Chapter 75
Chapter 75
Chun Ji-Hyun was twenty-two years old, and she worked as an assistant manager at a major company. It might have been a brand-new branch, but it was still part of the Rael Group, a major corporation.Thinking about how a high school grad with nothing but random part-time gigs to her name had landed a corporate job with a title at that age, she couldn’t help but grin and hum as if she’d made it big. This was the happiest part of her day, stepping out of the shower after a long day of doing almost nothing at work.
That good mood naturally led to a bit of motivation. Her job might have been too easy because she still had so much more energy than most poor souls dragging themselves through actual work. In any case, she decided she’d do some homework tonight until it was time for bed.
First, however, Ji-Hyun logged into Lotranet, the game community website she had bookmarked. Before she landed her current job, she didn’t know anything about games. However, this website had taught her everything she needed to know about LOST, from the game itself and its updates to all the drama stirred up by various players.
“Of course. What everyone’s talking about these days is the Tower of Trials and that goddamn Star of Ruin debuff.”
Things had become tense in the forums lately due to the tower’s “bullshit” difficulty and the cursed debuff. Even the ones who gave up on the world events and just wanted to farm were getting completely screwed over by it. The whole server was one meltdown away from blowing up.
One post on the front page of Lotranet had a particularly aggressive title.
[Title: Seriously, stop turning on your streams if you can’t even clear fucking Floor 8.]
[These dickheads stirred the pot saying they’d be the first to clear the tower before the world event even kicked off. Now they’ve been stuck on Floor 8 for an entire week, and the rest of us are burning alive under that damn death beam. You don’t deserve donations, followers, or even pity. If you’ve got a shred of dignity, shut the fuck up and stop streaming until you’ve cleared the floor. Drag your useless ass out of the tower and stay out of sight.]
Lately, posts like this had been flooding in, all aimed at a particular solo streamer trying and failing to beat Floor 8. Every time she saw something like that, it made her stomach twist.
Do-Jin’s been challenging Floor 8 too lately, hasn’t he?
He seemed to be doing it all on his own, which only made her more worried. She had read the announcements carefully, so she knew solo mode was officially a thing in the Tower of Trials. However, she thought it was better to take on something like this with a party. Yet, here Do-Jin was, taking it on by himself.
He’s probably aiming to set the solo clear record. Even if someone else gets the first clear, pulling it off alone would blow everyone’s minds.
She kept scrolling through posts, telling herself it was research. At this point, though, she was just keeping up to date with the chaos. The more she saw, the more she felt that Do-Jin had made the right call.
“If he’d streamed it live, he would’ve gotten roasted too.”
The thought of people shitting on Do-Jin made her nose sting, her chest tighten, and her blood boil. She could feel the heat rising straight to her head. He might look cold and act as if he didn’t care about anything, but for all anyone knew, he could have been more fragile than he let on.
He had gone from living in a shitty shoebox with no deposit to moving into a one-room apartment with a million won down payment, all thanks to that special bonus. And it was thanks to him that she became an assistant manager at a major corporation, despite only being twenty-two.
She was fuming now. Her fists clenched as she stomped across her room, pacing like a pissed-off lunatic with no real outlet.
[Title: Holy shit, the debuff’s gone?!]
[Title: In-game notice just dropped. Star of Ruin’s light got nerfed!]
[Title: Someone cleared Floor 8? Was it Spear Guild?]
[Title: Spear was wiped out in the boss room, so who the hell actually made it to the boss?]
New posts were flooding the board by the second. It looked like someone had finally cleared Floor 8, because the Star of Ruin debuff that had been blanketing all of Lostania was suddenly gone.
The moment she read it, her eyes widened. She started clicking through one post after another, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
So it was a party that beat it in the end...
A strange mix of disappointment and relief tugged at her. She’d wanted to see what a solo clear would look like, but it wasn’t as if this changed anything. Do-Jin had been aiming for a solo clear from the start. Reminding herself of that eased her nerves, even if the feeling didn’t fully fade.
Just as she was scrolling through another post, her phone buzzed in her hand. Ji-Hyun looked down at the screen without thinking, then paused after realizing it was a message from Do-Jin.
Jinny: Hey, when you swing by the apartment later, can you sort through the videos saved on my computer and send them to the office? I’m rendering stuff right now, so I can’t send it myself. I’m tired, so I’m gonna crash. Sorry.
To anyone else, it probably looked like just another work text. Nothing special, nothing worth reading twice. Maybe that was all it really was. However, for some reason, her heart started pounding in her chest.
When she looked up at the monitor, the screen was overflowing with chaos from the news. Everyone was talking about the Floor 8 clear, and the entire community was in a frenzy. Then she looked down at her phone again. Do-Jin’s message was still there, glowing quietly on the screen in her hand.
“I have to go!”
Whenever Do-Jin mentioned the word “video,” it usually meant something big had happened. It was almost like a warning sign before something major dropped. Without wasting another second, she grabbed her car keys and rushed out the door in her pajamas.
***
“Which party cleared Floor 8?”
“What region were they from?”
“Spear Guild? If it was Spear, then that means it was the U.S.”
“Nope, not Spear. Someone said they got wiped.”
“Then who the hell was it? If it was one of the PvE legends, maybe Lycin?”
“Lacoco made it pretty far too with their viewers. They were definitely pushing.”
“It’s not them either. Someone on their team fell asleep mid-run, so they backed out.”
“Then who the fuck was it? Whose party actually cleared it?”
The light of the Star of Ruin had weakened.
The debuff had disappeared and the global buff had returned, so the eighth floor was definitely cleared. Despite that, none of the guilds, none of the raid parties, not even the streamers who had been losing their minds on camera trying to beat it said a single word. Nobody stepped up to claim the credit.
It must’ve been some random-ass normie party.
Fine. Let’s say some unknown team managed to pull it off. However, for something this huge, they should have at least posted some kind of screenshot or proof by now.
Everyone kept waiting. People were glued to their screens, refreshing forums, spamming reload on every stream and community thread they could find. A whole day went by, and nothing came out. There were no screenshots, posts, or proof, just dead silence.
Right as curiosity had reached its absolute peak and the entire player base was holding its breath, a single video appeared online, titled “8.” The darkness didn’t fade out like some polished game trailer or cinematic. It lifted slowly, like someone was opening their eyes after a blackout.
The footage wasn’t staged or edited. It was a raw, first-person perspective, and the viewer was seeing the world exactly the way Do-Jin did. Spiders filled the screen the moment his vision came into focus. They were everywhere on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Thick swarms of them surged forward in waves, crawling over every surface, pouring into the space like a living flood of legs and fangs.
It was verifiably Floor 8 of the Tower of Trials, and it looked like a nightmare. There wasn’t even time to process how sharp or realistic the visuals felt. The moment that thought tried to surface, the scene snapped into motion.
The camera jolted as Do-Jin moved, his view swinging wildly and shifting left to right in sharp, chaotic bursts. He had already taken in the situation and wasted no time getting the hell out. His boots slammed against the floor, the sound bouncing off the walls. His breathing turned heavier with each second, syncing perfectly with the chaos erupting on screen. He sprinted for the only opening that wasn’t completely swallowed by spiders.
Behind him, the swarm came crashing after him, skittering and scraping across the stone in a way that made one’s skin crawl just listening to it. The perspective shook with every impact. His ragged, uneven breathing bled into the audio. It was loud, raw, and desperate, which only made it feel less like a game and more like some horror footage someone found after the fact.
However, the panic didn’t last. All at once, his body stopped. His foot slammed against the floor, hard enough to echo, and the motion died on the spot. The air around him shifted, thick with pressure, like something was about to crack.
Mana surged under his boots as golden light rippled out in a sudden wave. A Magic Circle flared to life beneath him, flickering once before locking in place. A moment later, the spell detonated.
Flames tore through the corridor behind him. It wasn’t clean or elegant. It was simply a wall of burning heat that surged forward and swallowed everything in its path. The spiders closing in didn’t even get a chance to slow down before they were hit head-on, their bodies catching fire mid-lunge, their shrieks drowned out by the roar.
The whole hallway lit up in an instant, but Do-Jin didn’t flinch. He didn’t pause to watch them burn or confirm the kill with any kind of satisfaction. He glanced back once, just enough to see that the flames had done their job, and immediately turned his focus forward.
He was already onto the next spell, Summon Wraith. From the shadows ahead, a black wraith ripped itself into existence, its form solidifying in a flash. It jerked forward like it was ready to launch straight into battle, but then it stopped.
Without so much as a pause, he left it exactly where it was and took off again. The camera kept moving with him, but the view caught just enough of what was happening behind. The spiders hadn’t stopped. They had locked onto the wraith and were charging straight through the fire like rabid animals. Their legs snapped as they trampled over each other and their bodies burned once more as they were shoved forward from the wave behind.
None of the spiders realized it wasn’t real. None of them cared they were on fire. They just kept pushing, convinced they were closing in. All of them burned for it.
「Phew.」
His breathing came in deep now, slow and heavy as it pushed through the mic. The sound of his boots echoed against the stone, fast but steady, and every few steps his breath hitched just enough to tell he was starting to feel it.
Then, just a few seconds later, a faint chittering could be heard, accompanied by a low and steady buzz. More enemies were coming, but before they could even turn the corner, Creeping Fire was already waiting for them. The flames curved around the corner like they were hunting on their own, meeting the spiders head-on the second they turned into view.
It was a fire spell most people didn’t even bother with because it was too wild and hard to steer. Here, though, it hit like it had a mind of its own. The path was sealed, and the spiders burned before they could even get close.
This time, Do-Jin didn’t immediately move forward. He counted in a low whisper.
「Three, two, one... zero.」
The second the last word left his mouth, he raised his hand and pointed it straight at the ceiling. No one could say exactly when he had prepared the spell, but the moment it activated, Wind Blade shot out across the screen. At almost the exact same time, a spider dropped down from above, sliding along a web like it had timed the attack to the second.
The two things happened almost simultaneously. The Wind Blade didn’t strike the spider itself. Instead, it sliced clean through the thread connecting it to the ceiling. As the web snapped, the spider lost its grip and fell like a rock. The second it hit the floor, a Fireball exploded right into its body.
It was a Tier 2 fire spell, and from the way it hit, the thing was probably cooked on the spot. Or at least, it should have been. Do-Jin didn’t bother to check. After scanning elsewhere, he broke into a run again. Now, his movement had shifted from wild reactions to steady, deliberate strides. It was obvious he was following a pattern. The distance between each step was even and the timing was exact. Nothing about the way he moved felt random.
At the end of that rhythm, everything went to hell.
「Aaargh!」
The ground exploded beneath him, and a swarm of spiders came tearing out. They had been hiding inside a massive pit, curled up in the dark and waiting like patient little monsters for something to walk by. The moment Do-Jin got just close enough to trigger them, they couldn’t hold it in any longer. A few of them snapped and came lunging out, driven by nothing but pure instinct.
However, he was already on the move. He launched himself backward without a second of hesitation, and just as he did, one of those bastards swiped at him. Its front leg, hooked like a sickle, sliced right through where his chest would’ve been a second earlier.
This one wasn’t like the others. It had scythe-shaped forelegs that were jagged and long, built to rip something open. It wasn’t just the shape. Everything about it was stronger: its body, speed, and killing power. These mobs weren’t just upgraded. They were a whole different kind of problem. Players had called them the assassins of the dark, and Floor 8 was full of them.
However, these so-called Mantis Spiders never even got the chance to show off. The moment they came flying out of the hole, they were hit by the explosion. Do-Jin had already thrown a mana stone bomb straight at the pit, and it detonated right as they surfaced. The blast shredded them instantly. Their tough shells cracked apart like cheap armor, and their twitching, protein-packed bodies splattered across the floor and walls.
Bits of spider got flung in every direction, torn to pieces mid-jump. Although it was a complete mess, Do-Jin didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. He pulled out more mana bombs while running and chucked them straight into the pit without looking back, like he was handing out presents for all the lovely little eight-legged children.
The Mantis Spiders that had stayed crouched inside, still frozen from the first blast, didn’t stand a chance. None of them even had time to move before the second round of explosions hit. They were packed tight in that hole with nowhere to run. The bombs went off right in the middle of them, and the entire space lit up with fire and pressure. By the time the smoke started clearing, every last one of them was burned, dead, and buried.
「Ugh, this is brutal.」
Do-Jin muttered under his breath as he pulled out a mana potion and downed it in one go. To maximize recovery efficiency, he came to a full stop and lit one of his mana cigarettes. Then, he started counting down again. There was no hesitation or wasted motion. The moment the allotted time was up, he moved. His every move was seamless, and there wasn’t a single gap in the rhythm for even a single second.
He pushed through Floor 8 like it was a route he had run a hundred times, darting through tight corners and winding paths that looked more like a labyrinth than a dungeon. Wherever the spiders gathered in numbers, he tore through them. Wherever they tried to split off and flank him, he was already there, cutting them off before they could circle around.
Nothing had been left to chance. Every enemy move was accounted for. By the time the pacing of the video settled, Do-Jin was already standing in front of the boss room. He hadn’t wasted time grinding through unnecessary mobs. He had only taken out what absolutely needed to be cleared to open this door, which meant he had spent less time, burned through fewer items, and arrived with a full set of resources still in hand.
That was the moment every viewer watching the video focused in. Their eyes weren’t on the boss, nor were they on Do-Jin. They were locked onto the number of consumables he had left, because those who had tried Floor 8 before knew what came next. If the fight dragged on, healing potions would become a matter of life and death.
Every party that had reached this point had approached it the same way. They used as little as possible, saving every last drop for the boss. However, what Do-Jin did at the door threw all of that out the window. He was not cautious or thrifty; he was downright, unapologetically wasteful.
[Mana Power Boost Potion]
[Intelligence Enhance Potion]
[Magic Circuit Buff Scroll]
[Blessing of Intelligence Buff Scroll]
[Poison Resistance Potion]
[Mana Overload Potion]
He activated every last one of his buffs without hesitation. Each one was ridiculously expensive and came with brutal side effects. Most players avoided them entirely, saying it was better not to use them at all than to deal with the crash afterward. However, that didn’t stop him.
The effects would last three to five minutes at most, and once they wore off, the backlash would hit like a truck. Just staying on his feet would be a struggle. Despite knowing that, he went into it anyway as if it didn’t affect him personally.
「Urghh...」
Sure enough, though, the side effects kicked in almost immediately. Do-Jin clutched his chest and doubled over slightly, his body already feeling the strain from the chemical overload. His HP was visibly draining from potion overuse. He lit another cigarette on the spot and took a deep drag. Anyone watching could see that he looked exactly like an addict in withdrawal, trying to stabilize himself with the only thing that kept him from collapsing.
He exhaled slowly, smoke trailing from his lips. It was not just a breath. It was exhaustion, frustration, and something darker, all bleeding out at once. Without another word, Do-Jin turned and walked straight toward the boss room.