If the Tower Never Falls
Then there was only one answer.
For a moment, I found myself at a loss for words at the scene beyond the door.
What in the world is this...?
Because it was impossible that this was a place where any human being could actually live.
It was too dark, too filthy. Everything was worn down to nothing. Traces of makeshift repairs were scattered everywhere — windows patched over with tape and plastic sheeting, a couch and chairs that wouldn't have looked out of place at a curbside for trash pickup. There was no way a person could live here.
Good god. This is where the protagonist lives? The S-Class rank one? Has everyone lost their minds?
Even in the original novel, there had never been a passage that described the protagonist's home in any detail. The story opens with betrayal in the prologue, then ten years of confinement inside a rift, and by the time he returned, the place was gone. It wasn't an important part of the story anyway, so as a reader I'd never questioned it — I'd just felt a passing pang of sympathy and moved on.
But confronted with the reality before my eyes, I was staggered.
"Is this government out of its mind? And Seo Yeram, that woman — what the hell is wrong with her head...?"
What if the protagonist hadn't been so saintly that people called him a pushover? Even I couldn't wrap my head around living under such outrageous conditions. The protagonist had the power to bend the world to his will — literally the strongest being in the setting. And yet he lived in poverty like this, and had supposedly gone about his life here without complaint. I couldn't stop the chill crawling up my spine.
That lunatic...!
Glancing at the filthy kitchen sink, I saw dishes from this morning's breakfast, left unwashed. A half-eaten pack of ramyun sat abandoned nearby. Now that the "impoverished protagonist" setting had materialized right in front of me, the whole house seemed saturated with malice — as if every detail had been designed to humiliate him.
This is the protagonist's reality? He just silently endured a life this unjust?
It was a truth I couldn't bring myself to believe. All the stress and the headache I'd been carrying up to this point came crashing down on me at once.
"Ugh... urrghh—!!"
I dropped to my knees on the floor and vomited. I simply couldn't hold it down. On top of everything already weighing on me, revulsion and nausea came flooding in.
Insane, all of them! This country, Seo Yeram, that bastard protagonist — they're all completely insane!
They had deceived and manipulated that monster of a protagonist, knowing full well that if he ever put his mind to it, he could turn them all to blood mist. When I'd been reading the original, I hadn't questioned it much. The story had to keep moving, so I'd just assumed it was some tacked-on bit of backstory. But now that it stood before my own eyes — a reader's eyes — the disgust was unbearable. Even the most good-natured pushover alive has his limits. I couldn't believe he had actually accepted this reality and lived in a place this filthy and degrading.
"Hhk...!"
Pull yourself together. Let the shock wash through and out. Right now, anything would do — I needed to find a clue. Reining in my fraying mind, I forced myself to move.
Mold and water stains climbed the walls and ceiling; the wooden floor had rotted through in places, holes gaping open. Just looking at it made my brow knot. By the time I reached what I assumed was the protagonist's bedroom, I was covering my nose and mouth with my hand — the old, filthy bed was no place anyone could sleep.
There were no decorations to speak of. Not a single photograph on the walls.
I knew the protagonist was written as an orphan, but whether he'd had family from the start, why he'd ended up alone — the original had never so much as dangled a hint about any of it. Even in his interior monologues, it felt like the author had deliberately steered clear of the subject.
...Damn it all.
Having to reverse-engineer the original author's intentions in a dump like this — what a joke. It wasn't as if I'd ever read the novel memorizing details like that. There were stretches where I only skimmed the dialogue and moved on. During the slow, boring parts, I'd skimmed outright.
What the hell am I supposed to do here?!
No clue revealed itself anywhere. This place was nothing but a garbage heap. As much pity as I might feel for the protagonist who had once lived in this miserable hovel, my own situation was more urgent. I wanted out of this world — the sooner the better — and back to the one I'd come from.
"The least you could do is give me some kind of clue!"
I shouted at the malice I couldn't see. But no one in this place heard my voice. There was nothing but the sound of my own breathing.
"Hk!"
A grim thought flashed through my head. What if possessing this body was the author's intent — and everything that unfolded from here on was meant to be watched by me, as a mere reader, nothing more? If the purpose had already been fulfilled, there might be no room left for me to intervene at all. In other words, everything had ended the moment I was transmigrated. All I had to do was live on in this world — in the protagonist's body. And if that was the goal of whoever had done this to me, then the very absence of a clue might itself be the answer.
"...Ha... hahaha... hahahaha!"
I laughed without meaning to. Honestly, I felt like I was losing my mind. This was South Korea — but not the world I had lived in. Once the prologue ended and the Tower collapsed, the world would be hit by the rift crisis, that most clichéd of hunter-novel disasters. The real story, the true story, only began there.
And what threatened to drive me to despair was this: even if I personally resolved every one of those catastrophes, the implication was that I would still remain in this world.
"Ha..."
The laughter died. Hollowed out, I sank down onto the filthy floor. My gaze drifted to the ceiling — blotched black with stains and mold, a shattered fluorescent light hanging from it. The moment calm returned, I voiced my thoughts with cold clarity.
"What happens if the Tower never falls?"
In the original's prologue, after the protagonist defeated the final floor's boss, the Tower collapsed on its own. Not long after, the rift crisis erupted. Because of it, the world grew more precarious than it had ever been while the Tower stood, and everyone was forced to painfully adapt to a new order.
Clearly, if the Tower didn't fall, there was a chance the rift crisis might never happen either.
It's not like that boss could be beaten by anyone but the protagonist anyway.
Despite his shabby appearance, the final floor boss's true identity was revealed much later: a hero from another world who had failed to save his own. His lack of even a holy sword or armor was a product of his guilt — a self-imposed penance for having failed. In the novel's later arc, it's revealed that the Tower was something like a failsafe. Astonishingly, it had been a keystone of protection, shielding this world from the apocalypse known as the rifts. Humanity, however, had seen it only as a threat, and set about smashing and conquering it.
Since the prologue took place at the very top of the Tower, that lore didn't come out until much later — but in hindsight, the "threat" the world so feared was judged dangerous only because it had appeared without warning and monsters lived inside it. In fact, there had never been a single recorded instance of the Tower's monsters emerging into the outside world. That was precisely why reporters and crowds had been able to gather at Gwanghwamun in the prologue at all.
...What if I just don't bring the boss down?
The most likely outcome: the status quo held. Or perhaps something else would change entirely. If there was no clue to be found here, then only one path remained — to dam the flow before it ever reached the original story, confirm what changed, and seize a clue from the difference.
"Then there really is only one answer."
As my tangled thoughts settled into place, I settled on a plan for what came next. First, I had to prepare for the fallout. Geobhwa would soon come crawling out of that raid, fleeced and gutted.
The final floor boss's purpose, after all, was born of goodwill — he couldn't save his own world, so he would protect others in its place. Even if the price had turned him into a mute automaton, a puppet that repelled intruders on command. He never bothered to chase down those who fled. That was exactly why Geobhwa had been able to retreat at all, even after being slaughtered in the early prologue.
The gears of the original setting clicked together in my head like a puzzle. Which left only one thing for me to do now.
I'll have to disappear for a while.
The surviving members of Geobhwa would inevitably pin everything on me. The S-Class rank one who joined the raid, refused to help, and abandoned his team at will — his desertion, they'd say, was what doomed the whole operation. It gave them a tidy chance to cover their own weakness and disgrace. They might even conspire to bury just how strong the boss was. Their pride, at least, was worthy of their S-Class rank.
Of course, that was speculation on my part; I could be wrong. The situation had already diverged completely from the original. Perhaps Seo Yeram would move to take responsibility herself, having grasped the protagonist's usefulness. But there was no chance in hell Cha Yujin would let this opportunity slip. That woman had always brimmed with hostility toward the protagonist, forever believing that if only she weren't a healer, that seat would have been hers.
Setting aside what was likely to come, I needed to think about what followed.
Ultimately, the problem is Seo Yeram.
She was the only person alive who knew the protagonist inside and out — and the one I least wanted to face. She was the most likely to develop an obsession with me.
She knows the protagonist's strength better than anyone. If word spreads that I brought down the boss, she'll move to shore up Geobhwa's standing all over again.
She was not a woman to abandon her dreams because of a single defeat. And in time, once the truth of the raid came fully to light, the government and the Hunter Association would start hunting for me too. Not that I'd be in any real danger — worst case, I could simply kill whoever came after me. Which was exactly why I wanted to avoid killing if I could. Some resolve might be necessary, of course.
As for how long I'd stay hidden — until my body properly ran out of brakes.
With a deadline set, I pushed myself up off the floor. A plan made is a plan that demands movement. Right now. This instant.