Game 1: "Potatoes, Punches, and Pixels"
Han Tae-yang (한태양) had a rule for life: if life throws you lemons, you eat the peel, choke, and then pretend it was all part of your training.
Well, at least that was the energy he attempted to hold whenever his streaming audience of seven faithful weirdos logged in. 149 was not bad, was it? 149 was a holy number and a lucky number. Some were bots, and the other half were humans who replied to him with the same spammingwords.
The truth? He made so little he calculated it in potatoes. Not the kind you like, either. Not mushy mash, not crunchy chips. He meant uncooked, half-decayed supermarket potatoes, the sort that slipped under the fridge and grew a beard in six months. Five potatoes. That was his paycheck.
And it was this so-called career that made the neighbors talk when he passed the alley: "Isn't that the gym fighter kid? The one-armed man who beat the shit out of three men? Why is he yelping like a clown at the circus?
Tae-yang was twenty-one, an orphan, and poor, and had little to offer.
He had his fists. He had a beat-up secondhand PC with one fan missing (sounded like a dying lawnmower every night). And he had his sister, Han Ha-neul (한하늘).
Sixteen. Sharp tongue. Smart to a fault, the type who would slurp instant ramen soup with her pinky out like she were a princess. Tae-yang had not given up yet because of her.
Tae-yang went home to their little apartment that night. The wallpaper peeled off like a sunburn, and the kitchen light was flickering as though it was reconsidering its life choices. Ha-neul sat at the little table, her schoolbooks all about her, and an empty cup of ramyeon.
"Oppa," she said, not looking up. "You lost again, didn't you?"
He tossed his backpack into the corner, stretched his sore shoulders, and forced a grin. "Lose? Me? Never. The world just… doesn't appreciate greatness in progress."
She raised an eyebrow. "Progress toward what? Unemployment speedrunning?"
He froze. She always hit harder than the guys at the gym. "Yah, don't disrespect a streamer. Do you know how much effort it takes to be this broke?"
She laughed. A small, tired laugh, but it was enough to ease the heaviness in his chest.
"Eat," she said, pushing the last dumpling toward him.
He stared. "And you? You didn't eat, did you?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Liar." He shoved it back at her. They went back and forth until she rolled her eyes and took a tiny bite. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Tae-yang to swear again that one day he'd climb out of this pit. One day, he'd give her a real meal.
But swearing was free. Rent wasn't.
So he booted up his cursed game again.
---
Divine Tower of Gods.
If the devil made a video game, it would look like this.
When it first launched, it shook Korea like an earthquake. VR headsets sold out in hours. Gamers camped in PC bangs for weeks. People believed it would be the ultimate challenge, the Everest of gaming.
But the Tower wasn't Everest. It was Everest coated in ice, spikes, and man-eating penguins. The first gatekeeper was nearly unbeatable. The Arctic map temperature? Minus sixty. Your avatar froze in an hour. And if by some miracle you survived, you'd face the Maze: ten thousand square kilometers of pain.
The devs didn't care. Or maybe they did, but in the cruel "watch them suffer" kind of way. The game felt less like entertainment and more like psychological warfare.
At first, Korea's hardcore gamers were famous for grinding 365 days without blinking, rushing in. They posted strategies, maps, and guides. They held tournaments. Furthermore, they broke keyboards.
And then they broke.
Three years later, the servers were a graveyard. Player counts plummeted. Streams dried up. The Tower became a meme, a cautionary tale.
But not for Tae-yang.
He was one of the last rats still gnawing at this sinking ship. Why? Pride. Stubbornness. Maybe stupidity. But mostly because if he gave up, he'd have nothing left to stream. And if he had nothing to stream, he had no hope of keeping Ha-neul fed.
So he strapped on his cracked VR headset, muttered a prayer to whichever potato god was listening, and entered the game.
---
Inside the Tower, his avatar appeared on the tundra of the fiftieth floor. His breath came out in white clouds. His body ached as if the game had borrowed pain straight from reality. Snow whipped at his face, each flake sharp as glass.
"Damn this shitty game," he cursed. "Why do I do this to myself? I could be sleeping. Or watching cat videos. Or… literally anything else."
He checked his gear. A battered longsword. Armor that looked like it had been looted from a discount bin. The stamina bar is already flickering in the yellow.
"Perfect. Just what I needed. A suicide mission with style."
He trudged forward. The ice cracked beneath his boots, echoing like distant thunder. His fingers twitched from the cold. Every few steps, he stomped his feet to keep the blood flowing.
The blizzard grew thicker. Visibility dropped to a few meters. Then came the sound.
Low. Guttural. Like a beast exhaling.
His heart skipped.
From the snowstorm emerged the Gatekeeper of Floor 50. A monstrous wolf, fur white as bone, eyes burning with hunger. Its breath froze the ground. Its fangs glistened like icicles.
Tae-yang tightened his grip on his sword.
"Oh great," he muttered. "Here comes the part where I die."
The wolf lunged.
---
He dodged, barely. His body hit the snow hard. Pain lanced through his ribs. He scrambled up, swung his sword. Metal clashed against hide, sparks flying. The wolf barely flinched.
Its paw is slashed. His health bar dipped dangerously.
Tae-yang laughed breathlessly. "See? Totally under control. Not panicking at all. Nope."
But his hands shook. His lungs burned. The wolf circled, waiting for him to make one mistake.
"Fine," he whispered. "If I'm going down, I'm going down loud."
He let out a battle cry so ridiculous it echoed like a drunk karaoke performance. The wolf tilted its head, confused for a split second. Tae-yang used that gap, thrusting his blade deep into its side.
The beast roared, the sound tearing through the blizzard. Blood, black steaming, splattered the snow.
The wolf collapsed.
Tae-yang staggered, chest heaving, vision swimming. His sword slipped from his numb fingers. He fell to his knees, gasping clouds into the frozen air.
He had done it. Somehow, against every law of gaming probability, he had done it.
Then, in the silence that followed, a sound.
Ding.
A system notification glowed in front of his eyes.
You have conquered the 50th floor. Congratulations. You are the first to conquer the Divine Tower of Challenge.
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✦ END OF G1 ✦
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