Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 15

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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 as an Admin in a Mythic Tower Climb (15)
Moo Saeng and Wash had already discussed the plan during the journey.
In other words, from the moment they entered the 22nd Dungeon, they moved without hesitation.
“Wash, teleport first.”
Whoosh——!
The instant light flared, Moo Saeng’s body had already shifted three kilometers from the dungeon entrance to the safe zone.
Then a massive holographic map materialized.
Counting the glowing dots that multiplied near the entrance, Moo Saeng fingered the straps of his pack.
“So how stable can you keep the snake Respawn rate? You only said a minimum of 500% before, right?”
[Hmm, at this level I can manage 900% without issue.]
At Wash’s words, Moo Saeng’s lips curled into a grin.
Those others would be better prepared against monsters.
So he had to strike where they least expected it.
“Nice. Please do that.”
Snakes?
Deadly to ordinary people, but to Awakeners they’re no more than gnats.
That’s what he needed to exploit.
It put less strain on Wash than generating monsters outright.
But if they regenerated ten times faster than anyone knew——?!
Moo Saeng pulled something from his pack.
Rolled tightly, it looked almost like a rope.
〈Slaiken’s Tongue (S)〉
The tongue of Slaiken, master of all serpents. No snake could refuse its vibration.
A blood-red tongue, an S-rank Artifact that commanded every snake.
“They’re fast, I’ll give them that—already scattering and moving? Even One Way Group can’t dismiss them like nothing.”
[Cackle, cackle, I wish I could watch up close, but unfortunately that won’t happen.]
“Yeah, I hear that.”
By controlling the snakes, he controlled them.
A tactic only possible because these were lifeforms most would overlook in the field.
Chaaaaaack——————…….
Moo Saeng executed it.
The tremor of air infused with the user’s will spread across the entire 22nd Dungeon.
The snakes began to move.
Slaiken, the boss of the 66th Floor and master of snakes, commanded his servants through thought alone.
With Moo Saeng merely thinking, the snakes moved of their own accord—requiring no additional command whatsoever.
‘Even more convenient than expected. Truly, an S-rank Artifact…….’
A high-tier item he was using for the first time in his life.
But high-tier items weren’t limited to this one.
Moo Saeng extracted poison from Slaiken’s Fangs and then——
‘Poison Crafting.’
He activated the skill.
[Analyzing target poison.]
[Source: Slaiken’s Venom (S)]
[Neural (paralytic), cellular, hematic compound toxin]
[Classification by function and intensity is possible.]
‘Neural toxin only. Make it work as fast as possible.’
He could extract just the paralytic component.
He could make it induce total body paralysis instantly, or dial it down to drowsy lethargy.
Poison whose function and potency are tailored to the user’s specifications?
Staring at it for a moment, Moo Saeng found himself laughing in disbelief.
“Seriously, this is why I say……everyone else just walks around with Artifacts and Skills, climbing towers and clearing dungeons so easily. And here I am, after all these years, grinding away like some slave.”
Thirteen years as a Dungeon Sherpa.
No proper Skills, no decent gear.
Compared to those days of having to make do with nothing but brains and brawn, this convenience felt unreal.
Though thinking of the loss from Transmission, complaints were bound to bubble up——
[What? You complaining?]
“No way. Wash, alter the venom composition of every snake in the 22nd Dungeon like this.”
[〈Executing via Admin Authority〉.]
〈Transmission (O)〉.
Watching Wash’s power materialize at his side, all complaints evaporated in an instant.
“All right, then. Hmm? Someone’s just arrived at the entrance? Park, you’re not even managing your subordinates properly.”
A single gleaming point had appeared near the gate around that moment.
Just before the twenty-minute mark.
For Moo Saeng, though, it hardly mattered.
One extra person didn’t require a change in strategy.
If anything, it was a relief to have one more target to deal with.
“Wash, cut the signal and seal the gate. No communications in or out.”
[…Done. Scroll or not—nobody leaves without my say-so.]
Nineteen minutes since Moo Saeng entered the dungeon. Escape Scrolls were disabled.
“Well then. Let’s get moving.”
Forty-three minutes later, the first wave of snakes began their assault.
* * *
Screeeeeech—!
Geum Sua hit the brakes hard, her movements frantic.
She’d moved the moment the hotel call came through, but there was no denying the clock was tight.
‘Walking into a dungeon on his own two feet? He’d have to be insane!’
She’d overheard what Moo Saeng requested from the hotel concierge.
She’d naturally assumed it was prep work for climbing the tower.
But heading toward a dungeon instead?
While One Way Group personnel were in pursuit, no less?
“Oh, Geumseong?”
“What are you doing—where do you think you’re going?”
The One Way Group employees waiting outside flinched the moment they spotted Geum Sua.
But there was nothing they could do.
“Restricting access below the 30th Floor violates international law. Block me and I’ll have you charged on the spot.”
They couldn’t stop her by law or by force.
“—Tch, no, wait—”
Brushing off their protests, Geum Sua hurled herself through the gate.
A squishy resistance gave way almost instantly, and her feet touched down in the jungle.
‘Refraction. Dispersion. Reflection.’
Whoooosh—
Her form vanished.
Luminous (SR)—an Awakener ability that manipulated light itself.
By controlling, bending, and reflecting the light that touched her body, she’d achieved an effect indistinguishable from invisibility in just over a second.
Yet Geum Sua remained tense.
Only after checking her surroundings did she finally relax.
‘…There’s a trail through the jungle. Good—less than twenty minutes have passed.’
Relief washed over her. Moo Saeng had entered the same dungeon as One Way Group.
That was all she needed.
She could protect him before One Way Group did him any harm.
She had the skill to face them, no matter how many came, elite or otherwise.
‘The question is where he is. There are multiple directions. Which way?’
Geum Sua paused, thinking.
Communications would still be active inside the dungeon—if she caught up with even one of them, she’d know what was happening.
‘If I’m sure they won’t kill him, waiting by the gate might be better. But with thugs like Lee Eun Woo sending them, I can’t predict what they’ll do.’
Waiting by the gate was an option, but not the one to choose now.
If One Way Group’s crazed employees obtained an antidote and murdered Moo Saeng?
In the end, Geum Sua chose to follow the most visible trail.
Step, step, step…
Careful. But swift.
Eyes wide open, Geum Sua pushed through the jungle.
‘God, my eyes are going to fall out. Tracking in terrain like this is absolute torture.’
Combat she could handle.
But pathfinding…
No—not even pathfinding. Tracking through someone else’s traces was one of the few things Geum Sua was genuinely helpless at.
But as that thought struck her, another realization came with it.
‘My Sherpa experience wasn’t wasted. He must have picked terrain he felt most confident about.’
Even with experience on the 22nd Dungeon, it made no difference.
Most Awakeners, if they had experience at all, had it only once or twice.
There was no way familiarity with jungle life would stick.
Had Moo Saeng deliberately drawn his enemies into the terrain where he could fight best?
‘But even if he had drawn them in—’
Could he really navigate the jungle with such skill, lure them away, and take them down one by one?
That was probably the extent of what Moo Saeng could manage.
‘But One Way Group isn’t the kind of organization to fall for something like that. They’d be just as prepared even if he brought guns.’
A guild of One Way Group’s caliber would already be taking precautions.
Ranged Attack Defense Scrolls were probably standard issue.
Close-range combat? Swinging a weapon at them?
Even one of the people pursuing them now would be enough to block Moo Saeng’s attacks.
So then, the real reason for coming here had to be…
‘He obtained an Artifact. I’m sure of it. He secured at least two items or more from the 66th Floor.’
Geum Sua made her deduction.
And when she caught up with the One Way Group members, that deduction hardened into certainty.
“A snake is following us!”
“Damn it, we don’t have that many antidotes… Contact Manager Park! Get his instructions!”
“No good, sir! The radio won’t work!”
“What?”
Geum Sua watched the scene unfold from a distance away.
Control over a snake.
Was that the Artifact’s ability?
‘It could be annoying, but to actually suppress One Way—!?’
Hisssssss—!
Geum Sua’s entire body erupted in goosebumps in an instant.
If she hadn’t been who she was—if she’d forgotten her concealment and screamed in shock—it was terror enough to pierce her spine.
Rustle-rustle-rustle, rustle-rustle-rustle—!
‘Snakes—snakes—what is this—!?’
She couldn’t move.
Not with countless snakes slithering past her surroundings.
Thousands of them?
No—tens of thousands?
“The number of snakes—! Damn it, we kill them but they just keep coming from everywhere—!?”
“Shit, we’re pulling out! Use the scroll!”
“S-sir, the scroll won’t work!”
“Gurrrrgh…”
“What happened? Why is he collapsing—”
“P-poison—! The antidote isn’t working! One bite is—aaagh!”
And what was this extraordinarily potent venom?
Not even classified as a monster—just ordinary snakes? Regular creatures?
‘Impossible. Control the toxicity of the poison—no, that can’t be right. No matter what Artifact comes from a 66th Floor boss, it couldn’t have that kind of effect!’
Yet what unfolded before her eyes was undeniably real.
Poison stronger than what emerged from the 44th Floor boss chamber.
The sight of them stiffening one by one, collapsing with muffled thuds—wasn’t it exactly like how Geumseong’s employees had fallen to Slaiken’s venom?
‘And the number of snakes—!? What is this, exactly—!?’
And this bizarre respawn speed—what was it?
No matter how much they burned them with skills, froze them, or seared them to ash, snakes kept pouring out endlessly from all directions. How was that possible?
‘The respawn can’t be this fast. Respawn—no, that’s not it. No matter what Artifact it is, it shouldn’t be able to touch life itself.’
But that wasn’t all.
The Escape Scrolls weren’t working.
Defective? There’s no way One Way Group employees would use such inferior scrolls.
‘Something’s wrong. Something—. What’s happening here?’
At that moment, Geum Sua made her decision.
She would leave.
She’d confirmed that Moo Saeng possessed a 66th Floor Artifact. That was enough.
She’d reconsider this impossible effect later.
What mattered now was escape from this incomprehensible situation.
Rustle, rustle, rustle-rustle-rustle!
Whether her concealment broke or not—none of that mattered anymore.
She bolted frantically toward the gate.
Then she stopped short.
‘Hah.’
Near the gate, she had no choice but to hold her breath and crouch low.
‘What… is that?’
She had witnessed something grotesque.
Men in black suits lay orderly on the ground.
And above their heads, something had been rigged.
Drip, drip, drip……
Constructed to fall drop by drop into their mouths.
A device designed to regulate the volume dripping at set intervals.
‘An IV line? Some kind of makeshift IV drip?’
The apparatus varied from person to person.
Likely fashioned from the canteens of those ‘lying down.’
Its purpose? Recovery?
But that wasn’t what mattered.
The fact that someone had constructed this device on the spot.
Installing it above the heads of One Way Group employees paralyzed.
“Oof, my back.”
That someone was Moo Saeng.
Geum Sua swallowed hard.
She had to clamp her hand over her mouth lest even the sound of that swallow escape.
How many trials had she endured before clearing the 66th Floor?
How many crises had she overcome before ascending to the position of Deputy Director at Geumseong’s strategy headquarters, and after?
Yet even for her, the scene before her eyes was nothing but grotesqueness and terror itself.
Much less could she fathom what Moo Saeng was doing.
“They won’t die, will they? An overdose would be problematic.”
When she grasped the purpose of that ‘makeshift IV drip,’ the shock only deepened.
‘To, to maintain the paralysis……!?’
Recovery?
There was no way something so cruel could be the purpose.
‘But when, how? The people I was chasing are here too. How did he manage it faster than me……’
There were more mysteries than she could count.
Yet one thing was certain.
Whether Geum Sua understood it or not.
Subduing twenty-seven fallen men.
Paralyzing them without killing a single one.
Gathering them together and sustaining their state.
Moo Saeng had planned and executed all of this.
With precise understanding of every method.
‘What on earth is this man?’
The man who’d done nothing but yawn and sip coffee in that café — was that truly this person?
Rustle, rustle, rustle……
In that moment, the brush nearby where Geum Sua crouched began to rustle.
“Hah, hah, hah…… D-did you do all of this? By yourself?”
The figure that emerged was Park Do Hyeon.
Battered and bloodied, he bore three paralyzed subordinates on his shoulders.
He threw his men down and posed the question.
Moo Saeng answered.
“No.”
“You’re lying!”
Park Do Hyeon cried out at once.
Moo Saeng shrugged.
“What? You didn’t even believe me to begin with. Of course it was me — who else would it be? Ha.”
“You son of a bitch!”
Park Do Hyeon’s thighs swelled with power.
Geum Sua watched with sharp eyes.
The distance between him and Moo Saeng closed in an instant as he kicked off the ground and charged forward.
‘Whatever he did, in a one-on-one like this, One Way Group has the advantage…… or does it?’
And there, watching it all, Moo Saeng was smiling.

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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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