[Notice: Mirinae has cleared the 11th floor of Tower 25 in the fastest time.]

[Amazing Achievement attained!]

[As a special reward for the Amazing Achievement, 1 Random Box has been provided.]

A Random Box had been granted.

Clear time: 4 minutes 55 seconds.

Did that mean anything under 5 minutes was safe?

“Thanks to you, Lea, we got a Random Box this time too. Thank you.”

“……I am truly sorry.”

Lea’s complexion remained poor.

Was she still blaming herself for her mistake?

It seemed they needed to have a deeper conversation.

But first.

Without high expectations, Shin Jungho unwrapped the Random Box.

peong!

[You have acquired 1 Skill Enhancement Ticket.]

……Huh?

Even a Tower Entry Ticket would have been considered a decent result.

But a Skill Enhancement Ticket had popped out instead.

If there were two items every superhuman wanted most.

One was the Skill Acquisition Ticket.

And the other was the Skill Enhancement Ticket.

Both directly affected a superhuman’s combat power, making them items everyone desperately coveted.

However, the Skill Acquisition Ticket was a bound item, meaning it could only be obtained through one’s own efforts alone.

That was why superhumans searched for Skill Enhancement Tickets with burning eyes.

Even the skill obtained upon initial awakening could be reborn as a powerful skill rivaling those from higher floors after a few enhancements.

However, depending on the skill, some could be enhanced three to four times while others couldn’t be enhanced even once.

So while it was certainly an excellent item to receive.

Whether the Meteor Summoning skill could actually be enhanced was an entirely separate matter.

For now, Jungho decided to use this as bait to cheer up Lea.

“Lea, we got a Skill Enhancement Ticket! We totally hit the jackpot.”

“……I offer my congratulations.”

Lea, who would normally have rejoiced as if it were her own good fortune, offered her congratulations in a deflated voice.

Jungho smiled bitterly and decided to open the floodgates for a proper conversation.

“At times like this, you really do seem like a teenage girl, Lea.”

“……Pardon?”

Lea’s head, which had seemed frozen like a statue, slowly lifted as their eyes met.

“The way you take your mistakes so seriously. It means you’re young and easily swayed by your emotions.”

“Th……that’s…….”

“You can beat yourself up as much as you want. But what matters is that the two of us achieved an Amazing Achievement together again. If I had been alone, that would have been absolutely impossible. That’s all thanks to you, Lea.”

“But because of that, you were endangered, my Lord……!”

“I had a Return Ticket, didn’t I? Did you really think I’d fail to use it in time and get taken down by a Minotaur?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Besides, I gave the order, and you simply followed it. Wouldn’t that make it my fault for not properly assessing the situation?”

“That’s…… not true……!”

Jungho smiled gently and delivered his conclusion.

“Right? So nobody got hurt, we achieved an Amazing Achievement, and we even got a Skill Enhancement Ticket from the Random Box. Is there a situation more worth celebrating than this?”

Lea felt the confusion mounting within her, but one thing seemed certain.

Her Lord did not want to see her beating herself up like this.

If so, as his loyal knight, she needed to show him what he desired.

“……Understood! This is truly…… a joyous day!”

Seeing Lea strain to force a smile, Jungho let out a quiet chuckle.

Still, it was better than a tearful face, so he decided to let it be.

Adding one more thing.

“Your smile, Lea. It looks good on you.”

Perhaps because of the completely unexpected words.

Lea’s face turned bright crimson in an instant.

“I……I……I……Is that so!”

Jungho giggled inwardly and made a request in a tone that was ambiguously between a command and a suggestion.

“Yes, so please try to smile as often as possible.”

“I……I shall do my utmost to comply!”

He wondered if that was really something requiring such effort.

But it was far better than seeing a cute and pretty girl like Lea looking so downcast.

Jungho then asked about what had happened during the climb.

The Minotaurs Lea had charged out to fight numbered two in total.

One was pinned under a tree, barely clinging to life, and the other had both arms broken, unable to even hold a weapon.

She had dispatched both in one stroke and thought it was over, but the clear notification never appeared.

Only then did she realize another one was still out there, and that Jungho might be in danger. She had rushed back and, fortunately, managed to dispatch the remaining one just in time.

Hmm…… three Minotaurs survived the Meteor Summoning in total.

They were all in terrible condition, so an ordinary superhuman would have gleefully pounced on them like a gift from heaven.

But he hadn’t built any close combat experience in the zombie section and had jumped straight into the Minotaur section.

So no matter how injured they were, the moment he saw a Minotaur wielding a massive two-handed axe, he lost all will to fight.

Was that something to be ashamed of?

Not at all.

In truth, it didn’t really matter.

Rushing at monsters half-prepared with nothing but reckless courage was the truly shameful behavior.

Preparedness was everything.

Charging at monsters without a plan?

That was tantamount to walking blindfolded along a cliff’s edge.

He had no intention of ever committing such folly.

So using a Return Ticket in an emergency came with no hesitation whatsoever.

The problem was that from the 11th floor onward, terrain factors prevented Meteor Summoning from cleanly clearing the floor.

This time it had been roughly the size of a seventeen-building apartment complex, so it was reasonably destructive. But if a five-building cluster came up next, the Minotaurs wouldn’t take much of an impact.

That would mean working alongside Lea to clear them one by one, and with his slow pace, the clear speed would inevitably lag.

And if the clear took too long, the Amazing Achievement would be off the table.

Since the size of the summoned meteor was random each time, the clear time was heavily dependent on luck.

“Are you…… not going to use the Skill Enhancement Ticket?”

At Lea’s question, Jungho looked at the Skill Enhancement Ticket he had just obtained.

……Well, shall I at least check if it can be enhanced?

Since even his staff hadn’t been able to affect it, he didn’t hold out much hope.

[Please select the skill to enhance.]

He selected Meteor Summoning.

The message changed.

[Would you like to enhance the Meteor Summoning skill?]

……It works?

Normally, a skill that couldn’t be enhanced would display the message [This skill cannot be enhanced.]

The fact that this question appeared meant enhancement was possible.

Enhancing the Meteor Summoning skill, huh…….

Part of him was excited, but…… at the same time, terrified.

Jungho canceled the skill enhancement for now.

They say people make rational decisions in the morning but emotional ones in the evening.

So if the thought he had now, near midnight, aligned with what he’d think tomorrow morning, then it wouldn’t be too late to decide then.

“I’m going to check the Chat Room for a bit.”

Jungho told Lea to make herself comfortable and entered the Tower Community Forum.

As expected, the Chat Room was flooded with talk about Mirinae.

└ Whoa…… this is kind of hard to process, isn’t it? 11th floor in 4 minutes 55 seconds? How are we supposed to take this?

└ The previous fastest record for the 11th floor was 33 minutes. Set by Soma.

└ Actually, there was a 20-minute record before that, but the person ended up on the deceased list, so Soma’s record became the standing one.

└ Whoa, 20 minutes! Even someone in the 40th floor range would find that tough lol. Not because the fighting is hard, but because finding those damn bull heads is a pain hahaha

└ So Mirinae’s record this time isn’t normal either, damn……

└ Maybe he got a decent weapon from clearing the 10th floor? And if he also got a detection skill, then it’s totally…… there’s no way that’s possible! hahaha Even if the Three Emperors went in, could they pull off a 5-minute clear?

└ Yeah, they probably have more than one or two skills, so it might be possible lol

└ The problem is how Mirinae, who just became a superhuman, managed to do it hahaha. Wow, it’s a real mystery!

A time exceeding 10 minutes would be one thing.

But a 5-minute clear was genuinely a jaw-dropping time.

However, he was already riding the tiger.

At this point, the option of dismounting didn’t exist.

└ Huh? Did everyone see the post? The US is recruiting Mirinae!

└ What? For real?

└ Isn’t that just bait?

└ Whoa! Looking at the content, it seems legit?

Jungho immediately left the Chat Room and searched for the post.

It had received so many recommendations that he found it right away in the featured posts.

<A Recruitment Offer for Mirinae from the New York Tower.>

: Hello, Mirinae.

I am Zara Kimberly, Deputy Director of the US Superhuman Management Agency.

The United States highly values your abilities and wishes to extend a recruitment offer to join the New York Tower, which currently holds the highest floor record in the world.

We are well aware of the situation you currently face.

Therefore, upon receiving your contact, we will immediately dispatch protective forces for your personal safety.

Further details regarding the recruitment offer…….

Reading through the post carefully, it didn’t appear to be fabricated.

In other words, there was a high probability that the US Superhuman Management Agency had actually posted this through a representative.

Transferring to another tower.

What made that possible was a Tower Invitation Ticket.

In other words, you couldn’t simply go because you wanted to. Someone had to issue an invitation before an affiliation transfer was possible.

The crucial point was that the invited party also had to consent. If an invitation was extended and then refused, the Tower Invitation Ticket would simply be wasted.

That was why the usual targets were either the top-ranking rankers of each tower.

Or superhumans above the 30th floor who had made the fastest clear time leaderboard a few times.

So recruiting a newcomer who had just cleared the 11th floor was quite extraordinary.

And that much more.

It meant that Mirinae’s climbing was drawing attention not only domestically but globally.

If the US offer was genuine.

It could serve as a definitive solution to break through the current predicament.

He would be able to move to the United States, a nation those three rankers wouldn’t dare touch, with guaranteed safety.

However, there were two major problems with this.

One was that no matter how secretly things were conducted, his identity would eventually be exposed.

The other was that he would have to surrender the special privileges obtained from Tower 25, the Seoul Tower.

Namely, Lea.

He would have to return the Summoning Stone to the Seoul Tower before leaving.

Moreover, a superhuman recruited from another tower would receive intensive care and management.

Which meant it would be impossible to live freely until a certain period had passed.

So no matter how he looked at it, accepting the US recruitment offer had no advantages.

However.

The current situation itself was quite welcome.

A superhuman noticed by the world’s strongest nation, the United States.

Could Korea’s three rankers really mess with such a superhuman so easily?

What country would welcome a superhuman who kills other superhumans over special privileges?

If the US had posted this with even that angle in mind, it was a truly calculated move.

Since it was the US…… of course they would, right?

A rather complex situation had become tangled in multiple directions.

There was more than one thing to consider, but the time was already past midnight.

If he wanted to make it to his part-time job tomorrow without issues, it was time to sleep.

“Then I’ll leave the watch to you.”

Lea was about to respond as usual when something seemed to occur to her. Her lips twitched awkwardly as she replied.

“I shall fulfill my duty with every ounce of my life.”

He had told her to always smile, and she was really following the order to the letter…….

“You don’t have to force a smile. Just act naturally like you usually do.”

As if she’d been waiting for the opportunity, Lea’s expression immediately turned resolute.

“Understood, my Lord!”

Jungho gave a light smile and went straight to bed.

He’d sort out his thoughts in his dreams somehow!

Truth be told, being able to sleep so peacefully was entirely thanks to Lea.

With Lea—whose abilities perhaps rivaled those of Swordmaster Kim Taemin—standing ironclad guard, what was there to worry about?

Feeling a sudden surge of gratitude, Jungho pulled down his sleep mask and spoke.

“Lea.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Thank you so much for always working so hard for me.”

Lea paused briefly before immediately bowing her head.

“I merely…… fulfill my duty.”

Jungho smiled bitterly and sought sleep once more.

He wished they could move past this rigid lord-knight relationship and become ordinary colleagues soon…….

A short while later.

As Jungho drifted into sleep, the vitality in Lea’s eyes gradually faded.

‘……To commit such a grave mistake!’

Jungho didn’t want to bring it up anymore, but the incident of letting the Minotaur escape continued to weigh heavily on Lea’s mind.

In her heart, she desperately wanted to earn merits in battle.

Throughout their tower climbs, the only thing she had done was shield her Lord from the shockwaves of the meteor impact.

The opportunity to use the swordsmanship she had honed as a knight never came.

That had bred anxiety within her.

So when the chance to shine finally arrived, she had urged her Lord to give the deployment order.

And in that impatience, she had let one Minotaur slip away.

And one that was armed with a weapon, no less!

Of course, everything Jungho had told her was absolutely correct.

That it wasn’t her fault.

That he could have handled it.

That this, too, had been a successful climb.

But the more she received such comfort.

The more fiercely her heart was whipped.

A knight who endangers her Lord—how absurd was that!

That was why Lea could not forgive herself.

And so she made a resolution.

Starting today.

She would impose a ban on watching dramas.