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Join the ServerI drove my blade home with the desperate hope that this would be the final blow. Even if another monster appeared, I’d keep fighting, but I truly wanted this to be over. I needed to escape this tower. At this rate, Lang-ru-sa—who had been crying about his friends being swallowed by the tower—would start wailing that “Hero BlueberryWhiskey isn’t coming back.”
Clang! Clang!
The sound of ice blades and the khakkhara clashing against my swords was ferocious. The Snow Maiden’s health bar plummeted, and her attack pattern shifted instantly. The blizzard that had been swirling around her now surged toward me, resembling a drill of icy wind aiming for me like a relentless hornet.
It wasn’t hard to dodge. I’d traversed all sorts of maps with Sephiroth; compared to those, this simple pattern was child’s play.
The fact that my speed was a bit slower or my attack power was slightly reduced wasn’t as big of a problem as I’d thought. Stats were stats, but I was still me. There was no way I, someone who had survived battlefields where max-level players struggled, would kneel in a low-level tower. Thinking about it now, it seemed obvious.
The hidden quests I struggled through with Sephiroth weren’t in vain after all.
I let out a small smirk, remembering how he used to nag me to deal even a fingernail’s worth of damage. Back then, I’d cursed him inwardly for making me do such meaningless tasks, but now I realized it was all training.
The blizzard intensified as if the Snow Maiden were letting out a final roar. But that was all it was.
“Please, let’s end this here.”
With that earnest wish, I thrust my sword into the Snow Maiden’s heart.
CRASH!
A sound like a massive block of ice shattering echoed through the air, and the Snow Maiden began to break into pieces and melt away. I looked up, bracing for the next monster, but the faint, shimmering silhouettes were gone.
Instead, a notification greeted me.
[Congratulations. You have cleared the Tower of Trials.] [Hidden Condition: You have cleared the Tower of Trials without using any skills.] [Calculating rewards…]
A digital panel appeared before my eyes, and numbers began to spiral upward rapidly, reminiscent of an old TV appraisal show calculating a price. I figured I’d probably cleared it slower than Sephiroth, given my inability to use skills. But since I’d met a hidden condition, wouldn’t there be a score multiplier?
Flash! The digital counter finally stopped.
[BlueberryWhiskey: 15,394,238 Points]
[You have broken the all-time record for the Tower of Trials.]
A notification filled with a long-awaited sense of accomplishment flooded my vision.
<Did It’s Tower Trials guys insane of record? see the you> The Fanatic’s record just got snatched.
[Comments]
Chirp, chirp. The sound of birds woke me from my deep sleep. Calling it “sweet sleep” was a stretch; I felt stiff and sore the moment I opened my eyes. I wondered why the sparrows on the power line sounded so loud, only to realize I’d fallen asleep with the window open for ventilation. The spring night air was still chilly, leaving the room cold. It seemed I’d spent the night curled up against the frost, causing my muscles to knot.
Early spring always smelled a bit unripened—a raw, grassy scent. It was the smell of light green sprouts that hadn’t fully matured yet, mirroring the season’s incomplete transition. This ambiguous, biting temperature—neither cold like winter nor warm like spring—felt remarkably like my own life in my twenties.
That raw spring morning was waking me up. The cold air lightly brushed against my limbs that had escaped the blanket. Shivering, I pulled the covers over my head, only for the draft to catch my exposed toes. I must have rolled around a lot; the bed was a mess of tangled sheets.
I tried to resist by curling up like a pill bug, but the cold draft on my cheek was too much. I sat up abruptly, groaning as I shut the window with a snap. Though the wind stopped blowing in, I couldn’t block the draft creeping through the thin walls of my cheap studio apartment.
“I’m really going to catch a cold at this rate…”
This wasn’t the first or second time I’d forgotten to close the window after “ventilating.” Blaming my half-conscious self, I sluggishly opened the fridge. The cold air flowing out helped wake me up a bit more.
The reason I was so out of it was simple: I’d been so excited about breaking the record yesterday that I’d stayed out late drinking with Seong-jin and Gyu-tae. It was just a record, and yet…
“I’m so childish.”
Gyu-tae, who was as happy as if it were his own achievement, and Seong-jin, who sat there clapping along, were funny enough—but the funniest part was me, getting so buoyed by their praise that I suggested the drinks myself. I was usually the one avoiding outings, and here I was leading one over a game.
I pulled a 500ml bottle of water from the fridge and chugged it. The burning thirst finally began to subside. I crushed the empty bottle, tossed it into the recycling, and pulled out some ham fried in egg wash and seasoned seaweed. As I popped a bowl of instant rice into the microwave, I flopped back onto the bed.
By the way, I wonder if Sephiroth is okay?
The image of him from yesterday came to mind. He’d drawn a massive amount of aggro from another guild during the event map. Was it the “Endless” guild? I didn’t know exactly what he’d done, but they seemed deeply offended by him.
But as they say, blood is thicker than water—or in this case, playtime. Having spent so much time with him, I found myself feeling biased, wondering if he had really done anything that wrong. I mean, the guy had some psychopathic tendencies, but he caught elk, caught moles… he was practically an eco-friendly farmer…
Of course, even without those flimsy excuses, I wanted to take his side this time.
“They were so rude.”
The attitude the Endless guild members showed our guild yesterday was beyond shameless. Their grudge against Sephiroth was their business, but they shouldn’t have been disrespectful to the rest of us just because we accepted him. And what was it? “You’ll see what happens if you don’t kick him out”?
Ding!
The microwave stopped as if telling me to calm down. I brought the steaming rice to my small table. The cold egg-ham from the fridge met the hot rice; the contrast of temperatures was actually quite tasty. Eating breakfast seemed to settle the irritation I felt toward Endless.
Korean strength really does come from rice.
Not skipping breakfast was a long-standing ironclad rule of my mother, Mrs. Gong. Thanks to her pushing spoonfuls of rice into my mouth even when I was grumpy about being late for school, I’d become a college student who cooked for himself even with half-closed eyes. Seong-jin and Gyu-tae always called it impressive, but for me, the day just didn’t start right without it.
I decided to settle the lingering hangover with a spicy stew for lunch. Seong-jin and Gyu-tae would surely be suffering too, so they’d agree without a second thought.
I packed my bag and slipped into my slightly scuffed sneakers. Leaving my apartment, I headed toward the main road crowded with office workers and students. The shuttle bus line was already long, snaking all the way into the alleyway. If the shuttle line was this bad, the regular bus stop was surely hell. I quietly took my place at the end of the line. With nothing else to do, I was staring blankly at my feet when—
“Un-ha.”
“Yes?”
A large shadow blocked the morning sun, looming over me. Thinking it couldn’t possibly be Gyu-tae or Seong-jin on campus this early, I looked up. Standing there was the last person I expected.
“Ah… hello.”
“Na Eun-hyuk,” I murmured his name under my breath. I could feel the people in front of and behind me stealing glances at him.
Is everything okay? You look like you’re lost in thought.
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