The Tower (2)

'What's the problem here?'

So it wasn't the kind of place you could just waltz into because you felt like it. Apparently a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠web of complicated rules was tangled around it.

'Give me all the detailed information you have on the Tower.'

'Stop. Summarize. Key points only.'

In other words, a place only Awakeners were permitted to climb. And yet, hadn't I just been tested and told I lacked any Awakener potential?

'Ridiculous.'

The Management Bureau didn't divide its anomaly-hunters into the chosen and the unchosen. Anyone with the devotion to serve humanity qualified to become an agent. That was the Bureau's way—and mine.

Which made it all the more galling that these things, anomalies no less, dared to—

'Sort people into castes and slap a grade and a price tag on each of them?'

Unacceptable. It was no better than dancing in the palms of anomalies that deserved to be suppressed. 'What about Gates, then?'

Awakeners were, presumably, the crowd chosen by the Tower—an anomaly itself. And having gained power, they dragged ordinary people into hell to do their dirty work.

And the cut those porters received was pennies on the won. That told you everything about their character.

'Every bit as vile as the anomalies themselves.'

For a fleeting moment, I was tempted to administer some good old-fashioned Bureau re-education. I even briefly considered volunteering as a porter—

'Wait. Status Window. Didn't you say "through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠normal means" just now?'

'Excellent work.'

Ding!

So the harder the difficulty, the better the rewards.

Well, in that case.

Without a shred of hesitation, I selected the highest tier: Taboo. A new window immediately popped up.

'Waste of time. Just go in.'

I'd already confirmed there were no CCTV cameras in the area. And if things went sideways, I could simply wipe the memories of everyone involved. That much was well within my capabilities.

I pressed YES.

Zzzzzzzt—!

My entire body was swallowed by blue light, and in the next moment I was transferred to another dimension.

"Oh ho. So that's how it works."

The swarm of light dissolved, and a new world unfolded before me.

The two trackers—agents of the Detection Division, dispatched on a covert order from the Branch Director to tail Nam Hyeon-seung—stood frozen, utterly incapable of closing their mouths after what they had just witnessed.

"Th-that just now…"

"I think so, right? That's the notification window Awakeners get when they enter the Tower for the first time, and the difficulty selection and everything…"

Their surveillance target had been flagged as a confirmed non-Awakener. So how on earth had he gotten into the Tower?

"Team Leader, we should report to the Branch Director first—"

"Ah, uh, yeah. Let's do that."

He was so stunned he'd forgotten that reporting immediately was, in fact, his job. Only belatedly did he fumble out his phone.

And then—

Ding!

"…Wh-what?"

The moment their surveillance target entered the Tower, a world record had been broken. The two men stared blankly at each other—

Ding!

Ding!

—and the record notifications for Floors 2 and 3 rang out back to back, one right after the other.

"!!!"

Startled out of their wits, they dropped both phones at the same time.

Sploosh!

"Oh no—"

The phones plunged into a deep storm drain. And of course, it had rained yesterday, so the drain was running with water.

It looked like the report was going to be late.

What had appeared before my eyes had to be a hallucination crafted by the anomaly called the Tower—or an artificially constructed world. The anomaly I needed to process was a gray stone golem roughly 2.5 meters tall.

Except.

"There it is."

Crack!

GWOOOOAAGH?!

"An anomaly that flaunts its own weak point in broad daylight. Disappointing."

The clumsy pile of stones was held together around a glowing red core, shaped so that anyone could see exactly where to strike it down. For a brief moment I considered whether it might be an elaborate trap—but if it was a trap, suppressing it solved that too. I pulled the Anomaly Suppression Baton from my inner pocket and brought it down in one clean swing.

"Hm?"

Something was off. I had dispatched exactly one anomaly, and the rewards were absurdly generous—generous to a fault.

"Status Window."

[Yes, Director.]

"Any traps?"

[Analysis confirms there are none.]

"Then what is this? Don't tell me it's targeting a psychological weakness."

Fattened pigs grow complacent—it was inevitable. Lure the Awakeners in with lavish rewards, make them soft and comfortable, and quietly pull them away from their goals of averting the world's end and reaching the Tower's summit. A sophisticated psy-op, no question about it.

"So you're a tougher customer than you look."

The moment I checked my rewards, a notification informed me they'd been moved to something called an Inventory, and a choice appeared before me.

"Let's see how far Floor 3 goes, at least."

Floor 1 was a taste test. The real trials might well begin from Floor 2. I pressed YES and cleared my way up to Floors 2 and 3.

But.

It was pathetically easy compared to what I'd braced for. Two golems on Floor 2. Three golems on Floor 3. That was the entire escalation.

CRASH!!!

GWOOOOAAGH!!!

I dispatched them with hardly any effort, and once more it announced a new world record and pumped up my rewards.

"Status Window. How much have I earned so far?"

[36 kilograms of Magic Stones. At market rates, approximately 43,200,000 won. Market values for the other items require additional data collection.]

"Absurd."

This anomaly might be even more cunning and insidious than I'd estimated. The haul was so preposterously large that even me—the most incorruptible, least materialistic officer in the entire Management Bureau—felt it tug at me for a second.

"I see. An anomaly designed to bewitch people and lull them into complacency."

I had made over forty million won in less than two minutes inside the Tower. Which meant the Awakeners must be pulling in tens of billions per job.

Even a rigorously trained Bureau agent could be tempted by a figure like that. Drunk on the power of Awakening, an anomaly's free gift, those Awakener trash heaps didn't serve ordinary people—they exploited them. No wonder they'd gone so rotten.

It was almost funny that the world was being eroded and devoured by creatures this weak. And at the same time—

"Heh."

I was glad. Because I now knew, with certainty, that with my own hands I could protect this world's intact food culture and every manner of entertainment that the anomalies on the other side had stolen from me.

"Yes."

I slipped out of the Tower.

And then I quietly crept up on the two trackers—who were currently grunting and straining, arms jammed into an open manhole cover trying to fish something out.

"You there."

"Gah?!"

"Give me a moment of your time, gentlemen."

I grabbed the backs of their necks and activated the memory erasure device.

Well, cleanup has to be done properly. Isn't that basic training for a Management Bureau agent?

Having laid the two trackers down neatly in a corner, I slipped out of the alley, threading only between the CCTV blind spots.

"An Inventory. Some kind of subspace storage function?"

No sooner had I spoken than a translucent window materialized before my eyes—a grid of small squares, like the equipment and consumable slots in an RPG game.

"Fascinating. I don't sense any unusual energy reaction from it, either. Is this another anomaly tied to the Tower?"

[It appears to draw both energy and data directly from the Tower.]

Retrieving the contents was simple. I tapped the item I wanted.

I withdrew just 500 grams. A heavy, dull stone materialized into my palm—an unsettling thing, exuding a sinister aura, dark violet vapor seeping from its surface.

"At market rates, this little rock is worth about 600,000 won? Expensive stuff."

[It is used across a wide range of fields, from crafting Awakener equipment to manufacturing everyday goods.]

[In particular, news reports state that when Magic Stones are used as a power source, they offer high efficiency with zero emissions, reducing the country's reliance on coal power.]

"Eco-friendly, huh. No wonder the sky's been so clear lately."

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

Fine particulate pollution on the decline was a good thing.

"So where do I sell these Magic Stones?"

I had the valuable stones in hand, but I obviously couldn't hawk them at the neighborhood supermarket.

"So I'd need to be a registered Awakener first."

[Correct. However, that is not to say there are no alternatives.]

"As expected of my capable Status Window. What's the method?"

[I have located a dedicated community accessible only to Awakeners. It is called the Awakener Gallery.]

[It originates from the ability Community of an Awakener named Ji Hyeon-seok, and it is here that Magic Stones, items, and other goods are traded on the black market.]

"A community. How do I log in?"

[Access is exclusive to Awakeners, but I've already broken through. Have a look.]

I set about combing the Awakener community to raise my operating funds. The UI was a little unfamiliar, but I was well versed in online forums, so I adapted in no time. Wandering in and out of web communities had always been my way of killing time, after all.

Granted, after I was dragged into that parallel world five years ago, I'd been forced off them semi-permanently. Survival came first—I was running my body ragged, and there simply wasn't time for forums.

And yet.

"Hm?"

For whatever reason, the Awakener community was absolutely on fire. Skimming through the posts, it seemed some phenomenal rising-star Awakener had appeared. I had no idea who it was, but thanks to that person the board was drowning in new threads, making it hard to find anything—the feed just kept scrolling up and up.

Still, I was something of a veteran at this. Amid the chaos of posts, I finally dug out what I was looking for: a trading thread.

"Found it."

Time passes, careers change, but RMT parasites never change.

I sent the thread's author a private message, and a reply came back in an instant.

"Someone must be desperate, then?"

The short message expressing interest in a trade was riddled with typos.