An announcement was made that the Board of Audit and Inspection and the National Assembly would conduct an audit, rather than an internal one by the Hunter Bureau.
However, it had gone too far to be covered up by this alone.
The fire started by a Level 1 unknown hunter was too fierce to be extinguished.
Those who had been holding their breath despite the guaranteed success of hunters began to talk about their experiences in earnest.
─The oppression of non-awakened people is truly severe. Even though my performance was clearly better, promotions were funneled to the awakened. For the future of the company, they said?─
└No proof means what?
└I worked at a corporation until two years ago.
I worked as a deputy manager for five years and quit because it was like hell.
└Don’t reveal things like that just because you’re getting attention.
Pressure will come your way.
└Doesn’t matter.
I fled overseas.
Non-awakened people who went abroad were the first to open fire.
Then, low-rank hunters who had sought asylum overseas backed them up.
─I’m a hunter who sought asylum in Australia. It might sound like a loser’s words, but it really was severe. Once you fell behind those who used their connections to know the attack routes and move quickly, there was no way out.─
└I agree. Many people shared good attack routes through connections and screwed over regular hunters.
└It’s even worse in guilds.
└There’s a reason they say it’s hard to get proper treatment unless you’re S-rank.
└The competition is intense, and the exploitation using that is also too severe.
They began to talk about the injustices they hadn’t mentioned before, fearing they would sound like losers’ excuses.
Most were hunters or non-awakened people who couldn’t endure in Korea and went abroad.
Of course, some accused them of making excuses for failing in Korea’s competition.
─Aren’t those just losers’ excuses anyway?─
They tried to provoke them like this, but they were only hit back.
─I was a piece of trash who used to wander around D-rank when I was in Korea. I’ve reached A-rank now. Here’s my certification. The one who called me a loser, come out and show your proof too.─
─I’m only B-rank, but I was a hunter who repeatedly ran E-rank dungeons in Korea. Here’s my proof. You’re probably higher than me since you call me a loser, right? Come out and prove it.─
The relay of certifications from those who were low-rank hunters in Korea but became high-rank hunters in other countries continued.
Though they were few, the situation grew too large to be buried by insults anymore.
「The situation started by the unknown hunter’s video. Has the abscess finally burst?」
「Overheated competition. Even now, proper relief measures must be prepared for those sacrificed within…」
Even reporters, realizing that money wouldn’t work anymore, began to subtly change their positions.
“I think the Monster Management Office Chief’s life is ruined? The guilds are also providing fire support.”
“The guilds had a lot of complaints to begin with, so…”
Reporters gathered in front of the Monster Management Office shared information and watched the situation.
They waited in front of the tightly closed doors to bite the employees the moment they stepped out.
“Will the government be able to hold out?”
“The major guilds and the monster byproduct industry are trying to use this opportunity to completely destroy the Monster Management Office, so there’s no way.”
“Cutting off the tail won’t be enough, right?”
“Probably. It looks like things have gone to hell since the Chief changed. It’ll be a sight to see if they dig up the lines that received bribes through that.”
While a large number of reporters flocked to wait at the Monster Management Office, the National Assembly was also in an uproar.
The opposition party had launched a full-scale offensive as if they had caught a chance to hammer the government.
「National Assembly: A Monster Management Office more incompetent than a Level 1 hunter is problematic. We must conduct a detailed audit at the National Assembly level!」
Since the National Assembly had moved, it was already too far gone to just do a half-hearted job and cover it up.
Then, the giant guilds began to move from behind the scenes.
「Cosmetics company using monsters as main ingredients: Recently, raw material supplies have been delayed, causing immense damage. Even when we protest, they just tell us to wait…」
「They treated us too poorly as subcontractors. The Monster Management Office’s power trips are no joke.」
「The supply was being delayed too much, so I looked into it separately. I heard that non-awakened people are resigning in droves from the Monster Management Office.」
Even before the full audit began, testimonies popping up everywhere began to reveal the buried truths.
At this rate, everyone from the Monster Management Office Chief to the main team leaders would lose their jobs.
That wasn’t the end.
Like a warning, the audit would dig up everything they had embezzled to shut them up for good.
Because of this, the expression of the Monster Management Office Chief, who had been trusting in his bribes, began to rot.
“How much have I fed them all this time!”
How much money had been embezzled from the Monster Management Office?
That couldn’t have gone solely into the Chief’s pocket.
If he slipped some to a certain assemblyman as a token of gratitude and gave some to those in key government positions for “pocket money,” more than half would disappear.
‘They can never completely abandon me.’
The higher-ups knew all too well that the risk of abandoning him was too great.
Moreover, if they tried to assassinate him secretly, the others involved might spill everything they knew to survive.
So, they would do their best to save him.
“It’ll pass with time. If I just hold out for a few months…”
The Chief bit his lip with the mindset of holding out somehow until it faded from people’s memories.
Then, an article about the person who had brought the situation to this point caught his eye.
‘Unknown’
His life had come to this point because of a single rookie hunter who was now Level 2.
Just thinking about it made his blood boil, but what was more infuriating was that there was nothing he could do.
Even if one hides their identity, money is bound to show when living a hunter’s life.
Eventually, they have to sign contracts and receive support.
However, the unknown hunter who targeted the Monster Management Office had none of that.
「Floor 2 is also a perfect clear! Could Floor 3 be next?」
A genius hunter who proved that Floor 1 wasn’t a fluke.
On top of that, he had already earned more than enough money from campfires, byproducts, and videos.
Contract fee?
Support?
There was no reason for him to need them.
Seeing as he hid his identity, it meant he was willing to endure paying taxes.
How could they find the identity of such a person?
Even if they found him, then what?
Touching someone with much greater influence than him now would end one’s life.
The best course of action was to think that a typhoon had unluckily passed his way and to lie low quietly.
Right now, people were intensely focused on the lower floors, but as he climbed to the higher floors, interest would naturally fade.
By then, he would have left this field anyway, so he just had to hold out until then.
“Just hurry up and climb already.”
Once the outlier monster broke through Floor 20, things would quiet down.
The Monster Management Office Chief planned to endure with the thought of quietly taking a position again then.
***
However, the party involved had no intention of breaking through quickly.
Instead, Min-hyuk was busy sitting on the 2nd floor, experimenting with various things.
Unlike the 1st floor, there was no time limit, so Min-hyuk was immersed in experiments without even leaving the tower.
“This… is fun.”
After perfectly clearing the 2nd floor, Min-hyuk began his research on it in earnest while repeatedly attacking it.
There, he discovered something more interesting than he expected.
[Magic-infused 2nd Floor Rabbit Meat]
[*Random medicinal effect applied. (Vitality)]
[*Has a slight mana recovery effect.]
[*Has a slight health recovery effect.]
[*Synergy occurs when taking health potions (containing slime mucus).]
─Helps with recovery and regeneration.─
He had completed a unique rabbit meat containing incredible traits.
To be honest, Min-hyuk probably wasn’t the first to try eating this.
Everyone must have tried at least once to eat this rabbit meat.
However, the reason they couldn’t eat it until now was…
[Poison-filled 2nd Floor Rabbit Meat]
[*Has strong mana toxicity]
[*Has a risk of random additional poisoning]
It was because of options like these.
Since their main food was all poisonous, the meat itself also contained poison.
Clover?
Carrots?
Those didn’t apply to the 2nd-floor rabbits.
They were the type to eat poisonous mushrooms rather than those.
As 2nd-floor rabbits living in this terrain where the entire forest was full of poisonous plants like the Slime Forest on the 1st floor, they would spit it out if it wasn’t poisonous.
“…Amazing.”
Not only did the poison-filled meat turn into edible meat, but it was also full of precious traits.
Two things made this possible.
The first was the campfire.
As a fire that forms a safe zone, the fire that possesses the ability to remove impure things played its part well this time too.
However, this alone doesn’t create unique meat with various traits.
As if to prove it, grilling meat with a campfire…
[2nd Floor Rabbit Meat]
[*One random effect among vitality, calming effect, fatigue relief… can be applied.]
Originally, it only had this one thing attached.
Poison and medicine differ depending on how they are used.
The campfire played the role of making it effective, like meat marinated in medicinal herbs.
Then how were the various traits attached?
That was through aging.
“Aging using slimes…”
Min-hyuk had confirmed that the slime’s acid changes the mucus.
That’s why he started with the thought that maybe rabbit meat could also be aged if done well.
At first, he just soaked it without thinking and melted the entire piece of meat, but as he put the meat in a mixture of slime mucus and acid in the right ratio and aged it near the campfire, it changed little by little.
The result was ‘Magic-infused 2nd Floor Rabbit Meat.’
Using the byproducts of the 1st-floor slime to make the byproducts of the 2nd-floor rabbit usable.
“Somehow… it feels like it’s making me prepare.”
Potions made only from slime mucus.
And rabbit meat worth eating in the tower.
Looking at these two, he felt like the tower was perhaps making him prepare for something.
Slime potions and magic-infused rabbit meat.
Both were items that had fallen behind in the modern era, which had undergone continuous development.
However, what about hunters who were just starting to climb the tower?
If they just put in steady effort, they could prepare and create the supplies to climb the tower themselves.
Was that all?
They could also attempt new strategies against higher-floor monsters with potions using various poisons.
The core was one thing.
‘Campfire.’
Being able to try using slime acid.
Being able to make rabbit meat.
Both were possible because there was a campfire.
It was the tower’s arrangement that allowed one to aim for a perfect clear if they made an effort to understand it calmly.
Was that all?
“Maybe a harmony between low-floor and high-floor hunters could have been achieved too…”
Various experiments using campfires.
For that to proceed, the help of low-floor hunters who could enter the 1st floor would be needed.
He was certain that if they had focused on attacking the lower floors earlier, the number of certification posts from low-floor hunters appearing now would have been cut in half.
“I can just make it now.”
The harmony between low-floor and high-floor hunters was already beginning.
To maintain a campfire, torches and wood from the 1st floor were needed.
Because of that, a large amount of 1st-floor wood had recently appeared on the auction house.
Just like that, this rabbit meat could also be quite useful for hunters between floors 10 and 30.
If low-floor hunters had the side income of making and selling this, the instances of being pushed around by giant guilds like they were now would decrease.
As this system was built, the incompetence of the Monster Management Office that had been shown so far would become more prominent.
“I might as well overturn it completely while I’m at it.”
Muttering with cold eyes, Min-hyuk recalled his old colleagues with whom contact had been cut off.
Non-awakened people who had no choice but to leave after feeling their limits.
A junior who had to leave after being pushed out by a faction despite having awakened.
The current Chief and the high-ranking officials of the Hunter Bureau who had appointed him, who had made it that way.
If he went to the higher floors, he could reveal his identity and suppress them with power, but it was too late to wait until then.
Since he had already started, he planned to slowly tighten the noose as he climbed the tower.
And when the tower they had built developed cracks and reached the point of collapse…
“I should reveal it then.”
By then, he would be in a position where it would be difficult to touch him recklessly.
The expressions of those who would despair upon seeing his face were already vivid in his mind.
With a clear goal now set, a deep smile drew across Min-hyuk’s lips as he returned to his research.
Make them suffer