Awakening
A space where cold chill and musty dampness coexisted: a semi-basement.
From there came a flurry of sharp striking sounds.
It wasn't the noise of beating someone up.
Click-clack! Tap-tap-tap!
The sounds of a mouse and keyboard.
They echoed through the dim semi-basement.
"Ah, come on!!"
The man sitting in front of the computer raised his voice.
The speed of his fingers only grew faster.
He had no choice.
The clear of the floor he hadn't broken through in a week was right within reach.
Click!!
With that final click—
[You have cleared the 100th floor of the Mythical Tower!]
A message appeared.
But the man didn't rejoice.
Instead, he immediately clasped his hands together.
"Please awaken. Please awaken. Please awaken."
The man repeated the same word like a chant from a spell.
That's right.
The man desperately needed to awaken.
But as if mocking his wish, the screen remained silent afterward.
Just like when he'd cleared other floors in the past.
Silence fell, and a few seconds passed.
"Argh, damn it."
The man leaned back.
He'd prayed out of habit, but honestly, he knew.
Just like all the times before, nothing would happen.
He'd simply tried assigning meaning to the number 100.
"How many floors do I have to clear, you crazy system?"
The man let out a lament that wouldn't reach its target.
Awakening and system.
Words that sounded utterly awkward in reality, but that was only the story up until three years ago.
Creak.
The man opened the window and gazed at the tower towering far in the distance.
A tower where red and purple lights mingled, giving off an ominous vibe to the world.
The tower had appeared suddenly three years ago.
The man still remembered that day vividly.
It had been broad daylight, but the sky darkened, and then the tower plummeted down in a bizarre spectacle.
People called this tower the Tower of Despair.
And along with the Tower of Despair, one more phenomenon had emerged: awakening.
Awakening was both the entry condition for the tower and the bare minimum means of survival.
Monsters that devoured people alive roamed the Tower of Despair.
The only way to survive in there was to leverage the abilities gained through awakening.
As he sighed deeply and stared endlessly at the innocent tower—
"Sis! I awakened!! It's Shield Knight!"
A booming voice came from the upstairs neighbor.
"Really?! It's a super common class, but better than nothing. Good job!"
"I thought I was gonna die catching those hundred grasshoppers!"
What the heck with the grasshoppers out of nowhere?
That must have been the kid's awakening condition.
Then why grasshoppers of all things?
No one could answer that question satisfactorily.
After all, the system assigned them arbitrarily.
'I bet I could catch grasshoppers just fine too.'
The man clicked his tongue and turned his gaze to the mirror.
He had been given an awakening condition too.
Unlike catching frogs, though, his was terribly vague.
[Play the assigned game.]
Along with the condition, a game icon had appeared on his computer desktop.
Back then, he'd cheered in delight.
There were plenty of cases where conditions were so absurdly difficult that people couldn't awaken at all, but just playing a game?
For a guy who'd been an otaku for anime, comics, and games since childhood, it was a piece of cake... or so he'd thought.
He cleared brutally difficult floors, one after another.
But for some reason.
Awakening didn't come.
All that happened was a message saying to head to the next floor upon clearing.
Ding!
An annoyingly cheerful notification sound.
He picked up his phone and checked the incoming message.
Jinhyuk-ah. You don't have to force that awakening thing. Better to live normally than go into the tower and die. So quit while you're ahead and come down to the countryside. A grown man doesn't need to mope just because he couldn't awaken. So chin up! And call your mom, you rascal!
After reading it all, Yujinhyuk squeezed his eyes shut.
'Dad, I want to awaken!!'
Going down to the countryside and living a peaceful life farming wasn't a bad way to go.
But it wasn't the life Jinhyuk wanted.
He'd consumed countless comics, novels, and anime since he was a kid.
The protagonists in them all shine brightly.
And that's why.
He wanted to shine too.
He wanted to be the protagonist.
If he couldn't be the protagonist, he at least wanted to sparkle.
So he'd make a ton of money and flirt with a pretty heroine... Slap!
He smacked his cheek to rein in the endlessly wandering thoughts, then gulped down a glass of cold water.
On TV and the internet, news related to the Tower of Despair poured in every other day.
Who cleared how many floors, what items they got, the immense powers gained through level-ups, and so on.
'So damn jealous.'
Other people awakened and entered the tower, raking in fortunes or gaining fame.
Meanwhile, here he was in a semi-basement, endlessly pounding away at a game with no end in sight, driving him to the brink of madness.
Jinhyuk let out a deep sigh and shrugged his shoulders.
Then he slid back over to the computer.
No promise of success, but what could he do?
He couldn't just stop and do nothing because the goal was out of sight.
He had no choice but to keep going until it happened.
He moved the mouse cursor.
[To the Next Floor]
He pressed the familiar button.
"Huh?"
What was this? No response.
Click. Click. Click-click-click-click.
No matter how many times he tried, same thing.
Just as he was about to slam his fist into the monitor, wondering if the computer was acting up now—
[You have awakened!]
"Yes?"
He'd awakened.
He gulped down another glass of cold water from the fridge.
Then, in one go, he headed up to the rooftop of the villa.
His head didn't work in the stuffy semi-basement.
He needed fresh air.
"Status window."
Suppressing the cringe, he muttered as quietly as possible, and a window popped up in front of his eyes.
Jinhyuk's eyes trembled.
'It actually happened.'
When the message appeared earlier, he'd wondered if it was real.
It had been that sudden.
Jinhyuk rubbed his forehead.
So the awakening condition was only complete after clearing the 100th floor and pressing the button to the next floor?
'What if I'd given up and not pressed it?'
It would have been perfect if the explanation had been even a little kinder.
Calming his mind, Jinhyuk slowly read down the status window.
[Yujinhyuk]
Level: 1.
Class: Collector
[Unique Trait]
Card Collector
Current Cards Held: 0/3.You can manifest the existence of held cards.
Manifestation
You can summon the existence of a card.
A few simple, straightforward lines of explanation.
He bit his lip.
This was the moment he was reminded yet again how terribly unfriendly the system's explanations were.
But he didn't voice any complaints, lest this hard-won awakening be snatched away.
Call him a coward, but he had no choice.
Those three years without any way out had been an eternity.
'As expected, nothing.'
He searched the internet for "Collector," but there was no useful info.
The same went for forums on the Tower of Despair or awakening.
He even posted a question thread.
@ Old man. Quit the gambling and get your head straight. You'll ruin your family at this rate.
@ Go down and play some go-stop instead.
All he got were infuriating replies.
'No way it's a hidden class.'
It happened sometimes.
People awakening not to common classes like everyone else, but to one-of-a-kind classes unique in the world.
But he wasn't entirely sure.
Those people's class names were things like "Black Knight Blessed by the Grace of the Evil Constellation Decalis" or "Iron Lord Blessed by the Goddess Gaia"—names that screamed "I'm a hidden class!" on sight.
'For now, let's call it a hidden class. At least it'll feel good.'
Jinhyuk pumped his fist with a "Yes!"
His mother had always said it: Live optimistically and positively.
It felt good to follow his parents' advice for once in a while.
He scrolled down to the next line in the status window.
Cards can be obtained from the Mythical Tower.
He lifted his head and looked at the tower towering in the distance.
That wasn't the Mythical Tower.
It was the Tower of Despair.
The tower everyone in the world was desperately climbing.
The Mythical Tower was the name of the tower in the game he'd just been playing.
At first, he'd thought the crazy system was even screwing up typos now. But he quickly realized it wasn't.
"Tower entry."
Each country had a physical tower, but there was no need to go all the way there to climb.
Once a day, you could enter right from wherever you stood.
Normally, that is.
[Which tower would you like to enter?]
Without any such extra question, that is.
He stared back and forth at the two choices floating before his eyes.
[Mythical Tower] [Tower of Despair]
Cold sweat trickled down his back.
The lack of info on Collector? Fine, he could spin that as a hidden class and run with the hope.
But this? This was seriously weird.
Mythical Tower? Two towers he could enter? This was something utterly unheard of.
Jinhyuk scratched the back of his head as he stared blankly.
He wasn't about to post a question thread again.
He'd just get a barrage of insults and be treated like a lunatic.
So what choice did that leave?
"Well, let's go see."
What else could he do? He had to go.
He picked up a baseball bat and a silver pot lid rolling around on the rooftop.
With minimal armament equipped, he selected the Mythical Tower.
It was embarrassing to call it armament, but it was fine.
If things went south, he could hit the escape button and come right back.
Shwaaaaa...!
The surrounding scenery began to scatter into particles of light.
'So this is entry.'
He whipped his head around nonstop.
Everything was new, so he couldn't help but be amazed.
After a short wait, a lush green forest unfolded before his eyes.
He tilted his head.
This wasn't the 1st floor of the Mythical Tower from the game.
Were the game and reality different? As he pondered that, a message appeared.
[You are a player who has previewed the Mythical Tower up to the 100th floor.]
[A special privilege will be granted.]
[You will enter the Mythical Tower's 0th floor.]
[0th Floor Clear Condition: Encounter the Sleeping Knight.]
"Oh ho."
His eyes sparkled fiercely at the word "privilege."
His heart began to pound, of course.
He'd seen it on the news once.
Stories of people getting absurdly rare items or abilities as system privileges.
Clutching his swelling anticipation, Jinhyuk walked into the forest.
The clear condition was ridiculously simple, but he didn't let his guard down.
This was the system with its dirt-poor explanations.
There might be a hidden condition like "defeat them after encountering."
Tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet.
Birdsong echoed.
He could hear the sound of flowing water, so there must be a river nearby.
Sunlight poured through the gaps in the branches.
It was a place so peaceful you wondered if there was anywhere else like it.
He walked, feeling utterly healed, for who knows how long.
Under a massive hackberry tree, he spotted a sleeping knight.
He gripped the hand holding the baseball bat tighter.
First strike wins.
If it was a "defeat after encounter" condition, he had to smack them while they slept.
He swallowed dryly and crept forward step by step.
Hit first? Or try talking? No, just hit.
He made up his mind and was about to take the next step when.
A memory began to flow into his head.
"Grrr..."
In a still-blurry field of vision, he heard some kind of growl.
The hairs on his body stood on end.
The clear cry of an apex predator at the top of the food chain.
His instincts sent danger warnings.
By then, his vision had sharpened, revealing a massive creature.
The size of a building, covered in glossy black scales.
He knew it the moment he saw it.
The kind of creature called a dragon in fantasy comics.
"Huh."
They say if you're too scared, you can't even scream.
With a small gasp, he froze solid.
Even knowing it was someone else's memory and not reality, the scene was terrifying enough to make him want to scream for escape.
But something was off.
The dragon looked frightened of something.
Before he could figure out what that object of terror was—
Shwaaaaa!!
A long black line slashed horizontally.
And that was the end.
The dragon split along the line and collapsed.
The memory's viewpoint shifted forward a bit, revealing the face of the being that had sliced the dragon in one strike.
A being beyond specs, casually felling the apex monster of the food chain.
At the same time, the memory ended, and his vision returned to the forest.
Jinhyuk dropped the pot lid and baseball bat he'd raised for a preemptive strike.
He decided against the first strike.
He had no choice, because the knight lying there.
Was the out-of-spec being who'd just sliced the dragon.
'Scary as hell.'
For a moment, he wondered if it was really okay to wake something like that, but the dilemma didn't last long.
Maybe it heard the gears turning in his head.
The knight's eyes opened.
An awkward silence stretched as their eyes met.
The one to break the silence first was the knight.
The knight, who had been quietly staring at Jinhyuk, opened their mouth.
"Are you my master?"
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T/N:
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