001

When I was little, I could see things other people couldn’t.

“Mom! There are lots of blue dots here!”

“Blue dots? What’s that?”

“You know, the blue dots flying around in the sky! There are so many here!”

“...?”

Sometimes, blue dots appeared to me.

Mystical particles drifting through the air, glittering softly. Like constellations in the night sky. Like fireflies in a mountain field. They would hover in empty space, sending out a faint blue shimmer that my eyes alone could catch.

But it seemed no one else could see the blue dots I saw.

“Jiho, do you still keep seeing those blue dots or whatever lately? Hmm... maybe we should take you to a hospital. There’s an eye clinic nearby...”

My worried parents.

“Liar! There’s nothing there!”

“Jiho’s always going on about blue dots.”

“Don’t play with him! He’s weird!”

Kids my age, shunning me.

“Mrs. Baek? Hello. The thing is, Jiho keeps saying he can see blue dots...”

“Oh. You had his eyes examined and they said he was normal? I see... yes. All right.”

Even the adults around me treated me like a freak.

No one could see the blue dots I saw.

It was strange.

Why couldn’t they see something that glittered so beautifully...?

In the end, I stopped talking about the blue dots.

There was no point. If I did, people just treated me like some oddball, or started bringing up hospitals and tests with worried looks. My mouth shut itself before I even noticed.

But even in silence, I kept analyzing the blue dots that only I could see.

And in time, I discovered a few things.

First, there were more blue dots in places close to nature.

Second, some special foods held blue dots as well, no matter where they were.

And if I ate food infused with blue dots, I felt a strange surge of vitality.

That was the extent of what I figured out.

Time passed.

From my kindergarten days, when I knew nothing, through elementary, middle, and high school, and on until I became a college student.

I hid what was special about me and pretended to be ordinary.

Then, just as I had entered college and was preparing to step into society...

the Tower appeared.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

The convenience store doorbell rang.

I set my smartphone down and stood up.

“Welcome.”

“One Red, please.”

“That’ll be 4,500 won.”

Beep.

I scanned the barcode and rang him up in one swift motion.

The customer took his cigarettes and walked out of the store.

“Have a nice day.”

After sending him off, I sat back down and turned my attention to my phone again.

The internet news was full of bad news of every kind.

Tower point shortages, hunters fleeing overseas, high-ranking government officials emigrating, national collapse looming...

Judging from the headlines alone, the country looked as if it might fall apart tomorrow.

“Honestly, it wouldn’t be weird if it collapsed any time now.”

Ever since the Tower appeared, humanity had lived under the constant threat of extinction.

The fact that society was still limping along at all felt like a miracle.

My name was Baek Jiho.

Twenty-seven years old. College dropout. High school graduate. Convenience store clerk.

I was just an ordinary night-shift part-timer, living in an age on the brink of collapse.

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When my shift ended and I headed home, I shuffled along the road, then lifted my head to look beyond the buildings.

And there it was.

The Tower.

Rising beyond Seoul’s night skyline and its countless skyscrapers, a vast black monument reaching all the way to the sky.

Staring at that monstrous structure, I muttered under my breath, “No matter how long I look at that ugly thing, I still can’t get used to it.”

Seven years ago.

Back when I had just entered college, on one ordinary day, a message had appeared in every human mind on Earth.

[The protection period for sentient beings has ended.]

[The survival trial will begin.]

It was text that every human in the world could see and understand.

Even a blind person.

Even someone who couldn’t read.

Even a dementia patient who could no longer think clearly.

Even a newborn baby, who barely had any awareness to speak of.

A declaration from the world itself, forcibly carved into the soul of all humanity.

[A “Tower of Trials” has been generated in the capital of every nation.]

[Each nation must pay a number of Points equal to its population every month.]

[If the Points cannot be paid, the population short by that amount will be erased.]

[Climb the Tower and prove the value of survival.]

[A grace period of 100 days has been granted.]

A black tower had sprung up in the middle of every capital on the planet.

[The Tower of Trials will randomly select climbers.]

[Survive and prove your potential.]

And so the climbers were born.

0.1 percent of humanity. One in a thousand. The chosen ones who could enter the Tower.

They answered the Tower’s call and entered the tutorial.

Those who cleared it became official climbers, able to enter the Tower and kill monsters to earn Points.

And then the lives of ordinary citizens came to depend on them.

Our country, with a population of 51.1 million, had to earn 51.1 million Points every month and pay them to the Tower.

The United States, with a population of 349.03 million, also had to pay 349.03 million Points every month.

China, with a population of 1.40489 billion, had to pay 1.40489 billion Points every month, too.

What happened if a country couldn’t pay?

Whatever amount it was short would be randomly deleted from the population.

If they were short by one million Points, one million unspecified people would vanish.

If they were short by ten million, then ten million would disappear. If they were short by one hundred million, then one hundred million would be erased.

An era in which every nation and all of humanity kept extending their terminal survival.

An era in which millions, tens of millions, vanished without a single gunshot.

An era in which nations were forced to test their survival every single month.

It was the age of the Tower.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Back in my semi-basement room, I got dinner ready out of habit.

I heated the discarded lunchbox I’d brought home in the microwave, then warmed up the doenjang soup my sister had made.

My usual meal.

Nom nom. Slurp.

A bite of lunchbox, a spoonful of soup.

It wasn’t exactly gourmet, but it filled me up well enough.

I looked across the empty table.

Looks like my sister still hasn’t come home today either.

She’d been busy lately, so I barely saw her.

She was the only family I had left, so I wished we could at least see each other more often.

But since I worked night shifts and she was busy with work, it wasn’t easy to find the chance.

I heard the manager job is rough.

My sister worked as the manager for a third-rate hunter team.

She handled the little stuff hunters didn’t want to bother with—driving, paperwork, loot processing, all that.

She probably made more money than an average office worker, but I’d heard the stress was brutal.

Well, yeah. It couldn’t be easy keeping the temperamental hunters happy.

Slurp.

I wolfed down the lunchbox and soup, cleared the table, and dove onto my bed.

Then I pulled out my smartphone.

Couldn’t resist a bit of phone scrolling before sleep.

Maybe I should check Hunter Gallery. That news has to be burning it up today.

Hunter Gallery. Or Heongal, for short.

Despite the name, it was a forum with far more hunter-haters than actual hunters.

When I logged in, it was exactly as I’d expected.

The gallery was in a state of panic.

I read the eye-catching posts one by one.

“...”

There were posts stuffed full of anger, fear, and despair.

It really did seem like this country didn’t have much time left.

“Three months. Or maybe two...”

To be honest, it didn’t feel real.

What was so special about those Points that the country would collapse in just a few months?

But it had happened before, more than once.

In Africa, the Middle East, South America, Eastern Europe.

Several small nations had already failed to pay the Tower’s Points and been destroyed.

The countries with unstable systems and little to their name had been disappearing one after another.

This time, it was Korea’s turn.

We had survived so far by selling technology, selling companies, selling hunters.

But even that seemed to have reached its limit.

So collapse wasn’t far ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠off.

As I turned off my phone, I muttered, “Should I tell my sister to quit her job and take one last family trip with me?”

In a world that was going to end in three months anyway, I couldn’t find much motivation to keep grinding so hard.

Wouldn’t it be better to make some meaningful memories instead?

Like traveling, for instance.

We couldn’t afford an expensive overseas trip, but a domestic one should be possible with the money I’d saved up.

If I could, I’d like to go back to Cheorwon just once.

Cheorwon, Gangwon Province.

A place I wanted to see again before I died.

Gangwon had so many blue dots... it was truly beautiful. Thanks to that, military life there was actually pretty bearable.

I’d served in Cheorwon back when I was in the military.

And Cheorwon’s DMZ was one of the most naturally preserved places in Korea.

Because of that, there were an awful lot of blue dots there.

I still remember it vividly.

The view from night guard duty in the DMZ.

The majestic mountain ranges, the rivers winding along them, the vast forests.

The countless blue dots drifting through that immense wilderness, spilling out their blue glow and swaying in the wind...

It was so beautiful, so dreamlike.

For anyone else, it would have been nothing more than an ordinary forest at night.

But for me, who could see the blue dots...

it was like looking into a fairy tale world, and I’d spend so long admiring the scenery that I’d lose track of time.

I wanted to see that beautiful sight again.

I’d decided.

“When my sister gets home, I’ll talk to her seriously.”

About quitting work and going on a family trip.

I was just about done sorting out my thoughts when—

Ding!

A clear notification chimed in my ear.

Letters rose before my eyes.

“...Huh?”

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