Chapter 123 (2/2)
“The best, is it…?”
Su-hyeun occupied that position. The spot that Gordon Rohan so desperately wished to make his.
<<He’s definitely eccentric, that guy.>>
Hak-joon heard Su-hyuen’s muttering from the side, so he abruptly pushed his head into the latter’s line of sight to ask a question. “What about the best?”
“Mm?”
“I thought you said something about the best and stuff just now.”
That was something he blurted out without even realizing, so Su-hyeun simply shook his head and replieㅇ, “Nah, it’s nothing important.”
“What do you mean, it’s nothing? It’s true that the Gordon Tower is the tallest building in the world, isn’t it? I can’t wait to see it up close.”
Hak-joon looked really pumped up as if he came here to sightsee.
In the meantime, the private plane finally landed. Su-hyeun smirked and after grabbing his luggage, got up from his chair. The Gordon Tower looked even more imposing once he climbed outside the plane.
“I’ll unpack our luggage at the lodging and find out the schedules for the Ranking Wars, so you two, go and be tourists for a while,” said Lee Ju-ho while checking out their itinerary through his smartphone.
They still had some time to kill. They needed to get in touch with the Reaper Guild, but as Park Ji-yeon was running late, Su-hyeun no longer had a need to show his face.
Unlike Hak-joon, whose expression had brightened in an instant, Su-hyeun shook his head and refused the offer. “No need to do all of that. Besides, what do you mean, us as tourists?”
“You may not be keen, but the dude next to you does seem to be, wouldn’t you say so?”
Lee Ju-ho’s words caused Hak-joon to flinch and quickly avoid meeting the gazes of the others. Although he hadn’t said anything yet, he must’ve been really looking forward to it.
Su-hyeun pondered this for a bit before nodding his head. It wasn’t as if he had anything special to do whether or not he went around with Hak-joon in tow. “In that case, I’ll leave it to you.”
“Alright. Have fun, you two.”
Su-hyeun and Hak-joon went separate ways from Lee Ju-ho and grabbed a taxi.
As it turned out, the Gordon Tower that looked so imposingly tall was located pretty far away. But then again, it was massive enough to be seen no matter where you were in San Francisco. It took 30 minutes just to get there.
<<If I knew it would take this long, we could’ve just run there.>>
They could’ve arrived at their destination in a few minutes by doing that.
Unlike Su-hyeun, who was getting bored out of his mind during the ride, Hak-joon was busy boasting to Yun-seon over the video chat.
Eventually, they paid for the taxi fee, which was noticeably higher than in South Korea, and stood in front of the Gordon Tower.
Hak-joon’s eyes widened as he scanned the building all the way up till its rooftop. “Now that I look at it from close by, it’s…no joke.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
While Hak-joon was busy looking up at the skyscraper, Su-hyeun was scanning the huge crowd of people currently surrounding the structure itself.
As he did so, his gaze soon locked on a black man in the crowd. That man’s face was rather familiar to him.
<<Royce Guzman.>>
Su-hyeun walked over to the building’s interior while his gaze shifted in a different direction next. A white woman of Russian heritage could be spotted rather easily among the crowd.
<lena Ann.>>
Besides these two, he could spot several other famous faces.
Every single one of them was an S-Rank awakener.
They all came to San Francisco to participate in the Ranking Wars. And since they were in the city already, it seemed that they all had the same idea of coming to take a gander at the Gordon Tower, reputedly the greatest structure in the world.
On average, only one or two S-Ranks existed per nation, or three at most — yet right here in this place, so many could be spotted quite easily.
This was a gathering of the stars, in other words.
“Well, it’s no joke, alright,” muttered Su-hyeun.
He went through all sorts of experiences in his previous life, but even then, this would be his first time participating in the Ranking Wars. Back then, Su-hyeun was merely an A-Rank. In other words, he couldn’t participate as he hadn’t become an S-rank on time.
<<Will this be fine, I wonder?>>
Not just any awakeners, but S-Ranks had gathered here in quite a large number. And not a single one of them could be “controlled” properly.
They surely wouldn’t start anything idiotic when there were so many people gathered here, but human nature was and always would be unpredictable.
Indeed, folks with a few screws loose always existed.
And sure enough…
<<…I knew it.>>
Su-hyeun hurriedly turned around and spoke. “Hey, Hak-joon.”
“Dude, over th… Eh?”
“I’ll call you later.”
“Ehh? Where are you…?”
Swiiish—
Su-hyeun’s figure rapidly fleeted in and out of the crowd. He moved so suddenly that Hak-joon failed to catch the departing back in time. He had vanished in the literal blink of an eye.
Su-hyeun entered the elevator right away. It was powered by several low-grade Ether stones and up to 50 people could ride on it.
As so many were already riding on it, the elevator kept stopping on different floors. They needed quite a lot of time to reach only the tenth floor.
<<This won’t do.>>
He would’ve liked to avoid damaging another’s private property, but it couldn’t be helped this time.
Craaack-—
Su-hyeun leapt up and broke through the ceiling of the elevator. Other passengers all screamed in fright, but he ignored them for now. He glanced below, and as expected, the elevator was operating just fine with no signs of error.
Tap—
Su-hyeun used the Leap skill and traveled up through the elevator shaft. This was a lot faster than the elevator’s climbing speed.
The destination he reached by doing this was the highest floor of the Gordon Tower, the 200th: the place where the entire view of San Francisco could be captured in one glance.
That place had already succumbed to pandemonium by then.
“Kkyahhk—!”
“It-it’s a fight!”
There was nothing besides Gordon Rohan’s statue installed on the 200th floor, yet now it was filled by the screams of the panicking people.
The handful of elevators available hadn’t arrived yet, and the emergency exit was too narrow for a lot of people to escape in a hurry.
In the midst of all this, two men were glaring at each other right in the center of the 200th floor.
<<Wang Wu and Sugimoto Kenya.>>
Two S-Ranks — one from China and the other from Japan — well-known to be hostile towards each other, had come to blows in this very place.