The Wish to Stay
Do-yun pinched his cheek to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
You took 4 damage!
Instead of pain, the system notification floating before his eyes only sharpened the reality of the moment.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times before he finally had no choice but to accept it.
This Wish Ticket was real.
As if to prove it, the being known as Remiel was already showing every sign of descending in person.
No—hold on.
Ice-cold water dumped over the heat rising in Do-yun’s head. An angel’s appearance was never something that could be called good news.
Remiel put the authority called Reverse in my hands.
That had been a grace granted only because she had judged him a thorough weakling. And what about the Do-yun standing here now?
Seven consecutive first places in the Hall of Fame. A being who outstripped every other challenger climbing the Tower of Ascension. He couldn’t even bluff that Reverse alone had produced results like these.
Seven straight firsts is impossible unless you stacked them from the very beginning!
She might decide he had deceived her—and the truth wasn’t far from that. He really had carefully exploited her misunderstanding.
Cold sweat slid down his back. Then Remiel finally revealed her complete form.
Enfolded in lofty light, she stood with both hands folded before her chest, eyes closed in a posture of pure devotion.
A sacred halo unfurled behind her. The sight left nothing wanting in the image of an angel.
“Excellent challenger, I sincerely congratulate you on your brilliant achievements.”
With that greeting Remiel opened her eyes. The instant she confirmed the person before her, the smile that had been resting on her lips cracked.
The figure standing there was far outside anything she had expected.
“You are that weakling from before?”
Do-yun had tensed every muscle, certain her fury at being deceived was about to crash down on him. The next words out of her mouth left him thoroughly flustered instead.
“You’re still alive. It seems the measures I took were of some help.”
Encouragement colored with a strangely warm tone. Standing awkwardly under the gaze that waited for an answer, Do-yun finally managed to open his mouth.
“Ah—yes. It was of tremendous help.”
Without Reverse he never could have held first place for so long. In that sense Remiel’s authority truly had been invaluable. Yet he still couldn’t shake a lingering unease.
Why is she acting like this?
Remiel showed not the slightest ill will toward him. Was it simply that angels refused to cling to petty emotions? That theory failed to explain the cold pressure she had radiated the first time they met—when she had thoroughly intimidated him after being summoned along with Ciel.
“Confirming your survival brings me joy. However, I have duties to attend to, so I must take my leave.”
Only then did Do-yun understand why her reaction had been so unnaturally generous.
She doesn’t believe I actually took seven consecutive first places.
Remiel had apparently appeared to serve as guide for the special privilege of the Wish Ticket, and she was rock-solid in her conviction that the star of this moment could not possibly be him. Just as last time she had been called out by an error, she assumed another error had forced her descent now.
Golden waves flowed from her fingertips and gathered in the air. Space split open; a door haloed in sacred radiance formed before her. She stepped inside and left a final greeting.
“I have already passed your information to the administrator of the Second Stratum. Hear the details from him.”
With those words Remiel pushed her body into the doorway. Though no hand touched it, the door closed of its own accord with a smooth glide.
A soft click. A moment later the door opened again as if nothing had happened, and Remiel reappeared from within. In that brief interval she had perfectly composed every gesture. Hands folded before her chest, she slowly crossed the threshold once more.
Watching Remiel reinstall her devout-angel concept from the top, Do-yun could not hold back a single word.
“Excuse me.”
The sacred moment interrupted, Remiel’s brows drew together ever so slightly. That tiny change alone made the temperature of the Sanctuary Room feel a degree colder. Yet what followed made the shift seem trivial by comparison.
A sharp crack. The instant Remiel opened her eyes she locked gazes with Do-yun. A silence heavy enough to crush the air settled over them.
“It was you.”
Remiel murmured the words under her breath. When something happened twice, it was no longer a mistake. The one who had claimed seven consecutive first places—and thereby secured the Wish Ticket—was none other than the man standing before her.
“I do not know how this came to pass, yet I cannot neglect my duty merely to satisfy curiosity.”
Still solemn, hands layered over her heart, Remiel bowed her head.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Remiel, managing angel of the First Stratum.”
A pure-white halo bloomed behind her, wrapping her very existence in a mysterious aura.
“Challenger who has proven your qualifications—speak here and now the single wish you most desire.”
Had this been their first meeting, Do-yun might have been too tense even to breathe. Meeting her once before—however difficult that encounter had been—at least let him keep a grip on his wits.
“Wasn’t the Wish Ticket something granted only to the one who climbs the Tower of Ascension to its end?”
According to the notification that had appeared the moment he first entered the Tower of Ascension, the Wish Ticket was a right given solely to the first person to reach the summit. No matter how outstanding his performance, this was still merely the First Stratum. With ninety floors remaining, it seemed unlikely they would simply toss him the final reward.
Remiel continued in a tone that suggested she had never expected such a question under these circumstances.
“You are correct. The wish I can grant at present is limited to what lies within my own authority.”
In other words, a request on the scale of returning Earth to the days before the gates appeared would be refused.
Still, this is an absurd opportunity.
There could not be many things impossible for a being of Remiel’s caliber. As long as the request stayed inside the bounds of common sense, she could probably grant almost anything. Do-yun spun his thoughts at full speed, determined to wring every possible advantage from the moment.
The first idea that rose was the one he had been turning over ever since the zeroth floor.
Ask her to send me to the Tower of Trials.
Being dragged into the Tower of Ascension by accident had already cost him far too much suffering. Climbing the Tower of Trials through the proper procedures would surely feel far more peaceful. Yet he crumpled the notion at once and flung it into the mental trash bin.
No. This is an opportunity.
When he first met Remiel on the fifth floor he had wanted nothing more than to return to the Tower of Trials as soon as possible. Standing on the threshold of the tenth floor, his thoughts had changed a great deal.
If I had followed the normal path, could I ever have received this many S-rank skills?
He did not think so. Without the special circumstance of his skill coefficients breaking the moment he entered the Tower of Ascension, even the luckiest run would have capped out around three. And the decisive reason he had chosen to remain in the Tower of Ascension was something else entirely.
Here I can obtain rewards that do not even exist in the Tower of Trials.
The Rune of Glory. The Rune of Resurrection. The Rune of Evolution. The special rewards waiting in the Hall of Fame, the minor privileges that stacked with every consecutive first place—and above all, the arrangements prepared on each floor for the heroes who would one day return to their hometowns. With Sun Swordsmanship and the staff already in hand, Do-yun had long since left the level of a First-Stratum challenger behind. If he managed to claim a few more of those arrangements…
I might obtain enough power to drive out the disasters that have fallen upon Earth completely.
The rivals ahead were hardly pushovers, yet having come this far a stubborn fire had kindled in him; he could not quit. From that perspective only one answer remained.
“Please allow me to continue climbing the Tower of Ascension.”
Earlier Remiel had clearly said she had already passed his information to the Second-Stratum administrator. It was entirely possible that starting from the very next floor he would be expelled to the Tower of Trials.
And in the process everything I’ve gained would be confiscated.
Do-yun wiped his damp palms against the hem of his pants and met Remiel’s gaze. Even though their eye levels were roughly equal, he somehow felt as though she were looking down on him.
“Are you in earnest?”
“Yes.”
“The managing angel of the Second Stratum possesses the authority to resolve your irregularity.”
Remiel delivered the warning as though missing this chance would mean there would never be another. After a moment of thought, Do-yun chose to nod.
“I’m fine with that.”
Whether she decided to respect his resolve or not, Remiel asked nothing further. Instead a system notification rose before his eyes, announcing that the wish had been accepted.
The ‘Wish Ticket’ has been used.
Along with the notice, Remiel walked back toward the door from which she had emerged, as though her business here were finished.
“Challenger Kim Do-yun. I will cheer for your ascension.”
With that final sentence Remiel’s form vanished completely. Only then did Do-yun release the breath he had been holding and sink to the floor.
Ciel was no different; her tension drained away only after Remiel had gone. She had not managed so much as a squeak until now. For a long moment she simply stood there blankly before carefully opening her mouth.
“Do-yun-nim… why did you wish for something like that? Wasn’t that a request you didn’t even need to spend the Wish Ticket on?”
“I thought about that too, but this felt more certain.”
As Ciel said, using the Wish Ticket might have been excessive. Even so, Do-yun had decided that even if he had to abandon every other possible reward, this point needed to be locked down.
“No matter how I persuade the managing angel waiting in the Second Stratum, there’s no telling what comes after that.”
After grinding himself to the bone just to reach the ninety-ninth floor, an angel could suddenly pop out and fling him into the Tower of Trials. Who would answer for that injustice? For someone who was essentially an illegal resident, a legitimate right to remain in the Tower of Ascension was indispensable.
“But still… it was a Wish Ticket…”
Ciel could not quite erase the regret from her face. Looking at her, Do-yun could only let out a short laugh.
“You were so captivated by Remiel that you didn’t notice anything around you, huh?”
He caught Ciel and turned her around. Only after she confirmed the scenery behind him did she obediently shut her mouth.
A sharp crackling sound. Dense clusters of jagged ice spikes had sprouted all across the floor at Do-yun’s back. The beings permitted inside the Sanctuary Room were fixed; there was no question who had done it.
“That was Remiel’s warning. ‘Don’t make wishes that overstep your place,’ basically.”
In other words, the deception of the angel had been settled by this one wish. It was absurd that she would hold him responsible for a misunderstanding she had created all by herself—yet what could he do? Compared to Remiel he was still hopelessly weak.
At least she didn’t take Reverse away.
Honestly he had been terrified she would reclaim the authority itself. Sun Swordsmanship and the staff were major assets, yes, but they could not compare to an SSS-rank skill like Reverse.
“Let’s start preparing for the next floor.”
Do-yun had been about to review everything known about the tenth floor when he froze halfway through standing up. His vision locked onto the spot where Remiel had stood moments earlier.
A pure-white feather, scattering soft light in every direction. A feather identical in form to the one that had once granted him the authority of Reverse was drifting gently through the air.