UTC 06

Chapter 6

[Entering Sky Tower, Floor 5.]

[Complete the given mission within the time limit.]

[The safe zone will be lifted soon. Prepare for battle.]

[Mission: Eliminate Monster – Lightning-Struck Kinol 0/1]

After completing his preparations, he entered the 5th floor.

The generated mission was simpler than expected.

All he had to do was take out the Kinol.

Somewhere in the forest below the ridge was a goblin settlement.

Finding the Kinol in that settlement was a bit of a hassle, but killing it itself wasn’t difficult.

“Is the only thing I need to watch out for in this mission the goblin archers?”

As he had experienced on the 4th floor, goblin archers didn’t pair well with drones.

He preferred to avoid confrontation, but the settlement housed over a hundred goblins.

To increase the chance of drawing the Kinol out, the place had to be stirred up like a beehive, making combat inevitable.

Still, he felt reasonably confident this time.

“That’s only if I rely on auto-hunting, right?”

He didn’t need to leave it to simple auto-hunting now.

“Open the gate.”

Two new machines joined the battlefield.

Specifically, the hunter drone and the projection unit.

Once the safe zone disappeared, he issued commands to the drones.

As usual, he assigned one drone to defense and sent two to attack.

Then he gave orders to the newly arrived hunter drone.

“Hunter drone, flank and assassinate the Kinol.”

This operation was simple.

While the combat drones drew attention, the stealth-capable hunter drone would eliminate the target.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely simple.

Drawing attention meant executing hit-and-run attacks at the right moment and maintaining proper distance.

And this was made possible by this.

“Projection unit.”

As soon as the hunter drone disappeared stealthily, he activated the projection unit.

Ziiiiiing—

A round, light-like device expanded screens around him in all directions.

It shared the visual feeds of the deployed drones.

Now he could monitor in real-time and issue commands.

“Is that the settlement?”

From the feed of the combat drones, a hut-like structure came into view.

It seemed the enemies hadn’t noticed them yet.

“Preemptive strike. Once combat starts, focus on the archers.”

He instructed the two combat drones, and charging began.

Flash—

A wave of light emanated from the edge of the forest, followed by a delayed thunderous blast.

Kraaaak!

About 10% of the goblin huts were wiped out in a single strike.

It was truly overwhelming firepower.

But soon, the goblins noticed the commotion and scattered.

“Cease fire. Fly higher to reach places the arrows can’t.”

The combat drones continued their attack at a higher altitude, but

their attack power and accuracy had noticeably decreased.

Pshiu—kugu-kung.

Now it made sense why the drones attacked at low altitude during auto-hunting.

Since the goblins were densely packed, they rarely missed entirely, but

the efficiency of the attack was clearly reduced.

Still, it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was drawing attention.

From the start, the combat drones weren’t going to end this war—the hunter drone would.

Wasting power on worthless goblins would be a drain.

He only instructed minimal provocations and checked the hunter drone’s camera.

[Kinol’s flute performance is starting… 30 seconds]

An alert appeared in front of him.

The hunter drone, making a wide detour, picked up the sound of a flute.

As the camera moved toward the source, a suspicious black goblin was also detected.

If it’s a goblin playing the flute…

[Kinol’s flute performance is starting… 10 seconds]

A moment later.

Pshiu—

Compared to the combat drones, a distinctly short and thin beam burned through the Kinol’s head.

The goblins standing guard around the Kinol didn’t notice at first, then panicked.

Ding—

[Eliminate the Lightning-Struck Kinol. 1/1]

“Both of these new models are performing better than I expected.”

Shortly after, he returned to the tower to collect rewards.

[Mission Complete!]
[New Record Achieved!]
…
[Strategy Rating SSS Achieved!]
[Level Up!]
[(Floors 1–5) S-Rank Reward Box added to inventory.]

[Lv.7 Kang Seon-woo]

Class: Extra-Dimensional User
Rank: EX
Strength: 10 (+)
Agility: 10 (+)
Magic Power: 14 (+)
Mana: 15 (+)
Stat Points: 9
Magic Power: 14 -> 19
Mana: 15 -> 19

Distributing the accumulated stats evenly between magic and mana, he suddenly thought:

“Hm… does this actually affect my abilities?”

Up until now, he had just relied on auto-hunting from a distance.

He had never confirmed whether his stats influenced the drones’ combat.

But now, with the projection unit, the situation had changed.

He decided to monitor this closely and closed the status window.

By the way, even with just two added units, his combat effectiveness had increased dramatically.

The projection unit was especially useful.

Being able to analyze the battlefield at a glance and issue effective commands gave him strategic flexibility.

It wasn’t just giving auto-hunting orders—it was orchestrating the battlefield himself, a strangely satisfying feeling.

Of course, that didn’t mean the hunter drone was underperforming.

Its stealth capabilities would clearly play a significant role in boss fights.

“Shall I try floor 6?”

Difficulty would likely increase compared to floors 1–5, but he wasn’t worried.

Partly due to confidence in the superior drones, but also because the floor 6 monster was a ‘Boar’.

Unlike goblins, these monsters enhanced their instincts rather than intelligence.

They didn’t use tools, so there was no airborne attack threat.

So he proceeded to challenge floor 6 without hesitation.

[First 5 floors cleared successfully!]
[As a reward for clearing floor 5, a skill selection is granted.]
[Next reward appears after floor 10.]

The status window flashed, and three cards appeared.

“Oh, right…”

The tower gave one new skill every 5-floor interval starting from floor 5.

The skill provided was based on past battles and designed to be useful.

Three skill cards now floated in front of him:

[Efficient Process]

• Reduces production time by 10%.

[Spirit of Frugality]

• Reduces electricity consumption by 5%.

[Special Assembly]

• 5% chance to produce a special machine.

He expected combat-related skills, but all were city-related.

Probably because his battles relied on drones.

Still, he didn’t dislike them.

“Not bad.”

All would be useful eventually, making it hard to choose.

“Maybe Efficient Process should be excluded first?”

A 10% reduction in production time was strong, but

he had only been running the factory for a day to reach floor 5.

So immediate benefits were minimal, and he excluded it.

This left two: Spirit of Frugality and Special Assembly.

After deliberation, he discarded Spirit of Frugality.

Special Assembly was too attractive.

Saving 5% electricity was tempting—100 million won per day to maintain Neia in power-saving mode, saving 5 million daily.

Over time, the savings could be enormous.

But that was future benefits; immediate efficiency was lacking.

[Special Assembly selected.]
[Skill added to skill list: ‘Special Assembly’]

“Now, let’s tackle floor 6.”

South Korea.
Player Association.
Player Management Division.

The place was in emergency mode.

“Supervisor, please check this.”
“Did you review the request I sent earlier?”

The reason for the emergency was a single message discovered that morning.

“Have you found the person presumed to be Neia?”

Neia had been assumed to be a foreigner, so the message had been sent casually.

But now a response had arrived, containing shocking information.

The content itself was pleasant—Neia claimed no connection to Eclipse and just wanted private time.

However, the problem was the timestamp.

Mail timestamps were in the sender’s local time, but Neia’s clearly showed Korean Standard Time.

[13:59 KST]

The mysterious monster causing a stir was actually Korean.

The association hadn’t realized this for a week.

“We’re narrowing it down as much as possible.”

With no results, Division Chief Byun Ki-hyuk was frustrated.

Receiving proof of Neia’s innocence was good, and learning Neia was Korean was also good—but they couldn’t announce it yet.

“Damn it…”

Failing to identify Neia revealed incompetence.

Ignoring the message wasn’t an option; it would come out eventually.

“Move quickly! Bring results!”

It was now a race against time to identify Neia.

Byun Ki-hyuk glared at the message, but replies kept failing—indicating the sender had blocked them.

He grabbed his head while reading the news headline:

‘Neia achieves SSS-grade clearance again, already floor 6.’

“Am I about to get fired for this?”