Chapter 21

The northwestern district of Alteon.

From afar, the enormous city built from towering structures completely dominated the landscape.

The Northwestern District.

The massive district occupying nearly two-thirds of the northwestern area was a planned small city and a society operating under its own rules.

The Magic Tower.

At the center stood the Magic Tower, where mages formed the ruling class, and around it spread an enormous city of interconnected buildings.

The players here were merchants trading forbidden goods, or back-alley trash who tormented people while avoiding the eyes of the mages.

'And apparently most missions here involve assassinating mages who joined hands with those kinds of trash.'

The ruler of this place was the Master of the Magic Tower.

Publicly, he was evaluated as someone who managed the tower rationally.

But rumors claimed that behind the scenes, he carried out all kinds of inhumane experiments solely in the name of advancing magic.

Seojun climbed the wall.

Then he moved across the rooftops of the surrounding low-rise buildings and headed toward the center.

At the center stood a gigantic tower built from blue walls layered together.

Compared to real-world buildings, its height wasn't particularly overwhelming, but in terms of land area alone, it was as vast as several large buildings combined.

Seeing crowds of people entering and exiting through the enormous entrance—easily around three meters tall—Seojun jumped down from the rooftop and blended into the crowd.

"Alright then, let's go assassinate someone."

-Assassination X Destruction O

-Magic Tower infiltration (walks in through the front gate)

-LMAOOOO this is so his style

-Seojun, do you actually know anything about the Magic Tower?

About the Magic Tower.

Seojun had only learned the basic settings and hadn't dug into the finer details.

People could study beforehand by searching outside websites, or uncover the lore naturally while progressing through the game.

But.

That wasn't really the kind of broadcast he aimed for.

"Know stuff? This is my first time seeing the Magic Tower. Don't you just climb to the top and meet the boss?"

-Ah yes, today's strategy: brainless headfirst charging lol

-This is why we watch the stream.

-The Magic Tower's probably gonna be rough though?

Seojun simply blended into the crowd and entered the Magic Tower.

"Well, let's just try it first."

The inside was indeed as vast and open as it had looked from outside.

Seojun looked around.

People wearing long-sleeved robes occasionally caught his eye.

"Are those NPCs mages? There are way fewer of them than I expected."

So were most of the people ordinary civilians?

-Mages are obviously rare.

-The first, second, and third floors are basically markets. That's why they're huge and full of normal people. Starting from the fourth floor is the real thing.

-Gonna pickpocket somebody?

"I'm not pickpocketing anyone."

Seojun firmly shut that down and carefully examined the interior to find a route upward.

The centers of the second and third floors were opened up vertically, with stores attached to the walls.

It almost looked like—

"A shopping mall?"

Of course, it was far more complicated and tangled, like an anthill, but if you only looked at the central structure, it definitely resembled a shopping mall.

-LMAOOO

-It kinda does though.

-There are schools and libraries too!

In many ways, it seemed like a fascinating place.

Seojun found a hidden staircase connecting the first through third floors and managed to climb up to the third floor.

And then—

He spotted an NPC who appeared to be a mage wearing a hood and quietly followed him.

The NPC moved through the maze-like stone corridors of the third floor, heading somewhere.

As Seojun followed, he gradually felt the elevation increasing.

And before long, there were no more people around them.

The NPC passed through a door guarded by two sentries, and Seojun stopped for a moment.

He assumed this was the entrance to the fourth floor, but since he couldn't be certain, he glanced at the chat.

If the chat got flooded with "ㅋㅋㅋ," then he had come the wrong way.

If not, then he was correct.

Thankfully, it seemed he was right.

"Hm. Guards again?"

-Those guys are food now lol

-Would you like your weapons destroyed? Or should I parry you instead?

-Hurry up and wreck them

Seojun approached them.

"This area is restricted—"

With a light parry, Seojun subdued both guards and opened the massive iron door.

And the moment he took a single step inside—

His body froze.

Fwoosh!

"Intruder. How unfortunate."

Someone in the distance hurled a fireball created above their palm straight at Seojun.

His instincts tried to move his body, but nothing responded.

From the tingling sensation that had occurred when the magic formed, it seemed he had been paralyzed.

'Do I just have to take this hit?'

At that moment, the paralysis released.

And the spell was already right in front of him.

Fortunately, thanks to his incredible reaction speed, the instant the paralysis wore off, he threw himself sideways and barely dodged the fireball.

BOOOOM!

"Holy crap… I seriously thought I was dead."

-Is there actually anyone surviving that?

-His reaction speed is insane lolololol

-We almost got the first death of the season.

-I knew you'd survive!

-This really shows he didn't study up on the Magic Tower lol

Seojun let out a sigh of relief and immediately began surveying his surroundings.

If the same thing happened again, it could really be over.

Fwoosh.

"Your luck is good. But what about this?"

From the opposite side of the massive lobby, the mage created a fireball in each hand and launched them.

But this time, there was no restraint affecting Seojun's body.

'Hm. Should I dodge while closing the distance?'

No. There was a mission.

Seojun activated the skill Weakness Detection.

It would be useful to understand the weaknesses of magic before facing the Master of the Magic Tower.

The scenery instantly inverted.

And within that altered vision, the fireballs burned even more fiercely.

Thin lines appeared drawn across the fireballs.

Smiling, Seojun split the two rapidly approaching fireballs cleanly in half in a single motion.

"Wow. Magic really does have weak points."

He honestly hadn't expected that.

Magic was also a completely unfamiliar field to Seojun, so he had absolutely no intuition about the structure of its weaknesses.

-Oh wow, magic can be split too.

-I seriously need Weakness Detection. That skill looks so freaking cool lol

-It only looks cool because this lunatic is using it lol

Smiling, Seojun charged straight toward the mage.

Four additional fireballs flew at him, but once their weak points had already been identified, they could no longer harm Seojun in the slightest.

The mage's expression crumpled.

Unlike melee NPCs who could deal damage multiple times unless you parried their finishing blows, these enemies were different.

"This is actually pretty fun. Is this the fourth floor? I came the right way, didn't I?"

-Yeah

-ㅇㅇ

"Hm. Then why did the mage stop moving?"

-Stop

-Quiet

-Don't say anything!

-No spoilers

"What do you mean no spoilers…"

How was not a single person answering him?

Seojun carefully watched the constantly scrolling chat to make sure he wasn't missing anything, but nobody gave him the answer.

"Hah. Fine, don't tell me then."

Probably—

opening the door triggered something, or he had stepped on something wrong.

At this point, that was the best guess he could make.

"So in the end, I need to go to the next floor."

The top of the Magic Tower was the eighth floor.

To reach the next level, Seojun began exploring the fourth floor.

Various mobs.

Huge corridors much wider than expected.

Laboratories decorated in all kinds of different atmospheres.

And mages completely absorbed in their own work, paying no attention to Seojun whatsoever.

This was the real Magic Tower, completely different from the first, second, and third floors.

"Well, even if I'm an intruder, I can't tolerate being ignored like this."

Seojun deliberately walked up beside a focused mage and slashed down at something resembling an experiment box with his sword.

-?????

-His personality lol

-His thought process is on a different level from ours.

- They were willing to leave him alone, why'd he start it himself lol

"Y-you! An intruder?!"

"Yep. They react after all."

Seojun provoked the researching mages to observe their magic more closely.

The moment the mage spotted Seojun, he activated the magic circle engraved on his hand.

In an instant, he teleported near the entrance of the room and launched magic from afar.

"Oh, instantaneous movement."

Ice arrows formed in midair and flew toward him.

Seojun once again activated Weakness Detection to inspect the magic's weak points.

Weakness Detection had a cooldown of one minute.

After identifying the weak points in the ice arrows, Seojun sliced through them.

But he still couldn't quite get a feel for it.

So Seojun stood still, intending to observe further.

However, the mage failed to launch any additional spells.

"Hm? Is it because this is a laboratory, so he has to be careful?"

-No, it's mana lol

-His observation skills are insane lololol

-FYI: Instant movement uses an absurd amount of mana. He's just exhausted.

After reading the chat, Seojun made an enlightened expression.

No wonder the guy had looked especially drained.

Seojun dealt with the mage and investigated the other rooms.

Besides ice arrows and fireballs, he examined the weak points of various other spells—magic that bound targets using plants, magic that raised rocks from the ground to imprison enemies, and more.

Honestly, they were NPCs he could defeat even without weak points.

'In this game, weak points are more like an extra mechanic.'

But—

thinking about Richard the Ruler, whose armor had reduced nearly all damage until it was destroyed, Seojun felt weak points might become necessary later.

If he hadn't known about the weak points, he probably would've spent around ten hours beating away until the durability wore down or searched for another method.

Instead, thanks to the weak points, he had ended things in an instant.

That was exactly why Seojun was preparing himself now.

For some reason, he had a gut feeling that the person who set this mission was actually one of the developers.

'They probably didn't add that condition for no reason.'

Thinking that, Seojun climbed the stairs to the fifth floor.

"Finally found it. Seriously, why do you have to search separately for the stairs leading upward?"

-So people don't skip the fourth floor and actually explore it lol

-No lol mages normally use teleportation devices.

-The stairs are for emergencies.

"If they're emergency stairs, then shouldn't they obviously be connected properly? What if people can't evacuate because they can't find the stairs during an emergency?"

-Are you listening, devs?

-The stairs are purely for aesthetics.

-Please respect the sensibilities of mages.

"Hm. Doesn't look like I need a key."

After arriving on the fifth floor, Seojun discovered another iron door and opened it.

Behind the door stood guards and mages.

But strangely enough, even after spotting Seojun, they remained waiting inside instead of charging him.

The guards drew their swords and raised their shields, while the mages created spells above their palms.

But that was all they did.

"What's with these guys?"

-LMAOOOO

-Did he notice?

-This floor is body confusion lololol

-Seriously?

Seojun spotted a viewer who couldn't endure not spoiling at least one thing.

"Ah, so this floor's confusion, huh? What, do you get debuffed if you enter further inside? And they're waiting for that?"

-Correct!

-He figured it out.

-Anyone would notice.

-He's so clueless lol

"Thank you very much. Explain a little more while you're at it."

Reading the unusually helpful chat messages, Seojun gathered information.

Apparently, there were two paths to the top of the Magic Tower: the outer wall and the internal corridors.

"So basically, every floor gives you a debuff, and climbing only along the outer wall avoids those because there aren't any magic traps there. The fifth floor's debuff is confusion."

Using the internal routes meant accepting the debuffs.

The temporary paralysis Seojun had experienced earlier.

The fifth floor's body confusion, where left and right senses became reversed.

The sixth floor's slowing effect.

The seventh floor's darkness that blocked vision.

-Yeah, so when climbing the outer wall, people usually enter indoors around the fourth and sixth floors midway through.

-The paralysis debuff's the worst. As long as you avoid that one, you're fine.

-Confusion isn't that bad either.

-Let's climb the outer wall.

-You're not seriously planning to climb the outer wall, right?

"Come on. When have I ever done a proper stealth infiltration? I don't do assassinations like that."

-In the first place that's not even assassination anymore lololol I'm dying here

-Yeah, this is the good stuff.

-Kya!

While mentally adapting to the reversed left-right sensation, Seojun walked deeper into the fifth floor's interior.