Prologue: Administrator of a Ruined Tower
The multiverse is currently unstable. Countless worlds have been born, and the balance has crumbled just as far. When the universe could no longer bear the endlessly multiplying worlds, it built itself a device.
The Tower.
A purification apparatus that harvests the surplus of worlds and puts the balance back in order. And that Tower was raised on Earth.
Why Earth, of all places?
Because it was the easiest mark. An ordinary civilization with no special powers whatsoever. In short, it was just asking to be poked.
Towers were scattered across the globe. There was no rule like one per country—nothing of the sort has even been confirmed yet.
At first, everyone thought they were a catastrophe. Then they actually looked, and... not so much?
The resources coming out of the first floor alone were things that had never existed on Earth, and the whole world cheered. New minerals. New herbs. Even objects that existing physics couldn't begin to explain.
Yeah. The Towers made money.
And, as you'd expect, people started gaining abilities that were basically superpowers. The government claimed it was the mana flowing from the Towers that was affecting them, but believe that or don't.
There was a time when lighting a fire with your bare hands was enough to make the news. Now it's an era where they slap on ranks like S-Rank and SS-Rank and put a price tag on human beings.
So everyone shouted, "Towers are the best!"
The problem was, not every Tower was the same.
Some Towers poured out precious resources from the lower floors. Some had a reasonable difficulty, drawing thousands of people in a single day.
On the other hand, there were Towers that were just punishingly, brutally hard. Those Towers ended up getting demolished pretty quickly. Not that any country tore them down—they just vanished on their own. And where they went, nobody knows.
Of course, I do.
I bit down on a piece of chocolate and checked the third floor.
"Ugh... cobwebs."
A crumbling castle beneath a blood-red sky.
"Dungeon or not, who's going to want to come here looking like this..."
"Oh my. Isn't it rather cute? I did try to decorate, you know."
"Be quiet. Haa... where do I even start."
I became the administrator of a ruined tower.