My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 28

========== CHAPTER 28 ==========

Above Hwang Tae-ja’s head, unlike the other hunters, a giant Eyeball Camera floated like a crown, and the number of viewers watching him had already exceeded the hundreds of millions.

Hwang Tae-ja looked down with an arrogant gaze and shouted fiercely.

“Everyone stop! We must unite now. The Selection Match has already been cleared. I will never tolerate any more meaningless sacrifices!”

At his shout, imbued with powerful magic, the hunters who had been fighting like dogs stopped moving for a moment and looked up at him.

However, the silence did not last long.

A hunter clutching a pile of supplies sneered with bloodshot eyes.

“Don’t make me laugh, Hwang Tae-ja! Acting all righteous like that, aren’t you just laying the groundwork to hog all these goods for yourself? Just because you’re Rank 1, you think you’re everything?”

“That’s right! Telling us to keep our hands off while you plan to siphon everything off with the Hunter Bureau kids, right?”

Several hunters nearby chimed in, exuding a fierce aura.

Hunger and fear were endlessly fueling human suspicion.

However, Hwang Tae-ja did not even twitch an eyebrow and replied coldly.

“Do not be mistaken. I do not covet a single one of these supplies. Instead, all the goods remaining here will be distributed exactly per person according to the number of survivors. The Hunter Bureau will manage them fairly.”

As he waved his hand, the hunters belonging to the Hunter Bureau moved in an orderly fashion, securing the supplies and beginning to make a list. Hwang Tae-ja looked down at the hunters once again and bellowed.

“Look above your heads! Have you forgotten that this ugly display is being broadcast live not just to the Republic of Korea, but to the entire world? Do you want to show all of humanity the Korean team biting each other’s throats over a few pieces of food!”

At words that struck their national pride, shame appeared on the hunters’ faces. Hwang Tae-ja added as if driving a wedge.

“Look at the Tower’s behavior right now. It announced the news of the mission clear by country and sounded a fanfare. This is a clear provocation. It means a stage where countries are pitted against each other might come soon! Do you intend to remain divided like this when that time comes? Fighting among ourselves is self-destruction!”

At his firm words, people finally regained their composure. The hunters lowered the weapons they had been holding one by one, and their crazed eyes gradually began to regain reason.

Lee Seong-ha, who was watching the scene from the tent entrance, whispered to Go Gyeol.

“Wow, that hyung-ssi talks a good game. He’s really playing the protagonist, isn’t he? Go Gyeol, was he that righteous in your past, too?”

Go Gyeol indifferently checked the graph of Hwang Tae-ja’s approval rating, which was skyrocketing in real-time on the tablet screen.

“He is righteous. He’s a person who instinctively knows what the public wants and what kind of production the Tower’s system likes.”

Go Gyeol’s gaze was fixed on Hwang Tae-ja, who was floating in the air and showing off the posture of a hero.

‘But he stepped up too early. Why?’

Go Gyeol’s brow furrowed slightly.

Before the regression, Hwang Tae-ja, the Republic of Korea’s Rank 1, did not move at this point. Instead, he was a person who hid behind the crowd, cleverly inciting people’s anxiety and madness, and enjoyed the chaos. Only after the chaos reached its peak and people were tearing each other apart did he appear, wearing the mask of a savior, to settle the board.

But now, it was different. Hwang Tae-ja had ascended to the highest point at the most chaotic moment to control the hunters and solidify his position. It was clearly different from his past behavior.

‘Did that bastard regress too?’

Go Gyeol narrowed his eyes and scanned Hwang Tae-ja, who was floating in the air, from head to toe. From the pattern on the golden light armor he was wearing to the arrogant expression on his lips. Everything external was identical to his past appearance. But the mind working inside was weaving a completely different board.

If he were a regressor, all of Go Gyeol’s plans would be facing a major variable from the start.

At that moment, Kwon Do-geun, who was watching from the side, adjusted his mask and asked cautiously.

“Sajang-nim, it looks like the Hunter Bureau personnel over there are making a distribution list… shouldn’t we go and stand in line too? The supplies are constantly dwindling.”

Then, Lee Seong-ha, the only one who knew what was inside Go Gyeol’s sub-space, chimed in with a scoff.

“Do-geun-ssi. Don’t worry. Our Sajang-nim has billions of won worth of stuff in his pocket that’s much more expensive and delicious than what’s piled up over there. There’s no need to stand in line for such measly rations.”

In fact, before entering the Tower, Go Gyeol had utilized the infinite capacity of his sub-space to store about 2 billion won worth of food and high-end consumables in advance. There was absolutely no reason to stand in line and draw unwanted attention.

However, despite Lee Seong-ha’s bold assurance, Go Gyeol slowly stood up.

“Let’s go.”

“Huh? Hey, Go Gyeol. Are you really going to move? We have supplies rotting away, so why?”

When Lee Seong-ha asked with an expression of disbelief, Go Gyeol stared at the distribution line Hwang Tae-ja had created and replied indifferently.

“We should at least avoid standing out.”

“What?”

“We are the only team in this lobby not standing in that line. To the thousands of people exhausted by hunger and fatigue, there is no target more hateful than someone who looks relaxed. There’s no need to become a target by advertising, ‘We have plenty to eat.'”

Go Gyeol glanced at the eyeballs that were invisible above his own head but were broadcasting in real-time above his colleagues’ heads.

“What the viewers want to see right now is a hero suffering hardships together, not an egoist who is living well alone. We have to blend in and go with the flow.”

At Go Gyeol’s words, Lee Seong-ha clicked his tongue and grabbed his staff.

“You are truly… terrifyingly thorough, friend.”

Go Gyeol moved his feet without replying. He began to blend into the order where the Rank 1 Hwang Tae-ja reigned, appearing as the most ordinary person possible.

If the Hwang Tae-ja shining above was truly a regressor, Go Gyeol became very curious about how he would appear in his eyes.

Hunter Bureau staff distributed the rations with mechanical movements. 10 meat buns, 1 D-rank potion, and 10 thin slices of cooked meat.

Considering the number of 10,000 people, it was by no means a small amount, but it was woefully insufficient to satisfy the hunger of hunters who had just come from battles teetering on the edge of life and death. It was just enough to forget the hunger, far from being filling.

“……Is this really all?”

“We cleared the Selection Match while killing people, and this is all we get?”

Complaints erupted among the hunters who had received their rations first. The sound spread like a wave and reached those standing at the back of the line. In the hostile atmosphere, Kang Hoon looked at Go Gyeol’s expression and opened his mouth. He looked like the words, ‘Can’t we just eat our own stuff?’ were stuck in his throat.

Lee Seong-ha and Kang Ji-hyun also looked down at the ration bags as if it were absurd. Go Gyeol shook his head very slightly toward them.

‘Keep your mouths shut and blend in.’

Just as the party members were about to quietly chew on the buns under the silent pressure, Hwang Tae-ja’s voice, which rang through the entire lobby once again, was heard.

“I know well that the distribution amount does not meet your expectations!”

Hwang Tae-ja’s gaze, looking down at them while floating in the air, was still arrogant and confident.

“But we must face reality coldly. Not all 10,000 people standing here can become the 100 Pioneers. Isn’t that right?”

The murmuring stopped in an instant. There was an irresistible power in Hwang Tae-ja’s voice.

“We must think about the 100 elites who will climb this Tower to the end, rather than our immediate hunger. Only by saving and preserving supplies and concentrating them on those people does humanity have a chance of winning. This one meal you are enduring now will become the lifeline for someone who will reach the 100th floor in the future.”

His logic was perfect. A heroic declaration that one must sacrifice the few, or the present, for the greater cause.

The murmuring people shut their mouths. Even if they couldn’t make it into the 100, a strange sense of debt that they should endure this much for the victory of humanity weighed them down.

However, the hunters’ expressions were all changing strangely.

It wasn’t because they were moved or convinced. It was an expression mixed with blatant greed to become an elite, and anxiety that they might become expendable if they fell behind.

Go Gyeol looked up at Hwang Tae-ja in that bizarre silence.

‘Impressive, Hwang Tae-ja.’

Go Gyeol sneered inwardly. That statement was, in the end, nothing more than a very classy way of packaging the message, ‘You losers should just eat a little, and save the supplies for the real protagonist, me.’

“Hyung, that guy really talks well. Everyone is frozen in place.”

Kang Hoon whispered cautiously. Go Gyeol thought of the top-grade steak and magic recovery stimulants sleeping in his sub-space and replied indifferently.

“It’s not just that he talks well. He’s started to divide people by grade. He’s made those people accept for themselves that from now on, they can only be treated like humans if they make it into the 100.”

Go Gyeol’s gaze was fixed on Hwang Tae-ja again. He needed to confirm if that man, who had become much more cunning and meticulous than before the regression, was truly a regressor, or if this extreme situation had made him this way.

“That’s enough. Let’s go back now.”

At Go Gyeol’s short command, the party members moved. Although the hunters who had received their supplies first were leaving one by one, the Gyeol team’s tent, which was set up majestically in the corner of the lobby, was still drawing everyone’s attention.

Hunters who were sitting on the hard marble floor and chewing on dry buns looked at them with slightly greedy eyes. Someone swallowed their saliva in envy, and someone else revealed blatant hostility, but Go Gyeol let all those gazes slide by indifferently and entered the tent.

Only after the tent’s shielding curtain closed did Kwon Do-geun take off his mask and open his mouth cautiously.

“Sajang-nim, um… their gazes are unusual, is it really okay to keep the tent up? Because of what Hwang Tae-ja said earlier, I’m worried we might be hated for no reason.”

Go Gyeol took a few cold canned coffees out of his sub-space, tossed them to his party members, and nodded.

“It’s fine. The time to pack up the tent will come soon anyway.”

“The time to pack up?”

Lee Seong-ha asked back while opening a canned coffee. Since something that transcended imagination always happened whenever the topic of time came out of Go Gyeol’s mouth, his eyes became serious in an instant.

“Is the Selection Match starting again? What is it this time?”

Instead of answering, Go Gyeol handed the tablet he was holding to Lee Seong-ha. This tablet was a special piece of equipment that the system had granted only to Go Gyeol, the manager, and even the creepy Eyeball Cameras floating above their heads could not broadcast this screen.

As Lee Seong-ha checked the screen, Kang Ji-hyun, Kang Hoon, and Kwon Do-geun also leaned in to examine it.

[Selection Match Stage 3: Bond of Destiny]

[Content: Prove the team that will share life and death with you.]

[Rules: Form and register a team consisting of at least 3 and at most 5 members.]

[Task: Enter the team-exclusive arena and defeat the Guardian of Trials.]