I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 21

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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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Chapter 21
A suffocating silence.
Han Seol-ah’s face turned cold.
Jin Cheon-jin’s hands trembled.
Min Ji-hee bit her lip.
The atmosphere was bleak.
Ah, I see.
My explanation had been far too brief and sparse.
“Of course, I’m going with you.”
“…Oh.”
A simultaneous sigh of relief escaped from all three of their mouths.
The shoulders that had been rigid with fear gradually relaxed.
I’d only said to ‘take the nuclear bomb with you,’ so from their perspective, it must have sounded like ‘go and blow yourself up.’
They were already treating me like some bloodless, tearless tyrant, and if I left it at that, I’d be branded as a ‘psychopath who treats subordinates like disposable goods.’
‘I haven’t spoken with people in far too long.’
A trivial mistake. Ha.
I added casually.
“…You didn’t actually interpret that as me telling you to embrace the bomb and die gloriously, did you?”
“Ah, no! Of course not!”
I clicked my tongue.
Looking at their expressions, that was exactly what they’d been thinking.
I needed to clear up this misunderstanding once and for all.
“Don’t misunderstand. I absolutely despise all this talk of noble sacrifice and such.”
The remaining three flinched.
‘Ah, so that wasn’t it.’
I could almost hear that unspoken thought.
What the hell? What kind of monster do they think I am?
“This goes for the future as well. Not just you three, but every hunter and awakened one in South Korea—I have no intention of letting any of you die meaninglessly.”
“…You mean.”
“The salvation I promised you isn’t built upon someone’s sacrifice.”
I continued flatly.
“One dies, another lives on grieving… that kind of bad ending leaves a bitter aftertaste.”
“…Pardon?”
“If we’re going to do this, we might as well go for a clean no-death clear.”
I truly believed that.
I’ve always been a happy-ending person. Whenever possible, I aim for full survival, a no-death clear.
I hate the sight of memorial lists rolling up the end credits.
Besides.
This isn’t a game—it’s reality.
The weight of life is equally heavy for all.
If I could help it, I wanted to aim for a no-death clear within reach.
That’s precisely why I needed a “perfect strategy.”
There’s a path where no one has to be sacrificed, so there’s no reason to settle for second best.
A brief silence fell.
Min Ji-hee was the first to respond, as expected.
“…Apostle.”
“Hmm?”
“You are… truly merciful.”
Min Ji-hee’s eyes grew distant.
The gaze of someone beholding a sage.
Ugh.
That’s a bit much.
I shook my head.
“I’m not saying I’m a righteous person. It’s just….”
Mercy? It’s nothing so grandiose.
I simply want to eliminate variables that increase my Quest failure rate.
And I have the ability to do so.
“My plan doesn’t require anyone’s sacrifice.”
“Ah….”
“…Stop thinking strange thoughts and just do as I say. That’s all.”
“…Yes. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Min Ji-hee bowed her head and withdrew.
‘…She understood, right?’
…Right?
* * *
After the Apostle left.
Min Ji-hee convened a strategy meeting.
Jin Cheon-jin spoke in a hesitant voice.
“I think I’ve been viewing the Apostle as far too vile a being all this time.”
“What do you think now?”
“‘Bad endings leave a bitter aftertaste’… Wasn’t he just expressing his care for us in that way? Turns out he’s someone with deep affection….”
“Aha ha. Chairman, no. No….”
Min Ji-hee shook her head with a faint smile.
“It’s not human sentiment like that.”
“What? Then what do you mean?”
“Perfectionism.”
As if the smile she’d worn moments before was a lie, Min Ji-hee’s eyes turned cold and sharp, dissecting the hidden meaning beneath the Apostle’s words.
“A truly vicious kind….”
“…?”
Min Ji-hee continued, her gaze fixed on the door where the Apostle had vanished.
“Think back on what you said earlier. You mentioned feeling an ‘aftertaste of unease’—not sadness, but unease.”
A chill ran down my spine at Min Ji-hee’s words.
“From The One’s perspective, our deaths are not a tragedy. They’re merely blemishes on the perfect blueprint he’s drawn. There’s no reason to deliberately tarnish a guaranteed clear with a lower score—the logic of the strong….”
“Ah… so that’s what you meant?”
“Which is why you must keep your wits about you.”
Min Ji-hee’s eyes gleamed as she made her declaration.
“If we die, The One won’t grieve. Instead, he’ll be displeased—’Who dares die without permission and mar my perfect clear record?'”
“…A ruthless man indeed.”
“Yes. Which is why we must survive at all costs.”
Min Ji-hee fell silent after that.
But her mind was spinning faster than ever.
‘Quest, bad ending, no death clear….’
Words the Apostle had carelessly let slip.
Their implication was unmistakable.
‘Apostle… do you perceive this world as though it were a game?’
If that were true…
‘…then we’re nothing but chess pieces?’
Meanwhile.
Han Seol-ah, observing the increasingly grave conversation between the two, tilted her head quietly.
‘…it seemed like he was just encouraging us not to die, telling us not to worry going forward?’
* * *
Inside the helicopter heading to Pyongyang.
It was just Han Seol-ah and me.
Below us, the traces of the ‘Absolute Zero’ I’d unleashed stretched out like white scars across the landscape.
Han Seol-ah gazed at those marks, lost in thought.
“Apostle.”
Then she suddenly called out to me.
“…Could we go back to The Other World?”
“Hmm.”
I could guess what Han Seol-ah was thinking.
She was the one who’d tried desperately to replicate Glacial Flash after experiencing it for the first time.
She probably wanted to learn the ultimate skill that had created the destruction marks below.
“No.”
I understood her desire, but my answer was firm.
Possession tickets needed to be used more sparingly.
Besides, there was another reason.
“And you can’t use it anyway.”
A truth I’d discovered from testing it directly in reality.
This wasn’t magic a human brain could calculate.
I could use it because synchronization handled the computation for me—a simple click and it was done.
‘If I tell her to use it raw, she absolutely won’t be able to.’
And the Skill Tree that Han Seol-ah needs to learn isn’t this one either.
“Give up on it.”
“….”
Han Seol-ah closed her mouth instead of answering.
Her lips pouted ever so slightly—she was clearly upset.
‘Well, what can I do.’
Don’t stare at trees you can’t climb.
-Whoooosh!
With a shallow tremor, the helicopter descended into Pyongyang.
At the coordinates Min Ji-hee had calculated.
The point where the Boss Gate first came into existence.
“Han Seol-ah.”
“Yes.”
This is where things get important.
“What do you think is the essence of Frost Boundary magic?”
“…?”
Confusion bloomed across Han Seol-ah’s face.
As if asking why I would ask something like that at this moment.
But soon she collected herself and answered earnestly.
“…It’s cold magic.”
“….”
Hmm. That’s correct.
“Then what are the characteristics of Frost Boundary magic?”
“It’s difficult to control, but one strike is powerful?”
“Why do you think it has such advantages?”
“Well….”
Han Seol-ah blinked, seeming at a loss for words.
The look of someone wondering why I’m asking something so obvious.
“…Because that’s just how the ability is?”
I nodded.
I knew she would think that way.
“Then what about flame magic?”
“I’ve heard it doesn’t require complex control like Frost Boundary. You just cast it and it goes.”
“Why do you think such a difference exists?”
“…Because that’s how it was decided?”
It’s not wrong.
In reality, Frost Boundary magic, Han Seol-ah’s specialty, is difficult to handle.
The reason Han Seol-ah’s magic consumes so much mana is ultimately because of this difficulty—countless safeguards were installed to prevent the caster from being harmed.
Meanwhile, flame magic isn’t as cumbersome to use as Frost Boundary.
Why?
What possible reason could there be for such an irrational balance to exist?
Most hunters simply accept it, attributing it to “the Tower’s blessing being the way it is.”
So Han Seol-ah’s answer isn’t wrong.
“But it’s not right either.”
“…Pardon?”
I’m a veteran who leveled Lost Honor’s Frostcaster to max.
A mage who has wielded both Han Seol-ah’s magic and the Frostcaster’s magic.
When Synchronization is active, I’m an EX-rank hunter—and frankly, a genius at manipulating frost-aligned mana better than Han Seol-ah herself.
That’s who I am.
And because of that, I can reach a conclusion.
—Han Seol-ah has grown incorrectly.
Her fundamental premise is flawed.
Frost magic is not a spell school designed for ‘dealers.’
‘Freezing’ is CC—crowd control, status ailments—magic designed for the ‘debuffer’ class.
This is why Han Seol-ah found frost-aligned mana so difficult to handle.
‘Misuse of purpose.’
She’s been forcibly twisting mana specialized in support and control into offensive magic, causing the difficulty to skyrocket exponentially.
To use an analogy: flame magic is a ‘pistol’ where you simply pull the trigger and it fires.
Easy, simple. It’s designed to be used that way.
Frost magic, by contrast, is a ‘custom-assembled gun’ where you must carve the barrel from mana, assemble the bullets, mix the gunpowder, and then fire.
Comparatively difficult. It’s not designed to be used that way.
If you slip up in this process? The gun explodes in your hand.
…But this isn’t Han Seol-ah’s fault.
‘…It was an unavoidable choice.’
The problem originates from South Korea’s hunter pool being malformed.
With no reliable dealers, the entire burden of ‘the killing blow’ was thrust upon this girl.
To meet those expectations, Han Seol-ah forcibly compressed mana unsuited to its purpose and developed a lethal technique to shatter the 94th Floor boss’s skull.
She didn’t even die doing something so absurd.
‘Extraordinary talent.’
I suspect only I in this world know this truth.
Let me retrace my thoughts.
Why was Han Seol-ah the first possessed host I was given?
Because she’s the strongest?
No—in pure power and durability, Jin Cheon-jin surpasses her.
Because she’s the smartest?
In strategy and tactical thinking, Min Ji-hee is overwhelmingly superior.
Because she’s the most beautiful and adorable?
…I won’t deny it, but surely that’s not the reason.
The moment I unlocked the Frostcaster as my first class, I instinctively understood why.
Only one thing.
The most necessary one.
Necessary for whom?
For me.
Necessary where?
For clearing the Tower.
I lifted my gaze toward the southern sky.
There, piercing through the clouds, stood a colossal pillar.
—The Korean Tower.
That accursed structure, halted at the 94th Floor, had dragged the nation toward the abyss of annihilation.
For the past ten years, every citizen of South Korea had shared a singular objective: clearing that Tower.
I was no exception.
For a decade, I had yearned—desperately yearned—for the opportunity to breach those 94 Floors.
The desire to awaken had consumed ten years of my existence.
In truth, it was merely another manifestation of my obsession to clear that Tower at any cost.
Based on the intelligence I had gathered over those ten years, clearing the 94th Floor required a minimum of three Hunters.
In gaming terms, a perfect party composition was essential for the strategy.
One of those roles was a debuffer.
Specifically, at minimum S-rank talent. Ideally, EX-rank potential.
I fixed my gaze upon Han Seol-ah.
“…?”
Han Seol-ah.
This Hunter possessed the ideal conditions as a debuffer—no, a gift bestowed by the divine itself.
When I had simulated Tower strategies, she had always been my first choice.
The essence of a Frost Mage is debuffing.
It is a class that can never become a damage dealer.
Yet Han Seol-ah had been forced into the life of a dealer, living that way for ten years.
In gaming terms, it was like allocating skill points and stats incorrectly because the party had only me as a dealer.
Even if a support class stacked spell power items, they could never match a mage’s efficiency.
If this were a game, a simple skill reset would solve everything.
But reality offered no such item.
So she would have to unlearn ten years of ingrained habit, to dismantle the identity she had built as a dealer.
It was far easier said than done.
Teaching her from scratch would require far too much time.
But we had no time. Annihilation would arrive in just two days.
Therefore.
I had no choice. There was only one method.
‘Shock therapy.’
I reached out and gently tapped the ice dragon’s eye with Eternal Winter.
Crack!
With a crisp crack, a fissure spiderwebbed across the Ice Dragon’s eye.
“…Apostle?”
“Here.”
I thrust Eternal Winter and the Ice Dragon’s eye into Han Seol-ah’s hands.
Vrrrrrrr—!
The Ice Dragon’s eye began to vibrate violently.
An ominous surge of mana—no, demonic energy—billowed forth in thick, roiling clouds.
“Apostle? Something feels wrong with this state?”
I took a step back.
“Nothing wrong. It’s functioning perfectly.”
“Ah, so I shouldn’t worry then?”
“It’s in the state right before detonation.”
“Huh?”
Han Seol-ah’s head turned slowly toward me.
“…What?”
Her expression screamed: ‘What are you talking about?’
“It’ll explode soon. Ten.”
In her hands, the ‘nuclear bomb’ shrieked, blazing with crimson light.
“Nine.”
“W-wait!!!”
There is no time for rational thought.
Only instinct remains in this moment.
Abandon the ten years of habit you’ve cultivated. Awaken your true talent.
“Eight.”
Humanity’s greatest stimulant is the threshold of death itself!
Rise, Han Seol-ah!
If you wish to live, awaken!

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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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