Chapter 21: Goal (2)
[I’ll come back if you show me your tits, yeah]
[Author: Sword Saint Wiki]
The mod insta-deleted it, so I couldn’t see it;;
[Comments]
Anonymous: You show up after a week and that’s the first thing you say, fuck lmao.
Anonymous: We’re fucked.
dd: Emergggggggggggggggggencyyyyyyyy.
232nd Run: Lmao, fuck, this bastard’s been watching the gallery the whole time.
‘What?’
I frowned as I looked over comments that differed from what I had expected.
I had expected them to mock me or be dumbfounded, but the mood was strange.
Anonymous: I don’t know if you’re a man or a woman... but you seem to be a newbie who doesn’t know anything, so here’s one piece of advice.
I refreshed the page for a while, waiting for the advice they said they would give.
┗ Anonymous: The gender ratio here is almost fifty-fifty.
┗ Anonymous: But nine out of ten verification pics will probably be from men, yeah;
┗ Anonymous: Though if you’re a woman, Newbie, you might like that even better...
“...”
I could only blink as I realized I had opened Pandora’s box.
Of course, I had assumed most of them would be men.
Galleries usually were like that, so I had thought this would be a male-dominated community—but now that I thought about it, maybe not.
‘They just kidnap whoever and bring them here, right?’
Anonymous was right. There was no reason they would bring in only men.
They must have brought people from all sorts of worlds at random, and gender would not mean much among people with every kind of ability.
I had not been talking about men’s chests, but if the gender ratio was even, then that distinction was meaningless.
It meant that even pictures of men could be in demand here.
‘...More than ninety percent of the people during that naked dogeza incident were men, too.’
Ding ding—
Anonymous: Newbie, I posted mine.
Anonymous: Go rate it, hurry.
Anonymous: Newbie, are you a man or a woman? Either way works for me, hehe.
My phone kept going off, and I casually refreshed the comments.
Watching them add their links one by one, I broke into a wide smile and closed the gallery.
‘Okay.’
I’ll disappear for another day.
*
[Report Board]
[Author: Not an Eraser🔸]
[Comments]
Sword Saint Wiki: Sorry, Mod.
┗ Not an Eraser (Author)🔸: I’m glad you’re okay, but... haa...
┗ Sword Saint Wiki: (Sticker of a grotesque creature shedding tears)
The mod cleaned up the gallery, which had turned into a total mess in no time.
It was only natural for the mod to do so, so I did not need to be grateful—but since it had gotten dirty because of me, I decided I should at least apologize.
┗ Not an Eraser (Author)🔸: You said you’d read half the rules, at least...! Please be careful from now on...!!
I laughed at the fact that they themselves used the phrase “half, at least.”
Look at that. They know they’re bad at writing, too.
Ding!
┗ Not an Eraser (Author)🔸: ...Anyway, I’m glad you’re all right. I was really worried, so please don’t disappear for this long again!
┗ Sword Saint Wiki: K.
‘Cute.’
Once again, my mind automatically applied a beautiful-girl filter.
A single exclamation point, a certain way of speaking—I could not help imagining things.
I still did not know the mod’s gender, and realistically, we would probably never meet, but...
Swipe.
‘You never know what might happen later.’
I was starting to think that the phone in my hand held infinite possibilities.
The gallery was one thing, but there was StarWiki, which knew all kinds of information, and even Starpang, which sent items that did not exist on Earth.
Honestly, at this point, nothing that appeared would surprise me. Even if a Star Time Machine showed up, I would probably just accept it.
Of course, unlike when I climbed to the twentieth floor of the Tower of Trials, something like [???] had not appeared yet.
‘Won’t it show up someday?’
On the fiftieth floor, or the hundredth.
At the very least, I hoped something might appear if I kept increasing my regressions.
‘If I met another person in a place where it is accepted wisdom that no one can ever meet anyone else, then made a verification post...’
The reaction would definitely be fucking incredible.
Meeting someone from the gallery did feel a little strange, but this was not an ordinary gallery to begin with.
If we met, what would we talk about—
“Seola, come here, won’t you?”
“...”
A memory that suddenly surfaced sent goosebumps all over my body.
I had forgotten it over the last few years, but the voice lingering by my ear was as vivid as if I had heard it yesterday.
“Hah.”
Was it because I had arbitrarily imagined the mod as a woman?
For a moment, I saw an illusion of her beckoning to me.
‘That must be it.’
I was afraid of meeting a woman face-to-face, but... if the opportunity came, I thought I would still take it.
Whatever the mod’s gender, I could tell just from their posts that they were a kind person.
“It’s not like everyone in the world is a lunatic~.”
Like always. Like I always said.
All I had to do was take it lightly. Lightly.
After all, once you die, it is over.
*
[TP Held: 1,673]
‘In the end, I need this to live here.’
Lying in the middle of the hollow, I checked the TP I had left after buying medicine.
Luxurious meals, emergency medicine.
Weapons and armor, skill books like Parry.
I needed TP to shower the gallery with items and, ultimately, buy Irregular.
‘I’ll accumulate it just by climbing, but...’
My experience last week had made the order in which I climbed the towers important.
The higher I went, the harder the towers would become, but the amount of TP I received would increase, too.
‘There must still be plenty of items on Starpang that I haven’t seen.’
Swipe.
Using the search term “medicine,” I checked the item I had seen last.
[World Tree’s Dew] - 100,000,000 TP
One hundred million TP.
Considering the exchange rate, that was a whopping ten billion won.
‘Even a panacea costs 4.5 million TP.’
What kind of effect could a medicine possibly have to cost one hundred million TP?
To begin with, I wondered whether it was even possible to save up for that by collecting one or two thousand TP at a time.
‘Even if the TP payout keeps increasing by a thousand per floor all the way to the hundredth floor, and I climb all four towers...’
That would still only be 220,000 TP.
Even with additional bonuses, it probably would not exceed 250,000.
Then just how many times would I have to regress to buy that?
‘Is there some other special way to earn it?’
World Tree’s Dew cost one hundred million TP, but there might be even more expensive things in the weapons and armor category.
Skill books... technically, they were not skill books, but there were quite a few of those that cost tens or hundreds of millions of TP as well.
Tap.
[???] - ??? TP
Then how expensive was Irregular supposed to be?
The fact that its price was marked with question marks made me think it would be beyond reach even after one or two regressions, but seeing an item that cost one hundred million left me feeling strangely hopeless.
A single medicine cost one hundred million. Irregular would surely cost even more.
‘Though, if it is a star that grants wishes, I guess that makes sense.’
If wishes could be granted just by paying money, wealthy people all over the world would lose their minds.
The problem was that TP was not simply money.
“Haa...”
I sighed and stared blankly up at the sky.
Unlike the twentieth floor of the Tower of Trials, its sky held nothing but endless darkness.
How many regressions would it take to reach the end of it?
It seemed people were not called “Ascendants” for nothing after obtaining Irregular.
I had heard it was simply because they were so happy they felt as though they had ascended... but from a newbie’s perspective, I was not sure that was really all there was to it.
‘Well, it’s not like I absolutely have to get out.’
Living here was enjoyable. I was getting an enormous amount of attention, after all.
Still, I did not want to die. If I did not escape this place, I would die someday.
When the moment of death came, I would accept it with a smile, but after struggling desperately to survive, it would be a shame to die so easily.
“So what am I supposed to do?”
I would not go to the Tower of Trials for a while.
I would probably enter again only after buying new weapons and armor and learning new techniques.
[Practice Steel Sword] - 3,000 TP
[Leather Shield] - 3,000 TP
[Imperial Knights Order Basic Swordsmanship Form 1] - 1,000 TP
‘I should at least buy these before I go back.’
Which meant the question was which tower would be the smartest choice to climb in order to earn that TP.
‘The Tower of Wisdom, I guess?’
I did not really know where I should go.
Judging only by the difficulty of floors one through nine, the Tower of Fate had been the easiest.
All I had to do was walk wherever I saw a path without thinking at all.
The Tower of Mindscape was similar, but there was no getting around the instinctive sense of fear that came with it.
Maybe because I was still in the early stages, the Tower of Wisdom felt easy because it did not feel like I was using any wisdom.
‘Even using the tenth floor as a reference, I still can’t tell...’
The Tower of Wisdom seemed easy for now, but I was sure it could not be nothing but easy.
After all, it was the only tower I had “failed” in.
I had luckily been sent back to the beginning as a penalty, but I could not believe it would stay that way forever.
‘Should I just climb ten floors at a time?’
By design, TP increased the higher the floors became. So did the difficulty.
Instead of pushing one tower all the way to the end, it might be better to alternate between them as I had been doing.
[Taking recommendations for where to go next, dayo]
[Author: Wiki Dayo]
I won’t be going to the Trial Tower for a while, dayo.
I don’t like getting hurt, dayo. Fighting scares me, dayo.
───
1. Wisdom Tower
2. Mindscape Tower
3. Fate Tower
───
Which one do you gallery guys usually climb first, dayo?
I have to climb a tower to give you tasty stuff, dayo.
[Submit Post]
‘I might as well just ask for recommendations.’
I had to climb them all eventually anyway, and as long as I was not using my body like in the Tower of Trials, did it really matter?
Whichever I chose, I could try it up to the twentieth floor, then switch to the next tower if it was not working out. If it was fine, I could just keep going.
I just had to consider the difficulty compared to the tenth floor.
*
[Comments]
Anonymous: That way of talking makes me want to fucking kill you, dayo. Hehe.
Anonymous: Aren’t there usually two major types? The ones who go all-in on the Fate Tower first, and the ones who save it for last.
Mindscape Tower Lover: My goal is to clear everything except the Mindscape Tower in about half a year.
┗ Anonymous: Why exclude the Mindscape Tower?
┗ Mindscape Tower Lover: You have to savor it slowly, one floor at a time, for half a year.
┗ Anonymous: Man, you’re a fucking nutcase;
Anonymous: I rotate through all four towers, one floor at a time.
┗ Anonymous: But Newbie, please climb the Fate Tower first, dayo. It seems more fun that way, dayo!
“...Dayo is cute, dayo.”
A smile unconsciously formed as I read the newbie’s post.
Dayo, dayo... It sounded awfully polite, but childlike, so it was cute.
‘Though the newbie probably isn’t a child.’
Real children did occasionally come here. Of course, it was only about one every few years, but things never ended well for them.
Even when everyone in the gallery banded together to take care of them, most could not last a year.
I had no idea why children were brought to such a harsh place... but I hoped the newbie was not one.
‘...I want to see him around for a long time.’
He was the first person I had grown attached to, aside from the previous mod.
I did not really know why I cared about him.
He was an incredibly strange person, and definitely far from the kind of person I liked.
Was it because he had generously overlooked my huge mistake?
Because he possessed some incredible ability, whatever it was?
‘I was grateful for the cola, too, but...’
Putting all that aside, he was simply the kind of person my eyes were drawn to.
He was like a child left unsupervised by the water, but also like a hero, resolving things in an instant and making everyone marvel.
[New post by Wiki Dayo]
[I decided, dayo]
[Author: Wiki Dayo]
───
1. Wisdom Tower: 32 votes
2. Mindscape Tower: 66 votes
3. Fate Tower: 327 votes
───
I’m going to the Wisdom Tower, dayo. Lol.
Did you fuckers think I’d trust and follow what you say, dayo? Fuck you.
‘...Maybe he’s not a hero.’
Swipe.
Not an Eraser🔸: Don’t push yourself too hard, and take it slow...!! You still have plenty of time on your timer, right??
He could climb one floor at a time just fine, but it felt like he would climb ten or twenty floors at once again a few hours from now.
I would not be surprised by that anymore, but I was worried he might get hurt or traumatized again.
[New comment by Wiki Dayo]
┗ Wiki Dayo (Author): Don’t overdo it? Overdo it, overdo it~
Snort.
‘What kind of newbie is this?’
Always overflowing with confidence, never really listening to others, always trying to solve everything alone—
“...Ah.”
I understood.
Why I was so concerned about this newbie.
‘He resembles my little brother.’
He resembled that child who was always bright, my little brother, who was foolishly confident and cool.
I did not know his face or his name. All I knew were a few posts he had written in the gallery and the short conversations we had shared in the comments, yet somehow, that was what I felt.
Someone who brought laughter to this hell. Someone who was sometimes absurd and irritating, but in the end, always made people laugh again.
‘...So please don’t die, Wiki.’
Please, do not meet the same end as my little brother.
Please, do not disappear somewhere I cannot reach because of one of my mistakes, either.
[New comment by Wiki Dayo]
Wiki Dayo: Mod, is cola okay next time too? Want me to send something else?
‘Out of nowhere?’
I tilted my head at the newbie’s sudden comment.
Someone who had sounded as if he was about to climb the tower at any moment was suddenly talking about cola.
‘...Come to think of it.’
“I have to climb a tower to give you tasty stuff, dayo.”
He had definitely written that in his earlier post.
I did not know what the newbie’s ability was, but perhaps it was connected to these towers.
It was probably related both to his climbing the towers at an absurd speed and to his obtaining food from outside.
Wiki Dayo: Answer.
┗ Wiki Dayo: If you don’t answer, I’ll send whatever I want, yeah.
I could not help but snort at the newly added comment.
He really was selfish. It felt like I had laughed far more often since the newbie entered the tower.
‘Everyone else must feel the same way.’
The boredom of endless repetition, the stress of constantly living with their lives on the line.
In a place where most people lived having forgotten even the hope of escape, an openly half-crazy, peculiar, bizarre person had arrived. Of course he would be entertaining to watch.
Wiki Dayo: Hey, no answer? Not sending it then. Later.
┗ Not an Eraser (Author)🔸: You’ll be banned for leaving pointless comments on the Report Board.
┗ Wiki Dayo: Gasp.
┗ Wiki Dayo: We’re not close enough to fall out over something this small... right...?
“Ahaha!”
I really hoped this person would escape.
All the more because he could not leave because of me. It would be fine if I could not escape, as long as he did.
Swipe.
With that thought in mind, I started walking to wash up, thinking that I should get back to climbing soon, too.
“Ah...”
And there, in the mirror, was my reflected face.
I realized that for the first time in hundreds of years, I was smiling brightly.
Others besides me were probably smiling like this too.
They would be dumbfounded by the newbie, jealous of him, and even angry at him.
But would they not be smiling like I was?
I did not really know, but I hoped they were.
Until the day everyone escaped this place, I hoped they could be happy.
‘Thank you, Wiki.’
For letting me laugh in a place like this.
*
[Tower of Wisdom]
“For fuck’s sake.”
Standing in front of the Tower of Wisdom and looking at the gallery, I let out a hollow laugh.
I had been wondering what I should buy for them after finishing this trip... after clearing the twentieth floor and getting the TP, but what was this?
[This ID has been banned by the Infinite Regression Manager.]
[Ban Duration: 1 hour] / [Reason: No chatting in the Report Board, dayo!]
[Processed by: Not an Eraser]
They actually banned me. Seriously.
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