How to Obtain a Tower Passport

"It worked!"

"Waaaaah!"

Clara let out a cheer, sounding even happier than I was.

I tried moving my right leg at once.

It bent!

Until now, the most I had managed was a feeble wiggle of my toes. And yet my right leg had bent. I straightened it again.

It straightened!

Whoa! I can't believe it actually does what I want!

Watching that right leg bend and straighten at my command, I could hardly hold the joy in. One year in a coma, and eight months in a wheelchair after I woke — long, if you called it long, and short, if you called it short. Honestly, I had thought I was losing my mind.

"Thank you. Really — thank you so much, Clara!"

"Leave it to this wife!"

Ha! Clara, bright as ever, pulled a laugh right out of me.

Granting a wish by offering up the sensation of a body I had already lost. Under any ordinary circumstances, offering that much would not have come close. Someone who had wanted to regenerate a right pinky had been told to give up something on the order of a left arm.

The privilege of being first to clear the fifth floor was, it was safe to say, enormous.

Of course... even this might be exactly what the System window wants.

Quite a few people had chosen it anyway — offering something up, even on the fifteenth floor, where a second wish could be made.

Keep climbing the Tower long enough and you snap, from what I hear. I'll have to be careful.

I had no interest in drugs whatsoever, and I had never so much as put a cigarette to my lips.

Well... I had tried alcohol exactly once.

The first night I ever went to a bar, I got into an accident and ended up in a wheelchair... so drinking doesn't even cross my mind anymore.

Anyway, unlike before, I could feel strength gathering in my right leg.

"Clara, could you hold my hand?"

She squeezed tight.

She seemed just as eager as I was, and she hauled me straight up onto my feet. That I could stand under my own power with only this much help was almost too much to take. It felt wonderful. I had to try walking.

"Shall we hop?"

Thump. I crumpled.

?

I had gone down like some pitiful young noblewoman.

"Ah!?"

Clara rushed over in alarm, caught me, and pulled me up — and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, gathered me into a princess carry.

"You are all right, yes?"

"...Yes. All the muscle must have wasted away. My leg just didn't have the strength."

So I would be easier for her to hold, I looped my arms around Clara's neck.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The System window had been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠floating beside us the whole time. I selected No once again, and we returned home.

Click. At the sound of the door opening and shutting, Mom looked our way and spoke.

"Suho, I hear they went wild over the clear rankings again today. You worked hard, my boy. And Clara, you did wonderfully too! Hohohoho."

Mom seemed to enjoy the way people lost their minds every time I set a new clear record. Even the non-Awakened could view the System Gallery. But she couldn't mean the actual gallery. That place was off-limits. It was crawling with weirdos.

Mom... you're not looking at anything strange, are you? Your son believes in you.

It was probably just some tame little community cafe, the kind the trolls hadn't overrun. Yeah. Sure.

"Mom."

"Hm? Don't tell me..."

"Let me say this first. I didn't offer anything. And... Clara?"

I held my hand out toward Clara.

With her supporting me, I caught the wheelchair's armrest in my other hand and pushed. It was a struggle. Even so, I rose on nothing but my own strength.

Not once since my legs had been ruined had I managed it. It was the thing I had dreamed of from the moment I woke out of the coma — refusing to despair, thinking of nothing but the fifth-floor wish. Today, at last, that dream came true.

"I only fixed the right leg. With some rehab, I should be able to stand comfortably on one foot."

"Su-Suho..."

Mom's eyes were already brimming.

"Truly, you didn't offer anything? You didn't give up lifespan, did you?"

"Yeah! For real. For real. You already know, right? I was first to clear the fifth floor. A world first. Thanks to that, there was nothing I had to offer for the wish."

In truth I had offered the sensation in my left leg, which hadn't been there to begin with, but it amounted to the same thing.

"Ah... I'm really, truly relieved."

"I'm telling you, this is all thanks to Clara."

Mom pulled me into her arms and wept, thanking Clara over and over.

"This wife has earned so many daughter-in-law points!"

That day, the moment Dad heard the news, he took a half-day off and came straight home. Both hands were loaded with shopping bags.

No, Dad — I told you, not those clothes!

Every last one was a frilly princess dress, same as last time. Where in the world did they even sell things like this?

The truth was, I knew. Quite a few shops had opened that dealt only in clothing for otherworlders. The other world was a modern civilization that nonetheless still had social classes, and its people liked the sorts of clothes old nobles used to wear.

Well, since it had come to this, I might as well photograph the bags. I snapped shot after shot of the shopping bags, every one of them crowded with logos popular among otherworlders. Already I was looking forward to the ways I might bait the gallery with them.

So this was the fun of hiding my strength?

In the presidential residence, a report had come in on a single hunter who had seized every eye in the country in the space of five days.

The holder of a private clear record. Han Suho.

"Once again, it is the private summoner, and a single summon."

"Yes. He has cleared the fifth floor — a world first. That private summoner. As you know, everyone else spent a full fifty minutes to clear the fifth floor... but a clear of 77 seconds ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠has come in under the private summoner's name."

"There has still been no contact at all, correct?"

"Yes. There have been those who sent in their summons' status windows... but as Chairman, I can state this with certainty. The gallery has produced every sort of speculation, and none of it is correct. A Level 9 elephant beastkin, a lion beastkin — none of them could clear the fifth floor alone. Not in 77 seconds."

Even turning it over in his own mind, it was absurd. And what was the reason? Why insist on 7, of all numbers?

"Hmm... 7, and 7 again... If he is this fixated on the number, there must be a reason, wouldn't you say? Chairman, do you have any guess?"

"On the gallery, they say he is asking for 7 trillion—"

"No. What do you think, Chairman? Do you believe it is 7 trillion?"

"Th-that is... Even I can only speculate..."

"7 trillion is difficult. The summon is secondary. The goal is to bring the summoner himself to the Association. Spare no means, and no method."

"In that case, one method has occurred to me."

The Chairman passed the President a report in which he had set down the benefits he had been considering, and spoke.

"How would this be, Mr. President?"

The President looked over the Chairman's report and, for a moment, was at a loss for words.

"Ahem... No. Or might it actually be well received? These are all feasible. Proceed exactly as written. You have handled matters well until now. I trust you, Chairman."

"Yes. Thank you for your trust. Then I will announce the benefits as finalized, in this form. Officially, it will be a statement that we are already providing them. In reality, he has not been receiving the benefits — and now he will be placed in the position of someone who does. If he has even the slightest wish to keep his identity hidden, it may be enough to turn him."

...7 trillion? 77.7 billion?

Was this because I had cleared it in seven seconds? Ah. I should have cleared it in eight.

I forced the excitement down and looked over the Association's announcement, thinking it through.

What a summoner usually asked for with the fifth-floor wish was a Tower Passport. I had wished to heal my right leg, so I hadn't been able to obtain one.

A Tower Passport — an item that let otherworlders raise their level inside the Tower.

Koreans could enter only Korea's Tower. Otherworlders followed the country of the summoner who had called them. They were allowed to enter the Tower, but a summon's level did not rise. The item that made it possible was the passport.

The cost of offering a wish to obtain a passport was one year of lifespan. The price was about a hundred million won.

If I sold the gaudy bracelet I had received as a reward for clearing the third floor, I could buy one and still have money to spare...

They're throwing money around like this. Should I try making contact with the Association?

"Clara, mind if I open your status window?"

I went into the gallery on the System window.

The Association tab...

Among more gallery tabs than I could count, I found the Association tab and went in.

Was this the right person?

I found the status-window post the Chairman had uploaded. Level 1. Kim Jeongdeuk. The Chairman's own name — a post he had put up himself, for verification.

I ignored that, tapped the nickname Chairman, and sent a message.

I attached a screenshot as well. Clara's, of course.

Only Level 5, but if they look at the stats and the skills, they'll know I'm the private summoner, right?

It was the System window's gallery, so something like a doctored image was impossible. Stats at values that could never appear at Level 5. If they so much as tapped Prayer, they would be stunned. She was a Mid-level Ability User, after all — something that simply could not exist at Level 5.

Ding!

Not even five minutes had passed before the request arrived — he wanted to sell a passport worth a hundred million won for a single lowest-grade mana stone fragment worth ten thousand.