Chapter 28

To summarize the Tower’s established themes:

A dreamlike atmosphere, a fairy tale-themed park. The system implemented similar to a game.

As the phrase “fairy tale-style” suggests, we won’t borrow completely from existing fairy tales.

We’ll create landscapes that evoke fairy tales—fantastic and stimulating to childlike innocence. However, provocative and cruel elements that destroy innocence will be hiding throughout.

The underlying tone of the entire Tower is bizarreness.

It appears infinitely beautiful, but weapons that can threaten one’s safety are hidden within.

Beautiful cruelty. The dissonance created by these two seemingly incompatible words resonates throughout the Tower.

The main theme running through the Tower is ultimately a happy ending, like fairy tale conclusions. That’s the goal that Tower climbers must grasp.

The benefits of pushing fairy tales as the main stream are as follows:

It becomes easier to extract imagination by stimulating pure childlike innocence.

Since most fairy tales involve the confrontation between good and evil, we can also extract the advantages related to that.

Or, since the majority involve moving to another world, spatial movement becomes free.

This was a tremendous advantage.

Moving into the Tower and traveling between floors isn’t free.

A certain amount of magic power must be periodically input into the Tower to operate it.

The amount of energy consumed by spatial movement is greater than expected.

Saving just that would significantly increase resources for investment elsewhere.

“If fairy tales are the main stream, then the central atmosphere underlying the Tower would be nostalgia.”

“Nostalgia, huh.”

Returning to childlike innocence to view the world evokes considerable nostalgia. It brings back longing for childhood.

It’s regret for that time that cannot be returned to. An emotion that stings more because it cannot be fulfilled.

Within the Tower, nostalgia holds stronger power.

One longs for the peaceful olden days. One will reminisce about the moment of gazing endlessly at the playground where children’s laughter could be heard.

Concepts like young children don’t exist in the Tower.

Their survival rate is low, so they rarely survive from the start.

Even if they do survive, they don’t grow. They must continue to survive with the disadvantages that come from a child’s body.

Severe mental wear makes them literally old souls in young bodies.

Given the Tower’s characteristic that births don’t occur, literal young children are difficult to see.

“Hehe.”

I see Sleet sleeping, drooling.

Perhaps that’s why seeing Sleet made me want to take care of him more.

I wiped away his drool and moved him to the sofa. I didn’t forget to cover him with a blanket.

“You’re kind.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen a young child.”

Time nodded as if in agreement. As she tidied Sleet’s hair while he slept, Time said:

“It’s an environment where young children find it hard to survive.”

In a world where peace has disappeared, young children are always the first to be threatened.

They don’t have enough strength to protect themselves. As those who need protection, they are the first to fall in a reality where it’s difficult to sustain one’s own life.

The same could be said for the elderly, but they have experience. The skilled wisdom buried in their experience, expressed as wisdom of years, becomes their weapon.

The advantage of young children is that they learn quickly and apply various things with pure and creative thinking.

But in a world without learning, this advantage cannot be displayed.

In a society where it’s difficult to worry about one’s own safety, it becomes hard to help them.

“The Tower tends to value the past more than the future.”

One gains power based on relics of the past.

In a Tower where old stories like legends and myths are welcomed, new things aren’t so welcome.

The Tower, which waits for new stories to be written while subtly rejecting them, was itself a trial.

I quietly looked at Sleet’s face.

His skin, fair and soft like a child’s, caught my eye.

Seeing him sleeping without a care in the world seemed to put me at ease as well.

“We won’t be able to build the entire Tower for now.”

“Resources are scarce, and time is short.”

It seems better to build at least up to the 10th floor first and then continue to build up the number of floors. It’s unstable, but we have no choice right now.

“Just thinking about it makes me tired.”

“I’m already channeling magic power from the Tower to the outside.”

“Already?”

“Even this is quite late.”

By flowing magic power outward, it helps people adapt to magic power in advance.

And it creates a flow so that people’s imaginations can gather well.

It was a necessary preliminary step to create new NPCs.

But the already scarce magic power became even scarcer.

“Sigh. The financial crisis is serious. We have too few initial resources.”

“It can’t be helped. Endure it.”

“No, wait a moment.”

I raised my hand to stop Time’s words. That wasn’t the only problem. In some ways, the most serious problem remained.

Originally, creating what are called monsters in the Tower was the role of the Abyss.

Since Time and destruction were external beings, they couldn’t intervene recklessly.

“But now there’s no Abyss?”

“That is indeed a big problem.”

Time assumed a relaxed posture as if it were a matter unrelated to her.

“Whose side are you on, exactly?”

“Hmm.”

After seriously pondering with a nasal sound, she tilted her head and said:

“The winning side, our side.”

“…Are you saying you don’t care if destruction wins?”

“Oh, of course not. I’m just joking.”

“Then why are you so relaxed?”

Time lightly flicked her finger and pointed at the empty air.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh? You don’t see it?”

“There’s nothing there.”

Has she finally lost her mind?

“Hmm, that shouldn’t be possible. Oh? Why isn’t the connection…”

I was quite perplexed by Time’s seemingly confused reaction.

Why is she acting like this? Has some problem occurred without my knowledge?

Then, as if she realized something, she burst into chilling laughter.

She tilted her head back and laughed.

“Hahaha. Hahaha. Hahaha.”

I got goosebumps at the sight of irregular laughter becoming regular.

The laughter continued with a consistent beat, a consistent rhythm.

“This is fun. Indeed, fun. You always make me happy.”

She looked at me as she returned her tilted head to its original position.

The murky eyes under her eyelids turned toward me.

She was clearly looking at me, but I was not reflected in those eyes.

Just as her inner thoughts were unfathomable, her eyes were so deep that their depth was impossible to gauge.

I had the illusion that I might be sucked into them.

“Would you mind closing your eyes for a moment?”

“Why?”

“You always ask for reasons, but you listen well.”

Her voice was bright as if she was in a good mood. With that bright voice, she says innocently:

“Now, close your eyes and imagine an image of the Tower.”

I listened to the words flowing in a pleasant voice. Like falling into hypnosis, her voice led me deeper.

It sent me to a mental world, not this place.

“What is a Tower?”

For me, the Tower was a gigantic tree.

A tree I couldn’t climb, and hence didn’t even look up at.

That tree was far from ordinary.

When it was beautiful, it was infinitely beautiful, but when it was harsh, it was truly harsh.

It hindered and punished those who climbed it in various ways.

Countless people fell to the ground like insects.

Many of them perished as they collided with the ground. They blurred and disappeared like dreams that vanish upon waking.

At first, I found it amusing.

Those climbing the Tower were just funny. I couldn’t understand why they kept trying to climb the tree despite seeing those who continuously fell.

But as time passed, I began to cheer for them.

For someone to conquer this tree, which was nearly impossible to climb.

So that the many who perished on the ground could be recorded under the name of sacrifice.

Like a caterpillar that cannot fly breaks out of its cocoon, gains wings, and soars into the sky.

Moths fly into fire when they see it.

Even knowing their bodies will burn to death, they fly toward the hope sleeping within.

Butterflies fly toward flowers.

They swim among the buds that have yet to bloom, hovering around today as well, looking for flowers that will someday bloom.

A butterfly wishing to become a moth flies among cocoons that will someday take flight.

Because it cannot become one itself.

It waits for the flower named moth that will bloom someday.

I gazed at the tree endlessly.

Then suddenly, the tree began to vibrate.

The vibration that started from the tree caused the ground to split.

Like the ground was stretching, the land where the tree stood began to rise slowly.

And what I faced was a deer of enormous size.

In the midst of the vanishing ground, I lost my body and became a butterfly flying through the void.

Is this a dream? Is this not a dream? Who am I?

Who am I?

The deer looks at me.

The two eyes of the deer, which is shedding bloody tears with a tree embedded in its head, were directed at me.

Those eyes were large enough to fully contain me.

I could see the blood flowing down the deer’s face.

Despite its bizarre appearance, I couldn’t take my eyes off the deer.

The deer, continuing to look at me, asked:

“Who are you?”

To his words, I answered.

A person who reminisces about everything. A person who always waits with longing.

A coward who collects the world’s records and merely observes.

To my words, the deer smiled and replied:

“Yes. That is you.”