Coincidences Sometimes Happen (1)
50,000 TP, gate opening….
I had no idea where to even begin thinking about it.
If I used the Star Gate, it would connect me to the other person’s location.
That had to be the literal meaning. Unlike the temporary space of the Star Lounge, it probably meant I could travel directly to the other person’s tower.
“……”
Two-way travel allowed. If either side moves twice, the gate collapses.
Even the description made it sound like, unlike the Star Lounge, there wasn’t any time limit.
The condition that one side moved twice meant that, as long as neither of us returned to our original space, we could stay there forever.
Adjustment based on number of uses exists. Applied individually to each target.
Of course, even if the gate closed, I could just open it again….
Either way, it was clear now that I could cross between spaces.
“……Star Gate.”
I let out a short, disbelieving laugh at the familiar name, familiar in more ways than one.
At this point, it really means….
It meant my theory was right.
This incomprehensible tower that held all the gallery members captive forced every one of us to climb endlessly on our own power.
No one knew why. No one knew for what purpose. And yet, we kept climbing for hundreds, thousands of years just to survive.
We can’t even speak to one another about the truth of the tower… about the anomalies.
It wouldn’t even let us help one another with the climb.
It had gone so far as to make sure everyone lived their entire life alone.
“But the Starlink isn’t affected by the tower.”
No, it was more than that. It blatantly denied the tower’s influence head-on.
We could talk about anomalies.
And naturally, we could talk about strategies for specific floors too.
We could even meet other people, while the tower’s only means of communication was now unusable in the Lounge.
If you think about it, the Wiki and Starpang also weaken the tower’s control.
So did the Starwiki, which practically handed you strategies and information about the tower for free.
So did the Starpang, which let you supply an endless number of items that didn’t come from the tower itself.
In a way, they were both things that stepped far outside the tower’s influence, just like the Starlink.
Is simply obtaining an Irregular enough to trigger all this?
Of course, the Irregular was the only way out of this place.
Compared to losing an item at that level—something that could let you escape safely—abilities like these were probably worth it.
If someone asked, “Do you want to escape safely, or take a new power and keep gambling with your life here?” then, obviously, the first option was the better deal.
Though I guessed there were people who might choose the latter….
“This is... something else.”
Because I was caught in this meaningless anomaly, I couldn’t bring myself to feel pure joy over the new ability.
It felt like something was hidden beneath it, something I couldn’t quite grasp, and that made my skin itch.
I’ll have to talk to Sage’s Stone about this later.
For now, I needed to think about how I’d gather 50,000 TP in the first place—and whether I’d actually be able to use it once I had it.
Ping-!
I swallowed when I saw the new message notification from Jutak.
I wasn’t sure why I swallowed.
I just, somehow, did it without thinking.
What kind of photo was it?
It was the first picture I’d received since that day. The first view of the Jutak since I’d faced her hologram—
Clench.
I snorted.
“...Cute.”
Yeah, looks really did carry everything.
If a hairy monkey or some middle-aged guy had done that, I would’ve wanted to punch them.
Just the fact that a beautiful girl was smiling because of me made me feel good.
If I could get a photo for 300 TP, it was a perfectly worthwhile investment.
Unfortunately, her chest wasn’t visible.
Save.
Click.
I saved Jutak’s photo right away, then sent a reply.
I told her my honest impression—that she was cute—and, checking to make sure the [Star Gate] notification had appeared, I asked her about it.
So no description pops up.
I hadn’t known that. I hadn’t asked, and Jutak hadn’t said anything about it either.
I had already confirmed through Star Voice that the other side could use the function too. Of course, I hadn’t accepted anything; I’d only checked whether it was possible.
Was she really that lonely?
Well, I supposed that made sense. Even just spending two or three months here left you hungry for human noise; fifteen hundred years would be another matter entirely.
I told her the truth in plain, simple terms.
There was no reason to hide it, and anyway, if I was going to test the ability, the first person would absolutely be Jutak.
Though if she herself refused, that would change things a little….
Ping-!
Ping-ping-ping-!
“Heh heh….”
Three messages in a row, sent in such a panic that they came flying out one after another, followed by an apology once she realized what had happened.
We’d only exchanged a few words, but TP had already dropped by an absurd amount again. Still, I didn’t really care.
I was enjoying this too, and honestly, pretending I wasn’t getting some very strange, very pleasant feeling out of it would’ve been a lie.
It wasn’t even something I could describe exactly... just that it felt like a kind of joy I’d never experienced before in my life.
[Current TP: 13,401]
“Haaah.”
My goal now was to gather 50,000 TP.
I couldn’t possibly spend nothing while saving up 50,000 TP, so realistically I’d probably need to earn more like 55,000.
I kind of wish another Behemoth would show up, honestly.
To be frank, rather than grinding the tower floor by floor, it felt easier to just go for one huge payoff.
Besides, I wasn’t going to die anyway.
I still had plenty of time before the Doom Timer became an issue, so if I was going to die and wake up again a few times, I wanted to make it count and earn everything at once.
If I can’t earn it all at once….
If I pushed all the way to the 70th floor and added that to the TP I already had, I’d probably come out a little over 50,000.
Honestly, I still had a hunger for more power, so even if I reached 50,000, I wasn’t sure whether I’d actually spend it.
I would eventually need to use [Star Gate] since I had to test the function, but with the rate I was earning TP now, it felt like too much was tied up in it for me to just spend casually.
Well, something will work out somehow.
There were plenty of items in Starpang that cost tens or even hundreds of millions.
Even the Irregular’s price was still unknown.
If the number of regressions kept increasing, TP income would naturally rise too.
Or there would be some other way to earn it.
……The worst-case scenario is that I end up saving for decades to buy one thing.
For now, all I could do was hope that future wasn’t the one waiting for me.
Swish—
After sending Sage’s Stone a long message, I stretched lightly.
Honestly, today’s tower climb was basically over, but for some reason I wanted to go higher just a little more.
Probably because I’ve got a goal now.
Whether the person I met was Jutak or not, the fact remained that I could meet someone in this tower. That alone was shocking enough.
Sure, I could meet people through the Star Lounge, but that was a temporary space with a hard five-minute limit. This was clearly different.
According to Jutak, I wouldn’t even be able to use a terminal, so my phone probably wouldn’t have worked either.
It was nothing like the Star Lounge, which didn’t even have a way to verify who was who.
If I showed the gallery that I could private-message someone, Infinite Gallery would probably lose its mind….
Whether it was private chat or Star Gate, it looked like I’d better keep this hidden for now.
Ping-!
Yeah, Jutak’s probably going off to climb the tower now too.
The post she’d just put up would probably be the daily report she made every morning after waking up.
“Dating, huh….”
I gave a crooked smile as I read the comments on Jutak’s post.
I didn’t know whether she actually had those kinds of feelings.
And, of course, I had no intention of asking. I didn’t have the nerve for it anyway.
I wasn’t really interested in that sort of thing to begin with.
My fear of women itself had almost completely disappeared, I thought... but I still remembered, vividly, the image of someone sobbing from exhaustion after being forced into those kinds of acts.
Well... maybe it’d be different if it wasn’t forced...
Besides, I couldn’t even be sure whether Jutak felt that way about me, so it was really no more than useless speculation.
...For now.
I snickered at everyone’s reactions and kept walking.
After all, they’d never know that I’d met Jutak, talked with her one-on-one, and even called her directly.
It would be a stretch to make wild guesses from a few comments exchanged in the gallery.
Sorry, but Jutak is already in my hands.
At this point, Infinite Gallery was basically already mine.
If I casually dropped a word, wouldn’t they end up banning people for me too?
“Heh heh….”
I was already looking forward to the day I could reveal all these secrets.
Just thinking about how much the gallery would change once everyone found out I could open gates made me laugh. It was enough to make me grin at the coming chaos already.
Ping-!
Ping-!