The Hero Returns

Act 7

After requesting Kim Dae-ho to modify Balmung, Su-hyeun went straight to the Jongno Tower next.

Thomas, who was waiting for him by the tower, welcomed him with wide-open arms. As their schedules conflicted with each other's, they couldn't get together as easily as before, and as a result, this was their first meeting in several months.

"It's Su-hyeeeeun—!"

"H—hey, hold on a second. Wait!"

Thomas bounced up suddenly and high enough to almost ram his head against the ceiling as soon as he spotted Su-hyeun. The latter barely managed to catch the former when he rushed in for a hug.

Su-hyeun had to deal with Thomas's rather energetic greeting for a while and then requested Lee Ju-ho to provide Kim Dae-ho with special protection.

"I've left behind a seriously valuable item with him, you see. So look out for him more than you normally would, please. If this information leaks out, I'm guessing more than one idiot will try to steal it somehow."

"Alright. Until the item's finished, I'll request the Reaper Guild to protect him. As for the request fee, the Paragon Guild will—"

"No, I'll pay for that. I'm the one who asked him to craft my equipment, after all."

"Well, sure. Besides Mister Gordon, you should be the most loaded among us, after all. I mean, just how much is a single Titan Turtle's shell, anyway?"

The hiring fee for awakeners was, unsurprisingly, quite expensive. Even if you wanted to hire a small awakener guild, you would still end up spending almost $850,000 per month.

Not to forget, the Reaper Guild was one of South Korea's top guilds, so their requesting fee would obviously be exorbitant. However, the current Su-hyeun didn't even bat an eyelid at the potential cost involved.

"I'm pretty sure that no one in this world making as much moola as you do is as big a Scrooge as you are," Lee Ju-ho complained next.

He then made a face of a man who just discovered a totally weird creature in front of him, and Su-hyeun could only chuckle at that. The latter shifted his gaze outside the Jongno Tower's windows and, while staring at the evening sky, said, "I'm planning to challenge the 99th floor tomorrow."

"So soon? Aren't you going to take a break first?"

"Nah. It's not like there's a big issue requiring my presence on this side, anyway."

"Still, aren't you being too hasty about this?" Lee Ju-ho asked as he took a good look at Su-hyeun's expression as the latter stared at the nightscape of the city. He then realized that his thoughts were incorrect. "No, wait. I guess you aren't being hasty here."

"No, not hasty. It's more like I'm curious, actually."

The 100th floor.

Even in the past, he himself thought of reaching the three-digit floor as a big achievement.

The difference between the awakeners who had reached the 100th floors and those who hadn't—this issue wasn't merely about how they were perceived by the others.

Out of the current crop of S-Ranks, only a few hadn't reached the 100th floor yet. As most of them climbed the tower through lower difficulties, their speed of clearing the floors was unsurprisingly fast.

Of course, that didn't mean Su-hyeun's speed was slow.

His awakener experience was on the shorter side compared to many other high-ranking awakeners who were currently active. On top of this, having challenged a 10th-level difficulty, he was suddenly transferred directly to the 99th floor, so his climbing speed ended up being faster than if he had chosen to climb with lower difficulties.

"More than anything else, it's what the administrator had told me," he said inwardly.

The administrator said that Su-hyeun would run often into "them" once he broke past the 100th floor.

"…What he said back then still bugs me."

The administrators, just what were they exactly?

Su-hyeun's eyes grew deeper and more withdrawn as they took in the scenery of the city's nightscape.

* * *

Su-hyeun took a long and relaxing sleep.

He was about to challenge the 99th floor. Since the floor number suddenly got higher by a big margin, he figured that the trial's difficulty should have increased accordingly as well. Therefore, he did his very best to maintain his peak condition.

Despite his caution, he wasn't too worried, however.

Not only was the 99th floor not considered as a difficult hurdle in the first place, but the administrator also sent him there believing that he was strong enough to reach the 99th on his own sooner or later.

"This sword is pretty good, actually," he mused.

Swish—

Su-hyeun lightly swung the sword that he had in his grip. In terms of the sword's length, weight, and even hardness, it was not bad at all.

Honestly speaking, it was pretty great.

He took this sword from Kim Dae-ho's workshop, hoping to use it until Balmung was fully modified.

He picked out a blade that most closely matched Balmung's weight and hardness, but the weapon was crafted by Kim Dae-ho in the first place, so there was no way it would be a subpar item.

"Wait a minute, isn't that Kim Su-hyeun?"

"I think you're right. I heard he's arrived on the 99th but…"

"Is he going to challenge the trial right away? It hasn't even been a couple of days, right?"

"Man, that's some drive."

As soon as Su-hyeun arrived on the plaza, a group consisting of three or four awakeners stared at him and whispered among themselves.

Due to this place being a high-numbered floor, there weren't that many awakeners to be found on the plaza. And with such a small number of people, it was obvious that Su-hyeun's face would easily be recognized. He didn't particularly feel the need to hide either.

"No one should bother me when the floor is this high up," he thought.

The 99th floor.

Even if you weren't an awakener passing the trials with a 10th-level difficulty, this floor was still sufficiently high enough in the tower. Regardless of how low the levels of the trials they chose to undergo were, the awakeners on this floor should be mainly A- to S-Ranks or B-Ranks at the bare minimum.

As such, no one looked at Su-hyeun in pure disbelief or tried to approach him for no reason. Although they did stare at him as if he was some kind of a celebrity, none of them were dumb enough to not know that approaching him for no good reason was not proper etiquette.

Su-hyeun directly headed toward the gate located in the center of the plaza.

He chose the difficulty and said that he wanted to start the trial right away, prompting a message to float up before him. Then, his silhouette gradually disappeared from the spot.

[The 99th floor's trial will now commence.]

* * *

Early the next morning.

Around the same time Su-hyeun entered the 99th floor's trial, Lee Ju-ho arrived in his office at the Jongno Tower.

Mountains of work required his attention. His value in the Association got more and more recognized, and as a result, his workload grew accordingly.

Not only that, but he also needed to handle all the requests meant for the Paragon Guild. On top of this, he even had to take care of the awakener mediation business, which he started after partnering up with Gordon's company.

"I'm so sleepy…"

Clack—

The first thing Lee Ju-ho did upon arriving in the office at early dawn was to switch on the lights while yawning grandly.

The office was silent. He was always the first one to arrive, and every single day proved to be one hectic ride after another.

He chased away his sleepiness with a large gulp of a drink that contained an unhealthy amount of caffeine and taurine and then settled down in front of his computer.

"For sure, the dungeon appearance frequency has been getting shorter recently," he thought.

One of Lee Ju-ho's tasks was to analyze the locations of the dungeons being generated. It entailed determining their colors, compiling all available information, and then dispatching the suitable awakeners to the scene. It felt like he was currently running a type of a mercenary-for-hire business.

He started doing this work after partnering up with Gordon Company some time ago. And to get it right, he definitely needed to keep himself informed on the latest dungeon generation rate.

"The only indigo-colored dungeon that appeared in the last six months was dealt with by Su-hyeun yesterday. The frequency of the blue-colored dungeon generation remains static."

Click—

The computer was powered on, and Lee Ju-ho moved the mouse to launch an app.

After he got the Dungeon Management Agency to cooperate with the Association, they let him use this app that featured the capability to indicate where the dungeons were, as well as what colors they were.

When the report of the dungeon's generation came through, its location and the color would be collated and then showed on the map in real-time.

"Let's see…81 reds, 19 oranges, and 9 yellows…"

Lee Ju-ho confirmed the colors and the numbers of the dungeons currently recorded by the app, and a frown gradually formed on his face.

"…One green and one blue."

This was a lot more than usual, especially so considering that an indigo-colored dungeon had been successfully raided only recently. Yet a blue-colored one had appeared almost immediately.

"…Something's off."

Not even once did these many dungeons show up in a single day for the past half a year.

Thankfully, the number of S-Ranks had increased recently, and they should be more than capable enough to raid a blue-colored dungeon of this level, especially considering the fact that South Korea was a global awakener powerhouse.

However, the problem wasn't with the posed danger.

"If the number of dungeons keeps increasing at this rate…"

Lee Ju-ho immediately shook his head at the suddenly creeping ominous feeling. "No way. That can't be true."

After muttering to himself inside this empty office, he then continued to move the mouse this way and that. As so many dungeons had shown up overnight, he predicted that today would be a lot busier than usual for him.

Lee Ju-ho had slowly forgotten about all his worries because of all the work he had to do for the rest of the day. But even then, he couldn't get rid of the vague feeling that a frozen-stuck cogwheel somewhere had begun turning once more.

* * *

Five days after the 99th floor's trial began.

Ruuuumble—

A rain of fire fell on top of the desert. The sun had been blocked off by the rare occurrence of pitch-black clouds in the sky, yet the ground below was illuminated even brighter than during the middle of the day.

At the same time, countless snakes darting around on the sands of the desert were scorched to death by the falling flames.

Kya-aaahk—!

Kya-aahk—!

The large snakes shrieked loudly. Although they didn't seem all that large compared to the Ouroboros, the real issue at hand was their sheer numbers.

"Man, that's one repulsive sight, alright."

Su-hyeun groaned in disgust as he looked at all those snakes. There were so many here that they seemingly blanketed the entire desert.

He then shifted his gaze toward a 10-meter-tall demon with a half-human and half-snake body, who also happened to be the one responsible for summoning all these snakes in the first place. "You finally decided to show up, then? I got the impression that you got scared sh*tless from how you keep running away from me."

"Are you really a human?"

That was a rather tiresome and far too obvious a question.

"You know, you lot always ask me that," Su-hyeun replied while looking down at the edge of the badly damaged sword that he had been relentlessly swinging around for the past five days or so.

"You lot?"

"Demons. You can't let go of your prejudice and always think humans can only be weaker than you."

It was the "Naga," the demon of the desert with a lower body of a snake and a torso of a human. Not only did it wield all the snakes and poisons in existence, but it could also increase or decrease its body size at will.

The world of this trial was ruled by "snakes." Humanity was the livestock, the prey, of these snakes, and the Naga was their king and their deity.

And now…

Su-hyeun had come to wreck the world they had constructed up until now.

"And that's why you'll die by my hands today."

Rumble, rumbleeee—

Rumblings of lightning resounded from the thick dark clouds above.

The Naga turned its head and looked up at the sky. Somewhat strangely, so many dark clouds had gathered up there even though not even a drop of moisture could be sensed in the desert air today.

"It seems that you have forgotten what fear tastes like, human."

However, the Naga didn't pay much heed to the clouds. Instead, it began emitting thick bloodlust toward the man standing before its eyes.

"Go, my children!"

The moment the Naga's command reverberated…

Hisssss—

Kyah-ahk—!

Hundreds of thousands of snakes spread out all over the desert floor rushed toward Su-hyeun simultaneously.

He gripped his sword tighter. He then murmured toward the blade that was vibrating ominously as if it would explode at any second. "Just hold it together for two more times, okay?"

[Wave Sword - Explosion Style]

Flash—

Kwa-jajajajak!

The moment he took a mighty swing with the sword, powerful torrents of sword winds spread out everywhere, with Su-hyeun in the middle.

The sword winds containing his magical energy tore through the rushing snakes until no visible corpses of the large creatures were left behind.

Su-hyeun glanced at his sword as he confirmed the aftermath of his attack.

Jiii-iiing—

Tick—

The blade was vibrating precariously.

The blade edge was completely ruined as a result of the rebound from the effects of the Wave Sword. From the get-go, this skill shaved away at the durability of any sword it was used with. Unless the weapon was mixed in with a lot of adamantium in its construction, he couldn't even use the skill as much as he would like.

The only reason he could use the Wave Sword a few times on this particular sword was that it was Kim Dae-ho that crafted it.

"One more time," he thought.

More snakes rushed toward him. Su-hyeun took a step toward the Naga and then powerfully swung his sword again.

[Wave Sword - Explosion Style]

Kwa-jajajajak—!

Claaang—

The sword winds extending from Su-hyeun's swing turned hundreds of thousands of snakes into blotches of blood on the ground in an instant. Almost at the same time, his sword shattered into pieces and fell on the sand below.

"And with that, you're finished," the Naga said after confirming that the sword in Su-hyeun's hand had shattered to bits. It then began to slowly slither forward. "I shall indeed acknowledge you. You are stronger than any human that I know of. Even among us demons, not many would be strong enough to be your opponent. However—"

"Seriously, preparing it takes so long."

Su-hyeun muttered while looking up as if he was not even remotely interested in what the Naga had to say.

The monster's mood soured for a moment when its speech was rudely interrupted, but then, it quickly raised its head after feeling a sense of foreboding.

It followed after Su-hyeun's gaze and looked up to discover that the dark clouds had gotten even thicker in the meantime.

"Clouds?" it thought.

Something felt wrong. The Naga had sensed this for a while now, but it also believed that it was nothing to fret over. But what was this? Why did the thought of avoiding the clouds suddenly pop up in its head just now?

"But where to?"

The moment that question entered the Naga's mind…

"Strike down…" Su-hyeun dropped the hilt of the broken sword and extended his hand toward the clouds above. "Somersault cloud."

FLASH—!