I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 39

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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 39
With a dull thud, Han Seol-ah collapsed, and I immediately flew at full speed toward the Hunter Association Building, my heart pounding with worry.
Thanks to the Achievement, the efficiency of my synchronization had improved dramatically, so even flying this fast felt effortless.
[Your MP is sufficient.]
With Whitey’s support monitoring Nebula’s MP gauge in real-time through the smartphone lens in my room, I felt completely assured.
Upon arriving at the Hunter Association Building, I sensed the familiar mana of an ice-binding formation.
The 30th Floor.
Right below me.
Click.
When I tried to open the rooftop door and descend, it was firmly locked.
Using my abilities to force it open would be simple enough.
But did I really need to do it that way?
‘An alarm might go off.’
I had PTSD from those whirring alarm sounds.
I decided to descend quietly through the window instead.
Creating footholds one by one, I positioned myself in front of the 30th Floor window.
Inside, I sensed Han Seol-ah’s mana.
‘Hmm.’
Was she training?
With the Eternal Winter on my back, I could feel the ice-binding mana flowing even more distinctly.
Shhh—
Han Seol-ah inhaled slowly.
From the pure mana existing in the atmosphere, I could see her absorbing only the mana with cold attributes.
The purity was nearly 99%.
It was an extremely efficient breathing technique—filtering out impurities to the maximum and taking only pure cold essence.
Shhh—
In her slow exhale, mist-like coldness was mixed in.
Had she failed to absorb it all?
One might think so, but this phenomenon occurred because Han Seol-ah’s mana hole was far too cold.
After absorbing 99% of the cold-attribute mana and exhaling the remaining 1%,
that remaining 1% had frozen solid.
“Magnificent.”
It was a perfection as if someone had taught her.
Whoosh—
The Eternal Winter on my back trembled, as if it had noticed me.
I ignored it.
‘Hmm.’
Perfect.
Perfect, yet···.
‘Still lacking.’
I’m not trying to compare myself to her.
Such a comparison wouldn’t even be valid from the start.
However, by the true EX-rank standard this world demands, the flow of her mana was far too rigid.
‘With that level of power, she won’t be able to defeat Resonar.’
Since I’m EX-rank, Han Seol-ah needs to reach at least that caliber as well.
Otherwise, Resonar’s ‘backlash’ could simply tear Han Seol-ah apart.
I watched Han Seol-ah’s training for a while longer.
If I spoke to her now, she’d be startled.
If I’m careless, it could trigger a mana rampage.
‘Then South Korea is finished.’
I waited for Han Seol-ah to open her eyes.
‘Since she even collapsed from that whisper earlier, if I carelessly act like I know what’s happening, it might trigger another mana rampage.’
I erased my presence as much as possible.
Tap, tap.
I knocked on the window.
“Eek!”
The so-called guardian of South Korea, upon discovering me floating in mid-air, widened her eyes as if she’d seen a ghost and gasped sharply.
Her entire body went rigid—she looked exactly like a startled hamster.
‘I knew this would happen.’
Knock, knock.
I added another polite knock for good measure.
It wasn’t exactly the formal entrance.
But a window is a door too.
“Kyaaah!”
Please, don’t be frightened—just open it.
* * *
Hearing Han Seol-ah’s scream, Min Ji-hee came rushing in and nearly lost her footing upon seeing the Apostle floating outside the window.
‘How did he breach the barrier… No. He must have found a way somehow.’
Back when South Korea still had enough S-rank Hunters.
The 30th Floor’s protective system had been constructed by mobilizing experts, including an S-rank barrier specialist.
Han Seol-ah, who bore the hopes of potentially saving South Korea’s future.
There could be no compromise in protecting such talent…
The system was, quite simply, perfect.
Impenetrable.
Even if breached by transcendent power, it had been reinforced repeatedly to buy sufficient time for secondary countermeasures.
Yet it had been breached.
What was more astonishing… was that she hadn’t even noticed it had been breached.
“W-welcome, Apostle.”
Min Ji-hee opened the window to greet the Apostle.
The Apostle simply nodded once in response and walked through the air into the room.
‘···!’
Watching him, Han Seol-ah felt a small shock ripple through her.
‘So it can be used like that···.’
She had heard about it from her father, Jin Cheon-jin the Hunter Association Chairman, but this was the first time seeing it in person.
The moment I witnessed it, I understood. How to use it.
And just how exquisite a command of ice-binding manipulation it required.
The Apostle descended slowly.
Frost crystallized at the tips of his feet as he stepped.
The moisture in the air froze solid, forming a broad platform that hardened into ice stronger than steel.
Tap.
Then the Apostle’s foot pressed down on the ice platform he had created.
Leisurely.
‘Is he showing me?’
Han Seol-ah’s eyes moved intently.
Merely handling the ice-binding technique well was not enough.
One had to first understand the body itself.
The stride length?
The force when pressing against the ground?
The pressure when the foot pushed off the surface?
All of it was calculated.
Without knowing the stride length.
One would step into empty air and plummet.
Without understanding the force.
The ice platform would either shatter from insufficient strength.
Or waste energy from being too strong.
‘Is this···’ a path?”
The back of one who walked ahead.
A trail blazed by the pioneer who came first.
Han Seol-ah was witnessing it.
How desperately she had longed for this sight.
South Korea was a barren wasteland for Awakeners.
There was no one who could demonstrate how an S-rank Awakener should grow.
Moreover, among ice-binding ability users across the entire globe, Han Seol-ah stood at the apex.
Who could teach whom?
Han Seol-ah was a pioneer walking through uncharted territory.
Was this path correct? I was always uncertain, but I could not afford to stop advancing.
The moment my growth stalled. The moment I could no longer hold back the brakes.
South Korea would perish.
Was that not why I had been given the title of ‘Guardian’?
Walking through uncharted lands, I could not afford to take a single wrong step.
I had to struggle desperately to find the ‘right path’.
Sometimes, even if the path was wrong, I couldn’t let it show.
‘Ah.’
A bolt of lightning struck through Han Seol-ah’s mind.
The experience of death.
The true ice-binding magic she had obtained at its end.
She had only thought of it as something to ‘use’.
Follow the Apostle’s footsteps.
Was that even ‘magic’?
Arranging mana, weaving spells together, imbuing them with will and activating them—was that what she was doing?
No.
When I wish it, mana responds.
When I command a foothold to exist, magic activates.
‘Ah.’
The path becomes clear.
Enlightenment rushes forward.
All this time, I had only used mana as a tool.
I had only treated it as a cost necessary to activate magic.
In the slowed world, the Apostle takes a step forward, unhurried.
Tap.
That small sound of a footfall.
It was like the sound of a wall shattering.
‘A mana core is a spring.’
From Han Seol-ah’s mana core, which had been frozen solid, the ice-binding mana began to flow out naturally, like melting spring snow.
‘A mana circuit is a river.’
Along the withered mana circuit, a massive river surged and coiled, and soon her entire body flooded as if it had become one vast mana core.
‘All of it is me.’
The ice-binding mana that filled the entire mana circuit completely remained, never returning to the core.
It was as if every mana circuit in her body had become a mana core.
Whoooosh—
The sound of cold rain whispered against her ears. For the first time, the sensation of life flowing through her frozen body.
Drip.
A single tear streamed down Han Seol-ah’s cheek.
The Hunter Watch alarm materialized before her eyes.
[Hunter Han Seol-ah’s Hunter Rank is ‘EX’]
* * *
Suddenly.
Han Seol-ah shed a tear and collapsed to the ground.
‘···?’
What, what’s happening?
Even as an EX-rank Hunter, I couldn’t help but be startled by a situation like this.
No, that’s not it.
I opened the window and came in, and the moment she saw me, she suddenly burst into tears.
That’s strange, isn’t it?
‘What did I even do?’
I only moved carefully because she seemed so frightened.
Did I startle her with a whisper in her ear?
By coming through the window?
Did I look like a madman?
But I couldn’t have entered through the first floor anyway.
If I’d kicked down the Rooftop door and entered that way, she would’ve treated me like a criminal!
This is unfair.
“Se, Seol-ah?”
Min Ji-hee grabbed Han Seol-ah in bewilderment.
“Ah.”
Han Seol-ah gathered her scattered wits back together.
She staggered to her feet.
“Thank you.”
This time, she bowed her head to me.
A perfect ninety-degree bow.
‘···.’
When someone suddenly cries and then prostrates themselves, there’s nothing to say.
I couldn’t very well ask “Why are you crying?” in the face of such a heavy, solemn atmosphere.
‘Anyway, since she’s thanking me, it must have worked out well, right?’
As I stood in silence, Min Ji-hee, reading the awkward air, quickly stepped forward.
“Apostle, please have a seat over here.”
Following her smooth guidance, I settled into the plush seat of honor.
The moment I sat down, Min Ji-hee slid a single report across the table with a practiced hand, as if she’d been waiting for this.
Her intuition was remarkably sharp.
‘An observation report.’
So this was that “strategy guide” Pandemonium supposedly sells.
“I told you not to buy it.”
“We didn’t buy it. Pandemonium sent it unilaterally.”
“Is that so?”
Min Ji-hee’s eyes gleamed brightly.
B-rank ability, Keen Eye.
The ability she uses when signaling “I’m using my power right now”…
It’s something I’ve used to create the frame that “when Min Ji-hee uses this ability, she becomes sharp-minded.”
I didn’t know it before, but I know now.
That it’s all deception.
*Chuckle.*
I couldn’t help but let out a laugh at the realization that I’d seen right through her.
But with Han Seol-ah right beside us, there was no need to expose her shallow deception and embarrass her.
To preserve her dignity, I leaned back deeply into my chair and deliberately flashed a leisurely smile as if I knew everything all along.
* * *
‘…He laughed?’
Min Ji-hee felt her blood run cold.
The moment the Apostle activated his mystical eye, a scoffing chuckle escaped his lips.
As if to say, ‘I know everything.’
‘Impossible? No, there’s no way he could know.’
Not a single soul knew that Min Ji-hee was using her mystical eye to act.
Not Han Seol-ah.
Not even her husband and Hunter Association chairman Jin Cheon-jin—she’d never told him once.
Her mouth went dry.
She felt the reflexive urge to swallow hard.
But Min Ji-hee didn’t crumble.
She kept her face rigid, maintaining a businesslike demeanor.
She simply said what needed to be said.
But the Apostle spoke first.
“Don’t worry.”
“…Pardon?”
The question escaped her lips before she could stop it.
“The world is full of secrets, after all.”
“….”
“People keep them because they don’t want them revealed. Isn’t that right?”
“…That’s true, sir.”
“Exactly. So don’t worry.”
Min Ji-hee found herself studying the Apostle’s face.
A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth.
In his eyes… a rippling darkness.
A gaze that pierced through her, as if he knew everything.
“I’m a merciful person, after all.”
*Gulp.*
Min Ji-hee’s throat bobbed visibly as she swallowed hard.
She didn’t want to show outwardly that she’d been caught off guard, but faced with the oppressive weight of that arrogant gaze, she couldn’t suppress the primal fear coursing through her.
“…Thank you for your mercy, sir.”
*Sigh.* Min Ji-hee exhaled deeply in her mind.
As cold sweat beaded on her skin, a profound sense of relief washed over her—relief that she hadn’t made an enemy of this monstrous anomaly.
* * *
“Pandemonium reached out to us first.”
“What did they say?”
“‘Return Kim Min-seok. In exchange, we’ll freely share the strategy to defeat Resonar.'”
The Apostle nodded silently.
“Kim Min-seok was once called the pinnacle of South Korea’s tanks—a traitor who was the first to defect to Pandemonium after the Frost Dragon raid failed.”
Min Ji-hee continued her report.
“For unknown reasons, Pandemonium mistakenly believes we have Kim Min-seok in our custody. Therefore, I determined there was no need to dispel that misunderstanding.”
From here on, this is my speculation.
Min Ji-hee spoke with unwavering confidence.
“Kim Min-seok is in South Korea. Pandemonium knows this too. Why would that cockroach of a man return to a South Korea on the brink of destruction?”
“···?”
“To kidnap Han Seol-ah. Even if South Korea falls, Han Seol-ah must not die. Why? Because he needs to bring her to Pandemonium. That’s his initiation mission.”
As someone who dealt in intelligence, Min Ji-hee understood the operational principles of Pandemonium well.
It wasn’t an organization you could simply join by asking.
Joining required offering something the organization desired.
From South Korea, where Kim Min-seok belonged.
What was most precious there?
Without question—Han Seol-ah.
“Then Kim Min-seok must have been stationed near the battlefield where Han Seol-ah fought Scathach. He couldn’t let her die. But he would have witnessed something there. Chairman Jin, what happened after Han Seol-ah’s battle?”
Jin Cheon-jin could answer directly this time.
“The Apostle’s grand magic. And in the battle that followed…”
“Yes. The Apostle killed Scathach. Kim Min-seok would have seen that too. So what would his next move be?”
“….”
I have no idea.
“He’d want to come back. He’d definitely call us. But he doesn’t know Han Seol-ah’s number, and I’m too frightening. That leaves only you, Chairman.”
“Ho-hyun’s here too.”
Jin Cheon-jin gestured with his chin toward the empty space behind him, and Min Ji-hee jumped with a start, her shoulders trembling.
“Oh my! When did you arrive?”
“….”
Jang Ho-hyun, the silent assassin who had been present from the beginning, nodded quietly.
At that moment.
Brrring—
A peculiar ringtone sounded.
It came from Chairman Jin Cheon-jin’s phone.
Jin Cheon-jin checked his phone, then nodded at the Apostle and Min Ji-hee.
The caller.
It was Kim Min-seok.
Min Ji-hee whispered, “What will you do?”
Brrring—
The ringtone continued.
The Apostle spoke without emotion.
“Take it.”

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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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