Wanted: Unemployed Entities!

Back from a lovely vacation, I returned to the basement—only to find this waiting for me.

What the hell is that?

"A gift box?"

A gift box, sitting right there on the Breakroom table?

The wrapping was neat, too. Who sent it?

Had someone come by while I was gone?

Wait a second!

Wasn't the Breakroom supposed to be accessible ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only to me?!

If just anybody can waltz in, that's a problem. A little privacy for my personal space, please.

"Oh. So it was a gift from the Tower? Thank you! Thanks! Arigato!"

A gift from the Tower? Now that I could get behind.

I was probably the only person who'd ever received something this direct from the Tower itself.

"Ooooh...?"

A jumpsuit?

Wear this and I can go anywhere in the Tower?

For real?

So I could just stroll into the deeper basement floors—or even the aboveground levels?

"Hell yes! Let's go check it out right now!"

I could even walk into unexplored zones humanity hadn't been allowed into yet.

Before I did, though, I figured I should hop onto the Babel Tower Gallery and check the current Tower-climbing progress...

As this arrogant, self-satisfied American's post made clear, the highest anyone had climbed so far was America—and America had only just reached Floor 60 a month ago.

Everything above that was unknown territory.

Floor 60 itself was supposedly an entire vast ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠world. Meaning nobody had any idea what things looked like higher up.

"So how many floors is the top, anyway?"

Everyone guessed a hundred. But was the Tower of Trials really only a hundred floors?

Was there nothing above that?

"...Huh?"

Experience the top floor?

No—how many floors even was the top floor?

And what was with that reward.

Constellation Community?

Seven bottles of Almond Water meant I could work Popo for seven whole years, so I definitely wanted it—but the warning was terrifying!

My mind might collapse?!

No, wait. I've got the Mental Filter!

That's right. I had an insanely overpowered Mental Filter!

So what was there to be scared of?

Thus, courage thoroughly misplaced, I thought of the top floor and opened the Breakroom door—

SLAM!

"Hah... hah... W-what the hell... was that just now...?"

Holy crap. What did I even see.

If I'd closed the door half a second later, my ego would've been eaten alive.

My head was a scrambled mess—memories and points of view that weren't mine flooding in—and I felt like I was going to throw up. My stomach was in free fall.

Okay. Going forward, we do not go above Floor 100...

"Hontou shinu to omotta."

(I thought I was really going to die.)

?????

"Aaaagh, shit! I thought my language patch glitched out..!"

Japanese just came out of nowhere!

Scared the absolute hell out of me.

My brain had been stirred into such a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nice little mush that I nearly started spewing Latin and Hebrew I'd never even learned... No—I still felt like I could use them.

Uh. I think I just mastered every language on Earth.

Did some new ability just get added?

Time to check the st?atus! win★dow....

"Ooooh! It really did add a new ability!"

A Million Languages, no less.

That must be why I could suddenly speak every language under the sun.

But... why did it feel like my human percentage had dropped even further.

Maybe I was imagining it...

Seven bottles of Almond Water!

Seven years of Popo-unnie enslavement, unlocked!

And some Constellation Community Access Rights I didn't understand?

What even was that.

"....Ah."

A new window popped open in front of me.

It felt a lot like the Babel Tower Gallery—a community board of some kind.

Except for one key difference...

Every single user of the Starry Gallery was a Constellation!

Beings who sponsored the climbers who followed them—Incarnations—handing out help and rewards.

Insane. Even the Constellations had a gallery now?

Then again, once you became a Constellation, you'd already achieved everything there was to achieve. With nothing better to do, maybe mentoring junior humans and shitposting was just how they spent their time.

"Let's see here. Wow... people really are the same everywhere.."

It was a surprisingly human gallery, all things considered.

I spent a few hours rubbernecking at how Constellations lived their lives—and then I found a post I absolutely could not ignore....

No! Even the Constellations were itching to come after me!

What the hell! Was I some kind of superstar inside and outside the Tower?

And what was this about invading the Tower Basement.

These guys—this was WWE, right?

Not UFC, right?

"Whaaat!?"

This was full-on UFC!

They were genuinely murderous!

W-what do I do now?

Should I just hide in the Breakroom?

"Ooooh...?"

An Almond Water vending machine?

Plus Quest Issuance Rights?

And the warning: hire unemployed Entities as bodyguards.

So... dump a bunch of jobless Entities on Basement Floor 1 and run defense?

"So, about that. Would you maybe be able to head up to Floor 1..."

"Ah... Manager. I'm truly sorry, but... I can't leave Floor -2. Whatever shall we do..?"

"Ahh..."

I'd asked the Salaryman, but all I got was an apology...

Figures. You couldn't just reassign an Entity already officially employed by the Tower to a different floor.

Right—if you thought about it, the Salaryman and the Librarian Entity were basically like floor masters.

Existing NPCs were a no-go.

I needed Entities who were genuinely unemployed, free to move between floors.

Like Popo-unnie, for instance—Entities who'd been straight-up fired and kicked out of the basement...

So did that mean I had to go looking for bodyguard candidates outside the Tower?

Hold on. How many vacation days did I have left?

Barely two! Find two of them in forty-eight hours!?

No, wait. I already had Popo, so I only needed one more!

"Yeah. With Popo around.. it might actually be possible..?"

If I failed, I'd lose the basement!

I needed to burn through my vacation before the Constellations started sending minions down.

What, exactly, is a Constellation?

Those who cast off their mortal flesh and ascended!

A kind of immortal, bound to the Tower in exchange for commensurate rewards and status.

That was a Constellation.

The truth was, becoming a Constellation was fun at first—but given enough time, it became crushingly boring.

With the fear of death gone and no limit on lifespan, they sank into endless ennui across infinite years.

The old saying that becoming a Constellation was torture? Completely true.

In the end, worn down by that emptiness and boredom, Constellations found their amusement in helping—or tormenting—those who climbed the Tower.

In short: for Constellations, interacting with Tower climbers was one of the few remaining sources of dopamine!

"And yet! A mere human dares to snatch away my entertainment!? My child is dead! The one who's angry is me, Basement Manager!"

Constellation: Frozen Heart.

A Constellation with fifteen Incarnations under her wing.

Staring at the corpse of a cherished Incarnation who'd died so pointlessly, she poured out her rage.

It was like a gamer whose account had been unfairly deleted!

"I will never forgive this."

And she wasn't the only one furious.

Multiple Constellations simultaneously sent quests to the Incarnations they were raising!

The simultaneous basement-raid alerts from the Constellations triggered an explosive response among the many rankers and hunters who were already nursing grievances against the basement.

Meanwhile, the Basement Manager Cheonwoo—who of course had no idea any of this was happening—

"Oh my! Miss, that jumpsuit is so stylish!"

"Hehe. Thank you. But, Popo."

"Yes! Go ahead! I'm listening, Miss."

"Do you know any Entities? Unemployed ones, preferably.."

"Entities I know?"

"Yeah. I need to hire one more Entity in a hurry."

"Oh my. There is one who comes to mind.. though she's a rather eccentric friend..."

"That's fine! I've got plenty of Almond Water!"

Ji Cheonwoo gave a sly little flash of the bag stuffed full of Almond Water.

To Entities who'd been fired and cast out of the basement, Almond Water was pure life-water itself.

No matter how eccentric the personality, there was no way they'd refuse.

"Kyaaah!? M-Miss.. no, Master..! W-what is all this. One bottle, two bottles, three bottles.. oh my."

"Well?"

"We leave at once!"

Ji Cheonwoo took Popo's hand and wove through dark alleyways in search of Entities—

and soon, what appeared before the two of them was....

"Am I... pretty?"

An Entity wearing a red mask.