[Tower of Wisdom]
- First Run, Floor 10 Strategy: Temporarily activate [Map].
‘Temporarily activate a map?’
I blinked blankly at the strategy displayed on the wiki.
No matter where I checked, there was no new map app. As I stared at it, wondering what the hell it meant, I tapped [Map], and only then did a new window appear on my screen.
‘My location and a map of the maze... is that it?’
Most of the map was blacked out.
Only the passage right in front of me was brightly displayed on the screen.
Just as I had experienced in the Tower of Trials, the wiki didn’t hand me the answer.
It gave tips and strategies, sure, but in the end, it felt like I still had to see things through myself.
"So I can’t see it until I get close..."
Step.
As a test, I took a step and turned the corner. A new stretch of passage appeared on the screen.
Others might get lost while checking every path one by one, unable to even keep records, but at least I didn’t look like I’d ever get confused about somewhere I’d already been.
My location was blinking as a red dot too, so even if it took a while, I should be able to find the exit eventually.
‘But why is this wisdom?’
If it meant memorizing every path... well, maybe that counted?
[28:54]
If I had to start over once that time limit ran out, I definitely would need to memorize the route.
‘Floor 10 isn’t a total freebie after all.’
Compared to the Tower of Trials, it was absolutely freebie-tier, but I still had to walk around for quite a while.
Honestly, this felt more like a trial, but I let it go. I wasn’t in a position to complain when I had a cheat code.
‘I need to get a taste of the Tower of Mindscape today too, so I should wrap this up fast.’
To unlock [???], I had to move as quickly as possible.
‘Just wait, dopamine...!!’
I firmly believed something would appear that gave me as much satisfaction as the wiki did.
*
"..."
[00:13]
I sank blankly to the floor, staring at the timer hanging in midair.
No, fuck, this isn’t right.
This place was ridiculously huge. Seriously, impossibly huge.
Of course, part of it was because I’d gone around checking every passage to light up the map, but even after thirty minutes, I hadn’t revealed anywhere close to 50% of it.
[00:07]
I’d realized midway through that I was running out of time and changed strategies, but if this was still happening, how were other people clearing this?
It was this bad even with a map. No, seriously, how the hell did they clear it?
‘...They’re not going to kill me, right?’
I wanted to believe they wouldn’t kill a person just because they failed to escape a maze.
"Please."
[00:01]
Thump! Thump!
My heart hammered like crazy.
Nothing changed even when I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.
As the timer finally ran out, I swallowed hard—
[30:00]
"I’m alive..."
I collapsed where I stood as I found myself returned to the entrance of the maze, the timer reset.
Right. This was how it should be.
With all strength drained from my legs, I let out a hollow laugh and looked up at the timer floating in the air.
Start from the beginning again. It felt as though it were telling me, ‘If you can’t remember the path you’ve taken, you’ll repeat this forever.’
‘So there are spaces designed solely to waste your time...’
This was a maze that would be hard to escape even if they gave you an hour, let alone thirty minutes.
Assuming you took only the correct route from start to finish, you could probably escape with some time to spare.
‘So that’s why there’s a segment timer?’
If I had to escape this place with nothing but my body... Well, I did have nothing but my body.
But without the wiki, I couldn’t even imagine how many retries it would have taken me to escape this maze.
They expected me to memorize a maze where even picking only the right answers would leave thirty minutes feeling tight?
Tap.
[Tower of Wisdom]
- First Run, Floor 10 Strategy: Temporarily activate [Map].
I grinned as I saw that the map I had uncovered over the past thirty minutes remained exactly as it was.
Our wiki could do all the thinking. I’d just use my body.
"Wiki, I love you!!!"
*
[02:23]
‘That was closer than I expected.’
There had been more and more forks in the road toward the end, so it took longer than I’d expected.
As soon as I escaped the maze, a massive door in front of me opened with a deafening roar. I closed the map and raised my phone.
『Tower of Wisdom』
-10-
Click!
After taking a clear-verification photo of the text floating over the dark passage, I passed through and returned to the front of my hideout.
-1-
[Apocalypse 364:01:00:32]
[Segment 6:01:00:32]
[ 20 / 7 ]
I had cleared Floor 20 in almost exactly one day.
I had said one floor a day, but the difficulty would surely rise the higher I climbed, so it would be best to keep up this pace at the beginning.
‘That must be why I’m allowed to blatantly go over that seven-floor limit.’
It had definitely said that I needed to climb fifty floors during the final two weeks.
That probably meant 350 floors over fifty weeks, then the rest during the final two weeks.
‘Should I go right on through?’
I could rest longer if I wanted, but I hadn’t spent all that much time climbing the first ten floors of the Tower of Wisdom.
I was a little tired from all that wandering around the maze, but I didn’t particularly want to rest.
[???]
- Its function is currently restricted. Once the requirements are met, [???] will become available.
- Rewards continue to accumulate even while restricted.
[Tower of Trials 10/10]
[Tower of Wisdom 10/10]
[Tower of Mindscape 0/10]
[Tower of Fate 0/10]
‘I don’t know if I can clear them all today, but...’
At the very least, I wanted to find out what it was by tomorrow somehow.
‘...First, should I make a verification post?!’
I hadn’t checked the gallery at all since looking at it before I went to sleep yesterday.
Rather than make pointless posts and rack up enemies, it was more effective to quietly toss out one post at a time when necessary.
Aim for being a well-liked regular. I’d plaster the gallery with anonymous worshippers.
[To everyone who voted Tower of Wisdom: get dunked on───!]
[Author: KingGodWiki]
(Verification photo of clearing Floor 10 of the Tower of Wisdom)
(Photo of the run number and timer floating in midair)
So fun dunking on you guys’ guesses~
Swipe.
As soon as I finished writing the post, I immediately turned off notifications and closed the gallery.
I intended to take this anticipation, this dopamine, and turn it into a future reward while challenging another tower.
‘I can’t wait to see it.’
Which meant I needed to clear the next tower quickly too.
*
[Tower of Mindscape]
Face the depths of your heart.
┗ Concept: A tower that encroaches upon your deepest inner self.
┗ Characteristics: The heart becomes the enemy, and the mind becomes the weapon. Emotions and memories you yourself have turned away from take form, forcing you to constantly confront the shadows within—fear, confusion, self-reproach, and more. You need the mental strength to remain unbroken under any circumstances.
"..."
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again as I looked at the wiki’s description.
‘This is fucked...’
So, to put it simply, the tower in front of me was—
"A fucking huge haunted house."
Something like a horror maze... probably. Honestly, I wanted to enter it even less than the Tower of Trials.
Whether it had jump scares, merely created a creepy atmosphere, or had something that stirred up my trauma exactly as written, I hated all of it.
Glance.
‘Yeah... figures...’
I looked behind me at the exit, which had long since vanished, and my shoulders slumped.
As long as it wasn’t some survival-show bullshit where I died of a heart attack from fear, it would be fine.
Our wiki would find the strategy on its own in the end.
Gulp.
‘...I should’ve gone to the bathroom first.’
I hadn’t even entered yet, but my hands and feet were already trembling.
I felt like I might cry from fear, but there was only one place I could go.
"Phew... Let’s go, you bastard, Han Seol."
Where had the mindset I’d had when entering the Tower of Trials yesterday gone?
What was the worst that could happen? I’d die. I couldn’t get my old life back anyway, and sitting around scared wouldn’t change anything.
Rumble...!
"..."
The moment the door opened, I squeezed my eyes shut at the black space welcoming me.
Ah, fuck, this is so fucking scary.
*
[Tower of Mindscape]
- First Run, Floor 10 Strategy: Do not move more than a certain distance away from (Restricted). Never turn around.
.
.
.
‘Oh please, God, Jesus, Buddha...’
Step...
Step......
I felt like I was losing my mind. Something—whether it was a person or not—kept following me from behind.
It was a dark night, the moon dimly obscured by clouds.
I was walking endlessly along a forest path with no streetlights or signs, a road running between dense trees on either side.
Rustle.
‘How long do I have to keep walking...!!’
I was going insane. I’d been walking forward for what felt like thirty minutes, and there was no end in sight.
The fear that I might walk this endlessly continuing road until the day I died slowly crept over me.
Tap. Tap.
‘Fuck...’
How many times had this been now? Something like a cold, sticky hand lightly patted my back.
The wiki strategy said to maintain my distance, but it was hard when I couldn’t turn around to check.
Whenever it got closer, it patted my back like this.
Was it telling me to stop right now?
Or did it have something it wanted to say?
Drip...
‘Oh, please...!!’
Something touched my head.
Liquid-like stuff ran down through my hair and onto the nape of my neck.
An indescribably unpleasant sensation filled my body, but I could neither raise a hand to check nor turn around.
‘I really want to scream and run...’
It never said I couldn’t scream, but I was too afraid of provoking it to do even that.
I tried to speed up just a little, but since I had no idea what distance the wiki meant by “a certain distance,” I quickly slowed down again.
I really, really, really, really wanted to die.
No. I didn’t want to die.
Tap.
Cold sweat ran down my skin.
Floors 1 through 9 had all been fucking awful.
The Tower of Mindscape, unlike the others, had no clear problems or strategies written out.
The wiki did at least offer strategies closer to tips, but there was no freebie-level help.
It suddenly threw me into a situation, and I had to find my way through it.
If you asked whether it was difficult, it honestly wasn’t. Some floors could be cleared just by running, or by smiling like I wasn’t scared. There had even been a floor I cleared in one minute.
But there were far too many problems in this world that went beyond simply being easy or difficult.
Watching a horror movie alone in a huge theater wasn’t difficult at all if you were simply asking whether it was “hard.”
"D
o
n’t...
go...."
"..."
My body froze at the voice from behind me.
It was the first time it had spoken. The voice was rough and husky, like what someone might sound like after screaming for hours.
It was so wet and sticky that I couldn’t even tell whether it belonged to a woman or a man.
"D
o
n’t...
go...."
Did that mean I had gotten too far away? Or did it mean I was almost there?
My mouth went dry. My teeth chattered, and the hand clutching my phone trembled violently.
I wanted to bolt right then and there, but I couldn’t defy the wiki.
If I had to do this again from the beginning, I honestly didn’t think I could manage it.
"Hngh.... Hoo...."
Worried I might have gone beyond the proper distance, I slowed my steps even more and barely managed to put one foot forward—
Tap. Tap.
‘I’m not far away at all...!!!’
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again as the hand immediately patted my back.
"...!!"
After repeating that a few more times, a sign I had never seen before appeared at the end of the road that had gone on for nearly an hour.
On that road through the dark forest, where the scenery around me had not changed in the slightest.
Thinking that a sign finally announcing the end had appeared, I barely managed a smile and walked toward it.
"I
told
you...
not
to
go...
didn’t
I...?"
‘Fuckfuckfuck...!!!’
Had I walked too fast?
Or was it doing this because the end really was close?
I slowed my steps with all my strength, thinking how badly I wanted my mom even though she wasn’t here.
Tap. Tap.
Just as I reached the sign not long after, the thing behind me patted my back—
[Turn around and greet them.]
I squeezed my eyes shut as I read the words written on the wooden sign standing in the middle of the road.
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