All Climbers Are Equal
All climbers are equal!
And you went and gave me a power like this!
Tower Daddy! Is it you again?!
You could just straight-up boost the rewards by fifty percent?
Or grant a blessing to Hyeji, who's been properly farming the Tower solo-style?
Or how about a fifty percent experience boost?
Ohh, I'd love to look down my nose at all those climbers desperately kicking and squirming, aching to get stronger!
Though honestly, safety first might be the better call.
A Tower where no one ever dies... my, aren't I just overflowing with mercy? I might even gain fans.
So which one should I pick?
Not that it matters — any choice is an absolute jackpot.
Even if I just slapped down a random option, the Babel Gallery would immediately launch into a twenty-four-hour nonstop chorus of praise, riiiight?
I'm already feeling my brain turn to mush just savoring the thought of reading those worship posts.
"Now that things have come to this, why not hold a little vote?"
I'd run an official poll on the Babel Gallery.
I mean, I'm not even climbing the Tower myself.
I'm just the person who sits in the break room and taps buttons to hand out buffs, after all.
Shouldn't the people actually going up be the ones to choose?
Ahh, Manager of the Basement.
Consulting public opinion even over a temporary buff.
What a magnanimous decision this is.
Look, if your nicknames come with matching SLAVE tags from the start, what do you expect, being treated like slaves...
Besides, getting kicked and rolled around like a dumpster is just part of daily life for a shitpost-gallery mod!
Acknowledge reality and accept it!
That's the difference between me — the only true aristocrat of the Babel Gallery, wielding the sacred art of burner-account clone jutsu — and you poor punching bags.
The poll function is something like a mod-exclusive ability that even I can't use on the Babel Gallery.
A lurker and serial burner-account operator like me simply cannot open polls.
Our dear owner, LifelongSlave No. 1, banned me more than anyone else, but at least his tone was reasonably polite.
But No. 2, a mere sub-mod, threatens me with bans?
Isn't this a direct challenge to my authority?
If this is how it's going to be, I refuse to hold back any longer.
Good. A prompt apology shows respect.
They folded instantly, so I'll let it slide this once.
Keep poking at me and I'd have burned the whole gallery down!
I passed the poll options along to my newly-mannered sub-mod.
The staff will handle running the vote on their own, won't they?
In that case, shall I nap for a bit and check the results later?
I still have things left to do, but I'm tired, so sleep it is!
A peaceful weekday dawn.
The kind of hour when any sane Korean should be fast asleep.
And yet, a phone call began ringing on Kang Haesol's phone.
Riiiiing—!
"Ugh... who calls at this hour?"
The caller was none other than Park Seongho, Director of the Tower Administration Bureau.
Kang Haesol silently cursed out the lunatic of a director who dared dial the emergency contact line in the dead of night.
"Hello...? Director?"
"H-Haesol! Right now! Check the Babel Gallery right now!"
"Excuse me...? Now? Do you know what time it is..."
"That's not the point! They say something enormous just got posted on the Babel Gallery!"
Just how massive and momentous would a post have to be for the Director to call at this hour?
She wouldn't have answered anyone below director rank at all, which meant he'd known that — and deliberately woken himself up to make the call.
"What on earth is all the fuss about..."
Could it be news-of-Noah-Johnson's-death-level huge?
Kang Haesol rubbed the sleep from her eyes and opened the Babel Gallery.
Wanting to get a read on the atmosphere, she tapped open a post that had racked up quite a few comments, and there it was.
"What is any of this???"
Kang Haesol couldn't make heads or tails of talk about how voting 1 was "politically correct," how #2 pickers were "heartless," or how "picking 3 makes you a fence-sitting rage-quitter."
After scrolling for a very long time, she finally dug up the announcement post where the sub-mod had been promoting the vote.
"So this post is the culprit."
"Safety First, One Big Score, Growth Incentives?"
Kang Haesol read through all three options carefully.
Prioritize safety?
Grab one massive haul while the getting's good?
Or encourage individual growth?
"Haesol. Have you gotten a grasp on the situation?"
"Yes, roughly. Which one are we supposed to pick, sir?"
"Number 3. It has to be 3."
"Number 3?"
"That's right! As you well know, we've already got the infrastructure and the national support in place. What we've always lacked was talent. So this is our chance — we vote 3 and push your levels and Lee Hyeji's as high as they'll go."
Such was the plan of Director Park Seongho, who, ever since his encounter with the Entity, had permanently equipped the patriotism mindset and become a devoted lover of the Basement.
Korea's hunter-related infrastructure was passable enough, but it was a nation chronically short on the talent needed to climb the Tower.
Then the Basement Manager's minions appeared — and suddenly the country could openly, shamelessly reap the benefits.
So the Director's thinking was simple: use the experience buff to back the growth of Kang Haesol and Lee Hyeji as the spearheads of the main hunter strike team for Tower conquest.
Meanwhile, in China, the nation holding the most hunters of all...
"Number 2. Absolutely. We must vote 2."
Once China's proudest hunter —
until the Manager of the Basement stripped him of his Grimoire and his world ranking crashed a full fifteen places — the Communist Party member and seeker Shen Zhao.
He argued forcefully before the assembled Chinese hunters that everyone must vote for option 2.
The reasoning was plain enough from the post he'd written.
Japan, China, and the ten great Tower-advanced nations were, by and large, trying to vote for option 2, "One Big Score."
These were nations that had already climbed past the 50th floor.
They had no reason whatsoever to pick "Safety First" and lay down a stepping stone for the other Tower-conquering nations to surge up past them.
Hence they aimed for "One Big Score," which would explosively increase the resources produced on the floors they'd already cleared.
For preserving the established interests, 2 was the optimal choice.
"Number 2, without exception. Every people's climber must stand with us in spirit."
An urgent official directive came down to all hunters of the People's Republic of China.
Vote for 2, One Big Score, and obstruct the Tower climbs of the weaker nations.
Yet even among the Tower-advanced nations, there was one country arguing hard for option 1.
An astonishing spectacle: Tower-advanced and Tower-backward climbers tangled together in a single roaring debate.
The small pebble tossed by the Manager of the Basement had set the Babel Gallery ablaze!
The whole world had been thrown into chaos by the Tower policy vote now generating shockwaves of unprecedented scale.
Even hunters who'd retired from active duty were being shaken awake and herded to the polls.
And while all of these events raced forward at breakneck, ruthless speed —
the Manager of the Basement lay on the improvised bed set up in the break room, sleeping like a log.
"Mmmnyaah. Haaahaaam."
How embarrassing, truly.
I handed the poll over to the mods, and then went and slept like an absolute pig.
Quite a lot of time has passed, hasn't it.
Shall we check the results?
"What the heck. Why are the Chinese and Japanese ratios on option 2 so high?"
Examining the vote records through the voyeur function's Observer-grade clearance —
oh my, I can see who voted for what?
I'd naturally assumed everyone would pick 1 and cruise up the Tower, but apparently not, hmm?
Why? Why aren't the advanced nations picking 1 to speed up their Tower conquest?
I don't get it. I truly, completely do not understand these people's psychology.
Let's take a closer look at why the advanced-nation hunters were so obsessed with option 2, shall we?
"Hmmm. What is WRONG with these people? Sinister. Absolutely sinister!"
Reading the vote-rallying posts written by those who'd thrown their ballots at option 2, I understood at once.
A gathering of people who'd rather kick the ladder down than climb quickly!
Fiends who crave your failure more than they desire their own success...
THAT is the true face of everyone voting 2!
Look at this one, already celebrating victory!
The option-2 voters are getting far too smug.
"You absolute scumbags! ARGH, all of you, get out!"
Option 2, boasting an overwhelming vote share.
This was the moment when everyone believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that 2 would be chosen.
But I don't want 2, you see.
And looking at the tally, Hyeji and Ms. Haesol both voted 3, hmm?
In that case, I too must vote 3.
Hyeji aside, Ms. Haesol must have had some kind of reasoning behind it — that's what my gut told me.
"Perhaps it's time for a little multi-tapping, for old times' sake."
I can't open a poll, but I certainly can cast votes.
Every burner account I've stockpiled until now — I hereby dump them all onto the ballot.
What's that? You say every voter cast one fair and equal vote?
Yes, indeed. All climbers are equal.
But the Manager of the Basement is a little more equal than the other climbers.
Please do keep that difference in mind.