Chapter 4 - Chapter 3

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Translator: penny

Chapter: 3

Chapter Title: Entering the Tower

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'Even if Random shows up, I should steer clear of it.'

I thought to myself as I switched off the TV and computer before heading to bed.

Half-asleep, I cracked my eyes open and found a translucent system window floating right in front of me.

It was that infamous "death sentence" phrase the media wouldn't shut up about these days.

'...Ah, fuck. It finally hit me too... Shit, this fucking sucks. If I'd known, I would've ordered chicken last night...'

I hadn't worked or even job-hunted, so I was behind on rent for my one-room, with barely 80,000 won left to my name.

But that 80k in the bank suddenly felt precious.

I might be dying soon, after all.

'...They say Easy difficulty's survival rate is still in the 30% range... Fuck. I stayed up late reading guides yesterday and crashed hard. Shit.'

With all sorts of guides and clear strategies popping up online, Easy difficulty's survival rate had skyrocketed.

Some guy even set up a mock trial environment inside the Tower and filmed survival tutorials.

But even so, surviving the Tower's trials was still no joke.

Just because a martial arts master kindly demonstrates wolf-hunting barehanded on video doesn't mean everyone can copy it.

'...Now that it's right here in front of me, I'm screwed...'

Once that translucent window appears, you have to choose.

No delaying or skipping it, they say.

Like some mental compulsion forcing you,

people end up giving up on life and picking a difficulty.

I scanned the difficulty options to make my choice.

Easy,

Normal,

Hard,

Very Hard,

Hell.

Very Very Special Easy.

'...Huh? Very Very Special Easy? Never heard of this one. "Extremely exceptionally easy," right? Oh, perfect, I'll take that.'

Scared someone might snag it, I hurriedly selected Very Very Special Easy.

Relieved, I rubbed my eyes in my groggy state and checked the selection screen again...

Easy,

Normal,

Hard,

Very Hard,

Hell.

Random.

'...Huh?'

'...Huh? ...What? ...The fuck?'

A horrifying theory hit me.

Did I maybe misread it half-asleep?

Come to think of it, some drunk guy on a forum last night picked Hell, regretted it hard, left a suicide note, and died on Hell floor 1...

I'd clicked my tongue at that while scrolling to the next post,

but now I was that guy...

"Mom... fuck..."

The world went black in an instant,

and I was in another world.

A void of nothingness, where I couldn't see or feel a thing.

Here, I stared at another system window.

'...So I didn't misread after all? It ended up as Very Very Special Easy anyway...'

In the empty void-like space, a brightly glowing translucent system window urged me to choose a trial type.

I'd never seen anything like this in online guides—totally threw me off.

'...Select a trial type? What does that mean? Never heard of this...'

'...Wait, no way...?'

A list stretched out: every game, novel, anime, movie, and more that I'd ever played or watched.

So many I couldn't even skim them all.

Did I really consume this much stuff in my life...?

And some folktales and legends were rural old folks' tall tales or garbled stories...?

'...As long as it's a story with some narrative, it shows up? And I pick one?'

That reminded me of survivors saying each Tower floor was another dimension.

'...So I get a trial of the type I pick?'

I needed to choose carefully, so I pondered,

but the waiting system seemed impatient.

"Ah, fuck this. Give me a sec, I'm thinking hard here... I don't even know what counts as clearing... Shit... You gonna take responsibility if I die?"

As I grumbled and tried to deliberate more,

the system seemed to shorten my thinking time by explaining trial mechanics.

Like knowledge being injected straight into my brain, as if I'd always known it...

"...Whoa, what's this? Fucking awesome...? Hey, system. Can't you shove some civil service exam knowledge into me with this power? I'm borderline intellectually disabled, so tests are rough. Spent all three high school years skipping college prep for the 9th-grade exam instead? Graduated two years ago, and I still haven't covered half the material. Fuck, if my IQ was 10,000 lower, I'd qualify as disabled for extra points. Hey, system? Hey. Heyyy. Hey? Fuck, ignoring me..."

Now I got how the trial I picked would work.

Basically, just play to the genre.

Survival genre? Survive. Evil to vanquish? Vanquish evil.

"Since my random difficulty landed on Very Very Special Easy, these are all ridiculously easy."

Every trial difficulty was a breeze.

One was just "eat a bowl of soup deliciously" to clear.

I skimmed them; they were so trivial it was boring.

"So I just pick what gets me off...? Hmm..."

I mulled it over,

then chose one.

The zombie apocalypse game I'd been grinding lately.

"This one. Heh heh..."

If I could enter a game world, there was one thing I'd always wanted to do.

That was...

'Rape women in the apocalypse...!'

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