Bugatti, McLaren, Lamborghini, Ferrari, and so on.
Seeing a scene packed with supercars you’d hardly ever spot in daily life, reality came crashing in.
I’m finally stepping into the big leagues.
Mother, your daughter did it!
Participant in Tutorial No. 40, Na Jo-yeon furtively rubbed her nose as she looked up at the sky.
Of course, Mother was safe and sound at home, but it felt like the right timing to do this once.
“Jo-yeon, have you ever heard the saying, ‘Kings and dukes are raised from the common folk’ (왕후장상 영유종호)?”
“Yes, Mother. ‘How could the seed of kings and dukes be any different!’ I, too, have engraved this old maxim deep in my heart and, without giving up, have pursued my dream of becoming a Hunter…”
“No, you silly thing. Why do you think your name is Jo-yeon (Supporting Role)?”
“…Pardon?”
“Don’t be fooled by plausible nonsense. The seed of kings and dukes is very different.”
“Uh… yes, ma’am.”
“But you must also know this: in the end, happiness belongs to the supporting role.”
“What the world chooses as its protagonist is always either first place or dead last. Look at their lives—every day it’s noise and blood. But the middle of the pyramid? Peaceful and cozy where no one pays attention.”
“Therefore, the supporting role is the true winner.”
“Always keep that in mind, my daughter!”
Her mother, a hardcore realist, had named her according to her own convictions.
Still, even she would never have imagined her daughter would live not even as a supporting character, but as just another Extra No. 1.
But Mother! As of today, your daughter finally takes one step closer to the value of her name! Please watch me stride, strong and proud, down the path beside the protagonist—the path of the supporting role!
With eyes burning with heat, Na Jo-yeon looked up at the outer wall of the Babel Tower.
A gigantic, conical spire whose end couldn’t be seen.
On that smooth black wall polished like a cut gem, the rankings of Channel 1’s Rankers—i.e., the top domestic Rankers—floated in mana script.
I’d heard that ever-updating ranking could also be viewed from inside the tower.
In particular, the Sky-tier top 10 were shown separately, even larger.
[Rankings] Local — Republic of Korea
《 1 》 Eun Seok-won ▲1
《 2 》 Jio • Private ▼1
《 3 》 Alpha • Jeong Gilgaon –
| 4 | White Bird • Hayan-sae –
| 5 | Bambi • Gyeon Riok –
| 6 | Yasik King • Hwanghon –
| 7 | Beom –
| 8 | Dawit • Choi Dawit –
| 9 | GyuniGyuneui • Kim Si-gyun –
| 10 | Hong Goya –
“Hngh… Your Majesty…”
Na Jo-yeon clutched her chest in aching regret. It hurt like her heart was being torn to shreds.
Other than Bambi and Yasik King, who always jostled between 5th and 6th, arrows appearing in the Sky-tier was exceedingly rare.
Which is why the arrow that popped up this morning literally flipped the entire community on its head.
The private, membership-only fan club of “Jio” that Na Jo-yeon belonged to was no exception.
They were already taking registrations for the “〈Prayer Group for the Retirement of the Silver Lion〉,” and she’d submitted her application before coming to the Tutorial.
I’ll definitely become Jo-yeon-jjang. I’ll become Jo-yeon-jjang and beat up everyone who hassles His Majesty.
Right then, someone approached with a bit of bustle.
“This is why you have to pick a nickname carefully. Who would have thought you couldn’t change it once you set it? Babel’s too much.”
A woman with a breezy smile turned to Na Jo-yeon.
“If you become a Ranker, it’ll be up there where everyone sees it every single day. To be out there as ‘Yasik King’ and ‘Renew Public Certificate Tomorrow’? Oh dear. Don’t you agree? Have you chosen yours?”
“Ah, I’m Jo-yeon-jjang—I mean, Jo-yeon.”
“Cute. I’m Romi.”
Romi, said to be the student council president at some university, was the quintessential nuclear insider—a social butterfly.
Apparently, on the way over she’d already chatted with several people besides Na Jo-yeon.
Exchanging a few light words, the two passed through the entrance and arrived at the Babel Tower’s Ground Floor, the Tutorial Plaza.
They all look like they’ve got something. Are these party animals?
Nervous, Na Jo-yeon swept her gaze around.
There were so many people it felt like a sea of humanity, and yet it didn’t feel cramped or stifling.
But soon enough, Na Jo-yeon relaxed.
They were, after all, all candidates for supporting roles.
The main cast weren’t here. They were probably in the rumored “Monitor Room” watching this side.
To find the supporting roles who would back them up.
I can do this!
Suddenly, her motivation flared up.
Wasn’t she, Na Jo-yeon, born under the fate of a supporting role!
It wasn’t even a contest among protagonists—just a free-for-all among supporting roles. There wasn’t a single reason she couldn’t win!
Just then—
“Unnie! Jo-yeon-unnie! Say hello. This is someone I ran into on the subway on the way here—he’s really something. It’s a re-entry, so who knows. He might even take first in the Tutorial! We should get friendly now!”
“Ah, Ms. Romi. Please don’t say that.”
“Aww, don’t be shy. Come on, come on, say hello.”
The young man being nudged along looked awkward, but with a confident smile, he held out his hand.
“I’m Baek Dohyun.”
Supporting roles have a supporting role’s intuition.
Na Jo-yeon instinctively felt a sense of danger. What was with this visual? What was with this presence?
This punk might not be a supporting role.
She could stake her 26 years as a supporting-role hopeful on it—he wasn’t.
Once in the first half.
Once in the second half.
The Tutorial Walk, which opens exactly twice each year, usually takes about three or four days.
Of course, that’s just a statistical average, and the gap varied quite a bit depending on the year’s difficulty and the cohort’s overall level.
The shortest record was a day; the longest was a week.
At any rate, long or short, one thing was certain: it took a fair amount of time.
And in the meantime, the high Rankers—most of whom are purists—end up with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs.
Others, when the tower floors close, might take the chance to visit a dungeon for the first time in a while, but for the top-tier Rankers, that was out of the question.
It’d be like Messi showing up to a local pickup soccer game just to steal the ball.
If you got caught going in disguise because you were bored, people would say, “Oh, so you became a Ranker and now you’re playing the power-hidden game?”—and you’d end up broadly disliked.
Naturally, their destination became the tower’s “Monitor Room.”
Babel’s vanguard.
The “Monitor Room,” open to those within the top 100 of the rankings, could fairly be called the senior center for purist old hands who suddenly had nothing to do.
“Seriously, Sky-tier should have some class—why come to a senior center?”
“Stop saying weird things, Dawit.”
“Ugh, we busy folks are supposed to leave this to the scouts—why are we even here!”
“…? Busy? That’s news to me.”
Domestic Rank 4. White Bird, grandmaster of the prestigious martial guild Heta, tilted her head with her trademark blank expression.
At that reaction—which made his insides boil—Choi Dawit thumped his chest.
In the spacious Monitor Room,
Rankers seated on sofas here and there glanced over at the commotion and then went back to pretending not to notice.
Some things you avoid not because you’re afraid, but because they’re dirty.
The two famous women of Heta.
Among them, Rank 8 Choi Dawit, a mixed-blood punk, was an S-rank so nasty he was scary. Best not to draw his gaze at all.
“Hey, you bird-brained idiot! Babel officially gave us vacation time, so obviously we should, huh? Do it dynamic and have a blast! There’s so much to do!”
“Don’t make a scene. You’re disturbing others.”
“Wow, what do I do with this Joseon woman? Acting like a damned seonbi—”
“You only don’t know because you’ve been irresponsibly gallivanting around. We do this every year. This cohort is special, so we brought you along as well.”
Special?
Special, unique…
Vulnerable to words like those, Choi Dawit plopped himself down.
“What’s special about it?”
“Floors 19, 29, and 39 opened. Odds are high we’ll get a third golden generation.”
“29F is the Bambi brat and that late-night-snack maniac you’re talking about. 19F? What, who was in that year’s cohort?”
“You.”
“…”
“You keep forgetting, but you’re a precious S-rank too, Dawit.”
A-hem, a-hem. Also weak to blunt praise, Choi Dawit coughed. Embarrassed, he changed the subject.
“So what, are all our channel’s folks coming? I’ll get to gawk at some expensive mugs for the first time in a while.”
“Not all. In the end, it’s the guilds that need rookies. People related to that will come. I’ve heard top brass from other guilds are coming as well. Eun Seok-won said he’ll definitely be here.”
“…Speak of the lion and he appears.”
Choi Dawit’s lips crooked into a grin.
White Bird had been about to correct him—tiger, not lion—when she too turned her head.
A weighty presence. As if waiting, Babel delivered the notice.
[Monitor Room │ Rank 1 Eun Seok-won has entered]
[Monitor Room │ Rank 16 Ahn Chi-san has entered]
Huh? That’s not Beom.
Leaving his cherished right-hand man elsewhere, the old lion entered with his left-hand man.
They walked and took seats in the front row, where the Tutorial Plaza was easiest to see.
But Choi Dawit had no time to satisfy his curiosity.
As if heralding an imminent opening, one after another the top-tier Rankers—the heads of the remaining Five Great Guilds—appeared.
“Our young boss, there there. Still sulking?”
“I said I’m not—quit poking me! Damn it, why is this leech still calling? You really wanna throw down or what?”
[Monitor Room │ Rank 5 Gyeon Riok has entered]
Leader of the elite-few guild Babylon, “Bambi” Gyeon Riok.
“So to summarize… forget it. We’ll talk later. Everyone! Have you all been well?”
[Monitor Room │ Rank 3 Jeong Gilgaon has entered]
CEO of the conglomerate-affiliated guild D.I., “Alpha” Jeong Gilgaon.
“Ah, enough, Mom—hang up! I can take care of my own health. What tonic, what nonsense. If I go a day without flour I’ll die. If you want to see your baby die, then send it!”
“Hy—hyungnim, the door just opened.”
“…Ah, right, Mr. Kim. I’m a bit busy right now, so let’s resume our ruthless business talk later.”
[Monitor Room │ Rank 6 Hwanghon has entered]
Head of the gangster guild Dawn, “Yasik King” Hwanghon.
And then…
Just when it felt like all the key figures had arrived,
With everyone busy ogling rarely seen celebrities and paying less mind to new entry notifications—
[Monitor Room │ Rank 7 Beom has entered]
[Monitor Room │ Anonymous has entered]
Nearly everyone in the top 100 was gathered.
It wasn’t unheard of for a Ranker to enter anonymously.
And since each Ranker could bring one companion—scout, acquaintance, etc.—it wasn’t exactly rare to see someone outside the rankings present.
But there were those here who wouldn’t be fooled by that so easily.
While the majority looked only toward Beom, the number two of Silver Lion,
A very small number—those whose heads turned because of the small figure beside him, the one who’d pulled a black hood down to the bridge of their nose—
Shit. What’s that?
What is that… that monster?
S-ranks born with senses keener than beasts—Choi Dawit and Hwanghon—doubted their own eyes.
And a shrewd operator like Jeong Gilgaon, who had more than just gut feel and quick wits thanks to experience, was certain.
He couldn’t hide the laughter that kept slipping out. It was a line he’d always wanted to deliver someday.
“The advent of Lucifer in a Monitor Room full of devils…”
The king whose crown had been snatched for the first time.
The exceedingly rare procession of the No. 1.
Re-checking the hood fixed in place with mana, Gyeon Jioh—in power-hidden mode—thought:
These lights, the temperature, the humidity… the gazes.
No doubt about it.
These fuckers…
Fast on the uptake.