TRMGE 10

Chapter 10

At her brother’s utterly unexpected action, Jung Hyun-ah immediately rushed into the Tower after him.

Flames wrapped around her.

But there was nothing to fear.

She already knew from her training that these flames caused no immediate harm.

The blazing fire clouded her mind, making her feel as though she were falling into a hypnotic trance.

Still, Hyun-ah calmly recalled what she had been taught.

My name.

The Tower asked for one’s name.

Not merely a name, but one’s true name.

In the Tower’s early days, hunters who had answered with nicknames or aliases had their names taken from them, losing their sense of self and becoming slaves of the Tower.

Something began crawling toward her.

Rustling.

Twisting.

Its joints bent unnaturally like those of an undead creature before slowly straightening into shape.

It was…

herself.

“So you’re Jung Hyun-ah?”

It resembled the doppelgängers sometimes encountered in Towers or Gates.

But veteran hunters had concluded these were not monsters.

They were the Tower’s trial.

A certain memory suddenly resurfaced in Hyun-ah’s mind.

At that same moment, Jung Hyun-soo was facing the same ordeal.

“Jung Hyun-soo.”

The moment he spoke his name, black mist spread across his surroundings.

—Is that really your name?

Out of the darkness stepped…

another Jung Hyun-soo.

He wore a black cloak.

Savage.

Domineering.

Wrapped in the aura of a king who ruled the night.

The infamous black-listed criminal known as the Dark King—

the Association’s greatest enemy—

asked him,

—No. I’m the real you.

Within the Dark King’s eyes flowed memories from the past.

The worst period of his life.

After being expelled by the Hunter Association,

Garam had been massacred that very night by mysterious attackers claiming to be Hunter Knights dispatched from Association headquarters.

Hyun-soo had watched helplessly from inside a concealment magic circle his father, Jung Cheol, had forced him into.

Unable to do anything.

—You’re a coward. Not Jung Hyun-soo. A coward. You couldn’t do anything that day… could you?

The Dark King faded away.

In his place appeared a younger version of Hyun-soo—

his present self,

as though reflected in a mirror.

The first floor was said to recreate one’s greatest trauma.

Hyun-soo’s life had been filled with brushes with death and countless regrets.

But none compared to the day Garam fell.

“…Couldn’t do anything?”

He spoke quietly.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He remembered that day.

“…In the middle of it all…”

“…I was relieved that I survived.”

Humans were selfish.

As he watched his family die…

As he watched the guild members slaughtered…

He had actually felt relief.

Relief that he alone had lived.

Then came overwhelming guilt.

Burning self-loathing.

He fled while burning with fever.

A wanted poster bearing the Association President’s seal followed him into the underworld.

At nineteen years old,

he survived a hellish life among criminals.

Not for revenge.

Not for justice.

Simply…

to stay alive.

He never denied that version of himself.

He accepted it.

Standing before him now were many versions of Jung Hyun-soo.

The tearful nineteen-year-old.

The rookie criminal hiding in the underworld.

The notorious black-listed criminal.

And finally—

the Dark King himself.

Facing all of them,

Hyun-soo calmly assumed a martial stance.

—You’re going to fight us?

Rather than answer,

he quietly gathered mana.

The other Hyun-soos did the same.

—Give up.

—You have absolutely no chance of winning.

Numerically…

and judging by the overwhelming power radiating from his future selves…

he was hopelessly outmatched.

—Offer your name.

—Only I deserve it.

—Give us your name.

Looking at the bloodthirsty copies,

Hyun-soo smiled.

—You’re smiling?

—At a time like this?

They were never real clones to begin with.

Merely the Tower’s crude examination.

Somehow,

it recreated a person’s deepest trauma.

It questioned whether they deserved to climb the Tower.

If they spoke a false name—

or surrendered their true one in fear—

they immediately became slaves of the Tower.

A name was the symbol of one’s existence.

The Tower was testing the pride that should never be abandoned—

not even in death.

Hyun-soo disliked being judged by the Tower.

Someday he would clear every floor,

destroy it completely,

and confront the being responsible for treating the world like a game.

For now…

he would simply play along.

BOOM!!

A tremendous slash flew toward him.

Hyun-soo instantly rolled across the ground to evade it.

As he stood,

he grabbed the face of the nineteen-year-old version of himself.

Mana gathered in his palm.

But the power he summoned wasn’t the Hwancheon True Qi.

Instead,

he used the most domineering technique among the Five Kings Martial Arts—

the one Jung Cheol had recently taught him.

Paecheongi.

For Hyun-soo,

this was the perfect battlefield to test it in actual combat.

CRACK!

The concentrated destructive force instantly shattered the clone’s skull.

Without pausing,

he attacked the next target.

BOOM!!

His fist slammed into the version of himself in his late twenties.

“Hand it over.”

The tightly compressed Paecheongi suddenly dispersed.

Instead,

the gentle golden aura of Hwancheon True Qi coiled around the clone’s arm like a serpent.

—Fool. Do you really think that’ll work?

The older clone immediately reacted.

Objectively speaking,

the version of himself that had survived ten years in the brutal criminal underworld was stronger.

But the Hyun-soo who had returned from the future possessed something that version lacked.

Experience.

His mana control and bodily precision,

refined after reaching the threshold of absolute mastery,

far surpassed what he had possessed in his twenties.

Predicting the knee strike before it happened,

he merely tilted his head,

redirecting the attack,

while simultaneously stealing the clone’s weapon.

The moment he secured it,

he switched back to Paecheongi.

The greatsword came crashing down.

SLAAASH!!

Two clones had fallen almost instantly.

Watching this,

the Dark King finally spoke.

—Do you think anything will change?

Hyun-soo grinned.

“Of course it will.”

The Dark King represented an overwhelmingly powerful version of himself.

In a true life-or-death battle,

he would be impossible to defeat.

But this…

was still only the first floor of the Tower.

“No matter how strong you are…”

“…as long as I never abandon my name…”

“…you can’t kill me.”

As long as he never surrendered his identity,

the first floor could never truly kill him.

Which meant—

“Where else could I find a training ground like this?”

What training could surpass sparring against his strongest self?

As always,

all it took was a different perspective.

Pushing Paecheongi to its limit,

Hyun-soo charged straight at the Dark King.

BOOM!!

Naturally,

he died in a single strike.

No matter what he tried,

he couldn’t overcome that attack.

But that didn’t mean there was nothing to gain.

How should one respond when pushed to the absolute limit?

How could Paecheongi be adapted in countless different ways?

This was the perfect opportunity to turn theory into reality.

Cover weaknesses.

Strengthen strengths.

It was a place where everything was possible.

His body was sliced apart beneath the Dark King’s terrifying Heaven-Tyrant Ghost King Art.

His torso was severed below the neck.

The agony was indescribable.

Yet after reviving,

Hyun-soo merely shook his head…

and charged again.

—You’re insane.

“This is who I am.”

Arms were severed.

His upper body exploded.

His legs were cut off.

His skull was crushed.

Again.

And again.

Yet none of it was meaningless.

Every battle sharpened his instincts.

Every death refined his control over Paecheongi.

He repeatedly threw himself into the Dark King’s merciless martial art.

Blindingly fast slashes flew toward him.

Too slow.

Even then,

he wasn’t satisfied.

To defeat Sun Woo-hyun.

To erase the Three Calamities.

To one day confront the Master of the Tower—

this wasn’t enough.

Improve.

Refine.

Thinking only of that,

Hyun-soo finally blocked one of the attacks.

His waist bent at a right angle.

His spine snapped.

Feeling vanished from his lower body.

Yet his upper body still moved.

Using the momentum—

Slice.

It was an attack possible only because he knew himself perfectly.

The edge barely cut the hem of the Dark King’s cloak.

At that instant,

the system spoke.

[An unpredictable increase in abilities has been detected.]

[Determining whether this violates the Tower’s laws.]

A tremendous presence descended.

Something looked down upon him from above.

Its gaze swept across him.

For a fleeting instant,

time itself seemed to stop.

…Did this happen before?

Even in his previous life,

he had never seen such a message.

Not even the notorious black-listed criminal who had invented this clone-training method on the first floor had ever mentioned anything like this.

Hyun-soo had personally tortured that criminal for information.

The man hadn’t been lying.

[Judgment complete.]

[The actions have been determined to violate the Tower’s rules.]

“…What?”

[However, as this restriction had not previously been established, the use of this loophole is hereby prohibited from this moment onward.]

[All experience points and ability increases accumulated thus far will remain valid.]

[Hunter Jung Hyun-soo has successfully cleared the First Floor.]

Hyun-soo couldn’t help cursing.

“Hey! Who the hell gave you permission?!”

[Examine your own status.]

[Your rate of growth exceeds the limits of natural progression.]

A status window appeared before him.

Name: Jung Hyun-soo

Stats

• Vitality: 15
• Strength: 13
• Technique: 15
• Mental Strength: 32
• Endurance: 18

Skills

• Five Kings Martial Arts – Heaven-Tyrant Ghost King Art: ★★★★☆
• Hwancheon True Qi: ★★★★★★★★★★ (10 Stars)
• Paecheongi: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (8 Stars)

“…Ahem.”

After dying countless times and suffering endless injuries,

his Vitality had increased by four points.

Strength and Technique had risen dramatically thanks to the system’s level adjustment while fighting the overwhelmingly powerful Dark King.

Enduring endless deaths had caused his Mental Strength to skyrocket.

Studying and breaking down the Five Kings Martial Arts firsthand had raised Heaven-Tyrant Ghost King Art to four stars—

while Paecheongi had leapt all the way to eight stars.

“I mean… even so…”

[Congratulations!]

[Hunter Jung Hyun-soo of the Republic of Korea has achieved the fastest First Floor clear with the highest score ever recorded.]

[Clear Rank: SSS]

[Transferring Jung Hyun-soo to the Second Floor.]

Still trying to land one more punch on the Dark King,

Hyun-soo was suddenly swallowed by a spatial magic circle that appeared between them.

It was supposedly a reward for clearing the floor…

Yet somehow,

it felt more like he had been kicked out.

[SSS Clear Reward: “Seal of the Name” acquired!]

[Skill acquired: “Existence Imprint.”]

[You have been granted an opportunity to uncover a hidden truth!]