Chapter 1
The 100th Floor
[Would you like to challenge the 100th Floor?]
Jin-hyuk glared at the floating status window before him.
âNo.â
[You have not met the minimum requirements for graduation.]
[Climber Yoo Jin-hyuk cannot abandon the climb at this time.]
[Would you like to challenge the 100th Floor?]
It clearly understood what he was saying.
And yet, no matter how many times Jin-hyuk refused, the status window remained stubbornly unchanged.
Apparently, this damned system didn’t include a “No” option.
âDamn it. I’m definitely going to die if I do that. Why would I accept?â
For nearly half an hour, Jin-hyuk sat in the dark void, desperately trying to deny reality.
He shook his head.
Closed his eyes.
Opened them again.
Repeated it countless times.
But every time, the same message remained floating before him.
[Would you like to challenge the 100th Floor?]
If only I hadn’t gotten involved…
With a defeated sigh, he slumped to the floor.
Although it appeared to be an indoor space, the ceiling stretched so high that it vanished into darkness.
Of course, Jin-hyuk couldn’t see much of anything.
His vision was completely occupied by the glowing blue message hovering directly in front of his face.
It almost seemed to be mocking him.
Looking down at himself, Jin-hyuk sighed again.
Just yesterday, he had been preparing for military discharge.
After enduring countless hardships, he had finally been on his way back to the barracks, trying to calm his racing heart.
Then he had been summoned into this tower.
The day before discharge.
As if fate had decided to play one final joke on him.
He was still wearing nothing more than a cheap tracksuit and a pair of slippers.
Even those were now torn and stained from fighting goblins on the First Floor.
The only silver lining was that he had managed to avoid being pranked by his juniors before leaving the military.
âHah. I’d rather have taken the prank.â
At least that would’ve hurt less than being mauled by goblins.
âDamn it. I just wanted one cigarette… Ah, right. My lighter.â
He searched his pockets again.
Nothing.
The lighter had probably fallen out during the battle on the First Floor.
Grinding his teeth, he pulled out the cigarette and threw it away.
His frustration had reached its limit.
âHow the hell am I supposed to clear the Hundredth Floor? I’m Level One! Isn’t this tower supposed to create heroes? Isn’t it supposed to be some divine system? What kind of bug-ridden nonsense is this?â
His anger was completely justified.
As he forced himself to calm down, memories of the First Floor resurfaced.
The reason he had ended up on the Hundredth Floor was nothing more than a ridiculous system error.
To understand that error, one had to start with the item responsible for this entire disaster.
[-2nd Floor Escape Ticket]
It had been awarded to Jin-hyuk for displaying heroic qualities during the first trial.
The item was an incredibly rare reward obtained from the Angel’s Random Box, which was granted to the first climber each season who earned positive Karma.
Normally, it was an excellent item.
When facing an impossible challenge, it allowed the user to descend two floors, train, grow stronger, and try again later.
It even activated instantly during life-threatening situations.
On any higher floor, a climber would have celebrated receiving such a treasure.
The problem was that Jin-hyuk had received it on the First Floor.
And during a desperate struggle against a goblin, he had accidentally activated it.
That was when everything went wrong.
Instead of moving from the First Floor down to a nonexistent basement level…
He had somehow been transported all the way to the Hundredth Floor.
A bug no one had anticipated.
What is this, some old-school RPG? How does a system created by gods have an overflow error?
It was absurd.
Yet no one was around to hear his complaints.
After all, who would believe that a Level One climber had somehow become stranded on the Hundredth Floor?
Of course, Jin-hyuk didn’t regret what he’d done.
Saving a girl who had collapsed while fleeing monsters wasn’t a mistake.
The Tower itself had acknowledged his actions.
The rewards he received for doing good were what ultimately caused this catastrophe.
The messages from that moment were still vivid in his memory.
[Defeat the Goblin!]
[Level Created!]
[A noble spirit of sacrifice has been recognized.]
[Karma Generated.]
[Good Karma +1]
[First Good Karma achieved.]
[Reward granted.]
The reward for a good deed…
A guaranteed death sentence.
What a joke.
â…Well, I’m dead anyway.â
Jin-hyuk slowly rose to his feet.
âIf I’m going to die, I might as well die with some dignity.â
Nothing was going to change.
There was no way to escape.
The fairy who had greeted him during the tutorial was nowhere to be seen.
The indifferent system window was forcing him toward what amounted to suicide.
[Would you like to challenge the 100th Floor?]
âFunny. Now that death’s actually in front of me… I’m scared.â
He was fully convinced he was about to die.
And unlike many others, he knew enough about the Tower to understand exactly how hopeless his situation was.
Perhaps that was why old memories suddenly flooded his mind.
Two years ago.
Tower-like structures had appeared all over the world.
Every month, hundreds of people vanished into them.
At the same time, dimensional rifts opened around the towers.
Monsters poured out endlessly.
Things that belonged only in video games became reality.
The crisis was so severe that Jin-hyuk had ended up being drafted into military service.
Back then, humanity had truly stood on the brink of extinction.
Weak monsters like goblins could be handled with firearms.
But stronger creaturesâtrolls and beyondârequired horrifying sacrifices to stop.
Then, one year after the Towers appeared, everything changed.
The missing people began returning.
One by one.
They came back possessing impossible powers.
Magic.
Martial arts.
Superhuman abilities.
They slaughtered monsters with ease.
Humanity called them Hunters.
For the first time in a long while, hope returned.
And with it came a possibility Jin-hyuk desperately wanted to believe.
Yeon-hee…
His younger sister from the orphanage.
The orphanage director.
Maybe they weren’t dead.
Maybe they were inside the Tower.
But there was something strange about the Hunters.
Despite their immense power, many mocked themselves by calling themselves:
“People who got off on the Twentieth Floor.”
They always seemed strangely defeated.
Sometimes even hopeless.
No one wanted to discuss the Tower in detail, so the truth remained hidden.
Until a year later.
When someone who had exited on the Fortieth Floor appeared in the United States and revealed everything.
“We are failures.”
“We failed to reach the top and gave up midway.”
The Tower contained one hundred floors.
Every climber had to ascend them to reach the summit.
And every twenty floors, they were given a choice.
Leave.
Or continue climbing.
The so-called Twentieth-Floor Dropouts were simply those who had chosen to quit after reaching the twentieth floor.
Yet even they possessed strength far beyond human understanding.
A goblin stronger than an armed soldier?
A Twentieth-Floor Hunter could cut down hundreds of them alone.
Then what about someone who had reached the Fortieth Floor?
At the time Jin-hyuk entered the Tower, only three people in the world had exited from the Fortieth Floor.
They were monsters among monsters.
Dozens of Twentieth-Floor Hunters couldn’t defeat one.
World leaders negotiated with them as equals.
Yet even those individuals carried expressions of despair.
During a global broadcast, they made a solemn declaration.
“Though we failed, trust those still climbing.”
“If someone reaches the summit, this disaster will end.”
“Until then, we will protect humanity with everything we have.”
The higher one climbed, the more impossible survival became.
According to both the dropouts and the fairy from the tutorial, anyone who conquered the Hundredth Floor would become something akin to a god.
Only those who survived ninety-nine floors of death earned the right to challenge the final trial.
Such a being would gain the power to close the dimensional rifts and save humanity forever.
If no one succeeded…
Humanity would eventually perish.
That was the burden carried by those who challenged the Hundredth Floor.
And yet Jin-hyuk’s qualifications amounted to this:
âStatus.â
[Status Window]
Name:Â Yoo Jin-hyuk
Level:Â 1
Strength:Â 11
Agility:Â 7
Durability:Â 8
Spirit:Â 9
Luck:Â 1
Mana:Â 0
Karma:Â Good 1
That was it.
A status sheet that absolutely did not belong on the Hundredth Floor.
What bothered him most was one particular stat.
Luck: 1
A single point.
The absolute minimum.
âYeah… my luck really is awful.â
First, the Gate Crisis had forced him into military service.
Then he spent two miserable years fighting for survival.
And finally, on the day before his discharge, he got kidnapped by the Tower.
His memories of that first year were unbearable.
Blood.
Death.
Monsters devouring people.
Children orphaned overnight.
The nightmares never stopped.
Sometimes he dreamed of corpses moving inside a monster’s stomach.
Back then…
He had genuinely wanted to die.
Fortunately, after Hunters appeared, he transferred into the Honor Guard.
More than anything, he simply didn’t want to fight monsters anymore.
No matter the order.
No matter the reason.
He never wanted to point a weapon at another monsterâor another humanâagain.
Yet even the Honor Guard wasn’t easy.
The scars left by the rifts ran too deep.
Every time he carried the remains of a fallen soldier during a funeral ceremony, one thought would cross his mind.
A hero should enter the Tower and put an end to all of this.
It had been a childish fantasy.
But when he actually entered the Tower, he had resolved to make it reality.
He had sworn never to give up.
Never.
Yet somehow…
Things had turned out like this.
Realizing tears had begun gathering in his eyes, Jin-hyuk quickly wiped them away.
âHah. Must’ve gotten dust in my eye.â
Eventually, he accepted reality.
Resignation, perhaps.
But Jin-hyuk’s greatest strength had always been his ability to find something positive, even in the worst situations.
That trait had carried him through both the orphanage and the battlefield.
âHonestly… dying on the Hundredth Floor sounds cooler than dying somewhere mediocre.â
A faint smile appeared on his face.
After all, the highest anyone had ever reached was the Fortieth Floor.
That meant one thing.
Technically speaking…
He was already humanity’s highest-ranking climber.
Even if only because of a bug.
The thought was ridiculous enough to make him laugh.
But somehow, his heart felt lighter.
[Would you like to challenge the 100th Floor?]
The message appeared once more.
This time, his hands no longer trembled.
âYeah, yeah. I’ll do it.â
[You have chosen to challenge the 100th Floor.]
The darkness vanished.
Light flooded the world.
The space that had seemed like an empty void transformed into a colossal arena resembling the Roman Colosseum.
Its sheer size made Jin-hyuk tense.
Then another message appeared.
[The strongest enemy you have ever faced is approaching.]
[Title Correction Effects Removed.]
Jin-hyuk swallowed hard.
The strongest enemy…?
Just what kind of monster was about to appear?
The messages continued.
[Level Equalization Applied.]
[Player level and enemy level have been synchronized.]
[All blessings and beneficial effects possessed by the player will be granted to the enemy.]
[Opponent Selected: Weakened Hobgoblin.]
[Weakened Hobgoblin adjusted to Level 1.]
[Overcome Despair.]
As the final message faded, something emerged from the darkness.
A goblin.
A single goblin.
âKieeeek!â
“…Huh?â
The final trial of the Hundredth Floor.
Upon seeing the enemy before him, Yoo Jin-hyuk’s eyes widened uncontrollably.
