Learned Helplessness
I stopped going out to hunt. I stopped scavenging the labyrinth for treasure. I stopped clearing quests. Ever since fleeing the boss room with my tail between my legs, I'd done nothing but wait for a new challenger to show up.
Half a year slipped by just like that.
No challengers had entered during that entire stretch.
Tower of Trials #2661 (1/1)
The Tower of Trials is fundamentally cut off from the outside world, but you can still get a sense of current events through new challengers who enter. The open community even runs a newspaper-like series compiling outside news from those noobs. I've been following it religiously.
According to that paper, the Tower of Trials #2661 where I'm trapped alone is some backwater tower that popped up in Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi Province. I heard the exact address once, but it's a place with zero connection to me. Never been there, never even heard of it.
They say challengers who receive invitations get sent to towers near their residence. So why the hell did I end up here?
It's not an absolute rule—there are exceptions—but apparently most people follow that pattern.
"Fuck."
The thought soured my mood, so I spat out a curse for no reason. Spending so much time alone had worn down my urge to speak anything but swears.
Even before entering the tower, as an unemployed bum... no, a job-hunting slacker, I barely talked to people. But it wasn't this bad. Mom was there, at least.
The village NPCs just spout their scripted lines like machines. They don't feel human, and real conversations never happen.
-Thud, thud.
I left the inn and headed to the village restaurant. The food came out the moment the NPC waitress took my order.
◈ The stretchy cheese is a standout feature.
◈ Super tasty, but a bit pricey.
◈ For adventurers with deep pockets!
◈ Greatly satisfies hunger.
I'd grown sick of the inn's meals from eating them daily. Gold wasn't an issue anyway, so I'd been sampling variety. This cheese tonkatsu bento was recommended even by rankers stuck in the tower longer than me. And yeah, it lived up to the hype.
Of course, those rankers were the crazy bastards chowing down on nothing but white rolls every day for the luck buff.
I snapped a photo of the cheese tonkatsu bento and posted it to the community, and comments piled up fast as always. Mostly bullshit, but my posts always got good engagement. I'd become a name as big as any ranker in the open community.
After losing to the boss, I'd holed up in the inn every day, pouring all my time into community activity. These days, I was a full-on community ghost.
Even before entering the Tower of Trials, I'd been a daily community fiend. My main haunt was a humor community dealing with social and political issues—full of those so-called "real failures," guys in their thirties+ rotting away online all day.
Watching them gave me some comfort, a place to bitch about my dirt-spoon life and curse society. Hiding in anonymity to vent my aimless gripes—that was my biggest hobby.
Still was.
Dirt-spoon origins, invitation I thought was a life-reversing golden ticket but turned out to be a trap, half a year of forced isolation. My shit life was packed with lament fodder, and the open community users ate it up straight.
To other challengers with hunter life-reversals on lock, my situation looked pathetically bleak.
Of course, some assholes pitied me like that sometimes. But I had endless ammo to clap back.
Have you spent half a year on floor 1? Lived completely alone without talking to a soul? Tried soloing the boss and nearly died?
No one had ever been in my unprecedented hell. No one could counter my comebacks fully.
Who could win a keyboard war against someone forcibly turned into a time-rich Bill Gates?
"Fucking prick."
I chomped through the cheese tonkatsu, unleashing a torrent of abuse on the challenger who'd picked a fight.
At my level, killing goblins barely nets any XP. What does this fucker know? Thinks effort alone breaks this deadlock? Thinks grinding floor 1 mobs solos the boss?
He doesn't get that effort efficiency is totally different here. He's not rotting on floor 1 like me.
Just like those gold-spoon assholes I saw before entering, mocking dirt-spoons. Clueless to their privileged starts, shoving "lack of effort/weak will" on the poor.
I knew the starting gap all too well—that's why I'd pinned all hopes on the tower invitation during my jobless days. My one shot at life reversal, the only way a dirt-spoon like me could repay Mom.
The instigator bailed without winning the logic war. The tonkatsu tasted even better now.
"……"
The good mood didn't last.
Another month passed without escaping floor 1.
Unless you're a ranker camping long-term on purpose, every challenger eventually leaves. Even the ghosts who seemed glued to community forever.
Today, one more ghost logged off.
Shoutout to party peeps Yong-ju, Min-hyeok, and big bro Sung-chul for the grind. Won't forget the commenters who cheered me on.
Especially Park Min-seok#1247 who gave tips when I was stuck on 50—hit me up when you graduate, dinner's on me.
Now really go fuck yourselves~~~
Kim Min-hyeong of server #1451 was a semi-ranker aiming for A-grade hunter status. Also one of those daily "closed-door training year N" ghost posters.
Whenever a ranker-level challenger graduates, the open community buzzes about it for a while.
Click. I closed the community window.
I didn't want to see graduation talk. Their item drops, messages to the outside—none of it mattered to me.
Unless a server merge event hits, with mail and auction house separate, I can't snag their loot. Same for outside messages.
I'd already passed on all news to Mom. That I'm trapped alone on Tower of Trials floor 1, can't get out.
She'd apparently begged government officials and hunters to help. Wonder what she's up to now.
Any future news would be one of two things: a newbie enters this tower, or I die.
"What a shitshow."
Soured again, I trudged back to the inn, buried my face in the pillow, and slept the day away.
A few days later, after my usual all-nighter on community, an alarm chime woke me at dawn.
A notification pinged nonstop from the still-open community window, tagging me.
"Shit... what."
Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I checked it. A post urging me to check DMs, loaded with tags.
I closed community and opened messages.
The sender's name was familiar. Someone who'd relayed my news to Mom via graduates a few times.
I like three-line summaries, but this was too long and messy. The conclusion was simple, though.
Today—wait, yesterday?—Mom died.
Didn't matter. The realization flowed out of my brain like water down a drain.