Chapter 7

Chapter 7. Tower - Residential Tier 10th Floor (2)

I roughly skimmed through Agent K’s posts written in the community.

The first post had been about not trusting anything, but the information Agent K provided looked quite useful.

Of course, as he, or she, had said, I would have to filter it to some extent.

After returning to the Tower’s 10th floor, I left the cathedral right away.

The city on the 10th floor consisted of European-style two- or three-story buildings.

The clothes worn by the people walking around nearby, who seemed to be Tower native residents, looked like outfits from around the Renaissance.

Following the map in the guidebook, I headed to the blacksmith’s forge and weapon shop to sell the useless metal, the daggers and hand axes.

According to Agent K’s advice, weapon shops evaluated and bought items for their value as weapons, while blacksmiths bought them by weight for the price of iron, so it was slightly better to sell chipped and rusty daggers and hand axes to a blacksmith’s forge that also operated as a hardware store.

Following Agent K’s advice to obey the supreme rule of using the community, I decided not to trust Agent K’s words and confirm it myself.

“Hmm, 60 Credits each at the blacksmith’s forge, and 50 Credits at the weapon shop.”

The blacksmith’s forge and weapon shop were close to each other, so checking the prices was not difficult.

A new hand axe of a similar size at the weapon shop cost 130 Credits, but if it was old and used, the price being cut in half could not be helped.

I sold everything to the blacksmith’s forge except for the machete I would use as a spare weapon and the three hand axes I would use as auxiliary weapons.

Including the 11 weapons I sold and the remains of the shield, the iron parts, I obtained 660 Credits.

That was roughly about 66,000 won. With this, staying even one day would not be easy.

“I should buy clothes first.”

Perhaps because a digital camouflage combat uniform was unusual, the gazes around me felt prickly.

Among the people looking at me, I thought there were probably some Climbers too.

Seeing someone wearing a military uniform inside the Tower could not help being strange.

For reference, for ordinary enlisted soldiers who were not career soldiers, if they received the Tower’s Invitation, immediately leaving the Tower was an order under the Minister of National Defense, so if they did not leave, their military service would be extended.

When I entered a clothing store following the guidebook, a middle-aged woman who seemed to be the owner looked at me with interest.

“Welcome. Please look around at your leisure.”

I looked at the clothes hanging inside the store, and they were more expensive than I had expected.

The cheapest top was 500 Credits, and the cheapest bottoms were 600 Credits.

Together, that was 1,100 Credits.

The bottoms would probably stand out less than the top, right?

As I was debating whether I should at least buy a top first, the shop owner spoke to me.

“Are you perhaps short on money?”

“Yes, well... a little?”

It was not a major problem, since I could buy Credits with points or sell potions to a potion shop.

“Then would you sell the clothes you’re wearing now? I’ll buy them for 1,500 Credits.”

It seemed she was interested because my clothes looked different from those of ordinary Climbers.

Well, dyeing digital patterns was difficult.

And rarity meant price.

For a moment, I thought this was a windfall, but I pretended to think it over for a bit.

I wanted to throw off these tiresome clothes right away anyway.

And if I created a clone again, the clothes would be recreated too.

Ah, wait. If my clone disappears, do the clothes disappear with it?

Then I cannot sell them. There was a risk of it turning into fraud.

“How about 2,000 Credits?”

When I did not answer, the shop owner raised the price, apparently coveting my clothes.

“Please wait a moment. May I use the restroom?”

“Yes, well, go ahead.”

I entered the restroom as the shop owner told me.

Surprisingly, the restroom had a ceramic flush toilet.

It was even connected to running water.

Unlike how this city looked like something from the Renaissance, its water and sewage systems seemed to be at a modern level.

Inside the restroom, I took off my clothes, placed them on top of the toilet, took one step away, and created a clone again while wearing only my underwear.

The new clone was dressed in the combat uniform my main body was wearing, and the clothes I had placed on top of the toilet were still there too.

“I see. Once they’re separated from the body, they become independent objects.”

For now, the clothes showed no sign of disappearing.

If I observed the process of creating a clone, I could learn more details, but without a mirror, a person could not even see their own face.

I put the combat uniform into my bag and came out of the restroom.

“I’ll sell it for 2,000 Credits, as you said. But I’ll remove the name tag.”

“Hmm... fine.”

The shop owner accepted my proposal.

After buying the clothes I had intended to buy, I received 900 Credits in change.

With this, my cash on hand became 1,580 Credits.

If I had no money, I could make clothes and sell them this way, huh?

Thinking that, I left the clothing store and headed to a restaurant.

Because I had just created a new clone, my physical state became based on the main body’s condition, so my hunger had lessened, but hungry was still hungry.

About 10 minutes had passed for my main body since entering the Tower.

Now that I thought about it, I needed to eat with my real body too.

That way, when I created a new clone, it would not be hungry.

No, if the standard was when I entered the Tower, would it stay the same even if my main body ate?

I did not know. Still, the fact that my main body could not starve did not change, so I had to eat.

When I looked at the clock tower in the city center, the time was already close to 3 p.m.

It was because I had used up a lot of time in the 6th-floor maze and the 8th-floor puzzle.

“Are you serving meals?”

Since it was an awkward time to eat, I asked, and the restaurant owner said it was possible and pointed to the menu.

I sat down and ordered a chicken-leg set meal. Perhaps because they already had some prepared, they only warmed it up, and it came out quickly.

It came with one yellowish cooked chicken leg, including the thigh, seasoned with salt, a piece of bread a little larger than a fist, some pickled vegetables, and a clear stew.

“You’re carrying a weapon and wearing an unusual bag. Are you a Climber?”

The restaurant owner showed interest in me. I answered while eating.

“Yes, I am.”

“I see. I heard vehicles made of great lumps of metal fly through the sky in your world. Is that true?”

It seemed the restaurant owner was interested not in me, but in the world I came from.

“Yes, there’s a vehicle called an airplane.”

“Huh! How can a lump of metal fly through the sky? Is it magic after all?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Just as the restaurant owner showed interest in the world I lived in, I also had questions about the Tower, so I asked him several things.

“By the way, Climbers must earn a lot of money, so why aren’t prices that high?”

“Well, because the Tower controls them to some extent, there’s no helping it. If we don’t follow the guidelines, they control the supplies entering the city, so what can we do? If prices are high, things become difficult for us too.”

I see. They said the Tower was a nation, and it seemed there was an actual ruling force.

The restaurant owner asked me more questions about our world, and I answered them sincerely.

“Come to think of it, people living in the Tower are called native residents, not indigenous residents. Why is that?”

The priest had called his own people native residents.

Among Tower Returnees, some called them indigenous people, but more of them called them native residents.

“Ah, that? I don’t know either.”

“Pardon?”

“My father, my father’s father, and his father before him all called us native residents, so it naturally stuck in my mouth.”

After saying that, he seemed to remember something and added,

“Come to think of it, my ancestors, no, the ancestors of this city’s residents, are said to have lived in another world like you Climbers. Maybe we call ourselves that because they migrated here. Well, maybe we just believe that.”

People who migrated into the Tower from another world.

Then were the people of this city descendants of Climbers from another world in the distant past?

We exchanged several more questions and answers after that, but the restaurant owner did not know much either, so I could not learn anything meaningful.

“Thank you for the meal. How much is it?”

“70 Credits.”

As expected, prices were cheap compared to the earnings.

---

After finishing the meal, I put the conspicuous bag I had bought at a military supply store into the Inventory and passed it to the main body’s side.

Then I walked around the city as if taking a stroll and learned its geography.

I did not know how long it would take to reach the 20th floor, but until I reached the 20th floor, this place was my supply base and resting spot.

If Agent K’s information was correct, time in the Tower went about 10 percent faster with each floor climbed, so it seemed fine to take it easy.

If Earth time was ‘1,’ then the time on the Tower’s 10th floor was ‘1.1 to the 10th power.’

Calculating that, it meant time on the Tower’s 10th floor passed about 2.59 times faster than on Earth.

Then, just as the priest had said, if 10 years had passed since the Tower appeared on Earth, about 25 years passing on the Tower’s 10th floor was correct.

After all, it had been 10 years by calendar count since the Tower appeared, and not yet a full 10 years.

“It’s 3:20 p.m. here, so it’s still morning on Earth.”

And unlike native residents, Climbers who entered the Tower apparently did not age while they were inside the Tower.

Considering there were ghost stories among the Tower Community posts about a Climber who had lived in the Tower for 7,000 years, I could not trust it at all.

If people were going to talk nonsense, they should at least keep it reasonable. Seven thousand years? What was he, an elf from a Tolkien novel?

However, seeing that there were unexpectedly quite a few people in the community who claimed they had been living in the Tower for over 30 years while maintaining their youth, perhaps it was not a completely absurd story.

Of course, in a community where photos could not be uploaded, claiming something like that did not make it believable at all.

While walking down the street, I spoke to an old woman dressed like a suspicious witch.

“Is this the place that expands Inventory?”

The guidebook’s city introduction had mentioned the old woman.

The old woman, who had been dozing off, yawned and answered.

“That’s right. Those World Something people do their work well. Originally, I had to sit around in that tedious cathedral all day, but now I only have to sit here at certain hours.”

The guidebook had said she appeared here between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Did she do that because she had made an agreement with the WPTO?

“It says I can expand my Inventory through a quest. Is that right?”

“That’s right. It’s written in the guidebook, isn’t it? On the 10th floor, you pay 10 Shop Points. From the 20th floor onward, annoying errands come attached, but I don’t expect that much from a dreg who has only just climbed to the 10th floor.”

A dreg? That was harsh.

“How do I hand it over?”

“Handshake.”

I clasped the hand the old woman held out. Then a trade window appeared.

“It’s one of the shop’s functions. Teaching you this much is part of my job.”

I placed 10 points into the trade window.

Then, along with a notification saying the trade had been completed, an alert window appeared.

[Tower Common Ability ‘Inventory’ has been expanded to 1 kilogram.]

“Now, if you’re done, go. Don’t block my sunlight.”

The old woman waved her hand as if telling me to hurry up and get lost.

I had something I wanted to ask the old woman, but she drove me away with an invisible force, as if telling me not to bother her.

“Tsk, I guess I really should go to the library.”

The library was where all information inside the Tower gathered, or so Agent K had said. There was probably some exaggeration in that, but it was still worth stopping by at least once.