Just Common Household Items
It had been a week since Naejibtap (My House Tower) first appeared on Earth.
"Hello, viewers! I'm your favorite NewTuber who reviews items straight from the towers, TowerView Reviews! Today, we have a special treat. We're going to review some items bought from that incredibly hot spot everyone's talking about lately—Naejibtap!"
On a desk illuminated by warm yellow lights, bizarre-looking items began appearing one by one in front of the camera. A brief caption flashed across the screen, explaining that the holy water was too expensive to acquire.
"Do you know what this is?"
The first item he pulled out was a watermelon. But it was far from ordinary. It looked like two watermelons fused together side-by-side, resembling a giant peanut!
"What's that? You're saying it looks like a giant pair of melons? Honestly, I was shocked when I first saw it too. This watermelon really looks... well, it makes you want to say some bad words—cough!"
"Why am I the only one touching the good stuff? My hand movements look suspicious? Uh-uh! Guys, what are you even thinking? This is just a watermelon! A watermelon! We are not that kind of channel!"
As the watermelon's suggestive shape sparked wild misunderstandings, the chat window began to explode. Dozens of users were banned by the moderators for crossing the line, but the stream marched on. The atmosphere grew livelier as he sliced the watermelon, tasted it, and compared it to a regular one.
Next, he introduced some jerky he had purchased from a climber.
"And this... is 'Bomb Rabbit Jerky.' You can get this by clearing the trial on the 2nd floor of Naejibtap. Eating this grants you the Explosion Resistance skill for a one-time use! It supposedly reduces explosion damage by a whopping 70%! Let me give it a try!"
After chewing the jerky, he asked his assistant to throw pop-its at him to test if the effect was real.
"Whoa, I think I really got the resistance! The pop-its went off right on my body, but it didn't hurt at all! It's barely a tickle!"
The chat grew even more chaotic with jokes like, "Can you survive a hand grenade now?" and "I'll donate a hundred bucks if you survive a nuke."
"There are even rumors that long-term consumption can evolve the skill into Explosion Immunity. I'll eat one every day from now on to see if it's true. Alright, let's move on to the next item!"
The next items introduced were various otherworldly products: dragon leather, silk made from sheep-spider wool, Minotaur milk, Cockatrice eggs, and rainbow-colored mushrooms.
It had already been five years since towers first appeared on Earth. So why were people so wild about these various tower products? The reason lay in the unique nature of Naejibtap.
In other towers, aggressive monsters like goblins, slimes, ogres, and one-eyed bats were the norm. To obtain otherworldly resources, climbers had to risk their lives harvesting them directly or trade with the rare "Tower Residents" encountered on the upper floors.
But Naejibtap was different. By allowing everything to be traded directly using Tower Coins, otherworldly goods began flooding the Korean market at an unprecedented speed!
Naturally, online communities and forums exploded with reactions once again.
Other posts followed, detailing how on the 5th floor, climbers had to harvest honey from spear-wielding bees called Spear Bees, and on the 6th floor, they faced a trial to harvest ten different types of mushrooms from pigs with mushrooms growing on their backs. The climbers shared the information they knew, exchanged strategies they had discovered, and gradually grew accustomed to the tower.
On the other hand, the floors designed for rest rather than trials were also immensely popular. There were climbers bragging about eating Hellfire Dragon steaks, insomniacs rejoicing that they had slept deeply for the first time in their lives at the Milky Way Hotel, climbers delighted that bathing in the carbonated hot springs had made their skin smooth and even helped them lose weight, and one climber sobbing because they had a consultation with a succubus but couldn't get "additional services" due to a lack of Tower Coins...
Furthermore, according to the maid in the 1st-floor lobby, free travel between floors would be enabled soon, causing the climbers' expectations to grow day by day.
Naejibtap, a place where bizarre trials and wonderful relaxation coexisted. The climbers roamed its halls, laughing with childlike joy.
However, the delightful festival created by the tower was a story that belonged solely to the climbers.
The South Korean government was suffering through endless daily meetings and reports. Every single department—including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, the National Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Science and ICT, and even the Ministry of Health and Welfare—attended the daily "Tower Response Task Force Meeting" to debate.
Because information about the tower was being leaked in near real-time and spreading rapidly across the internet, the government was utterly overwhelmed, no matter how quickly they tried to react.
"Complaints are erupting from various countries accusing the Korean government of trying to monopolize the resources of this newly emerged tower."
"The United States, France, and Russia have each requested to dispatch their own climbers, and we have detected signs that Japan has already sent climbers ahead to attempt to gain access to the new tower."
At the report from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a heavy silence fell over the conference room.
"And then... there is the holy water. Multiple mid-sized nations have inquired about purchasing it. Some have even sent formal requests accompanied by proposed purchase budgets."
"If we release this holy water to the public, it will trigger uncontrollable religious and social chaos! It must remain strictly under state control!"
"But giving the impression of a monopoly is even more dangerous. We must at least pretend to consider an international joint management system to ease the diplomatic pressure."
"We haven't even secured enough supply for our own citizens yet... Are you suggesting we sell the holy water abroad?"
The Minister of Health and Welfare replied to that.
"When a pandemic threatened public health, how desperately did we fight to secure vaccines first? Yet now, handing over this holy water—whose true nature hasn't even been fully identified—to other countries first is, quite literally, abandoning our national interest."
The conference room fell into a dead silence, the atmosphere growing incredibly heavy. In the first place, with items like the Tears of the Archangel and the Sap of the World Tree emerging alongside the holy water... this was already far beyond what the government could handle.
Meanwhile, the man who had triggered all this chaos—Crow, ranked 9th among the world's climbers—had vanished. As the first person to reveal the holy water of Naejibtap to the world, and effectively the first to encounter the "Tower Administrator," he was the center of international attention.
However, Crow had cut off all contact. Only fragmented rumors circulated, suggesting he was climbing remote, isolated towers on the African continent alone.
No one could pinpoint Crow's exact location, and some nations had even begun spinning conspiracy theories, claiming Crow was "colluding with the Tower Administrator to build his own private faction."
Furthermore, the Glory Guild and the Black Sword Guild, the two largest climber alliances in the country that had supported Crow's statements, had delivered their unofficial stances to the government regarding the current situation.
"Hiding information this sensitive will only increase the risk when it is inevitably exposed later. It is far better in the long run to disclose a certain level of information from the start and seize the initiative."
— From the official statement of the Glory Guild Representative
"This is an unstoppable tide. As long as climbers continue to ascend the tower, monopolizing such massive information is impossible. Instead, we must first discuss how to utilize the existence of this tower to strengthen our national capabilities."
— From the internal report of the Black Sword Guild's Strategy Department
Accepting the pragmatic advice of the Glory and Black Sword Guilds, the government completely readjusted its response strategy. Under the judgment that "seizing the initiative" was far more important than "concealing information," the government's subsequent measures were organized as follows:
First: All materials and holy water related to the newly emerged tower must only be traded through the government. Unauthorized export or leakage will be strictly punished.
Second: Additional special personnel will be deployed in front of Naejibtap, the source of the holy water, to strengthen climber access control and surveillance.
Third: The government plans to establish a state-led distribution system for the Tower Coin-based economic system.
Next, they were deciding on response policies for the requests from various countries, but...
"The fact that... China is so quiet is actually the most terrifying part."
Indeed. China was far too quiet. There was almost no official stance, nor any unofficial reaction. Far from mentioning the tower, there was absolutely no movement detected from their relevant government departments.
But that silence was an ominous sign.
"...We must prepare before they make their move."
The government immediately began drafting response scenarios to prepare for potential Chinese intervention. They strengthened satellite surveillance, upgraded defense levels against network hacking, and began unofficially restoring information-sharing channels with neighboring countries.
But—would that really be enough to stop this massive wave?
The higher floors of the newly emerged tower, which no one had climbed yet. What kind of "mysteries" awaited there?
Just how far this gift from the "Tower Administrator" would shake human society—no one knew yet.