“I’m exhausted,” Jin-woo sighed, feeling completely drained.
His monthly salary was barely two million won, but after rent and student loan payments, Jin-woo still managed to save a million of it by pinching every penny. His savings account now held twelve million won. It was a considerable amount, but it was still nowhere near enough to reach his goal.
When will I ever be able to afford a ticket? he wondered. Is it even possible?
Jin-woo let out another long sigh, the weight of his ambition pressing down on him.
Ten years ago, a mysterious black tower had materialized out of thin air in the heart of Seocho, Hanseong. It stood ninety-nine stories tall, its surface covered in geometric patterns, its very structure seeming to defy the laws of physics.
Similar towers had appeared simultaneously in a hundred cities across the globe. Every country launched investigations into the monoliths within their borders, but they learned very little for their efforts.
The facts were sparse: the towers were 990 meters tall, built from a material so resilient that not even a nuclear bomb could scratch it, and they possessed no visible entrance.
Then, in a shocking turn, people began to emerge from them, stepping right through the seamless walls as if they were made of mist.
Investigators quickly tracked these individuals down, discovering they were all people who had recently been reported missing.
“How did you get inside the tower?” they were asked.
Their answers were all the same. They hadn’t entered the tower; they had been swallowed by a black hole. When they came to their senses, they found themselves on the tower’s first floor.
And so, bit by bit, information about the towers began to surface from the stories of these returnees.
No one understood the towers’ purpose, but one thing was certain: climbing them could make you rich. Items brought back from the tower sold for astronomical prices on Earth.
Among those items was the “ticket.” For the awakened, tickets were a primary source of income, as they were likely to find one or more every time they cleared a floor.
Those who had already awakened their abilities didn’t need a ticket to enter the tower. For ordinary people, however, a ticket was the only way in.
Once inside, they would awaken their abilities and earn the right to climb. As a result, tickets were incredibly expensive and difficult to acquire.
In Daehan, the Daehan Hunter Guild bought tickets in bulk from hunters and resold them to the public.
The price was set at 150 million won per ticket. Demand was so high that news reports claimed the price would jump to 200 million within a week. Hundreds of people had already paid in advance, joining a long waiting list for their chance to enter the tower.
Seeing the news, story after story of people striking it rich with tower tickets, Jin-woo had made a decision.
He would tighten his belt even further. He wasn't planning on cultivating anything exotic—just a few low-maintenance plants to cut down on his grocery bills.
With that thought, he bought a bundle of green onions and a few other things from the supermarket and started for home.
Jin-woo hummed to himself, his steps light with renewed determination.
If he started growing his own fruits and vegetables, he could save a fortune on food and eat as much as he wanted.
“This is how I’ll do it. I’ll save up, buy a ticket, and enter the tower. Then I’ll make a fortune for me and Ha-yoon…”
Jin-woo’s mind drifted to Ha-yoon, a member of Daehan’s top girl group, Cosmic Dream. He imagined a future with her, a life of luxury funded by his tower earnings—a complete fantasy, but his to enjoy.
Lost in his daydream, a goofy grin plastered on his face, he didn't notice the black hole that materialized in the air just ahead.
It began to pull at everything around it.
“What?! What is this?!”
Jin-woo stumbled back, startled by the sight of the opaque, swirling void.
This was a Vanishing, the phenomenon where people were spontaneously sucked into the tower. All the first awakened had entered this way. This is my chance! Jin-woo thought, his panic turning to elation. This is better than winning the lottery!
Fumbling for his phone, he quickly sent messages to his family. He couldn't just disappear without a word; they would worry.
He tapped send and looked up, ready.
“Why am I still here?”
He stared at the hole, waiting. “If it was going to suck me in, it should have done it by now…”
But the pull wasn't getting any stronger.
“Come on, take me already! Huh?! Why is it shrinking?!”
Worse, the hole was closing.
“No! My future! Ha-yoon!”
Jin-woo’s mind raced. The future belonged to those who seized it.
“That’s it! I’m going in!”
He broke into a sprint and charged headfirst into the hole, disappearing into the pitch-black darkness.
The moment he emerged, Jin-woo knew something was wrong. This place was nothing like the descriptions he’d heard of the tower’s first floor.
The first floor was supposed to be a grand plaza with white marble floors, lit by magnificent chandeliers. It was meant to be bustling with shops selling equipment and potions, and training centers where aspiring warriors and magicians could learn new skills.
This was a dim, rocky cave. There were no shops, no training centers, nothing.
The only similarity was its vast size.
There were no luxurious chandeliers, but a solitary beam of sunlight pierced the gloom, shining down from a hole in the ceiling far above.
“Okay, first, find the exit.”
Jin-woo scanned his surroundings, looking for a way out.
The first potential exit he spotted was the hole in the ceiling, but climbing the sheer rock walls to reach it looked impossible unless he suddenly developed the abilities of Wall Climber.
“Let’s look somewhere else.”
Jin-woo set his grocery bag on a rock and began to explore the cavern.
“Why is this place so huge…”
The cave was far larger than he’d first thought. The sunlight didn’t reach the far corners, which were shrouded in a darkness so thick he could see almost nothing.
“I need to save my battery, but…”
He reluctantly switched on his smartphone’s flashlight, keeping it on the dimmest setting as he continued his search.
His exploration was over. The cave was a dead end, completely sealed off. He’d checked every crack and fissure, but there was no way out.
“There’s no exit… Am I stranded?” Jin-woo mumbled, his mind numb. He trudged back to the small patch of earth illuminated by the sunbeam.
He had to face it. He couldn't get out of here on his own.
“Hello! Is anyone there?!”
He yelled desperately toward the hole in the ceiling.
His desperate shouts failed to escape the opening, echoing uselessly around the cavern.
“Hello! Can anybody hear me?!”
Jin-woo screamed until his throat was raw, but no one, not a single soul, appeared in the opening above.
“Damn it! Is anyone out there?!”
He kicked the dirt in a fit of helpless rage. And just like that, a day passed.
The alarm he’d set for work blared from his phone.
Jin-woo pushed himself up from the hard ground, his body aching, and silenced the alarm.
After waking, he did nothing but stare at the hole in the ceiling all day.
Hours crawled by. No one passed.
His shouts just bounced off the damp rocks, returning to him as hollow, lonely echoes.
His stomach grumbled. As worried as he was, he had to eat if he wanted to survive.
“Ugh… I’m so hungry.”
He realized he hadn't eaten a single thing since leaving work yesterday.
Jin-woo found a flat-topped rock and sat down.
From his bag, he pulled out an apple wrapped in a small plastic bag. A coworker had given it to him, already washed.
Jin-woo swore that if he ever got out of here, he would treat Ji-hoon to sweet and sour pork. It wasn't that Ji-hoon particularly liked sweet and sour pork; it was just that Jin-woo was suddenly craving it, along with a side of black bean noodles.
Resolved, Jin-woo tore open the plastic and took a massive bite of the apple.
Sweet, tart juice flooded his mouth.
The single bite awakened a ravenous hunger he couldn't control.
Jin-woo devoured the apple, crunching through it like a man possessed.
He stared at the core and seeds in his hand with a forlorn expression. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
He scuffed a shallow hole in the dirt with his foot and buried the apple core and seeds together.
Next, he emptied the contents of his bag.
A laptop, a 500mL bottle of water with a little left from the office, the green onions, a container of cherry tomatoes, and the sweet potatoes he’d bought to grow at home.
Jin-woo began counting the cherry tomatoes. He needed to take stock of what he had.
Twenty-seven cherry tomatoes, ten green onion stalks, and seven sweet potatoes.
He decided to plant the roots of all ten green onions, the seeds from three cherry tomatoes, and two of the sweet potatoes. The rest would be his food supply.
Cherry tomatoes were full of seeds; three should be more than enough to yield plenty of new plants. The sweet potatoes were his only source of carbohydrates, so he couldn't afford to plant too many.
‘First, I need to eat.’
Jin-woo took one sweet potato and five cherry tomatoes to a small pond in the corner of the cave and washed them.
He was lucky there was a pond at all. At least he had a source of water.
‘Would’ve been nice if there were fish, too…’
The water was completely still. There wasn't so much as a tadpole in it. He realized then that there were no insects in the cave, either, no mice scurrying in the shadows.
Normally, bugs or mice would have startled him, but their complete absence felt even stranger. He’d seen plenty of movies where stranded people survived by eating whatever they could catch.
‘If my food runs out, I might really have to eat something like that.’
Of course, the best-case scenario was escaping before it came to that.
As he bit into the raw sweet potato, the crisp, loud crunch scattered his anxious thoughts. All that mattered now was this sweet potato.
It was delicious. The more he chewed, the sweeter it got. He usually boiled or roasted them, but he decided eating them raw wasn't so bad.
“Now, time to get to work.”
After finishing the sweet potato and five cherry tomatoes, Jin-woo picked up the green onions.
He snapped off the top third of the green, leafy stalks, setting them aside. They wouldn’t taste great, but if it came down to it, he would eat them to survive.
In the soft patch of soil under the sunbeam, Jin-woo buried the white root portion of each green onion. To the left, he planted the two sweet potatoes, and to the right, the cherry tomatoes.
He simply pushed the sweet potatoes into the earth, then crushed the three cherry tomatoes in his hand and planted the seeds.
He licked the leftover tomato juice from his fingers before walking back to the pond. He filled his 500mL bottle and carefully watered his new crops.
When the work was done, Jin-woo lay down on a flat rock, stared at the ceiling, and waited for someone to pass by. He moved as little as possible to conserve energy, only stirring to occasionally shout, “Is anyone there?!”
But no one passed.
Beep beep. Beep beep.