"Party of five needed for Tower Seventeen, Floor 1. We just need a Support. Anyone? E-rank okay if you can spam heals."
Kael Ryu leaned back against the cracked concrete wall and pulled his hoodie tighter around himself, hiding the thin red bar floating in the corner of his vision.
[HP: 3 / 100]
He had long since stopped trying to make it go away. It didn't. Ever.
The Tower plaza buzzed like a marketplace. Hunters of all ranks milled around the base of Tower Seventeen: selling potions, shouting for recruits, flashing weapons for rentals. Above them, the Tower loomed, its black surface absorbing the morning light. Lines of System code crawled across it like faint neon veins that only Hunters could see.
Kael scanned the recruitment boards.
"Need a C-rank Tank. No timewasters."
"B-rank party seeking A-rank Carry, split 70/30.""Looking for cute Healer :3 DM me stats."
Nothing for him.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and tried not to stare at the enormous holo-billboard hovering over the plaza. It projected an immaculate man in white armor holding a spear of light, hair perfectly tousled by some invisible wind machine.
Jin Hwa – S-rank "Radiant Spear"
Top Clearer of Asia. Three-time Tower Conquest MVP.
Under him, in small text: Sponsored by Tower Cola™.
Kael looked away.
He knew all the big names. He had grown up watching them on shaky streams, then high-budget productions, diving into Towers like gods descended. Their HP bars were full green bricks. Their stats scrolled for pages. Their damage numbers made the crowd scream.
His numbers made people laugh.
"Yo, Red Bar. You still alive?"
Kael turned.
Joon, a fellow E-rank he'd run with a few times, swaggered over with a cheap blade slung over his shoulder and a grin that tried too hard. Behind him, two strangers—probably his party for the day—eyed Kael with open curiosity.
"Barely," Kael said. "You?"
"Living the dream," Joon said. "We're going to farm Floor 1 trash. You coming?"
One of the strangers, a girl with a chipped shield, frowned. "That the bugged guy you told us about?"
"It's a display error," Kael said smoothly. He'd said it so many times it came out without effort. "My bar looks low, but my actual HP's normal. System bug. Been ticketed."
That last part was a lie. He had filed a bug report once, back when he was sixteen and naïve enough to believe the System had a customer support department.
The response had been a single line:
[TICKET RESOLVED: NO ERROR DETECTED.]
"I don't know…" the girl muttered. "If you go down in there, we're screwed."
"I won't go down," Kael said. "I hang back. Buffs, debuffs, call-outs. I know Seventeen's first floors better than the architects do."
He didn't add: Because I've been stuck on them for three years.
The other stranger, a big guy with a scar across his lip, shrugged. "We're just doing goblins, Lina. If he dies, we grab his tags and drag him out. No big deal."
"Comforting," Kael said dryly.
Joon clapped him on the shoulder. "See? You're practically invited."
A notification chimed in Kael's vision.
[PARTY INVITE: Joon's Disasters][Leader: Joon (E-rank)][Accept?]
Kael hesitated for a heartbeat. His sister's hospital bill floated up in his memory, a wall of numbers that never stopped growing.
He accepted.
[You have joined the party.]
"Let's go," Joon said. "Floor 1 won't clear itself."
They walked toward the Tower entrance with the easy bravado of people who had done this too many times to still be afraid and not enough times to know better.
As they approached, Kael's skin prickled. The Tower hummed, that subsonic vibration that seemed to bypass ears and burrow straight into bone. The doorway yawned open: a rectangle of black so deep it made everything around it look faded.
A System window flashed into Kael's sight.
[ENTER: TOWER SEVENTEEN – FLOOR 1?][RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 5+][PARTY SIZE: 2–6][YES] / [NO]
He took a breath.
"Kael," Joon said quietly, falling into step beside him. "If it gets bad…"
"I know," Kael said. "I'll run first."
They stepped through the darkness together.
The world snapped like a reset button being hit.