I Came to Help You

After successfully crawling the NetTower community, the first thing I asked Yuna was for background knowledge about this world.

“So this is like a memoir or something?”

A memoir written by someone after the Tower appeared. It seemed like a good way to understand what kind of world this was.

The content was longer than I expected.

Wait a second…

“Hold on.”

“One-line summary.”

AI is for summarizing, after all.

“Damn, this thing’s got its head on straight.”

“…Yeah, this is definitely a Tower-climbing story.”

The world I had entered was exactly that kind of place.

“It’s warm.”

After Doloris spoke those words, the room seemed to fall into silence. Ruby was asleep on the bed, snoring softly. I stood in front of her. Doloris stared down at her own hand, unmoving. Several seconds passed—longer than I expected. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. All I could do was hope that the glowing mark on the wrist would guide me.

Water trickled from inside the glove. Elysia von Doloris found the sensation unfamiliar. Warmth. What kind of feeling had that been? Doloris recalled the past. Elysia von Doloris had entered the Tower alongside her six sworn sisters. Their climb had been faster than any other team, and people called them the Apostles of Dawn. That was also when the title of high ranker began to follow them.

Then one day…

“……”

Doloris realized her body was breaking down. The congenital Nine Yin Severed Meridians, the curse of the Doloris family. A disease in which the nine mana meridians froze over one by one. Countless generations had tried every elixir and treatment that existed, yet none could cure it—only slow its progress. She had never imagined it would happen to her. But the family curse had bound her all the same. While her sworn sisters opened their Upper Dantians one after another, only she remained stuck in place. The Upper Dantian was a door that would not open for those whose meridians were blocked.

She sought out every healer in the Tower. She did the same outside it. The last one she visited was the Great Sage Gorgogne. He crafted the white gloves for her. Along with equipment gathered from countless places, that was the best—and the only—solution she had obtained. The disease could be halted, but that was all. Over time, her fingertips grew numb… and so did her toes. Eventually, there were days when her own body no longer felt like hers.

‘This is as far as I go.’

In the end, she stopped climbing and left her sworn sisters behind. The ancestors of the Doloris family would have secured an heir through marriage in such a situation. That was their way. But she chose instead to raise a disciple connected not by blood, but by heart—so the curse would not continue. She did not want to pass on this pain.

Time passed. Numb days blurred together. That day, too, had seemed like an ordinary choice. Just a child with good eyes—nothing more, nothing less. She had simply wanted her disciple to find companions to climb the Tower with, so she picked the boy who looked like he had sharp vision. It had not been a grand decision. Yet now, that very boy had given her gloves.

Water seeped between the gloves. The ice was melting. It was warm.

‘Warm?’

What kind of feeling had that been? Doloris knew her own body’s condition better than anyone after suffering from the disease for so long. Were her meridians melting? Were the severed meridians opening? How was that possible? Moreover, this mark was the sun engraving of the Sun Dwarves. Not the mark of an ordinary blacksmith, but one earned only by elite artisans who had passed harsh trials. She knew better than anyone that equipment crafted by the elite blacksmiths of the Sun Dwarves was something she had always desired. It simply could not be obtained just by wanting it.

‘Descendant of Fire…’

That was what they were called. In all her life, Doloris had seen that engraving only twice. Once on armor bestowed upon one of her sworn sisters by the imperial family. The second time on the Genesis Sword sold at the 125th-floor auction. And now, a third time—on gloves crafted by this child. The shape of the engraving was slightly different, but that was not an issue; the previous two had also differed from each other.

‘…A third time.’

An engraving that even a high ranker like her had seen only a handful of times now adorned gloves made by an orphanage boy. If it had been a fake, it would have been simple—she could have dismissed it and moved on. The problem was that it felt real. It was absurd, but these gloves were clearly, slowly undoing the effects of the Nine Yin Severed Meridians, something even the Great Sage Gorgogne could only halt. No fake could do that.

Doloris looked down at her hand again, then slowly raised her head.

“Can you explain this?”

She had no choice but to ask.

What? What was there to explain? There was nothing to explain. I made them, and Teacher put them on. Win-win, right? She looked a little surprised, though.

— Drip.

Seeing the water droplet fall from between the gloves, it seemed something had definitely happened. If it had gone wrong, I would already be dead.

“Explain.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

So Doloris was asking how I had made these. I needed to answer.

‘…I’m actually a Sun Dwarf.’

That would be difficult to say. But given the circumstances, Doloris seemed capable of distinguishing truth from lies. She had always emphasized one thing to me: ‘Speak only the truth.’ So I needed words that were true yet could resolve the situation. Squeeze it out, Kim Yujin—no, Lionel. You can do it.

“…I have learned the metallurgy of the Sun Dwarves. The Descendant of Fire.”

I deliberately emphasized the words “Descendant of Fire.” This was not a lie. I had read their manual, studied the leatherworking section thoroughly, and produced a result. Strictly speaking, it was not metallurgy, but some people used the term to refer to blacksmithing in general. The answer did not need to be precise, but I wanted to minimize room for rebuttal.

Doloris’s eyebrows twitched slightly.

“Where did you learn it?”

“From a book.”

“What book?”

A brief silence.

“A Sun Dwarf text.”

Every time I answered, Doloris’s eyebrows twitched. It was all true, so from her perspective, it made no sense. How could a country bumpkin orphan have read a book written by dwarves who lived in the Tower? And not just any book—the Descendant of Fire.

“…Hah.”

Here, I wanted to give her trust. What was trust, anyway? Trust was an illusion. I recalled an old memory. A game I used to play as a child. After saving up a fortune of 100 million, I went to the market to become happy that day. And I met that person.

‘I am the person who came to help you.’

Looking back, it was not a very trustworthy statement, but I had believed it back then—and my 100 million had vanished into thin air. Now, I could use those same words. Why? Because Doloris could tell when I was lying. And this time, it was true.

I raised my head.

“I am the person who came to help you, Lady Doloris.”

My will to help was genuine. Even if the motive was ultimately to save myself, that was beside the point.

“……”

Doloris gazed into my eyes once more, as if weighing the truth… then slowly sat back down in her chair.

“Sit.”

She offered me a seat. I did not know what that meant, but I wanted to believe it was a good sign. I sat down and waited quietly. Doloris slowly opened her mouth.

“Ten million gold.”

“……”

“The winning bid for the Genesis Sword at the auction the other day. Crafted by a Descendant of Fire.”

I did not know the exchange rate, but it was clearly an extraordinary amount.

“That is not the end of it. There may have been an off-the-books transaction as well. The 125th-floor auction house has always been quite opaque.”

“I see.”

I did not understand.

“To put it in perspective…”

Doloris paused, as if choosing an appropriate comparison.

“It is equivalent to roughly half a year’s budget for a duchy. Including insurance.”

“……”

“Or about one year’s expedition budget for a top climbing party in the past.”

Wow. She had kindly given two examples, but without knowing the exchange rate, it did not really sink in. Then—

A hundred billion? One… one… one hundred billion? In other words, enough to subscribe to my little sister for 333,000 months… I started to go blank at the sudden figure.

‘What the hell is the Genesis Sword?’

What was this? It was so cool. And romantic, too. I should have done something like this. Compared to my “For Eric, Eric,” it was endlessly embarrassing. Next time, I should engrave something more serious.

While I was marveling at the text that clearly carried a different weight, I came to my senses and found Doloris staring straight at me.

“Of course, these gloves will not fetch the same price as the Genesis Sword.”

I had not expected them to. If I thought that after seeing this, I would be a scoundrel. Doloris continued slowly.

“But a finished sword is sold once and that is the end of it. On the other hand…”

Her fingertips lightly brushed the gray sun engraving on the gloves.

“The person who crafted them can make anything again.”

Doloris slowly removed the gloves, as if they were precious. Her attitude was completely different from before. Her hands, now free of the gloves, were warm and melted. Soft, fluffy fingers. The backs of her hands had a faint pink hue. Anyone could see they were the hands of a noble young lady. But the moment the gloves left her hands, her fingertips began to turn pale. Frost spread across the backs of her hands, and within five seconds, a thin layer of ice had crept up to her wrists.

“……”

Doloris looked down at her hand for a moment, then frowned.

— Tap.

She placed the gloves neatly on the table.

“I must go to the Tower for a while.”

“Yes?”

“I will take them to the verification office. To confirm whether they are truly made by a Descendant of Fire.”

“…Understood.”

Honestly, I was confident about the verification. After all, the status window had already said so. Doloris put the removed gloves into what looked like a luxurious pouch, then called out to me as if she had just remembered something.

“Ah, and Lionel.”

“Yes.”

“What was our promise?”

Our promise. I had to find a way to surprise Doloris within a week. It just could not be magic.

“I was supposed to… surprise you.”

This counts as passing, right? I definitely surprised her.

“Even if,”

Doloris paused for a moment.

“the verification results show that these gloves are not made by a Descendant of Fire, it does not matter.”

“…Yes?”

“The promise has already been kept.”

She smiled. It was the first time I had seen her smile.

“I was very surprised.”

Apparently so.

“So there is no need to be too scared.”

It seemed I had succeeded.