My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 43

========== CHAPTER 43 ==========

“Form a defensive line! Tanks, block the roots in the front, dealers, chop the branches!”

Hunters from other large guilds supported Hwang Tae-ja, desperately pouring out skills.

“!”

“!”

But the vitality of the ancient Ent, which had lived for thousands of years, was beyond imagination.

Kwa-ang-!

As the Ent swung its massive branches like a whip, a dozen tanks holding shields at the front were sent flying, vomiting blood helplessly.

“Aaaack!”

“The formation is collapsing! HP, we’re out of HP!”

Mages poisoned by the spores collapsed, foaming at the mouth before they could even finish casting, and the healers’ healing magic couldn’t keep up with the spread of the poison. A hellish scene unfolded with dozens of elite hunters rolling on the ground, groaning.

“I’ll snap every one of your branches and turn them into firewood!”

In the middle of that gruesome battlefield, only Hwang Tae-ja, despite his face turning pale from the poison spores and vomiting blood, was rushing at the boss while swinging his greatsword.

“Lee Seong-ha, Kang Hoon.”

Gyeol, who had been pretending to catch his breath behind a bush far away, spoke quietly.

“The protagonist isn’t in good shape because of the poison. If he keeps this up and all the other hunters get wiped out, it’ll be a pain for us, so let’s help him out a little.”

“You want us to steal from behind again? Where?”

As Lee Seong-ha asked, Gyeol pointed at the tablet.

“That Ent’s vitality comes from the main root buried in the ground. While Hwang Tae-ja is pruning the branches from above, Hun, you send a curse under the floor to rot just the roots. Seong-ha, you use gravity to pin the roots down so they can’t pop out of the ground.”

“So basically, we’re just tying it up so it can’t even struggle and then beating it.”

Kang Hoon closed his eyes and placed his fingertips on the dirt floor.

“”

The pitch-black curse that seeped in without anyone knowing made the Ent’s roots rot black deep underground.

“Kuaaaaaaaah!”

The Ancient Ent let out a bizarre scream and staggered. To the naked eye, it looked like the impact of Hwang Tae-ja’s or the other hunters’ attacks, but in reality, it had lost its balance because its roots had rotted away underground.

“Now! !!”

Hwang Tae-ja, mistaking the boss’s submission for the result of his own overwhelming martial prowess, delivered the final blow. The giant old tree split in two and fell, and a fanfare announcing the clearing of the 5th floor rang through the forest.

[Notification: 5th Floor Forest of Wailing cleared.]

“Haa…… haa…….”

Hwang Tae-ja knelt down, gasping for breath. Blood was flowing from the corner of his mouth due to the poison, but he forced his head up and showed a haughty victor’s smile toward the eyeball camera. The other hunters who had collapsed on the battlefield also sat down, panting in relief that they had barely survived.

At that moment, the chat window of the 7 billion viewers watching the live broadcast was completely split in two and burning up.

– Honestly, didn’t Hwang Tae-ja troll this floor? The tree didn’t even attack first, but he went around cutting everything, which triggered the poison spores. What is he doing, just wasting the other hunters’ stamina? Is that how you’re supposed to clear it?

– Keyboard warriors are backseat gaming again lol. Hwang Tae-ja-nim had a plan to clear the path, that’s why he cut it. Don’t go around running your mouth at hunters when you’re just a civilian who’s never even been near the Tower.

– No, defend him when it makes sense. The healers and mages are half-crippled because of those poison spores. Being a hero isn’t just about swinging a sword like a brute.

– Still, Hwang Tae-ja soloed the boss in the end! Rank 1 is Rank 1.

People criticizing Hwang Tae-ja’s reckless clearing method and those blindly defending him were clashing violently among the viewers.

Gyeol closed the tablet and checked the hundreds of Spirit Amber pieces piled up in his sub-space.

“The harvest is the best ever. How are everyone’s points?”

At Gyeol’s question, the faces of the party members, who had transparent status windows floating in the air, lit up with undisguised delight.

“It’s insane. The contribution for rotting those tree roots earlier all went to us.”

Lee Seong-ha chuckled and dusted off his priest robe. Gyeol poked Lee Seong-ha in the side and gestured toward the eyeball camera. It took only a split second for Lee Seong-ha to return to his gentle, dignified priest persona, but his eyes couldn’t hide his annoyance.

“I leveled up twice in a row. I got plenty of skill points, too.”

“Me too.”

Kang Ji-hyun also tried to manage her expression, pretending to be aloof, but satisfaction dripped from her voice.

“With this many skill points, it was worth rolling around in that moldy-smelling forest coughing. I can enter the high-grade mana tier.”

“Same here. I have enough leeway to invest in strengthening water pressure.”

Kwon Do-geun also nodded, smiling with his eyes behind his mask.

While others were drinking poison spores and dying while serving as Hwang Tae-ja’s background extras, they had sucked up the boss’s prime experience and rewards without leaving a crumb.

Kang Hoon, pretending to wipe off sweat, looked around and whispered quietly.

“Gyeol-hyung, but…”

“Why.”

“The Tower… it’s more doable than I thought, right? At first, I really thought we were all going to die, but since we’ve just been doing what you told us, we’ve come this far without shedding a drop of blood. If we keep going like this, we’ll hit the 100th floor in no time.”

Kwon Do-geun and Kang Ji-hyun, who were drinking water next to him, also nodded. They were mentally tired from acting out the extreme situation, but there hadn’t been a single moment of actual danger. Instead of the initial fear, complacent confidence was seeping into the party members’ faces.

Gyeol’s eyes sank coldly as he watched them. He delivered one low, pointed remark.

“Don’t get it twisted.”

“……Yes?”

“We’re only on the 5th floor. These are the low floors.”

Gyeol gestured toward the next staircase, shrouded in darkness.

“The Tower is a place where the difficulty increases the higher you go. We’re meeting bosses easily now, but that will change as we go up.”

At his heavy, chilling warning, the party members calmed their excited hearts and gulped dryly. Their spirits, which had been on the verge of becoming complacent, were sharpened once again.

As they climbed the spiral staircase shrouded in darkness, contrary to their expectations, there was no sign of monsters or a musty smell. Instead, the view opened up, and a massive circular aerial garden flooded with soft light appeared. It was a beautiful space where the night sky outside was clearly visible.

[Notification: You have entered the 5.5th floor intermediate rest terrace.]

[Notification: We will now begin the 1st round elimination announcement and intermediate ranking notification.]

“Elimination announcement? Are the voting results coming out already?”

Kang Ji-hyun muttered in a tense voice. A massive holographic billboard flashed and appeared in the air, and the ranking of the clearing speed by country appeared first.

[Clearing Speed Ranking by Country for 5th Floor]

1st: Republic of Korea

2nd: USA

3rd: China

“Waaaaah!”

“We’re 1st! We’re 1st!”

Thunderous cheers erupted among the Korean hunters gathered on the terrace.

Hunters hugged each other and enjoyed the thrill of the fact that they had taken 1st place in the world with overwhelming speed.

However, the joy was short-lived; the atmosphere on the terrace froze as if cold water had been poured on it at the following announcement.

[Individual Overall Ranking (Cumulative Contribution and Viewer Vote Combined)]

1st: Richard Sterling (USA)

2nd: Chloe Bennett (USA)

3rd: Michael Dawson (USA)

4th: Sakamoto Kenji (Japan)

5th: Liu Weifeng (China)

……

11th: Hwang Tae-ja (Republic of Korea)

“Uh……?”

The mouths of the cheering hunters dropped open. It was because the name of South Korea’s pride, Hwang Tae-ja, whom they naturally assumed would be the overwhelming world No. 1, was stuck at 11th place, outside the top 10. The top ranks were even completely dominated by the US.

Hwang Tae-ja himself was also staring intently at the holographic billboard as if he couldn’t believe it.

He gripped the hilt of the greatsword he was holding with enough force to make it creak.

“I’m…… only 11th?”

“No, what is this? Hwang Tae-ja-nim caught the boss, so why is he only 11th!”

Hunters belonging to the Hunter Bureau murmured in confusion. In a corner of the plaza, Lee Seong-ha, who was watching the scene, poked Gyeol in the side.

“Hey, what’s going on here? The clearing speed is 1st, so why is the individual ranking like that?”

Gyeol smirked and crossed his arms.

“The Tower’s ranking isn’t just a ranking of martial prowess. It’s the result of combining contribution and viewer votes. Don’t you remember him blowing away the front-line tanks and using skills back on the 4th floor just to stand out by himself? Plus, he even played teacher, telling the fallen hunters to hide in the back if they were weak.”

At Gyeol’s sharp analysis, the party members nodded.

“Top-tier kids from other countries like Richard or Sakamoto would have thoroughly acted like likable heroes while watching the viewers, even if they caught the boss the same way. They would have taken care of their colleagues and given humble interviews. On the other hand, Hwang Tae-ja, while strong, has steadily stacked up ‘dislike’ points with his arrogance. That’s the cold evaluation the public has made.”

It was then. The holographic billboard in the air turned blood-red, and an eerie mechanical sound rang through the terrace.

[Notification: 1st round elimination execution begins.]

[Reason: Cumulative dislikes exceeding 100,000 and insufficient contribution]

[Republic of Korea Sector Eliminated: 3 people]

“Eliminated……? W-wait a minute! Why am I eliminated!”

“Please save me! I just did what I was told and acted as a meat shield in the front!”

The three hunters whose names were called on the billboard sat down on the floor with pale, terrified faces. They were the ones who hadn’t performed properly since the 1st floor, hiding in the back or getting into selfish arguments with other hunters, which had put them in the viewers’ bad books.

“Eliminated…… are they just sending us home?”

“What a waste. We came up to the 5th floor together.”

“Still, going home might be better than dying.”

It was when surrounding hunters were murmuring and sending sympathetic gazes.

Seu-eu-eu-geuk—.

The space in the air distorted, and a thick black mist rose up. And from within that mist, three massive black scythes, curved bizarrely like those of the Grim Reaper, revealed their forms without a sound.

“……Huh?”

The moment one of the eliminated hunters made a foolish sound while looking at the scythes floating in the air.

Seo-gak—!!!

The black scythes sliced through the air at a speed so overwhelming that not even the sound of the air being torn could be heard.

“……!!”

The three heads that soared into the air dropped to the floor with a thud, thud-thud sound.

Blood erupted like a fountain from the severed necks, staining the marble floor red. The three headless corpses then finally collapsed limply.