Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 111

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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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Cheating Admin Climbing the Mythic Tower (111)
Park Hyun-gu was the most shocked of all.
“Th-uh-.”
He couldn’t find words.
Kim Moo-saeng tried to lean back. He wriggled his hips backward, trying to pull away—
But Geum Su-ah stopped him.
She grabbed his arm and pulled.
Then she leaned her face even closer to his ear.
‘What? What what? What what what?’
How did things come to this?!
Kim Moo-saeng? Geum Su-ah?
‘I knew this would happen. That I—. No, because I did that! I had a feeling, Moo-saeng! Damn it, what do I do now?!’
This can’t be happening.
What about Ye-rin?
You said she was alive.
You said she was in the Tower!
Sure, I joked about Geum Su-ah liking you, but that was just banter! I was telling you to think about how to handle it! That was all!
Given your nature, Moo-saeng, you’d never abandon Ye-rin and switch to Geum Su-ah!
No, it’s more than that.
‘Moo-saeng, this can’t happen. If you shove Geum Su-ah away right here—. We’re at Geumseong Headquarters! Chairman Geum Byeong-chul could be watching on CCTV or something! Handle this carefully… wait?’
Park Hyun-gu’s anxiety gnawed at him.
The expression of the unwilling witness to this bizarre scene flickered for a moment.
Kim Moo-saeng… was no longer pulling away.
Rather, he seemed to be leaning his face even closer toward Geum Su-ah.
His face drawing nearer to her ear.
His lips quivering?!
Here?
With Geum Su-ah?
“Kim Moo-saeng.”
Park Hyun-gu called out to him.
In a low, menacing voice he hadn’t used in years.
“Uh, wait a second—”
“Kim Moo-saeng. You.”
Whoever the other person might be.
Where Ju Ye-rin was concerned.
That was not acceptable.
Locking eyes with Park Hyun-gu, Kim Moo-saeng finally understood.
“—Wait, hold on! I didn’t mean that, did I?”
Then, in one swift motion, he stood up from his chair and put distance between himself and Geum Su-ah.
His actions left everyone around him embarrassed.
“Uh, what?”
Angry Park Hyun-gu?
That wasn’t it? Then what was it?
Did I just flail around for nothing?
At least Park Hyun-gu had been fortunate.
“……Huh?”
Geum Su-ah, on the other hand?
Not everyone at Geumseong’s conquest headquarters had finally seen Wash.
Not all those who had cleared Floor 67—but only those with particularly high Contribution Rates like Geum Su-ah had barely managed to see him, and she had spent tremendous effort concealing her reaction every time Wash spoke, hiding it even during the conversation between Kim Woo-min and Kim Moo-saeng.
Kim Moo-saeng glanced back and forth between Park Hyun-gu and Geum Su-ah.
Then he let out a short laugh.
“Anyway, you really are…… truly…… a genius.”
It made sense from Kim Moo-saeng’s perspective.
* * *
“Floor 28, resurrection, experimental data collection…… whether it’s an insect, female…… well, honestly that doesn’t really matter. Moo-saeng, what’s that duck next to you?”
Geum Su-ah spoke.
She didn’t see Kim Moo-saeng’s eyes widen.
But as if that didn’t matter, she continued.
“A living being related to the Tower. Isn’t it? Something connected to the Tower’s power or some rule, or rewards? That sort of thing. The real reason your father organized an emergency conference, and why Eight Seconds focused on you. Am I right?”
She had been watching since the moment they arrived in the lobby.
A yellow rubber duck bobbing around Kim Moo-saeng.
He could hear every sound from this utterly alien creature—whether it was laughing, angry, or simply chattering away.
Geum Su-ah’s mind had already pieced together quite a lot.
“Floor 28… The scripture you gave to Director Kim Min-ji—I don’t care about that. Whatever’s written in it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have something that appeared on Floor 28 when I cleared it—something I’ve never seen before, and something that hundreds of other Awakeners who’ve cleared Floor 28 have also never heard of. How? Why? That duck creature… the one that taught you the strategy for Floor 67—it must have told you.”
Some details were off, but the flow of her reasoning was sound.
The hypothesis itself was flawless: you possess a creature with enormous secrets—information about the tower, strategies, rewards—and your recent explosive growth proves it.
“What is its identity? No, actually… the fact that you haven’t mentioned its identity all this time means it probably isn’t that important. What I’m curious about is its function. Its purpose.”
Geum Su-ah made her proposal immediately.
Identity? He didn’t know. Strictly speaking, he didn’t even care.
Function and purpose, what exactly, and how far—he didn’t know that either.
But he was certain of this:
His father.
Eight Seconds coveted him as talent.
This immeasurable growth that Geum Su-ah had witnessed with her own eyes.
“So what do you say? I don’t know what you’re planning, but… could you bring me in on it?”
He had to be caught.
This man.
By any means necessary.
Just as Kim Moo-saeng’s expression began to shift—
“Kim Moo-saeng.”
Park Hyun-gu spoke.
“Huh? Hyun-gu, wait—”
“Kim Moo-saeng. You.”
“—Oh, damn, wait a second! Hyun-gu, you’re thinking something weird, aren’t you?”
Whoosh—Kim Moo-saeng shot to his feet and spoke.
Park Hyun-gu was taken aback.
“Uh, what?”
“…Huh?”
Geum Su-ah felt the same confusion.
Right now? Out of nowhere?
“Anyway, you really are… a genius, Hyun-gu.”
Puh-hahaha, Kim Moo-saeng laughed as he spoke.
The proposal he’d just heard from Geum Su-ah moments before.
Kim Moo-saeng wasn’t the type to avoid weighing its pros and cons.
What answer should he give?
“Geum Su-ah, but think about it carefully… really, it wouldn’t be that different from how things are now, would it?”
“What?”
It meant he’d already worked it out.
Her notion of “closer and more proactive cooperation”?
“We just keep on like this. Getting along. That’s all I mean.”
He didn’t need it to go that far yet.
There was no need to belong entirely to just Geumseong.
If that had been his intention, he would’ve joined when Geum Byeong-chul first offered.
“Just keep helping me out with the favors I ask from time to time, all right?”
That was enough.
Though Kim Moo-saeng had recently begun broadening his real connections through the World Awakener Association and elsewhere, they hardly compared to Geum Su-ah’s network.
Don’t look too controlling.
Don’t give the impression of clinging.
Decline indirectly, but stay a good partner who still brings him the information he needs.
Kim Moo-saeng had been struggling with how to convey something at this level.
And Park Hyun-gu had just set it up perfectly for him.
[Kyahahaha! How’s that, Kim Moo-saeng? Didn’t I tell you? This female’s got her eye on you! Hey, can you see me now? You hearing me? Just standing at the starting line and already so greedy. Kyahahaha, truly the blood of that beast runs in you.]
“Ahem, ahem-hem!”
On top of everything else, there was Wash’s interference, watching and enjoying the whole scene.
Kim Moo-saeng forced out a loud fake cough, but Geum Su-ah wasn’t the type to miss it.
Was she angry?
Tell everyone—Park Hyun-gu, Kim Woo-min, and others—all about Wash out of annoyance?
Geum Su-ah was no fool.
Words like “female,” “beast,” and so on…
If that tone had always been like that—
If she were like that even in front of her own father.
‘Then she’d be an existence beyond my imagination.’
She’d certainly be an exceptional being worthy of his acknowledgment.
Geum Su-ah bit her lower lip lightly.
From the start, she wasn’t the type to charge headlong into battle the moment she sensed a difference—that sort of reckless impetuousness was beneath her.
“All right. If there’s anything I can do, I’m more than willing. I’m genuinely grateful for the opportunity.”
If Kim Moo-saeng approached things this way, then they’d simply become more useful to each other.
Of course, the dynamic would lean toward Geum Su-ah actively and openly supporting him rather than mutual reliance.
Neither of them saw fit to make a point of it.
“Well, I’m grateful you see it that way too. If that was all you needed, we should be getting going now.”
Kim Moo-saeng gestured for Park Hyun-gu and Kim Woo-min to come, then took a subtle step back.
Geum Su-ah watched him and spoke.
“Ah, just one more thing I wanted to ask.”
“What’s that?”
She wasn’t going to hold him back.
Yet there was one thing she needed to know.
“That young woman then—Emma Gears—does she know about this right now?”
“No.”
Kim Moo-saeng answered immediately.
He didn’t drag it out. He didn’t hesitate.
Just as with the interrogation by the heretic inquisitor on Floor 28, the very act of pausing to choose an answer could itself become a tell.
So Geum Su-ah smiled knowingly.
“I know.”
Precisely because she could predict how he’d think and act, she’d be able to tell what he was hiding.
“Huh? Wait, that’s not—”
“Thank you. Let’s meet again sometime.”
Geum Su-ah rose first.
Tap, tap, tap…….
Listening to her footsteps recede, Kim Moo-saeng shook his head lightly.
‘It’s not just quick reading—it’s something else entirely. This is the problem with getting too close; she reads my patterns.’
Did she reverse-engineer his logic?
Was she trying to pry out at least something in the process?
The thought caught him off guard, and a laugh escaped.
‘Hildegard said she was leaving the country anyway…… By the time Su-ah investigates and pieces it together, it’ll take several days, and I’ll already be gone from Korea by then, so what of it.’
No matter how hard Geum Su-ah searched for the fictional Emma Gears, she’d never encounter Hildegard Schmidt—the faceless CEO of Metal Rhine and an Awakener known as Eight Seconds.
Kim Moo-saeng murmured.
“She’s quite a formidable woman, though.”
“……Moo-saeng. I’m curious what you two were talking about, but setting the content aside for a moment…… calling the vice-director of the Strategy Division and the chairman’s daughter ‘formidable’ and whatnot, here at Geumseong Headquarters—isn’t that a bit much?”
Park Hyun-gu watched him with an anxious expression.
A hearty, easy laugh rang out loud through the lobby of Geumseong Headquarters’ first floor.
* * *
After that, there were no major complications.
Kim Woo-min asked for a bit more rest and was released.
Kim Moo-saeng and Park Hyun-gu met the promised person at the promised place and obtained what was promised.
Everyone regrouped at the Tower at the appointed time.
[Floor 31]
[A target bearing the Curse of a Dark Elf has been detected.]
[Quest Modification in progress.]
[Borderland of Strife, Accursed Earth]
[Cursed Target: Kim Moo-saeng]
[The Dark Elf hunts the cursed target and his companions.]
[Escape from the enraged hunters.]
[Time Remaining: 720:00:00]
Entry complete.
It was a space that could only be described as ashen.
A barren landscape—no forests, scarcely a tree or plant to be seen.
Rocky desert with canyon formations, the terrain itself made travel plainly grueling.
“Quest Modification, it really is happening.”
“This doesn’t feel like the Floor 31 we knew…… at all.”
Kim Moo-saeng had already warned them.
The quest would be modified.
Naturally, Moo-saeng himself couldn’t know exactly how it would change.
It was beyond Wash’s grasp—he still couldn’t execute the Admin Authority function from within the tower.
So both the party members and Moo-saeng should have been on edge, but…….
Yet that wasn’t why the party members were reacting with such alarm, despite nothing having happened yet.
“Mana pressure, oof, is this also because of the quest modification?”
“Originally, oof, oof, probably so?”
“We prepared ourselves since Manager Kim warned us beforehand, but—. This is more serious than I expected.”
Mana pressure.
The sudden surge in physical strain from Floor 31 onward was what had shocked them.
It was why Awakeners who cleared the twenties stalled around Floor 30.
It was why the tower began treating climbers as genuinely ‘seasoned Awakeners’ starting from Floor 31.
Quest modification coupled with the diminished physical capabilities the party now endured from the intensified mana pressure.
Park Hyun-gu had already worried about the twin hardships awaiting them on Floor 31, but…….
“I mean, ugh, this headache sensation—it’s been a while. Hey, Moo-saeng. Do you really think this is okay? If we’re already like this at the start……. Moo-saeng?”
Moo-saeng was laughing.
Burden? Twin hardship? Suffering?
“Now that I think about it……. When a quest is modified, they don’t calculate contribution rate, do they?”
Rather, Moo-saeng’s worry had vanished entirely—this was merely the beginning of a free climb through 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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