Chapter 52
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: Strange Candy
-----------------------------------------------------------------
My first skill was Poison Mist.
"Hey, I can't work with you."
"There's no place for a guy like you, so get out of this party."
"If you use Poison Mist here! Ack, cough."
Poison mist spreading out in a 5-meter radius centered on me.
The one silver lining was that the poison mist didn't harm me. But it wasn't all-powerful either—my party members couldn't avoid the poisoning.
I carried expensive antidotes for my teammates, but Poison Mist was a deadly toxin capable of killing low-level monsters.
The agony of blood spurting from all seven orifices must have been indescribable.
"Get lost, you psycho bastard!"
"……."
Climbing the Tower solo was unconventional; the norm was four-man parties. It was a deadly place where lives were on the line.
Before guilds were established, even I—an early Awakener—tried forming parties to climb.
But staying back made me useless, and stepping up just got in the way.
In the end, no one wanted to party with me. I get it. I'd seen teammates literally crying blood tears in agony multiple times, no exaggeration.
Even I thought it was a power that didn't mesh with teamwork.
So I had no choice but to climb the Tower alone.
Why not find a different job instead of being a Climber?
I'd inherited nothing from parents I'd never met except a rusty pistol and a weak body. Scraping by day-to-day was tough enough.
I lived in the cheapest, most lawless slum in Harlem.
Looking back, surviving to adulthood without a bullet in me while carrying that old gun was a miracle.
You think a kid from there could study his way into a proper job?
No, seriously—gunshots rang out every night in our neighborhood.
Maybe that's why people avoided me, thinking my gravedigger job was bad luck. It might've been the reason I survived.
Sure, some people rise above environments like that through studying. But not me.
I'm telling you, your surroundings dictate 90% of your life's direction.
Almost anyone in my shoes would pin their hopes on their sudden Awakening talent and become a Climber.
If it had been anyone else, they probably wouldn't have even leveled up to adulthood. They'd have eaten a bullet long ago. For real.
Anyway.
The graveyard, lined with tombstones of all shapes and sizes, always reeked of death.
To me, who yanked weeds and dragged a shovel around the cemetery daily, acquiring this skill felt almost inevitable.
Eating sandwiches in front of graves was my daily routine, so of course I saw the world pessimistically.
For a guy like me, the world was limited to gunshots in Harlem and the stench of corpses. Can't blame me.
With shootouts every night, yeah, there were plenty of bodies.
Among young gravediggers, I must've been one of the busiest. Living like that, it was destiny for an Awakened me to get this skill after the Tower appeared. Obviously.
"Fuck…."
This is life? Rage bubbling up again all of a sudden.
Back on track—climbing up to the 10th floor was no issue. Honestly, it's still tough now, but when a muscle-headed idiot charges at you with an axe from behind, anyone would push past their limits to run.
It's just that those limits are brutally hard to surpass.
Other mages picked up new skills as they climbed, but I stuck with Poison Mist.
When poison didn't work, I'd grab a shovel from the graveyard storage as a makeshift weapon and scrape by on the edge of death.
Even in the Tower's early days, there weren't many places to sell mana crystals or properly appraise their value.
Then, on the 15th floor, I Awakened again.
"Found you."
A mysterious Grimoire that suddenly came to me.
After getting the Grimoire, my understanding of magic changed completely. I gained new spells too.
"Puppet."
Puppet
A rotting hand bursting from the ground.
It was a fairly fresh corpse, so the stench wasn't too bad. I'd smelled enough body odor anyway.
The first spell I cast after getting the Grimoire was one to control corpses.
As a low-level spell, it fully inherited the corpse's limitations—honestly useless for attacking, good only as a meat shield.
"Urgh, Shaun, you look great tanned like that. Should've lived a honest life, huh."
"Groooar…."
Shaun from next door, who bit the dust robbing someone recently, became my glorious first practice dummy.
I thriftily used Shaun as a meat shield in the Tower. As a gravedigger, snagging an unclaimed body was no big deal.
After that, human corpses felt iffy, so I used the Tower's monster pals as meat shields.
As floors rose, I wielded diverse bone magic, summoning attackers unlike my initial meat shields.
"Skelevasion."
Skelevasion
"Graaah! Roooar!"
By the 40th floor, with plenty of corpses farmed, I hunted like a mob boss, easy mode.
By then, I wasn't using Poison Mist, so I could've partied up, but…
"Go wild!"
Summons gotta look vicious. Guess I'm a solo player at heart.
I even became somewhat famous publicly.
The man steadily conquering upper floors—solo.
Even I think it's a star-quality concept.
Later, I joined a guild and made bank, but weirdly, I never left Harlem.
When broke, I'd sworn to bolt the second I had cash. But with money and power, minus the infrastructure, it was a decent hood.
"Brother Alex! You called?"
"Go to that mart in the next neighborhood over, grab some beer and two fried chickens. Keep the change."
"Thanks as always, bro!"
"Run, and you know what happens?"
"Grrr."
"You want maids like that kid?"
"Damn right!"
Harlem has delivery like Korea if you've got cash.
My life gradually turned into that of a well-fed Tess-type boss. Climbers make good money, huh?
"Bang, bang, bang—die, fucker!"
"You crazy bastard!"
The beautiful nightly Harlem greetings from the locals grated more than usual that day.
"Shut the fuck up! Skelevasion."
"Awoooo!"
"Take their guns and bite."
"Huff, huff."
Thanks to me, the neighborhood became livable even for outsiders.
No more gunshots at night, see?
I lived without a care. Back then, I believed this comfy life would last forever.
Until the 65th floor.
Phase 2 activated, and in one day, Khan—the top Climber—was nearly crippled, and Sanghae was devastated.
Doomsayers popped up worldwide, and looters appeared even in the capital.
Yet folks like me still hadn't felt the apocalypse skin-deep.
The second Conqueror appeared in the UK. Britain was wiped off the map; King Team barely took it down.
After that, King—America's symbol—lost his confidence.
The era of nations competing over mana crystal output and Tower floors ended.
Finally sensing humanity's doom, Earth's nations united.
Ironically, a world of lifelong war, rivalry, and suspicion united as extinction loomed.
S-Ranks formed teams regardless of nationality, splitting into assault squads for the Tower and standby squads against Conquerors.
We rotated Tower raids and boldly abandoned worthless land.
The abandoned, of course, died.
By the 70th floor, humanity thought it was at war with the Tower.
Fun fact: more people died from collapsed Towers in nations the Alliance ditched than from Conquerors or raids.
Some spoke out against it, but they were ignored. I saw them as irresponsible.
You gonna solve it by yelling? No alternatives? Ignorant idiots.
Around then, I led the 70th-floor assault squad.
The 70th was heaven-themed.
Floating temples, winged monsters.
No quests—just humans invading paradise, apparently.
All S-Rank Climbers; we reached deep into the temple without much trouble.
There, surprisingly beautiful? A dream demon—not an angel, obviously.
It hit us with trauma-inducing mental attacks. When I woke, my teammates were all dead.
My trauma?
My illusion showed me dying old as a lonely gravedigger, knowing no one. Normal traumas are past-based; mine were all overcome, apparently.
I realized it was the dream demon's illusion because Shaun—whom I bantered with—greeted me agelessly. I'd definitely used his corpse fully, yet there he was alive.
Traumas vary per person, so what can you do.
I woke alone, took down the dream demon, claimed the reward, and escaped the 70th. Combat power was meh, luckily.
"What the hell is this."
Strawberry-Flavored Regression Candy
Consuming this and dying regresses you once to a random point in time. After countless improvements, it's strawberry-flavored! Why didn't the dream demon eat it?
Of course I ate the candy. Only an idiot wouldn't. The Tower never lied about items. Plus, it gave an extra coin or whatever. Tasted like real strawberry, as advertised.
But there was one unmentioned side effect, which I learned right after clearing the 70th.
"Alex, you traitor! Dare abandon the world? Aegakchang!"
"Ultra King Punch!"
"What the fuck! You bastards!"
All living beings turned hostile toward me.
Thinking back, eating the candy felt like publicly announcing I'd abandoned this timeline.
Like, "Kill that traitor who ditched us!"
Even strangers glared at me with enmity.
This was total common sense alteration candy. If I'd known, I'd have eaten it before dying.
"Ultra King Punch!"
"Gahk."
"Thought you were an ally, but a corpse-handler like you was bound to betray us!"
"You fucking… prick?"
Whether King really thought that or the alteration made him say it, I couldn't tell. But it pissed me off weirdly.
My first death: King's legendary punch.
That was my first regression.