Intro. A Good Night for Counting Stars
7 Months Ago—
"Brrr! It's freezing out here. Hey, how much time do we have left?"
At my question, my military junior exhaled a thick puff of white steam and checked his wristwatch.
"Forty minutes left, Corporal Han Jiwoo."
"Damn guard duty. We're living in a high-tech era. Can't they just replace guard duty with CCTVs? Who's even going to come to this remote corner of Gangwon Province? Even North Korean soldiers would freeze to death on their way over."
"Tell me about it."
It was the kind of bone-chilling cold where if you drifted off to sleep for even a second, you might never wake up.
Deep in the mountains of Gangwon Province. Because it was a winter night, the sky was exceptionally clear. With not a single speck of light around, the stars looked as if they were about to pour down, making me wonder if this was really South Korea.
"Hey, got any funny stories?"
"Did I tell you about what happened at Haeundae during my last leave?"
"I heard that one during our last guard shift."
"Uh... then I've got nothing else."
"Does your military service end just because you ran out of stories?"
"Well, if it did, would I still be standing here?"
At his witty, joking reply, a dry chuckle escaped my lips. "Shit, you're right."
"Corporal Han, Corporal Han."
"What?"
My junior pointed toward the dark shadow of a tower visible in the sky and asked, "They say if you enter that tower, you get superpowers. What kind of ability do you want to get?"
"Superpowers? Hmm... I don't know. What about you?"
"For me, obviously, a man's true romance! Invisibility."
The jokes that followed from my junior were, typical of the military, quite crude. Even if someone was perfectly normal in civilian life, they were bound to turn into a lunatic once they entered the military. This guy seemed exceptionally crazy, but I had to admit, he was a madman with a silver tongue.
Anyway, superpowers.
If I were to get a superpower, it would be nice to experience something mysterious. Though the very existence of superpowers was mysterious enough.
Looking up at the sky, the stars were exceptionally bright. It was a good night for counting stars.
Chapter 1. The Invitation of the Tower
In life, there are moments when you feel incredibly fortunate.
Like when a bus you missed because you overslept gets into a traffic accident. Or when you fail all your early admission applications and fall into a depression, only to score the highest marks of your life on the actual College Scholastic Ability Test.
According to the news, there were no fatalities on that bus, but several people were critically injured. And if I had been accepted through early admissions, I wouldn't have been able to attend a university higher than the ones I had applied to.
Yes. I am a lucky person.
Or at least, that was what I thought until just a moment ago.
This morning, I had officially discharged from the military. Leaving behind my company mates who were heading out for guerrilla training, I had welcomed the morning of my birthday at Dongseoul Terminal.
But now, I had to seriously contemplate whether the luck I had considered a lifelong blessing was actually good.
Because right now, I had been kidnapped into a completely empty, pure white space.
Just a moment ago, I was at Dongseoul Terminal, celebrating my birthday with the most refreshing feeling I had ever experienced in my entire life.
Is this the Tower's invitation?
About ten years ago, when I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, the world changed.
Phenomena referred to as 'Gates,' 'Dungeons,' 'Monster Holes,' and 'Rifts to Another World' began occurring all over the globe, and a tower that could not be reached loomed in the sky. It was a common trope straight out of a comic book or web novel.
If left unattended for a certain period, a Gate would trigger what was called an 'Outbreak' or 'Monster Break.'
An Outbreak occurred when the interior of a Gate ruptured, causing monsters to pour into our world before the Gate itself collapsed.
Did the Outbreaks occurring worldwide cause massive chaos?
Not exactly.
Since ancient times, exorcism has required firepower. And if firepower didn't work, even greater firepower was the answer.
It wasn't as if bullets didn't work on monsters. Even if their thick, hard hides deflected bullets, artillery shells usually did the trick.
There was significant damage in the beginning, but within a few months, the military brought things under control. Through research, they discovered a way to close Gates without triggering Outbreaks.
In the case of South Korea, thanks to a unique situation—a small territory combined with a divided, armistice state always prepared for war—the situation was brought under control rapidly.
According to the news, countries that had downsized their militaries or possessed excessively vast territories were still in a state of relative chaos even ten years later.
Of course, even in a relatively stable country like South Korea, it wasn't easy for the state and the military to solve every single problem.
When an Outbreak occurred in a downtown area, they couldn't exactly launch an airstrike on the city center. Furthermore, it was impossible to squeeze self-propelled howitzers or towed artillery into small Gates. Thus, Gates had to be cleared using personal firepower.
While it was possible to enter a Gate carrying man-portable mortars or anti-tank weapons like the Panzerfaust 3, the fatal drawback was that the ammunition was too heavy to carry in large quantities.
This was because transport vehicles could not enter the Gates.
Consequently, various problems arose, and it was three categories of people who solved them.
First were the 'Natural Awakeners.'
These were people who, on rare occasions, naturally awakened superpowers around the time the Gates and the Tower appeared. With their superpowers, they could hunt monsters that couldn't be easily dealt with by personal firearms, all while minimizing collateral damage.
On the internet, a joke comparing them to hunters in novels and webtoons became a meme, and now everyone called them Hunters.
Second were the agents of the World Protection Treaty Organization, or WPTO for short—a multinational organization established by a coalition of global governments.
The WPTO's known duties included cooperating with various nations to detect areas where Gates would appear, measuring the lifespan of Gates, and managing the fixers and Hunters who cleared them.
On the internet, intertwined with the Hunter meme, they were commonly referred to as the 'World Hunter Association.'
Among conspiracy theorists, there was a rumor that the founders of the WPTO were doomsday cultists who called themselves 'Precursors.'
They claimed the Gates and the Tower were proof of this. Some argued that because there was a prophet among the doomsday cultists, the WPTO was able to be established so quickly.
Considering the WPTO was founded less than a year after the Gates appeared, the existence of a prophet might be plausible, but I failed to see what a prophet in the WPTO had to do with doomsday cults. Well, just like Nostradamus or the Mayan calendar, prophecy and the apocalypse always seemed to go hand in hand, so it was probably just that kind of vibe.
Finally, there were the Tower Returnees.
At some point, individuals began appearing who claimed they had entered and returned from the Tower—the one that was visible in the sky but completely unreachable.
Every single one of them had awakened at least one superpower.
Unlike Natural Awakeners, Tower Returnees often utilized multiple abilities. In addition to their innate superpowers, they brought back learnable skills like Magic or Martial Arts.
Magic and Martial Arts allowed even those who hadn't awakened a superpower to grow stronger and wield supernatural forces.
In the case of Magic, it hadn't been released to the general public yet, but there were rumors that specialized academies would soon be established. As for Martial Arts, dojos and academies had been popping up for quite some time.
The most representative examples were the 'Gagaga Swordsmanship' dojo founded by Tanaka Sanmei, an S-class Hunter and Japanese Tower Returnee, and the 'Robert Julius Gun Kata' academy established by Robert Julius, an S-class American Hunter and Tower Returnee.
No one knew how or why the Gates and the Tower had come to exist.
Perhaps the government or the WPTO knew, but it remained hidden from the general public, including myself.
However, over the past ten years, many secrets of both the Gates and the Tower had been unveiled.
On the internet, where all sorts of information floated around, stories from Tower Returnees were naturally commonplace. Even on documentaries and variety shows, hearing Returnees share their experiences had long since become a cliché broadcasting topic—regardless of whether those stories were actually true.
In fact, I heard that recently, schools had started teaching students how to handle being invited to the Tower, treating it as a basic safety protocol akin to first aid.
Even during my time in the military, I had heard ad nauseam about how to respond if I were dragged into the Tower, just so I wouldn't be arrested for desertion.
"Well, still, an invitation to the Tower isn't a bad thing."
To be fair, ten years ago when the Tower first appeared, being kidnapped into such a dangerous place was a source of terror. But now, an invitation to the Tower was treated like winning the lottery.
The reason was simple.
If you were invited to the Tower, you were guaranteed to awaken at least one superpower.
And anyone climbing the Tower could leave whenever they wished.
At least, that was according to the troop information and education sessions that had been drilled into my head on National Defense TV.
I approached the large crystal floating quietly in the center of the pure white space.
"This is really going to work, right?"
Despite a lingering sense of anxiety, I placed my hand on the crystal.
A tingling sensation shot through my fingertips, and a semi-transparent window materialized in front of me.
Registering Climber...
Registration Complete!
Welcome to the Tower, Climber Han Jiwoo.
It was absurd that it spoke as if I had walked in here on my own two feet, but I waited for the next lines to appear.
You have acquired the Tower's common abilities: 'Status Window', 'Tower Shop', and 'Inventory'.
You have acquired the personal ability: 'Multidimensional Avatar'.
Simultaneously with the notifications, a rough understanding of the abilities flowed into my mind.
The Tower's common ability, 'Status Window', was exactly what it sounded like—an ability to view my current state. Other than that, it had no special functions.
"Status Window."
There was no actual need to say "Status Window" out loud to open it, but one had to respect the classic aesthetic.
It was a rather simple status window.
Looking at it, while my ability had a level, I did not have a level of my own. That was correct. The Tower was not a system where your level increased as you climbed, and since there was no level, there were naturally no level-up bonus stat points either.
Then how was one supposed to get stronger? I didn't know either.
Even those who had climbed the Tower testified unanimously that they couldn't grasp the exact mechanism behind how they grew stronger. They simply followed the Tower's instructions, completed tasks that could be called quests, and hunted monsters, only to find themselves stronger at some point.
The only known fact was that the stats and ability level numbers merely indicated the standard required to survive on each floor.
From what was publicly known, the first ten floors served as a tutorial. Did that mean my Strength was at an 8th-floor level, and my Stamina was at a 9th-floor level?
I had thought I became quite healthy while living a disciplined life in the military, but apparently, it still fell short of the Tower's standards.
"Hungry, huh... Well, I skipped breakfast, so I am a bit famished."
On the day of my discharge, rather than eating the awful mess hall food, I had chosen to leave on an empty stomach.
Next, I checked the Tower Shop, and a semi-transparent store window popped up.
There were very few items available in the shop. Bread, water, a one-handed sword, a shield, a bow, arrows, and a High-Grade Recovery Potion!
"It really is like a game."
Food and weapons aside, a potion was a different story. In fact, this potion was the primary reason why an invitation to the Tower was called a lottery.
The currency of the shop was Shop Points. The initial points provided were 10, and the price of every item—be it bread, water, a sword, or a potion—was exactly 1 point.
A High-Grade Recovery Potion was practically a miracle in a bottle, easily fetching at least fifty million won outside the Tower. And fifty million was just the baseline; if you timed the market right, it could sell for as much as two hundred million won.
If I invested all of my 10 points into potions, I could sell them for anywhere between five hundred million to two billion won. It truly was no different from winning the lottery.
And that was even with the price having dropped significantly over the past ten years due to a decent amount of supply entering the market. Ten years ago, they said you could practically name your price.
The Inventory could store items based on weight rather than volume, but since I was still on the 1st floor, I could only carry up to 500 grams.
As an experiment, I tried putting my custom discharge cap into it.
"Oh! It actually went in."
The cap vanished from sight and entered the Inventory. When I focused my mind on the Inventory again, the cap repeatedly appeared and disappeared from my hand.
This would be incredibly convenient if I could just increase the capacity.
With that thought, I placed my hand back on the crystal. More than anything else, I needed to verify the most important detail.
As soon as my hand touched the crystal, two choices appeared on the semi-transparent window before my eyes.