible to hide it anyway because of those eyeball cameras. In that case, it’s better to throw them one piece of clear information: ‘an F-class porter specialized in logistics and supplies.’ That way, people won’t dig deeper into other secrets.”

Gyeol sat on the edge of the tent entrance and stared intently at the eyeball cameras filling the lobby. The 7 billion viewers must be having a heated debate right now about the provocative topic of a ‘tent-pitching manager.’

“Show them what you want to show, and hide what you need to hide. That’s the basic rule of broadcasting. Now, go in and rest. The real hell is going to start soon.”

At Gyeol’s words, the party members crawled into the tent as if possessed. In the hellish waiting room where 10,000 hunters were curled up on the floor trying to catch a nap, only ‘Gyeol’s’ party began their rest before the storm, enjoying the benefits of civilization.