I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 5

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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 5
“It’s a shame I have no one to brag about this to….”
Actually, that wasn’t quite right. I did have friends. Quite a few, in fact.
It’s just that I don’t anymore.
They’re all dead.
…Literally.
“But I have NPC friends.”
I’d scattered everything except for one Eternal Permafrost.
‘Let me see how long this state lasts.’
I clicked the mouse and moved my character to the hideout.
[Artier: Welcome, Savior! How are you feeling today?]
Clean office attire and a sharp bob cut.
A beautiful NPC with an eye patch—Artier.
She was the manager of my hideout.
“How am I feeling? Fantastic.”
Following that mood, I typed ‘/dance’ in the chat window, and my character began dancing magnificently.
Artier, who had been watching for a moment, joined in and started dancing in front of me.
The maids and butlers working in the hideout came rushing out and began dancing and applauding beside my character.
[Leaf: As expected of you, Savior! I knew you could do it!]
[Billy: Woohoo~!]
“Hehe.”
They didn’t discriminate against me.
People who shared in my joy.
This was what true friendship was.
I was lost in that lingering warmth when—
Something changed.
Whoosh—
“Huh?”
The Eternal Permafrost I’d left floating behind me suddenly vanished.
But that wasn’t all.
“What’s happening?”
The mana filling my entire body began to scatter.
“No, wait! Don’t go!”
I cried out like Batman screaming at his parents’ souls not to leave him.
“Don’t abandon me!”
The mana leaving my body ignored my pleas.
My mana core emptied completely.
In an instant, my body reverted to that of someone unable to awaken.
“How did this… huh?”
[Skill: Synchronization (EX) trial has ended]
“The experience ended?”
My heart sinks as the System Message materializes before my eyes.
Like a switch flipping off, my confused mind grows cold and sharp.
The ability to snap back to “normal” at any moment is one of my greatest strengths.
Right after awakening, I was so overwhelmed by the EX-rank ice magic power that I focused only on the results.
“I see.”
Any sensible person unable to awaken would…
Never doubt for a second that something as impossible as “awakening” could actually occur.
“Was it a dream?”
I’ve been so desperate to awaken that I often dream of awakening.
Perhaps that dream has now transcended into something called a hallucination, manifesting in reality.
“…No, no. Calm down. Get a grip!”
No! It couldn’t have been a dream!
“Damn it. The disappointment nearly shattered my mind.”
The name of the skill I obtained.
Synchronization.
Simply put, it means the duration of this skill has ended.
I can use it again. I can use it again.
Gulp.
“…Synchronization.”
I carefully spoke the activation word.
Then I waited for a moment.
A tense instant.
I waited.
…I waited.
“?”
Nothing changes!
‘Maybe I called it too weakly?’
“Synchronization!”
I called it with more force, but the result is the same.
There’s no sign of the ice magic power I felt before returning.
‘This isn’t it?’
My mind feels like it’s crumbling…
“Huh?”
In that moment.
My wavering gaze catches onto something strange.
My character Nebula’s MP stat has dropped dramatically!
MP: 10,000/99,999
A staggering 90,000 MP consumed, no less.
In Lost Honor, there’s only one reason a character’s mana decreases.
When a ‘skill’ was activated.
‘What? What skill was just used?’
As Nebula, I would never cast a skill potent enough to drain 99,999 MP in one blow.
Then what?
‘Could it be…?’
I opened my skill window.
There it was—a single skill adorned with a golden ‘NEW!’ badge.
An icon featuring a silver circle rotating like a recycling symbol.
‘I’ve never seen this icon before.’
I’ve pushed every class in this game to its absolute limits.
There shouldn’t be a skill I haven’t encountered.
There’s only one exception!
A newly created skill.
I swallowed hard.
With trembling fingers, I awkwardly maneuvered the mouse and hovered my cursor over it.
[Skill: Synchronization (EX)]
“…This is it.”
It existed.
But there was no additional description beneath the name.
Usually skills come with explanations like ‘Hurl a spear to inflict physical damage,’ but this one was blank.
Instead, there were several more lines of information below.
[Constellation Corridor]
[1/99]
[Unlocked Class]
[Frost Mage—Han Seol-ah’s ‘Glacial Seal’] (Active)
‘It’s just a summary of the information I learned when I entered the Constellation Corridor.’
Click.
I clicked and activated the ‘Synchronization’ skill.
Whoosh!
Frost mana surged through my entire body.
Click.
I moved the mouse again and deactivated the skill.
Fade.
…The frost mana vanished.
I was back to being a pitiful, unawakened body.
“So that’s how it works…”
It wasn’t ‘I’ who could trigger it.
‘My character’ had to be the one to activate it.
I activated it again.
“It’s decreasing.”
Nebula’s MP bar gradually depleted.
Like other skills, Synchronization drew from Nebula’s MP as its cost.
The depletion rate was roughly… 170 per second.
With a maximum MP of 99,999.
“By simple calculation, that’s about 10 minutes.”
10 minutes.
The time to become an EX-rank Hunter.
Short, perhaps, but it depends on how I use it.
‘What if I use a skill?’
“Ice Arrow.”
Crack!
The moment my Ice Arrow materialized, the MP bar dropped.
“500 MP. A fixed cost, then.”
To confirm, I generated 10 more arrows.
Exactly 5,000 MP vanished.
“Then, what about this?”
I cast Permafrost.
A compressed orb of frigid energy materialized above my palm…
“Oof.”
A single shot consumed 50,000 MP. More than half of Nebula’s total MP evaporated.
If I fired this, my remaining ‘duration’ would be less than 4 minutes—the math was clear.
‘If I spam high-power finishing moves like Permafrost, Synchronization won’t last even a second before shutting down.’
I immediately deactivated the Synchronization skill.
“Phew…”
Feeling a wave of exhaustion wash over me, I focused on the MP bar.
[MP: 43,510] [MP: 53,510] [MP: 63,510]
The character’s MP bar began refilling at an alarming rate.
“Hmm, that’s satisfying.”
The term ‘endgame character’ isn’t something you can slap on just any character.
“10 seconds.”
The time it took for MP to fully recover—in other words, Synchronization’s ‘cooldown’—was effectively 10 seconds.
“Analysis complete.”
I leaned back deeply into my chair.
The power of an EX-rank Hunter.
10 minutes of duration.
Skill costs.
A 10-second cooldown.
“And…”
I glanced at my PC tower.
“My range of activity is limited to this house, wherever this PC is located.”
If I move away from the PC and can’t click the ‘Synchronize’ skill, I’ll regress back to being an Awakening-disabled hunter.
“What is this, some kind of curse…?”
That moment.
-Beep! Beep!
“Huh?”
The alarm attached to Chul-soo’s house blared loudly.
This sound. And this pattern.
It was the alarm that rang whenever a monster appeared near the villa.
“Of all times?”
There wasn’t a single person left in this villa or this area.
A monster appearing in such circumstances.
Normally, it would’ve been a terrifying situation.
But now?
Now it was different.
This was a golden opportunity to use my abilities freely without anyone discovering them.
A showcase prepared just for me, in other words.
“It’s time to show what I’m truly capable of.”
EX-rank Hunter Ha Sung-woon.
Mobilizing now.
Click!
* * *
The War Room of the Hunter Association, preparing for the third subjugation of the Ice Dragon, was frigid.
And for good reason.
After Han Seol-ah, the linchpin of the subjugation operation, suddenly vanished during a press conference.
Today arrived after two days of extensive search yielded not a single clue.
Wasn’t South Korea already facing an unprecedented crisis, with talk of the nation’s collapse?
When the atmosphere felt good, that’s when it was most terrifying.
It meant everyone had given up and lost their minds.
The typing sounds of employees working silently. Occasional sounds of swallowing.
Even the faintest ambient noise sounded like thunder in this suffocating silence.
‘…Please, let it be anything but that.’
Incheon monitoring division.
Grade-2 Administrator Kim Jin-chul was drenched in cold sweat.
-‘Variables’ must be reported without exception.
Two hours had passed since Vice-Chairman Min Ji-hee’s sharp declaration.
Already, three monitoring staff members had been removed from their posts.
For reporting an ‘atypical variable’, they’d been branded as ‘useless’ by Min Ji-hee, who was like a powder keg on the verge of exploding, and demoted to field work.
The end for demoted personnel was always the same.
They were people without combat ability who couldn’t become hunters in the first place.
Sent to the front lines, they wouldn’t last long before dying or disappearing.
‘…I need to maintain the front lines, but I refuse to meet such an end.’
No one wants to become a sacrificial pawn.
That’s why everyone desperately hoped that nothing would happen in their assigned territory.
Yet of all places, an anomaly was detected in Incheon—Kim Jin-chul’s jurisdiction.
[Incheon Gate Alert]
And it was a Gate alert, no less.
Kim Jin-chul squeezed his eyes shut.
‘I saw nothing.’
But what if this really was a ‘variable’?
‘…Let me observe for a moment.’
Yes. It could be a false alarm.
The odds are 0.1%, but I’ll bet on it anyway…
[Gate Confirmed]
‘Damn it.’
Okay. So it’s not a false alarm.
‘…It has to be Rank 3. It must be Rank 3.’
Rank 3 is definitely not a variable.
They dissipate quickly, and the enemies that emerge from the Gate are mere goblins—threats so trivial that an armed adult without Hunter training could kill them.
‘Rank 2 would be acceptable too.’
Rank 2 and above are dangerous, true.
They kill people, but cause no property damage to buildings and such.
If things got out of hand, you could call it a variable.
Why is it still acceptable?
‘Because there’s no one in Incheon right now.’
All Hunters in Incheon have been summoned to the Hunter Association building for the third Ice Dragon subjugation, and every other citizen has evacuated to safe Shelters.
So there was no one in Incheon at all.
In other words, no danger equals no variable.
‘Logical.’
Gulp.
‘Right. As long as it’s not Rank 1.’
Rank 1 and above… even if you wanted to suppress it, you couldn’t.
Beyond that lies only ‘0-Rank’—the boss-class Gate.
Considering that boss Gates occur periodically, once every three months.
Rank 1 Gates were the most dangerous among guerrilla-type Gates.
In staff slang, they called it the ‘mid-boss Gate.’
Since 0-Rank was the boss, the tier below it—Rank 1—would be the mid-boss, hence the nickname.
[Rank: 1]
Such a Rank 1 Gate.
Had opened in Incheon.
‘Shit…’
Ignoring this point would constitute dereliction of duty.
In the end, Kim Jin-chul pushed himself up from his seat.
“A Class-1 Gate has appeared in Incheon!”
“…Hmm.”
Min Ji-hee’s eyebrows twitched.
Kim Jin-chul felt his chest sink as if the floor had dropped away.
It seemed like the words “Leave now” could spill from her lips at any moment.
“Report on the Incheon situation.”
‘Phew.’
“All Class-3 Hunters in Incheon have been mobilized for subjugation, leaving zero remaining Hunters. All civilians have been evacuated to Shelters, resulting in zero personnel remaining in Incheon.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. Absolutely certain. We’ve run mana scans multiple times. There is not a single person left in Incheon.”
Min Ji-hee nodded.
Mana Scan.
It was a technique that scanned mana concentration within a designated area to identify the presence of monsters and humans—the pinnacle of magical engineering in the Hunter era.
Any human, no matter how minute the amount, carries mana within their body. Therefore, no human exists who can escape a mana scan.
Suspecting there might be Hunters who had fled in defiance of the mobilization order, the Hunter Association obsessively ran mana scans across all of Incheon.
The result was nothing short of a 100% success in conscripting all Hunters in Incheon.
There was no one left. This much was certain.
‘…A human without mana doesn’t even exist.’
Having finished his thoughts, Kim Jin-chul continued thinking.
A report alone wouldn’t suffice.
He needed to propose the next steps and countermeasures as well.
“….”
But Kim Jin-chul couldn’t open his mouth easily.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been a simple question to answer.
The solution was obvious.
‘Normally, I’d just say: dispatch Hunter Han Seol-ah… that would be it.’
What! It’s dangerous!
Call Han Seol-ah!
Simple, intuitive, and a perfect solution.
But now?
Han Seol-ah had disappeared.
“…Uh.”
So what do we do now?
“That is….”
…I have no idea!
“So, um, since Hunter Han Seol-ah is unavailable… w-we must dispatch a Hunter team. To close a Class-1 Gate, we need at minimum an A-rank composition….”
“Rejected.”
Min Ji-hee cut him off sharply.
“A rank-A Hunter team against a rank-1 Gate. There are only two possible outcomes. Failure to prevent damage to Incheon. Failure to prevent casualties among the Third Subjugation Force.”
“….”
“You have just destroyed South Korea.”
Cold sweat beaded on Kim Jin-chul’s forehead.
“An alternative plan.”
“U-um….”
But what could be done?
There was no way.
Everything went dark before Kim Jin-chul’s eyes.
-Beep!
In that moment.
A piece of devastating news arrived through Kim Jin-chul’s headset.
[Gate Boss: Ogre ‘Big Boss’]
‘Ugh!’
“T-the boss is an Ogre. Its designation is Big Boss!”
“…What?!”
“An Ogre! And it’s called Big Boss!”
The staff members who had been listening in stunned silence fell into panic.
The War Room erupted into chaos in an instant.
Ogres were called the sovereigns of terrestrial monsters—formidable entities.
An Ogre’s appearance was the worst-case scenario even for a rank-1 Gate.
In terms of Tower floors, it equated to the 70s tier!
Moreover, the designation ‘Big Boss’ was an epithet given to mutated, enhanced individuals afflicted with the abnormal condition ‘Gigantification’.
An Ogre Big Boss would be in the 80s tier—and among the strongest bosses at that.
‘Of all times, why such a monster…!’
A creature with a history of reducing an entire district of Suwon to rubble!
No matter how much South Korea was a hellscape where rank-90 Breaks erupted constantly, rank-80 boss monsters didn’t appear frequently.
It was truly a variable worthy of the name.
“V-vice chairman. Th-this is unavoidable.”
Without Hunter Han Seol-ah now, we must accept Hunter casualties…
Kim Jin-chul swallowed the rest of his words.
This was what the War Room typically did.
Treating Hunters in the field as chess pieces.
Pushing them forward—you die here, you die there.
And instilling the hope that kept them unbroken: ‘Just hold on until Han Seol-ah arrives.’
Kim Jin-chul, more accustomed to such ‘sacrifice’ and ‘deception’ than anyone, couldn’t bring himself to speak the rest aloud.
This was just senseless slaughter.
A rank-80 boss couldn’t be killed in one strike unless the operation was designed to provide Han Seol-ah with an ambush opportunity—an entity that couldn’t be defeated otherwise.
In other words, even ‘that Han Seol-ah’ would struggle to guarantee an overwhelming victory against such a formidable foe.
Given South Korea’s extreme balance—Han Seol-ah as the sole damage dealer, everyone else as tanks—this was an impossible situation.
Dispatching a Hunter team would only result in people being destroyed instead of buildings.
‘…And the bigger problem is that I have no idea how many Hunters we’d have to sacrifice.’
Especially now that Han Seol-ah is gone!
Everyone was too stunned to speak.
Min Ji-hee’s eyes gleamed coldly as she reached her decision.
And the order that left her lips was even colder.
“We will abandon Incheon.”
“Gasp…!”
The War Room fell into shock.
Ever since Busan’s collapse at the hands of the ‘Kraken,’ Incheon had been functioning as South Korea’s second capital.
The decision to abandon such a strategic stronghold was far from trivial.
In fact, most of the staff sitting in this War Room had made their homes in Incheon.
To abandon such a place?
For some, it meant losing the only home they had left to return to.
“This… this can’t be happening.”
“Vice-Chairman! Please reconsider!”
“If we abandon Incheon, we’re finished!”
The War Room descended into chaos in an instant.
But Min Ji-hee remained resolute.
“I will not entertain further objections.”
“….”
At Min Ji-hee’s firm declaration, the noisy War Room fell silent as a tomb.
Everyone understood what she left unsaid.
—If the nation falls anyway, what does it matter?
Everyone closed their mouths.
Living in a nation on the brink of destruction meant accepting unavoidable sacrifices.
No sane person would choose death over offering up a limb and surviving.
‘…The day South Korea falls will be the day we run out of sacrifices to make.’
Kim Jin-chul accepted this reality.
As he always had.
* * *
“One shot, huh?”

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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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