Magician King, Jio.
Record: undefeated. Nickname: His Majesty.
“Jio”’s popularity was unrivaled.
You might wonder how that’s possible when nothing is known about his personal details and he doesn’t seem to “do” anything.
But in the Great Hunter Era, the popularity of a top Ranker is basically a foregone conclusion.
What’s more, from the moment of his debut Jio was already a national savior. Since debut, he had never once yielded his rank—an immovable No. 1.
Above all, his artful timing.
Jio only showed up when it got to the level of, “Let’s see if you still won’t show up.”
In other words, he picked the moments when people were thinking, “Guys, we were already screwed before, but this time we’re truly, actually screwed. Everyone get ready for your next life; we’ll meet in the afterlife.” Then he’d appear like a messiah.
The most decisive events were the three 1-Class Rifts that occurred in the last decade.
During the first 1-Class catastrophe—
Jio flew in from somewhere riding a black dragon and popped the Balrog’s head off like a soda cap.
(aka “Not a bottle opener, a Balrog opener” incident / current views: 7.89 billion)
Jio’s popularity was, for all intents and purposes, determined right there.
He even did similar feats two more times.
And as if in collusion, those damned 1-Class Rifts always spawned simultaneously across several countries.
You couldn’t help but compare between nations.
Given that, it was only natural that Korea—home to the top mage in the world—suffered the least damage.
It was practically an invitation to open wide and chug down national pride.
Live combat footage shot from every angle and fan-edited MAD music videos blasted off into the stratosphere.
Reporters started grabbing any dog or cow to ask: “Do you know Jio?”
And the arsonist who poured gasoline on the roaring bonfire of national pride—beloved by the whole world—was none other than the superstar…
When Timothy, Rank 1 of the United States, visited Korea.
Standing before hundreds of microphones, he opened his mouth.
“Is this Jio’s country?”
Game over.
Even in his basic indifference, Jio did not dislike his own popularity.
Anyone belonging to Ranker Channel 1 knows this.
Whenever Choi Dawit cleared his throat and bragged about his popularity, Jio would suddenly show up and drop links to his own videos.
Every time humanity hit a decisive crisis (even if he was a bit late), he showed up all the same.
So why would someone like that turn his back on humanity?
There’s only one answer.
“Kido (Kiddo), this time I’m going to climb faster than anyone.”
And I will find you and kill you.
Baek Dohyun flicked the blood from his sword, his face expressionless.
Bodies strewn across the grass.
The last one, still in a crumpled sitting position, scrabbled backward. His teeth chattered.
“P-please… s-spare… spare me.”
“You won’t die. You know that.”
“Please.”
“This is merely the process of castrating our humanity.”
Not as a simple mortal, but as a guardian who can protect the world and humankind—
“Please…”
“I’m sorry. If we meet outside, I’ll apologize.”
A slanted stroke of the blade. Baek Dohyun applied force and severed the cervical spine.
Hot blood spattered his cheek. He tilted his head slightly.
[You have dispatched a fellow human.]
[Special Points +50!]
[A flawless strike! An astonishing talent.]
[Hidden Trait ‘Genius of the Century (Hero)’ is unlocked.]
[First-bloom conditions satisfied.]
[First Title ‘Sword of Judgment (Quasi-Mythic)’ enters germination stage.]
[A Constellation that smites evil and protects order begins to take note of you.]
《Current points for Baek Dohyun: 10,270》
《Tutorial current rank: 1st. You are in sole lead.》
“You kidding me? ‘Golden generation’ my ass. There’s just one big golden egg.”
A bullfrog had wandered into the tadpoles’ playground and was butchering the lot.
Hwanghon (“Twilight”), Guildmaster of Dawn and Rank 6, checked the live rankings.
It had only been an hour and twenty minutes since the Tutorial started.
From the start, he seemed like “oh, kid’s played a little,” and now he’d already broken ten thousand points.
Newbie fights are supposed to be fun chaos—a free-for-all. Thanks to that, first place was glued in place.
Unlike his body covered in tattoos, he fiddled with an ear that didn’t have a single piercing scar, and clicked his tongue.
“Thought I’d bring in a rookie for the first time in a while, but looks like we’ll be bleeding. You getting any read on the kid? Or a total greenhorn?”
“That’s not it—he hit the media the other day. The Hero of Seolleung Station.”
“…The other day? Seolleung Station? You sure?”
Bending at the waist, Hwanghon asked.
Seeing his knees trembling despite the serious face, his right hand Unasam nodded reluctantly.
He’d been like that ever since he eavesdropped on Silver Lion’s conversation earlier.
Compared to Gyeon Riok glaring knives because the rankings didn’t change even after he cleared 38F—well, this was better, but it was its own kind of ugly.
“What’s the price tag on that kid gonna be?”
“Why? Gonna collect him too? He’s never even seen the Magician King’s coattails.”
Hwanghon scowled hard and lowered his voice as he glanced to one side.
“Connections. Connections. Big picture. Later, huh? Makes for small talk. You thick or what?”
Thick is you, a KTX-riding fanboy…
Leaving the Head—whose eyes turned bright in an instant—behind, Unasam looked around.
From the scouts recording the live-shifting ranks, to people standing in front of whatever monitors interested them, to groups chatting on sofas—
On the surface, the Monitor Room looked the same as always.
But the fact that Korea’s absolute monsters all had their senses tilted to one side… even in a room full of prominent Rankers, only a tiny handful perceived that current.
Unasam forced his eyes away from the black hood near Silver Lion.
Once you recognized it, you wondered how you’d ever missed it.
Sitting there beside Eun Seok-won like some subway Line 1 nuisance ajusshi, and yet without the slightest sense of mismatch…
Of course, there wasn’t a single outward hint—other than that attitude.
Honestly, if Hwanghon hadn’t told him, Unasam’s level would never have caught on, not to the very end.
He didn’t not know the Magician King, but this was beyond imagination.
Sharing the same space made him feel, anew, just how different a class of monster this was.
Truly, Heaven beyond Heaven.
“Should I be glad there’s a much higher realm… or despair?”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“Nothing. Just…”
Smirking at his right hand trailing off, Hwanghon chuckled.
“Funny. Climbing up is the job of the head—me. You lot just stare at my back and follow.”
“…Yes, Head.”
“If you’re gonna run pointless numbers, then price the kid—huh, huh? What? Where the hell’s he going?”
Direction: the Silver Lion group.
Seeing Choi Dawit stride past them and charge straight ahead, Hwanghon flailed out a hand in a panic.
Even so, an S-rank’s reflexes don’t just vanish.
Grabbed by the clothes all of a sudden, Choi Dawit scowled like a yaksha.
“What the hell, you Baemin late-night-delivery VVIP bastard.”
“You crazy broad? I told you not to call me that outside.”
“So what if I did!”
“…Wh—where you going?”
“Can’t you tell? Right there.”
“Wow, you’ve really lost it. Is it for the reason I’m thinking of? …You forgetting the Ranker golden rule? People in the same channel keep each other’s identities. Where’s your manners, huh? If you charge in outta nowhere, you’ll pull every eye in here. Even now, the quick ones are already—”
“Save it.”
A machine-gun burst of Busan dialect.
Choi Dawit chopped the air to shut him up.
Watching quietly, Unasam realized in that instant:
That’s the confidence of someone with backing.
“Who you calling ‘outta nowhere’? Twice a week. Seongbuk-dong Hunter Sports Town.”
“…”
“This body’s in the same squash club as Grandpa Silver Lion.”
“…!”
“We can go anytime and ha-ha ho-ho! Shoot the breeze.”
Hwanghon’s eyes went wide as lanterns. The fabled… hobby-club network.
Looking down at him, Choi Dawit grinned slyly.
“Dynamic Korea runs on connections, d*ckhead.”
Dawit, you had a plan for everything, huh?
There was context behind every bit of that swaggering gait.
Hwanghon, watching Choi Dawit pivot and stride off, hastily lunged to grab him.
A minute ago, he’d actually stood up with a whole story planned: “Sitting’s making me stiff, maybe I’ll go for a stroll? Oh, look at that—wandering the wide Monitor Room, I just happened to end up near the Silver Lion folks. Why, fancy meeting you here.” But after Jeong Gilgaon approached first and got cut off at Beom’s line, he’d pretended nothing happened—stretched and whistled and sat back down.
“Dammit, what now!”
“…N-Noona, I’m coming too.”
“…”
Rank 6 Hwanghon turned on the sad-puppy-in-the-rain eyes.
His line was “Noona, I’m coming too,” but it came out like, “Noona-ya, I’m comin’ too.”
Choi Dawit’s face crumpled at the sight—then—
Thud! Gu-gu-GOONG—!
……
“…What the hell?”
“That was a tremor, right?”
Balancing nimbly, Choi Dawit scanned the room.
Everyone else looked about the same.
She hadn’t been the only one who felt it.
The Tower had shaken.
Babel Network
[댋▦?◆※쉙씠▦◆▦가 ??▦▦를 ◆◆▦합니댧? ? ?]
[Babel Tower — initiating emergency server maintenance.]
[During maintenance, the network firewall is temporarily weakened. Exercise caution!]
《Due to external factors, Tutorial difficulty is being readjusted.》
《A Tutorial whose scenario has begun cannot be halted.》
“What kind of bulls**t is this…?”
Someone muttered in a daze.
Server maintenance? That had never happened before.
And right then—
The faces of those belonging to Ranker Channel 2—or lower channels—started changing across the board.
Each urgently sought their superiors.
Hwanghon received the relay just as fast.
“Sudden Gates? Three at once?”
Inside the tower, electronics are dead.
Channels are the only means of communication, and to make matters worse, “surprise rifts” cannot be announced by Babel.
So the top forces always run on rotation schedules…
But there’s a reason the Tutorial Walk is called Rankers’ official vacation.
The common wisdom: Gates don’t appear while a Tutorial is underway.
Which is why, with so many high Rankers gathered here, urgent messages flooded in from outside through multiple channels.
With a grim face, Unasam continued the urgent brief.
“Namyangju is a 4-Class. Bukhansan and Suwon are each estimated 2-Class. We probably need to—”
KWAJIK,
PWAK—!
A strange stillness.
The frontward vista of the Monitor Room.
The glass wall shattered from some kind of shockwave—an instant.
There should have been a resounding blast and the debris should have rained across the room—
But as if time had been fixed.
Shards, finely broken, hung motionless in mid-air.
By instinct, Hwanghon snapped his head to one side.
As if to say that’s correct—
The hooded small figure tapped a foot again, light and crisp.
Saaaaaa—!
The debris turned to a spray of light all at once and vanished. Without leaving a trace.
Vast in scope and insanely delicate mana control.
Yet you couldn’t even feel that mana had moved. And everyone present was a Ranker skilled at handling mana.
This could only mean one thing.
Awe—or terror.
Amid the wordless assembly, Silver Lion, Eun Seok-won, rose to his feet.
“What are you all doing? Take your leave. Time to do our job, Hunters.”
And with that, an alert finally popped for Ranker Channel 1 as well.
It was Rank 9—a relay from Team Leader Kim Si-gyun of the Center’s Emergency Response Suppression-Rescue Team 1. Please hurry.
One by one, pulling themselves together, Rankers exited the tower in haste.
Even then, a few stole glances to one side until the very end.
“And the Tutorial…?”
“It will be fine. Haven’t we always had a way through?”
Answering with certainty, Eun Seok-won looked.
At the place where the glass barrier had been.
At the back of the figure standing there, gazing down at the empty plaza.
At the back of the little king so dearly beloved by Babel and the stars.
Magician King Jio looked down at the empty plaza, both hands stuffed in her hoodie pocket.
And thought:
(Former) Rank 1, and I couldn’t resist… doing a little attention-seeking.
For a power-hiding creed, the timing had been way too badass to pass up.
Her gaze toward the air was somehow wistful and wry.
Still… you saved face, Gyeon Jioh…
Live by form, die by form… save face or die by face.
Regrets? N—none…