Chapter 03
The next morning.
I put in for vacation from work first thing.
With the First Floor wasteland to develop, I couldn’t afford to spend time anywhere else.
“Tower Entry!”
Flash.
My territory, the First Floor wasteland, appeared.
According to Spirit Master Wol Ha-yeon’s interview, the Tower’s vegetables and greens are tremendously valuable.
For one, the Tower’s plants can’t be cultivated on Earth. The Tower and Earth are different worlds.
Soil, magnetic fields, gravity…
They’re so different that crops grown on Earth just wither and die.
Which means mass cultivation is impossible.
“It’s so convenient to study with Wi-Fi working.”
Long live the internet.
Long live smartphones.
“Whew. How do other people even climb?”
Just the fact that you have to part ways with electronic devices while climbing gives you a sense of how hard climbers have it.
Conversely, if the electronic device restrictions inside the Tower were lifted, the difficulty of climbing would plummet.
Someday I’ll build a communications base station and bestow my grace upon climbers.
“Don’t count your chickens. Vegetables first.”
From the vegetable garden to the communications base station.
It’s a long road ahead.
“Exchange Open!”
Is this how you do it?
The Exchange is a remote shop where climbers trade with each other; you pay money and the goods get teleported to you.
Incredible technology.
“Oh right. You can’t use the Exchange inside the Tower either, can you?”
It’s simple logic.
If you could buy items from the Exchange inside the Tower, it’d be too easy to coast through the Tower.
Just buy potions and items in real time, done. The Tower doesn’t tolerate such loopholes…
Pop!
The Exchange shop window opened.
“What the heck.”
[Lord of the First Floor, Han Ja-in]
[Tower Exchange Access Permission Acquired]
Wow.
Because I’m a Lord, I can even do this?
The protocol is alive and breathing, huh?
Lords get all kinds of privileges. Except for Tower climbing, that is.
“Let’s see… Wow. That’s a billion-won price tag if I ever saw one.”
Most items started in the hundreds of millions. A single old dagger costs millions of won.
I exercised the shopping wisdom of the common folk and sorted [All Products] by [Lowest Price].
Scroll, scroll.
Finally, some reasonably priced items appeared.
=======
[Seller: Wol Ha-mi-in]
[Cherry Tomato Seeds X 5]
Description: Practically new product lol. 20% discount for quick deals
Price: 10,000 won
=======
Oh ho. Conveniently, crop seeds were listed cheaply.
At this price, it’s worth buying.
Flash!
The Tower’s teleportation technology activated, and the cherry tomato seeds appeared before me.
The cost of 8,000 won was automatically deducted from my account.
Just as I was thinking I’d gotten a decent deal, a hollow laugh escaped me.
‘To think I’d consider this cheap.’
Not even a basket of cherry tomatoesā8,000 won for five seeds.
And what about the condition of the seeds?
Damp~.
There was a sticky liquid smeared on the seeds.
[Aqua… eek! (źźā¢ć ā¢)źźź]
Damn it.
In an industry where a single old dagger is bought and sold for 5 million won, 8,000 won for seeds is cheap.
Not just cheap.
Way too cheap.
Why?
“This damn seller bastard… he just spat out the seeds from the cherry tomatoes he was eating and sold them!”
Has business ethics plummeted underground?!
Even giving him a hundred concessions, even if we accept selling leftovers!!!
His own saliva is dripping off them!!!!
“My money!”
The Lord of the First Floor was enraged.
This calls for severe punishment.
I immediately gave the seller [Wol Ha-mi-in] a 1-star rating.
What can you do? Your seller temperature is going to plummet.
While I was at it.
I wrote a heartfelt review.
“I bought it trusting the ‘practically new product’ description!!! But a damp and sticky product arrived ć ”
Having exacted my revenge, the seller contacted me immediately.
[Wol Ha-mi-in: Hey.]
[Wol Ha-mi-in: Hey, you!]
[Wol Ha-mi-in: How did my seller temperature eodereohag[yo.?]]
Get lost.
I closed the chat window.
Then when notes started coming, I set the note option to [Do Not Use] as well.
Finally, peace and quiet.
I buried the cherry tomato seeds carefully in the wasteland. The seller is the worthless one. The seeds are innocent.
“Aqua. Water.”
Aqua, who stores 500 liters of water inside its body! Truly a water spirit.
Depending on need, it can even perform the role of a watering can like this.
[Aqua… sprinkly sprinkly! ļø»ā¦ĢµĢµĶĢæĢæĢæĢæāāā¤ā]
Aqua sprays the water.
The so-called water gun mode.
Even so, the First Floor doesn’t get properly moistened. The soil here is truly arid.
It’s impossible to even estimate when it last rained.
“I’ve planted the cherry tomatoes, but… can plants even grow in soil like this?”
It was so dry that no matter how much water I sprayed, it just seeped underground.
Splash splash splash splash…
How much more water did I pour? Finally, water began to pool in the wasteland, but even then, it was hard to imagine life sprouting.
“This won’t work.”
According to my Lord’s intuition, the seeds definitely wouldn’t germinate.
“Kgh. Is this a failure?”
I’d gotten someone else’s spit on my hands and had nothing to show for it. But they say failure is the mother of success.
“I’ll have to resort to a loophole.”
I pulled out the loophole machine.
Smartphone!
With this device, packed solid with Earth’s latest technology, I can search all the knowledge in the world!
“Even inside the Tower!”
Click!
I took a photo of the wasteland and posted it on the <Plant Gallery>.
The Plant Gallery is where good-hearted hobbyists who cherish plants live. I figured I’d ask them for advice.
=======
[Title: lol hey guys this is my front yard.]
(Photo)
I’m trying to grow something.
Recommendations welcome!
=======
Replies came flooding in instantly.
As expected of the Plant Gallery.
ā³ lol wow is this soil for real?
ā³ I’m gonna puke, the dirt color is bleeding red lolololol
ā³ Is that Mars?
ā³ Do Martians browse the gallery these days? The gallery’s done for…
ā³ Mars IP noted
ā³ OP, even if you become fertilizer you can’t save that
Everyone’s so serious about plants that they were horrified by my wasteland instead.
Was the First Floor really that hopeless?
Farming won’t be easy.
At least some helpful comments appeared.
ā³ lol just grow some cyanobacteria
ā³ Even cyanobacteria is a luxury… barely even brush algae can grow there.
Cyanobacteria? Brush algae?
I searched immediately.
“Oh~.”
Cyanobacteria were the star of the green algae blooms that float around every summer. So you were that guy?
Also, brush algae was that limp, black, seaweed-like thingāI remembered seeing it here and there.
“Where was it? In a neglected fish tank at school, maybe?”
Anyway, brush algae was a superstar. Because of its uniquely tenacious vitality, it was the sworn enemy of aquarium hobbyists who kept aquatic plants and ornamental fish.
“How impressive can its vitality possibly be?”
This time I checked out an aquarium community.
It was no joke.
I could feel it immediately.
=========
[Title: Kiiiiieeeek! Brush algae got into my tank!!!!! What do I do?]
ā³ Yeah, smash the tank with a hammer
ā³ You’ve been infected.
ā³ Welcome, infected Terran lol
ā³ From today, you’re a brush-mom too
ā³ Set your house on fire right now
ā³ Once brush algae gets in your tank, your constitution changes
ā³ From now on, every fish you raise = brush algae food loloool
ā³ Brush algae: lol thanks for the hard work
ā Brush ā
Holy crap.
This brush algae thing.
It really grows that well?
I looked it up and apparently it proliferates indefinitely with just water and light.
How is that even possible? Are you an alien lifeform?
It says it attaches itself and grows on its own as long as water pools anywhere.
In fact, its survivability is better than mold, so even Elon Mask-nim set brush algae growth as the first task of Mars terraforming.
“What kind of demon plant is this…”
It was a little creepy, but perfect for growing in a wasteland. To get brush algae, I’d need to look around dirty streams.
At that moment…
Aqua and I flinched.
“!!!!!”
[Aqua… jolt jolt! (ļ¼ć»Īµć»)į¤]
In the wasteland where we’d sprayed water, ‘it’ was there.
A floating, limp black thing…
Goosebumps prickled all over me.
“B-brush…”
A puddle had only briefly pooled in the wasteland.
I recalled the aquarium gallery’s maxim.
“Brush algae is everywhere and nowhere.”
Seoul at night.
Today, the headquarters of “Cheongyeol” was splendid as always.
The Cheongyeol Group is a giant in the climbing industry that employs climbers. It has dozens of subsidiaries alone.
All of them casually rake in hundreds of billions in net profit.
The secret lies in Cheongyeol’s ruthless elitism.
Cheongyeol hires only the best climbers, so the hiring rate is astronomically low.
Thus, society looks up to Cheongyeol employees.
They’re the number-one grooms and brides at matchmaking agencies.
Going further, banners are hung in neighborhoods where someone gets hired.
Cheongyeol employee over judge or prosecutor!
But once you actually join Cheongyeol, employees suffer under brutal workloads.
For example, today a group night training session was underway.
A large number of employees had gathered, and the target they had to face was just one person.
Cheon Ryu-jin.
A member of Cheongyeol’s royal family and the current third in line for successionāthe Head Director.
A strongman in name and reality.
And also, in name and reality, a crazy bastard.
Madman. Maggot. Son of a bitch. Trash. Human garbage. The man you want to kill. Delinquent bastard…
Et cetera.
Cheon Ryu-jin has many nicknames.
And Cheon Ryu-jin has always proven that his nicknames are no exaggeration. Every single nickname is plain, unvarnished true fact.
Among those nicknames!
There is not a single false accusation!
“Not coming? Shall I go?”
Cheon Ryu-jin, red hair billowing, walked to the center of the training room. The air in the training room sank heavily.
The employees surrounded Cheon Ryu-jin but couldn’t easily attack. Cheon Ryu-jin may be a delinquent, but his skill is the real deal.
Cheon Ryu-jin had been famous ever since his academy days as a child.
“Now…! Attack the Head Director!”
At the team leader’s command, all the employees lunged at Cheon Ryu-jin and unleashed their ultimate techniques.
Cheon Ryu-jin was engulfed in a mass of light.
“D-did we get him?”
As if. Cheon Ryu-jin walked out of the light mass, blood streaming. You survived that? It was hard to tell whether he was a royal family member or a monster.
“Stupid bastards… how did you even get hired with skills like that?”
Cheon Ryu-jin radiated mana.
His mana seemed either infinite, or perhaps even he himself couldn’t handle his own mana.
“I’m going to weed out all you salary thieves today.”
Kwaaang!
Mana exploded out like an active volcano.
“Stop the Head Director!”
“Team Leader, your salary’s too high too!”
“Uwaaaah!”
A few hours later.
The employees limped out of the training room, and Cheon Ryu-jin, left alone in the training hall, sat upright and steadied his breathing.
“Hmph. Useless bastards.”
If he didn’t train them like this, he was never satisfied. In this massive company, there wasn’t a single usable person.
At that moment.
A fistful of mana drained from his body.
You damn
Mana was decomposing.
With every breath, Cheon Ryu-jin’s mana shattered into pieces and dispersed into the air.
This feeling.
You can’t understand it unless you’ve experienced it.
“Haha. More mana decomposes naturally than I used in training. Makes me want to kill them all.”
Mana decomposition.
This is a chronic ailment of climbers.
The Tower’s air is rich in mana, helping climbers grow stronger quickly. But the moment climbers return to Earth.
Earth’s desolate air begins to torment them.
Earth’s air sucks the mana right out of climbers.
The feeling is absolutely shitty. To have your spine sucked dry by Earth.
“Haha. These bug-like Earth bastards… your greed is filthy… Hey! Hey, Secretary!”
“Yes, yes. Coming.”
Cheon Ryu-jin’s right-hand man, Secretary Lee, rushed over and handed him carrot juice.
The moment Cheon Ryu-jin drank the carrot juice, the mana decomposition was suppressed. It was top-grade carrot from the Tower, after all.
“Ugh. It tastes disgustingly bad… How much carrot is left?”
“Stock is almost depleted. You’ll need to procure more urgently.”
“Who says otherwise? Even if I offer a premium, there’s nobody selling!”
Money makes the world go round, they say.
Even offering money, there’s nobody selling.
The reason is simple. High-floor climbers don’t have enough vegetables for themselves.
Low-floor climbers are useless.
“However, Head Director. There’s a strange rumor circulating among the ultra-high-floor climbers. Apparently someone has appeared who sells Tower vegetables every day.”
Cheon Ryu-jin’s eye corner twitched. As I said earlier, high-floor people consume their own, and low-floor people are maggots.
But some random person is selling Tower vegetables every day? With what ability?
“Why didn’t you tell me until now?”
“Head Director. Let me confirm first. If it’s Tower vegetables, how far can you tolerate the taste?”
“? It’s Tower vegetables, what do you mean tolerate or not? I’ll eat anything.”
“Really?”
“Have you ever seen me fuss over taste?”
“You will this time. I’m not even sure it’s right to call them vegetables…”
