Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The sky flashed.

At the same time.

Rumble, BOOOOOOM!! Bang, bang!!

A tremendous roar struck my eardrums.

Lightning Strike poured down endlessly from the sky.

As if a downpour were falling.

Until just a moment ago, it had been so dark that calling it the middle of the night wouldn’t have felt strange, but now it was the exact opposite.

The tremendous amount of light made it feel as though my eyes would go blind.

That sight was… yes, it wouldn’t have been strange to say that Thor, the god of thunder, had descended again.

A flash here, a flash there.

Every time Lightning Strike fell, the monsters were swept away.

[You have defeated a Werewolf.]

[You have defeated a King Sareba.]

[You have defeated a Weather Skeleton.]

..............

........

...

Even now, countless system windows were blocking my vision.

While reading through the system windows, I thought to myself.

‘Jackpot… I hit the jackpot!’

There was quite a distance between me and the monster army.

That was why, when I first saw them, I hadn’t thought much of it.

I assumed things like Goblins or Orcs had appeared.

But.

[Unbelievable achievement accomplished!]

[You have single-handedly repelled an army of monsters far stronger than you.]

Those bastards were fairly strong.

Each and every one of them was the kind of thing you might see in the middle part of the Tower.

Come to think of it, that man from earlier, the one who kept talking down to me.

What was he so confident about when he ran in?

From what I saw, I don’t think that shabby sword of his could have even cut their necks. He would have been lucky if it could trim a monster’s nails.

That bastard wouldn’t have a chance to show off.

Because I had wiped out all the monsters.

It would be impossible for him to get the indulgence he had wanted so badly.

If he committed a crime, he shouldn’t hope for a stroke of luck. He should spend his whole life reflecting instead.

And if possible, it would be even better if a bolt of lightning struck him on the head.

It was around the time I was having that absurd thought.

[You have subjugated the Dungeon Synchronization phenomenon.]

[Reading total subjugation score.]

A system window appeared right on cue.

[You have achieved 1st place in Contribution.]

[Congratulations. MVP achieved!]

[MVP: Pingkkyu Gyongdyu]

Haha, so this appears even outside the Tower or Dungeons?

My mouth fell open at the completely unexpected public shame.

Of course, it wasn’t as bad as it had been in the old days.

I was different from the naive me back then.

After experiencing it so often, I had developed a certain amount of resistance.

As long as my face didn’t get exposed anywhere, it was fine.

No matter how I thought about it, that nickname was horrific.

It was absolutely not something a full-grown adult in his twenties with a perfectly sound mind should willingly carry around.

Dududududu-

Just then, the sound of a motor came from above.

When I raised my head, I saw a helicopter flying in from the direction of the city.

Looking closely, that helicopter had come from a media company.

‘Why is there a helicopter?’

Thinking about it, that was a stupid question.

A disaster severe enough to blow away an entire city had occurred, so it was only natural that the media would be eyeing it.

Furthermore, the Synchronization phenomenon had ended too.

If a reporter simply sat by and ignored this opportunity, they wouldn’t be a reporter.

“…Wait.”

If I stay here, won’t I get caught on camera?

An unidentified man standing in the middle of the ruins.

No matter who looked at it, I would look suspicious.

I narrowed my eyes and looked toward the helicopter.

I caught a glimpse of a camera beyond the helicopter window.

My hesitation was brief.

“Blink.”

***

Bang!

Han-sol burst in after kicking the door open.

Han-sol lifted a USB over her head and shouted triumphantly.

“Team Leader, this is on-site footage recorded by a media company. Just in case, our side got ahead of them and recovered it first, sir.”

“Good work. Play it.”

Click. He connected it to the monitor and played the video.

It was footage recorded from above the helicopter.

The ruined Gangseo-gu could be seen at a glance.

While the video was playing, Kang Han-seok frowned.

“Wait. Rewind the video just a little. Yeah, yeah, a little more. Good, stop there.”

He paused the rewound video.

Then he played it at 0.2x speed.

Kang Han-seok’s gaze locked onto one corner of the ground recorded by the camera, a spot that looked ordinary but where some strange presence seemed to pass by.

Looking closely, a black shadow seemed to ripple.

Then, along with a golden flash, the shadow disappeared.

Perhaps because it was far away, the resolution was poor.

‘It was right after all.’

The corners of Kang Han-seok’s mouth rose.

It had happened before too.

No one else had noticed, but there had been someone at the scene where the Imugi had been taken down.

After a golden flash appeared, they vanished without a trace.

As if they could freely manipulate space.

He had caught a glimpse then too, but it had happened again.

Perhaps it might be Pingkkyu Gyongdyu.

Kang Han-seok was certain.

The scene where the golden flash had appeared, and the MVP of the scene, was Pingkkyu Gyongdyu.

It was a forced fit, but it matched perfectly.

Furthermore, the enormous amount of Lightning Strike that had poured down only in Gangseo-gu

was not an ordinary natural phenomenon.

Because the Lightning Strike had fallen precisely above the monsters.

It was too awkward to call it a coincidence.

Just what kind of ability was it?

He couldn’t even begin to guess.

Pingkkyu Gyongdyu was a powerhouse hidden behind a veil.

The important thing was that he still had no affiliation.

‘No matter what it takes, we have to recruit him to our side.’

As time passed, and every time he saw Pingkkyu Gyongdyu’s achievements,

‘I’m getting even more curious.’

About what kind of person Pingkkyu Gyongdyu was.

However, based on his actions so far, Kang Han-seok could roughly get a feel for him.

“As expected… he’s an uncontrollable person.”

“Pardon? What do you mean, uncontrollable?”

His eyes met Han-sol’s.

“Ahem. I mean I can’t control what kind of accident you’ll cause, you punk.”

When he kicked her shin, she protested in indignation.

“Ow! Why are you suddenly hitting me, sir?! Use words! And I’m not a guy, I’m a girl, sir! You shouldn’t say that to a proper lady!”

“........”

“Ah! Right. That’s not what’s important. You know that bastard Lee Min-tae, sir! Apparently, he told the media that he was Pingkkyu Gyongdyu!”

“Well, I’ll be damned. What the hell is that bastard doing now?”

“So how should we handle this, sir?”

“What do you mean how? In the first place, it wasn’t even Lee Min-tae’s achievement. Announce it exactly as it is. Make sure that bastard can’t pull any tricks.”

Ordinary people didn’t know.

But the Chosen, who could see the Tower’s system, knew.

Who the central figure of this Gangseo-gu incident was.

“But there’s still a chance that Lee Min-tae is Pingkkyu Gyongdyu….”

“There isn’t. None at all. If that bastard is Pingkkyu Gyongdyu, I’ll take off my clothes.”

What a ridiculous thing to say… Kang Han-seok waved his hand and settled the matter.

Pingkkyu Gyongdyu was a Chosen who had only just broken through the 2nd floor.

There was no way Lee Min-tae was Pingkkyu Gyongdyu.

“And one more thing.”

“Yes, what is it, sir?”

“Contact the media company and politely ask them not to distribute that video.”

Kang Han-seok pointed to the footage where the golden flash had rippled as he added.

“Pardon? So suddenly, sir?”

“Tsk, talking back again.”

“Ah, understood, sir!”

Pingkkyu Gyongdyu. He didn’t know for what reason the man refused to appear before the public.

But he wanted to eliminate, as much as possible, anything that might put him in a difficult position.

That way, when he eventually faced Pingkkyu Gyongdyu later, it would be easier to earn points with him.

***

A Dungeon Synchronization phenomenon had occurred in Seoul.

That itself was not the problem.

From what I heard, it was something that happened fairly often, about once every quarter.

However, the problem lay elsewhere.

The entirety of Gangseo-gu had been reduced to ruins.

Needless to say, there had been property damage, and there had also been massive casualties.

Maybe because of that, no matter what channel I turned to, every media company was talking only about this incident.

That was how shocking the incident was.

“Good grief, isn’t there anything worth watching?”

I was switching channels indifferently when my finger stopped.

What caught my attention was the title from one media company.

[Shock! Has the veiled Pingkkyu Gyongdyu’s identity been revealed?]

Huh? What did it say?

For a moment, my heart dropped with a thud.

Had I been filmed at that place?

Right before I left the area, I remembered the camera that had briefly appeared from the helicopter.

If the timing had been bad, I thought it might have happened.

Unexpectedly, When I opened the article and scrolled down, a face I hadn’t expected appeared.

“This is… that bastard I saw back then.”

The bastard’s face had been turned into a black heap of ash.

The moment I saw that, I instinctively realized it.

Ah, he got hit by lightning.

“Serves him right. Serves him damn right.”

I should have known from the moment he got greedy.

Anyway.

“Why is he here?”

Wasn’t this an article about Pingkkyu Gyongdyu?

That question was resolved once I read the article.

Apparently, right after the incident ended, the bastard had stepped in front of the reporters and claimed to be Pingkkyu Gyongdyu himself.

Ha, unbelievable.

Seriously, what the hell is this bastard?

Why is he trying to steal my achievement?

I couldn’t reveal the fact that I was Pingkkyu Gyongdyu, but someone else stealing my credit was another matter.

I almost cursed, but barely held it in.

Because of the content that immediately followed.

[However, Lee Min-tae’s claim was revealed to be false. This is because the Crisis Response Committee announced that Pingkkyu Gyongdyu is a Chosen who has only just entered the 2nd floor.]

The Crisis Response Committee?

Come to think of it, I remembered seeing that somewhere.

It was one of the places that had sent me a contract offer before.

For a government agency, they had offered a fairly large sum, so I had remembered them.

‘I haven’t rejected them yet.’

I had only put them on hold, and perhaps because of that, I felt even more favorable toward them.

As expected, I had never seen someone generous with money turn out to be a bad person.

Just as I had felt displeased,

public opinion wasn’t much different.

-Lee Min-tae? Who the hell is that nobody? What kind of bastard is he, and why is he trending?

↳ You know, that guy. Yeah, the one who creeped on a minor a long time ago and got buried.

↳ Hahaha, for real. Looks really are science.

-By the way, what the hell is Pingkkyu Gyongdyu? Holy shit, they just cleared the 2nd floor? Isn’t that bullshit? How does someone like that become MVP?

↳ If the government revealed it, I think it’s true?

-Wow, that’s insane. They’re only on the 2nd floor, but they’re that strong? Is this a dream?

-Scream it!! Pingkkyu Gyongdyu!! Pingkkyu Gyongdyu!!

-Pingdyu!!

↳ ?

↳ Don’t misunderstand. It’s Pingkkyu Gyongdyu.

Apparently, that bastard’s wish to make a comeback through his achievements would never come true for the rest of his life.

Because this incident had engraved his character into the public’s minds.

It wouldn’t be easy.

And if he tried again, well, I could just drop another bolt of lightning on him.

‘So it was clickbait after all?’

Only after reading the article to the end did I reach that conclusion.

That reporter was no ordinary skill either.

They were top-class at drawing aggro.

As expected, with Korean, you had to listen until the very end to understand.

Anyway, when is the MVP reward coming out?

Quite a bit of time had passed since the Gangseo-gu incident.

It should be about time for the result to appear….

[MVP reward has been calculated.]

“Oh, it’s here!”

As expected, speak of the tiger and it comes.

The moment I checked the reward with anticipation.

[A monster under your command will evolve once.]

[Servant Slime → Rainbow Servant Slime]

Something completely unexpected appeared.

“?”

For a moment, question marks popped up in my head.

A Slime?

“Ah, could it be that?”

When I climbed the Tower last time, there had been a Slime I rescued from the Goblins.

It seemed to be talking about that Slime, but….

“Tsk, I don’t know.”

It couldn’t be helped.

[Will you enter the 3rd floor of the Tower?]

Since I was going to climb the Tower anyway, I might as well check it myself.