[Special Floor Ranking Announcement]
[1st] Republic of Korea 100%
[2nd] United States 48%
[3rd] China 33%
……
[First place nation receives a 15% Tower reward increase for one month!]
[First clear nation receives a System Blessing! (5% cooldown reduction)]
Seo I-an and Hong Je-hun — both with skill-heavy cooldown rotations — looked satisfied.
Park Si-woo and Lim Hyeon-jin — for whom a 5% cooldown reduction barely registered — smiled along with the two of them anyway.
And he——
Felt a little aggrieved.
He had zero skills with cooldowns.
They could have just bumped the reward percentage higher.
“Oh — anyone getting their Special Floor rewards?”
Seo I-an’s expression had already shifted to a pout.
She looked around at everyone.
“Not yet.”
“Not mine either!”
“Same here.”
“Me neither.”
Same situation across the board.
Last time they’d appeared naturally in the inventory — so why weren’t they coming in now?
Was it a hold? Were they being stiffed?!
Just as that thought arrived — ding!
[Personal contribution rewards have been deposited into your inventory!]
The sound they’d been waiting for.
The guild office went quiet again.
Everyone’s eyes drifted to empty air.
No different for him.
Time to check the rewards.
The items from the reward box didn’t fall into his palm — they slipped straight into the inventory.
Oh. What’s that?
An effect he’d never seen before.
The box opened shimmering in rainbow light.
Even the item frame wasn’t the usual blue — it was gold.
He swallowed a dry gulp of anticipation and reached out.
[Jester’s Grin (Legendary Accessory)]
— When equipped: 50% chance to ignore illusion patterns!
He tilted his head for a moment.
“……Oh.”
Legendary — and useless.
Illusion pattern?
It hadn’t felt like a common mechanic.
He’d never encountered it before, and today in the Special Floor was the first time he’d seen it.
And on top of that, the activation rate wasn’t even 100% — it was 50%.
It might ignore the pattern. It might not.
So legendary-grade could come up blank.
He was sitting with that thought when——
Ding!
A notification sound that rang only in his ears.
[Special Floor Clear Bonus]
— You delivered the final blow to the boss. Bonus reward granted!
The final blow?
He’d landed the last hit? Him?
He briefly went over the sequence in his mind.
Oh! It must have been the mist damage-over-time!
A fairly convincing answer presented itself.
Either way — he was being given more and he had no reason to refuse.
One additional reward box.
He opened it immediately.
[Jester’s Hat (High-Grade Accessory)]
— When equipped: 1% chance to use the illusion pattern once.
— Duration: 30 seconds.
— Cooldown: 24 hours.
Are you absolutely——!
His inner fist started shaking.
1%? 30 seconds? 24-hour cooldown?
He had grounds for a lawsuit.
A system judge would absolutely rule in his favor.
How was it possible to be this cruel to one person not once but twice in a row?
He swallowed the bitter feeling and looked over at the other guild members.
And the moment he saw Seo I-an’s face — completely drained of all joy — he updated his assessment from maybe legendary can be blank to legendary can definitely be blank.
Contribution first place was Seo I-an. She’d have gotten the Special Floor loot box. That should have meant at minimum legendary-grade.
“……Ha.”
A moment of vacancy — as if she’d briefly forgotten how to breathe — and then a hollow laugh escaped her.
Every eye in the room went to her.
“Damn it.”
Followed shortly by her flat voice.
“What came out?”
Park Si-woo asked, and Seo I-an raised one eyebrow at the question.
Then abruptly fixed Hong Je-hun with eyes that were quietly combusting.
“Hey, Hong Je-hun! What did you get?”
“Random stat permanent increase by 1% — it said it would disappear if not used immediately, so I used it.”
“What stat went up?”
“Intelligence.”
A slow, satisfied lift to the corner of Hong Je-hun’s mouth.
A rapid, pointed rise to the corner of Seo I-an’s eye.
“Oh wow. Exactly what you needed, hm?”
“I was lucky.”
He stepped in.
“That’s basically a jackpot. Isn’t it?”
“If you’d call it a jackpot — yes, I suppose.”
Hong Je-hun smiled.
“Hong Je-hun-nim. Jackpot celebration — want to buy a mask? Ignores illusion patterns at an impressive 50% probability.”
The reason he’d positioned himself between Hong Je-hun and Seo I-an.
To protect Hong Je-hun from a jealousy-blinded Seo I-an? Partly.
To stop the atmosphere from deteriorating further? That was a bonus.
The main objective was upselling.
He’d at least kept some conscience intact — he was pitching Hong Je-hun the mask with the respectable 50% probability, not the cursed 1% hat.
“Oh? That’s sellable? Then I’m selling a whip too!”
Seo I-an jumped on the upsell and added her own item.
Apparently she’d gotten a legendary whip.
For someone who only had sword-swing skills.
But Park Si-woo threw cold water on both of them.
“Guild leader. Items obtained in the Special Floor — unlike others, they can’t be traded even when unequipped. Please don’t forget.”
He’d never heard this before. Not something he’d had the chance to forget.
He turned quickly to Seo I-an.
The expression of someone who’d bitten into a cockroach confirmed Park Si-woo wasn’t making it up.
“If you feel the item really isn’t for you, break it down and sell me the materials!”
“……Park Si-woo Enchanter-nim is quite pleased that Seo I-an and I both pulled duds, aren’t you? Great materials source.”
“Goodness, of course not.”
The brightness in his voice, impossible to conceal.
The smile, impossible to hide.
A brilliant white against his warmer complexion.
A man with excellent teeth.
“By the way — Lim Hyeon-jin-ssi, what did you get?”
Park Si-woo swept the last crumbs off the plate, eyes bright, looking toward Lim Hyeon-jin.
He’d always noticed it, but this man was no small trader himself.
The default-overcharging rabbit would concede a round to him.
“I got an S-rank or above guaranteed random skill book!”
Lim Hyeon-jin beamed.
“Guild leader — I think the real jackpot went over there, don’t you? Or am I wrong?”
Hong Je-hun asked.
The question was directed at him, but every head nodded in unison.
A luxury hotel room in Seoul.
The chandelier overhead flooded the space with light, but the eyes of the Chinese attachés gathered inside were dead.
“How did the damage land like that? Before breaking through the Phase, there should still be the defense barrier!”
“And on top of that, the reverse scale triggering was just lucky.”
One man said it with a sour expression.
The reverse scale.
The kind of debuff-like effect that occasionally triggered when you happened to hit the right spot.
The idea that it had been hit deliberately was simply beyond their frame of reference.
In the end.
“The key variable is clearly Kim Woo-joo. Ever since he appeared, they started getting through Phases — and today they’ve gone all the way to a clear.”
“The Special Floor bonus is a month of cooldown reduction. Korea’s Tower climbing speed is going to increase significantly.”
They hadn’t found out anything of substance.
They’d watched the entire clear from start to finish through a planted spy’s video feed — and still hadn’t understood it.
Even watching it live, it didn’t make sense.
But one thing had been established.
Kim Woo-joo — and by extension, the guild Outlaw.
If those couldn’t be stopped, there was no stopping Korea’s acceleration.
“Kim Woo-joo is the key, so we need to bring him in. We haven’t made direct contact yet.”
“Right. He’s the core. Kim Woo-joo — we need to bring him over.”
“Seo I-an and Hong Je-hun have both declined official approaches multiple times.”
With those words, several of them transmitted the situation to contacts through communication devices.
Park Si-woo and Lim Hyeon-jin — whose names hadn’t appeared in the damage meter — didn’t come up in the conversation.
A pension by the East Sea.
A man threw off a black wig and sunglasses and smiled to himself.
Perched at the window, his blond hair caught the ocean breeze.
“Glad I came in person! Originally I was giving up my Special Floor contribution to make this trip — if it had been underwhelming, I’d have been disappointed. Right, Dylan?”
America’s second-ranked Awakened.
Lian Carter asked for agreement from his personal handler and bodyguard.
But his handler’s forbidding expression offered no agreement.
“You still gave up your Special Floor contribution. That’s a problem.”
“But I managed to land one hit at the end, so the clear bonus reward came in?”
He laughed. His handler found this deeply unsatisfying.
“Please make some attempt to think before acting. I entertain the thought of quitting this job dozens of times a day.”
“I was thinking! That’s why I came for this field study!”
“That is not a field study. That is evasion. In plain terms, playing hooky.”
“Either way — Korea! More interesting than expected! Especially that Kim Woo-joo — there’s something off about his footwork, if that’s the right word. Something there. What really stood out to me was that from start to finish, he only used basic skills — never once used a special skill. Like he’s hiding something. My instincts say so.”
He tapped the side of his head lightly with two fingers.
“I’ll need to investigate.”
One added sentence.
Dylan’s forehead vein became visible.
“Have you lost your mind? What about climbing?”
A cold voice from his mouth.
But Lian wasn’t rattled in the slightest.
If anything, he smiled brilliantly without blinking.
“Some short-term losses are worth accepting for a worthwhile challenge! Dylan — just like you said — I thought about it and this is the conclusion I reached.”
Lian pushed his windswept blond hair back with one hand and laughed slowly.
“Dylan, aren’t you curious what Kim Woo-joo actually is? There’s no better information source than direct confirmation.”
Handler Dylan’s expression locked up. He exhaled a long, measured breath.
“Three days. I’ll look the other way for exactly three days.”
“A week!”
And so their voices began to gradually rise.
Meanwhile, back in Seoul, the hotel conference room.
The Chinese attachés’ voices had already been raised for some time — sharp, pointed, aimed at each other.
“Best case, we get him to naturalize to China. But if he refuses?”
“Kim Woo-joo’s existence itself is the variable. There’s a significant chance he’s not a simple damage dealer.”
One attaché typed at a laptop as he spoke.
Someone added quietly:
“And Outlaw has already started drawing international attention. This won’t end with just the Special Floor.”
The air in the room grew heavier.
“The longer we wait, the worse our position gets. Every random country will start throwing itself at Kim Woo-joo. Whatever it is — the authorities need to move first.”
The man’s eyes settled, and he dragged a fingertip across Kim Woo-joo’s basic profile on the screen.
Of course — the falsified record Oh Won-taek had arranged, and what was registered at the Association.
“Benefactor, your phone is about to explode.”
Seo I-an pointed at his phone, which was convulsing like a living thing.
“……I’m deliberately not looking at it. Unknown numbers are all spam anyway.”
“So nothing urgent?”
He noticed it.
Her eyes narrowed for just a fraction of a second.
The eyes of someone with a scheme.
He executed an evasion maneuver.
“Actually — something urgent. Everyone worked hard today. I’ll reach out individually. I’ll be on my way.”
“Hold on.”
Seo I-an materialized beside him instantly, cutting off his exit.
And then held out a palm toward him.
“Why?”
“You’re not leaving without your card.”
Wow. The audacity.
Anyone watching would think she was picking up something she’d left with him.
“And why exactly should I?”
“After results this good, you’re really going to bolt without a team dinner?”
He genuinely believed his contribution to today’s clear had been the highest.
Of course it had been possible because of the team — but hadn’t he been the one who drew out their full potential?
He opened his mouth to make exactly that counterargument, and caught the expectant eyes pouring toward him from every direction.
The moment he said my contribution was the highest, the guild Outlaw — which had so willingly taken shape — would revert into a one-and-done TF team called Outlaw.
That couldn’t happen.
Not after all the running around he’d done to bring these people in.
“Dinner sounds good. But first-place contribution means your wallet is the fullest, doesn’t it?”
Have some conscience, I-an.
“Honestly — a master who hasn’t been an Awakened that long…… the idea of taking money from them is a little surprising, isn’t it.”
Hong Je-hun took his side.
Seo I-an glanced back and forth between them and let out a derisive snort.
Then added one sentence.
“Then would anyone like to buy an absolutely magnificent and exceptional whip for first-place contribution?”
Every ounce of aggrievement and frustration contained in that one line.
And in that moment — he found himself feeling an unexpected, inexplicable kinship with Seo I-an.