"Is our world coming to an end?" a news anchor asked.
Her partner responded with, "I'm not sure. But this has to prove that God is real. These towers that have appeared all around the world can't possibly be anything manmade."
"How does that prove God is real? Can't it also be the work of aliens or an ancient civilization that was more advanced than we were led to believe?"
While they were debating, the outside world was much more chaotic.
Panic. Despair. People falling to their knees, praying for salvation.
Most of the towers were immediately blocked by nearby authorities to prevent any civilians from approaching them, but with how many people went towards them to check them out, it was impossible to keep order.
Once news was released that there was a portal at the entrance of every tower and that people who crossed through them disappeared, millions were convinced that the tower was a gateway to heaven.
Regardless of the efforts of the military and police, people shoved their way through the blockage and dashed into the portals, desperate because they didn't know if the towers would be there forever.
What if there was limited space?
What if there was a limited time?
They had to cross the portal.
THEY HAD TO.
Around the world, for whatever reason, one by one, players were starting to enter the tower.
The race to climb up had begun, and most of those who entered would never get to see the sunlight ever again.
In Japan, the daughter of a phone company felt like there was something inside the tower that she had to see for herself. She didn't believe in a higher power, nor was she afraid of the end of the world. It was merely a desire to explore something new.
In South Korea, one of the most popular K-pop idols wasn't sure why a tower appeared in the forest near where she was spending her vacation. Despite the phone call from her manager, who knew she was near the tower, she still set out to see it for herself.
In the United States, a boy who had been bullied, beaten, and bruised was desperate for salvation. Was this tower truly the path to heaven? He wanted to be freed from pain.
These were just some of the many circumstances of people around the world who had decided to enter the tower.
"Where are you, Fletcher?!"
"I can't get through to him. My call keeps going to voicemail."
"Please be okay!"
"We should've never come here. Why didn't one of us accompany him? He's still a child!"
"Don't worry, Mother. He must've lost his phone. He's probably making his way back to us now."
The Green family was a complete mess. They were in a foreign country, unable to speak the language, so they couldn't even ask around for help.
* * *
Although he was the only player on this floor, once the others began to catch up and beat the tutorial, soon, this town would be packed full of players.
The first time Fletcher had entered the tenth floor, there were over a thousand people on the floor. Most of them were truly tenth-floorers, but there were also those from higher floors who were down there for other reasons.
Some — they were there to kill other players.
Player-killers.
They were the scum of the tower, and most of the guilds had to exert great effort to protect the newcomers from the player-killers who were hoping to nip it in the bud or to satisfy their own twisted fantasies.
Now that he was on floor 10, he couldn't leave until he beat the boss.
Most people would beat them in a party, and all gain access to the next floor simultaneously, but Fletcher was in a hurry.
Dashing to a few NPCs in a path that optimized everything, he accepted all of the relevant quests, then immediately, he went to the weapons store and purchased himself a sword with ten copper coins.
Every player was given twenty copper coins to start.
Not slowing down a bit, he exited the town and entered a vast plain of green.
Hunting in these spawning grounds was difficult when there was only a limited number of mobs that could be in the field at the same time, while the players vastly outnumbered them.
But as he was alone for the moment, he had to take advantage.
The mobs on this were the same ones he had faced in the tutorial.
Goblins, dire wolves, skeletons, kobolds, and war hogs.
Fletcher's time on floor 10 had once been so bad due to being tricked by the first party he ever joined, getting scammed for all his coins in exchange for a trash item, and the first friend he made ended up dying during the boss battle.
Compared to then, this current time around was so much easier that it felt like he was living a fantasy.
"Whoooo," he exhaled sharply as he swung his sword to flick off the blood that was on it.
Clearing out one spawning ground at a time, he had made it all the way to where the boss was located.
But he didn't enter immediately, even though he felt he was strong enough to deal with it.
Instead, he began heading back, clearing out the spawning grounds in reverse. Enough time had passed for most of them, so they were packed full with the maximum number of mobs again.
It was a shame that, unlike the tutorial, where killing mobs made him stronger due to the qi that they gave, these mobs gave nothing other than experience points.
Perhaps that was the tower's way of preventing players from just remaining on the same floor forever, while the tutorial was designed to make them much stronger just by killing the enemies; otherwise, they wouldn't be able to handle it if they grabbed the aggro of a ton of mobs.
'I remember almost dying on this map dozens of times. Yet now—'
With each swing of his sword, the monster would perish. Occasionally, the stronger ones would need two to three, but for the most part, he was wiping them clean with little effort.
Returning to the town, he turned in all the quests. Then he accepted the ones that could be repeated. Before he returned to farming, he stopped at a shop to purchase himself a mask.
It was a simple mask that resembled a tiger.
Hunting all the mobs, returning to the town, submitting the quests, accepting them again — that was the pattern he followed and repeated four times. When he returned to the town again to submit the quests for the fifth time, a few players were now in the town.
They were discussing things amongst themselves, and for the most part, they were struggling to understand each other, as there was a variety of languages being uttered.
When they saw him with a weapon, a mask, and blood all over his clothes, they could all tell that he had been there for a while.
"Let's go ask him," one of them said in Spanish.