The Doctor's Tears and the Tower's Call

My attending physician in the Baektab World was an incredibly sensitive person. How sensitive? Right now she was standing in front of me, dropping fat tears like chicken droppings onto the floor.

Does it make sense for a doctor to act like that? Anyone who thought it was impossible would change their mind after meeting her.

“Why are you crying again? Doctors like that make patients anxious, you know. I’m only putting up with it because it’s you.”

I tossed it out like a joke, but the attending physician couldn’t laugh. She bit her lip hard before speaking.

“The paralysis will soon reach your respiratory muscles.”

When the respiratory muscles are paralyzed, you can’t breathe. And when a person can’t breathe, they die. She’d dressed it up, but it was basically a declaration that I’d be flipping over soon.

I leaned against the pillow and pushed myself up a little.

“Hey, stop that.”

“If only I had tried a little harder…”

The attending physician was a genius. I didn’t know the details, but she’d been famous since she was a kid—appeared on TV and everything. She breezed through early admission and early graduation, became the youngest graduate of Korea’s top medical school, the youngest professor, and shot to fame in the academic world in the blink of an eye. A true genius among geniuses.

“What can you do when it’s impossible? Still, I made it to twenty, didn’t I?”

Even a real prodigy like her couldn’t find the cause of my disease. An incurable, unknown illness that started in the lower body, spread to full-body muscle paralysis, and finally reached the respiratory muscles, resulting in death. It was similar to ALS, but it wasn’t ALS. The symptoms had appeared when I was only ten. I’d always been frail, but from ten onward I couldn’t even walk. Every treatment failed.

The doctor who first diagnosed me said that reaching twenty would require a miracle, and thirty was impossible no matter what. So I had spent more than ten years lying in bed. Just waiting for the day I would die.

“If you withdraw the advance directive on life-sustaining treatment… just give me a little more time and I’ll find a way somehow.”

The attending physician clutched her white coat tightly. I waved my hand dismissively.

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

“It’s fine.”

The moment I became an adult, I had written an advance directive refusing life-sustaining treatment. I was human too—I wanted to live longer—but I hated meaningless things. Saving someone who couldn’t even stay conscious only made others suffer. Having a working mind trapped in a body that couldn’t move was even more horrifying. Honestly, that scared me more than death.

When I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠first got sick, I prayed for a meteor to fall. But I was an adult now. I couldn’t keep thinking like a child forever.

After the attending physician said a few formal words, she left the room with slumped shoulders. I had first met her ten years ago. Back then I thought she was just a new doctor, but as wrinkles increased on her face, her tears only grew more frequent. At that rate, how could she even practice medicine properly?

Thud.

I tossed the phone I’d been holding to the side.

“Aish, damn it.”

A curse slipped out naturally. Was I angry because I was about to die? No. I knew my body’s condition better than anyone. I had already accepted that the end was near. Making it to twenty at all was a miracle. I was basically Lucky Muhan.

Still, there was one thing even this extremely positive version of me couldn’t stand.

The holographic window that had appeared before my eyes some time ago.

Whether I was using my phone, talking to the attending physician, eating, or even in the bathroom, this holographic window completely blocked my vision.

It started small, then grew darker and larger. Now it even added a brutal warning message. It was driving me insane. The interference was so bad that I could barely even look at my phone screen—my only pleasure. The holographic window danced across my vision as if it had a will of its own.

I even went to the psychiatric ward thinking my mind had finally broken, but they said there was nothing wrong.

And this countdown that kept decreasing in real time was getting on my last nerve. I didn’t know what the numbers meant that I could see even with my eyes closed. Would the world be destroyed when the timer hit zero? That would suck. Not that it mattered much to me since I was about to die anyway. But I didn’t want that overly sensitive attending physician to die.

The worst part was that it hadn’t even given me proper time to think. Since I was just lying in bed, time passed ridiculously fast.

The timer that had eighteen hours left was now under ten minutes. The text had even disappeared, leaving only the timer and the Enter button.

Maybe this was also an unknown mental illness, just like my unknown muscle disease. Even if I pressed the button, nothing might happen.

Actually, there was something else I was worried about. This body couldn’t do anything. What could I even accomplish when I couldn’t even walk? Well. Since I was going to die soon anyway, did it really matter?

“Nothing to lose, right?”

I pressed the floating button in the air with determination.

And then a brilliant light filled my vision.

[How many worlds must be sacrificed to save a single world?]

My consciousness flickered like a faint candle flame.

[One hundred.]

[With those one hundred, a tower is built.]

[Thus it is called the Baektab World.]

A mechanical voice, like it came from medical equipment, tickled my ears.

I slowly lifted my light eyelids. Countless holographic windows poured out. The surroundings were a pure white space like a hospital room. To an ordinary person it would have screamed mental breakdown, but to me it felt strangely familiar.

“Huh?”

I stared with my mouth open. The air tasted sweet. I felt more refreshed than ever. Refreshed. That was the word. My body didn’t feel heavy as a thousand pounds like usual. My breathing wasn’t labored. And most importantly—

I wriggled my toes. They moved. When I put a little strength into it, my legs moved too. The return of sensations I had forgotten felt incredibly strange.

Thump.

It hurt. I had tried to stand up too forcefully and immediately collapsed. Clutching my knees, I glared at the holographic window.

It seemed the tower had recognized my illness as a status abnormality and cured it. It had only healed the disease, though—it hadn’t restored the muscles I had lost from lying in bed for so long.

The problem was this. The damn holographic window had put another time limit on me. I quickly scanned through the windows. I was sure I had heard something about a trait in my hazy state.

A question mark naturally popped up in my head. ‘Cheonma Gallery Access?’

When I silently recited the words, a familiar window popped up like a notification.

It was a festival of complete nonsense posts. I clicked on one that looked relatively normal.

I still had no idea what kind of gallery this was. I gave up on figuring it out myself and clicked the small “Write Post” button in the corner.

A moment later.

And then came a flood of question marks.