Can You Deliver to My House?
"Ahhh—"
Sian Nightmare was enjoying a peaceful afternoon, taking a bite of pudding.
It was an infinitely lovely scene, the kind that would bring a healing smile to anyone watching.
But Tricia was staring at the system window with a very bizarre expression.
"...Tutorial open."
Tutorial Quest (2)
[Climbers] Total of 100+ entered: [ACHIEVED]
30+ [Climbers] clear the 5th Floor Trial: [UNACHIEVED] (Current: 17)
Reward: 20,000 Tower Coins + Tower Administrator Authority Grade Up
※ This window will close automatically in 30 seconds.
"Thirty people... have to clear the fifth floor...?"
Tricia clutched her head and groaned.
She searched her memory.
A conversation she had with Crow flashed through her mind.
Hunting ground towers, dungeon-type towers, trial-type towers... several others came to mind.
She was certain Crow had said something like this:
"I don't know the reason, but other towers offer extremely easy trials from the first to the fifth floors. Most towers on Earth apply this same rule. Even hunting-type towers require a trial or mission at least once when you go above the fifth floor."
...?
"...No way, was this the reason?!"
Tricia's eyes snapped wide open!
She finally realized why all the other towers offered easy trials up to the fifth floor!
It was because of this tutorial!
To let climbers easily achieve the tutorial clear conditions, the other towers had intentionally lowered their difficulty up to the fifth floor!!!
In the meantime, hunting-type towers seemed to run their tutorials differently, likely due to their different structure, but that wasn't what mattered right now!
"If I had known beforehand, I wouldn't have set up the trials like this!"
Tricia protested to the system, but the system felt slightly wronged.
Because... from the system's perspective, the moment Tricia was transported to Earth, it had displayed a massive window that boldly read "Tutorial Start"!
But Tricia had slept in so late that the tutorial window had automatically closed.
As a result, Tricia hadn't even known a tutorial existed in this tower!
Thus, the system refuted her.
[Notification: The system displayed the tutorial, but the user failed to check it within the time limit.]
"Then you should've shown it to me again when I woke up!"
[Response: The Administrator did not re-request the tutorial.]
"How could I request it if I didn't even know about it! You're the one who chose me as the Tower Administrator! Do a proper handover!"
Indeed.
When you thought about it, wasn't it the system that chose Tricia as the Tower Administrator and sent her to Earth in the first place?
Come to think of it, this bastard of a system was definitely the one at fault here.
"And in the first place, this is my house! It's not a tower!!!"
[Entity Name: 'Eriel Tricia' is the [Tower Administrator].]
"Why am I the Tower Administrator?!"
[Unable to Answer: Insufficient authority.]
"Hey—!!!!!!!!"
Tricia was about to fire off that long thing again, but she forced herself to hold back, remembering the disastrously destroyed state of her house from earlier.
"After all the work I put into getting my house..."
Although it was currently being run like a 'tower' due to the system's coercion, this place was, first and foremost, Tricia's home.
Of course, since this house was incredibly vast—on a completely different scale from any normal home—it had undergone massive renovations to the point where a self-sustaining cycle of production and consumption could run entirely within its walls.
However, that didn't mean a perfect closed-loop cycle had been established.
Tricia's house had an abundance of production and supply, but the number of residents to consume it was desperately lacking.
So, back when they were in Eriel, they secured necessary resources by trading their surplus goods with foreign nations, using those acquired resources to maintain the internal cycle.
They balanced supply and demand through a form of foreign trade.
But now, things were different.
With the entire house migrating to Earth, those external trading partners had completely vanished.
In this situation, the existence of 'climbers' was, from Tricia's perspective, nothing short of the perfect consumer base to handle this surplus inventory.
But here, a new problem arose.
Right now, the structure involved receiving Tower Coins in exchange for goods, but in the future, they might actually have to purchase supplies necessary for the tower's operation from the climbers.
While they could manage for now by taking Tower Coins and clearing out dead stock, if...
...a time came when the demand for goods produced in My House Tower skyrocketed and exceeded the supply, a serious crisis would undoubtedly erupt.
Standing in a position where she had to resolve all of these issues, Tricia let out a deep sigh.
"Sigh... I want to quit being a Tower Administrator..."
[Would you like to resign from the position of Tower Administrator?]
[If you resign, the system will assume the Tower Administrator's authority.]
"I don't really like the sound of that. What if I refuse that too?"
[In the absence of an Administrator, a [Tower Collapse] will occur.]
"...And what happens if the tower collapses?"
[Climbers will be teleported outside, while the remaining entities will be caught in the [Tower Collapse]. (Survival Rate: 0.14%)]
"..."
Hearing this, Tricia fell into thought.
What if she cast the highest-grade blessings on everyone living here, retreated into Shephid's safe sub-dimension, and then triggered a [Tower Collapse]?
With Tricia's transcendent power and the help of her companions, it might be possible to protect everyone even if a [Tower Collapse] occurred.
But was it really necessary to go to such lengths just to leave the tower?
This was her home, filled with precious memories of her and her friends.
Of course, if she had to choose between her companions and her house, she would choose her companions without a moment's hesitation...
But for now, perhaps...
...she could protect both.
"...I'll remain the Administrator. I will never lose my house, nor my companions."
Tricia resolved once more to protect both her home and her precious companions.
Just then, Sian Nightmare set down her spoon and stood up.
"I finished my pudding. I'm going to sleep now."
"Sure, dream of me."
"You have sweet dreams later too, Lady Tricia."
As Sian headed to her room, the demon butler arrived and neatly cleared away the remaining dish.
"...I wonder when we'll all be able to go out together."
Tricia's voice drifted like a sigh through the empty Meeting Room.
At that moment, a brilliant idea flashed through her mind.
"Wait a minute. We can't go out right now, but... isn't it possible to 'import' Earth's goods into the tower?"
Exactly. Even if the tower's residents couldn't leave, climbers could easily bring in items from the outside!
Of course, according to Crow, electronic devices didn't function properly inside the tower, so there would be limits on what they could import.
But—if electronics were out, didn't that mean everything else was fair game?
As her thoughts reached that point, memories of her distant past unfolded in her mind like a panorama.
Ice-cold cola!
Seasoned fried chicken! Bulgogi pizza!
Jajangmyeon! Tangsuyuk! Pork rice soup!
...And the ultimate divider of tastes, mint chocolate ice cream! (???)
Of course, they had already managed to recreate things like chicken and pizza using similar recipes back in Eriel, but they had yet to properly replicate jajangmyeon, tangsuyuk, or mint chocolate ice cream.
Partly because they didn't know the exact recipes, and partly because balancing those subtle flavors was incredibly difficult.
But now?
The genuine article! The original! Real Earth food!
At the anticipation of enjoying the food she had eaten in her distant past, Tricia's eyes sparkled with life.
"...I'll have to recruit a climber soon and make them bring me delivery food...!"
Re-energized, she passionately began listing the foods popping into her head, planning a feast of Earth food to share with her precious friends.
Just thinking about it made her mouth water.
In Tricia's mind's eye, a perfectly laid-out, lavish table of delivery food was already taking shape.
Meanwhile, at that very moment.
Somewhere in Gyeongnam, inside a dark room with the curtains tightly drawn.
An anime poster hung on the wall, faded from being put up long ago, and the floor had long since been conquered by old books and device parts.
Several smartphones with cracked screens hung like grapes from the wall outlets, interspersed with scribbled circuit diagrams and numerical notes.
On the desk sat an old laptop, its fan whirring noisily.
The young man sitting before it tapped away at the keyboard with an expressionless face.
His messy hair was a blend of purple and white, his shirt sleeves wrinkled and faintly stained.
Amidst this bizarre harmony, he was quietly focusing.
His name was Park Doyun.
His online community handle was—'CopiumKing'.
He was just about to post a new thread on an anonymous forum.
Having finished the upload, Park Doyun slowly leaned back in his chair.
A moment later, notifications began popping up in the corner of his monitor.
Park Doyun smiled faintly as he read through the comments one by one.
Analyzing reactions, reading trends, and grasping the flow of refined information was a sort of experiment to him.
He then quickly scrolled through other community posts.
— Pro-tips for milking a Minotaur
— Review of winter clothes made from Sheep-Spider wool
— Went to the 7th Floor Trial to gather Cockatrice eggs and got absolutely wrecked
"......This new tower is actually pretty interesting."
The tower he was referring to was—My House Tower.
A tower that did business with climbers.
A tower that offered ridiculously high rewards despite its bizarre trials.
At first, he had dismissed it as a ridiculous urban legend, but as proof videos and reviews began popping up one after another, his curiosity grew.
Everyone was paying attention to this bizarre tower.
"The distance is a bit of a drawback, but..."
He closed the community window and quietly stood up.
And walked over to his closet and opened his equipment cabinet.
A bulletproof vest, a magic robe, a dimensional pouch, green goggles, high-grade mana potions, and enhanced buff elixirs.
Plasma shoes, flying boots, a curse shield, and even a strangely structured steel staff.
Park Doyun equipped them one by one in order.
His shut-in appearance vanished, and in its place stood a singular eccentric.
"Shall I go and see for myself?"
—Unique Class Holder.
World Climber Rank 35.
The [Seeker], Park Doyun, headed to Seoul to seek the truth.