Chapter 16

Chapter 16

16. PvP

52nd Floor of the Tower of Fate.

“Haa, haa...”

Lee Geonho collapsed onto a pile of goblin corpses, breathing heavily.

‘Ten years...’

It had already been a week since he signed the ten-year slave contract.

Every day, the moment he woke up, he entered the Tower and did nothing but hunt.

Three hours of sleep a day.

Compressed nutrition bars for meals.

Even going to the bathroom felt like wasted time, so he held it in and went all at once.

‘What’s the point of living like this?’

At this rate, he’d work his entire life and die.

Still, he had to live.

An eighty-billion-won debt!

No, now that he had signed with Friends Capital, technically he owed them labor rather than money.

Either way, dying here would be the most pointless death imaginable.

“Haaah.”

As he pulled out a canteen and drank.

Step, step, step.

He suddenly heard footsteps.

Several sets of them.

‘This is my sweet farming spot.’

It wasn’t well known, but the monster respawn rate was good, so he had been keeping an eye on it.

‘Who is it?’

He turned his head and saw three or four men in sharp suits walking straight toward the spot where he had been hunting.

‘What the hell are these guys?’

Suits inside the Tower?

They didn’t look like hunters at all.

Yet every one of them walked leisurely.

No sign of haste.

Even less sign of fear.

‘Aren’t they afraid of monsters?’

Lee Geonho frowned.

He had only managed to secure this place after a week of brutal hunting.

The goblins respawned quickly and in high density, making spots this good hard to find.

And now these guys in suits were about to plant themselves right in the middle of it.

“Uh, excuse me.”

Lee Geonho raised a hand and called out.

The men stopped and looked at him.

More precisely, they looked him up and down.

‘What’s with those eyes?’

They looked at him like he was a bug.

‘A bug? Me, an A-Rank hunter?’

When they silently began walking again, Lee Geonho grew desperate.

If they pushed him out, his entire hunting quota for the day was ruined.

Then he’d have to stay up all night again.

‘I owe eighty billion.’

Of course!

‘I’m not actually going to pay it.’

He planned to pretend to repay the debt for a while.

Then once the loan shark’s surveillance loosened, he would run.

“What?”

“The spot.”

Lee Geonho answered curtly.

He was so exhausted he could barely manage polite speech.

“...What?”

The bald man leading them stopped.

He was built like a mountain.

Thick neck, cauliflower ears.

He looked either like an athlete or someone whose job involved a lot of violence.

“This spot. I was here first. For reference, I’m A-Rank.”

Lee Geonho nudged a goblin corpse with his foot as though presenting evidence.

A spot!

In MMORPGs, it referred to claiming a good hunting area first.

And monopolizing the right to hunt there until you left or sold the spot.

The MMORPG tradition of ‘claiming spots’ had spread into the Tower as well.

Of course, some people disliked that ‘spot culture.’

Some outright despised it.

Lee Geonho had a bad feeling.

The men in front of him seemed to belong firmly to that group.

“Pfft.”

“Hey, did you hear that?”

“He said, ‘This spot,’ just now.”

Their laughter seemed somewhere between mockery and disbelief.

The man in front slowly approached.

Each step was heavy.

“You just told me this was your spot?”

“What?”

“Say it again. What did you just say?”

Lee Geonho sensed something was wrong, but it was already too late.

Exhaustion had dulled his judgment.

“I asked you to move. I got here first and...”

“You little shit!”

Smack!

A fist flew before he could finish.

Lee Geonho’s body lifted off the ground and slammed into the floor.

“Guh!”

Even an A-Rank hunter’s defenses struggled against the impact.

Only then did Lee Geonho realize.

‘These bastards... aren’t ordinary.’

If they could do this to an A-Rank hunter like him.

That meant they were A-Rank too.

The realization came far too late.

One-on-one might have been different, but there were several of them.

The man in front loosened his tie.

“Where the fuck do you think you are, claiming a spot? Huh? In our bosses’ hunting grounds?”

“S-Sorry! I didn’t recognize you.”

Lee Geonho dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

But the atmosphere had already become irreversibly hostile.

“You didn’t recognize us, so that makes it okay? Huh? Is this your fucking living room? Did you rent the place?”

“I’m really sorry. I have circumstances...”

“Fuck your circumstances.”

Smack! Smack! Smack!

Merciless kicks followed.

Lee Geonho had no chance to defend himself.

He could barely even scream.

“Didn’t this bastard say he was A-Rank?”

“What a loser. Only his rank is A.”

“What’s wrong with A-Ranks these days? No discipline at all.”

One of the men nearby crossed his arms and put a cigarette in his mouth.

“Let’s wrap it up, hyungnim. We’re short on time.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Crack!

“I’ll teach you some manners.”

The man grabbed Lee Geonho’s neck and snapped it.

“Huh? I was only trying to cripple the bastard, but he fucking died.”

The man looked surprised, then shrugged.

“Whatever. Bury him somewhere out of sight.”

“Yes, hyungnim.”

Even at the very end, Lee Geonho never fully understood why he was dying.

‘Just because I said, “This spot”...’

That was WaterPpomi, Lee Geonho’s final thought.

“Once you’re done burying him, let’s move.”

“Yes, hyungnim.”

The suited men casually settled into Lee Geonho’s hunting spot as though nothing had happened.

“Fuck, if we don’t replace the chairman’s missing one-billion-won slush fund within ten days, we’re all dead.”

“He told us to make triple as punishment for losing it, so we need three hundred million a day, hyungnim.”

“If you know that, then move your ass, bastard!”

“Yes, hyungnim!”

* * *

Three days later.

The East Sea.

I had run into a problem.

[Core resources within the Tower can only be extracted after the corresponding floor has been cleared.]

I had planned to open a gate to the oil buried beneath the 25th floor, ‘Endless Desert,’ and become an oil tycoon.

This was the moment a flaw appeared in my perfect plan.

“Why are you only telling me that now?”

No answer this time.

I’d even paid for a taxi all the way to the East Sea, only to come for nothing.

‘No. Better to find out now.’

At that moment, the loan shark was gathering equipment and personnel for oil exploration.

Before the exploration began, I had to clear the 25th floor.

Just then, my smartphone rang.

Riiing!

I answered.

“Hello.”

-It’s me. Have you checked Hunven?

“Huh? Why?”

-It’s chaos right now. And that bastard isn’t answering either.

“That bastard?”

-Lee Geonho. Haven’t heard from him in three days.

I let out a hollow laugh.

“Didn’t he just run?”

-I thought so too at first, but I think he died inside the Tower.

“You sure?”

-No one saw him come out after entering.

Lee Geonho entered the Tower after reporting to the Friends Capital office every day.

“Maybe a monster killed him.”

-Don’t know that much.

“Sniff...”

-Are you crying? Because Lee Geonho died?

“My eighty billion!”

-...

“What do I do? What about my eighty billion?”

-What do you mean, what do you do? You took a loss.

“No way...”

-Even I can’t collect money from a dead man.

The loan shark’s voice was firm.

“Okay, I understand.”

I hung up.

“Urgh.”

Thinking about eighty billion disappearing before my eyes made my stomach hurt.

‘Still, I can’t sit around grieving forever.’

Why?

‘I still have 76.5 billion.’

More importantly.

‘Eighty billion? I can just work twenty hours.’

My hourly wage was four billion.

Guess I’ll work a little!

‘Let’s check Hunven first.’

What the hell was going on?

[Title: New Content Announcement – Official PvP System Introduction]

[Author: Tower of Fate]

-Content: Greetings, Hunters.

We have long been aware that physical conflicts between hunters within the Tower occur frequently.

Therefore, in response to your enthusiasm and support for PvP, we have decided to introduce a safe PvP system to the Tower of Fate.

“...A content update?”

The Tower of Fate gets updates?

And it was adding PvP?

‘But PvP already exists.’

Though technically, that was just murder.

The notice didn’t explain exactly how the update would work.

Except for one thing.

-Hunters will henceforth obtain special Contribution Points through PvP.

Comments: 10,820

-A safe PvP system? Lmaoooo people already died and now you add this?

-Not even closing the barn after the cow escaped, they’re just drawing blueprints for a new barn

-Isn’t this good though? Now we can kill people openly lol

-Openly my ass, killing people is the problem, are you a psychopath?

┗That’s just your opinion lol

-These comments are terrifying, were there always this many psychopaths in our country?

┗They’re literally making it safe now, what are you mad about

-What about all the people who died before the PvP system existed?

┗What can you do, it’s unfortunate

“What the hell is this?”

I read the Hunven notice while leaving my game open.

‘Basically.’

People killing each other inside the Tower had become so common that they were only now deciding to create rules.

But one comment was causing an especially heated argument.

-Shouldn’t people who killed others before PvP get penalized?

Since PvP would now award special Contribution Points.

The argument was that anyone who killed people before the system existed should be penalized.

Of course, as a kind and exemplary citizen, the topic had nothing to do with me.

Then Lee Jinho suddenly came to mind.

“...Couldn’t they apply it retroactively? The Contribution Points, I mean.”

Whatever.

‘No matter what happens with PvP, it has nothing to do with me.’

I genuinely believed that.

At the time.

* * *

The next day.

Vweeeee!

[You have cleared the Tower of Fate 11th Floor.]

[You have cleared the Tower of Fate 12th Floor...]

...

[You have cleared the Tower of Fate 17th, 18th, and 19th Floors.]

With ‘Choi Hyunwoo’s Gatling Laser,’ clearing the 25th floor of the Tower of Fate wasn’t frightening at all.

[Opening ‘Tower of Fate 20th Floor, Kobold Lancer’s Hut (D).’]

‘Looks like gates become D-Rank from the 20th floor.’

Floors 1 through 10 had been F-Rank.

Floors 11 through 19 were E-Rank.

Anyway.

I pushed ‘Choi Hyunwoo’s Gatling Laser’ into the 20th-floor gate.

Vweeeee!

Then pulled the trigger again.

[You have cleared ‘Tower of Fate 20th Floor, Kobold Lancer’s Hut (D).’]

[You have slain a low-ranking soldier.]

[You have obtained Contribution Points (x100).]

[You have slain a low-ranking soldier.]

[You have obtained Contribution Points (x100).]

[You have slain a low-ranking soldier.]

[You have obtained Contribution Points (x100).]

“Hmm?”

Contribution Points?