White Tower, 1st Floor

Everyone was exhausted.

Not just Mackenzie, who had carried out the meteor summoning, but all of the summoned entities who had fought so fiercely.

The only ones still relatively fine were—

“Get some proper rest.”

Rajix gave a quick chirp.

...

Juhyeok and Rajix.

Well, neither of them had really done much.

Now all that remained was to wait and confirm the power of the meteor that had fallen outside.

He was looking forward to it.

They said it was hundreds of times more powerful than a nuclear bomb.

I’ll take the elevator after I see it.

Honestly, they had stayed here long enough.

There was too much to do back on Earth.

They still had to finish the fire truck strategy on the 86th Floor of Republic of Korea Black Tower (NO.2), and they needed to gather as many high-grade and top-grade Magic Stones as possible.

Especially top-grade Magic Stones.

Now that the elevator was running, there was another major use for them.

Mari could make artificial top-grade Magic Stones, but that took an enormous amount of time and effort.

Mining natural top-grade Magic Stones was much faster.

At the moment, natural top-grade Magic Stones were being mined in small quantities from the ice-wall mine on the 84th Floor.

But once the veins in Republic of Korea Black Tower (NO.1) and Republic of Korea Black Tower (NO.2) were exhausted, where would they mine next?

In the end, they would have to use other countries’ towers.

For that to happen, routes to the 84th Floor would have to be opened in foreign Black Towers.

Excluding Korea, the United States currently had the fastest progress.

They were already challenging the 81st Floor, so it would not take long for them to reach the 84th.

To make that happen, finishing El’s giant-monster-grade magic guns was urgent.

First, they had to start renting out magic guns so foreign players could clear up to the 84th Floor.

Then, using Multinational Tower Access Tickets, they could mine top-grade and high-grade Magic Stones from the veins on foreign 84th Floors.

After all, even if other people knew those veins existed, they had no way to mine them.

Only Juhyeok’s party could pin Colossus Condors in one place and mine safely.

I need to finish it quickly and start renting out magic guns.

According to El, it was almost complete.

The magic guns and ammunition meant for Behemoth response were already ready to be rented out.

As he was sorting through the schedule in his head—

Ding!

A system message?

[Ach◆e◆ement: Defea◆ed the ad◆lt dr◆gon Ka◆at◆s... zzzt!]

[◆◆ Rewa◆d gra◆ted to pl◆y◆r... zzzt! zzzt!]

[... ◆◆◆ pla◆er ... zzzt!]

[zzzt! T◆tle acq◆i◆ed.]

“What... is ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) this?”

Ding!

[An unknown system error has occurred.]

[Message transmission has been temporarily suspended for error correction.]

“...It’s making a mess all by itself.”

He could not tell what the message meant.

The text was too fragmented to infer anything from it.

Maybe he would find out once the error was fixed.

More importantly—had everyone recovered?

Mackenzie was still collapsed in the central plaza, breathing heavily.

The summoned entities were no different.

It must have been incredibly taxing.

Of course it was.

Creating and dropping a meteor was no easy feat.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have insisted on the meteor.”

“N-no. It was something that absolutely had to be done.”

After catching his breath, Mackenzie continued.

“How could we just stand by while those filthy things roamed the world freely? Even if my circles shatter to pieces, I do not care. Just give the order whenever you wish.”

Then Cossack cut in.

“Impressive. Number Two Cossack acknowledges you this time, old mage. I’ll raise you to Rank 6. That’s above average, yeah? Be grateful.”

PATPATPATPAT!

Applause followed.

But Mackenzie’s expression did not look very good.

Apparently, being called sixth place bothered him.

“...Shouldn’t I be at least third?”

“Wake up. You think you can handle Veronica Caliber?”

“...Tch.”

Juhyeok let out a sigh.

To him, it was a meaningless competition.

What kind of pointless ranking fight was this?

Either way, they were all below Rajix.

Let them argue.

Juhyeok checked his inventory—the inheritance Max had left behind.

Tickets, runes, high-grade Magic Stones, potions, and more.

Among them, the most important item—

The Trait Enhancement Rune.

What was the point of saving it?

He swallowed it immediately.

Gulp.

His Status Window updated.

That felt satisfying.

At this rate, maybe one day he really would be able to use twenty simultaneous summons.

And there was one more thing.

The weapon Juhyeok had inherited from Max, the Hammer Master.

<Mass Extinction – Earthquake Gigantification Hammer>

Effects: Indestructible; increased attack and defense in one-versus-many combat; wide-area seismic shockwaves when striking the ground; gigantification; increased critical strike chance.

Limitation: When gigantification is activated, the hammer’s weight increases drastically in proportion to its size.

Feature: The larger the hammer becomes, the greater its destructive power.

The owner was obvious.

The moment he heard gigantification hammer, someone immediately came to mind.

Who else but Meatshield?

Earlier, how pitiful had that looked?

A man fighting while holding another man.

Pitiful for both Meatshield and Bardin.

Juhyeok took out the hammer.

It was a massive sledgehammer forged from a single block of metal, from the handle to the shaft to the head.

Even before gigantification, it was absurdly heavy.

THUD.

He set it down on the ground.

“Meatshield.”

“You called, Summoner?”

“Use this hammer.”

“...This?”

“Yes. It’s a gift.”

Meatshield stared at it, entranced, then slowly stepped forward and picked it up.

“The warrior has received a weapon from the summoner.”

FWOOSH!

Meatshield gigantified.

At the same time, the hammer gigantified as well.

“The warrior will give his life for the summoner.”

Ah.

What a sight.

A giant barbarian warrior holding a giant hammer.

It was a perfect match.

“So you won’t be carrying Bardin anymore, right? You have a weapon now.”

Twitch.

Bardin reacted immediately.

A trace of disappointment flickered across his face.

Meatshield looked at him quietly, then spoke.

“...A warrior has two hands.”

So?

“A hammer can be wielded with one hand. The other hand can hold another weapon.”

...What?

Dual-wielding?

One hand holding the hammer, the other holding Bardin?

Bardin smiled faintly.

This was insane.

Was he a pervert, or just an extreme efficiency addict?

Probably both.

Should he confiscate the hammer?

No. That would not solve anything.

“Bardin.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Prepare for rank advancement as soon as we get back.”

“...What?”

“You’re going to RSR.”

“Ah... u-uh... yes.”

Once Bardin became an RSR Holy Knight, he would take on a different role—

not a human holy sword.

But Juhyeok had a bad feeling.

He could already picture it.

Meatshield, wielding a gigantification hammer in one hand and an RSR human holy sword blazing with Radiance in the other, mowing down monsters.

“...No. This is bad.”

He shook his head hard.

Don’t imagine it.

If he imagined it, it would come true.

Should we head back now?

But before that—

“I’ll step outside for a bit and check the aftermath.”

“Hmm. I’m curious too, but wait a little longer until the summon cooldown ends.”

“Okay!”

After some time—

“Exit White Tower, 1st Floor.”

SPOT!

Juhyeok stepped outside.

The moment he did, he felt something cold land on his head.

“...Hm?”

DRIP. DRIP. DRIP-DRIP-DRIP.

Rain was falling.

“...It’s raining?”

But it was not ordinary rain.

It was a dark gray muddy rain, likely fallout from the meteor.

ZIIING!

He raised an energy barrier and slowly looked around.

“...What?”

Was this really the same place?

He was standing inside a massive crater.

The skyscraper that had towered there was completely gone.

“...It wiped everything out?”

With a single meteor?

This was insane.

It had taken time, but once it fell, the meteor had annihilated everything.

He summoned the others so they could see it too.

SPOT. SPOT. SPOT.

Rajix stared in awe.

“This is...”

“Huh? Wasn’t this where we were earlier?”

“A massive crater.”

“A meteor impact site.”

“Let’s go up and look.”

They used Shadow Step to move upward.

PATPATPATPAT!

And the sight that greeted them—

“...Holy shit.”

Juhyeok was stunned.

Just a few hours ago, this place had still looked like a city.

Now there was nothing left.

All the ground monsters and flying monsters were gone.

Completely erased.

And scattered all over the area were huge craters left by meteor fragments.

“Oho! Old mage, I see you in a new light. Meteor summoning is incredible. Promoted to Rank 5.”

“Hmph. Ranking nonsense aside, mage, I admit it. I underestimated you.”

“This maiden agrees. It is truly a terrifying spell.”

“Veronica Caliber acknowledges it. Meteor summoning is on par with nuclear weapons.”

Rajix gave an excited chirp.

Mackenzie beamed.

A broad smile spread across his face before he could stop it.

Juhyeok smiled too.

In his previous life, Mackenzie had been a tower master—an extraordinary figure.

And yet here, he had been treated like a joke, like a fame-hungry old mage.

That must have stung.

But this single strike redeemed everything.

Now that we’ve confirmed it, let’s head back.

The rain continued to fall.

The ground turned to mud.

The ash-filled rain gradually became ordinary rain.

Then—

“...Hm?”

Something caught Juhyeok’s eye.

“...This is...”

The ground.

As the rain washed away the mud, countless stones began to emerge.

But they were not ordinary stones.

They shimmered.

They gave off light of their own.

“...Magic Stones?”

The summoned entities reacted too.

“What—!”

“Oh!”

“Wow!”

“No way...?!”

The entire ground was glittering.

As far as the eye could see, it was covered in Magic Stones.

And mixed among them in generous quantities were high-grade Magic Stones.

“...Why are there Magic Stones here?”

Mackenzie looked as though something had suddenly clicked.

“Magic Stones are condensed energy by nature. When magical beasts or monsters die, the mana they possessed often condenses directly into crystalline form like this.”

Ah.

“These Magic Stones were likely left behind when the monsters were annihilated by the shockwave from the meteor summoning.”

So that was it.

Inside the Tower, monsters dropped rewards through the system.

Outside the Tower, when monsters were killed, their mana condensed directly into physical crystals.

How much was there, though?

If Rajix vacuumed all of it up with his dimensional-cleaner ability—

“...Huh?”

Where had their dimensional farmhand gone this time?

“Rajix! Where did you—ah.”

A familiar cliché.

It was not even the first or second time anymore.

Whenever Rajix disappeared, it meant only one thing.

He was digging.

Or scouting.

And whenever he dug, something good always came out.

So—

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

The sound of a pickaxe rang out from the first crater.

Fortunately, he had not gone far.

“What are you doing there?”

Rajix let out a startled cry.

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

Rajix was digging like a madman.

His eyes shone with near-maniacal intensity as the platinum pickaxe struck the ground again and again.

He had definitely found something.

There was nothing normal about the look in his eyes.

At last, he stopped digging, thrust both hands into the ground, and pulled something out—

a massive crystal almost half the size of his body.

Rajix let out a triumphant cry.

What in the world...?

A Magic Stone?

High-grade? No—top-grade?

No.

Unlike Magic Stones, which usually did not have a fixed shape, this thing had a clear and definite structure.

A three-dimensional rhombus.

A perfect octahedron.

“H-hhk!”

Mackenzie’s eyes widened.

His hands trembled as he pointed at the crystal in Rajix’s hands.

“A dragon heart?”

What?

Come on.

Was this a joke? Some kind of prank?

But Mackenzie’s expression was completely serious.

“...Really?”

“A real dragon heart?”

Nod. Nod.

“...Wh—”

This was insane.

“No, why is that here?”

Rajix chirped excitedly.

“Good grief. Now we’re mining dragon hearts straight out of the ground.”

Rajix chirped again.

“That’s Rajix being Rajix.”

Another chirp.

“Hurry up and store it, Rajix. Our ultra-unlimited god-tier dimensional farmhand.”

Rajix happily chirped again.

Unbelievable.

Was a dragon heart really something you could dig up just by trying hard enough?

The group returned to White Tower, 1st Floor, carrying a completely unexpected treasure.

They had no way of knowing exactly why the dragon heart had been buried there.

But the most plausible explanation was—

“A dragon that emerged from the Black Tower must have been roaming this ruined world and happened to stop by that city.”

That made sense.

With the boundary between the Tower and reality gone, monsters could move around freely outside.

No one knew what floor it had come from, but it was almost certainly above the 86th.

“And by pure coincidence, that moment lined up exactly with the moment the meteor summoning spell was completed.”

“Ah.”

“And by the time the meteor was close enough to the ground, it was already too late.”

“Oh!”

“In the end, the dragon was struck by my meteor by sheer coincidence, annihilated, and left its heart behind.”

“I see!”

Juhyeok nodded along with Mackenzie’s explanation.

It actually did sound plausible.

But Cossack did not look convinced.

He sneered.

“So you’re saying the dragon just happened to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to get smashed by a meteor and die?”

“That’s right.”

“You seriously think that makes sense?”

“U-uh... it’s not impossible...”

“Oh, come on. So as long as you call it a coincidence, anything goes? Where’s the narrative logic?”

He had a point.

“Even fantasy novels get torn apart if they’re written like that. ‘Author convenience,’ ‘forced plot,’ ‘this is trash,’ ‘I’m dropping this—go do manual labor instead’—the comments would flood in.”

Juhyeok nodded along with Cossack’s argument too.

“Coincidence” was not some magic word that excused everything.

“Then why do you think the dragon heart was there?”

“Simple. Our dimensional farmhand dug it up. Give Rajix three badges.”

CRUNCH.

Mackenzie ground his teeth as he glared at Cossack.

He was blatantly trying to steal his credit and hand it over to the Number One Dimensional Farmhand.

“Yes, Rajix found it. But why was the dragon heart there? It’s not something that forms naturally like ore.”

“...”

Cossack had no answer.

“Do not underestimate coincidence. Historically, many major events began with coincidence.”

Juhyeok nodded again.

Both arguments made sense.

At that moment—

Ding!

A message appeared.

[The error has been corrected.]

[Player Awakening confirmed.]

[A new nationality has been registered. The player’s Black Tower affiliation is Germany.]

So that error earlier had happened because his awakening and nationality had not been registered yet.

Which made sense.

Juhyeok was not originally from this world.

Then—

[Achievements will be retroactively applied.]

[Achievement: You have defeated the adult dragon Karatos for the first time.]

“...What?!”

[Achievement rewards granted.]

[You have obtained the title: Dragon Slayer.]

[Your attack and defense are increased against all types of dragons. This effect also applies to summoned entities.]

So that was it.

Mackenzie had been right.

The dragon heart really had come from a slain dragon.

And how had it died?

Obviously—from the meteor.

Juhyeok grabbed Mackenzie and pulled him into a tight embrace.

“You’re incredible, 9th Circle Archmage! You killed a dragon with a meteor!”

Mackenzie beamed.

Imaginary spotlights seemed to shine down on him.

Fireworks practically exploded in the background.

Meanwhile, Cossack’s expression completely fell apart.

He could not deny it anymore.

Mackenzie’s feat was undeniable.

Even if he had been treated lightly until now, a 9th Circle Archmage was still a 9th Circle Archmage.

Class really was forever.

And with that, their schedule on White Tower, 1st Floor, was complete.

It was time to go home.

The dragon heart needed to be appraised by a professional.

Earth No. 675.

A world where the boundary between the Tower and reality had collapsed.

Because of that, the administrators of this dimension could observe everything happening in the real world.

[Who is that?]

[Looks like a summoner...]

[Then why is there a summoner here?]

[How would I know?]