Alone Against the Tower - Chapter 9

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Chapter 9: Seo Jinhyeok: Prologue

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My eyes followed the letters, but none of what I read registered in my head.

I closed the message window and shuffled outside. Bright sunlight poured over the village.

For someone who spent every night browsing the community until dawn before falling asleep, it had been a long time since I'd seen morning sunlight.

Maybe this was the first time.

Frowning, I dragged my heavy feet into a restaurant. The familiar NPC greeted me in its stiff, mechanical voice.

I ordered the first item on the menu and habitually opened the community window. The message window I'd just closed appeared alongside it.

[We sincerely mourn the passing of the late Lee Myeongsuk.]

Only then did the first sentence truly register.

Lee Myeongsuk was my mom's name. I'd thought it sounded old-fashioned more than once.

-Clatter.

As soon as I actually took in that first sentence, a plate appeared before me. Food came out the moment you ordered it here.

What had I ordered again?

[Bacon Fried Egg Set]

The breakfast menu at Rabbit Garden, a Western-style restaurant. Its golden-brown bacon is the highlight.

It is generous for the price and very filling. A meal for adventurers short on cash.

Greatly replenishes hunger when consumed.

It was a set meal similar to the breakfast served at the inn.

Thick bacon, soft-fried eggs, mashed potatoes, and brown sauce covered the plate. I poked the egg yolk with my fork.

Mom hated undercooked eggs like this. Had she said they tasted too eggy, or that she didn't like the smell?

Still, the fried eggs at home were always soft because I liked them that way.

-Sizzle.

I broke the yolk, spread it over the bacon, stabbed a thick slice with my fork, and brought it to my mouth.

It wasn't particularly good or bad. It didn't make me feel anything.

The food went into my mouth just fine.

[Due to the absence of a chief mourner, the funeral was conducted as an unclaimed funeral around ○○-○○-○○. In accordance with procedure, she was laid to rest at a memorial house.]

Skipping a few lines, the next sentence caught my eye.

Mom had no relatives. The only person who could be called family was me, stuck inside the Tower.

We were a single-parent family with no relatives to rely on, but Mom tried to fill Dad's role as well so I wouldn't feel inferior to anyone else.

-Gulp.

I took a sip of cold water. It was cold enough to make my teeth ache, but it didn't make me cough.

At some point, my plate had become completely empty. Like a defeated monster disappearing, it scattered into particles of light.

I left the restaurant and walked for a while.

Staying shut in at the inn every single day wasn't healthy, so I occasionally went for walks like this.

Very occasionally.

After walking for a bit, I reached a bakery. Challengers who seriously tackled the Tower supposedly bought armfuls of bread from places like this and carried it around.

Since I didn't enter the Labyrinth anymore, I only came by whenever I felt like having a snack. I opened the door and went inside.

"Welcome~"

The bakery NPC's greeting was just as lifeless. They said elite NPCs from higher floors felt much more like real people.

Was that true?

I breathed in the smell of freshly baked bread, even though there was no way it had actually been baked fresh. The community window hovering before me swayed.

[The cause of death was cardiac arrest resulting from acute myocardial infarction.]

A sentence from somewhere in the middle of the message finally entered my head.

Acute myocardial infarction. Cardiac arrest. Sudden death.

Below the swaying message interface was a note that the cause of the myocardial infarction was presumed to be overwork.

-Tap.

I looked away and leisurely chose some bread.

Like always, as if nothing had changed.

* * *

The White Rolls sold at bakeries were considered a staple food for Rankers in the Tower of Trials.

They let you take in calories quickly thanks to all the sugar, and they came with a high-level Luck buff.

Other desserts also had Luck buffs, but they were expensive and their buff durations were inefficient, so people didn't favor them.

White Rolls had both a suitable buff grade and duration, which apparently made them the perfect food item.

I bought several kinds of bread, including White Rolls, and returned to my room. The most expensive room on the inn's second floor was my hideout.

"Pretty good."

I hadn't eaten that long ago, but the White Roll went down easily.

Some Rankers ate them every day until they wanted to throw up at the sight of one, but to me, it was just normally tasty bread.

As the sweetness of the White Roll coated my mouth, I reopened the Open Community.

I shoved the message window to one side and opened the community's humor board. It was where I spent all day staring at posts.

"Heh. Hehehe."

A few funny posts were enough to make me laugh. Snickering, I kept scrolling down and down.

Before I knew it, I'd stuffed the entire White Roll into my mouth. I picked up another piece of bread, ate it slowly, and continued browsing the community.

A few hours slipped by like that, and as mealtime approached, I began to feel hungry again.

I left the inn and went to the restaurant I always visited. I'd ordered whatever that morning, but this time I wanted something good.

So I ordered the Cheese Tonkatsu Lunchbox I'd enjoyed last time. The crispy cutlet and rich, stretchy cheese were still excellent.

Just like the bacon and fried eggs that had been neither good nor bad, the taste of this Cheese Tonkatsu hadn't changed in the slightest.

Like always, unchanged. Unchanged...

* * *

Time passed and passed, and it was already night. I lay down in bed.

As befitted the most expensive room, the bed was incredibly comfortable. Lying still on it made me feel as if my body were sinking right into it.

It was much better than the bed at home. My mattress had been ruined after years of use and had no softness left. Mom's bed was outright hard.

It was late at night, when most people were asleep, but my eyes were still wide open. I opened the Open Community and, like always, spewed out posts and comments.

-Thump. Thump.

An unbearable urge rose from deep inside my chest. Like I was possessed, I wrote a long post.

[Author: Seo Jinhyeok#2661]

[Title: Mother Passed Away]

Calling Mom by a title I'd never used in my life, I posted about my miserable circumstances on the community.

A single-parent family, a dirt-spoon background, my mother's death. It was a lament packed with even more misfortune than the ones I'd occasionally written while job hunting.

I hadn't made a single post on the community today. The other community ghosts must've wondered what happened.

The comments and reactions from the community ghosts were fierce. The comment section spilled onto the next page in an instant, and loud notifications went off.

- Stay strong.

- Don't think only bad thoughts. Keep your chin up. It'll all pass eventually.

- I read it all. I don't know what else to say except stay strong.

- Same here, I couldn't take care of my parents' funeral either. It doesn't feel like someone else's problem.

- My condolences. I hope your mother went somewhere peaceful.

The response was completely different from the humblebrag posts I'd written in the past, or the posts that had recently become little more than a diary.

There weren't even any comments trying to stir up trouble, even though there were usually one or two.

My situation must've looked that serious.

Feeling a strange sense of satisfaction as comments kept pouring in, I stared at the community until dawn and fell asleep.

Like always, unchanged.

* * *

I didn't wake up until afternoon again. I closed the community window I'd left open and went downstairs.

After ordering a meal without much thought, I opened the community again out of habit. Then I crammed food into my mouth.

Mom was dead.

Yesterday, the day before yesterday, I didn't know exactly when.

The cause was acute heart failure brought on by overwork. Her funeral had been held as an unclaimed one, and during all that time...

All that time, I'd been holed up in my room, shitting out garbage posts on the community.

-Bang!

I slammed my hand down on the table deliberately.

It wasn't unconscious. I did it consciously, on purpose.

Mom was dead. Yet nothing about me had changed at all.

Food went down my throat just fine. I went around looking for tasty food to stuff in my mouth. I wasted time reading funny posts.

Apparently lying comfortably in bed and giggling wasn't enough for me. I felt satisfied collecting comments about my misery.

I hadn't cried or been especially sad. No, even while grieving, all I'd done was hide from reality and sit around like a fucking idiot.

"Fuck."

What was I doing?

Why was I like this?

All the bullshit I'd spouted while waiting for the Tower Invitation, the cause of everything, resurfaced in my mind.

I said I was waiting for an opportunity. That entering the Tower was my only chance to turn my life around and give Mom a good life, since I was born a dirt spoon.

I said that once I entered the Tower of Trials, I'd return as a Hunter and let Mom live in comfort.

What a load of fucking crap. Look at me, the world's greatest filial son.

If I cared so much about Mom, why was I still shut in my room, browsing the fucking community?

I was an idiot. A pathetic, motherfucking unemployed loser wrapped in self-justifications who wanted life handed to him.

I'd known that for a long time.

Only now did it truly sink in.

"Fuck."

I'd thought this while waiting for an invitation.

If I kept living like this, my life would be ruined. But there was nothing I could do, because I was born a dirt spoon.

Half of that was right.

The part about my life being ruined if I kept living like this, only that part was right. The rest had just been rationalization.

There was nothing I could do because I was a dirt spoon?

Dirt spoons stayed dirt spoons no matter how hard they tried?

The effort-to-reward ratio was different?

Sure. Maybe the words themselves weren't wrong.

But I hadn't been a dirt spoon in the first place. I might've been a little poorer than other people, but not poor enough to call myself one.

"Fuck."

Mom had always worked hard. She worked twice as hard as everyone else because she didn't want me to feel inferior.

Then she died from overwork.

What had I done all that time?

I'd wasted time shut in at home, using job hunting as an excuse. Using my dirt-spoon background as an excuse, I hadn't put in any effort and only waited for an invitation.

After getting the invitation, I planned to get carried by Rankers and become a low-grade Hunter. When I learned I couldn't, I said my life was fucking over.

I planned to monopolize the Tower's resources and easily become a high-grade Hunter. When I learned I couldn't, I said my life was fucking over again.

From beginning to end, all I'd wanted was to get through life without working for it.

Until the day Mom died.

"Fuck."

Slowly, I moved my hand and operated the community window. I reopened the message I'd received yesterday.

I read and reread the short message about Mom's death. I forced the meaning of every sentence and every word into my head.

Only after reading and understanding it for a long time could I finally shed tears.

Only now.

* * *

It was only after crying for a long time that I could organize my thoughts.

I was a fucking idiot.

But if I just sat here crying like this, I'd become something worse than an idiot.

I walked out of the inn without a plan. Opening my inventory, I equipped the gear I'd left gathering dust for over half a year. Then I headed for the shop.

I bought a huge pile of potions and filled my inventory. After that, I went to the bakery and bought every White Roll I could.

I'd never worked hard at anything in my life.

That meant I didn't even know how to work hard.

If it hadn't been for the Tower of Trials, I probably would've just kept crying after losing Mom, without knowing what to do.

But this Tower had a simple, easy-to-understand measure of effort.

What I needed to do was simple.

[The Warrior Statue is resonating with you.]

[You can change class to Normal Class - Warrior.]

A system message appeared when I placed my hand on the statue in the center of the village. Without hesitating, I nodded.

[You have changed class to Normal Class, Warrior.]

[The skill system has been unlocked. You can learn skills by consuming skill points.]

[You have learned Warrior Basic Skill: Sword Mastery Level 1. You can raise the skill level by building proficiency.]

[You can unlock the active skills included in Sword Mastery.]

I dismissed all the noisy class-change messages and headed straight for the Labyrinth entrance.

[Challenger, the Tower of Trials calls to you.]

Passing the message I'd seen for the first time in a while, I entered the Labyrinth. As if it had been waiting for me, a green Goblin welcomed me.

I took the casting stance for Brandish, the most basic skill available at Sword Mastery Level 1.

My sword glowed, and strength filled my body.

Then, as if a video had been put on fast-forward, my body shot forward on its own. My sword swung violently and cleanly split the Goblin's head in two.

-Crunch!

When the Goblin at the front fell, the Goblin Soldiers behind it rushed me all at once. I stepped forward with a kick.

Several Goblins fell from one kick, and one body slam sent them scattering in every direction.

In just over a minute, I killed six Goblins.

The experience didn't come in properly because of the level penalty.

But it wasn't zero.

This was a world with a system straight out of a game.

Then wasn't what I had to do obvious?

It was easy.

I would repeat it endlessly without stopping, until my stats were enough for me to defeat the boss alone.

-Thud!

I entered a small room off to one side of the Labyrinth and kicked a treasure chest.