Chapter 48
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Various Perspectives
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Tadak tadak.
In the small circular room, the sound of typing on the keyboard echoed just like any other day.
"Ugh, so tired."
The girl, her flowing hair secured with a headband, leaned her chair back and stood up from in front of the hologram windows filling the room.
Wooduck, uduk.
As the girl stretched, her stiff joints let out a scream.
Lately, the workload had been insane. Phase 2's rollout meant there were far too many things to revise.
Now things had stabilized somewhat, and there was still plenty of time before the next conqueror would awaken.
What was left could only be called a vacation of sorts.
"Being an admin is the worst!"
It was the first break since the Tower had appeared on Earth.
By now, she no longer felt any guilt no matter what happened. She had come to realize that all these tragedies were simply the natural order of things.
"...You've managed to live in this tiny room all this time."
With busy Tower management behind her, things she hadn't noticed before came into view. Even with time to rest now, she had no clue what she should do to unwind.
I know it too. This job is necessary.
In this massive gearwork, I am just a tiny cog, but even so, I exist.
Even if I can't resist it, does that mean I have to accept it blindly?
In a few years, another Tower will rise somewhere else, and the same routine will repeat.
Whether a new conqueror emerges in this dimension or not, my job doesn't change.
Somewhere in another dimension, another world, someone else must be tinkering with a Tower just like me.
Is it because I've done this job for so long? I feel like I'm stuck in a rut. Will it ever end?
At first, she had believed without a doubt, but now faith was lost. She would just repeat the same thing eternally, unchanged through eons.
Finishing her stretches, she sat back down lost in contemplation. Sitting like this felt more comfortable than lying down now.
"Gonna rest easy with no work for a while~!"
Language holds a truly mysterious power. The moment words leave your mouth, unknown elements of reality interlock like magic, manifesting into phenomena.
Just like right now.
Weeing weeing.
The emergency siren blared after such a long time.
Actually, it wasn't that rare—sirens had rung less than ten times since the Tower appeared.
But this was already the third on this particular Earth.
"Shiiit..."
Sometimes, entities with excessive power that threaten the entire system appear in a dimension.
This dimension's irregular was clearly a violent one.
Imagine finishing all your work, clocking out, only for the server to crash and force you into an all-nighter. How would that feel?
Of course, you'd be pissed. In her words, totally fucked.
"I just wrapped up and was taking a break!"
Despite her complaints, her actions were swift. What error had cropped up this time?
She hoped it was simple damage like before. Please, anything but reconstructing floors.
The first siren in this dimension had been a hole punched in the inner walls.
She halted all Tower functions before the interlayer dimensions could mix and rebuilt the inner walls.
The next was the death of a real NPC, not a generated one.
Unable to source a replacement mid-process, she gave up.
The last was a hole in the outer walls.
She managed repairs before the internal and external dimensions could merge.
Some lunatic was smashing the Tower like it was a demolition derby. Even knowing who it was, an admin couldn't intervene with climbers. Not until they became the conqueror.
This madman would end up conquering the Tower. No one like him had before.
But couldn't he climb normally? These weren't easy fixes.
The error she checked, laden with dread, was shocking.
All three previous errors had triggered simultaneously.
A fierce headache nearly floored her.
The 40th-floor NPC had died, and the launched attack pierced the inner walls, rising to obliterate the outer ones too.
"Th... th-this..."
She learned something new. When you're truly pissed, words fail.
Screw the laws of the universe and all that bullshit—she wanted out of this admin gig. What had she done to deserve this agony?
Immortal body, can't even die. No escape from fate. Just a small cog.
"But I have a sense of self, you fucker."
Despite the gripes, there was only one thing to do. Fix it herself.
She slowly drafted the inspection log.
In front of Etoile's small door.
The small door had grown into a large one—no, calling it a normal door felt more natural now.
He headed to the workshop to remake the eye he'd given the philosopher.
The mana crystals he'd gathered climbing the Tower so far were more than enough for a single eyeball. No issues there.
Moon Byul reflected on the words of the now-departed philosopher.
'This world is repeating. Except for one person.'
What did that mean?
On a one-dimensional level, it could mean some god-like being kept rewinding the world.
But why phrase it as excepting one 'person'?
Because it wasn't a god, but a person?
Impossible to know.
A person steadfastly marching forward amid the turning gears of time?
From that person's perspective, the world would be an infinite loop.
What of those living within the looped time? Their events would probably just be undone.
He knew of similar settings in genre fiction.
'Regressor.'
A world where a Tower sprouted in otherwise normal Seoul. Dismissing the idea of a regressor as impossible would be hasty.
If it truly was some divine entity, pondering it was pointless anyway.
Nothing he could do about a being that kept repeating the world.
Kang. Kang.
He thought while processing the mana crystal.
What if it was a person?
In a world doomed to destruction, a regressor's goal would naturally be to avert that doom.
The choices were abandon the loop or save the world.
So where would a regressor be right now, and what doing?
Sigh.
Probably pointless speculation. Either he couldn't do anything about it, or there was no way to find the regressor.
Moon Byul decided to return to basics.
What had he accomplished so far?
The 'door' was wide enough to send his true body out to Earth.
Time wandering outside without soul stabilization had greatly increased, and time stabilizing his soul in the grimoire had shrunk dramatically.
But it was meaningless now.
His body wasn't an organic one with flowing blood.
A form of light, stars, and darkness. Hardly human.
"Eyeball complete."
He gazed at the eye prototype made of mana crystal.
The eye in his hand was merely part of the dummy's clothing.
Having wandered outside, he knew for sure.
He couldn't exist on Earth without the dummy.
No—correction: he couldn't exist as a 'human'.
The soul's binding tethered him to the grimoire, but even without it, he couldn't leave 'Etoile'.
Even if Akasic freed him upon reaching the 90th floor, he couldn't live without the dummy's garb.
Maybe he'd been mistaken.
His inability to sleep, eat, or perform bodily functions—was that separate from his soul?
Thinking back, it felt odd. What did that have to do with his soul?
His body was ethereal. It had substance, but wasn't organic; it had mass, yet was scientifically akin to gas.
He had no flesh.
Should he have asked the philosopher about a body?
He shook his head immediately.
The answer would've been something he didn't want—probably some grotesque slab of meat-covered mess.
"Who should I consult about this dilemma?"
No one on Earth would have worries like this.
With his new concern in tow, he left Etoile.
His soul had stabilized quite a bit while crafting the eye.
"Moon Byul-ssi! This maintenance is a whopping two weeks!"
"Is that so? No message popped up for me this time."
"If you need a vacation, come to me instead of my sister."
Entering the guild master's office, Iru Ri and So Seori greeted him warmly.
Before leaving the Tower, the message font had glitched out, becoming unreadable at some point. He'd probably overdone it.
"How was the philosopher?"
He summarized his 40th-floor experience for So Seori.
"So it was the philosopher's farm... Fascinating. No one really checks those minute details in the Tower."
"Is that right? Then why did the philosopher enter the fence when I arrived?"
"Hmm, my guess? Because you visited the 40th solo."
"You mentioned a solo ranker before. Did they go through the same?"
"You'd have to ask them directly. No way for me to know."
As he swapped theories with So Seori, Iru Ri chimed in with a different angle.
"Maybe because no one died?"
"Huh?"
"Other NPCs didn't die, so he came in?"
"Doesn't Star-nim's method differ wildly from the norm?"
"Iru Ri, what do you mean?"
Iru Ri focused on how general climbers cleared versus Moon Byul.
"Usually, they use NPCs as shields for safe hunts."
"Ah, got it."
Indeed, a typical party wouldn't risk themselves to protect NPCs.
He'd had the leeway for a different approach.
"Makes sense. No eye... or grapes, so he came in."
"Thinking of corpses as free grapes is kinda creepy."
"Moon Byul-ssi, did you trade with the philosopher too?"
He skipped the eye part, sharing only the info from the philosopher.
"The world repeating..."
"Sounds like pie-in-the-sky talk."
"Huh."
"Decided not to overthink it."
No point dwelling on unsolvable riddles, so he let it go cleanly.
Diring. Diring.
So Seori's phone rang with its tacky tone.
"Hello? Yes, Jeremy-ssi?"
"Who's Jeremy? Secret boyfriend?"
"Beats me. First I've heard of him..."
"Huh."
She ignored their whispers.
"Yes, that's fine. No issue, but can I know why? He's my guild member. Got it."
Clearly not a casual contact.
"What was that?"
"Well... not disciplinary, but could your guild member do a job?"
"Me?"
So Seori asking personally piqued his interest.
"Yes. Tomorrow, just bring your grimoire and demo a few simple spells."
"Sounds easy."
The next day, the incident exploded.