Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 106
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Mythic Tower Climbing as a Cheating Administrator (106)
Moo-saeng’s prediction had been correct.
The temple did not hold only priests.
There was one more Heresiarch.
One more?
“Cough…”
“W-who, who in the world are you!? How could you possibly—”
For Moo-saeng, who had already subdued four people with ease, a single Heresiarch posed no threat whatsoever.
Wearing the Mage Maia’s Goggles, he had covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief.
That was all.
“Listen. The purpose, subject, and reason for the Resurrection Project.”
Moo-saeng cut straight to business.
[Krkrkrkrk! Now this is a bold move, Kim Moo-saeng. You just demonstrated masterful interrogation technique moments ago, and now you attempt a direct frontal assault that makes no sense whatsoever?]
Wash cackled at the absurdity, clicking his beak repeatedly.
Yet Moo-saeng had his reasons.
Four Heresiarchs might have been manageable.
He had already shown them the gap in their power.
It was possible precisely because he had broken the confident ones through strength.
“I don’t know where you heard that—but do you think I would tell you!? Glory to Bari! Glory to the one true Creator! Foolish humans who cannot praise Bari from the depths of your bones—I shall make you worship Bari itself!”
“I see… To be chosen for this mission, ordinary faith wouldn’t suffice. And from fanatics, information cannot be extracted.”
Moo-saeng had foreseen to some extent that this one would be different.
This was no mere guard or lookout.
A faith deep enough to involve oneself in some mysterious Resurrection Project—a disposable pawn, perhaps, yet still committed enough to wade into it.
And if they realized that all their protectors had been subdued?
They would assume they had no chance of survival.
There would be no cooperation.
True torture might open other avenues, but Moo-saeng was not omnipotent.
He possessed no such skill.
“So instead—”
Thus Moo-saeng moved.
“Huh?!”
The small book the Priest had been holding, wreathed in violet energy, was now in Moo-saeng’s hands.
“That is, that—”
“Direct inspection is faster.”
“—You won’t get to—ugh…”
The Priest lunged to reclaim the book.
Without sparing him a glance, Moo-saeng drove the Poison Dagger into the Priest’s shoulder.
That was the end. The Priest died.
An Additional Condition had been achieved.
[Time Remaining: 35:08:26]
[Zombies Eliminated: 9/250]
“Well then… looks like I just need to read this book and fill out the numbers. Right, Wash?”
Only nine zombies that he had thoughtlessly killed on his way here were counted so far.
Once he had gathered sufficient information, he would sweep through 241 more with Blue Warning and clear Floor 28.
Wash adjusted his black-framed glasses and shook his head.
[…Sometimes I think about it, Kim Moo-saeng. The difference between you out there and you in here is rather stark.]
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
Moo-saeng chuckled softly and flipped through the book rapidly.
Flipp-flipp-flipp, the contents were written in Korean.
Had an American seen it, the text would have appeared in English instead.
The problem was that the contents looked like nothing but the scriptures of the Bari Faith.
There were no special annotations either.
Passages different from the genuine scripture they actually used?
He had no way of knowing. He had never examined the Bari Faith’s scriptures with any care.
“Hmm…”
So Moo-saeng’s mind was working along a different line.
Not analyzing differences, not hunting for unusual sections himself.
“Right, speaking of which, Wash—those glasses of yours.”
[Kwaaak? If you dare reduce my Ultra High Vision Monitor to mere spectacles—]
“Whatever. Does it have photo capability? Storage function? Anything like that?”
Of course! You think that because your bunch uses such primitive communication methods, there’s no way my state-of-the-art information device can’t handle it?
“Right, good. Scan all of this for me.”
[……Gulp?]
Finding the most efficient way to proceed with the work.
Scanning this scripture, then scanning another version to find the discrepancies.
Beyond that, checking whether the original had special chemical treatments applied or if there were any hidden characters concealed…….
“There’s no point in examining it all here anyway. I wouldn’t understand it even if I saw it. Once we finish this tower climb, I need to get outside and have a proper discussion with someone who actually knows about this stuff.”
A thorough analysis would be necessary.
“Ah, this isn’t something like Execute with Administrator Authority, right? I’ll go hunt zombies, so have it all done by then. Got it?”
The problem was that this approach—delegating chores to the tower’s administrator—left Wash utterly bewildered.
Moo-saeng left the stunned Wash behind without another word, drawing out the Blue Warning and stepping beyond the temple.
It was only when the faintly luminous blue blade faded into the mist that—
[That, that, that, that barbaric creature dare order me around—.]
Wash made to protest.
Or tried to, anyway.
[Zombies Eliminated: 18/250]
[Zombies Eliminated: 45/250]
[Zombies Eliminated: 88/250]
[Zombies Eliminated: 112/250]
[Zombies Eliminated: 149/250]
.
.
[-Hmm……. Khhck!]
Confronted with the numbers skyrocketing in an instant, Wash began snapping its beak and hastily scanning and storing the scriptures.
A count that hadn’t budged past nine for hours suddenly exploded within mere minutes?
“It looks like… Kim’s representative did something again.”
“A drive hunt or something? Wait, was it even possible to drive hunt zombies on Floor 28 like that? We’re only a handful of people, and the zombies must’ve had tons of stamina and reinforcements.”
[Congratulations!]
[You have achieved the Clear Condition.]
[Time Remaining: 34:46:01]
[Calculating Contribution Rate.]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Contribution Rate 100%]
[Others: Contribution Rate 0%]
[You have achieved an Additional Condition.]
[Additional rewards are being granted.]
The party members at camp outside the city were just as flabbergasted as Wash.
* * *
[Floor 29]
[Enraged Giants, Quarry]
[Protect the Quarry from the angered Rock Giants.]
[Time Remaining: 72:00:00]
[Adjustments for Multi-person Climbing are applied.]
[Contribution Rate calculation begins.]
[Additional Giant Race members have appeared.]
[Giant Race Beyond Rock Giants]
[Cyclops]
[Twin-Head Ogre]
[Bigfoot]
Floor 29 required protecting the Quarry and its workers from Rock Giants formed by towering, jagged rock formations.
The Additional Condition was that the Quarry must sustain not even a speck of damage, and all workers must survive.
Rock Giants, composed of bizarre stone formations and ranging from a minimum of three meters to a maximum of thirty—such variance made them extraordinarily troublesome opponents for Awakeners.
With Wash’s fifteen-person modifier applied, three additional types of Giant Race had spawned alongside the Rock Giants.
Moo-saeng’s party members were equally troubled.
Was it because of how to deal with the Giant Race?
―What do you think? If anyone knows anything about this, remember anything, speak up right away.
That wasn’t going to happen.
After all, they were Giants—creatures outside common knowledge.
“Well… I’ve never seen anything about this before either.”
“Most people don’t usually pay this much attention during tower climbing.”
Moo-saeng had already rushed out the moment he arrived on Floor 29.
People who know Kim Moo-saeng—even party members with peculiarities—could persuade the Rock Giants to retreat.
But if it were Moo-saeng himself……. Moo-saeng, who had gained perfect influence over the Giant Race through Murometz and the Abyss Contract?
Merely showing his face would be enough to send all the Giants away of their own accord.
Therefore, Moo-saeng likewise wouldn’t concern himself with such quest content ‘trivialities’.
“Exactly. It’s standard practice to just confirm the quest details anyway. And the worldbuilding within the Tower is, well~, kind of an otaku hobby, isn’t it?”
What Moo-saeng and the party members were struggling over came down to a single book he’d handed them.
Confirming the contents of the Bari Faith scriptures obtained from the Priest and investigating any peculiarities had everyone’s full attention.
“An otaku hobby?! N-no, the Tower’s worldbuilding is precisely constructed! A very creative space of imagination! Especially the Emu Continent History based on the Rosal Kingdom, the Kayaku Empire, and the Bari Faith—the fanbase is so thick! There are cosplay events every year in America, Japan, and Europe featuring major heroes of the Emu Continent, and fan works are thriving—”
Kim Woo-min burst forward abruptly.
A sudden acceleration from someone ordinarily so quiet.
His face flushed with passion, the party members subtly put distance between themselves and him.
“Ah, yes, understood. Sorry.”
“Please don’t get too worked up…….”
“I never knew you had that hobby, Kim Woo-min.”
“That hobby?! It’s a legitimate major hobby! The novel based on the founding mythology of the Rosal Kingdom has even been adapted into anime! The market scale alone is a cultural industry you can’t ignore!”
It was as if he were deliberately seizing on every word to nitpick.
But Kim Woo-min wasn’t wrong.
This was a world with Towers and dungeons.
Moreover, each floor of the Tower contained its own internal world, and in some floors, that internal world was practically shared and interconnected.
A fantasy world based on medieval European aesthetics.
While you can’t retreat from the Tower proper, places where you can use dungeons, escape scrolls, and the like?
“Well, the industry scale is certainly large. Moo-saeng and I even considered becoming tour guides instead of Dungeon Sherpas. But we lacked the gift of gab and needed money fast, so we ultimately changed direction.”
It was already an enormous theme park in its own right.
Especially a place like Floor 27?
A place where you could step foot in the capital of the kingdom from the very beginning, explore it, go on adventures, and experience it directly?
VR games couldn’t even begin to compare to such vivid realism.
It wasn’t merely entertainment.
The mythology, legends, records, history, religion, heroic ideals, and military annals of the Tower’s internal worldbuilding……. There were entire academic disciplines devoted to investigating and analyzing such things.
Collated materials were even published.
Fan works and secondary creations were born from those materials.
Literally a world unto itself—a separate realm no different from another world—a space of dreams for all who possessed a sense of wonder!
―Well then, Kim Woo-min, would you happen to know anything about this?
“T-that is…… No. Unfortunately, I’m not well versed in the religious side of things…….”
The problem was, as with people absorbed in cultural industries of this sort, they dug deep into one thing only.
Outside their specialty, they knew virtually nothing.
“B-but I do know someone. An expert on the Bari Faith. From what I understand, probably the most knowledgeable person in all of South Korea? If you’d like, I could introduce you…….”
The fortunate thing was that such experts maintained active networks among themselves.
―Hm hm, excellent. Tomorrow will be day three, yes? We planned for a week anyway—would it be alright with you all if we cleared Floor 30 and then left, coming back tomorrow afternoon to start from Floor 31?
Moo-saeng asked.
It was a polite request for everyone’s opinion, but everyone in this place already knew.
“Ah, if Director Kim says so, we have to do it.”
“Of course. If we think of it as getting half a day off, it’s actually perfect, don’t you think?”
If Moo-saeng said to do it, it had to be done.
Jo Sang-gyu even cleared his throat awkwardly, muttering to himself.
“Hm, ahem. I should…… bring along some comic books.”
Before climbing the Tower with Moo-saeng, such leisure would have been unimaginable.
[Congratulations!]
[You have achieved the Clear Condition.]
[Time remaining: 71:51:30]
[Calculating Contribution Rate.]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Contribution Rate 100%]
[Others: Contribution Rate 0%]
[You have achieved the Additional Condition.]
[Additional rewards are being granted.]
A difficult battle against a large monster?
Without any of that, the moment they faced each other, with just a single word asking them to leave, Moo-saeng and his party cleared Floor 29 in merely 48 minutes and 30 seconds.
By the time they gathered again and ascended to Floor 30.
“Hah, hah, hah…….”
“All…… everyone survived, boss defeated…… Clear! We cleared it, Director, Deputy Director!”
The Geumseong Strategy Headquarters had succeeded in clearing Floor 67 of the Tower.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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