I succeeded in crawling the Inner Tower Community.
The first thing I asked Yuna was background knowledge about this world.
"So, this is like a memoir?"
A memoir written by someone after some time had passed since the Tower appeared. It seemed good for figuring out what kind of world this was.
[Yeah, that's right, so it is?]
[In my opinion, reading this one is enough.]
The content was a bit longer than I expected.
-----------------------------
Now it's a familiar concept, but the Tower appeared one day without warning.
In front of the unidentified structure, humanity had no choice but to stop everything.
That was only natural, since something of an unprecedented height appeared overnight.
However, there were many things inside the Tower that didn't exist on the surface.
Minerals never seen before, herbs never touched, technology never imagined.
And non-human beings… Dwarves, Fairy Race, and dozens of other races.
They had originally lived inside the Tower.
-----------------------------
Wait a moment…
"Hold on."
[?]
"One-line summary."
AI is for summarizing, after all.
[Tower appears → humanity climbs → nations disband armies and form climbing teams → families send successors to the Tower → wars decrease, but the Tower becomes a battlefield for competing interests]
"Hey, this thing's brain is working properly."
[Sigh]
[So I heard most people called the Tower a proxy war.]
"…So it really is a Tower climbing story."
The place I had entered was that kind of world.
***
"It's warm."
After those words from Dolores.
I had the illusion that all sound in the room had disappeared.
Ruby was sleeping in bed, and seemed to be snoring, too.
I was standing in front of her.
Dolores was looking down at her own hand, not moving.
How many seconds had passed? It was taking longer than I thought.
I couldn't tell what she was thinking at that moment.
However.
Sparkle.
I just hoped that the pattern glowing on my wrist would guide me.
***
Water flowed inside the gloves.
Elysia von Dolores found that sensation unfamiliar.
Warmth. What kind of emotion was that again?
Dolores recalled the past.
Elysia von Dolores entered the Tower with her six sworn sisters.
Their climb was faster than any other team, and people called them the Apostles of Dawn.
It was around then that the alias High Ranker was attached to her.
Then one day.
…….
Dolores realized that her body was breaking down.
A congenital Nine Yin Severed Meridians, a disease like the curse of the Dolores Family.
A disease where the nine meridians through which mana flows freeze one by one.
A curse for which elixirs that could be used after countless generations, and every existing treatment, had all been tried.
But no cure existed, and only the progression could be slowed.
She had thought surely not. She believed it wouldn't be her.
However, the family curse had bound her.
While her sworn sisters opened their Upper Dantian one by one, only she remained stopped in place.
Because the Upper Dantian was a door that would not open for one whose meridians were blocked.
She sought out everyone called a famous physician of the Tower. The same outside the Tower.
The last one she visited was the Great Sage Gorgonue.
The White Gloves he made for her.
And the equipment gathered from various places.
That was the best and all she had obtained.
The problem was that the illness could be stopped…
But it ended at simply stopping.
As time passed, along with the sensation of her fingertips growing numb… her toes also grew numb.
From some point on, days continued where her body felt like it wasn't her own.
'This is as far as I go.'
In the end, she left her sworn sisters behind and stopped climbing.
When such a situation arose, the family's ancestors secured heirs through marriage.
That was the way of the Dolores family.
However, so that the Dolores family curse would not continue, she decided to raise a disciple connected not by blood, but by heart.
She did not want to pass on this pain.
How much time passed like that, each day growing duller in her heart.
She had thought that day's choice would be no different from any other.
Just a child with good eyes, nothing more and nothing less.
It was simply her wish that her disciple could find companions to climb the Tower with, and she merely chose a kid who seemed to have good eyes.
It wasn't grand enough to call a choice.
But now.
That kid had given her gloves.
Rustle…
Water was leaking out from between the gloves.
The ice was melting. It was warm.
'Warm?'
What kind of emotion was that again?
Because Dolores had suffered from illness for a long time, she could accurately tell her body's condition.
The meridians melting? Severed meridians opening?
How could that be possible?
Moreover, this pattern was the Sun Dwarf's engraving.
And it wasn't even an ordinary blacksmith's engraving, but one only craftsmen who had undergone harsh trials could obtain.
Equipment made by the elite blacksmiths of the Sun Dwarves was something she had always desired, so she knew it better than anyone.
It was just not something one could obtain simply by wanting it.
'Descendant of Fire….'
Was that what it was called?
Dolores had seen this engraving exactly twice in her life.
One was the armor one of her sworn sisters had been awarded at the imperial palace.
The other was the Genesis Sword sold at the auction house on Floor 125.
And now, the third.
The gloves this child had made.
Of course, the shape of the engraving was slightly different.
However, the two engravings she had seen before also had different shapes, so that wasn't a problem.
'…The third.'
An engraving that even she, a High Ranker, could count on one hand how many times she'd seen, was on gloves made by a little orphanage kid.
If it were an absurd fake, it would be easier. She would just scold him and be done.
The problem was that this now seemed real.
It was ridiculous, but.
The Severed Meridians condition that even the Great Sage Gorgonue could only stop was clearly being slowly unraveled by these gloves.
It wasn't something a fake could do.
Dolores looked down at her hand again. Then slowly raised her head.
"Can you explain?"
She had no choice but to ask.
***
What.
Explain what.
Isn't this not even a matter of explaining?
I made it, Teacher wore it. Isn't that a win-win for us?
Her expression did seem a bit surprised, though.
Drip.
Seeing the water droplets from between the gloves fall to the ground, it seemed something had worked.
If it had gone wrong, I'd already be dead.
"Explain."
"Yes."
So, Dolores was asking how I made this.
I had to answer.
'…I am actually a Sun Dwarf.'
That was difficult to say.
However, from the circumstances so far, Dolores seemed able to distinguish lies from truth.
Moreover, she had always emphasized to me.
'Speak only the truth.'
Then, words that were not lies but could resolve this situation.
Squeeze it out, Kim Yujin, no, Lionel.
You can do it, if it's you.
"…I have learned the metallurgy of the Sun Dwarves. 'Descendant of Fire.'"
I deliberately pronounced 'Descendant of Fire' strongly.
This isn't a lie.
I read their textbook, carefully read the leatherworking part, and produced a result.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't metallurgy, but.
Since some people use the word metallurgy to collectively refer to blacksmithing techniques in general.
The answer didn't need to be accurate, but I thought I should reduce room for rebuttal.
Dolores's eyebrow twitched slightly.
"Where did you learn it?"
"I saw it in a book."
"What book?"
A brief silence.
"It's a book of the Sun Dwarves."
Every time I answered, Dolores's eyebrow twitched.
Since it was all true, from her perspective it must have been incomprehensible. How would a countryside orphan see a book of Dwarves living in the Tower?
And the Descendant of Fire, no less.
"…Ha."
Here, I actually wanted to give her trust.
What is trust? Actually, trust is an illusion.
I briefly recalled an old memory.
A game I enjoyed as a child. Having saved a huge sum of 100 million, I went to the market to become happy that day.
And I met that person.
'I am a person who came to help you.'
Thinking back, it was a rather untrustworthy statement, but I believed it then, and my 100 million disappeared into thin air.
And now, I could use those words from back then. Why?
Because Dolores could distinguish when I was lying.
And this time, it was real.
I raised my head.
"I am a person who came to help Lady Dolores."
My will to help was real.
Even if the motive was for my own survival, that was that.
…….
Dolores, as if trying to gauge the truth, looked into my eyes once more…
Rustle.
She slowly sat back down on the chair.
And.
"Sit down."
She invited me to sit on the chair.
I didn't know what this meant, but for now I wanted to believe it was a good thing.
I sat down and waited quietly.
Dolores slowly opened her mouth.
"Ten million gold."
…….
"It's the winning bid for the Genesis Sword that appeared at the auction house recently. Made by a Descendant of Fire."
I didn't know the exchange rate, but it was an extraordinary unit anyway.
"That's not the end. There might have been backroom deals. The auction house on Floor 125 is originally quite opaque."
"I see."
I didn't understand.
"If I had to compare."
Dolores paused for a moment, as if choosing an appropriate analogy.
"It's equivalent to about half a year's budget of a ducal territory. Including all insurance."
…….
"Or, it would be about the expedition budget for one year of the greatest climbing team in the past."
Oh.
I had kindly received two examples, but since I didn't know the exchange rate, it didn't sink in.
Then.
[I roughly converted it, and it's enough money to live with me for 333,000 months.]
A hundred billion?
A h-h-hundred billion?
In other words, enough to subscribe to a little sister for 333,000 months…
I began to blank out at the amount that suddenly hit me.
'What on earth is the Genesis Sword?'
[I'll show you the appraisal report released to the public.]
Perhaps noticing my curiosity, Yuna answered.
-----------------------------
[Genesis Sword][★★★★★] [Unique Equipment]
-----------------------------
[I want to cut the stars, she said.
It was an absurd question, but I answered that question with this sword for my whole life.
Now the only thing this sword cannot cut is the death that took her away.]
- Wise Craftsman Ogeron -
-----------------------------
[The sword that lost its master drifted into the auction house. No one would buy it thinking to cut the stars.]
-----------------------------
What is this?
It's so cool? And even romantic.
I should have done it like this too. Compared to my 'Give me Eric, Eric', I became endlessly ashamed.
Next time, let's engrave something a bit more seriously.
Just then, when I was admiring the text that clearly had a different weight.
When I came to my senses, Dolores was staring intently at me.
"Of course, these gloves won't fetch the same price as the Genesis Sword."
I didn't expect that anyway.
If you saw that and still thought that, you'd be a jerk.
Dolores slowly continued.
"But while a sword already made is sold once and that's the end."
She lightly stroked the gray sun engraving on the glove with her fingertip.
"The maker can make anything again."
Rustle.
Dolores slowly took off the gloves as if they were precious. It was a completely different attitude from before.
Her hand, once the gloves were removed, was warmly melted.
Soft and smooth fingers. A faintly pink back of the hand.
It was a hand that anyone could see belonged to a noble lady, but.
From the moment the gloves fell from her hand, her fingertips began to turn pale.
Frost spread over the back of her hand, and then thin ice spread to her wrist in less than 5 seconds.
…….
Dolores looked down at that hand for a moment and frowned.
Tap.
She placed the gloves neatly on the table.
"I need to go to the Tower for a moment."
"What?"
"I'm going to take it to the verification office. To see if it's really an item made by a Descendant of Fire."
"…Yes."
Honestly, I was confident about the verification.
After all, the status window said so too.
Dolores put the removed gloves into a pouch that looked somewhat luxurious.
As if something came to mind, she called me.
"Ah, and Lionel."
"Yes."
"What was our promise?"
Our promise.
I had to find a way to surprise Dolores within a week.
It just wasn't magic.
"I was supposed to… surprise you."
Honestly, isn't this a pass? I'm sure I surprised her.
"Even if."
Dolores paused for a moment.
"Even if the verification results say these gloves are not a Descendant of Fire's work, it doesn't matter."
"…What?"
"Because you already kept the promise."
She smiled.
It was the first smile I had ever seen from her.
"I was very surprised."
I suppose so.
"So I'm telling you not to be too scared."
I seemed to have succeeded.