My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 42

========== CHAPTER 42 ==========

After hours of a war of attrition, the hunters were in a wretched state. The hunters from the large guilds, who had been spamming flashy magic and skills early on to grab the cameras’ attention, were panting and constantly collapsing to the floor due to mana exhaustion. On the other hand, Go Gyeol’s party members, who had strictly limited their skill usage under Go Gyeol’s thorough acting instructions, were only pretending to be exhausted on the outside, while their actual stamina and mana remained fully preserved.

“The Lord’s trials are truly long and arduous. (Hey, Go Gyeol. I’m seriously going crazy having to just swing this club so tamely.)”

Lee Seong-ha approached, pretending to gasp for air, and grumbled in a whisper. Go Gyeol took fatigue recovery capsules out of his subspace, slipped them into his party members’ hands, and replied in a low voice.

“We’re almost there. Seeing the mana fluctuations churning ahead, it looks like the boss room has opened.”

Just as Go Gyeol said, once the narrow passage ended, a massive circular underground cemetery revealed itself. And in the center, the ruler of the 4th floor was waiting, sitting upon a giant throne woven from bones.

[Boss Monster: Executioner of the Abyss]

“Grrr….”

A 5-meter-tall skeleton knight emitting blue eye-light stood up, wielding a giant greatsword and a skull shield. The hunters, exhausted by the thick killing intent the monster exuded, hesitated and stepped back.

However, the one who tore through that fear was, as expected, Hwang Tae-ja.

“Everyone stand back! You look exhausted from dealing with the small fry, so I’ll cleanly sever this guy’s head!”

Dazzling golden mana exploded from Hwang Tae-ja’s entire body. The appearance of a hero trying to perfectly monopolize the camera’s focus. He gestured toward the tanker hunters who had been risking their lives to form a defensive line to block the Death Knight’s advance earlier.

“You’re all in the way, so get back! Unless you want to get swept up in my sword energy.”

The exhausted tankers bit their lips at Hwang Tae-ja’s arrogant attitude, but they were pushed back by the overwhelming pressure of the boss and slowly gave him space.

In that split second, Go Gyeol quietly placed his hand on Kang Hun’s shoulder in the darkness.

“Kang Hun, use a thin layer of Corrosion only on the skull shield and knee joints he’s holding.”

“Yes? Ah, okay! ”

Without catching anyone’s eye, a very faint black shadow flowed along the floor and seeped into the Death Knight’s shield and lower body. He had secretly applied a debuff so that Hwang Tae-ja could land a perfect, clean one-shot, one-kill.

“This is the light that will save humanity! !!!”

The golden cross that erupted from Hwang Tae-ja’s greatsword rushed toward the Death Knight. The Death Knight raised its shield to block the attack, but the shield, its durability already rotted away by Kang Hun’s curse, crumbled like paper the moment it touched Hwang Tae-ja’s sword energy.

-Kwaaaaang!!!

With an overwhelming flash, the Death Knight’s upper body was shattered to pieces.

It was a perfect, clean victory without a single hunter getting hurt, truly without a single flaw. As the smoke from the explosion cleared, Hwang Tae-ja stood with his back to the crumbling remains of the boss, rested his greatsword on his shoulder, and stared directly into the eyeball camera.

“Did you see? The weak ones just need to open the path behind me. I will conquer this tower.”

It was a flashy line that seemed to flaunt the leisure of a victor. As if the hard work of the other hunters who had risked their lives to clear the path to the boss room didn’t matter, he praised only his own martial prowess and wore an arrogant smile.

Wow… God Tae-ja’s DPS is insane. He just tore through the boss’s shield like paper.

His skill is truly flawless. He really is the overwhelming #1.

But isn’t his way of speaking really annoying? He talks like he did it all himself.

Yeah, calling them ‘small fry’… The other hunters were bleeding and clearing the path in front of him.

Honestly, I acknowledge his skill, but his expression and attitude are so arrogant that I don’t like him. He’s way too into playing the hero alone.

‘The weak ones stay in the back,’ seriously? Won’t he just abandon his teammates later? It’s really uncomfortable to watch.

“Ho-ho.”

A deep curve formed on the lips of Go Gyeol, who was checking real-time public opinion on his tablet.

Despite showing off perfect martial prowess, malicious comments began to appear one by one in the chat window that had been filled with blind praise. It was a perfect hunt without a single mistake, but the public had begun to grow tired of Hwang Tae-ja’s arrogant attitude of ignoring others’ dedication and trying to hog the spotlight.

“Hey, Go Gyeol. Hwang Tae-ja, that guy, he’s acting like a total idol in front of the camera. Look at him posing.”

Lee Seong-ha whispered, clicking his tongue.

“Leave him be. That’s the picture I wanted.”

Go Gyeol closed the tablet and put it into his subspace.

“The public likes a perfect and strong hero, but at the same time, they possess a contradictory desire to tear down arrogant bastards. The more Hwang Tae-ja acts all high and mighty on his own, the more the public will harbor a backlash, wanting to punish that arrogance.”

At Go Gyeol’s cold analysis, the party members felt goosebumps anew. Hwang Tae-ja might think he was writing the narrative of a perfect hero, but in reality, he was steadily accumulating the public’s hatred on a stage where Go Gyeol was merely a bystander.

[Notification: 4th Floor Labyrinth of the Dead cleared.]

[The door to the next floor is opening.]

One wall of the lobby collapsed, revealing a spiral staircase leading to the 5th floor.

“Let’s go.”

Leaving behind the back of Hwang Tae-ja, who was drunk on his own flashy strike and receiving a barrage of camera attention, the Gyeol party quietly began to climb the stairs in the darkness with the footsteps of perfect, transparent extras who didn’t attract anyone’s gaze.

As they climbed the spiral staircase to the 5th floor, damp and acrid air that stung their noses assaulted the hunters.

The place that revealed itself as their vision brightened was a gloomy jungle densely packed with ancient trees so large they blocked the sky.

A thick purple mist that rose to their ankles covered the ground, and the bizarrely twisted branches of the trees looked down at the hunters as if they were human hands.

[Notification: You have entered the 5th Floor, Forest of Wailing.]

[Task: Break through the center of the forest and defeat the Corrupted Ancient Ent.]

“Ugh, why does it smell like this here too? The moldy smell is no joke.”

Lee Seong-ha pinched his nose and frowned. Kang Ji-hyun also looked disgusted and covered her nose and mouth with her collar.

But before the complaints could last long, Hwang Tae-ja, who was in the lead, drew his greatsword without hesitation again.

“If there’s no path, I’ll just make one! Follow me!”

The golden sword energy that erupted from Hwang Tae-ja’s greatsword cut down the massive trees in front of him entirely. With a roaring sound of Kwaaaaang!, the giant trees fell, and a wide, straight path was cleared.

“Ooh! As expected of Hwang Tae-ja-nim!”

“He’s just pushing through! Let’s go, keep up!”

The hunters cheered at Hwang Tae-ja’s overwhelming breakthrough power and began to cut down trees along with him.

The 7 billion viewers were also enthusiastic about the flashy and refreshing development.

However, in the very back of the group, walking with leisure, Go Gyeol’s eyes saw Hwang Tae-ja’s actions as nothing more than a foolish suicide attempt.

“Stupid. Does he not know what happens if you poke the forest like that?”

Simultaneously with Go Gyeol’s low mutter, thick purple powders began to pour out like a waterfall from the cross-sections of the cut-down ancient trees.

“Cough! Ack!”

“Argh! My eyes sting! I can’t breathe!”

The hunters who were closely following Hwang Tae-ja collapsed one by one, spitting blood. It was a highly toxic paralytic spore that erupted whenever the ancient trees were destroyed.

Hwang Tae-ja, who was in the lead, also frowned after being covered in the toxic spores, but he did not stop his charge, forcibly pushing away the poison with the overwhelming mana of a Rank 1 hunter.

“Hyung! Those toxic spores are coming our way too!”

When Kang Hun shouted in fear, Go Gyeol pushed his party members into the bushes against the wall.

“Do-geun-ssi, cast a thin water film filter around our faces. Seong-ha, you use gravity to press the spores down to the floor so they can’t cross over our heads. Don’t make it obvious, do it naturally.”

“Got it.”

Lee Seong-ha grumbled but lightly tapped his staff on the ground. As the gravity around the party members became minutely heavier, the toxic spores that were about to engulf them seemed to hit an invisible wall and sank to the floor. Above that, the thin water mask created by Kwon Do-geun perfectly protected the party members’ respiratory tracts.

“Now, start coughing. Pretend you’re enduring it very painfully and with great difficulty.”

As soon as Go Gyeol’s instruction fell, the party members, as if on cue, grabbed their chests and began to cough, pouring out exaggerated coughs. Kang Hun even crawled on the floor and shed a few tears, and Kang Ji-hyun also leaned on Lee Seong-ha’s shoulder, pretending to stagger, and moved with difficulty.

Go Gyeol glanced at the stumps of the trees that Hwang Tae-ja had ignorantly cut down.

Near the roots where the ancient trees had been cut, lustrous green gemstones, Spirit Amber, the essence of the forest condensed, were sparkling. They were top-grade mana recovery potions worth tens of millions of won each and were the true hidden reward of the 5th floor.

Hwang Tae-ja and the other hunters were busy fighting the toxic spores and charging forward, so they didn’t even notice the gems rolling on the floor.

“See that? Everyone, pick them up without being noticed.”

“……Yes? Yes.”

Kang Hun finally realized Go Gyeol’s intention. Go Gyeol was walking among the party members who were acting like they were panting and falling behind, and he was secretly kicking the amber up with his toes and popping them into his invisible subspace. Because the eyeball cameras were focused on the faces of the party members who were suffering while coughing, they couldn’t capture the secret treasure-sweeping happening under Go Gyeol’s feet at all.

‘Go Gyeol-hyung. This devilish person.’

While shuddering at the thought that Seong-ha-hyung didn’t call him a devil for nothing, Kang Hun diligently picked up the amber as told.

Kang Hun and the party members pretended to cough violently while picking up the Spirit Amber and handing them to Go Gyeol.

It was a perfect division of labor where the honor and spotlight went to Hwang Tae-ja, who was fighting while covered in poison in the front, and the practical wealth and safety went to Go Gyeol’s party, who were following behind in a pathetic manner.

Kugugugung—!

Not long after, a roaring sound of the earth splitting came from the center of the forest. Finally, the 5th-floor boss, the Corrupted Ancient Ent, enraged by Hwang Tae-ja’s ignorant logging, had pulled up its massive roots and risen.