I recalled Beetle’s comment, which had been posted in the Mage Gallery.
[With that level of talent and power, you’d easily crush the Tower’s tutorial. Go into the Tower when you have time.]
Even without that comment, it was a place I had to go anyway.
This was precisely why I had endured the agony of eating dirt for thirty days, even suffering a gender change.
My life, like that of a true slacker, was one where day and night were completely inverted.
I awoke from sleep only when it was nearly midnight, just as others were concluding their day.
Immediately upon waking, I turned on my computer and perused the posts in the gallery.
After burning several hours this way, dawn soon arrived.
Outside the window, the sky was a deep blue, the sun yet to rise, but for me, it was the most familiar time to begin my activities.
Casually, I threw on some clothes and stepped outside.
The chilly dawn air seeped through my ill-fitting T-shirt, touching my skin.
The body that, only a few days prior, had been covered in thick muscle and fat was nowhere to be found.
Moving with these slender, delicate limbs was an unfamiliar sensation.
“I’ll have to buy some clothes online later. Underwear, too…”
I simply couldn’t muster the courage to go to a store and buy clothes myself.
Though, to be fair, it had been the same even when I was a man.
‘Why are clothing store clerks so eager to talk to people? It’s so much pressure.’
The dawn air was refreshing.
My destination was the black tower erected in the heart of Daejeon.
Unlike the Tower in Seoul, this one was far from a place with strict security or control.
It was a colossal black spire, piercing through the city’s buildings.
The area around it was utterly deserted.
No one would seek out the Tower at this hour, nor were there any civil servants or Hunters guarding it.
Unimpeded, I strolled into the Tower’s entrance with the nonchalance of someone taking a casual walk in a neighborhood park.
The Tower.
Five years prior, this enigmatic structure had abruptly manifested in major cities worldwide, including Seoul, New York, Tokyo, and London.
No one knew why it had appeared.
Only wild speculations abounded, ranging from claims of it being a divine gift to an invasion from another world.
However, one truth remained undeniable: neglecting the Tower would lead to a horrific catastrophe.
That fact was made abundantly clear by the regime to the north.
The Tower would collapse if not cleared within a specific period.
It was, quite literally, a collapse.
Everyone knew what would happen if a building erected in the heart of a city crumbled.
Moreover, portals would emerge from its wreckage.
Portals from which all manner of monsters would pour forth.
No method had yet been discovered to close a portal once it had opened.
Even at this very moment, Hunters serving in the military near the 38th parallel (TL Note: The 38th parallel north, which roughly forms the border between North and South Korea.) were desperately fending off monsters surging down from the North.
The posts I had seen in the Mage Gallery flashed through my mind.
[Beetle: If you register as a Hunter, they’ll call you a vital national asset and drag you into all sorts of unpleasant tasks.
At least A-ranks have the power to resist a bit. B-ranks and C-ranks are conscripted without mercy.
So, register as late as possible. When you’re absolutely certain you’re an undeniable A-rank.]
[Anonymous: Until then?]
[Beetle: You just live as an unregistered, illegal Hunter, of course. What’s new about that?]
Beetle’s advice was eminently rational.
I decided to follow their counsel, which was why I now stood in the deserted Tower.
“I can’t see anything inside….”
Upon opening the Tower’s door, I was met with pitch-black darkness.
I had heard that once an Awakened entered, they would be transported to a floor corresponding to their level.
I swallowed one last time and then stepped forward.
At that moment, a sensation akin to my entire body being sucked into a colossal vacuum cleaner overwhelmed me.
Shrieking, I squeezed my eyes shut then opened them, finding myself in an entirely different space.
It was a cubical room, its every surface a seamless, smooth white.
Before my eyes, a blue system window materialized like a hologram.
[You have entered the Tutorial Field.]
[Please select a difficulty.]
[EASY] [NORMAL] [HARD]
It was as I had expected. The first hurdle was difficulty selection.
Easy, Normal, Hard. Three choices.
But I had no need to deliberate.
For I had already received a clear answer to this very question in the Mage Gallery.
[Title: Which tutorial difficulty should I choose?]
In response to my query, the mages, as if having conspired beforehand, unanimously offered a single answer.
ㄴ Beetle: Hard, obviously.
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: Hard. Anything less is a disgrace to mages.
ㄴ Pikachu: It’s gotta be Hard, daeyo.
Feeling a flicker of anxiety, I asked again.
Anonymous: But what if it’s too hard and I die?
ㄴ Refrigerator: Then that would be regrettable.
ㄴ Beetle: But with your talent, you absolutely won’t die. Look at us. We all survived perfectly fine and are still browsing the gallery, aren’t we?
ㄴ Pikachu: Since you broke my record, who is a super genius, it’s definitely possible, daeyo.
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: Why should you raise the difficulty? The rewards are different. The Tower never betrays effort and risk.
The growth rate is incomparable, too. Honestly, there’s no reason to be a mage if you’re not going to attempt Hard.
ㄴ Refrigerator: Well, it’s your choice. If you want to earn a living safely, like a salaried worker, Easy isn’t bad.
Though, of course, you’ll never even dream of becoming an A-rank Hunter.
ㄴ Pikachu: High risk, high reward, daeyo! If you chicken out here, you’ll be third-rate for life, daeyo!
“With all they’ve said, of course I have to choose Hard.”
Recalling their words, I reached for the [HARD] button without hesitation.
Having endured a month of eating dirt, I couldn’t possibly back down before a mere tutorial difficulty.
It was precisely then.
Just before my finger touched the button, the system window flashed, displaying a new message.
[System: Your total magic power has far exceeded the standard.]
[Hidden difficulty, EXTREME, has been unlocked.]
Along with the new message, an ominous red button appeared beside the existing three options.
[EASY] [NORMAL] [HARD] [EXTREME]
“Huh?”
My finger paused in mid-air. Extreme? I’d never heard of such a thing.
Not just in the Mage Gallery. I had never encountered any mention of an Extreme difficulty in Hunter-related galleries, news, or even on YouTube (TL Note: A Korean colloquialism for YouTube.).
I fell into deep thought for a moment.
‘Is this really okay?’
The Hard difficulty was implied to be something only mages could clear, so a difficulty even higher than that was concerning.
“Should I go outside and ask my senior, Beetle (TL Note: ‘Hyeong-nim’ is a term used by a younger male to address an older male, implying respect and closeness. In this context, it might be used humorously or out of habit from the protagonist’s previous male identity.)?”
But I quickly realized that was impossible.
Once inside, it was impossible to leave until the tutorial was completed.
Looking around, I saw no doors or other exits. It was a complete sealed room.
‘…’I stared intently at the [EXTREME] button, which glowed a blood-red.
High risk, high return.
Their words echoed in my ears.
If the difficulty was higher than Hard, then the rewards would surely be even more incredible.
‘But if I die, it’s over.’
My rational self warned.
Yet, deep within, the soul of a gallery addict immediately refuted that rationality.
‘Hey, this is a guaranteed trending post (TL Note: Short for ‘recommendation post,’ referring to a popular or trending post on an online forum.)! If I write a post titled ‘Did you know there’s a difficulty after Hard?’, the title alone would make it trend. How can I resist that?’
Yes, this bait would surely work.
Not just the Hunter Gallery.
The Mage Gallery would undoubtedly erupt in chaos too.
“What the heck, let’s just try it.”
Ultimately, the spirit of the gallery addict within me completely overpowered my cool rationality.
I swallowed hard and firmly pressed the Extreme button.
[You have selected EXTREME difficulty.]
[Moving to the designated location in 60 seconds.]
‘Alright, what’s coming next?’
Amidst the tension, I immediately began preparing for battle.
First, I opened my palm. But this was a room coated with an unknown substance.
There wasn’t a single speck of dirt or sand to gather around.
‘Ah, right.’
Yet, I didn’t panic. A mage’s body transforms to align with the attribute they wield.
I’d heard it was a process of gradually becoming a type of spirit.
Though still inexperienced, I too was capable of transforming parts of my body.
I focused my consciousness on my right pinky finger.
As the sensations of flesh and bone dulled, a peculiar feeling washed over me: my fingertip crumbling and transforming into fine sand.
There was no pain, only the uncanny sensation of a part of my body converting into a different substance.
I placed the small amount of sand thus created onto the palm of my right hand.
Then I imagined a bullet: hard, swift, spinning, and lethal, capable of piercing through anything.
Following my imagination, the sand coalesced, and soon a small bullet was formed.
I spun the completed sand bullet on my palm, awaiting the appearance of monsters.
On Easy, one unarmed goblin appeared; on Normal, one goblin armed with a dagger.
Hard, they said, would have two goblins.
“So, will I face three goblins?”
Indeed, taking on three simultaneously seemed daunting.
I also didn’t know how long it would take to prepare the next bullet after firing one.
And I wasn’t sure if I could effectively evade attacks with this delicate body.
During the remaining wait time, I experimented to see if I could create a sand bullet in my other hand as well.
This time, I sacrificed my left pinky finger to create sand, practicing controlling it.
Initially, using both hands simultaneously felt unfamiliar, causing my concentration to waver and the sand to repeatedly scatter.
However, on my fourth attempt, I succeeded in creating an identical sand bullet on my left palm.
“For now, this must be my limit… Well, it’ll do.”
Now, I had one bullet in each hand.
With these, I could take out two of them simultaneously, then create some distance before dealing with the last one.
It was a flawless scenario.
[Movement complete.]
Finally, the countdown ended, and the space before me warped.
The surrounding landscape was a cave.
Before my eyes stood hideous, green-skinned monsters.
They were goblins, wielding crude weapons.
Before I could even count their numbers accurately, I instinctively fired the bullets from both hands.
*Swoosh!*
*Bang! Bang!*
The two bullets struck true, hitting the heads of the two goblins at the very front with pinpoint accuracy.
A gruesome sight unfolded as their heads burst open like watermelons. Blood and brains splattered everywhere.
“Ugh, disgusting… Anyway, is there only one left now?”
I was about to casually sacrifice another finger to create the next bullet.
*Kieeeek!*
*Ker-ruk! Ker-ruk!*
Ear-splitting goblin cries filled the cave, erupting from all directions.
And the number of goblins emerging from the darkness, one after another, was certainly not just one.
One, two, three… four, five, six, seven, eight.
“What the hell? Why are there so many?”
I had just killed two, so did that mean ten were summoned in total?
Hard difficulty was said to have only two.
But here, there were ten. A simple calculation made it five times as many.
However, in battle, fighting two opponents is often three or four times harder than fighting one, not just double.
Considering that, the actual difficulty of facing ten far surpassed a mere fivefold increase.
Extreme difficulty. Confirmed to be hellish.
“Let’s just run.”
I began to sprint with all my might.
