What's the Opposite of Suicide? (3)
The broadcast went dark.
All that remained beyond the now-empty screen was the desolate greenery of the Tower.
Doochang frowned as he stared at it.
"…Fuck."
The curse slipped out before he could stop it.
The stream he'd just been watching belonged to Eunho—the name everyone had been buzzing about lately. The broadcast of that inferior student who had dared to trample him and steal all the fame for himself.
How the hell does that bastard have that kind of power…?
Doochang remembered that day. The strength that had felled a fairy in a single blow. The way he'd staged what could only be called a genuine 'fight' against the one who'd come back to life. And the sight of himself, standing behind it all, eyes trembling.
To Doochang, all of those memories were a single nightmare. Even though he'd only entered the Tower a day ago, the thought—maybe I haven't actually entered the Tower at all, and I'm still in the academy dorms, trapped in this fucking nightmare—had crossed his mind hundreds of times.
…Shit. When you think about it, that's power he gained, isn't it? And he's strutting around with it…
Anyone who'd overheard Doochang's thoughts would have burst out laughing.
He himself had admitted the initial power was 'borrowed,' but Eunho's trajectory since then had been anything but meager. After all, the real reason everyone was enthralled with the man was his talent.
Despite stepping onto an unfamiliar floor, Eunho calmly worked out a clearing strategy, never once making a wasted movement. And the moment combat began, he seemed to become a different person entirely—aggressive, precise, without a single unnecessary motion.
There weren't many people who disliked him.
The hope of South Korea.
A future guardian who would protect them all.
That was how the world saw Eunho. Only Doochang could not bring himself to share that view.
…No. Truthfully, he knew it too. No matter how much his mind denied it, his heart accepted it. Trapped in that dilemma, every day was a living hell for him.
Fuck. Fuck. FUUUUCK!
It hadn't been like this back at the academy. Their positions had been the exact opposite, in fact.
One of them had been left groveling at the bottom, while the other had looked down at him from on high with a smirk.
So what was this now?
The boy he'd treated as an inferior student was up there, bathed in everyone's admiration, climbing toward the summit faster than anyone. Meanwhile, Doochang was still stuck on the '1st Floor'—all because Eunho had stripped him of his coins.
Coins were an enormously important element in the Tower. With enough of them, you could even cheat death itself.
That was why, among rookie climbers, climbing the Tower immediately was considered practically suicidal. You were supposed to take requests at the 1st Floor's unmanned tavern, amass a comfortable supply of coins, and only then ascend.
That was humanity's 'proper' method, built up over long years of conquering the Tower.
Some bastard is riding high on my coins while I'm stuck scrubbing sewers on Floor 1.
Every time he dwelled on his circumstances, the furrow in Doochang's brow refused to smooth out. He didn't even know that Eunho had already spent most of his coins on the 1st Floor.
I want to land just one hit on him.
That was the thought he could never bring himself to voice.
Just then, someone called out to him.
"Well, well. If it isn't Doochang? Promising little Doochang. Though now you're just a broken little Doochang, aren't you?"
The man sang each word with a lilt, making the greeting all the more infuriating. Celes, they called him—a resident of the 1st Floor, loitering around the inn where Doochang was staying (read: the roadside in front of it).
Since yesterday, the man had been throwing in those little taunts and humming off-key every time he saw Doochang. It made him want to throw a punch—but he'd already attacked Celes once, and the memory of getting beaten half to death kept his fists at his sides.
…Wait. Had he actually hit him, though?
"Doochang."
Celes's voice rang out. Doochang, having completely forgotten whatever thought had been flickering through his head, looked up at the man's face.
"Do you want revenge that badly?"
"A-against you? I couldn't possibly—"
"No, no. Not me. Someone else."
Celes's lips split into a long, grotesque grin. A sinister smile spread across his entire face.
"That thing you keep thinking about."
Celes poked at Doochang's chest with his index finger. Each poke made Doochang flinch, as if his innermost thoughts had been laid bare.
"I'll make it happen for you. How about it?"
Celes spread his palm and held it out to him. A faint, wavering energy hovered there—a presence that seemed to darken the gloomy surroundings even further.
"Won't you take my hand?"
Gulp.
Doochang swallowed dryly and looked into the man's eyes.
His deliberation was brief.
He clasped the outstretched hand.
He turned off the broadcast.
For the first time, Eunho had started and run a stream entirely of his own volition.
Granted, he hadn't managed a single decent line of patter, but he still felt a certain pride in it.
So this is what's fun about streaming?
-Like what?
People going wild over everything I do. It's kind of fun, honestly.
-Figures. Eunho, you were always an attention hog. Ever since the orphanage days.
"What are you two whispering about that the orphanage is coming up?"
Present-day Arin cut in at Regressor Arin's remark. She could see her regressed self now, which meant she could hear her words as well.
"Ah, just that the stream was fun. But apparently calling it that makes me an attention hog? That's a pretty serious distortion, don't you think?"
"? A distortion? On that, I actually agree."
"Oh come on. Distortion can kill people too, you know. Who's trying to deceive people with incitement and lies here?"
"Remember? You were the biggest troublemaker at our orphanage. Sneaking into the Director's room to peek at his novels—and then his tastes got exposed, and he threw a huge fit."
"Ah. That."
At her words, a vague look crossed Eunho's face, as if something was stirring in his memory.
Late one night, unable to sleep, a bored Eunho had gone exploring every corner of the orphanage—and ended up wandering into the room the Director used.
And there, by chance, he'd found a tablet. He'd glanced over the Director's shoulder to steal the unlock pattern, and the internet library he'd thus opened contained…
"Whoa. Who knew the Director was into furry stuff."
Martial arts novels and furries. What kind of horrifying abomination of a genre was that supposed to be?
"Wait, how had I forgotten that?"
He'd folded that memory up nice and neat, stacked it deep in the incinerator at the bottom of his mind, and burned the entire page to ash—or so he'd believed!
Stubborn thing. It had clung to him like PTSD.
Seeing Eunho's brow knit, Arin giggled. The reason neither of them pointed at the other was that they'd both covered their mouths laughing at the exact same time.
Seriously. You two really are alike.
-Excuse me? That's because it's me, obviously.
"She's talking about your personality."
-Hehe. Well, I've been through a lot, you know.
At the sight of her scratching her head with a sheepish grin, an involuntary snort escaped him.
He'd said it before, but he didn't dislike her changed personality.
The habitual teasing, the… inappropriate touching… wait. Come to think of it, flip the genders here and that's a pretty serious criminal record, isn't it?
Well, that's just how close we are.
Eunho let it slide without a second thought. Instead, he held out one of the elixirs in his hand to present-day Arin.
"I've already absorbed one, so you take the other."
"O-oh? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Even on higher floors, if you want to form a party, our stats need to be reasonably matched."
That was simply what parties were.
However great a cleric she might be—G.O.A.T. of the divine branch, even—being a priest didn't mean she was exempt from physical labor.
Supports were nobility, you say? There was some truth to that, but in the Tower, it didn't hold. More precisely, it meant nothing on the front lines of Tower conquest—the domain of Rankers.
From that point on, every individual's combat power is weighed and judged.
In other words, that was exactly how dangerous and treacherous things became.
He would do everything in his power to protect her, but there was no such thing as 'absolute' in this world. Which meant he could lose her.
If the stat gap widens, she'll be the one to leave the party first.
Eunho could see it coming. Naturally—he'd been prepared to make the same choice himself, hadn't he?
Back in his inferior-student days, before the regressor had arrived, he'd refused to form a party with her at all. When all she'd do was weigh him down, how could he have the gall to cling to her?
"…Th-thank you."
Present-day Arin hesitated over her lips as she accepted the elixir held out to her. But what on earth was there to be dissatisfied about? Regressor Arin clicked her tongue and chided her.
-That's not how you do it, silly. This is where you get a little teary-eyed. Just don't cry so hard your face falls apart. Then Eunho will wrap you up in a hug all on his own…
She really was utterly consistent.
"Ha. This is driving me insane."
But why was it, he wondered, that even that sight felt comforting now?
As Eunho began chuckling, Regressor Arin followed with a hehe of her own, and present-day Arin flushed red before finally cracking a smile too.
Having emptied out their feelings for the moment, the three of them soon turned to their next plan.
"Should we move on to the next floor?"
-The next floor is the one with the mid-boss. It wouldn't hurt to prepare a bit before going. With me here we could manage somehow, but… even I can't predict what that Unprecedented Rookie achievement of yours will pull off.
"True. I agree. Some preparation does seem necessary."
"Hmm. Preparation, huh. Easy to say, but I'm not sure what we'd even prepare."
The obvious way to secure coins was to return to the 1st Floor and take requests at the unmanned tavern.
But the payout there couldn't exactly be called efficient.
Frankly, it was barely enough to cover a day's meals for the people living in the 1st Floor's Starting Village.
"The requests aren't unlimited, either. It'd feel a little wrong to take work away from those people just because we want to gear up."
Of course, climbing the Tower was humanity's highest priority. By that logic, monopolizing the requests wouldn't be a bad choice at all… but the human heart was a strange thing. Having seen the struggles of the people scraping by on those jobs, how could they choose so callously?
-Then how about heading back to Earth for a bit?
"Earth?"
-Yeah. It's just about time for the Tower to open, isn't it?
"Well, that's true."
There was a set period when new climbers could enter the Tower. January 1st, every year. As the new year began, the Tower accepted new climbers, like an influx of fresh blood.
Once inside, climbers couldn't return to Earth unless they fell under 'special' circumstances.
And as it happened, they were in exactly such a 'special' circumstance now.
-The Erosion. From the last day of each month until the beginning of the next, the boundary dissolves—and for about a week, we can return to Earth.
That was why an institution called the Association existed on Earth, and how modern civilization—wrecked by the Tower's appearance and the Erosion—somehow kept the lights on.
-You get what I'm saying, Eunho?
"Loud and clear, Arin."
The corners of Eunho's mouth curled upward.
"You're saying we go bleed the Association for money, right?"
-Bingo! And as it happens, they're just dying to throw support at you. The Association is on the climbers' side!
Their opinions aligned, and an ominous chuckle rippled through the goblin cavern.
Watching the two of them, Arin squeezed her eyes shut.
Her future self, fine—but now even Eunho's personality seemed to be turning rotten.
Dear God, please don't let that be my fault.
It wasn't, right?
Yeah. Probably not.