Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 13

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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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The Mythic Tower Climb with a Cheating Administrator (13)
Geumseong Group headquarters on Eulji-ro, the executive conference room.
Even in the dim lighting, one could tell.
Given the number of seats, only four people had actually shown up.
“……Deputy Director, wasn’t the figure you mentioned one hundred billion? And even that was excessive, so I told you to do your best to negotiate a discount……. You added another fifty billion on top?”
The man seated in the second chair posed the question.
Director of the Geumseong Group Strategy Department and secretary to the chairman.
Commander of the 66th Floor raid team.
Yun Pyo.
His tone was measured, his pronunciation crisp.
Yet anyone who heard him understood the edge beneath the words.
Geum Sua’s secretary, Choi Ji-hye, standing just behind her, was trembling visibly in her legs—
“I judged it was worth the investment. In truth, with Korea Oneway making moves, things were accelerating, and it was only a matter of time before Future or the JK Guild caught wind of it. Increasing the investment was a precaution to ensure we secured it safely and swiftly. Today’s one hundred fifty billion becoming three hundred billion tomorrow, or one and a half trillion a month from now—that’s not impossible, is it?”
Geum Sua spoke without wavering.
Yun Pyo pushed back at once.
“First, you didn’t secure it. Second, fifty billion isn’t ‘a bit.’ Third, that’s not the sort of calculation we should be rushing into. Anything to say to that?”
“First, Kim Musaeng the Sherpa is currently staying at a hotel provided by one of our affiliated companies as a precaution against Korea Oneway’s attack. It’s a standard room without wiretaps or surveillance cameras, but……it helps us track his movements and activities, while also building trust and confidence in Geumseong for him. Second, if the company can’t cover the fifty billion, I’ll use my own funds. Third……yes, I understand. But according to headquarters’ policy of prioritizing people, I don’t believe it was the wrong call.”
Geum Sua answered even faster than before.
Yun Pyo’s brow twitched slightly.
Geum Sua met his gaze directly.
An entirely different posture from her secretary, who had squeezed her eyes shut.
“I don’t mean the expenditure is impossible. The issue from the start was in the valuation itself—”
“I’m saying the valuation itself was flawed. Secretary Choi, please submit the newly calculated data.”
“Yes, understood.”
“As you’ll see, we’ve examined the 66th Floor’s clear conditions and the boss’s characteristics more carefully to produce these projected Artifact functions.”
Choi Ji-hye handed the materials to both the man seated at the head of the table and to Yun Pyo respectively.
Yun Pyo began examining the data meticulously.
And the man seated at the head of the table?
Flip, flip, flip—he turned the pages.
His hand stopped around the final page.
Geum Sua quickly added her elaboration.
“As attached to the materials, the probability of an S-rank poison resistance effect being included is over ninety-five percent, and that alone should be worth at least three billion. We haven’t confirmed it yet, but according to intelligence we obtained in strict confidence, the 67th Floor’s environment is presumed to be underwater—if monsters in the shapes of sea anemones, jellyfish, and the like possess poison, how invaluable Kim Musaeng’s Artifact would be for the safety of Geumseong’s employees—”
“Sua.”
“Yes, I……Chairman.”
The man at the head of the table tossed the materials onto the table with a soft thud and spoke.
Geum Sua, about to call him Father, quickly changed her form of address.
“Have you seen him? The Sherpa?”
“I’ve had conversations with him, but……I haven’t witnessed him in action.”
Geum Sua replied.
A soft exhale escaped him.
The man at the head of the table spoke.
“A company should be judged by numbers. But a person must be judged with your own eyes.”
“……Yes.”
“You do it yourself. Watch him carefully and come back. Then we’ll talk again.”
He rose from his seat.
Yun Pyo stood up with him and followed.
Thud, thud, thud—
As he walked toward the exit, his figure finally came into the light.
Gray-streaked hair swept back with pomade.
Sunglasses on even in the dim space.
A muscular frame that hardly looked natural in a formal suit.
“Ah, but in the final miscellaneous remarks section……’A third party’s voice was heard but could not be confirmed’? What does that mean?”
Geum Byeong-cheol, fifty-four years old.
Officially, the strongest Awakener in the Republic of Korea.
He stopped mid-stride toward the exit and asked.
Geum Sua answered, barely concealing her embarrassment.
“That part……is as written. Right after the words ’67th Floor’ were mentioned, I heard something, but I couldn’t tell who said it or if I heard it correctly—”
“What did it say?”
“Something falling? I didn’t catch it precisely. It was a crackling, noise-filled voice saying something about management or……I’m sorry. It’s inaccurate and unconfirmed information.”
Something she’d agonized over including or leaving out.
If I put it in an important report, it sounds baseless—utter nonsense.
But if I don’t write it……there’s something unsettling about that too.
That is, I’ve made a judgment based purely on instinct.
How his daughter, Geum Sua, arrived at her conclusion.
Her father, Geum Byeong-cheol, understood it well.
“Mm-hmm. All right. I understand.”
Creak….
Walking down the corridor after leaving the executive conference room.
Geum Byeong-cheol murmured to himself.
“Management…….”
Behind the dark sunglasses, his pure white eyes flashed.
* * *
With tousled hair, Kim Musaeng gathered the package left at his door and finished preparing to go out.
“The concierge service here is pretty good. They bring Sherpa supplies just like room service—whoosh. This is why Geumseong’s top-tier.”
[……Sleeping a full twenty-four hours straight. This is the first time I realized humans could rest that deeply.]
“Accumulated fatigue needs to be cleared out completely. If I’m going to find strength again starting from the fourth floor, I need to prepare thoroughly.”
Stretching before he left.
Watching Musaeng twist his body—stretch, stretch—Wash tilted his head.
[Fourth floor? Isn’t it the Dungeon on the 67th Floor?]
“That place? Why would I?”
Beep.
Musaeng pulled out his key card, stepped outside his room, and let out a quiet laugh.
Wash continued drifting in circles around Musaeng, puzzlement evident in his movements.
[I may not understand your primitive human customs, but…… Kim Musaeng, you accepted that female’s kindness and slept here for a reason, didn’t you?]
The reason he’d stayed at a Geumseong Group hotel.
Hadn’t he essentially agreed to hire Geum Sua as his Sherpa for the 67th Floor Dungeon?
“No way. Geumseong wouldn’t be petty enough to tie me down over something like this. Worst case, I just pay my bill and we’re done.”
[……That female……despite being primitive, she possesses savage strength. Considering the power and influence she commands, wouldn’t it be better to join hands with her?]
Musaeng shook his head and stepped out of the hotel.
At the lobby counter, one of the staff members watched Musaeng, pulled out a smartphone, and contacted someone, but Musaeng had no time to pay attention to such things.
The moment he stepped through the hotel’s door, Musaeng had to stop in his tracks.
[……Kim Musaeng, I ask you. On the basis of your precious Principle of Good Faith and Sincerity. Isn’t that the faster way up the Tower?]
Wash blocked Musaeng’s path and posed the question.
Until now, Musaeng could understand Wash’s intentions behind repeatedly bringing up the 67th Floor Dungeon.
There was a contract.
Hadn’t they agreed to do their best to achieve each other’s conditions?
If so, wasn’t joining hands with Geumseong the best approach?
He only had a moment to face the earnest expression of the yellow rubber duck floating before him.
Soon a valet brought his car around; Musaeng slipped past Wash and climbed in.
[Answer me, Kim Musaeng. “I live by contract and die by contract,” you say. What’s your reason for not joining hands with that female?]
Wash questioned him again.
Vrooom……!
Musaeng turned the question back as he drove.
“Let me ask you, Wash. Would it bother you if someone other than me reached the top of the Tower?”
The reason he wouldn’t join hands directly with Geumseong.
Or rather, couldn’t join hands with them.
Wash’s condition was to participate in his revenge when he reached the top of the Tower.
It wasn’t to find the fastest way up.
Even if he found such a method, if in the end ‘Musaeng doesn’t reach the top of the Tower,’ he can’t help with the revenge.
So then?
To help with the revenge, choosing a path where Musaeng himself reaches the top of the Tower is what aligns with the Principle of Good Faith and Sincerity, isn’t it?
If he joined hands with Geumseong here, frequented the 67th Floor Dungeon, and aided them.
Or rather, stayed with them even after that.
It would be they who reached the top of the Tower.
[……I understand. Damn it. I should have set harsher conditions.]
Wash finally grasped what Musaeng meant.
Musaeng let out a soft laugh.
“That’s just how contracts work. Think of it as tuition paid. Back when I was a porter, I got hit in the back of the head plenty of times. ‘A’ and ‘uh’—they’re different, that’s a contract. Really, I’m telling you.”
[You’re comparing someone like me to a primitive like you!?]
“Hey, at least when it comes to contracts and negotiation, we’d need to debate who’s more primitive.”
[This bastard still—? Hey! If I calculate by Earth years, how old are you—.]
“Ah, not even goldfish shit.”
[—What, what!?]
Wash wanted to bounce up at the expression he’d never heard before, but quickly realized Musaeng wasn’t talking to him.
Musaeng toyed lightly with the rearview mirror.
Three black SUVs and two vans trailing behind.
Their identities? Obvious without even looking.
“Tch, right, I can’t keep dragging this goldfish shit around forever. Wash, let me ask you something.”
[What?]
“Your ability. Execute Administrator Authority? How large a scope, how far can it reach, what kind of power can it unleash? In a Dungeon, I mean.”
Wash answered with a sharp click.
[If we’re in a Dungeon, the moment those parasites follow us in, I could have them deleted. Erased from existence in this world entirely.]
The power was so casually stated it created an eerie sense of wrongness.
Musaeng shook his head immediately.
“That’s… brutal. But we don’t need to go that far.”
Kill them all? If anything, Musaeng wanted to. But he couldn’t.
He just couldn’t.
[No need to go that far?]
“Because if we do, literally Oneway gets flipped upside down.”
Korea Oneway Group.
Total workforce: 1,358. Awakeners among them: 474.
A mid-tier guild currently breaking through the late 40s.
They’d all go mad with rage and come at Musaeng to kill him.
Moreover, the Oneway Group dominated Southeast Asia as a guild.
If word spread that their successor had been attacked, there was no telling what “additional measures” they might take.
He couldn’t underestimate them.
There was no point in provoking them by slaughtering every pursuer.
[Then what are you going to do?]
“That’s why I’m asking. What can you do, how much, and how far? I need to know so I can decide on a method.”
But he couldn’t keep running forever either.
Which meant today.
Today, he’d sever ties with Korea Oneway Group once and for all.
[Hmm. But why should I cooperate?]
Wash spoke with an expression half-playful, half-probing.
Musaeng grinned and answered briskly.
“Of course you should! Acting under the Principle of Good Faith and Sincerity! As a party to our contract, this is something I can demand of you, isn’t it?”
[……Damn it, I really should have been more thorough with the contract……..]
“Heh, let me confirm a few things first. First—.”
Vroooooom……!
Musaeng asked.
Wash answered.
Musaeng asked again.
Wash answered once more.
“But even if you do all that, it’s safe, right? Last time, why did you spark and stutter—.”
[Disk defragmentation finished ages ago! And at the level you’re talking about, current download speed is more than enough! Are you dissing me?]
“Yes, yes, I get it. You’re worried, and it’s turning into a mess.”
Screeeeeech—!
Musaeng chuckled and wrenched the steering wheel sharp.
The black vehicles behind surged forward as well, even committing to illegal U-turns to match his speed.
‘It shows, doesn’t it? Yeah, you bastards are probably scared shitless too.’
The destination was decided.
After parking near the Gate, Musaeng practically leaped out of the car.
From the black vehicles that screeched to a halt—parking lines be damned—a stream of figures in formal wear spilled out.
Musaeng remembered the faces of some of them, especially one face in particular, with perfect clarity.
“Kim Musaeng!”
“Ah, Manager Park.”
Musaeng looked at them—at Park Do-hyun—and spoke.
“The Antidote is here. Come and get it if you want.”
That was the trigger.
“Grab him!”
“Grab him! If we can just take him down—”
“We’ll live. No—we’ll be promoted!”
Not some half-measure of a detoxification method, but a genuine Antidote.
As the Korea Oneway Group agents came charging at him, eyes wild with hunger.
Musaeng hurled himself toward the wall, where a dark, viscous liquid oozed downward in thick streams.
A Dungeon that mirrored the 22nd Floor of the Tower perfectly.
Following Musaeng, thirty-one agents from Korea Oneway Group materialized in the 22nd Floor Dungeon.
It was a swampland jungle that could have passed for the Amazon itself.

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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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