Let's Go Conquer the Tower. (1)
Ah…!
The moment my eyes snapped back into focus as clear as they had ever been, I was greeted by a truly horrifying sight.
‘Hiiiek!! Why is there dog poop right THERE!!’
Less than 30cm from my face. Dog poop. Right there!!
‘That was close! If I'd tipped over just a little to the side, I would've landed face-first on top of it~!!’
"Koff, koff… Aigoo… where am I?"
Just then, I heard Grandmother Kim I-so's voice as she came to her senses.
Boing!
Thanks to the medicine that some mysterious Man A had faithfully administered at the cost of his entire life savings, I had recovered completely. I scrambled to my feet and darted over to Grandmother Kim I-so, throwing myself into her arms.
"Grammy~!"
"Aigoo, there's our little Ru-ri! Did you just come out of your bath? Why are you all soaked?"
Well, some nameless Man A got me soaked at the cost of his entire life savings, that's why.
Whoever he was, he'd gone to so much trouble for my sake. Should I perhaps make him Subordinate #3 as a special reward?
I turned my head to the side.
But Man A, whose face I never even saw, was already long gone. It seemed he'd vanished the moment he saw me up and moving around, lively as ever.
‘He donated his entire life savings and doesn't even ask for repayment, just walks away…?’
Every human I'd ever known had been selfish to the core, and yet?
Aside from the grandmothers, there were people capable of selfless acts in this world?
Frankly, it surprised me.
Was this Earth actually a place inhabited by people with warmer hearts than I'd assumed?
Just then, for the first time in my life, I heard the wailing sirens of ambulances and fire brigades approaching. The firefighters soon doused the fire scene with water, but by then, the grandmothers' two precious homes had already burned to the ground.
"Aigoo… it's all gone to ashes… and I hadn't even been cooking…."
"I even cleaned the power outlets thoroughly… where did I go wrong…?"
The grandmothers seemed to believe the fire had been their own fault.
Just then, I heard the firefighters murmuring to one another outside the fire scene, having discovered something.
"Again, huh."
"You think it's that arsonist's work?"
"We'll need a proper investigation to be sure, but odds are good."
Ha…?
What did they just say?
‘Arson?’
Someone set the fire?
And to the homes of my precious Subordinates #1 and #2, no less???
I hereby retract my previous statement. This Earth, it seems, does not consist solely of good humans.
Just as in my previous life, there appeared to be insects — no, creatures worse than insects — crawling about this place as well.
Before I conquered the world, humans committed every crime imaginable against other races as a matter of daily routine. Drunk on their human-supremacist ideology, they believed themselves entitled to do anything they wished to anyone who wasn't human.
That was how my family, my friends, and my own kin had all died at their hands.
Even after I came to rule the world, their crimes never stopped. Not for a single day.
‘So even here, there's trash like that, is there?’
In that case, it must be cleaned.
I would find them, and I would clean them up. Thoroughly.
For the first time since my reincarnation on Earth, I inscribed a death list in my heart.
A few days later.
A change came to my daily routine.
Now that the restrictions on my physical growth had vanished, I threw myself into strength training with renewed vigor.
Thirty squats.
Twenty push-ups.
Eighteen seconds for a 100-meter dash.
Height: 101cm.
Everything except my height had improved dramatically — though admittedly, that just meant I'd reached the level of a particularly athletic kid.
Thanks to the Hero's Curse, I would never grow any taller, doomed to live out my days as a squishy little munchkin in this exact appearance….
But everything else about me could now grow.
"Time to go visit the hospital!"
For the sake of building my endurance, I set off at a light jog, marathon-style, all the way to the hospital.
Granted, I had to stop and walk several times along the way, but if I kept it up, my stamina was bound to improve.
‘Besides, I don't have a single coin for the bus anyway.’
The only reason I, penniless as I am, had managed to survive the past year by secretly camping out in the mountains was entirely thanks to the grandmothers feeding me for free. If anyone discovered a small child living alone, I'd be hauled off to who-knows-where and put under someone's control, so I'd gone to great pains to stay hidden.
Still, clothing turned out to be surprisingly easy to come by, thanks to those wonderful things called clothing donation bins. That's the only reason I'd been able to change into fresh clothes after everything I owned burned up last time.
What was a little inconvenient now was that I couldn't browse the internet as often. The grandmothers let me play with their smartphones, you see — that's how I'd been keeping up with the online world.
At first, fumbling with the smartphones had been bewildering.
But perhaps thanks to a child's remarkable powers of absorption, I adapted to this world's civilization and its gadgets in no time at all.
"Oh my, coming to visit your grandmas again today?"
"Yep."
When I arrived at the hospital, one of the nurses I saw often greeted me and patted my head.
I'd gotten used to this too, after a whole year of the grandmothers petting my head every single day.
I boarded that fascinating contraption called an elevator, pressed a number, and made my way to the grandmothers' hospital room.
"Aigoo~ there's the little missy again today~."
"Come here, sweetie, try some of this."
The moment I entered the ward, the aunties and grandmothers welcomed me as always.
Honestly~!
I will never understand why humans are so fragile.
Watching everyone lying there groaning and wheezing….
"Sweetie, why are you crying?"
I was NOT crying!
Stuffing my mouth with the snacks the aunties and grandmothers kept pressing on me, I made my way over to where Grandmothers Han Yeosa and Kim I-so lay.
"Grammy, when are you gonna be all better?"
"Ho ho ho, finish everything in your mouth first, Ru-ri sweetie, then you can ask~."
"With our precious girl coming to visit us so faithfully, these old grannies will be up on our feet in no time."
Truth be told, Grandmothers Han Yeosa and Kim I-so were in far from good condition.
The problem was all that bad smoke they'd inhaled — the nurses said they were both showing signs of pneumonia.
And pneumonia in elderly women of their advanced age was… a disease that hovered dangerously close to death.
‘On top of that, their houses burned down — the homes that were their whole lives. That has to weigh terribly on them.’
Their own parents were hospitalized, and yet their children hadn't even come to visit.
‘Maybe they just haven't contacted them because they don't want to be a burden…’
Chewing methodically on the snack in my mouth, I gazed out the window at the Tower.
According to what I'd learned on the internet, the inside of that tower was an entirely different world. A realm governed by physics unlike our own, bound by its own unique rules — or so they said.
‘Defeat the anomalies inside, or clear the urban legends, and you receive random rewards. The higher you climb, the higher the probability of good drops — nothing more.’
Which meant that with enough luck, even the lowest floors could cough up expensive items at some slim, lottery-like chance.
Exactly like a lottery ticket, in fact.
‘That's why so many people register as hunters and challenge the Tower. If luck is on your side, you can win the jackpot on the relatively safe lower floors, score an incredible item, and get rich.’
There were apparently two main paths to an item jackpot. The first: pulling something good from the random rewards granted for defeating anomalies or clearing urban legends.
The second: the Urban Legend Shop, a system that refreshed every day with a different list for each individual, where lucky hunters could buy valuable items for dirt-cheap points.
‘Some lucky soul apparently managed to snag an item worth a hundred million won for a single point. A single point!’
Which is exactly what I'm aiming for!!
I'd march into the Tower, work hard to collect items and points, and get rich!
‘And then I can build the grandmothers a brand-new house.’
Mental well-being is important, after all.
If I want to build them a home where they can rest easy, then I simply must gather a mountain of money!
"Grammy, lend me your smartphone."
"Oh my, Ru-ri sweetie, here you go~."
Thank goodness the grandmothers' smartphones had been in their pockets on the day of the arson. If those had burned up too, everything — paying the hospital bills, proving their identities, contacting people — would have become a hopeless tangle.
Sitting snugly between the two grandmothers as they stroked my hair, I searched diligently for everything I'd need to climb the Tower.
"Heh heh~ the day has finally come!"
Standing before the enormous Tower, I thrust my utterly flat chest out proudly.
It was my personal power pose, meant to radiate confidence — though to everyone else, it apparently read as nothing more than a cute toddler's adorable antics.
"Aww, so cute~"
"Man, I remember when I was that age."
"Hey kiddo, want a snack?"
Passersby showered me with snacks as they walked by.
Being turned into a squishy little munchkin by the Hero's Curse had exactly one advantage — and this was it.
My adorable appearance was what had kept me from going hungry for the past year!
Merely by existing in front of people, humans would hand over food of their own accord~!
Munch, munch, munch.
Mouth stuffed to the brim with snacks as always, I headed for the Tower.
I have to grow up big and strong, after all, so I've got to eat every single thing I can get my hands on!
True, the Hero's Curse supposedly locked my appearance forever… but you never know, right?
Just like how, when the curse's terms changed last time, all my accumulated growth applied at once.
Maybe one day the curse will change again, and my body will shoot up by every centimeter of everything I've eaten since!
‘But… where am I supposed to go??’
I'd researched everything so carefully online, but now that I was actually here, I felt completely lost. The place was just too vast and too crowded — nothing looked like where it was supposed to be!
"Kiddo, did you lose your mommy?"
As I glanced around, one of the people watching me spoke up.
"I don't have a mommy?"
"Eh…?"
At my answer, the woman who'd approached me began to break out in a cold sweat.
"A-are you looking for your daddy…?"
"I don't have a daddy either? They all died a long time ago."
Sssssshhhhhriiiiink─!!!
Even more cold sweat poured down the woman's face.
What's wrong with her?
Is she feeling sick somewhere?
Eyes trembling as if an earthquake had struck her very pupils, the woman panicked spectacularly, rifled frantically through her bag, and pulled out a chocolate bar. Then she pressed it into my hand and, struggling desperately to keep a smile on her face, asked again.
"Wh-who… no, I mean… wh-what brings you here, looking around like that?"
Munch, munch, munch.
I popped the gifted chocolate bar straight into my mouth and answered.
"I'm looking for the registration desk. I want to register as a hunter."
FREEZE!!!
At that single sentence, every adult passing by came to a dead halt all at once — and simultaneously turned to stare at me.
What…?
Why is everyone gaping at me like that?