The Sea and the River
“Mister”? I can't have aged that much, can I?
Right. To a young student's eyes, anyone past their mid-twenties probably reads as an old man.
…Except, if that were the case, Jang Siwoon should have been called noona too, and the fact that I alone got tagged with "mister" nagged at me a little. Maybe all the suffering I'd endured inside this tower had aged me somewhere along the way.
“That's because you've got the face of someone who's been through the wringer, Jisan-ssi. Don't worry, it's not presbyopia.”
“Oh…? Thank you.”
I wasn't entirely sure whether that counted as a compliment, but he had said I wasn't getting old, at least—so I offered Jang Siwoon a somewhat awkward thanks anyway.
The student, who had been quietly listening to our light banter, went pale in an instant.
“Ah, I'm so sorry! Should I call you hyung instead?”
“No, it's fine. Just call me whatever's comfortable.”
Watching the boy bow his head in a fluster left me with nothing more to say. I hadn't actually been angry in the first place, and getting worked up over something like this would have been laughable.
Ah. Come to think of it, being called an old man actually blew some fresh air through my stale mood, if only for a moment.
I hadn't fully forgotten Yang Myeonghyun's death, but I could at least claw my way out of the grief for a while. In my heart, I offered the student my sincere gratitude.
“Thanks to you explaining things, mister, I understand the Trojan War now. But still—”
The student's eyes suddenly flashed with sharp light.
“This is a war the Greek side won, with a god from our country intervening. And the Curator said the biggest variable is the visitors, right?”
“That's right.”
“Then here's my first question: why would Greece have been strategically superior to Troy in the first place?”
The student pushed up his glasses as he posed the question. The glass lenses glinted along with the light in his eyes, like something out of a comic panel.
“Here's my reasoning. If the war's outcome is decided by the visitors' choices, strategies, and abilities, then Greece's superior stats would very likely have been nerfed down to a level playing field, wouldn't they?”
“…….”
“And they'd have deleted the Trojan Horse as an item outright. Otherwise, every visitor would just pick Greece and crush Troy with the horse strategy.”
The student dissected the intent behind the quest with razor precision. Listening to him recite his reasoning in that calm, level tone, I found myself genuinely surprised.
Because he was a small-framed high schooler, I'd assumed he'd be weak—physically and intellectually. But a thought suddenly struck me: perhaps my judgment had been far too complacent.
Yang Myeonghyun-ssi. We… no, I think I misjudged you.
In that instant, I had lumped Yang Myeonghyun into the same category of complacent people as myself. I never did learn why he left the house that day, and for that, I'm sorry.
“You seem to know the original story really well, mister.”
“…….”
“Also—could you maybe drop the formal speech?”
Apparently, being spoken to so politely by a "mister" had been rather uncomfortable for him.
I coughed awkwardly and nodded.
“Didn't Troy have any heroes capable of carrying out strategy?”
“No, Troy obviously had its share of outstanding heroes. The gods intervened on their side too.”
There were many reasons Greece had managed to win the Trojan War. But if I had to single out the most decisive factor—
“This is my subjective take, but Greece's victory came down to three things: superior strategy, an abundance of heroic talent, and the aid of the gods.”
It wasn't that Troy lacked these things entirely. It was simply that, at every turning point, the fates of its heroes tilted toward Greece.
And the fate of mortals is precisely what the gods steer.
“For one, Achilles was a warrior as good as immortal—practically invincible. And among the gods backing Greece, you had Athena.”
“Athena's the goddess of wisdom, right? So her strategic stat would be top-tier.”
“The most important thing, though, is that Troy didn't have a cunning schemer like Odysseus. Troy held off the Greek invasion for ten years, and slowly, its defenses grew lax.”
The Greek army's spirits would have slackened just the same over such a long war.
“Odysseus exploited exactly that.”
It was simply because Odysseus understood—and weaponized—that shared human weakness that victory fell to him.
The student, who had been listening intently to my explanation, touched a finger to his chin and sank deep into thought.
“Then the heroes most likely to have been removed or nerfed in this war quest would be Achilles, the bruiser, and Odysseus, the strategist.”
“Right. Even if they weren't removed outright, their power would have been toned down.”
It was possible they'd been deleted from the board entirely—but with Paris standing right in front of us, it was too early to say for certain.
“Do we really have to decide here? Can't we go out and take a look at the god lineup first?”
[Of course.]
Jang Siwoon pressed the Curator urgently, as if she could no longer bear to wait. To be fair, the only god to appear in this Tower's version of the Trojan War so far had been Habaek.
The Curator readily accepted her request and started walking toward the front door.
“Wait.”
But a foreboding feeling seized me, and I hurried to stop him.
“What guarantee do we have that we won't end up like Yang Myeonghyun-ssi?”
[Then this time, I shall step outside first. Would that satisfy you?]
“…….”
What if he just shields himself while the rest of us die?
Still—Yang Myeonghyun had already gone out, and the three of us had formed a team. It was time for the quest to move into its next stage of explanation.
…With the sacrifice already out of the way, the sequence was probably supposed to proceed smoothly now, with Paris taking on the role of quest commentator, the way Yang Myeonghyun had.
"Smoothly," of all words. Sorry, Yang Myeonghyun-ssi.
As the student, Jang Siwoon, and I started after the Curator, Paris panicked and threw out his hands.
“N-now, hold on. You are meant to become the champions of Troy!”
“Can you guarantee us victory?”
“…….”
To my question, Paris offered no answer and simply averted his gaze.
No human could promise victory unless he were a prophet. A truly courageous hero, blind to the future, might have blustered on with utter conviction anyway. But Paris was not that kind of man, so his lips merely fluttered in silence.
I let out a faint sigh and turned toward the front door.
[Now then, visitors. Please step outside this door.]
“?!!”
The moment the door opened, river water came rushing into the house.
The waterline shot past our ankles in seconds, and we floundered in alarm, nearly toppling over. One wrong step and we'd have been drowned rats—so we steadied ourselves against the wall.
“The water's filled up all the way in here…!”
“This is basically a flood, isn't it?!”
The river that had been surging toward us from the distance had poured right into the house. I'd assumed that at least this house—where Paris and the Curator stood—would be safe.
Between the student's and Jang Siwoon's voices of disbelief, the sound of slapping water rose and fell.
I wanted to believe that a sudden death-by-flood was an unlikely route for visitors who still had a quest to complete—
But that's exactly how it went for Yang Myeonghyun-ssi, wasn't it? Swept away just like that.
On Floor 12, it had been fire that sent us into a panic. This time, it was water.
Just as I was about to grab the Curator and scream at him to stop the water—
A voice far louder than my own shout thundered down from the sky.
“A god of the Korean rivers, meddling in this war?!”
A voice of fury rang out from the heavens. Whether in deference to it or not, the violently surging water suddenly calmed, stirring only in gentle ripples.
“For the sake of humanity's hope, I shall convene an emergency council!”
As if those words had been the starting signal, the dark clouds overhead scattered, and bright light poured down.
In that instant, I knew. The gods were ascending to the heavens.
To decide which god's side we would take, we had to make our way to the council where they were gathering.
“Siwoon-ssi! Student! We have to go up to where the gods are!”
“Up where, Jisan-ssi? How do we even get up there?!”
[You may ascend via the stairs.]
“?!!”
At some point the Curator had teleported—his body was now positioned by the rear wall, far from the front door. Spreading along the wall he'd indicated was a narrow flight of stairs.
“You've got to be kidding me! The house is being swallowed by water right now—you think the second floor is going to be safe?!”
[You may ascend via the stairs.]
“…….”
The water had already climbed to our thighs. The current wasn't strong enough to sweep us away, but left as we were, we'd be submerged before long. If we went up to the second floor now, there'd be no escaping outward either.
When I bellowed at him, the Curator simply repeated himself, machine-like.
Come to think of it, stepping outside would only mean more overflowing water anyway. And just now, he clearly said…
I replayed the god's voice that had resounded from the sky. For the sake of humanity's hope, he had said. An emergency council.
Hope.
“Siwoon-ssi, Student! We have to listen to the Curator!”
“B-but if we go up there now, we won't be able to come back down…. We'll drown before we even get to fight the war!!”
The boy who had carried himself so maturely for his age finally broke, his voice wobbling on the edge of tears. With river water pouring in without pause, losing his composure was only natural.
But all the more reason to pull ourselves together and read the Tower's intent.
This Tower never stopped throwing problems at us—and the hints for solving them were almost always hidden in the NPCs' words.
“This is the house of hope!”
“What are you— agh, it's cold!!”
“This is Pandora's house! In the actual myth, Pandora kept the box containing hope inside this house! So we don't need to leave at all! This is where the emergency council is being held!”
The student, flailing about, lost his footing and swallowed a mouthful of river water. I hurriedly hauled him upright and guided his hand toward the stairs.
The shortest among us had to go up first.
“Ugh…!”
Confusion had drained the strength from the boy's legs; his body swayed uselessly with every step. Even for a small-framed boy, dragging someone through a flood while pressing forward was no easy task.
Ha. Is this actually going to work?
My stamina was running low too, and my steps were starting to drag. I'd chosen to climb the stairs, yet here I was barely managing to move at all. If this kept up and we failed to reach the second floor before the water swallowed us whole—
“Grab him!”
“Wha—?!!”
Just then, Jang Siwoon seized the student roughly by the collar and shoved him toward the stairs as if hurling him there.
It was a brutal, graceless motion, but her monstrous strength was just what he needed—the boy finally got his feet under him on the steps.
Jang Siwoon and I reached the stairs right after him, and the three of us bounded up the flight without a moment to catch our breath.
“—!!”
Midway up, my vision flashed white.
…This wasn't the second floor. We had ascended into the celestial realm.
“Wh-where are we…?”
“Back on Olympus.”
The student and Jang Siwoon wrung out their soaked clothes as they looked around. It was a space identical in structure to the Olympus temple we had seen on Floor 12. We hadn't merely climbed to the second floor of the house—we had been transported to a completely different place. The scale of this space was on an entirely different order from Pandora's house we'd been standing in moments ago.
“Um… look over there.”
The student and I followed Jang Siwoon's pointing finger.
…A sight I wanted to be nowhere near was spread out before us.
Colossal gods sat in a circle, deep in discussion. My height didn't even reach their thighs—at that scale, a human approaching them was like a mouse walking straight up to a cat without a shred of fear.
“How perfectly timed, this council of yours. Of all moments, you convene it precisely when Troy holds the advantage—”
An Eastern god with long, thin whiskers like a carp's was frowning and fuming. He was on the smaller side, at least compared to the other gods. Every time the male god in hanbok raised his voice, water splashed up at his feet.
That's Habaek.
Seeing the water welling up at his feet, I could tell: that man was the water god, Habaek.
“Hah! The insolence! Where does a river god get off defying the god of the sea?!”
“Then you should never have let me be dragged into this battlefield!”
A Western god brandishing a trident roared at Habaek. Habaek gave as good as he got, radiating a fierce aura as he squared off against the sea god. For a river god—hierarchically beneath a sea god by definition—to push back that hard was impressive in itself.
The sea god, displaying his displeasure quite openly, ran his fingers along his gleaming crown.
“Jisan-ssi. If that one's the god of the sea, then he's Poseidon—and the god sitting across from him is Habaek, right?”
“Yeah. That's what it looks like.”
Jang Siwoon drew close to me and whispered, careful not to let the gods overhear.
“Habaek's got one hell of a temper, huh?”
Is that even an appropriate thing to say about a god?