For the countries climbing the undead section, the holy sword was like a rock-solid pillar.

If you tried the early sixties and thought it wouldn’t work, you could just pay ten million dollars and borrow it.

They could even use the holy sword right from the start.

Ten floors in the undead section.

If you borrowed the holy sword for every single floor, that was one hundred million dollars.

Each floor had a six-month clear time limit.

If you assumed they took the full time every run, they could hold on for five years.

One hundred million dollars to stop Tower Collapse for five years was dirt cheap.

But it broke.

The holy sword, that is.

And on top of that, people witnessed the moment it broke in real time.

Articles exploding across the internet.

<The Horrific Moment the Holy Sword Was Severed (Video Attached)> 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

<Is This the Signal Flare Announcing Tower Collapse?>

<Nations Climbing the Sixties Stunned! How Could This Happen?>

<Is Repair Possible? Even If Repaired, Doubts Whether the Effect Will Persist>

<Item Repair Expert: Tower Reward Items and Manufactured Items Are Different. Minor Damage, Maybe. Severe Damage Is Impossible to Repair.>

<Who Bears Responsibility for the Holy Sword’s Damage?>

<Surely Saudi Arabia, the Last to Use It, Must Take Responsibility.>

<Saudi Government: We Returned It Normally. The Damage Occurred After Return.>

<Korean Government Hints at Referral to International Court; Legal Battle Inevitable.>

<Korea’s TOWER PLAYER AWAKENING ADMINISTRATION Demands Nasser’s Floor 66 Clear Bodycam Footage.>

<Saudi Government: Bodycam Footage Will Not Be Made Public.> <UAE Crown Prince Bin Salah Issues Statement Condemning Saudi Arabia.>

—Fuck!

—Bastard oil-country scum.

—Don’t grab me. I’ll set your oil fields on fire.

—What? It broke after you returned it? Release the bodycam, you sons of bitches!

—It’s obvious why they won’t release the bodycam, right?

—Of course it is. They’ve got something to hide.

—We need compensation. At least ten billion dollars.

—Would they pay? It’s a little ambiguous. It broke after they returned it.

—Still, what do we do now? The countries climbing the sixties are gonna start screaming.

—Whatever. They’ll figure it out. We’ve got nothing to worry about.

—Kuaa! Countries that have an S++ clearer can relax.

The TOWER PLAYER AWAKENING ADMINISTRATION’s phone line caught fire, too.

Countries that had already made reservations, and countries that had plans to reserve.

Was it really impossible to repair?

If it was true, didn’t they need to come up with countermeasures?

But as always—

They didn’t provide any answer at all.

As if the ADMINISTRATION had some magic solution.

*****

The original plan was to come out to clean air and stay one night outdoors.

Whether it was a trip or camping, one or two days were fun—anything beyond that and it was just suffering.

That was how it was for Juhyeok.

You couldn’t wash comfortably, and the sleeping situation wasn’t exactly cozy.

But now something came up.

Repairing the holy sword.

You couldn’t do it at the penthouse, so they had to squat here until it was finished.

For the holy sword repair, Rajix demanded exactly two things.

A small electric smelting furnace that could melt metal.

And a forge used to heat iron.

That very day, the ADMINISTRATION delivered a forge and a small electric smelting furnace to Juhyeok’s villa in Namyangju.

In the meantime, Rajix dumped every relic fragment he had collected inside the Tower into the furnace.

On the forge, the broken holy sword was being heated.

Relics.

Objects that contained holy power.

No—more precisely, it had to be called the holy attribute.

They’d been using the terms interchangeably, but they needed to distinguish them rigorously.

That was what Gyeon Dallae said.

“Holy power and the holy attribute are different in their very nature.”

“Really? How are they different?”

“Would it be acceptable if I explained from the beginning?”

“We’ve got plenty of time. Perfect. Let’s hear it.”

Gyeon Dallae organized her thoughts for a moment, then began.

“There is not only one god. In this world, there have existed countless gods, each with a different identity.”

That was true.

If there wasn’t only one dimension, why would there be only one god?

Even in the different worlds the summoned entities had lived in, gods existed.

Human gods, gods of dwarves and elves, gods of beastkin—gods from other dimensions.

“Master Bong—can the holy power, which may be called the unique authority of each god, be gathered together and combined into one?”

“Well... I don’t know.”

“It is impossible. They cannot mix. Authority is not something to be blended.”

Then what about the relics Rajix collected?

“That can be mixed.”

Why?

Gyeon Dallae’s explanation continued.

For example, say there are drinks.

Cola, lemon-lime soda. Banana milk, orange juice, strawberry juice, apple juice, mango juice...

The unique taste, fragrance, and pulp contained in each drink were the unique authority and identity of each god.

But if you stripped all of that away—the taste, the fragrance, the pulp—what would be left?

Nothing but water and sugar.

That sugar was the holy attribute.

The basic power left behind after the gods’ unique personalities and authorities were gone.

And if you added more sugar to sugar?

It was still sugar.

The sweetness only got stronger.

Then why did the unique holy power disappear?

Because the worlds were ruined.

Gods shared the fate of their ruined worlds.

Just look at Lucius Bardin.

A holy knight who served the god Nigel couldn’t so much as twitch against a summoner’s orders.

How could that make sense?

It was only natural.

The god Nigel had vanished, leaving only a name behind.

Lucius Bardin was nothing more and nothing less than a summoned entity with the holy attribute.

The relics Rajix collected also had only the holy attribute left.

If he melted all of that down, attached it to the holy sword, and rebuilt the damaged engravings...

Like adding sugar to sugar and making an unbearably sweet lump of sugar,

“Holy attribute added to holy attribute becomes a holy sword with a richness so dense it cannot be compared.”

“Ah.”

Rajix knew that, too.

That was why he’d said from the start that he could repair it.

“Hoh-ee...”

He put the relic fragments he’d gathered earlier and the orichalcum ingots into the electric smelting furnace.

Metal fragments as they were, and for the relics made of wood and stone, he ground them into powder.

Then he switched it on and melted them.

After a short wait, the molten metal of the holy attribute bubbled up.

The broken holy sword needed to be heated, too.

On top of the forge, Meatshield pumped the bellows—hiss, hiss—until it glowed red-hot.

Once it seemed sufficient, Rajix used the molten holy-attribute metal to fuse the broken section of the holy sword.

Then Rajix pulled a golden anvil and a golden hammer out of his Subspace Backpack and began to strike the holy sword.

Reinforcement work.

At intervals, he poured in more molten holy-attribute metal and hammered again.

It took quite a while.

It required a lot of materials, too.

Thankfully, he’d collected enough inside the Tower.

The finishing touch was enchantment work.

After being promoted to SSR, there were skills and items he’d unlocked.

The worker’s essential encyclopedia was one of them, and enchantment technique was another.

He traced the faint patterns still lingering on the surface of the blade, carving them in at a consistent depth and width.

He checked with a magnifying glass and the encyclopedia to see whether any part of the pattern was wrong.

He mixed Magic Stones into the remaining molten holy-attribute metal to create the material needed for enchantment.

And then he filled the carved grooves with the /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ material.

It was almost finished.

He took out a whetstone from his Subspace Backpack, and all that remained was to polish.

Sharpening, grinding.

Beads of sweat ran down Rajix’s face.

If he was going to do it, he would do it meticulously.

Finally—

“Hoh-eeeek!”

Rajix lifted the holy sword high and roared.

Juhyeok sprinted over at once.

“Is it finished?”

“Hoh-ee. It’s done.”

“Oh, man! Our worker, you really worked hard.”

“Hoh-eeng!”

“Look at this sweat. Hey! What are you doing? Bring something to wipe his sweat!”

The summoned entities came rushing in with a clatter.

“Aww, Rajix the worker, that badge is really taking shape, it is. I’ll fan you.”

“This girl... tears are coming. Even if you hauled in ten trucks of Cossack, would one compare to a top farmhand?”

“Supply Officer, I will hold you. Wipe your sweat on my chest.”

“Hoh-ee?”

“Cossack, you bastard! Get out of here! Why are you sticking to him?”

“...N-no, it’s just... I’m sweating too.”

“Assassin, I’ll wipe you. Come here.”

“Eek?”

One last step remained.

Checking whether it worked properly inside the Tower.

Juhyeok entered the Tower with the holy sword, along with the summoned entities.

SPOT!

It didn’t take long.

They came out quickly.

SPOT!

The moment they were out, he grabbed his smartphone, dialed a number, and said—

“Hello. Deputy Commissioner, it’s me. Come pick up the repaired holy sword.”

They would probably be shocked.

Once they saw the changed holy sword.

The repair took exactly two full days.

Still, maybe it was time to double the rental fee.

*****

In the United States, an emergency meeting was being held as well.

With the holy sword damaged, what method could possibly clear Floor 67’s Phantom Reaper?

Minister MacMillan, Director Antonio, and the top Player Gerald Watson gathered.

Player Gerald Watson was pessimistic.

Shaking his head hard—

“It’s impossible. If there isn’t another item that can replace the holy sword, you won’t clear it.”

“...Even light-attribute items?”

“Those are useless. Compared to Radiance, they’re trash-tier.”

“Hoo.”

This was suffocating.

What kind of bolt from the blue was this?

“Antonio, what did Korea’s TOWER PLAYER AWAKENING ADMINISTRATION say? They say it can be repaired?”

“We did not receive a definitive answer. Korea...”

“They won’t be in a rush. They have an S++ clear record holder.”

“And they won’t be able to repair it. We already tried, didn’t we? The Tower reward item mass-production plan.”

“We did.”

Tower reward items were incomparable to self-manufactured items.

But the odds were extremely rare.

So what if they scanned a reward item and printed it out with something like a 3D printer?

Using Tower metal as the material, of course.

But it failed.

The replicated item had no options at all.

The same applied to damaged items.

No matter how perfectly you remade it, if a critical part was destroyed, that was the end.

“Of all things, the broken part of the holy sword had an engraving on it. Even if you reattach it, will the options come back?”

“Goddamn it!”

Minister MacMillan’s anger surged to the top of his head.

“We have to get Nasser’s bodycam clear footage. We need to see with our own eyes what that crazy bastard did.”

“Will they disclose it? They might have already deleted it.”

“Fucking hell! From now on, Saudi is banned from borrowing light-attribute items.”

*****

France, which had been next after Saudi, was just as stifled.

France still had more than three months left on its Black Tower clear time limit.

Then why had they hurried to reserve the holy sword?

Because France’s top Player Guillaume Loiret was in a dangerous state.

He was unstable.

To the point that even antidepressants couldn’t settle the symptoms.

So they advised him not to climb the Tower at all.

It was certain the dark aura had a negative effect.

Then they learned about the holy sword’s option.

Steadfast Mind.

What if that worked for Guillaume, too?

That was why they rushed the reservation.

Hoping that if he could at least hold the holy sword, he might be okay.

But now it had turned to foam.

Even the last thread of hope was gone.

“Because of Nasser, the Tower will collapse. If only the Eiffel Tower would collapse instead.”

“We were next in line. Should we use this as leverage?”

“Use it how?”

“He cleared Floor 65 without the holy sword, didn’t he? We demand temporary naturalization. Have him clear France’s Black Tower Floor 65.”

“Not sure it’ll work... but pressure them. There’s nothing to lose.”

But they wouldn’t comply so easily.

If they accepted the demand, it would be like admitting responsibility for breaking the holy sword.

“What about Guillaume?”

“He’s at home right now.”

“He didn’t enter the Tower, did he?”

“T-that... I’m not sure...”

They hoped he hadn’t entered the Tower.

But how could they stop a Player from entering?

All they could do was pray his depression would improve.

*****

South Korea’s officially known top Player.

Nam Gaeun went to work at the ADMINISTRATION again today.

Morning exercise at the gym, breakfast in the cafeteria.

An elite Player who had practically become an ADMINISTRATION employee.

In truth, Nam Gaeun’s mental state had collapsed badly.

If she said the incident at the HG hotel hadn’t affected her, that would be a lie.

The horrifying experience of being taken hostage, a blue-steel blade digging into her neck.

It was terrifying.

A deep trauma remained.

To the point she couldn’t sleep after that day.

But there was something that helped her every time.

The holy sword.

Whenever she entered the Tower and gripped the holy sword, strangely, every fear, anxiety, and worry washed away as if scrubbed clean.

Steadfast Mind.

That was the strength that kept her standing.

But what was this?

The holy sword had broken.

Because of Nasser, that bastard.

“Haa...”

Only a sigh came out.

What would they do without the holy sword?

What about clearing Floor 67 right away?

All kinds of negative thoughts rushed in at once.

“I want to gather my strength, but...”

Nam Gaeun’s shoulders sagged, motivation completely gone.

She didn’t even want to enter the Tower.

“Should I just retire while I’m at it?”

She knew she wasn’t the only one suffering.

The ADMINISTRATION employees’ faces were dark as well.

Especially Bong Juhyeok, the Player who was the holy sword’s real owner—his heartbreak had to be enormous.

She wanted to meet him later and offer some words of comfort, but...

And then, right at that moment—

“Nam Gaeun, Player.”

“Ah, Deputy Commissioner.”

“If you aren’t busy, come see me for a moment.”

“Yes...”

What was he going to say?

Probably the same as always.

Don’t lose heart, endure it, something like that.

Nam Gaeun followed Jeon Gwangil into his office.

Inside, Team Leader Lee Mina was waiting.

“Unni?”

“Come on in, Gaeun.”

And—

Click. Jeon Gwangil locked the door.

Why was he doing that?

Why lock the door all of a sudden?

“From now on, what you are about to see must be kept strictly confidential. Can you do that?”

“...Uh, yes, yes.”

“You must promise.”

“Okay.”

Team Leader Lee Mina pulled a long object out of her Inventory.

“Huh?”

She knew at a glance.

How could she not?

“T-the holy sword? The holy sword? But it broke! Isn’t it a fake?”

“It’s not a fake. It’s repaired.”

“My god!”

Even the appearance had changed.

If the old holy sword had felt like a worn-out used item, the holy sword she was seeing now was close enough to call brand-new.

“I did the first check. The effect is insane. Gaeun, you check the undead section.”

As if possessed, Nam Gaeun grabbed the holy sword, and the item information appeared.

<Tower-Only Holy Sword of the Paladin Commander of the Roland Holy Kingdom.>

Effect: Increased attack power in combat against undead, holy flame, Steadfast Mind, increased critical hit chance.

Limit: Effects do not apply to enemies other than undead.

Feature: Intense Radiance settles into the user’s sword and body.

“...Oh my?”

Two things had changed.

In Limit, the durability shortage option had been removed.

And in Feature, it wasn’t “soft” Radiance anymore—it was “intense” Radiance.

“How on earth...”

This wasn’t the time.

She needed to enter the Tower and confirm it.

“I’ll be back.”

SPOT!

[Entering Black Tower (Republic of Korea) Floor 66.]

Nam Gaeun held the holy sword in her hand.

“...This is insane!”

Blazing, flames of Radiance wrapped around her entire body.

In this moment, she was the sun itself.

“Yes!”

Courage surged up, her mind hardened.

Nam Gaeun stepped forward.

Chwararararak! A Specter flew in.

“You picked the right target. Come here!”

Slice!

With the first skill, its wing was severed.

Slice!

With the second skill, its tail was severed.

Slice!

With the third skill, its torso was severed.

Fwoooosh!

The Specter burned and scattered into ash.

“Aaah! Power! Power! Power!”

It was a holy sword with truly perfect effect.

Far more than before it was repaired.

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