The Tower of Wish could be considered a miracle. A tower’s origin and its creation still remained a mystery. An entity that could bring back the dead, a vast world that ignored the laws of physics and even the laws of magic, administrators who maintained this place…

“Haaa.”

The most famous administrator, Medea, currently sighed. A beautifully adorned door stood in front of her, but she only felt bitter as she opened it. The room beyond featured several elegant pieces of furniture.

Administrators still recalled their past lives. They all used to be humans and wished to live as humans. However, they couldn’t fully interact with NPCs and players, so they created their own private gatherings to display new magic and interesting artifacts around the tower. Today, Medea came to participate in such a social gathering.

“…”

From the Ancient Era to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the Modern Age, everything came together to form a beautiful interior. Each member had decorated this place with amazing items. However, no one had arrived yet. Medea sat in a chair feeling dizzy. Only fools ever came early. The five administrators, including Medea, believed arriving late was quite fashionable and made them seem more like the main character.

[Phenomenon Realm Gathering]

Medea gritted her teeth at the sign on the wall. In the beginning, administrators actually discussed what they could do for themselves. Over hundreds of years passed and now the gatherings were nothing more than political battles.

“Phenomenon Realm…”

She still couldn’t give up her one wish. The Phenomenon Realm. To obtain her body again after death and return to being human. This 200 year old wish required two things: fulfillment and state of existence.

Fulfillment referred to one’s achievements like how Medea built an artificial sun over Prestige. Honestly, she didn’t care about the NPCs at all. After all, they were all dead souls. Only the living players mattered to her. As such, Medea erected a sun in front of all the players. That should’ve been more than enough of an achievement.

Her state of existence proved to be more of a problem. One could increase their state of existence in many ways. It might seem strange, but one such way was through her beauty. Then why couldn’t they just equip countless artifacts?

The answer was quite simple. The tower’s artifacts were no different than trash to administrators. Relics left behind after their owners’ deaths. Happily wielding an artifact only honored the original owner, who would receive an increase in their state of existence instead of the administrator.

Medea only desired original beauty. She kept a close eye on the [Crevon Craftsmanship Tournament] for this reason. She believed her hard work would be rewarded even though dwarves had gone extinct. Then she saw that elegant, original beauty. She wanted that robe at all costs even if it only slightly increased her state of existence.

“How should I coax him?”

The door slowly creaked open while Medea mulled over the matter. Four administrators walked in from the other side: Aphrodite, Penelope, Helena, and Athena. Athena?

“You came early?”

Medea smiled at Aphrodite’s greeting. The former goddess’ status only belonged in the past. Now, she was an administrator just like Medea. A hundred years had passed since they decided on how to address each other.

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

“Have you been well?”

Helena, Athena, and Penelope spoke respectively. They sat in their seats while chattering as Medea glanced at their attires, which looked no different than what they wore last time. I guess they can’t improve anymore at this point.

“Oh right, Medea. I heard you’ve been chasing after the player who crafted Wolf’s Fragrance.” Aphrodite brightly smiled at her.

“I’m not chasing him. You must’ve heard wrong.”

“Oh please. Don’t you know how rude that is? Simad planned to give it to me all along—”

“By the way, why is she here?”

Medea paid more attention to Athena than stupid Aphrodite. Athena left the Phenomenon Realm Gathering 100 years ago. She still considered herself a goddess and viewed everyone else as mere human heroes.

“Is that woman after the robe too—”

“No, not that.” Aphrodite interrupted Medea.

“I want something else.” Athena interrupted Aphrodite.

Did Athena finally suppress her pride as a goddess? She seemed okay with Medea’s casual way of speaking.

“I want an arrow.”

Medea couldn’t understand what Athena just said. “What? An arrow?”

***

[8F, Crevon Mainland]

I returned to Crevon after leaving Medea. The Atalos Royal Family declared a state of emergency, advising all citizens to stay indoors. The bustling streets became empty now.

— Hiinng!

“Let’s go.”

I summoned Sannuri and jumped on her back. Then I faced towards the distant eastern battlefield while sitting on the comfortable saddle. Thousands of monsters marched from the east. They didn’t move just based on instincts. Chimera, the hivemind of monsters, commanded them.

— Hiing.

“Thanks.”

I quickly reached a high vantage point. Sannuri tackled the nearby monsters while Spartan shot blasts of magic power.

“Well done.”

I stood at the edge of a sharp cliff as Sannuri and Spartan drove away the monsters. The fierce wind blew past the army of monsters below me.

A few arrows couldn’t deal with such a large number. Dark ore arrows required stigma’s magic power to display their maximum potential. I could only control 5 dark ore arrows for about 10 minutes if I used all 4 streaks of stigma.

I checked my number of bullets instead. Due to slowly making them over time, I now had 300 handgun bullets, 600 rifle bullets, and 90 sniper bullets. Assuming each bullet could kill 1.5 monsters, that would amount to 1500 monsters.

I suddenly wondered about something while calculating my battle potential. Did I even need to fight?

— A wave of lightning will rage! Die!

Aileen’s childish voice summoned a lightning storm that swept through a crowd of monsters.

— Hellfire.

Yi Yongha’s inextinguishable fire also spread from one monster to another, lighting the battlefield into a reddish-black hue.

— I’ll focus on sniping the liches, spellcasters, specters, and other magic casters.

Jin Seyeon shot down monsters that posed more of a threat. Meanwhile, Shin Jonghak also put on a fantastic show. Kim Youngjin had obtained the legendary Azure Dragon Crescent Blade and utilized his Weapon Master gift to its maximum potential. Kim Junwoo danced through the battlefield with his sword. As expected of a hunter from the Vast Expanse. Jin Sahyuk fired a flurry of magic weapons amidst the chaos. Wait. Jin Sahyuk? Was that really Jin Sahyuk? I narrowed my eyes.

“The heck…”

Indeed, Jin Sahyuk sweated among the players and worked hard to defeat monsters. What is she doing here? I briefly thought about it and concluded she probably needed TP. After all, she seemed quite interested in the 7th floor’s neurotech chip. I nocked my arrow and aimed at Jin Sahyuk.

[Warning. Crevon is currently at war. The player you have targeted has joined Crevon’s war effort as an ally. Killing this player may result in punishment from Crevon.]

She even officially joined the war effort. I didn’t care that much since the punishment didn’t come from an administrator. Jin Sahyuk seemed to have sensed the danger with her sharp intuition and suddenly turned around in the middle of battle. Her eyes scanned the surroundings and soon landed on me. We gazed at each other over the long distance. Jin Sahyuk gritted her teeth at me. Not long afterwards, her mouth moved. I couldn’t hear her, but understood what she tried to say.

I’m not doing anything bad right now!

Then she added another sentence.

Don’t shoot. Dammit!

Her desperate shouting made me laugh. Regardless, I released the bowstring. Chweek— The dark ore arrow shot forward with a sonic boom. Jin Sahyuk quickly formed a barrier, but it couldn’t block stigma’s anti-magic attribute.

— …!

Her barrier shattered and my arrow dug through her shoulder. She should’ve felt an unimaginable pain.

— Fuck…

Jin Sahyuk managed not to scream as an absurd thought popped into my head. Would it be possible to change her too? Like how Shin Jonghak and Chae Nayun changed? Of course, I didn’t need to test such a hypothetical question. I would still kill her without hesitation if given the chance, but perhaps I’d been excluding the possibility of reforming her.

— …

Jin Sahyuk glared at me full of pain and frustration. I could feel her rage from over here. For now, I didn’t plan on letting her live in peace. I raised my bow and nocked another arrow, but she suddenly disappeared.

“How quick.”

I refused to let her escape and infused stigma’s magic power into my eyes. Jin Sahyuk had gotten quite far as she clenched her teeth and held her shoulder. Fortunately for her, the other nearby players stole my attention: Kim Suho, Venessa Fermun, Paolo Fermun, Yi Yeonghan, and Chae Nayun.

— Be careful everyone!

They fought Medusa some distance away from the main battlefield. A white aura emanated from Kim Suho’s golden sword. It looked like the Hwai sword technique that I gifted him.

— You’re the one who should be careful!

Chae Nayun swung a claymore the size of her body. The powerful strike left a gaping wound on Medusa and smashed away her minions. They didn’t seem to need my help, so I slowly lowered my bow.

—!

Then Medusa suddenly screamed and activated her magic eye of petrification. However, Kim Suho swung his sword and his gift easily severed Medusa’s authority. The rest of his party remained unaffected. The real problem came from above as several hundred harpies appeared in the sky.

[Lv.10 Harpie]

— Pieeeek!

Monsters with a human head and a bird’s body. They screamed and spat out venom, drawing the attention of Kim Suho’s party.

— What are those?

Chae Nayun sent a sword strike into the sky, but the nimble harpies dodged it.

Only Venessa Fermun specialized in long ranged attacks. Kim Suho and Chae Nayun struck down a few harpies here and there, but that took their attention away from Medusa. The tide of the battle began to shift, but Kim Suho’s party had to defeat Medusa today.

“Hmm…”

I raised my bow again without a choice and nocked 5 arrows. They only needed my help with the harpies. I infused my 3 remaining streaks of stigma into the arrows. Lightning crackled around the 5 dark ore arrows as I aimed at the chirping harpies. My bowstring grew tense and the arrows howled until I released them. Then they flew silently towards their targets.

Chwaaa—

The 5 black streaks pierced every monster in their paths. Soon, harpies rained from the sky and formed a mountain of corpses.

***

I returned to Seoul since they could all hunt the calamities without a problem. I’d been going back and forth between the tower and Earth using Spartan’s authority.

“Hajin!”

— Meow.

Evandel and Hayang greeted me at our apartment in Gangnam.

“Have you been good?”

“Uun!”

Evandel grew by the day. She looked like a 5 year old at birth, so she grew quite slowly. However, her current appearance matched her real age now.

“I missed you.”

“Me too.”

I couldn’t send her to school because of her origin. I would’ve happily entrusted her to a worthy tutor, but not many could teach her.

I did have one in mind. A magician with ample teaching experience who also used summons, but I didn’t have a good first impression of Ah Hae-In. From what I heard, she charged an absurd 5 billion won for a single lesson.

“I came back too late today. What should we do tomorrow?”

Evandel’s eyes sparkled at my words.

“You’ll be here tomorrow too?”

The door opened and Yun Seung-Ah walked in with a grocery bag. Her eyes shone the moment she saw me.

“Oh, who’s this? The famous Black Lotus killer.”

I almost greeted her before flinching at her words. “Huh?”

“You thought I wouldn’t know?” Yun Seung-Ah smiled mischievously.

“Everyone knows that you killed Black Lotus.”

“Oh…”

That made sense, but that wasn’t why I felt surprised. I looked at Evandel before looking back at Yun Seung-Ah. I didn’t want Evandel to hear such words like killer or killed.

“Ah, it means he plucked a flower. Nowadays, Evandel, you’re not allowed to pluck flowers that aren’t yours.”

“Okay!”

Evandel giggled as she watched Yun Seung-Ah try to save the situation. Then she grabbed the plastic bag in Yun Seung-Ah’s hand and skipped over to the kitchen. She enjoyed taking the groceries out.

“This is chicken. This is onion. This is garlic. This is egg…”

She wanted to help with her aunty’s work. I took the ingredients Evandel laid out and used [Dwarf’s Dexterity] for the first time in a while.

***

Evandel fell asleep with Hayang one hour later after finishing her meal. Yun Seung-Ah turned off the TV and buried herself on the couch with a yawn.

“Let’s get back to business.”

Genghis Khan’s artifacts had been found in Central Asia. Yun Seung-Ah and I talked a bit about it earlier while I cooked.

“As you know, those artifacts are causing quite a headache in Central Asia right now. The association normally would’ve given up since that land doesn’t fall under any country’s jurisdictions. The surrounding regions belong to djinns and Pandemonium is nearby too.”

Yun Seung-Ah continued with a serious face.

“Everyone is wondering how this information got leaked. Pandemonium djinns managed to find out and began building an excavation site around it.”

I already knew everything, but pretended to be oblivious.

“We can’t just watch them take all the artifacts, so the association reluctantly chose to fight. After all, we’re talking about Genghis Khan’s artifacts.”

Genghis Khan, also known as Temujin, the emperor who founded the largest empire in history. His empire didn’t last long after his death, but he reached a legendary status that spread throughout the world. Furthermore, Genghis Khan’s army boasted greater power than its numbers. As such, an old weapon used by a nameless soldier could potentially be higher than a low grade artifact.

“Of course, we still have time. From our estimates, they need at least 2 weeks before they can excavate artifacts.”

Yun Seung-Ah paused and looked at me. “So I was wondering…”

I had a hunch about what she would say next.

“You’re a mercenary.”

“I start at 50 billion.”

I had already prepared a response.

“Hm?”

Yun Seung-Ah slightly jumped back.

“Didn’t you just call me the Black Lotus killer? My value just skyrocketed.”

I smiled at her as she scratched her head with a flustered expression.