Bzzt—.
The monitors that had been showing the Tutorial field all went dead with static.
After the difficulty-change notice, there was no way to know how things were going.
“Do you know why a place like the Monitor Room exists in Babel, Jio?”
“Fish out a promising kid and try raising them.”
“That’s true as well, but the essence of ‘monitoring’ is to prepare for the unexpected. If the targets are beginners, then the observation is for protection.”
Silver Lion’s Guildmaster and Vice Guildmaster, Gyeon Riok, and Jio.
Everyone else had left; with only a very few remaining, the Monitor Room was quiet.
In a grave tone, Eun Seok-won spoke.
“We must not lose our rookies here. They are the future.”
“Why the overreaction? It’s just a difficulty change.”
“I believe Babel prepared systems like the Monitor Room precisely as a provision for such contingencies. The Tower shook. That’s a first. It can’t be a good sign.”
“…So what?”
Jio went on, lukewarm.
“They’ll make their way out. What are they, children? It’s not like we have anyone we know in—”
Gasp?
She did.
Not the old man—Gyeon Jioh did.
Under the hood, Jio’s pupils trembled.
Come to think of it—Ba… Butler Baek…!
She’d been lounging on the sofa until a moment ago, snickering inside, “Go, Regressor-mon. First place is you.” And she’d forgotten.
Jio abruptly ran out of words.
Having seen off his guild members and stayed behind alone, Gyeon Riok couldn’t help himself and opened his mouth.
“I understand how you feel, Silver Lion. But a Tutorial that’s begun cannot be stopped, nor can anyone jump in midway. Especially not a Ranker. You know this well. Don’t put a burden on Gyeon Jioh over something impossible.”
“That was not my intention. If it sounded that way, I apologize.”
“No, an apology is… Well, I’m just as frustrated. If the Constellations helped, maybe—but who would exercise coercive force to hand a Ranker a ‘private ticket’…”
Flinch.
“…”
“…”
Jio swallowed dryly.
Frosty.
A dagger flew and lodged in her chest.
But don’t worry—there are no gaps in a brazen face. I’ll just go home like nothing—
“…Hold it. Did you just switch on Brazen-Face?”
Damn it. One-eared punk.
[Trait ‘Brazen-Faced’ has been deactivated.]
Gyeon Riok’s hand snatched the hood like a hawk.
Creak. With a metallic squeal, Jio’s head turned.
“W-what? M-me?”
“You… seriously, I’m asking because I’m curious, do you realize you’re terrible at lying? I’d love to get fooled for once. Enough. Spit it out straight. Did your doting patron Constellation hand you a ‘Free Pass’ or not?”
“Listen to yourself, spinning scenarios, you Bambi bastard!”
“If you get caught lying, your wrist goes flying. Huh?”
Thwack thwack. Thud thud.
Watching the Gyeon siblings squabble, Eun Seok-won asked anxiously to the side,
“Beom, shouldn’t we stop them? Children shouldn’t speak so roughly.”
“Leave them. They’re playing.”
Beom, a veteran babysitter of ten years, answered calmly.
It was the cat-and-deer madhouse he’d seen hundreds of times while tending Gyeon Jioh.
As he said, the bickering ended in a snap when Gyeon Riok shoved up Jio’s sleeve.
“Hrk…!”
On the inside of her forearm was stamped a white Babel emblem.
Unlike a normal ticket, it was the size of a millet grain, but to the vaunted Rankers’ eyesight it was perfectly clear.
A ‘private ticket’ arbitrarily issued by a Constellation under their exclusive authority.
Otherwise known as—
Free Pass.
Normally, to enter the tower you either carry an entry “ticket,” or your name must be registered on the server as an awakener.
Thus, the true use of a “private ticket” was to serve those Star Spoon awakeners whom a Constellation had pre-selected—so they could awaken without going through the Tutorial.
If a Star Spoon wanted to go through the Tutorial before nickname registration, sometimes the Constellation, in a generous mood—“Aww, my cute baby. It’s not bad to experience the bottom first as experience, hehe.”—would exceptionally prepare an entry pass.
In reality, such cases were vanishingly rare.
Corrupted from its original purpose, friends of one’s patron Constellation would wheedle and get one, then use it for various adult purposes.
Quite literally above Babel’s rules—a “Free Pass” that let you go anywhere (as long as the floor was open).
Lighting his cigarette with will-o’-the-wisp flame, Beom wrapped it up neatly.
“A shill, huh?”
“…A-hem.”
Ugh, damn. How many times have I told them to stop spewing tickets everywhere!
A Free Pass rare enough you’d barely see in your life—but not for this side.
Because Gyeon Jioh wouldn’t go to the tower for love or money, she and her Constellation had tossed them back and forth jokingly almost every day.
Until Riok brought it up, Jio had forgotten she’d even received one.
[Your Constellation, ‘Reader of Fate,’ scratches their chin as if to say, “How was I supposed to know it’d end up like this?”]
[“You trust Oppa, right?” They go “there, there,” saying, “Since it’s come to this, gimme a sec—I’ll go shake Babel’s pockets a bit.”]
Under the hot stares of three men,
With Jio cornered, her eyes just rolled around in their sockets.
Truly, the action power of a competent, doting patron was something else.
Ding. [Quest Arrived!]
∨ Event Quest
/Conditional Ranker-Only/
▷ Help Me, Magician King~
• Difficulty | EASY
▷ Objective I End the Tutorial
— Due to error code: unknown error, GF scenario 〈Festival of Beginnings: Human Disqualification〉 is in danger (ᗒᗣᗕ)
Please eliminate the now-unleashed hazards and complete the scenario safely!
[Completion Rewards]
• Unique Skill Proficiency +3%
• Growth Buff acceleration ×5 during scenario progression
Hmmmm.
“…As a senior, I can’t just sit by and watch juniors in crisis.”
“…?”
“If this is my mission, then there’s nothing to do but accept it.”
“…”
“Leave this to me and go. This Tutorial punk will be handled by God-Jio.”
“…What is this, an Udyr-tier stance switch?”
Gyeon Riok muttered with a face like he’d bitten something foul, but Jio ignored him and turned smartly.
Beom, snapping his long cigarette and snuffing it out, frowned.
“Gyeon Jioh, are you serious?”
“Yeth.”
“No jokes. Chicks die from a cat’s play.”
“Yees. Keep the nagging to a single verse.”
Jio tuned them out and injected mana into the ticket.
Thanks to tower-maniac Gyeon Riok, she knew how to use it perfectly well.
《Gyeon Jioh requests to use a private ticket.》
《Proper authority holder. Approval complete.》
《You are currently on Floor 0, Monitor Room. Since you have already entered, “Tower Entry” does not apply. Substituting with access authority to another floor.》
《Please state the desired floor.》
Jio answered.
“Ground Floor.”
《Ground Floor. Plaza. Tutorial Scenario — 〈Festival of Beginnings: Human Disqualification〉》
《Scenario in progress. Enter mid-scenario?》
《Confirmed. Authorizing exception entry for Gyeon Jioh (1).》
Like ripples on the surface of water, a door formed in mid-air.
A breeze fluttered her bob. Flickering light washed over Jio.
Leaving the gazes behind, Jio took the doorknob.
One hour and forty minutes since entering the tower. Current Unique Skill Proficiency 17.033%.
Hmph. Still haven’t cleaned up that second-place Bean-Jio, friend?
[Your Constellation, ‘Reader of Fate,’ insists they never bribed the opponent and puts on a sunflower headpiece that reads “No. 1 Jio-Stan.”]
Good.
Well then, shall we?
To reclaim the crown.
Jio smiled. Even half a day is too long.
Bothersome and vexing though it is, fate is fate.
Lazy and indifferent as she may be, a king is a king.
Gyeon Jioh was born a king.
Therefore, there must not be a single moment when she isn’t—and there is no reason she shouldn’t be.
[AWAKENER STATUS]
• Name: Gyeon Jioh
• Age: 20
• Rank: S-rank (Combat / Mana-specialized)
• Ranking: (in progress)
• Disposition: A ruler who freely observes from the sidelines
• Affiliation: Earth — Republic of Korea
• Sub-affiliation: None
• Constellation: Reader of Fate
• [Unique True Avatar — Librarian of Omniscience]
• First Title: Magician King (M)
• Unique Titles: Number One, Above Ten Thousand, King of the World, Undefeated Apex, Tyrant, Slacker, Brat
Na Jo-yeon ground her teeth.
She’d heard plenty about the Babel Tower’s “Tutorial” and its notoriety.
For beginners who were formerly ordinary people,
it was said they always spawned only human-shaped monsters to erase the hesitation toward killing.
And it was literally so.
Fitting this theme of “Human Disqualification,” the scenario’s monsters were cannibals.
At a glance they looked vaguely normal, but their mouths split down below the waist—monsters.
They took pride in cruelty and viciousness—swallowing participants alive or tearing them apart to eat them.
Even so, since they still looked human, if you kept your mind straight they were opponents you could square up to.
That’s how it should have been…
Damn it, why are they evolving all of a sudden! What are you, Digimon!
《Due to external factors, Tutorial difficulty is being readjusted.》
《A Tutorial whose scenario has begun cannot be halted.》
[As a measure for difficulty adjustment, temporary weapons other than the items given at the start will be distributed. Weapons are arbitrarily provided according to participants’ traits.]
[All participants still alive within the scenario have their HP fully restored.]
[Points for “dispatching a fellow human” change from 50 to 0. You can no longer gain points from dueling other participants.]
It was after several notices popped up.
Winged cannibals, two-headed cannibals, and so on—
Even analyzed in detail and gently, they were monsters with absolutely no human feel to them.
I—I… I wanna go baaack…
Of course she knew that in the Tutorial, even if you died, you didn’t really die…
But this wasn’t some game.
And the pain wasn’t filtered—it was transmitted as is.
The hardcore screams of her party members, torn apart and eaten by a giant cannibal, still rang vivid in her ears.
They’d been a party of five; excluding Na Jo-yeon, they’d been cleanly wiped out.
Huff—, huffff—.
The hot breath of a giant cannibal skimmed over the top of her head. It was chilling.
Na Jo-yeon curled herself tighter under the rock and started regretting the choice she’d made tens of minutes ago.
Damn it, damn it! I should’ve followed that guy who looked like the protagonist no matter who looked!
Baek Dohyun, whom she’d run into by chance earlier.
Tutorial rankings were shown in real time to all participants.
Seeing that nice-guy face logging terrifying points gave her the creeps.
(Unexpectedly) Baek Dohyun had proposed they go together, but Na Jo-yeon (playing it cool) turned him down and chose a party she met later.
If I’d followed him, at least I wouldn’t be torn apart by a giant cannibal.
“Hic…”
Stuffed up and stifled, a whimper leaked out before she knew it. Startled white by her own sound, Na Jo-yeon rolled her body on reflex.
KWAANG, KRUOOOAR—!
“Aaaah!”
Pababak—, stone fragments sprayed everywhere.
It was the very boulder Na Jo-yeon had been hiding behind.
Had she been even a little late, it wouldn’t have been the rock that shattered, but her.
Na Jo-yeon crab-crawled across the ground, not even noticing her palms had become bloody.
She had to get up, but her legs refused to take any strength.
“P-please, m-move…!”
Save me. Somebody, please!
In fact, the reason the regressor Baek Dohyun had proposed accompanying Na Jo-yeon was because of her Trait,
Trait, “Zealot.”
It doesn’t matter what you believe in, or what your object of worship is. For some Constellations, the only criterion is the purity of that faith.
The purer the heart, the higher the chance you’ll be chosen by a Constellation—and the higher the chance you’ll awaken at a high rank.
Na Jo-yeon now didn’t know it, but the her from the previous world in Baek Dohyun’s memory had been an AA-rank healer.
Meaning her innate purity was second to none anywhere.
And Babel did not ignore such earnestness in Na Jo-yeon.
“Domain Declaration.”
Library, Materialization.
『Marksman of Magic Bullets — Unerring Shot.
Enhancement Keyword: “Cunning Zamiel, my silver muzzle bears no seventh bullet.”』
Charararak.
She thought she heard the sound of pages turning.
And the instant Na Jo-yeon opened the eyes she’d squeezed shut—
TAAANG—!
A biting crack of a gunshot rang out.
It wasn’t something like a book.
KOO-GOONG! Without even a scream, the giant fell, a hole clean through the dead center of its brow.
Na Jo-yeon blankly turned her head.
A lone figure standing serene in the middle of the field, black hood pulled down to the bridge of their nose.
They slung the silver anti-materiel sniper rifle they’d aimed with up over their shoulder and said,
“Maybe I should go to the Olympics.”