Chapter 38: The Fallen (1)

“My name is Kim Dae-woong, and as of today, I’ll be working in the Tower Monitoring Division! I look forward to working with all of you!”

His heart pounding, Kim Dae-woong stepped into the Tower Monitoring Division office and delivered his greeting at the top of his lungs.

The team members stared at him for a moment before offering a light round of applause.

“Oh, a newbie. A real newbie.”

“Welcome. What Level are you, Kim ssi?”

“I-I’m Level 2! Easy difficulty, Floor 3!”

“For now, just take a seat and relax. The Section Chief should be back any minute.”

Kim Dae-woong settled into a seat in the corner and fidgeted nervously as he looked around the office.

The Section Chief of the Tower Monitoring Division was a famous figure, well known even among Korea’s climbers.

Shin Su-jin.

Normal difficulty, Floor 16, Level 30.

She had cleared five floors this year alone, becoming the highest-ranking Normal difficulty climber in the country. It had only been yesterday that the news reported her breakthrough of Floor 15.

Kim Dae-woong had been inspired by her. She was one of the reasons he had applied to the Tower Monitoring Division, a department other climbers considered insane for anyone to join willingly.

Then, without warning, two people appeared in the middle of the office.

“Ah, Section Chief. Welcome back.”

Everyone greeted them casually.

Kim Dae-woong was the only one who flinched in surprise.

Of the pair—a man and a woman—the woman noticed Kim Dae-woong and turned her attention toward him.

One of the team members immediately stepped forward to introduce him.

“Section Chief, this is the new recruit we were told would be starting today.”

“Ah, hello! My name is Kim Dae-woong! My difficulty is Easy, Floor 2...!”

Shin Su-jin held out her hand.

“Welcome. I’m Section Chief Shin Su-jin.”

“Y-yes. It’s an honor...!”

“...An honor?”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I— I mean, I’ll work hard from now on!”

The people around them burst into laughter.

Kim Dae-woong’s face reddened as he glanced between the man and the woman.

He had heard about this before.

There was a dedicated unit within the Tower Monitoring Division that handled operations in the Floor 5 Common Zone. That meant the man must also be a climber who had cleared at least Floor 5.

“Sure. I look forward to working with you.”

Shin Su-jin soon left for another part of the office.

As Kim Dae-woong stared blankly after her, the man sidled over and spoke.

“Kim ssi, was it? How old are you?”

“Oh, I was born in ’98.”

“Hmm~ Then why did you join the Tower Monitoring Division? Didn’t everyone around you tell you that you were crazy?”

“Oh, yes. I heard that plenty of times.”

Kang Ju-hyeok chuckled.

Why would a climber who could live comfortably by selling mana stones willingly drag himself into the Tower Climbing Special Agency?

That was the natural reaction most people had.

Kim Dae-woong answered in a slightly sheepish voice.

“Well, I personally admire Section Chief Shin Su-jin, and to be honest, my goal is to climb all the way to the Floor 5 Common Zone.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. So I thought I might be able to contribute in that area.”

Kang Ju-hyeok nodded, making an exaggerated show of being impressed.

“That’s admirable. But Floor 5 work is much tougher than you’d think. People drop dead left and right.”

“...What?”

“It’s practically a lawless zone. Running into conflicts with climbers from other countries is part of everyday life. And if things go badly, those conflicts turn into actual fights.”

Kim Dae-woong’s expression grew increasingly uneasy.

Kang Ju-hyeok laughed and waved a hand.

“I’m kidding. I’m kidding. There are still plenty of people there, so it isn’t that bad.”

“Oh...”

“Anyway, if you’re aiming for Floor 5, we’ll probably end up working together eventually. Well, we’re already on the same team, but I mean in the dedicated Floor 5 unit.”

Kang Ju-hyeok patted him on the shoulder.

“It’s admirable, you know. Choosing to come here when you could have taken the easy road. I look forward to working with you.”

“Oh, yes! Me too...!”

As Kang Ju-hyeok left to follow Shin Su-jin, Kim Dae-woong felt his heart racing.

His determination to work hard only grew stronger.

***

The moment Shin Su-jin returned from Floor 5, she was forced to deal with a group of irritating visitors.

“Congratulations, Section Chief Shin. You are now the nation’s highest-ranking Normal difficulty climber. Ha ha.”

After half-heartedly entertaining several government officials from some ministry who had arrived without warning, Shin Su-jin went to the break room and brewed herself a cup of coffee.

“Why don’t you say something to the Agency Director, Team Leader? If they keep letting people like that waltz in here, I’m quitting.”

Shin Su-jin smirked as Kang Ju-hyeok approached and made the joke.

He picked up a stick of instant coffee for himself and asked casually,

“By the way, are you... thinking about attempting Floor 16?”

Shin Su-jin shook her head.

“No. I’m not planning to climb any higher for a while.”

“Phew. That’s what I thought. Watching the way you’ve been climbing, Team Leader, I was starting to wonder whether you were aiming for the top record.”

The top record.

The highest record currently held on Normal difficulty was Floor 20.

On every difficulty, the higher the floor, the less information was publicly available—assuming there was any information at all.

With the exception of Nightmare difficulty, the climbers at the highest floors of every difficulty refused to share their intel freely.

After all, that information was a reward they had earned by risking their lives.

On Normal difficulty, reliable information also became scarce from Floor 16 onward.

If Shin Su-jin chose to attempt it, the pressure would be on an entirely different level from anything she had faced before.

The fear of the unknown was that overwhelming.

Having experienced it firsthand, she found herself realizing once again just how extraordinary Person123 truly was.

That man had endured this kind of pressure while clearing three floors of Nightmare difficulty.

And afterward, he had released all the information he had gathered without asking for anything in return.

Shin Su-jin was not normally the kind of person who took much interest in others, yet her thoughts drifted toward him from time to time.

After all, he was a hero to humanity.

And on a personal level, she owed him a tremendous debt of gratitude.

Ever since Seo Dong-woo’s death, her nightmares had stopped.

She genuinely wanted to meet Person123 face to face at least once and thank him properly.

However, whenever they exchanged messages on the Communication Channel, she could sense him drawing a clear boundary between them, so she had never been able to ask.

All she could do was hope that the opportunity would arise someday.

“Oh, right. It’s almost time. One hour left.”

Kang Ju-hyeok abruptly changed the subject.

He did not specify what he meant, but Shin Su-jin understood immediately.

The Tower’s 3-Year Rule.

Today was the day the first-wave climbers who had still never entered the Tower would die.

Naturally, the overwhelming majority of Easy and Normal difficulty climbers had already attempted their climbs.

According to the statistics, roughly five percent of Hard difficulty climbers had given up on making an attempt.

But on Nightmare difficulty, more than half had abandoned the idea entirely.

The number of registered Nightmare climbers currently residing in South Korea was only a little over three hundred.

Considering that roughly seventy thousand people had survived the Nightmare Floor 1 clear, and taking population ratios into account, it was estimated that at least another hundred unregistered first-wave Nightmare climbers still existed within the country.

The government had offered various rewards and benefits in an effort to locate and support domestic first-wave Nightmare climbers, but a significant number of them had never come forward.

Those people could all be presumed to have given up.

It was a tragic situation.

But there was nothing anyone could do to help them.

After finishing their coffee, Shin Su-jin and Kang Ju-hyeok moved on to their next assignment.

“Remember that murder case I mentioned before? They sent us a request for cooperation. It looks like the perpetrator really is a climber after all. I can handle it alone, Team Leader. Why don’t you rest?”

“I’ve already rested. Let’s go together.”

“Roger that. Let’s head out.”

***

I finished solving the cube and immediately slammed it into its slot.

Twenty-nine seconds.

My time had improved considerably.

“I’ll break through soon.”

There was a reason I was trying to reduce my record on the Floor 3 cube even though I had already cleared it.

Rhino had made a request.

He wanted precise data confirming whether reducing the Sun Emblem’s activation time to under three minutes would proportionally weaken the boss.

It had been bothering me too, so I had decided to investigate.

Well, after practicing for a while, I was finally beginning to get the hang of it.

On top of that, I could stop time while solving the cube, which made reducing my recorded time even easier.

I did not need to obsess over breaking the 20-second mark.

After shaving a little more time off the cube and activating the Sun Emblem in under three minutes, I had already confirmed that the boss appeared in a weakened state.

Still, for the sake of collecting accurate data, I continued aiming for twenty seconds.

It probably would not take much longer.

“Out of the way, out of the way~.”

I shoved through the Undead clogging the passage as I made my way toward the Common Zone.

I activated the Sun Emblem, returned to the surface, and wiped out the boss along with everything else.

For the record, the temple had disappeared after I completed the hidden quest.

There was nothing in any direction but endless plains.

Just like the other floors, there was nothing else left for me to do.

I exited Floor 3.

Then I entered the Tower again.

Floor 2 this time.

“All right, let’s run.”

I climbed onto Plli’s back and raced through the midnight forest paths with Diul.

The quest to raise Diul’s affinity was a continuous process, so I had made sure never to neglect our nightly walks.

“Ahh~ I wish the next ability after Concealment would unlock already.”

I muttered loudly enough for Diul to hear.

Diul scoffed.

You don’t have to mock me, you little brat.

Admittedly, it was rather shameless of me to start hoping for the next stage when I had only just unlocked Concealment.

I had already performed various tests on Diul’s Concealment ability.

First, its maximum duration was approximately ten minutes.

That duration would most likely increase as my bond with Diul grew stronger.

Second, while Concealment was active, every sound I made and every trace of my presence was completely blocked.

Rather than merely rendering me invisible, it seemed to erase my very existence from perception.

Third, Concealment would be broken if I sustained a sufficiently strong impact, moved at high speed, or used a skill.

In other words, it was impossible to maintain continuously during combat.

However, even after Concealment was broken, I could reactivate it almost immediately.

Even with those limitations, the potential applications of the ability were practically endless.

“You don’t have any special abilities of your own, do you, Plli?”

I asked as Plli carried me through the forest.

There was no reply, of course.

He was too busy running excitedly.

Right.

For this guy, his Level 50 physical ability was the special ability.

Without Destruction Ray, even I still wasn’t confident that I could defeat him easily.

He was a genuine monster.

Ah, but Plli could communicate mentally, just like Diul.

If telepathy counted as an ability, then I supposed he had one after all.

After an energetic run and a nighttime stroll through Floor 2, I returned to my room.

I would have to head out soon.

Today was the day my mana stone delivery was arriving.

“Should I buy a car?”

The thought occurred to me out of nowhere.

I had never particularly felt the need for one and had always relied on public transportation.

I did not even have a driver’s license.

Maybe I could start going for drives as a hobby, the way I rode Plli around inside the Tower.

I had once seen a documentary on YouXube about the dangers faced by climbers who became too immersed in the Tower.

Being a climber meant constantly risking your life.

It also meant killing things with your own hands.

I did not think I had changed much from the person I used to be, but mental health was still something worth paying attention to.

Now that I thought about it, I had been entering and leaving the Tower so frequently that I had barely gone outside lately unless it was absolutely necessary.

Since I was already heading out today, I decided I would take a long walk and wander around for a while before coming home.

[Shooting Star: It’s almost time. One hour left.]

[SweetPotato: What’s going to happen to the Nightmare climbers;]

[Kedi: Honestly, if I got Nightmare, I wouldn’t even try. I’d just die.]

Out of habit, I scrolled through the Communication Channel for a moment before closing it.

Twenty days had passed since I cleared Floor 3.

And today was the day foretold by the 3-Year Rule.

The first-wave climbers—the ones who had first been summoned by the Tower and had never attempted a climb—would soon die.

I had heard that they could see an actual timer.

A countdown with roughly one hour remaining was ticking away in their vision.

[Nightmare]

Personnel: 233,585

Time Limit: 1 year, 1 hour, 1 minute, 39 seconds

Floors Reached: 4

[Nightmare (15)]

For reference, several more people had recently cleared Nightmare, bringing the total number of survivors to fifteen.

Judging by the decrease in the personnel count, it seemed that a considerable number of first-wave climbers had finally made an attempt.

Even so, the survival rate remained hopelessly low.

There was still an hour remaining, so more people might try before the deadline.

But it seemed that just as many had already accepted their deaths and chosen not to challenge the Tower.

There was nothing anyone could do about that.

I could only hope their deaths would at least be peaceful.

With that thought, I began getting ready to leave.

***

While driving toward the Seoul Seocho Police Station, Shin Su-jin and Kang Ju-hyeok noticed a crowd gathered in the street.

“Get the fuck back, all of you! Come any closer and I’ll really kill her!”

The two of them were so startled that they immediately pulled over and got out of the car.

A man was holding a knife against a woman’s throat.

It was a hostage situation.

“Goddammit! Why the hell do I have to die?! Somebody save me! Please...!”

“Calm down! Calm down and put the knife down!”

Kang Ju-hyeok stepped forward and attempted to calm the man.

The man was clearly no longer in his right mind.

He screamed as though the words were being torn from his throat.

“Would you be calm if you were me?! I’m a Nightmare climber! I’ve only got three minutes left! Aaaagh!”

Shin Su-jin checked the remaining time for Nightmare difficulty.

[Nightmare]

Personnel: 230,982

Time Limit: 1 year, 2 minutes, 59 seconds

Floors Reached: 4

Just as the man had said, only about three minutes remained.

The moment the remaining time reached exactly one year, the 3-Year Rule would activate.

A man driven this far into a corner might truly kill someone.

Blood was already trickling down the woman’s neck.

Shin Su-jin agonized over whether she should attempt a rescue, even at the risk of something going wrong.

Clang.

The man suddenly dropped the knife.

Then he collapsed to the ground.

Shin Su-jin moved immediately and pulled the terrified woman to safety.

“It’s over... It’s done... Heh heh heh...”

Perhaps overwhelmed by complete resignation, the man let out a hollow laugh and muttered to himself.

Kang Ju-hyeok approached him.

There was only one thing he could say.

“I’m truly sorry.”

Ten seconds.

Nine seconds.

Eight seconds...

The final moment drew near.

Neither Shin Su-jin nor Kang Ju-hyeok did anything.

They merely watched the man in silence.

And then—

[3 years have been exceeded.]

[A total of 43,456 climbers who did not enter the Tower will die.]

The moment the message appeared, the man collapsed without warning.

There had been no sign.

Not even the slightest indication that anything was about to happen.

The onlookers held their breath.

Kang Ju-hyeok checked the fallen man’s pulse and murmured,

“...So this is how they die.”

Shin Su-jin let out a sigh and was about to approach the body when another message appeared.

[Climbers who died by the Tower’s Curse will be reanimated as ‘The Fallen’.]

[There is a 90% chance of a Stage 1 Fallen appearing.]

[There is a 9% chance of a Stage 2 Fallen appearing.]

[There is a 0.9% chance of a Stage 3 Fallen appearing.]

[There is a 0.09% chance of a Stage 4 Fallen appearing.]

[There is a 0.01% chance of a Stage 5 Fallen appearing.]