Floor 3 (3): Chewing the World Tree

There's a story about a rapper abroad who smokes weed every single day.

I happen to like that rapper.

...Of course, liking the rapper did not, in any way, mean liking the drugs the rapper smoked.

"......"

A leaf that looked suspicious in a suspiciously suspicious way.

And its effect: a powerful sedative, dependence included.

Seriously, what the hell, elves...

Just how far was the image of elves going to fall...

I clutched my dizzy head and stared at the smug little elf in front of me with the hollow expression of a man achieving enlightenment.

Iris, belatedly realizing the situation, began stammering out excuses.

"W-well, there are some mild addiction symptoms, but..."

"......"

"Magically speaking, it's still a top-tier material...!! Humans can't even get this, that's how precious it is...!!"

Well, she wasn't exactly wrong.

It was an S-rank panacea, after all — a thick, rich wave of mana was rolling off the leaf in my hand.

It felt similar to the sensation I got when using my Transmutation skill.

No, if anything, I'd say it was two or three times sharper than that.

"If you're not taking it, hand it back."

"Who said I wasn't taking it?"

"On second thought, this deal favors me."

Had she come to her senses late and decided it was a waste after all?

So saying, Iris tried to snatch the World Tree leaf back from me — but I swiftly pulled it against my chest and shielded it.

Whoosh!

"You don't give something and then take it back."

Once it's given, it's given. Done.

You know what no take-backs means, right? No. Take. Backs.

"Cool deal. Thanks."

I said it to Iris with a friendly smile plastered across my face.

And how friendly was that smile, exactly? A customer-service smile with a manner score of 42 degrees. Ice cold.

For some reason, Iris muttered back at me with the expression of someone chewing dog poop.

"...You're infuriating, you know that?"

"If it bothers you that much, go tattle to your mommy."

"......"

At the word mommy, Iris's expression rotted over even more vividly.

But I ignored her entirely and began my own happy little dilemma, gazing down at the World Tree leaf.

"How am I supposed to use this..."

It was an S-rank item I'd lucked into, but now that I had it, its actual use was vague at best.

Sell it to Awakeners... probably not an option.

And crafting something out of it was out of the question, since there was nothing I actually knew how to make.

At most, could I manage candy?

But what would be the point of turning the World Tree leaf into candy?

You know what, might as well just eat it raw.

For a split second I thought, isn't weed something you smoke, not eat? — but since I didn't even smoke cigarettes, I wasn't confident I could manage lighting up a joint either.

Efficiency-wise, eating it was the right call anyway.

Every cough would be a loss on the addiction rate.

"Yeah. Might as well just eat it."

"...I'm sorry, what?"

Decision made, I left a dumbfounded Iris behind me and started chewing the World Tree leaf raw.

Crunch, crunch.

"......?!?!"

Seeing this, Iris's face drained to a ghastly shade of blue as she stared at me in open horror.

Her reaction was immediate.

"Wh-wh-wh-who eats the World Tree raw?!!! "

"Mmf... What? This isn't right?"

"Of course it isn't!! Think about common sense for once!!"

You say that to someone who learned the Tower from an imageboard gallery...

I mean, entering the Tower with your shoes still on is already a legendary move, so.

"...Ugh."

Anyway, why was this so bitter?

I hadn't expected this level of nastiness.

It tasted like chewing a dandelion leaf raw.

Except not a tender young one — a dandelion that had grown up hard and bitter in the dust of a concrete pit.

For the record, this is not from personal experience.

I have absolutely never, ever been so broke that I ate roadside dandelions dipped in ssamjang instead of side dishes. Never.

"Besides, eating an entire leaf like that in one go..."

Iris pressed on, her face still ghost-pale.

Apparently her earlier reaction had held not just shock, but a thread of genuine worry mixed in.

And before she could even finish her sentence, a familiar chime rang out and a system message bloomed before my eyes.

Ding!

"What."

A single leaf. One leaf, and my addiction rate had jumped by 1,000%.

That staggering number, which reduced every drug I'd taken until now to peasant-tier trash, had the dopamine festival in my overheated brain just about to kick off—

when, out of nowhere, an alarm tone I'd never heard before sounded, and rows of message windows began cascading down in front of me.

Beep——

"Aagh, what the hell??"

Status ailment messages flooding my vision in an instant.

At the same time, the sensations of my body began rapidly fading away.

'─────!!!!'

I fought with everything I had to hold onto consciousness, but before I could manage it, my vision blacked out and every sense I had vanished, as though a circuit breaker had been slammed shut.

But there was no time to panic over the sudden loss of sensation — all of my senses snapped back just as abruptly, and a system message surfaced belatedly before my eyes.

"......!!!"

Resistance successful.

And every single status ailment — nullified.

What that meant was crystal clear.

Big bro Immunity!!

You came to save me!!

I always believed in you, I swear!!

Apparently big bro had blocked every single penalty from the addiction-rate overflow.

Up until now he'd seemed the most underwhelming of my S-ranks, so I'd quietly underrated him — but the performance was so monstrous it made me want to apologize for it.

'I'm sorry I ever doubted you, GOAT...'

Thanks to him, I got to enjoy the full 1,000% stat-boost effect without suffering a single status ailment.

Granted, since my addiction rate had hit its ceiling, I could no longer grind trait points with World Tree leaves — but so what?

Getting 1,000% off a single leaf was a jackpot. I'd take it.

Fwah—!

And so, with my trait window open, confirming my freshly spiked addiction rate—

Iris, standing beside me, backpedaled hard and asked in a trembling voice.

"A-are you... okay...?"

"Seems like it."

"...You are human, right? Just checking."

"Rude. To a perfectly healthy person."

Typical of the princess of a xenophobic species — Iris was a habitual human-hater.

But thanks to my 1,000%-boosted mood, I chose to show mercy and grant her a small gift despite the xenophobia.

"Here. Take it."

"...What is this?"

"Good stuff."

That sounded suspicious as hell, but it was not a narcotic.

Unlike certain weed-worshipping somebodies, I was not a druggie.

...Though its potency did rival a genuine tonic, I'll admit.

"As if any drug made by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a human could possibly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be goo—"

Even as she pouted and put on airs, the memory of that concentrated-essence candy clearly haunted her, because Iris snatched the Caffeine Candy and popped it into her mouth with almost hypnotic speed.

Crunch, crunch.

"......!!!"

But it must have been better than she'd expected, because the moment the candy hit her tongue, Iris's eyes went wide and round.

Then she went on staring at me while making a face that no respectable girl had any business making.

"...Mmph."

It was similar to when she'd eaten the candy made from concentrated essence, yet somehow... somehow different, in a deeply unhealthy way.

It felt like walking in on an acquaintance watching something risqué on their computer.

Somehow I even felt secondhand embarrassment blooming in my own chest.

Iris came back to her senses a beat too late and shot back at me with pointlessly prickly tones.

"...What. What do you want."

"Uhhh... no, never mind."

Just please stay healthy. That's all I ask.

And so, having concluded my satisfying(?) transaction with Iris—

I left the Tower, headed straight home, and posted a short clear-verification thread on the gallery.

The reply notifications started shrieking the moment the post went up, but I ignored them all and closed the Awakener community window.

Which brings us to today's quiz question, kids.

What begins the moment a Tower climb ends?

"Ahh, you wouldn't know, would you."

This is why newbies are... tsk tsk.

Just this once, I'll tell you.

What comes after a Tower climb is...

"The gacha begins."

Sliiiide!

"Here we gooooooo!!!"

The moment the skill box cracked open, the roulette began whirling at high speed.

Something about my luck felt hot today.

Somehow I had a feeling an S-rank skill was going to drop.

You know, like that one — that insanely cool human-transmutation thing or whatever.

On top of that, the roulette was spinning faster than usual today.

High-grade skills kept flashing by, and the skill pool seemed solid too.

The roulette's speed began to slow, little by little.

"Come on...!! Anything A-rank...!!"

But despite my desperate prayers, the moment that bizarrely named E-rank skill appeared, the roulette's speed plummeted—

"Oh no...?"

"FUCK!!!!"

Having well and truly landed on the E-rank skill, I immediately started cursing up a storm.

Fwah—!

Come Eat, Pigeon.

An E-rank skill that interprets the language of pigeons.

Not animals in general. Not birds in general. Pigeon language.

And pray tell, what in the everloving hell am I supposed to use pigeon interpretation for?

No matter which angle I examined it from, not a single shred of usefulness could be found. It was the single most useless joke skill in Tower history.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

But having obtained a skill, testing it out was only proper etiquette.

I opened the window and aimed the skill at the pigeon cooing away atop the utility pole outside.

Whooosh!!

【Food! Food, mating!!】

"......"

【SEX!!!!】

A voice like a healthy young buck talking in falsetto.

Just a few seconds of listening made me feel like my ears needed a bath.

Thoroughly disgusted, I slammed the window shut and shut the skill off.

"Phew... You're all I have left to believe in."

Sliiiide!

My last remaining hope was the trait gacha, granted as a bonus reward.

Skills were actives; traits were passives.

And as the Floor 1 and 2 rewards made clear, traits are considerably harder to come by than skills.

Which means, at equal grades, a trait edges out a skill.

If the gacha just treated me kindly here, I could smooth over the whiffed skill pull.

And my expectations were betrayed, in spectacular fashion.

"MOTHERF—!!"

No, seriously, why are you doing this to me?

Big bro Tower, we were doing so well until a second ago.

I farmed 1,000% of trait points for free, so now you're rigging the gacha against me out of spite?

"No wonder my luck felt weirdly good today..."

Along with a line that suddenly made me crave a bowl of seolleongtang soup, I pushed down my conflicted feelings and took a look at my newly acquired trait.

C-rank trait: Sturdy Stomach.

Its effect: your digestion gets slightly better. That's it. That's the trait.

For someone like me who eats all manner of questionable things, it wasn't a bad ability to have, I suppose.

Though it did come with one drawback — its effect overlapped with my S-rank trait, Drug Immunity.

Ding!

Apparently the System agreed with my assessment, because before long, along with a cascade of messages, Sturdy Stomach was folded into my Drug Immunity trait.

Seeing that, I immediately pulled up my status window to inspect the now-S+-grade Drug Immunity.

"Nothing changed."

The grade had gone up to S+, but the description hadn't changed one bit.

Still, it'd probably help a bit more in dangerous situations, like when I chewed up the World Tree leaf.

Though honestly, how many more times was I going to run into situations that insane...

"Hold on. Don't tell me the Tower gave me this just for chewing on the World Tree...?"

A reasonable suspicion flickered through my mind, but I soon shook my head and dismissed it.

If the Tower were the type to reward someone for eating grass, it never would have handed out a brain-dead skill like Come Eat, Pigeon in the first place.

Seriously — why does a skill that translates pigeon language even exist?

"...Might as well check the gallery, I guess."

In a foul mood now, I opened the Awakener community and pulled up the thread I'd just posted.

And sure enough, in the brief time I'd been gone, my post — already on the trending board — had accumulated dozens of comments.

"...Heehee."

I spent a while basking in the horrified reactions of the gallery regulars, letting the gacha-rousted heat in my head cool back down.

Ding!

But that peace lasted only a moment before a notification came flying in.

And along with it, a message arrived from a familiar poster.

BurntCowIsCarbon. Hong Yeon-hwa.

I fired back a reply immediately.

Quibbling over honorifics on an imageboard gallery — what is this, Confucian internet etiquette...

Truly fitting behavior for the old crone of the East's eternally polite nation.

The old bat kept talking.

"Huh? Out of nowhere?"

A sudden summons. I floated a question mark over my head.

Give me what, exactly?

Didn't she already pay off the candy bill by treating me to drinks last time?

But it didn't take long to figure out what Hong Yeon-hwa was really after.

"......?"

"......"

Apparently, after getting her first taste of the candy, she'd gotten well and truly hooked.

Not actually hooked on opium, mind you — just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, mega-concentrated caffeine...

"...No, seriously, this girl."

Why does every single person I know end up like this...