Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 37

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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 Admin Who Cheats — Mythical Tower Climbing (37)
As the sun began to rise, countless heads were already lining the ramparts of the Fortress.
What on earth had happened throughout the night?
Screams, roars, shouts, chaos, explosions, collapses……
Every conceivable sound and flame had tangled together in confusion.
It was impossible to know what had transpired down there.
Yet now, all the soldiers atop the ramparts could see.
“Commander, I think that……”
“Yes, it’s over. No monsters are being detected.”
The monster coalition’s encampment had been utterly annihilated.
Even the monsters that had surrounded the Fortress were gone.
If you looked at the Crystal Orb’s readings—the one that tracked monster life force—it was certain.
There was no more threat. The monsters had vanished entirely.
The real question was: who on earth had done this?
Reinforcements from the kingdom? No—there was no way to reach that place without going through the Fortress.
Geographically, physically impossible.
“Perhaps they turned on each other internally……”
“If that were the case, we’d just see flags change hands.”
“Right, right. There’s no reason for it to be this empty.”
Internal conflict wouldn’t explain such devastation.
Even if their leadership changed, there’d be no reason for every race to vanish like this.
Which meant there was really only one possibility.
“Could a d-dragon, or maybe, an angel……appear?”
The work of a supremely powerful being.
“Would we not have seen a dragon rampaging? Use common sense.”
“Angels don’t make sense either. Angels have only descended once—during the miracle of the 92nd Holy Emperor.”
Dragons and angels were out of the question.
But……
“C-Commander! Over there—! A person! There’s a person!”
“Hm? Who is—Wh!?”
A human. That made sense.
Someone was trudging toward them. Moving with a weary gait.
Or rather, exactly like an exhausted salaryman heading home from work!?
“Whew, exercising all night sure is tiring. Hey, could you open the gate?”
They had been waiting for death while besieged.
Many more days had stretched before them before reinforcements could arrive.
“K-Kim Moo-saeng!?”
“It’s Kim Moo-saeng! How did you even—”
“The monsters…… Did Kim Moo-saeng……!?”
The Fortress garrison spotted him with wide, astonished eyes.
Moo-saeng smiled and waved.
The sight of soldiers poking their heads over the ramparts like meerkats was amusing, though that certainly wasn’t the reason.
“Yes, yes, it’s all taken care of, so don’t worry! Could I get some water? Nothing poisoned! And could you call Park Hyun-gu for me?”
The price of having spent the night eliminating the monster coalition was undeniable.
‘I confirmed Geum Byung-chul’s growth pattern too. Good.’
Strength 2, Stamina 1, Will 1, and……
Something was clutched in Moo-saeng’s hand.
A rolled Parchment and one gleaming Blue Gem.
* * *
After receiving a brief briefing from Moo-saeng.
After confirming the truth of his account.
Inside the Fortress, which had erupted into a festive atmosphere.
Park Hyun-gu was likewise approaching Moo-saeng, his face greasy from having been awake all night.
“Moo-saeng? I cleared it. Did you clear it? I got no reward. Did you get a reward?”
Despite the night of combat, he was just as filthy as Moo-saeng.
Moo-saeng finally burst out laughing.
“Pfahahaha, what, are we kindergarteners talking? And who’d think you cleared it looking like that? What’s with that face of yours?”
“No, it’s, hey, what am I even supposed to—”
But Park Hyun-gu had plenty to say as well.
In fact, he had so much to say that his head was about to explode, leaving him unable to get the words out at all.
And it’s precisely because he knows that it’s all Kim Moo-saeng’s doing — that Kim Moo-saeng did something — that he’s acting like this, isn’t he?
“I’ll explain everything slowly. Just come on, let’s get out of here. I’m tired and a promise is a promise.”
“What promise?”
“Tsk, the person who forgot doesn’t have the right to eat.”
Moo-saeng arranged his duffel bag with a frown.
Only then did Park Hyun-gu catch on.
“Beef……? Hey, but no matter what — you’re not seriously bringing up beef now, are you? After all this chaos, that’s what you open with?”
“We do all this to survive and eat. So what else matters besides beef?”
Watching Park Hyun-gu’s flabbergasted expression, Moo-saeng answered with equal bewilderment.
Park Hyun-gu turned to him, exasperated, and began to speak—
“You should at least explain from the beginning what happened!”
“Don’t eat it then.”
At that one line from Moo-saeng, Park Hyun-gu had nothing left to say.
He knew full well that Moo-saeng’s way of speaking — his meaning was simply “let’s talk while we eat.”
“It’s not that I won’t eat, I mean, ahem, okay, so we’re leaving anyway, but…… Man, in all my years, this is the first time I’ve cleared a tower while acting like some unemployed hermit.”
“Nice way to put it. Unemployed hermit. That’s why I told you to shave.”
“Who, who goes to a tower with a razor and shaving cream, for crying out loud! Just because someone said to bring it—”
“I brought mine.”
Park Hyun-gu, who’d walked alongside Moo-saeng for over twenty years.
In moments like these, he simply kept his mouth shut.
“Let’s go. Fine.”
He knew well enough that doing what Moo-saeng said was the way to go.
* * *
Whoooosh.
Moo-saeng didn’t leave the tower just to grill beef over charcoal in broad daylight.
Nor was it solely because he genuinely regretted the joke he’d made to Park Hyun-gu.
“Hyun-gu.”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think there’s anyone else like you out there?”
“Someone as perfect as me? Where would you—”
“Hey, don’t joke around.”
He’d just finished verifying the contribution rewards for Party Play.
It was at that moment the idea struck him.
For instance, if two people in Party Play meant a 10% difficulty increase and 10% reward increase—
what about three? Four? Five?
If he took them with him and secured 100% contribution for himself—
wouldn’t he be able to take rewards from a single floor that were equivalent to three, four floors or more?
“But they have to just sit there, right? Hey, how many people like that would there be?”
But it wasn’t easy.
He needed Awakeners who didn’t mind having 0% contribution, as long as they could ascend to higher floors of the tower.
“That’s why I’m asking you. I’m grateful, so I’m treating you to beef.”
“Hmm, I’ll look around, but who knows if anyone like that exists…… This time too — just by stepping outside the tent once and talking with the soldiers, didn’t it already get messed up?”
[That would be it. Based on the behavior of this savage and ridiculous human…… even just a few conversations with the soldiers on the eleventh floor, making them laugh — they’d assign contribution for ‘receiving emotional comfort.’]
That was Wash’s assessment, exactly as stated.
From that perspective, he could now understand why this climbing method hadn’t spread as rumors.
Betrayal.
No, it wasn’t even really betrayal.
After all, strictly adhering to instructions was never an easy task either.
“Still, if several go together, you could take the lead and have everyone play a game of Mafia or something in some corner. That’d work, right?”
Yet Moo-saeng pressed on with Park Hyun-gu anyway.
“Heh, well, it does sound fun.”
“Seriously. I’m asking sincerely, so try to find even just one person for me.”
Even one person would do.
If he could grow this way from even one floor lower…….
“Your rewards must’ve been pretty substantial, huh?”
“It’s not just about the rewards.”
Park Hyun-gu, with 0% contribution, naturally couldn’t see what system message Moo-saeng had received.
Still somewhat playful, yet genuinely wanting to celebrate Moo-saeng who’d demolished the eleventh floor despite its increased difficulty, Park Hyun-gu opened his mouth—
“Heh heh, it’s really been ages since Kim Moo-saeng showed up like this? Back in those old days—”
“Yeah. Ever since the time you said you’d help me confess to Ye-rin. That was the last time.”
“Ahem, well, no—that wasn’t what I was trying to say.”
“She’s alive, Park. Ye-rin. In the Tower.”
“……What?”
Park Hyun-gu fell silent at once.
The words *What nonsense is this?* rose to the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them.
Kim Moo-saeng’s eyes.
Those eyes, utterly serious.
“……You wouldn’t joke about something like that…….”
He hadn’t cleared the eleventh floor through endurance alone.
It was a method beyond Park’s own comprehension.
Even after hearing some explanation, understanding eluded him—the kind of thing you simply let pass without dwelling on it.
And so Park Hyun-gu found himself recognizing once more that Moo-saeng’s circumstances had shifted from what he’d known before.
“Something happened, didn’t it? You must have been through a lot.”
Tap, tap.
He simply patted Moo-saeng’s shoulder, offering the words quietly.
At Park’s deliberate lack of pressing questions, Moo-saeng felt a warmth prickling behind his eyes for a moment—but that was all.
“Heh! Hardship? No, it’s good news. Right, Park?”
“Yeah. I’ll look into it. First I’ll call everyone reliable I know and spread the word. But even at the fastest pace, it’ll take three days or more. Anyway, give it about five days.”
Park Hyun-gu spoke with quiet gravity, watching as Moo-saeng deliberately forced brightness into his words.
More rewards. Faster growth.
As long as the need and reason were clear—and now that Park himself knew the facts—there was no way he could simply sit idle.
Moo-saeng felt relief wash over him at those words and smoothly turned the conversation aside.
“Sounds good. I should hit the sauna, loosen up, maybe hit a dungeon too. Perfect timing, actually. Hey, want to come along? The Gumseong Group hotel has a nice sauna—”
“Yeah, Gumseong? It’s on the news.”
“What……huh?”
But at Park Hyun-gu’s fixed gaze, Moo-saeng too swiftly turned his head.
The television was broadcasting Incheon Airport.
Before the arrival gate of Incheon Airport—security and protection massively reinforced—a reporter stood beaming, chattering away enthusiastically.
[The Guild Master of Windbloom has arrived to attend the global conference held by Gumseong, wearing a smile. And it’s not just America. Yesterday, the Dean and Awakeners from the French Awakener Academy Reveille Grandes Ecoles, along with representatives and engineers from Metalline, the world’s largest Awakener equipment manufacturer, entered the country. So too did numerous leading Tower Climbing enterprises and organizations worldwide.]
The news anchor at the studio desk synthesized the field reporter’s account.
[The Guild Master of Windbloom, the Dean of Reveille Grandes Ecoles, the Executive Director of Metalline……. All of them are figures you’d call 〈Eight Seconds〉, are they not?]
Eight Seconds. Eight seconds.
An unofficial designation watched by the entire world—not only by Awakeners, but by all humanity.
It referred to Awakeners with the power to erase a major city or a small nation within eight seconds.
In other words, setting aside the Nevada Treaty and all the rest—three Awakeners capable of bringing South Korea to ruin in eight seconds had just entered the country, which meant the airport, broadcast networks, and news outlets were naturally in an uproar!
[Yes, precisely! And because all of them have come with a single purpose, even the World Awakener Association is astir.]
[What is their purpose?]
[It’s the conference hosted by Gumseong. In particular, this conference wasn’t included in investor relations announcements, so it’s drawing attention because Geum Byung-chul—who is typically counted among the 〈Eight Seconds〉—is personally overseeing it as an emergency initiative.]
[I see. What is the theme of such an urgently convened conference?]
[This conference is—.]
These three had come at the invitation of Geum Byung-chul, who was himself never absent from the list of 〈Eight Seconds〉…….
Moo-saeng’s eyes, which had been dully fixed on the screen, blinked rapidly.
“Huh.”
“What is it?”
The larger a guild’s international reach, the less it acts on impulse.
They know intimately how much of a variable every single one of their moves becomes.
And yet—this movement. This situation.
What if such circumstances were created by unavoidable necessity?
“It’s not…… because of me, is it?”
The Tower’s administrator.
Moo-saeng had more than enough reason to suspect.

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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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