Chapter 9
#9. Seo Jin-hyeok Prologue
My eyes followed the text, but nothing I read sank in.
I closed the note window and trudged outside. Bright sunlight was pouring down over the town.
For someone like me, who stayed up on the community until dawn every day before sleeping, it was sunrise I hadn't seen in ages. Maybe it was the first time.
I frowned and trudged into the restaurant. The usual NPC greeted me with a stiff hello.
I ordered the dish at the very top of the menu and, out of habit, opened the community window. The note window I'd just closed opened with it.
[We sincerely mourn the passing of the late Lee Myeong-sook.]
Only then did the first sentence finally register. Lee Myeong-sook was my mother's name. There had been times I thought it was a tacky name.
-Clink.
After I finally read that first sentence properly, a plate was placed before me. In this restaurant, the food comes out the moment you order. What had I ordered again?
[Bacon and Fried Egg Set]
Tokkijeong's breakfast menu at the Western-style diner—the golden bacon is the standout.
The portion is large for the price, and it's very filling. A menu for adventurers whose wallets are running thin.
It fills you up a lot.
It was a set meal with a composition similar to the breakfast you could get at the inn.
Thick bacon and a sunny-side-up egg, topped with mashed potatoes and brown gravy. I jabbed the yolk with my fork.
Mom hated eggs that were this undercooked. Had she said they tasted fishy, or that she didn't like the smell of eggs?
But the fried eggs at our house were always runny. Because I liked them that way.
-Sshk.
I burst the yolk, smeared it over the bacon, and speared a thick strip with my fork before bringing it to my mouth.
It wasn't especially delicious or especially bad. It was a taste that stirred nothing in me. The food went into my mouth just fine, as if nothing were wrong.
[The funeral was conducted as an unclaimed funeral around ○○-○○-○○ due to the absence of a chief mourner, and in accordance with procedure, the remains were placed in the House of Remembrance.]
I skipped a few lines before the next sentence caught my eye. Mom had no relatives; the only person listed as next of kin was me, the one who had entered the Tower.
We were a single-parent family with no relatives whatsoever, but Mom tried to do the work of both parents so I wouldn't grow up feeling inferior.
-Gulp.
I took a sip of cold water. It was cold enough to make my teeth ache, but I didn't choke on it.
Before I knew it, the plate was cleanly empty. Like a defeated monster disappearing, the plate turned into particles of light and scattered.
I left the restaurant and walked for a bit.
Staying cooped up in my room every day was unbearable too, so I would sometimes take walks like this. Very rarely, though.
After walking a bit, I reached the bakery. I heard challengers who took the Tower seriously would buy armfuls of bread like this from bakeries and carry them around.
Since I no longer went into dungeons, it was only a place I'd visit occasionally when I felt like a snack. I opened the door and went inside.
“Welcome~”
The bakery NPC's greeting was just as lifeless. They say the elite NPCs you meet on higher floors feel much more human—could that really be true?
I smelled freshly baked bread wafting up even though there was no way it had just come out of the oven. The open community window wavered before my eyes.
[The deceased's cause of death was cardiac arrest brought on by acute myocardial infarction.]
A sentence from a place I couldn't even remember the line number of slipped into my head then. Acute myocardial infarction, heart attack, sudden death.
At the bottom of the swaying note interface was text saying the myocardial infarction was presumed to have been caused by overwork.
-Thunk.
I turned my gaze away from it and leisurely chose my bread.
Like always, with nothing changed.
**
The white rolls sold at the bakery are considered staple food for Tower of Trials rankers.
Because they're packed with sugar, you can take in calories quickly, and they come with a high-level Luck buff effect.
Luck buffs do exist on desserts other than white rolls, but the other desserts are expensive and their buff duration efficiency is low, so they're not preferred.
They say white rolls, with both buff grade and duration set just right, are the most perfect food item of all.
I bought a few breads, including some white rolls, and returned to my room. The most expensive room on the second floor of the inn is my hideout.
“Tasty.”
It hadn't been long since I'd eaten, but the white rolls went down just fine.
Some people say rankers eat them so often that just seeing one makes them want to throw up, but to me they were just plain tasty bread.
Feeling the white roll's sweetness spread through my mouth, I reopened the community.
I set the note window aside and opened the community's humor board. It's the place I stare at all day.
“Heh, heheh.”
As I breezed through a few humor posts, I couldn't help laughing. Grinning, I kept scrolling down and down.
Before I knew it, I had already shoved the white roll into my mouth. I grabbed another bread, ate it at my leisure, and kept browsing the community.
After letting a few hours pass like that, my stomach started to gradually tell me it was mealtime.
I left the inn and went to the restaurant I always used. I'd just ordered whatever in the morning, but this time I wanted something a little tastier.
So I ordered the cheese pork cutlet lunch box I'd enjoyed before. The crisp cutlet and the savory richness of the stretchy cheese were still excellent.
Just like the bacon and fried egg that were neither especially delicious nor especially bad, the taste of this cheese pork cutlet hadn't changed one bit either.
As always, unchanged. Unchanged……
**
Time passed and passed, and before I knew it, it was already night. I lay down on the bed.
As you'd expect from the most expensive room, this bed was extremely comfortable. It was so comfortable I almost felt like my body was being sucked into it when I lay still.
Much better than the bed at home. After years of use, my mattress had completely worn out, and it had no softness left at all. Mom's bed was downright hard.
It was late at night, when most people were asleep, but my eyes were still wide awake. I opened the community and, as always, spewed out posts and comments.
-Thump, thump.
Something like an unbearable impulse rose from deep in my chest. As if possessed, I wrote a long post.
[Author : Seo Jin-hyeok#2661]
[Title : My Mother Died]
Calling Mom by a title I'd never once used in my life, I posted a rant about my miserable lot in the community.
A single-parent family, a dirt-spoon upbringing, my mother's death. It was a lament filled with even more misfortune than the ones I sometimes wrote during my job-hunting days.
I hadn't posted on the community even once today. The other ghouls probably wondered if something had happened.
The comments and reactions from the community ghouls were truly fierce. The comment section shot through page after page in an instant, and noisy notifications rang out.
- Hang in there
- Don't think only bad thoughts and try to perk up. Once it's over and you look back, it was all just a moment
- I read the whole thing. There's nothing I can say except hang in there.
- I couldn't even handle my parents' funeral either, so it doesn't feel like somebody else's problem.
- May she rest in peace. I hope your mother went to a good place.
The reaction was completely different from the brag posts I used to write, and even from the diary-like posts I'd been writing lately.
There weren't even any troll comments, the kind that usually always slipped in one or two. I guess that just meant my situation looked that serious.
Feeling a strange sense of satisfaction at the string of comments piling up, I kept staring at the community until dawn and fell asleep.
Like always, unchanged.
**
I didn't wake up until the afternoon again today. I closed the community window I'd left open and went downstairs.
After ordering a meal without much thought, I opened the community again as usual. Then I roughly stuffed the food into my mouth.
Mom was dead. Yesterday, the day before yesterday, I don't know exactly when.
The cause of death was acute heart failure brought on by overwork, the funeral was handled as unclaimed, and all that time...
I had been holed up in my room, crapping out trash posts on the community.
-Bang!
I slammed the table consciously. Not unconsciously—consciously, deliberately, I slammed it.
Mom died. And yet I'm not any different from usual at all.
The food still went down my throat just fine, I ran around looking for tasty things to stuff into this mouth of mine, and I wasted time reading funny posts.
Apparently just lying back comfortably in bed and snickering wasn't enough, because I even felt pleased as comments about my misfortune piled up.
I hadn't cried or felt especially sad. No, even while being sad, I was just avoiding reality and staying holed up like an idiot.
“Fuck.”
What am I doing? Why am I doing this?
The cause of everything—the bullshit I spouted while waiting for the Tower invitation—surfaced in my head.
I was waiting for my chance. The only chance for a dirt spoon like me to repay Mom, waiting to turn my life around.
If I just got into the Tower of Trials, I'd come back as a Hunter and let Mom live in comfort.
What a load of shit. What a great son I turned out to be.
And yet I'm still holed up in my room, just messing around on the community like I actually care about Mom.
I'm a piece of shit. A self-justifying, jobless bum who wants to coast through life.
I actually knew that for a long time, but only now does it truly sink in.
“Fuck.”
I had thought that while waiting for the invitation. That if I kept living like this, my life would be ruined—but that it couldn't be helped because I was a dirt spoon.
Half of it was true. The part about my life being ruined if I kept living the same way—that part alone was right. The rest was just rationalization.
That I couldn't help it because I was a dirt spoon? That even if a dirt spoon tries, he's still a dirt spoon? That effort pays off differently?
Yeah, the words themselves might not have been wrong.
But I wasn't a dirt spoon in the first place. I might have been just a little poorer than others, but not poor enough to be called a dirt spoon.
“Fuck.”
Mom always worked hard. She worked twice as hard as everyone else because she didn't want me to feel inferior. And then she died from overwork.
What had I been doing all this time?
I wasted time holed up at home under the excuse of job hunting. Using being a dirt spoon as an excuse, I made no effort and just waited for the invitation to come.
After receiving the invitation, I planned to ride the rankers' coattails and become a low-rank Hunter. When I found out that wouldn't work, I went around saying my life was fucked.
I planned to monopolize the Tower's resources and become a high-rank Hunter with ease. When I found out that wouldn't work, I went around saying my life was fucked after all.
From start to finish, I was only thinking about coasting through life. Right up until the day Mom died.
“Fuck.”
I slowly moved my hand and brought the community window back up. I reopened the note I'd received yesterday.
I read and reread the short note about Mom's death. I forced the meaning of each sentence and each word into my head.
Only after reading and understanding it for a long while could I finally shed tears.
At last, finally.
**
Only after crying for a long time like that could I sort out my thoughts.
I'm a fucking idiot.
But if I just sit here crying like this, I'll become something worse than an idiot.
I stormed out of the inn on impulse, opened my inventory, equipped the gear I'd let rot for more than half a year, and headed for the shop.
I bought a ton of potions and stuffed them into my inventory. Then I found the bakery and bought as many white rolls as I could.
I had never made an effort in my life. So I didn't know how to make an effort either.
If it weren't for the Tower of Trials, I probably would have done nothing but keep crying helplessly even after losing Mom.
But inside this Tower, there is an easy-to-understand measure of effort. What I have to do is very simple.
[The statue of the Warrior is resonating with you.]
[You can advance to the Normal Class - Warrior.]
When I touched the statue in the center of town, a system message appeared. I nodded without hesitation.
[You have advanced to the Normal Class, Warrior.]
[The skill system has been unlocked. You can spend skill points to learn skills.]
[Warrior basic skill: You have learned Sword Mastery Lv. 1. You can increase the skill level by building proficiency.]
[You can unlock active skills included in Sword Mastery.]
I cleared away all the flashy advancement messages and headed straight for the labyrinth entrance.
[Challenger, the Tower of Trials is calling you.]
As I passed by the message I'd seen for the first time in a while and entered deeper into the labyrinth, a green goblin greeted me as if it had been waiting.
I took the casting stance for Brandish, the most basic skill you can learn at Sword Mastery Lv. 1.
The sword shone, and power coursed into my body.
Then, as if a video had been fast-forwarded, my body shot forward on its own. The violently swung sword cleanly split the goblin's head in two.
-Crack!
Once the goblin at the front fell, the goblin soldiers behind it all rushed me at once. I stepped forward with a kick.
One kick sent several goblins sprawling, and one body slam scattered the rest.
In just a little over a minute, I had killed six goblins.
Because of the level-based penalty, experience didn't come in properly.
But it wasn't that none came in.
This was a world with a system reminiscent of a game. Then what I had to do was obvious, wasn't it? It was very simple.
I would keep repeating it endlessly without stopping. Until I was strong enough to take down the boss by myself.
-Thud!
I went into a small room on one side of the labyrinth and kicked a treasure chest. It was a trap disguised as treasure.
If you touch it, powerful monsters come pouring out and surround the challenger.
“Come at me, you fuckers!”
I shouted at the goblin soldiers that had surrounded me in an instant and charged in, swinging my sword.
I cut my way through hordes of countless monsters, swinging my weapon around, and when they were all down, I'd find another trap and set it off.
When my body got tired, I'd gorge myself on as many potions and white rolls as I could and keep repeating the same thing.
“Aaaah!!”
Through the night and past dawn, until morning came.