2. The Tower (1)

While working through a bowl of galbitang, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I listened to the story the Association people had to tell.

Five years ago, Towers had suddenly appeared all over the world.

The Towers spawned at random — some of them rising precisely where the major cities of certain nations once stood — and they slaughtered tens of thousands, even millions, unleashing calamities of unprecedented severity.

For a while, the governments of the world did nothing but bar civilians from approaching and throw up seals around them. And then—

Countless Gates erupted in the wake of the Tower's Retribution, and the monsters pouring out of them set the second disaster in motion.

Every land the monsters trod upon was defiled, countless people died, and it was only after humanity had barely, just barely, managed to hold them back that the truth finally dawned on everyone.

These Towers had to be climbed.

'The most clichéd tower-climbing setup imaginable.'

It closely resembled the tower-climbing novels a friend had once talked me into reading. A trial of unknown origin, imposed upon humanity. People adapted and carried on living in this new era, while a select handful — called Players, or Hunters, or Awakeners and the like — climbed the Tower and held off the apocalypse.

Which was exactly why I couldn't help but be certain of one thing.

'Has the entire world been overwritten by an anomaly built on a work of fiction?'

As always, I regarded these things through the lens of a Bureau Director.

Towers, Gates, monsters. No matter how I looked at them, they were respectively a structural entity inducing anomalous phenomena, a zone-type anomalous phenomenon, and singular anomalous entities.

However large, however terrifying a threat might be, the Bureau had always found a way to resolve it. These things would be no exception.

'Yes. Is the detailed survey finished?'

'How dare these anomalies try to steal the ground humanity stands on. Unforgivable.'

I scraped the last of the galbitang from the bowl as I thought it. I had very nearly been deprived of this delicious food forever, after all.

In the parallel universe's version of South Korea, galbitang did not exist. Walk into a Chinese restaurant and they sold jjamppong, but no jjajangmyeon or tangsuyuk. They served shabu-shabu, but nobody put the meat into the pot. And above all else, the entire Phoenix Spicy Noodles product line had been wiped off the face of the earth.

It was, in every sense, a horrific world.

Why was it that across so many near-identical parallel worlds, only the delicious food had been handpicked for deletion? When it came to bizarre problems like this, the answer was usually the same: an anomaly.

That's right. All of it was the scheming of that accursed anomaly bastard.

Entity designation: Proof of the Devil. The name meant that proving something was easy — but proving that something had once existed and then vanished was nearly impossible.

You might call that nonsense, but anomalies were exactly that kind of creature. They erased concepts from the world a handful at a time, on a whim — and if you could prove their erasure, they could be purged. The catch was that even a successful purge brought nothing back. The concepts they had already deleted never returned.

The culinary heritage humanity had lost that way numbered well over several hundred dishes.

If I had forgotten them like everyone else, I might at least have been healed. But having been judged as an otherworlder, I alone remembered it all. Somehow, that was even more infuriating.

'You have no idea how much I missed this.'

Lunch would be jjajangmyeon and tangsuyuk, demolished at a Chinese restaurant. Dinner, a shabu-shabu absolutely loaded with meat. And for a late-night snack, a Carbonara Phoenix Spicy Noodles from the convenience store.

And yet these bastards wanted to put even that on a deadline. The anomalies — the Tower, the Gates, the monsters — were trying to rob me of the pleasures of fine dining all over again.

'Every last one of you is going to pay for it.'

Just as I finished the thought—

"…Ahem. Mr. Nam Hyeon-seung?"

"Yes."

"Now that you've finished eating, may we have a word?"

"By all means."

I submitted to the interrogation of the pot-bellied middle-aged man before me — Bae Jin-woo, an investigator with the Awakener Association. I owed him that much for the free meal, at least.

Bae Jin-woo was a C-rank Awakener serving as an investigator for the Awakener Association. Over three years on the job, he had become a seasoned handler of the otherworldly beings that came through Gates.

But even Bae Jin-woo couldn't help feeling flabbergasted by this one. After all, a Korean man in perfectly neat clothes had walked out of a Gate. He had cooperated willingly with being escorted to the Association. And before even setting foot in the interrogation room, he had politely requested, "Please order three bowls of galbitang." The moment the food arrived, he'd cleaned out all three bowls like a competitive eater.

'…Well, no. That much isn't any of my business.'

Bae Jin-woo gave his head a small shake and began his questions. Light personal background first — and then the question of why exactly this man had appeared from beyond a Gate. That was the sort of material he was supposed to be investigating.

Except the man's answers were a little off.

"…A parallel world, you say?"

"That's right. Five years ago, I stopped by a convenience store, and when I stepped out, I had been 'trans-dimensionally shifted' into a world that was just slightly different."

Still South Korea, he claimed, but subtly altered. Politicians' names differed in small ways, place names didn't match what he remembered.

'This isn't a novel, for crying out loud….'

Listening with one ear and letting it flow out the other, Bae Jin-woo wrote the following under Special Notes:

And yet, something about it nagged at him.

'This man definitely did come out of a Gate, though.'

Gates generally came in two types. One kind connected to a healthy, intact other world. The other was a preserved fragment — a taxidermied instant of a world that had already been destroyed.

The former were rare, but intelligent beings did occasionally cross over through them, and such beings could be a genuine help in conquering the Towers and Gates. The latter, on the other hand, belonged to the already dead — deranged, and worse, they turned into monsters the instant their Gate closed, going on rampages, which made proper screening essential.

The one blessing was that Nam Hyeon-seung was clearly not the latter type.

'So he really did come from another world… but.'

It was the records from the police that threw him into confusion. Nam Hyeon-seung had genuinely lived in Korea before the Great Cataclysm — and he had been the subject of a registered missing-persons report.

The beings this man had dealt with were otherworld species from beyond Gates, with no connection whatsoever to Earth. It was a situation without precedent, and Bae Jin-woo found himself at a loss.

"Mr. Nam Hyeon-seung."

"Yes."

"You're not lying to me, are you?"

"Not a shred of falsehood has crossed my lips."

"That doesn't add up. Your missing-persons report was filed five months after the Gates first appeared. So the claim that you were 'shifted' to another dimension before the Gate outbreak even—"

"Ah, I think we've crossed wires. I never said I was shifted through a Gate."

"…Pardon? Then—"

"The cause is unknown, but the moment I entered that convenience store and stepped back out, I was already standing in another dimension. Without the slightest sense that anything was wrong."

It was too absurd a claim to swallow, so Bae Jin-woo chose silence — and circled his earlier memo three more times.

Then, at that moment—

-BANG.

"Sorry for the wait!"

"Ah, there you are."

"Yes, you can use it right away."

The artifact the Awakener Association used when interrogating beings from beyond a Gate — the Lie Detector, capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood.

Bae Jin-woo set it down on the table and asked his questions. When an answer was true, the device flashed blue; when false, red.

"Please answer honestly. What exactly are you?"

"An ordinary person. A Korean. Five years ago, I was shifted to a parallel world."

All three times, the light wavered blue.

'It's… true?'

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

Bae Jin-woo muttered without meaning to. "You're telling me to believe this now…."

Nam Hyeon-seung — no, the former Director ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the Bureau — was beginning to lose his patience.

'Their interrogation methods are archaic and inefficient.'

He would never have done it this way.

"And what do you intend to do if you don't believe me?"

"…I beg your pardon?"

"This Korea seems ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rather different from the one I knew. The Awakener Association, was it? Are you planning to resort to torture to extract the answers you want?"

"N-no, that's not—"

He flustered the man and seized control of the conversation, then pressed the advantage without pause.

"If that's not the case, then this artifact — this foreign object… no, this device — has already distinguished truth from falsehood. Is there any reason to drag this out any further?"

"…No, sir."

"Then kindly finish the investigation. A man who cooperated this willingly deserves at least that much courtesy, doesn't he?"

"Y-yes, of course…."

Bae Jin-woo found himself recalling the time he'd stood before a superior in a cold fury, his mind going completely blank. That same crushing pressure — the kind an enraged Association president could generate — was radiating from a man younger than he was.

'This is no ordinary person.'

"Th-then, let's proceed with a simple Awakener test, shall we? If you would just place your hand here…."

It was a broken brick from one of the Towers — one that reacted to latent Awakener potential. Nam Hyeon-seung placed his hand on it as instructed.

-…….

Nothing happened at all.

"Is that all it takes?"

"Y-yes. You are… not an Awakener."

Every otherworlder who had come through a Gate had possessed the potential to awaken. This was a first, and so the matter was reported up the chain.

"I'm sorry? But—"

"Th-that's correct."

"Understood, Branch Chief."

Following instructions, Bae Jin-woo concluded Nam Hyeon-seung's investigation.

"We've filed the paperwork on our end to cancel your missing-persons report, for now. If you look here, you'll see the government and the Association are jointly running a number of support policies for people who arrive through Gates. Do you have somewhere to stay at the moment?"

"No."

"In that case, we provide free lodging for six months, and—"

He mechanically ran through explanations of the various support policies, and was just about to escort the man to the lodging where he'd be staying—

"Just give me the address. I can find my own way there."

"Ah, yes…."

As Bae Jin-woo stood staring blankly at the man's retreating back, a female Awakener came sauntering down the corridor from the opposite direction.

"Mister~ what are you up to?"

"Ah, Hyeon-a. Just wrapping up an interrogation."

It was Choi Hyeon-a, the branch's single greatest asset — an S-rank Awakener.

"Oh, that's him, right? The one who came out of the Gate."

"That's him."

"And you're really just letting him walk?"

"Word is the investigation came back clean, so he's fine. He's not even an Awakener in the first place."

"He came out of a Gate and he's not an Awakener? Since when does that happen?"

"Tell me about it."

The matter had already left his hands, so Bae Jin-woo decided not to dwell on it. What he did hope was that he'd never cross paths with the man again. He would honestly rather have stood before the Branch Chief mid-rampage — that was how bone-deep the experience had left him trembling.

"Well, the Branch Chief will figure it out. That man's no ordinary customer, I could tell. His name was… Nam Hyeon-seung, was it?"

As he spoke, he fanned himself with the file folder—

-SMACK.

Choi Hyeon-a abruptly seized his arm.

"H-Hyeon-a?"

"Hold on. That man's name… what did you say it was?"

"Huh? Oh, uh — here. Nam Hyeon-seung."

Choi Hyeon-a checked the personal details on the file, then went rigid, murmuring under her breath.

"Nam Hyeon-seung…?"

I stopped by the lodging the Association had provided.

A two-room unit stocked with daily necessities, home appliances, and furniture — perfectly serviceable for immediate occupancy.

"Six months, free of charge. Not bad."

People who emerged from Gates were, as a rule, Awakeners — and since they could earn substantial income by climbing Towers and resolving Gates, the government subsidized their basic living costs until they got on their feet. It was a tidy, sensible policy.

On the table sat a check card with a living stipend already deposited.

I rested for a while, and once lunchtime rolled around, I headed out. After single-handedly demolishing an extra-large jjajangmyeon and a full-size order of tangsuyuk at a Chinese restaurant, I took a stroll — and made my way to the studio apartment I used to live in.

'Scan it.'

Well, of course. Five years had passed since the day I went missing. Nobody would have left my belongings untouched that whole time.

I had no intention of searching for them. I knew all too well that it was impossible.

And yet.

'Not much has changed, though.'

I wanted to commit to memory the neighborhood where I had last lived.

There would be no help from family, either. Even before the shift, I had been the only one of mine left in that world. The phone with all my friends' contact information had been lost back when I was hunting anomalies, and after five years away, I had no close enough friends to come begging to now.

'If I'm going to study and subdue these Tower anomalies going forward, I'll need a new branch of my own. Which means I'll need funding right away. Status Window — got any promising sources of money?'

'What is it?'

'Excellent.'

Defeat the anomalies, secure the funds. It wasn't so very different from the work I'd done over there.

If anything, it paid better — and it came with the added bonus of a mission to protect humanity. All the more reason to like it.

'Very good, Status Window. So how do I go about entering a Tower?'

At which point—

The Status Window slammed on the brakes.