Chapter 13
Chapter 13
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: The Lowest Place in the Tower
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“No, I hate it.”
What could she possibly hate so much every single time?
Hearing that listless, negative voice about everything made it sink in that I was in the right place.
I truly felt like I had entered the Abyss, located at the very edge of the Tower.
I'd expected nothing at all, but surprisingly, a perfectly ordinary world stretched out before me.
“What's so hateful about it?”
“Everything. This boring place, this dull and tedious moment, and me just lounging around with nothing to do.”
“Hating it all, word for word.”
“I keep my word.”
She wore a hat covered in black mesh and gazed up at the sky.
A sky filled with pitch-black clouds, impossible to see through.
It was just like her—impenetrable.
Come to think of it, the outside was just as unknowable as the inside.
Any glimpse of skin shattered like mosaic pixels.
Even the landscape resembled her, all draped in shades of gray. A world rendered in just black and white.
A realm expressed only in light and shadow, deep but lacking vibrancy.
It felt like a frozen world, unmoving. As if I'd stepped into a black-and-white photograph capturing a single moment from the past.
The only thing with color here was me.
“It's so dreary and dark, isn't it? The perfect spot to catch depression. Right?”
“Why make it like this?”
“No choice. This is how I see the world. Those who can't see colors can't paint them either.”
The Abyss said that as she rose from her seat.
She brushed lightly at her rear and took the lead, walking ahead.
“Follow me. Stick around here too long, and you'll get eaten.”
“Eaten?”
Instead of answering, she pointed a finger behind me.
The empty air rippled, and something burst out.
Its white, soft fur draped like clothing. The long strands hanging down resembled bird wings.
The neatly groomed, orderly fur without a tangle only added to the eeriness.
Its face was shrouded in something like a white hood, hard to make out.
Its back was grotesquely crumpled, with a birdcage embedded right into it.
Chains protruded from inside the cage, binding its body in various places.
The limbs hidden beneath the fur were bizarrely long, jointed in three segments. It crouched like a frog, blankly staring into the void.
Then, as if catching a scent, it lifted its head and slowly advanced.
It moved its long arms to pull itself along the ground, its legs scuttling like a spider's.
Wild and animalistic, yet somehow not quite animal at all.
Human-like in parts, animal in others—a monster, through and through.
“What is that thing?”
“A monster.”
“Did you make it?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
The Abyss shrugged as she spoke. Her usual evasive attitude, neither confirming nor denying.
“Let's go for now.”
She walked forward, extending the hand holding the birdcage ahead like a lantern illuminating the path.
The outer part of the birdcage actually glowed brightly, just like a lantern.
More importantly, why did she carry that birdcage everywhere?
I recalled her joking mention of the bluebird before.
How could she search for a bluebird if she couldn't see colors?
The image of the monster with the birdcage fused in its back overlapped with the Abyss holding hers now. Similar only in the cage itself.
Thud, thud. Our footsteps echoed loudly through the barren city.
They followed us like echoes bouncing off mountains.
The buildings around the Tower weren't tall. No apartments, of course—just structures two or three stories high at most.
In contrast, the outskirts beyond the Tower's influence—inside the Abyss—still held remnants of the past intact.
Cityscapes from before the fall.
Preserved exactly as remembered, like photographs commemorating those moments.
For a city that had faced ruin, it looked surprisingly peaceful.
No collapsed buildings, no vines or moss from years of neglect.
But that very stillness made it all the more eerie.
It felt like Atlantis sunk into the deep sea, the world shrouded in darkness as is.
A familiar landscape, yet an alien dissonance gnawed at me, clashing with memory.
No sounds in a city once filled with all kinds of noise.
Nothing moved, no sounds at all.
Like a machine that had stopped functioning, the city exhaled silence.
Streetlights dark, subway trains halted mid-track, not even flying insects buzzing.
The entire city seemed preserved like a specimen in a museum.
Stripped of life as if organs removed for taxidermy, the city lay in endless quiet.
Like a mummy, unrotted, enduring through the long ages.
“Over here.”
My steps had slowed as I took in the surroundings.
The Abyss, ahead in the distance, beckoned me with a wave.
As she entered the subway station, she called out.
“Creepy, right? That's what ruin is. Everything stops flowing.”
“An end can also mean a new beginning.”
“Exactly. The world cycles like that. So ruin isn't an end. It's stopping without even closure.”
Ruin doesn't mean conclusion. In novel terms, it's not a happy or bad ending—more like an unfinished serialization.
“Cruel.”
“Ruin has to be cruel. That's what makes it so desperate.”
Ruin isn't the end. The two similar yet different words filled my mind.
“We're here.”
Following the tracks led to a dark tunnel.
Stepping inside revealed a room overflowing with birdcages.
Above, beside, below—surrounded on all sides by birdcages.
The floor vanished, leaving a weightless state like zero gravity.
The Abyss advanced without a single flail, as if accustomed to it.
In stark contrast to me, desperately struggling not to sink.
“Eek! What is this?! Save me!!”
I kept sinking. Flailing like a drowning man, trying to rise.
“Don't panic. Stay calm. Think of it as layered floors.”
Following her advice, I calmly sorted my thoughts.
Imagining arbitrary layers and a floor beneath me.
Suddenly, I could stand effortlessly.
“You can't use your power when you panic.”
“Anyone might struggle when flustered.”
“True. Very human.”
“Mocking me?”
“A compliment. Not wearing away your humanity is good.”
Her unexpectedly serious tone left me awkwardly embarrassed.
She sat atop a pile of birdcages in the corner and tossed a question my way.
“So, what's your business here? You've never come before. And just days ago, you met the Tower too?”
“How do you know that?”
“Right now, I could crush the Tower just by clenching my fist?”
That wasn't a lie.
The Tower's domain had been steadily shrinking lately.
“Then why not? You said you could grab it with a squeeze.”
“Guess I've grown fond of it through all the fighting. Hate turns to affection, they say. And I'm the affectionate type?”
Coming from the least affectionate person, it was just funny.
“Hilarious. Tell me the real reason.”
“I asked first. Why are you here?”
She clamped her mouth shut, refusing to speak until I answered.
“You said you wanted to turn back time. I want to hear why.”
“Why? Didn't you refuse? Weren't you trembling in fear and chose to run again?”
Her tone dripped with mockery.
Propping her chin, she looked down at me with a sneer.
“I...”
“Kidding. Just a joke.”
“What?”
“'Joking' is fascinating. Say it, and poof—it's like it never happened.”
I couldn't grasp her intent.
“I asked why you want to turn back time. That's the answer. I want to call it a joke, make it never have happened. Erase what I've done.”
“Suddenly why?”
“To wipe it clean and write a new answer.”
Her gaze turned to the empty birdcages.
Rusted iron doors creaked open with eerie squeals.
“I realized how futile what I was chasing was.”
“Oh?”
“What I said earlier wasn't for you—it was for me. Afraid my answer was wrong. I didn't even grade it, let alone review. It leaves me uneasy. And I hate unease.”
She wavered. Not visible in the dark, but she was shaking all along.
Unable to find certainty, she kept hurling questions.
“I just need certainty. So I need to check once more. If I'm right, or if the Tower is.”
“Maybe we had too much time on our hands. Like a side effect from that.”
“What're you on about?”
“Time gained elasticity, and we gained inertia. Can't stop even if we want to. Not afraid of being wrong—afraid we already are.”
Not living seeing the future, but mired in the past.
Too much accumulated time, buried in it.
The Abyss's movements halted for a moment.
Like a rusted machine hearing the unexpected, she creaked back into motion.
“Not bad.”
“What's this? You can say more than just 'hate'?”
“R-Receiving empathy... feels better than I thought.”
She whipped her head away, muttering.
Was this the famous tsundere? More human than expected.
“Let's talk before turning back time. We can have a serious chat now, right?”
“Yeah? Kinda feels that way. Well, now at least.”
The Abyss lifted her hand, pulling back the black mesh covering her face, and spoke.
“It's polite to look someone in the eye when talking, right?”
I couldn't hide my disappointment at the revealed face.
“What?”
It slipped out from the unexpected result.
“You have a proper face?”
“Kinda off-putting, huh?”