The taste of the secular world after so long.
The combination of pork belly and Madam Kim Mi-sook’s aged kimchi was utterly fantastic.
There was plenty of pork belly too, so they ate their fill. Woo-jin, Blackie, the Doppelganger, and the God of Dominion (Dragon Lord) ate no less than 2 kg of pork belly.
Even so, there was still 8 kg of pork belly left, so he felt completely secure.
[The God of Dominion praises your cooking, saying it was the most delicious food he has eaten so far.]
“Hehe. Thank you.”
“My stomach feels like it’s going to burst, nyah.”
(…….) Agreed.
Blackie lay sprawled on the ground with a blissful expression.
Woo-jin took the grill plate and washed it moderately with lake water. Originally, he had planned to use it as a disposable item and throw it away, but he could not carelessly discard an item that was E Grade, no less.
[The God of Dominion says to tell him if there is anything you want in return.]
“Yes?”
Woo-jin was flustered when he suddenly said that.
He had grilled and eaten the pork belly with him purely because he wanted to share delicious food.
But if he’s giving me something, I’m not going to refuse.
Woo-jin placed his hands on his waist, thrust his stomach forward, and spoke confidently.
“Please send me back home!”
First, he might as well ask.
If it worked, great. If it did not, then so be it.
The Dragon Lord.
And the God of Dominion, called a Constellation.
Surely he had at least that much power?
Woo-jin looked vaguely hopeful.
And then came the answer.
[The God of Dominion says he cannot grant that, as it would violate the grand principles of the Tower.]
“Yes, sir.”
What a shame.
[The God of Dominion says he does not know why you are here in the first place, but to return to reality, you must follow the Tower’s principle of clearing the assigned Objective.]
That Objective is to slay the Dragon Lord, though…….
Woo-jin thought that saying that for no reason might offend him, so he did not let it leave his mouth.
At that moment, Woo-jin saw warm sunlight shining down. Sunlight streaming from the ceiling of the Dragon Lair.
Thanks to part of that sunlight, he could maintain a morning, lunch, and evening pattern, and he could farm too.
‘Now that I have the Doppelganger, I can farm even more from now on. Then I need more sunlight coming in.’
Right now, it was shining on about 10 pyeong.
Woo-jin wanted to expand that to about 100 pyeong.
That meant he would have to dig out and remove that much of the cave ceiling.
But carrying out expansion work like that without the landlord was illegal.
Of course, this was not a place where the laws of South Korea applied, but common sense said a tenant should not tear up a house without the landlord’s permission.
Woo-jin decided to take this chance to ask the Dragon Lord for permission.
“Dragon Lord. Then may I ask for another favor?”
[The God of Dominion says to speak.]
“As you can see, I’m farming here, but I don’t have enough sunlight exposure area. Would it be all right if I expanded the ceiling a little?”
The God of Dominion was cool about it.
[The God of Dominion says you may do as you please with the space where you are currently staying.]
“Gasp. Thank you!”
If he had not been cool about it, then when Woo-jin had dug through the wall earlier, he would have already been hit by the Dragon Lord’s flame breath and turned into direct-fire-grilled Lee Woo-jin.
He had received the landlord’s permission.
He was full too, so he decided to start working right away, partly to digest his meal.
However.
“I’ll need a ladder to get up there.”
The studio room attached to the Dragon Lair.
The height from floor to ceiling differed by location, but even at the shortest point, he roughly estimated it at about 10 meters.
An ordinary ladder would not do either.
A folding ladder used at a small worksite would not even come close. It seemed he would need something like the moving-truck ladder used when moving into an apartment.
‘Wait. Instead of doing that, can’t I come down through the passage leading to the 100th Floor?’
Woo-jin immediately entered the Administrator Passage.
“Where are you going, nyah?”
“There’s something I need to check.”
He went out into the passage with a Shovel.
Thinking that he would need to expand the passage going up to the 100th Floor too, he looked toward the opposite side of the path going down. At that moment, Woo-jin tilted his head.
“Huh? Why is this side blocked?”
It was not a path opened just small enough for Blackie to come and go, like the passage leading toward the 97th Floor, 96th Floor, and so on.
It was blocked as if there had never been a path there in the first place.
“The passage only goes up to the 99th Floor, nyah. There is no path to the 100th Floor, nyah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know that either, nyah. It was already blocked when I first came here too, nyah.”
“Mm. I see.”
He would have to give up on going through the passage.
Woo-jin was about to return to the Dragon Lair, but then he suddenly turned back and tried digging at the blocked passage with the Shovel.
“Soil Tilling, Soil Tilling!”
[Soil Tilling Lv. 4 proficiency has increased minutely.]
[Soil Tilling Lv. 4 proficiency has…….]
THUD, THUD, THUD!
Blackie simply let Woo-jin keep shoveling.
In the first place, the Administrator Passage itself was not a place adventurers were permitted to use.
If he was going to stop him, he should have stopped him long ago, back when Woo-jin first tried to enter the Administrator Passage.
However, there were no other adventurers or administrators in this Tower, and as he gradually grew used to living with Woo-jin, Blackie was being influenced by Woo-jin’s actions without even realizing it.
He was also curious what might be there.
THUD!
“Hm?”
Suddenly, it felt as if the Shovel had swung into empty air.
As Woo-jin wondered whether there was another space beyond it, he blinked.
Whoooosh!
He felt wind.
On top of that, bright sunlight was coming in.
When he lowered his head and checked the hole with his eyes, he saw clouds.
CRUMBLE!
After expanding it a little more and going all the way to the end of the passage.
Woo-jin saw it.
“...Oh my God.”
This place was the sky.
What he had seen were clouds.
And below was a cliff whose end could not be seen.
When he looked down, the outer wall of a black Tower stretched straight down below.
Woo-jin could truly feel that he was inside a Tower.
“So this was the end.”
“It seems so, nyah!”
“No, isn’t this strange? Why is there no 100th Floor? Is the 99th Floor the end, by any chance?”
POP!
Blackie looked at the administrator manual.
Woo-jin glanced at it from beside him, but there was no content about the 100th Floor.
“It really is not here, nyah. As Woo-jin said, the 99th Floor may be the end, nyah.”
I see.
Woo-jin nodded.
After looking at the outside scenery for a while, Woo-jin realized that the top of the Tower was the Dragon Lair. Then he used the Soil Tilling skill from the passage side and expanded the space.
“Where are you going, nyah?”
“I’m going to head straight up to the ceiling.”
He was going to make an uphill path with a gentle slope.
This way, there would be no need to struggle to find a ladder.
Just as Woo-jin had expected, as he kept shoveling forward from the passage and moved toward the studio room attached to the Dragon Lair, he was able to reach the ‘cave ceiling.’
“Oh!”
He climbed up on top of the cave ceiling.
In other words, he had reached the top of the Tower.
Woo-jin slowly turned 360 degrees in place.
However, no matter where he looked, there was only open sky. He could not see any continent or sea.
Escape was not even something he could dream of.
He had thought from the start that the situation would not change anyway.
It seemed like it would be nice to come up here later, where there was a wide-open view, spread out a picnic mat, and enjoy a picnic while eating gimbap.
“Hehe.”
Woo-jin then began the work of widening the ceiling.
Since he was shoveling from the cave ceiling—in other words, from the top of the Tower—he did not need a ladder, and the work was far more comfortable.
“Soil Tilling, Soil Tilling!”
[Soil Tilling Lv. 4 proficiency has increased minutely.]
[You have learned Soil Tilling Lv. 5.]
In that way, the hole that had been about 10 pyeong gradually expanded.
Several days passed like that.
Today was Day 20 since entering the Tower.
During that time, Woo-jin had focused on expanding the cave ceiling.
On the first day, he had worked alone, but from the second day onward, he worked together with the Doppelganger, making the work speed much faster.
At last.
“All done!”
A hole wide enough to satisfy him.
When he came down below, a wide area of land was receiving fresh sunlight.
“Hehehe.”
From now on, Woo-jin planned to expand the potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cherry tomatoes from the existing 10-pyeong fields to 30 pyeong each.
“Status Window.”
Name: Lee Woo-jin
Title: Novice Tower Farmer
Level: 9
Abilities
- Strength: 5.01
- Agility: 5
- Stamina: 5
- Magic Power: 5.20
- Resistance: 0.032
- Remaining Points: 0
Skills: Soil Tilling Lv. 5, Seed Planting Lv. 4, Harvest Lv. 4, Cold Resistance Lv. 1, Cooking Lv. 2, Stealthy Footsteps Lv. 1, Fire Resistance Lv. 1, Dark Adaptation Lv. 1, Wood Chopping Lv. 3, Handiwork Lv. 1
The more he farmed, the better.
Woo-jin checked the Title section of his Status Window.
[Novice Tower Farmer]
- Category: Title
- Effect: Gain experience during farming activities.
Gaining experience without clearing the Tower.
In other words, he could raise his level.
In Woo-jin’s eyes, as someone who had once worked as a Tower Management civil servant, this was an extremely broken effect.
Other people struggled and risked their lives attacking the Tower, barely raising their level by one each time they cleared a floor, but Woo-jin’s level rose just by farming.
On top of that, the crops had all sorts of effects attached to them.
“Shall I rest a little before starting?”
(…….) Nod.
Woo-jin sat down, nibbled on cherry tomatoes, and browsed the community.
Time passed quickly when he browsed the community like this.
‘There are a lot of posts.’
It felt like several times more than usual.
He soon found out why.
- God Min-woo is seriously insane ㄷㄷㄷㄷ
- He’s already on the 10th Floor of Hard difficulty?
- Rumor says a lower-rank Observer attached themselves to him.
- Really?!
- Well, if it wasn’t an Observer, that clear speed makes no sense.
- Khhh. Is Korea finally rejoining the line of leading raiding groups?!
Kang Min-woo, who had received an S-Grade weapon from Woo-jin, had begun to shine.