My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 35

========== CHAPTER 35 ==========

As Seong-ha glared at him with sharp eyes, Go Gyeol chuckled and retorted.

“From the family’s perspective, it’s a natural reaction, isn’t it? Which parent would smile and welcome their child back when they went into a dungeon where they might die?”

“That’s true, but… haah, what are you going to do about the aftermath?”

Lee Seong-ha let out another deep sigh, then suddenly seemed to remember something and threw a question at Go Gyeol.

“What about you? Did you tell your family?”

Instead of answering, Go Gyeol simply shrugged lightly. At that indifferent reaction, Lee Seong-ha’s brow furrowed even deeper.

“Still in that state? You haven’t reconciled?”

At Lee Seong-ha’s blunt question, Go Gyeol stared at the darkness outside the window with indifferent eyes.

“What reconciliation at this age? It’s not like we fought, so where’s the reason to reconcile? We just live without seeing each other.”

Seong-ha shook his head as if annoyed, then buried himself deep into the sofa and muttered.

“Seriously… I don’t know why those people even adopted you if this is how it’s going to be. They’re masters at hurting people’s feelings.”

Seong-ha’s words were more like a lament than a sharp remark.

As if not wanting to step deeper into that conversation, Go Gyeol opened his inventory instead of answering and placed the long wooden box he had received from the blacksmith shop earlier onto the table.

Thud.

A heavy sound echoed through the quiet office. Seong-ha’s eyes immediately sparkled with curiosity.

“What’s that? New equipment you bought?”

“I don’t know if it’s equipment, but the owner of the black market blacksmith shop just threw it at me, telling me to take it.”

Go Gyeol briefly explained the strange situation where Vargas and Elin, upon seeing the White Jade, were terrified and started causing a commotion about needing to prepare to move. Seong-ha’s expression subtly changed as he listened.

“Those legendary old folks got scared by a single White Jade? Give it here.”

Receiving the White Jade from Go Gyeol, Seong-ha held it up to the light, tapped it with his fingers, and examined it from all angles. Feeling a cold yet unpleasant pulse from the jade, Seong-ha frowned and asked.

“Did you ask that damn System? What the hell this thing is?”

“Don’t even mention it. Lately that system bastard doesn’t give any missions, and when I ask anything, there’s no answer. It’s dead.”

At Go Gyeol’s grumbling, Seong-ha let out a hollow laugh and clicked his tongue.

“When it regressed you, it was all active, and now it’s leaving you to fend for yourself? It’s a real master, isn’t it.”

Seong-ha tossed the White Jade back to Go Gyeol and shifted his gaze to the box on the table.

“If the system’s keeping its mouth shut, we’ll have to check it ourselves. Hey, hurry up and open that box. I’m dying to know what’s inside that that grumpy old man threw in as a bonus.”

Go Gyeol unlocked the wooden box and slowly lifted the lid. At that moment, a wave of hot air, as if it had just come out of a furnace, burst out through the crack in the box.

“Whoa…”

An exclamation of admiration naturally escaped Lee Seong-ha’s lips. Inside the box, a sword with a reddish-black blade lay quietly. As if spellbound, Lee Seong-ha reached out and grasped the hilt of the sword.

“What is this? The weight is no joke.”

Lee Seong-ha lifted the sword and lightly swung it through the air. Along with a dull air wave, the heat clinging to the blade left a red afterimage. The blade, so sharp it was hard to look at directly, absorbed the fluorescent light and gave off an unpleasant gleam.

“What grade is this? At a glance, it seems like it could easily surpass S-rank.”

“I don’t know either. It’s a sword I’ve never seen before.”

Go Gyeol answered while staring at the sword. His eyes narrowed slightly. Before the regression, Go Gyeol had traversed countless battlefields and knew all the swords used by hunters and the famous blades of the black market. But this sword did not exist anywhere in his memory. It was an item that had not appeared in the world before the regression.

Go Gyeol recalled in turn: Vargas’s terrified reaction about needing to pack up, Elin’s exasperated sigh, and the White Jade that had regressed him. The moment the fragmented pieces of information connected into a single line in his mind, Go Gyeol gritted his teeth without realizing it.

“Hey, Go Gyeol? Why do you look like that? Are you sick?”

Seong-ha put down the sword and asked with concern. With a trembling hand, Go Gyeol pointed at the White Jade on the table and muttered lowly.

“Seong-ha. I don’t think this appeared only in the human world.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world they came from, the homeland of the elves and dwarves. The White Jade appeared there too. And what happened after that… it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Go Gyeol’s gaze turned to the sword Vargas had given him.

“This isn’t just equipment. It’s probably like a final legacy that a craftsman created with his life on the line just before that world perished. Vargas just tossing this to me…”

Go Gyeol paused and looked at Seong-ha.

“It’s a warning that our world will soon follow the same steps as theirs.”

The playfulness vanished from Lee Seong-ha’s face in an instant; moments ago he had been marveling at the sword’s performance. The air in the office sank heavily as if frozen. Lee Seong-ha looked back and forth between the White Jade and the red sword, swallowing dryly. His eyes sank with unprecedented seriousness.

“Shouldn’t we go back to that old man and ask?”

At Seong-ha’s question accompanied by a chin gesture toward the box, Go Gyeol firmly shook his head.

“If he had planned to give an answer, he wouldn’t have told me to take this and get lost. They’re preparing to leave too. Going now would just be a waste of breath.”

Go Gyeol carefully placed the sword back into the wooden box on the table. The sound of the lid closing echoed heavily. Seong-ha stared at the box and asked again.

“So what are you going to do now? It seems like this is way bigger than expected.”

“I’m already on a runaway train. Can I even stop it now? If I stop, it’ll just overturn. I’ll go with the plan as is.”

“But what if we go beyond the floor you remember? From then on, you don’t know anything either. It’s like walking into a death trap without a map.”

At Seong-ha’s worried words, Go Gyeol replied calmly.

“Then we’ll just have to face whatever comes. What other choice is there? It’s kill or be killed.”

Go Gyeol neatly placed the wooden box into his inventory space. Then, without hiding his tired expression, he leaned back in his chair.

“Stop thinking about it and go rest. There’s no need to waste energy on things that haven’t happened yet.”

Seong-ha chewed over Go Gyeol’s seemingly indifferent yet reassuring answer and was lost in thought for a moment. Then he nodded as if understanding.

“Yeah, you’re right. There’s a verse in the Bible like that: ‘No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.'”

Seong-ha’s low, calm voice seemed to lift the heavy air in the office a little. Go Gyeol stared silently at Seong-ha, saying nothing. At the strange gaze, Seong-ha tilted his head and asked.

“Why? Is there something on my face?”

“No. It’s the first time you’ve looked like a real priest to me.”

No sooner had those words left his mouth than the sacred atmosphere from moments ago was instantly shattered. Seong-ha swung his fist indignantly and shouted.

“You bastard! When was I ever a fake priest? I actually care about you and give you advice, and this is what I get…!”

“Okay, okay, so take your fist away. What’s the use of a priest wielding violence?”

“This is a love tap, you punk!”

The bickering conversation between the two continued, pushing the ominous foreboding from the black market to the background for a while. Outside the window, the bluish hue of dawn was already settling in.

Two days later, after receiving a short text saying the item was finished, Go Gyeol visited the blacksmith shop at the end of that dim alley again. But unlike before, the door of the blacksmith shop was cold and firmly shut. In front of the door, only an old wooden box lay abandoned, and a roughly scribbled note was stuck on top of it.

[Anyone other than the owner who touches this will die instantly. – Vargas]

Go Gyeol let out a wry laugh and tore off the note. It was a farewell just like that old man, right up to the end. Just in case, he pounded on the heavy iron door a few times, but not even the sound of a single ant passing could be heard from inside. It seemed that Elin, Vargas, and even the dwarf Duran had already left this place.

Without a word, Go Gyeol picked up the box and left the black market.

Exactly 5 minutes before the Tower assault began.

The air in the office was suffocatingly heavy. Go Gyeol’s party members were each adjusting their weapons with determined expressions, but their gazes were fixed on the screen of Go Gyeol’s tablet PC on the table. On the screen, the scene in front of the Tower, which had drawn the attention of the entire world, was being broadcast live. Selected hunters, crowds seeing them off and cheering, and reporters’ feverish attempts to get just one more word mixed together, creating pure chaos.

“…Gyeol, are we really okay staying here?”

Kang Hoon, who was watching the chaotic scene on the screen, swallowed dryly and asked.

“We’ve already been selected among the 100. Once registered in the ranking system, no matter where we are, we’ll be forcibly summoned into the Tower at the appointed time. There’s no need to waste energy mingling in that hellish crowd.”

At Go Gyeol’s calm answer, the party members steeled themselves in their own ways. At Go Gyeol’s remark that it was time to prepare to go in, Lee Seong-ha adjusted his armor and grumbled.

“Ha, having to live wearing this stuffy armor until we break through the 10th floor… I’m already feeling hopeless. This priest’s body is going to break out in heat rash.”

Next to him, Kang Hoon was gripping his lightning-struck wooden staff so hard his knuckles turned white. His rough breathing clearly showed his tension. Kang Ji-hyun silently tied her long wavy hair neatly, adjusted her clothes, and calmly waited for the summon.

Go Gyeol turned his gaze and approached Kwon Do-geun, who was wearing a mask pulled down low in the corner. Then he held out the mysterious box he had brought from the blacksmith shop earlier.

“What is this?”