Welcome, First Time in the Basement?

One day, without warning, towers erupted across the entire world.

Pitch-black, mysterious towers.

The so-called Tower of Trials.

Only chosen humans could enter them. Step inside once and come back out, and you walked away with a whole package deal — status window, climber community access, skills, levels, the works.

You could even pick your challenge difficulty on the way in, or so I'd heard. Clear it on the easiest setting and you'd still never have to worry about putting food on the table. Study your ass off for a hundred years and you'd still make less than a D-rank hunter.

"Man. I wanna go into the Tower."

"There you go again. Stop with the weird daydreams and just study. We said we'd take the civil service exam together."

"Hyeji, what studying? Become a hunter and you're set for life."

"Exactly — which is why you're never becoming one, so study. You've gotta be smart and athletic just to get an invite, remember?"

"Aaaah..."

Yeah. My friend Jihye was right.

Becoming a hunter would've been amazing. But there was zero chance of that happening. Still — a guy was allowed to dream, wasn't he?

Imagining myself picking some mid-tier trial, slapping on a D-rank badge, and coasting through life on easy mode? That was fine. Just get chosen by the Tower and your whole life blooms overnight.

Sit at a desk grinding forever and you still end up worse off than a D-rank hunter. Civil servant salary? Hunters make that picking their noses. I wanted to make money picking my nose. I wanted to be one of those precious talents the whole country gasped at just for breathing, the kind the entire world paid attention to.

"Ugh..."

"What now?"

"I don't... wanna study."

"Then just go home."

"Maybe I should try streaming."

"Who's gonna watch your stream?"

"My friend Jihye will."

"Are you insane?"

Yeah. My friend Jihye was right again. Who the hell was going to watch some mid-to-late-twenties guy stream?

"Whatever. Let's just go eat dinner."

"Okay. I'm hungry and sad."

"Aigoo, Ji Cheonwoo. Seriously! Stop with the depressed face already."

"I don't wanna stud— wait, huh?"

"Wha—!? Hey! Cheonwoo! Your— your body...!!"

The moment my friend Jihye and I headed for the convenience store to grab a quick bite, the world in front of me went blurry. Space itself twisted.

"Hey! Cheonwooooo—"

Jihye's voice stretched out longer and longer until it sounded like a broken tape. At the same time my vision swam, and my body lifted into the air.

Thud—!

"Ugh..."

When my sight and hearing snapped back to normal, I was sitting alone on the floor of a pitch-dark corridor.

Where the hell am I?

What just happened? I got invited to the Tower and then immediately banished? If you're going to invite someone, at least treat them like a guest! Why throw me out all of a sudden? This wasn't even a chew-and-spit situation. Did the Tower even do rejections like this?

More importantly — where did I land? This wasn't my house, and it sure as hell wasn't the street I'd been walking down with Jihye. I'd never seen this place in my life.

If you're going to banish someone, at least drop them back where you found them. Why dump me in some creepy, terrifying, completely random dump like this?

"Hello? Anybody there? Excuse me? Wait, what the fuck is wrong with my voice!?"

It was all high and reedy, like a little kid's.

Hold on. Wait a second.

".....????????"

Three million question marks detonated inside my skull.

How the hell had my big, solid, heavy hands turned into these soft, squishy, sticky-rice baby hands?

".....Hweh. What is this. Why is this happening. No. No, my... my Extreme Dark Strong Fortress, where did it go!?"

Gone. Completely gone. Not a single hair left — razored clean. So smooth, so polished, so silky that my head started spinning.

My dense thicket. My Extreme Dark Strong Fortress. My two golden orbs.

Where did they all go. Who took them!!!!

"Ah...."

Blank despair. After every last escape route from reality had burned out, I slammed face-first into an inconvenient truth.

I had become a woman.

Same gender as my friend Hyeji. The exact moment virginity flipped from male to female, I despaired from the bottom of my soul.

"....."

I had no idea what that meant, but apparently I'd been given a "Sta?tus!Win★dow." Not a status window. A Sta?tus!Win★dow.

"Status window..."

Ding!

An ear-grating chime, and the window opened. It looked nothing like the ones I'd seen on YouTube.

Hold on. Ninety-nine percent human? Where did the other one percent go?

I had never heard of a status window this completely unhinged. The ones I knew looked more like this:

That was the clean, rigid format the public knew. So why was my level negative one? And writing "you're useless" under Ability like some kind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of joke — what was that supposed to be?

"This is... weird."

I'd wanted to enter the Tower, get a status window, and become a hunter. This was going in a completely different direction. No — this was a full one-eighty from everything I'd imagined.

"So what am I supposed to do now? Hello!? Let me out of here!"

What was I supposed to do? From what I'd heard, the Tower handed out trials on its own. No — before that, you got to set the difficulty. Four total, supposedly:

Easy, Normal, Hard, Hell.

Pick Hell and you could die on the first floor. Unless you were ridiculously confident, everyone said to just go Normal. Obviously ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠going to pick Easy. With a body that had turned into a little kid's, anything harder than Easy was a straight death sentence.

"....?????"

Disaster? Did you just say Disaster???

Why was Disaster showing up out of nowhere? Was Disaster even harder than Hell? What the hell was this. How many more hooks did the universe need to sink into me before it was satisfied?

My brain had already melted trying to keep up with the situation, but—

Ding!

Running away is recommended?

Running away from what? The information was way too limited. While I stood there frozen, trying to figure out how to move in a situation this vague, a human voice drifted in from behind me.

"Cheonwoo. Ji Cheonwoo. It's me."

"J-Jihye!? Wait — Jihye! You came too!"

"Yeah. It's me. Lee Jihye. Your friend."

A friend's voice, in a place where no friend's voice should ever be. The sudden thought that maybe the owner of that voice wasn't Jihye at all sent goosebumps racing over every inch of my skin.

"Are you... really Jihye?"

"Yeah. It's me. Your friend Jihye, right here. Cheonwoo. It's me, me. Your friend Jihye is right here."

"Cheonwoo. It's me. Cheonwoo's friend. It's me, me. Jihye's friend, Cheonwoo. It's me. Me."

"It's me. Cheonwoo. Me. Lee Jihye. Friend. Cheonwoo."

It kept spitting out the same words over and over like a glitch. And bit by bit, the voice stopped being my friend Jihye's and warped into something else entirely — something grotesque.

Uncanny valley.

Every hair on my body stood on end as I stumbled backward.

"I am Cheonwoo. I'm going to become one with Cheonwoo."

"You're insane..!!! Get away! That's fucking disgusting! Fuck!!!"

A faceless black mass shoved open a door at the far end of the corridor and came for me.

"Fuck fuck fuck..!!!"

I'd only caught a glimpse, but its face was getting sharper — like it was copying mine...

I had to run. If it caught me, death would be the best outcome.

"Shit..!"

I sucked in a breath and sprinted down the dark corridor like a madwoman. No time to look at the scenery — pure survival instinct. I ran, smashed anything in my way, flung open every door I could find, hunting for an escape.

—Cheonwooooooo. Don't gooooo! Come heeeeere! Let's become—!!! one—!!!!!!

I ran without looking back until I tasted blood in my mouth, and somehow managed to put a little distance between myself and that unidentified freak of a monster.

"Hah. Hah. Hah. Shit. Disaster difficulty is way too hard.. hnnngh.."

That thing wouldn't stop until it caught me and ate me. This insane space stretched on forever. Until I found an exit, I was stuck playing tag with that monster. No rest. No sleep. Nothing to eat or drink. How long could I last in here?

I couldn't. I wouldn't last a single day.

So while I still had the strength and stamina to run, I had to find the exit. This was a timed challenge!!!!

It said move to the next level. How?

I had no idea. I'd been running for over two hours already, and every stretch of scenery looked identical. Featureless corridor after corridor. Open a door, more corridor. Just fucking corridors.

"Why is the difficulty like this! Help! Help! Help me! Please!"

Where was I supposed to go. Where the hell was I supposed to go.

I wandered. I ran toward wherever the monster's voice wasn't, ran some more, got a cramp in my leg, collapsed and cried, then got up and ran again.

"The exit.. I have to find the exit. I have to get to the next level. I have to keep running...."

I'd sweated too much. My throat had gone past dry — it was cracked and hoarse. My body was already circling the drain, and I still hadn't found a way out.

What am I missing. What the hell am I missing.

Was there a clue in the quest window? No. Just "go to the next level," nothing else...

"Next level.. next floor... Down. Do I have to go down?"

While fleeing, I'd spotted holes so deep their bottoms vanished into nothing. And at last I arrived in a vast chamber punched through with dozens of them — as if fate itself had led me here. As if it had shown the holes to someone who needed to reach the next level.

There was no exit. No path leading up either. So maybe I had to go down?

There's a limit to how far a joke can go.. Jump down there? That's just suicide!!!!

These holes were the only way to another floor. The whole place was built on a horizontal plane — and only these openings cut vertically. If I jumped...

Maybe I could reach the floor below.

An abyss with no bottom in sight. Could I even survive the fall?

"Cheonwoo... found youuuu.. come heeeeere.. let's... become oneeeee!"

"Shit..! Get lost, you damn bitch!"

I roared and flung myself into the hole.

"Cheonwoo!!!! Come heeeeere!!! Don't gooooo!!! Let's do something fun together!!!!"

"Fuck off!"

The freakish thing's scream as it lunged for me. I kept falling.

Thud!

"Ghk...!"

After what felt like forever, my body floated, and I landed somewhere completely different from before.

Ding!

"...Huh."

Along with the survival message, the rewards materialized — a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠glass bottle filled with some unknown liquid, and a sheet of paper labeled Manager Application Form.

I had reached Level -2.

In other words, Basement Floor 2.

I had fallen into the second basement floor of the Tower.