Chapter 2

Chapter 2

There was not a single cloud in the sky.

In his previous life, that sky had been scarred by a black tower that mocked humanity. But the sky now was simply, dazzlingly blue.

Go Gyeol looked up at that clear empty air without even blinking, then finally moved his feet.

His destination was a small church in the XX Diocese. It was a modest space, full with barely fifty people inside. When he opened the heavy door and stepped in, light passing through the stained glass poured sacredly over the altar. Beneath that light, a man was kneeling in fervent prayer.

Go Gyeol approached without a sound, knelt beside him in the same way, and awkwardly clasped his hands together.

“Sir. You should make the sign of the cross first.”

It was a soft, low voice, as if it would forgive every sin in the world.

When Go Gyeol raised his hand and hesitated, the priest whispered with his eyes still closed.

“The order is forehead, chest, left shoulder, then right shoulder.”

Go Gyeol clumsily made the sign of the cross as he had been taught, and another question followed.

“What have you come here to pray for?”

“For the peace of humanity.”

At Go Gyeol’s answer, the priest finally opened his eyes and turned to look at him. A gentle smile rested at the corner of his mouth.

“You are a lunatic.”

“…I don’t think that’s something a priest should say.”

“How could it be a sin to tell a true lunatic the truth?”

The priest lightly tapped Go Gyeol on the shoulder and rose. His black cassock, his priestly robe, brushed the floor with a soft rustle. Go Gyeol stood as well and followed after him.

The path leading to the small residence behind the church, where the priest stayed, was a neatly tended garden. The moment they entered the residence and the door shut behind them, the man’s entire air changed by one hundred and eighty degrees.

“Cut the bullshit and get to the point. What’s going on?”

The gentle tone and polite speech from a moment ago were nowhere to be found. He dropped carelessly onto the sofa and straightened his cassock. He was no longer Father Lee Seong-ha, but the Lee Seong-ha Go Gyeol knew.

Go Gyeol accepted the tea he poured and met his staring gaze head-on.

“I regressed.”

A silence fell.

Lee Seong-ha reached out and placed a hand on Go Gyeol’s forehead.

“You don’t have a fever. Have you really lost your mind, you bastard?”

“Move it.”

Go Gyeol irritably slapped his hand away.

“I believed the bullshit you spouted, but you can’t believe me?”

“Hey! You need to say something that makes sense if you want me to believe it! Would you believe that if you were me?”

“It’s a lot more realistic than saying Jesus suddenly appeared one day and delivered a revelation that said, ‘You are destined to become a priest. Throw everything away and become a priest.’”

“…….”

Lee Seong-ha snorted as if he could not believe what he was hearing. Go Gyeol let out a deep sigh and hardened his expression.

“Lee Seong-ha. I’m not joking right now. I really did regress.”

“What makes you so sure you regressed? Isn’t it just a severe case of déjà vu?”

At those words, Go Gyeol took his phone from his pocket. On the bare, unadorned screen, the text [PM 04:00] stood clear.

“Exactly one minute from now, a B-grade Instant Dungeon will open within a one-kilometer radius of here.”

“What?”

Lee Seong-ha’s eyes widened.

Go Gyeol said nothing and only stared at his phone screen. In the illusion that he could hear a second hand ticking by, the number finally changed.

[PM 04:01]

It was that very moment.

Beep- Beep- Beep-

Breaking the silence, both of their phones blared a sharp alarm at the same time.

[Emergency Disaster Alert]

[Dungeon Safety Guidance Department] As of the current time, a B-grade Instant Dungeon has occurred in the XX-myeon area. Nearby residents are advised to refrain from going outside and remain alert to safety risks.

Lee Seong-ha stared blankly between his own phone, where the disaster alert had appeared, and Go Gyeol’s face. His pupils shook violently, as though an earthquake had struck them.

In response to Go Gyeol’s silence, which seemed to ask if he still could not believe it, Lee Seong-ha dragged a hand over his face and asked in a trembling voice.

“You… really regressed?”

“Do you want me to tell you more?”

At Go Gyeol’s question, Lee Seong-ha shook his head and raised a hand.

“That’s enough. It’s not like I didn’t believe you at all earlier. It was just… too absurd.”

The Go Gyeol he knew was, just like his name, noble. Sometimes he lived so uprightly that it was frustrating.

He was the sort of man who could not even lie properly, a scholar who should have been born in the Joseon era, incapable of pulling tricks or taking shortcuts.

From the moment a man like that had suddenly taken time off work to come see him, Seong-ha had suspected it was not an ordinary matter.

But regression?

Their long friendship, rather than helping, became an obstacle to nodding along at once to a story that sounded like something out of a fantasy novel.

“Haa….”

Lee Seong-ha let out a long sigh.

“What kind of future did you see, for you to be like this?”

“The problem wasn’t the dungeons.”

Go Gyeol’s voice sank low.

“A few months from now, a tower will appear.”

“A tower?”

Lee Seong-ha’s brow narrowed. It was a word he had never heard before.

“Yeah. A mysterious black tower, soaring high enough to pierce the sky. It proposed a cruel game to humanity. If each floor wasn’t cleared within the time limit, gates would open across the entire country and monsters would pour out.”

At Go Gyeol’s explanation, Lee Seong-ha’s expression stiffened.

“So… what happened?”

“The 87th floor of the tower. South Korea was eliminated there.”

“What?!”

Lee Seong-ha sprang to his feet. His priestly robe fluttered, speaking for the intensity of his emotions.

“What about the rankers? What were Korea’s S-grade Hunters doing? Were they all wiped out or something?”

One corner of Go Gyeol’s mouth twisted, and a sneer slipped out.

“They all ran overseas. Every last one of them.”

“…That’s impossible. Why would they do something like that…?”

“Those bastards. They were S-grade in name only. Their character was trash, and they couldn’t do a thing.”

“The government… just let them?”

“International Hunter Law Article 31. ‘Hunters possess the freedom to change nationality of their own will.’ They used that as their justification and sat on their hands. The country was going to fall anyway, so they all fled to save themselves.”

Lee Seong-ha closed his eyes. A horrific scene drew itself before them.

South Korea, where rankers, conglomerates, and politicians had all fled overseas, saying there was no hope, leaving behind only ordinary people who knew nothing. And monsters pouring down over them.

“What caused your regression?”

Without a word, Go Gyeol took the white jade pendant out of his pocket and tossed it onto the table.

“This.”

“White jade?”

“To be precise, it’s an item containing a humanity protection program.”

Go Gyeol explained about system S7KD87, the Humanity Eradication Project, and the unknown force opposing it. It was a difficult story to believe, but unlike before, Lee Seong-ha calmly listened to everything.

“That’s what it said. That’s as far as the information I can access goes.”

“Is there any possibility this system thing is lying?”

Go Gyeol raised both hands and shrugged.

“Zero. If its goal was humanity’s eradication, would it really have chosen me, a powerless civilian? It would have been a hundred times more efficient to coax a capable S-grade Hunter.”

“That’s true.”

Lee Seong-ha picked up the pendant. Unlike real jade, the white jade embedded with a blood-red dot had the unreal lightness unique to items.

“So, you’re going to do whatever that system or whatever tells you to do?”

“If I do nothing, the ending is fixed. Death. I have to do something.”

A shudder mixed into Go Gyeol’s voice.

“When I died, a sharp tree branch was lodged in my heart, you know?… Dying was one thing, but it felt like shit. I never want to go through that again.”

“Oh. Then how did I die?”

“I don’t know. Because of the Loser Round, monsters were pouring out like swarms of ants. I didn’t have the mental space to contact you.”

Clack.

The white jade was set back down on the table. Lee Seong-ha covered his eyes with one hand and leaned deep into his chair.

From beginning to end, it was an absurd story.

But he had no choice but to believe it. Leaving aside the disaster alert that had gone off the moment Go Gyeol finished speaking, hearing about a hopeless future called the “tower” made such an end seem not strange at all.

“…What do you want me to help you with?”

At the question that finally came, Go Gyeol answered as though he had been waiting for it.

“I’m going to become a Hunter Manager.”

“You? A civilian like you? Do you think that’s some kind of joke?”

Lee Seong-ha asked back, incredulous.

“Then again, at this point, the term Hunter Manager itself didn’t exist yet.”

Go Gyeol smiled faintly and shot back.

“I wasn’t a Hunter. But I know that world better than anyone.”

“……What are you talking about?”

“My last job before I regressed was Hunter Manager. Dedicated to S-grades.”

Lee Seong-ha’s eyes rounded.

“You? Cleaning up after those nasty-tempered rankers?”

“Yeah. Contracts, schedules, dungeon and tower strategy briefings, all of it. Who had what skill, who was on bad terms with whom, what items they were weak against, it’s all in my head.”

A sigh escaped Lee Seong-ha.

“…So that’s how you knew the rankers’ situations inside out. Even the fact that they fled overseas.”

“In theory, it’s perfect. But right now, I’m just a powerless civilian. I need someone I can trust, someone I can lean on. That’s you, Lee Seong-ha.”

At Go Gyeol’s serious gaze, Lee Seong-ha fell silent for a moment. This was not bragging. It was a meticulous plan born from brutal experience.

“…In the end, you want me to be the bullet shield watching your back.”

When Lee Seong-ha grumbled, Go Gyeol smiled faintly.

“Rather than a bullet shield… a reliable ally.”

“Hey. I’m a priest. A priest who protects this church.”

“Does anyone besides you even come to this church?”

“Cut it out, seriously.”

At the words that were half joke, half sarcasm, Lee Seong-ha kicked Go Gyeol lightly in the shin.

“A priest hits people now. Won’t God scold you?”

“Shut up. So, asking me to become a Hunter again was that system bastard’s idea, right?”

“Yeah. Making you my companion was the system’s first objective.”

“This is fucking ridiculous….”

Lee Seong-ha let out a hollow laugh.

His original occupation had not been priest.

An A-grade Gravity Hunter.

After his Awakening, his grandfather, a military officer, dragged him endlessly into dungeons from the time he was still a minor.

Endless slaughter, slaughter, slaughter…. Everything became meaningless and numb.

When his grandfather retired, Lee Seong-ha used an injury as an excuse to retire as well, then fled into the priesthood.

The peace he believed he had gained that way.

It lasted only until that damned friend Go Gyeol came to find him.

“Wow… I really want a cigarette right now.”

Watching Lee Seong-ha press hard on his temple from stress and mutter, Go Gyeol smiled.

“I thought you might, so I bought some. Want one?”

“Fuck off, bastard.”

Go Gyeol lightly caught the flying tissue box with one hand and shoved the white jade pendant into his pocket.

“How long will it take to handle the paperwork?”

“…Do I really have to join?”

At the question filled with his last trace of reluctance, Go Gyeol answered without the slightest hesitation.

“Yeah.”

“…If I join, how high does the probability get?”

“What probability?”

“The probability of protecting humanity, if I quit being a priest and join like you said!”

Go Gyeol crossed his arms as if thinking for a moment, then spoke as if it were nothing.

“Forty percent?”

“Only forty percent?!”

“Isn’t going from zero percent to forty percent fucking huge?”

At that brutally realistic answer, Lee Seong-ha let out a long sigh and slumped in his chair.

He looked as if every last bit of strength had drained out of him. Seeing him like that, Go Gyeol rose with a satisfied smile.

“When are you coming? If the diocese won’t let you quit, at least submit a temporary leave request. Once the tower clear is over, I’ll send you back to being a peaceful priest.”

“Get lost.”

“Come to my house as soon as you’re done. You know the place, right? My house.”

“I said get lost!”

Taking his friend’s ferocious order to leave as nothing more than sulking, Go Gyeol waved his hand.

“Even if he says that, the Lee Seong-ha I know…….”

The moment he came out and closed the church’s heavy door behind him, a message window appeared before his eyes like a vision.

“Of course.”

[Mission 1: Recruit 'Lee Seong-ha' - Success!]

[Mission success reward granted.]

[5 Gold granted.]

Jingle, jingle…

Just as the sound of coins dropping, which did not exist in reality, seemed to ring by his ear, an information window opened automatically before his eyes.

[Funds: 6 Gold]

“A reward, huh….”

Go Gyeol gave a hollow laugh.

Gold was currency that could only be used inside the tower that would appear in the future. It was precious, since it could only be obtained by killing monsters, but item prices were so murderous that with 6 Gold, he could not even buy the cheapest Healing Potion.

Go Gyeol sighed, closed the information window, and was just about to get into his parked car.

That was when a new mission arrived.

【Mission 2: Secure 70 million won in funds to establish a base.】