Support from Outside
Yujin recognized Lee Ki-seok at a glance.
The man showed his face everywhere; it was hardly difficult.
So this is the guy who put in the most effort outside trying to bring the Tower down?
The Tower of Light.
It had not taken long for the world to learn what would happen if they failed to conquer it. Those who had reached the fifth stratum and returned outside had never stopped jabbering about it, after all. The world being turned upside down was only the natural next step.
National leaders gathered for emergency summits several times a day, pouring every ounce of effort into destroying the Tower. They could not leave the fate of the entire world in the hands of those uncertain beings called players.
While Yujin had been climbing the Tower without rest, people outside had been doing their utmost as well. Of course, as everyone knew, the results had not been good.
Among those who had struggled outside, Lee Ki-seok had been the most famous in Korea. He had proposed a method completely different from every other nation.
Full, unreserved support for the players.
The United States, China, Japan, India, and the rest. What the countries with Towers of Light had worked hardest on was demolishing the Tower by force. Literally trying to topple it, they had thrown every means available at it. Bombs, heavy machinery, missiles. Tens of thousands of special forces had been sent in to infiltrate, and some places had even launched nuclear weapons in the end.
But the Tower of Light had not taken so much as a scratch. It was a space where the laws of physics did not apply to begin with; of course those methods were never going to bring it down.
Lee Ki-seok had guessed as much from the start. So he had sought another way: providing every form of support possible so the players could climb the Tower. On the small scale, stabilizing their lives in reality. On the large scale, gathering and distributing information, founding guilds, supplying items, and more. Everything he could do to help them climb even one more floor.
Thanks to that, Korean players had, on average, set higher climbing records than those of other nations.
In the first timeline I never even thought about taking support.
He had decided there was no need. He had judged that he could clear it alone without their help, and he had. The fact that no one else had survived after the clear was a separate matter.
So this time, I should take some.
It was not for himself. It was for the ones who would become his hands and feet at his side—Lee Sia, Park Ji-hoo, and the one more he had not yet chosen. At the very least, they needed support. Yujin could not shoulder everything alone.
I need to get stronger too.
If he spent all his time cleaning up after them and his growth slowed, would that not reverse the natural order of things?
Anyway, that was why the first person he had sought out after coming outside was Lee Ki-seok.
"You know something about this?"
Lee Ki-seok stared at Yujin with wide eyes as he asked.
"That's why I went through all this trouble to find you."
Yujin shrugged.
"…Wait a moment."
Lee Ki-seok pulled out his phone and began making a call. After a short while the blaring sirens cut off, and the soldiers who had been approaching came to a halt. They had not completely dropped their guard, but at least they no longer seemed ready to open fire.
"Follow me. This looks like it will be a long conversation, and we cannot do it standing in a hallway."
"Sure."
Yujin nodded and followed Lee Ki-seok as he led the way. The place he headed for was a room that looked like a private research lab. Experimental equipment, documents, and things Yujin could not even identify lay strewn everywhere.
"Want some coffee?"
As if it were his own lab—which it appeared to be—Lee Ki-seok naturally moved toward the coffee pot as he asked.
Coffee, huh…
It had been a long time since he had had any, so he was tempted. But there was something he wanted even more.
"Got any cola?"
The pinnacle of modern civilization: cola. He had not even laid eyes on one in nearly ten years. Just thinking of that sweet liquid that stung the throat made an unbearable thirst well up.
"I do."
"Then I'll take that, please."
Instead of the coffee pot, Lee Ki-seok opened the fridge beside it.
"Zero, if you have it."
He burst out laughing at Yujin's words and pulled out a can of Coke Zero.
"You know your stuff."
"Cola has to be Zero."
"Of course."
As if Yujin had grown on him, Lee Ki-seok handed over the cola with a smile.
Looks like the tension's eased a bit.
At an expression different from the stiff one a moment earlier, Yujin nodded and cracked the can open. The hiss of carbonation escaping had never sounded so comforting. Unable to hold back, he took a big gulp.
"Ahhh—!"
His throat burned. Having gone so long without it, the stimulus was intense. Yujin frowned and took a few more sips before setting the can down.
"You look like someone drinking cola for the first time."
"Not the first time, but it's been a while."
He answered nonchalantly to Lee Ki-seok's puzzled remark.
"If you're done, let's start talking. Who are you? Ah—I'm not asking for your name."
He had already heard that. Yujin roughly chose his opening line. Honestly, conversation with words rather than the body was not a field he was confident in. But conversation was all about momentum. Recalling a phrase he had once seen online, Yujin opened his mouth.
"A player."
"…A player?"
"When that damn Tower appeared, some people disappeared, right?"
Not one or two—over twenty thousand of them. You could not fail to know. Lee Ki-seok himself was researching the correlation between the Tower and the missing people, was he not?
"Where do you think all those missing people went?"
It took him only an instant to arrive at the answer.
"You mean they're inside that Tower?"
"Ding ding ding. There are about twenty thousand in there. Well, a lot fewer by now, probably. Anyway, we call them players."
Lee Ki-seok closed his mouth. It was not something he had never anticipated. The hypothesis that the missing people might be in the Tower had been raised steadily for some time. He simply had not had a way to prove it. But now someone claiming to be a missing person—no, a player—had appeared.
Lee Ki-seok calmed his racing heart and carefully asked,
"What exactly is that Tower?"
"Hmm…"
Yujin pondered for a moment. Defining the Tower of Light in a single phrase was not easy. Then the words that suddenly came to mind spilled out.
"A piece of shit? A son of a bitch? A fucking son of a bitch?"
Nothing but curses. Lee Ki-seok could roughly guess what kind of place the Tower was. If someone the soldiers could not catch even after opening fire was trembling with rage over it, that alone told him how dangerous and shitty it must be. But of course grasping precise and objective facts was impossible. So he asked again.
"Tell me in more detail. What's going on inside, and why were you the only one who could come back out?"
"Then I should start with this."
Yujin finished off the remaining cola, leaned back against the chair, and spoke.
"That Tower's name is the Tower of Light. It's a space made up of a hundred floors. Players are the people who climb it."
A hundred floors? That was high. But considering the size visible from the outside, it was strange that it was only a hundred floors.
Are the ceilings really tall?
That was how Lee Ki-seok thought of it.
"Inside there are monsters, people, animals, all that. Players have to hunt the monsters among them to climb higher. Well, there are some who hunt people too."
Lee Ki-seok's face hardened. Hunting people? Did that mean murder was frequent? Come to think of it, he had heard just a moment ago that the number of players had decreased a great deal. At the darker, heavier talk than expected, Lee Ki-seok straightened his posture.
"Why climb the Tower? It looks like someone is forcing it."
"That's right."
Yujin nodded.
"Strictly speaking it's not forced, but it's as good as forced."
"What do you mean by that?"
"If we don't climb the Tower, the world is destroyed."
Lee Ki-seok could not say a word.
Park Ji-hoo walked slowly.
He could feel people's gazes. The reason was obviously his appearance. He was not so stupid that he did not know that. But Park Ji-hoo did not particularly care about their stares. It had always been that way. Even before entering that terrifying Tower, Park Ji-hoo had received those looks from people.
Contempt, disdain, disgust, and pity.
Gazes so familiar they had become everyday. So there was no reason to care about them now of all times.
With shuffling steps, Park Ji-hoo kept walking. How long had he walked? The gaudy neon signs and bustling crowds had vanished without a trace, and a filthy, dirty alleyway was revealed.
His chest grew heavy. Under a crushing pressure that made it hard to breathe, his pace gradually slowed.
Maybe…
The Tower would be better. The thought made Park Ji-hoo startle. No matter how shitty reality was, could it compare to the Tower? That place was literal hell itself.
Park Ji-hoo let out a sigh and kept walking in one direction. The place he stopped was in front of an old iron door with the paint completely peeled off.
His house. The house where his little sister would be waiting. And the house where those damn pests lived. The inside of that iron door was a space filled with love and hate for Park Ji-hoo.
As he stood in front of it for a moment, hesitating—
"Go die outside, you bastard!"
"What? Has this bitch lost her mind!"
Rough curses too coarse to call affectionate rang out.
Nothing's changed.
A month. Maybe more. Even though he had disappeared, they had not changed. They probably had not even tried to look for him. Maybe they had even thought it was for the best. Things were hard enough, and one less mouth to feed.
That fact was painfully bitter. Even so, they were his parents.
Park Ji-hoo pressed his lips tight and reached out a hand.
Creeeeak—.
The rusted hinges screamed. At the same time, the curses that had been loud enough to wake the neighborhood stopped.
"…I'm home."
Inside the Tower, he had agonized over it countless times. If he went outside. If he returned home. If he met his parents. What should he say? There had been several candidates. But what ultimately came out of Park Ji-hoo's mouth was just the same ordinary words as always.
"You, you!"
The human he had called Dad pointed a finger at him with eyes wide.
"What face does a runaway brat have to come back here with!"
Exactly the reaction he had expected.
"Ji-hoo!"
Mom was the same. Park Ji-hoo lifted his head, looked at the two of them, and slowly opened his mouth.
"Where's Si-yeon?"
Not a particularly special question. But the two's reactions were off. He would not have noticed before, but now it was clear. Their pupils were trembling finely.
Something happened!
Feeling an inexplicable anxiety, Park Ji-hoo asked once more.
"I said, where is Si-yeon?"