Error, Opportunity (1)
'…My words caused an error in the Tower.'
By the time the deafening noise finally stopped, the letters scrawled across my leaflet had settled into order.
Only now could I read a properly formed sentence.
— A quest is being initiated for visitors who have made a 'mistake.'
— Visitors who succeed will escape their fate of annihilation.
[Oh dear—]
The Curator pressed both hands into empty air, as if the situation were clearly no fault of his own.
Judging by where his hands were placed, he was probably trying to massage his temples.
[Visitor Kim Jisan.]
[Because of you, an unprecedented precedent has been created.]
[You have partially rewritten the Tower's once-perfect system.]
Apparently my counterattack had rattled him, because the Curator kept rambling on and on.
An unprecedented precedent, was it? It seemed I'd managed to pinpoint a genuine flaw after all.
'In that case.'
"Isn't it precisely because the Tower was not perfect that such an unprecedented benefit has been granted?"
[As I said before, Visitor Kim Jisan. Do not insult the Tower.]
"Then let me offer the Tower a chance to become perfect."
[…?]
I drew a confident smile across my face, the corner of my mouth curling upward.
"Looking at that quest announcement, it seems to be a losers' revival match. And as we've been saying all along, this wasn't only my mistake, was it?"
[…….]
"If we pass the quest, you let us live. As compensation goes, that's not nearly enough."
I deliberately poked at the Curator's obsession with the Tower's perfection, provoking him.
"If we pass, let us skip ahead two floors. No — make it five."
[We cannot invent a pass reward on the spot that has never existed before.]
"Hasn't an unprecedented quest called a losers' revival match already been invented just now?"
At some point, my body had fully restored itself, right down to my fingertips.
Whether to add a reward on the spot and change the composition — that was a matter for the Curator and the Tower to discuss.
The leaflet did not stir. Neither did the Curator. Everything went still.
[Very well. Visitor Kim Jisan.]
"!!"
Did it work?
My heart pounded at the Curator's hopeful words.
[To keep persuading me until all that was left of you was a face. What remarkable tenacity.]
[I was actually considering using that face as a part, you know.]
'Yes!'
I had earned another chance at the climb — and on top of that, if I passed, I'd get to leap past five whole floors.
I clenched both fists.
[Truly. There will never be another visitor quite like you.]
The Curator, apparently eager to sweep the plaster dust scattered on the floor away from before him, fluttered the hem of his robe and sent the powder billowing.
[As it happens, the Tower has prepared a space for those who 'make mistakes.']
"A space for people who made mistakes…?"
[I shall exercise my authority as Curator of this museum.]
[Let us go to the Boundary.]
'The Boundary?'
The instant I tried to ask about that place, the Curator dropped his robe over my head.
"!!"
As if a curtain of night had been drawn across the world, darkness swallowed my vision.
…….
…….
…….
'My head feels like it's going to split open….'
I opened my eyes, clutching my skull as it throbbed with headache.
"Ugh…."
A groan slipped out of me before I could stop it.
But in that very moment, I realized something important.
The fingers I needed to press against my aching temples had grown back.
"Excuse me? Are you all right?"
At the sound of a woman's voice beside me, I lifted my gaze and struggled to focus my bleary vision.
A young woman was speaking to me cautiously.
Staggering, I managed to steady myself upright on my legs.
'My ankle's healed.'
Perhaps because my vanished body had been restored, the searing ache in my ankle was gone as well, thankfully.
"You can take my hand to get up. Ah — I have absolutely no ulterior motives, I swear…!"
The woman thrust her hand out first, then immediately flushed red.
Her emotions shifted from moment to moment so quickly that I half wondered if she wasn't an adult at all, but a schoolgirl in the thick of adolescence.
'But this is no time for a cozy little chat.'
I waved her off, told her I was fine, and pulled myself to my feet on my own.
"This place… the Curator dragged us here, didn't he."
"Yes, that's right. I only woke up a moment ago myself. This is probably where the losers' revival match takes place."
The ceiling and floor were transparent, as though made of acrylic panes.
Beyond the floor stretched nothing but pitch-black darkness.
'I can't even tell how thick the floor is…. If this shatters—'
Just imagining falling into that darkness made the hair on my head stand on end.
[A losers' revival match, is it? For losers, that was a rather bold negotiation.]
Just then, the familiar bundle of robes rose into the air, and as its hem unfurled, the Curator greeted us.
[Welcome, you two visitors who have arrived at the Boundary.]
Apparently the Curator had recovered his spirits in the meantime, for he resumed his usual air of slippery self-assurance.
[This is the space of opportunity. The Boundary of the Tower.]
[You visitors fell here not through complete failure, but through a 'mistake.']
[The reasons vary.]
The Curator looked back and forth between the woman standing at my side and me.
I could tell he was turning his head by watching his Adam's apple slide left and right.
[Some missed the meaning of a quest entirely.]
'That one's me.'
[Some lost their way on the border between noble sacrifice and hypocrisy.]
'…Is that me too?'
[And some stood ambiguously at a crossroads lasting a mere 0.01 seconds.]
[That was not a statement singling anyone out, so do discard your excessive self-consciousness, Visitor A.]
"…Visitor A? Are you referring to me?"
By now I was used to the Curator reading my thoughts and answering them unbidden.
What puzzled me was the form of address. Out of nowhere, the Curator was calling me 'A' instead of by name.
When I pointed at myself with a finger in bewilderment, the Curator gave a nod of his severed neck.
[The two of you who fell from the exhibition floors have lost even your names.]
[But you have not become parts. So—]
[Visitor A.]
[Visitor B.]
[That is how I shall call you.]
The Curator designated me 'Visitor A' and the woman beside me 'Visitor B.'
All this time he had relished attaching my name to every mockery — and now suddenly he was swapping names for letters of the alphabet?
"Is there some reason you won't simply call us by our names?"
[Now that the Boundary quest has been newly introduced, a distinguishing feature is required: the forfeiture of names.]
Watching him announce that we wouldn't be treated as proper human beings, I could already imagine how grueling the quests ahead would be.
[Right now, at this very moment, the Boundary quest is forming inside the Tower.]
[From now on, any visitor across the dimensions who receives a 'mistake' judgment will be permitted to undertake the Boundary quest once.]
[Consider it a final chance.]
The Curator flung both arms wide in a theatrical gesture, striking an exaggerated pose as if performing on a stage.
…It was also the kind of pose you'd expect from a cult leader.
[This place lies at the boundary between floors.]
[It may be the boundary between Floor 23 and Floor 24, or the boundary between Floor 41 and Floor 42.]
In other words — a place where you could run a revival match.
I was getting sick of the Curator's habit of circling around and around the same point.
"The revival match will naturally proceed as a quest similar to everything so far, I take it?"
Perhaps cutting into the Curator's explanation to ask a question struck me as absurd even to myself.
The woman beside me shot me a sidelong glance and stole a look at the Curator's face.
Not that it bothered me — I was the sort of person always ready to interject, no matter whose explanation was running.
'I just hope this isn't a contest where we defeat each other.'
Maybe I was asking for too much — a revival if we passed, plus the chance to skip five floors besides.
And still, I wanted us to join forces and escape this place together.
Contests built on trampling the other person always layered fresh guilt onto feelings already worn numb.
[Don't worry, Visitor A.]
[This quest is a joint operation.]
The Curator's tone was excessively kind. So kind, in fact, that it sent a chill up my spine.
[Even if one of you becomes a part, we will promptly fill the slot with a Visitor C to carry on — so rest easy.]
'Visitor C.'
"Wh-what do you mean? Please explain in detail!"
The woman's face drained white in an instant.
For a moment the Curator's words hadn't registered; then, belatedly, their meaning seemed to fall into place.
A sound close to a shriek burst from her lips, carrying naked, undisguised terror.
I understood exactly what he meant — and that was precisely why it was so much more frightening.
[Standing as you are at the Boundary, you two — how frightened you must be.]
[If either of you acts in a way that violates this Boundary, you fail. You become a part, of course.]
[The visitor left behind would be lonely, you see — so we immediately fill the vacancy with a replacement.]
To the woman trembling with fear, the Curator continued on without a care in the world.
He recited it in a mechanical drone, as though the visitor's terror had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
'…I suppose that's a rule that has endured ever since this Tower was built.'
[Just as countless visitors climb the Tower, so too do those who qualify as 'mistakes' arise without end.]
"Hh— hah…."
The woman's breathing grew noticeably ragged. Her fingers clutched at her chest as though groping for her own heartbeat.
She couldn't hold back her fear — being worthy of having climbed this far and all.
"I'm scared…."
The woman murmured to herself, unable to help it.
In the end, it was a joint operation, but one where you needn't concern yourself much even if the other person fell behind.
That ruthless system must have been terrifying to her.
If one of the two dropped out, the empty slot was instantly filled with a different visitor.
'Besides, attempts to deal with the Curator won't work anymore, I'd imagine.'
It was the final chance before becoming a part.
Violate the quest, and elimination followed without mercy, on the spot.
'A joint operation in name only — a quest with no reason to rely on one another.'
Boundary or not, this was still the Museum of Wishes. Cruel to the bone.
By the Tower's standards, we were nothing more than interchangeable parts, replaceable at any moment.
'Maybe that's why they call it becoming a part of the Tower after annihilation.'
[Now then — I shall reveal the Boundary quest.]
The moment the Curator finished speaking, a leaflet unfolded in the empty air.
Shffff—
— Visitors who have fallen to the Boundary, look back upon the museum.
— The history of the museum.
— Rewrite the mistake of a figure within that history.
— So that one line of the record within it may be written anew.
'A figure from history?'
[If you visitors wish to erase your mistakes and climb the Tower once more—]
[You must change the mistake of a historical figure of this museum.]
One word ran in a consistent thread through everything the Curator said.
Mistake.
[We look forward to your revival from the Boundary.]
[As you walk backward through the museum's history, may you advance further than before.]
[You will advance.]
The way he repeated and stressed the word advance caught my ear in particular.
Inside this Tower, which fed visitors an endless diet of despair, it was a rather rare expression of positivity.
[Yes. Visitor A must have caught on by now.]
[Walk backward through history, and for the visitor who at last succeeds in the quest, a tremendous advance awaits.]
The Curator's Adam's apple rotated slowly toward me.
As if he had been expecting exactly the reaction of a man chewing over the meaning of a word.
'Advance. In other words, the reward for that five-floor skip I bargained for.'
"Which historical figure will it be?"
[We can hardly hand out hints already.]
The thought that sweetness might come at long last after bitter toil made my heart race all the faster.
So I threw the question at the Curator hoping to pry out a hint about the quest, but he was resolute.
Truthfully, even as I asked, I'd expected him not to surrender a hint so easily.
[The light of knowledge does not shine forth through me, after all.]
Rather than telling me the historical figure, the Curator tossed out yet another loaded piece of wordplay.
The light shines forth. A pun… though perhaps not.
[Now then.]
The Curator paused, letting the moment hang.
In that fleeting silence, the woman and I could do nothing but swallow dryly.
At last, the Curator raised both arms high into the air, breaking the stillness that flowed through the Boundary.
[One of the two of you — step across and come to me.]
…One of the two of us?