My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 45

========== CHAPTER 45 ==========

Hwang Tae-ja was the poster boy for the Hunter Bureau. In other words, his title as Rank 1 was a manufactured badge of a hero, created by the Hunter Bureau by hand-picking perfectly controlled and safe dungeons to push him through. Unlike the wild rankers who had truly crossed the line of death, he was a flower in a greenhouse that had only shown off his martial prowess on a well-scripted stage.

“Do you get it now? He doesn’t know how to hide in a real crisis situation. That’s because he’s always had the Hunter Bureau watching his back.”

A strange silence settled inside the tent at Go Gyeol’s chilling analysis.

Kwon Do-geun and Kang Ji-hyun also finally had faces that perfectly understood where Hwang Tae-ja’s deformed hero complex originated. The true face, hidden behind the number 1, was being completely dismantled by Go Gyeol’s single remark.

“Now, the explanation is over, so hurry and get inside the finished tent.”

Go Gyeol gestured with his chin while opening the zipper of the tent where the mattress was laid out. Just as the party members were about to drag their heavy bodies into the tent, several shadows approached them silently from the darkness.

Their footsteps, approaching while perfectly killing their presence, were distinctly different from the general hunters bustling noisily in the lobby. Kang Hoon, who had been looking outside the tent, flinched and muttered in a small voice.

“Holy… speak of the devil.”

It was the heavy, sharp aura unique to the real rankers Go Gyeol had just mentioned—the ones who wouldn’t act rashly and were waiting for the right moment. It was when a tense Kang Ji-hyun and Kwon Do-geun were about to reach for their weapons.

“Hey, who’s this? Isn’t that Lee Seong-ha?”

“Seong-ha hyung-nim! You really were alive!”

The ones leading the group that revealed their faces from the darkness reached out their hands to Lee Seong-ha in greeting. The eyes of the party members widened as they recognized their faces.

They were the top-tier rankers between 2nd and 10th place, led by Republic of Korea Rank 2 Eunchang Seo Tae-woong, Rank 4 Geumgang Park Do-jin, and Rank 7 Viper Cha Su-a. The real monsters who quietly performed their duties while Hwang Tae-ja hogged the spotlight had come to find them on their own feet.

“Oh! Seo Tae-woong! Park Do-jin! Even Cha Su-a is here? You all didn’t kick the bucket and are still alive?”

Lee Seong-ha reassured the wary party members and approached them with a bright face. It was because they were close comrades-in-arms with whom he had shared blood while crossing the line of death back when he was rolling roughly in the hunter scene.

“You guys managed to hide well. Then again, knowing your personalities, you wouldn’t follow behind the number 1’s tail just to get one more piece of bread over there.”

Lee Seong-ha laughed heartily and bumped fists with his old colleagues.

The pleasant greetings lasted only a moment before Rank 7 Cha Su-a scanned Lee Seong-ha’s attire up and down as if puzzled and asked.

“But oppa. Didn’t you say you quit everything and went into the cathedral to become a priest? Why did you suddenly become a hunter again and crawl into this hellish tower? And you even went out of your way to wear that cumbersome priest’s robe.”

Rank 2 Seo Tae-woong also looked at Lee Seong-ha with sharp eyes and nodded.

“My point exactly. It’s not like you’re the type of person to wear those stuffy clothes and pray quietly, hyung-nim.”

Lee Seong-ha glanced sideways at Go Gyeol standing behind him.

In his heart, he wanted to shout to the whole world, ‘I was forcibly dragged here because I got blackmailed by that vicious scammer bastard!’ However, conscious of the eyeball camera obsessively filming him from above and Go Gyeol’s chilling gaze, Lee Seong-ha cleared his throat.

Soon, a smile of an infinitely benevolent and holy saint spread across his face.

“All of this is… the path guided by the Lord to save the lost little lambs. Because even in the deep darkness of the tower, light is rightfully needed.”

It was a perfect performance conscious of the camera. The rankers, including Seo Tae-woong, Park Do-jin, and Cha Su-a, were momentarily dumbfounded by that brazen answer. They looked as if they doubted their own eyes, wondering if this was really the same Lee Seong-ha who used to have profanity on his lips and go around smashing monster heads.

However, Lee Seong-ha immediately leaned his head in at an angle not caught by the eyeball camera and lowered his voice so that only his old colleagues could hear.

“…Enough of that bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

Lee Seong-ha asked with a smirk.

“There’s no way slippery bastards like you crawled all the way here just to say hello. What’s the real reason you high-and-mighty rankers showed up here in a group? Stop talking nonsense and tell me straight what you need.”

At Lee Seong-ha’s blunt question, the rankers shifted their gazes and glanced at Go Gyeol standing in front of the tent. Rank 2 Seo Tae-woong, scratching the back of his head as if embarrassed, cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

“To be honest… we came because we wanted to buy some items from the Space Hunter hyung-nim standing back there.”

“Items? What items?”

“Tents and groceries. And mostly proper daily necessities.”

At those words, Lee Seong-ha raised his eyebrows as if it were absurd.

“You guys are rankers by name, so you didn’t bring anything? You came empty-handed?”

Then, Rank 4 Park Do-jin clicked his tongue as if it were ridiculous.

“Hyung-nim, did you really forget what hunters bring when entering a dungeon after playing priest in the cathedral for so long? What kind of crazy bastard brings a house-sized tent, shampoo, conditioner, and a barbecue set to a selection match where you’re fighting for your life? At most, you just pack some compressed combat rations and a few potions.”

Hearing it, it was a perfectly valid point. Lee Seong-ha burst into laughter before he knew it. Come to think of it, logically, Go Gyeol, who had moved an entire mart into the dungeon, was the abnormal one, and they were the normal ones.

Lee Seong-ha turned around and gestured with his chin toward Go Gyeol.

“Hey, boss. You heard them, right? These poor high-and-mighty rankers say they need a few things, do you have any leftovers you can give them?”

Go Gyeol stared quietly at the faces of the rankers. Memories from before his regression flashed through his mind.

Among them, the only ones who would remain in the Republic of Korea sector until the end and climb the tower were Rank 2 Seo Tae-woong, Rank 4 Park Do-jin, and Rank 8 Lee Hyun-cheol. The rest of the rankers would all soon emigrate overseas for the sake of the tower’s pressure and their own gain.

However, there was no need to cast them out or treat them poorly from the start and leave a bad impression because of a future that hadn’t arrived yet. Above all, this was a live broadcast being watched by hundreds of millions of viewers. If he were to bicker over a few pennies or act stingy with goods, he might be hated by the viewers watching through those eyeballs.

If he could imprint an image on the hunters and the public that he was willing to share with other hunters even in a crisis with just a few tents and groceries, it would be an overwhelmingly profitable deal.

Go Gyeol nodded slowly.

“I don’t need money.”

With his calm declaration, the air rippled, and a couple of high-grade magic shielding tents, various fresh groceries, and neat sets of daily necessities were stacked up on the floor. The eyes of the rankers, who had come carrying only survival backpacks, widened.

“Wow, you’re really not taking any money? You’re generous, boss!”

“Thank you! We really owe you one!”

The top-tier rankers, famous for being arrogant, bowed their heads to Go Gyeol repeatedly, forgetting their pride, and expressed their gratitude. It was when the area around the tent became noisy with rankers sharing the goods.

The gaze of one person among the group, who was silently packing items, quietly reached Go Gyeol. It was the Republic of Korea Rank 6, Ju Gi-jin.

Even among the many rankers, he, whose presence was particularly faint, was staring directly at Go Gyeol with cold eyes. Go Gyeol frowned slightly at Ju Gi-jin’s gaze, which seemed to be trying to see through something.

Ju Gi-jin, having received Go Gyeol’s wary gaze, nodded as if he had looked over just to say hello.

Then, he immediately withdrew his gaze and naturally joined the ranks of the rankers who were noisily packing tents and food as if nothing had happened.

Go Gyeol could not easily smooth out his furrowed brow as he watched his back disappear into the crowd.

Inside the tent, sitting on the soft mattress, Go Gyeol was ruminating on the cold gaze Ju Gi-jin had left behind a moment ago.

Before his regression, Ju Gi-jin was the first among the top-tier rankers in the Republic of Korea to emigrate to the United States. Starting with him, numerous hunters turned their backs on their motherland like dominoes.

Of course, he knew that even without him, there were many who were secretly preparing to defect, but it was a clear fact that Ju Gi-jin had acted as the catalyst for that massive exodus.

However, there was another reason why Go Gyeol could not erase him from his mind.

Before his regression, Ju Gi-jin was the most capable hunter Go Gyeol had discovered and managed himself, and… the traitor who had eventually pierced Go Gyeol’s heart, and the mastermind who had pushed for Ju-yeong’s immigration to the US from behind the scenes.

At the moment of his death, the face of Ju-yeong looking down at him in his coldly fading vision and the shadow of Ju Gi-jin standing behind him rose vividly.

Go Gyeol clenched his fist tightly. The look in Ju Gi-jin’s eyes when he was looking at him outside the tent earlier was not simply curiosity toward a rare F-class Space Hunter. It was a strange gaze that seemed to be exploring something deeper and more secret.

‘Hwang Tae-ja and Ju Gi-jin.’

Go Gyeol placed the two names side by side in his mind. Hwang Tae-ja, who was ignoring the scheduled script and stepping excessively into the center of the stage, and Ju Gi-jin, who was already casting meaningful glances. They were two people whose trajectories were clearly different from before his regression.

Was all this misalignment simply a butterfly effect created by him twisting the past? Or was there something else he didn’t know about on this massive chessboard?

It was when Go Gyeol was lost in deep thought, chilling the temperature inside the tent.

“Move aside. I need to wash up.”

“Hiiik! Noona, wait a second! Stop!”

Kang Hoon desperately held back Kang Ji-hyun, who was just about to approach Go Gyeol, with a pale face. Kang Ji-hyun frowned deeply as if she were dumbfounded and glared at Kang Hoon.

“What’s wrong with you, suddenly? I’m dying of discomfort because I’m covered in dust. I need to get a toiletry set and cleansing foam from that guy.”

“No, the boss looks like he’s in a really bad mood right now!”

Kang Hoon whispered as if he were out of breath, glancing at Go Gyeol.

“Can’t you see the killing intent radiating from there? He has an expression like he’s recalling some enemy. If you talk to him now, Noona, you might get a death sentence instead of a toiletry set!”

“Killing intent or whatever, I need to wash, so let go.”

“Ah, seriously, please! Just for today, don’t wash, just for today! I feel like Noona’s life will be washed away first if you do!”

Kang Hoon clung to Kang Ji-hyun’s arm, almost on the verge of tears. Kang Ji-hyun was annoyed, but she hesitated after catching a glimpse of Go Gyeol’s eyes, which had sunk scarily as if he were about to tear the empty air in front of him to shreds. Although she was near-germaphobic, touching Go Gyeol right now seemed like a dangerous act that didn’t balance out the cost-benefit.

“…Damn it, so annoying.”

In the end, Kang Ji-hyun gave up on washing her face, ruffled her hair roughly, and went back to her mattress and flopped down. Kang Hoon let out a sigh of relief only then, stroking his chest.

As 12 hours of rest time passed, one wall of the pure white terrace cracked open, and a magnificent stone staircase leading upward revealed itself.