Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Ms. An, a middle-floor Climber.

She was biting her nails in bed. Even the cozy guild sleeping room felt like a coffin.

No.

At least in a coffin, once you died, that would be the end.

That might actually be easier.

She envied a peaceful death!

“...Rather than sleep. I’d rather...”

Crunch, crunch.

Without even realizing that blood was pouring from the nails she was chewing, her gaze swayed.

“Has it been five days since I last slept?”

She was finally reaching her limit. Her eyes kept closing, and each time, she violently shook herself awake.

Ah. I’d rather die.

Falling asleep was more frightening than death.

[Debuff][Nightmare 6]

Her Nightmare debuff was already at its worst. She had died several times inside the nightmare, causing the debuff to stack heavily.

“Sniff. If I’d known it was a Nightmare Vegetable, I never would’ve eaten it.”

After buying and eating a Nightmare Vegetable circulating recklessly through the marketplace and contracting the debuff, her life had fallen apart.

She was on the verge of becoming a complete wreck.

“All I wanted was to stop mana decomposition... sniff. Why did I do that?”

With trembling hands, she continued searching for information about the Nightmare debuff.

========

<​Facts Discovered About the Nightmare Debuff>

「The Chainsaw Killer occasionally speaks in the fairy language. Therefore, he is presumed to be a member of the fairy race that perished in ancient times.」

「If the Chainsaw Killer murders you in a dream, some of your real-world stats decrease.」

「If you are killed repeatedly, the following symptoms occur.」

「The nightmare becomes increasingly vivid and complete.」

「Even after waking, your sense of reality does not return.」

「You begin seeing the Chainsaw Killer beyond windows or across the street.」

「The nightmare transfers into reality.」

「Reality transfers into the nightmare.」

「Ultimately, ■■■■■ ■■■■.」

=========

The final recorded case in Nightmare research.

Climbers avoided talking about it.

Because something far too terrifying happened.

Crunch. Crunch.

Crunch crunchcrrrunch crunch crunch.

Ms. An was experiencing every phenomenon described in the records.

First she began seeing the Chainsaw Killer in reality. Then dreams bled into reality and reality into dreams until the two became hopelessly tangled.

“Hah! Am I awake right now?”

Ah. I can’t tell anymore.

This is the guild sleeping room, but maybe I already fell asleep and this is the dream.

Because.

Look over there.

At the window.

The Chainsaw Killer.

He’s been staring at me this whole time.

Creeeeak.

The Chainsaw Killer climbed through the window. Ah. So I really was dreaming! No? Are you sure?

Isn’t this reality? When did reality begin? When did I stop sleeping? Or maybe I...

H a v e I b e e n a s l e e p t h i s e n t i r e t i m e?

C r u n c h crunch crunchcrrrunch crunch crunch.

The Chainsaw Killer approached. Today too, he probably wouldn’t kill her instantly. He would ■■ her limbs and ■■ the ■■ before ■■ her.

“Heh. Hehahaha...”

She truly gave up now.

Just as the chainsaw was about to grind through her bones.

Boing boing!

Something came jumping toward her through the darkness. Its squishy body stood out.

“A-A slime?”

It was a slime shaped like a water droplet.

She had never seen a slime appear in the Nightmare Realm before.

The blue slime grew larger with every jump until it was as big as a truck.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The slime kept charging. Now it was bigger than a house. The Chainsaw Killer swung his chainsaw, but.

Thump.

( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ

Q–(ᵔ.ᵔ Q )

Thump.

Thump.

( ⚆ ⚆)و✧

And.

Thump~squish!

ꉂꉂ ლ(ˆoˆ ლ)

The slime flattened the Chainsaw Killer beneath itself. The killer couldn’t even resist as bone and flesh were crushed together.

Ms. An trembled in fear.

“W-Who are you?”

[Aqua... Autograph requests are troublesome!

づ

]

The slime shrank back down and put on an unbearably smug expression.

ᕦ(◔ ͜ʖ◔)ᕤ

Ahem.

Ms. An immediately bowed her head to the floor.

“Thank you...!”

[Aqua... Spooky! Give me one lettuce and I won’t eat you∼

つ

]

Lettuce?

She didn’t understand what that meant, but tears welled up in Ms. An’s eyes.

The slime rubbed her shoulders, warm and soft, and all her fear melted away.

Eight hours later...

Ms. An’s eyes snapped open.

“Gasp!”

So that place had indeed been a dream, and without realizing it, she had fallen asleep in the guild sleeping room.

“I-I woke up!”

Guild members who had been dozing nearby stirred awake. They explained what had happened.

“While you were asleep, we forced you to eat lettuce!”

“Lettuce?!”

“Yeah! It’s going crazy among Climbers right now! They’re calling it miracle lettuce that completely suppresses the Nightmare debuff!”

“No way!”

Waaaaaaah!

Ms. An burst into tears of joy.

So that’s what the slime had meant!

The lettuce!

The lettuce saved me!

“Thank you so much! Waaaaaah!”

If she hadn’t eaten the lettuce, the Chainsaw Killer would have carved her apart right then and there.

Mind and soul alike.

Then she would have reached Nightmare 7.

The final stage of the Nightmare debuff.

If that happened, it really would have been over.

“Ahhh. That was such unbelievably sweet sleep.”

So this is what real sleep feels like.

How long had it been? Her mind was racing clearly. Her heart was overflowing with happiness.

“Hurray!”

Her guildmates cried too. How painful had it been to watch the comrade who climbed the Tower with them waste away day after day?

“But what kind of dream did you have today to wake up so energetic?”

“Huh?”

Ms. An thought hard. The dream itself had already broken apart and vanished like a daydream.

Still.

The image of the being who had helped her remained.

So did the warmth of those hands patting her shoulders.

“I think the lettuce I ate contained the power of some great being.”

She had always said she feared the night.

She had wanted nothing more than to quietly die.

Now Ms. An put on her equipment.

It was time to smash the Tower.

She was finally in perfect condition again.

“Enter! Lost Fairy Kingdom!”

“For the lettuce!”

“For the Lord Merchant!”

* * *

<​Lord System>

!!Current influence rapidly increasing!!

[Fame +2]

[Loyalty +2]

* * *

“I did it!”

I moved five lettuce farms onto prime land and received stats as a reward.

My entire body grew more agile, and my strength increased.

“So this is the true joy of being a Climber! Hahahaha.”

[Aqua... Jealous of muscles!

(☉.☉)

]

Now that my stats had risen, I’d be able to work even harder at farming.

Meanwhile, the lettuce I had expected to sell for dirt cheap was going for an astonishing eight million won.

I’d even braced myself for a wave of refund requests.

Number of refunds: zero.

It was selling like crazy.

In fact, it was getting the hottest response of any product I’d sold. I later learned that Climbers suffer sleep problems for all kinds of reasons.

Then my lettuce appeared in the middle of all that, turning it into a product for the ages.

[Beep-boop beep-boop. Recommend. Tripling. Sale price. Excessive benefit. Compared to competitors.]

[Aqua... Capitalism ho∼!]

[Jingle

$$$ づ$$$

Jingle]

My lieutenants were suggesting a price increase.

Even I thought the lettuce would keep selling if I tripled the price.

“I’m not raising it.”

Dun.

My declaration.

“It doesn’t feel like somebody else’s problem.”

I spent four hours a day commuting.

Everyone else had twenty-four hours in a day, but I effectively had twenty.

“Everyone was in the same boat.”

It wasn’t like I was the only commuter. Plenty of people from Gyeonggi Province commute one or two hours each way.

Everyone was living shorter days.

And when commuting steals time from you, where do you usually take it back from?

Sleep.

Because it’s the easiest thing to cut.

I had also suffered from chronic fatigue after constantly reducing my sleep.

“So the price stays fixed. No! I’ll build even more lettuce farms and burst the price bubble instead!”

[True. Noblesse oblige. Indeed.]

[Aqua... Having noble dignity stolen!

(꜆꜄꜆⚆ ⚆ )و✧

]

Through this opportunity, I had caught a glimpse of the size of the [sleep market].

It was absurdly enormous.

Everyone needs sleep.

Climber or ordinary person, no exceptions.

How many office workers lose sleep to commuting?

What about self-employed people who work through the night?

The scale of the market was on another level.

“...Now that I think about it, TV was always full of bedding commercials.”

Everyone hungers for better sleep.

The sleep market was a market where desire gathered!

If I wanted to solve Korea’s sleep deprivation problem, I’d need to scale up agriculture.

I’d also need cultivar improvement.

“Geumsul. What happens if an ordinary person eats the lettuce?”

[Analyzing... For ordinary people. No effect.]

“Then can the lettuce be improved?”

[Possible. If only. Components are gathered.]

“So basically impossible?”

[...If components and data. Are gathered. I can demonstrate. 100 times. Current ability.]

[Aqua... Actually a spirit 500 million times stronger!

(ง •̀ʖ•́)ง

]

[Oh dear. I am. 5 quadrillion times. Stronger though?]

[Aqua... Hiding the power of 3-gyeong-man-eok-jo-raeng-tteok! Incredible!

(꜆꜄꜆ ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ

]

Aqua and Geumsul entered a bragging contest.

The numbers climbed so endlessly that I was the only one experiencing existential exhaustion from listening.

A new quest appeared.

=======

[Quest: Adventure 2]

Objective: Reveal enough of the map

Reward: A small amount of stats

=======

Ohh... Another adventure quest this time. My map was still full of pitch-black unexplored areas.

Lighting up the map was a task I’d eventually have to do anyway.

And it even offered stats.

“Should we go recover some lost items for the first time in a while?”

Countless X marks were drawn across the map.

I wonder what kinds of things the other lost items will be!

I brought some snacks from my studio, climbed onto the Marslander.

“Guys. Hop on.”

* * *

The Global Tower Research Institute in Europe.

A place where brilliant minds from around the world supposedly worked together and all that.

In reality, actual cooperation only happened occasionally.

Most of the time, they held the Tower World Cup, acted like jerks, and mocked each other.

Because of patriotism.

Our country is better than yours!

Among countries with particularly strong national pride was France.

You could call it the number-one country for getting on people’s nerves.

And under those circumstances, the British, French, and German teams all happened to meet in the cafeteria.

“My, my∼ What inferior European friends. You should drink wine more often. It helps improve both character and refinement.”

The French team twirled their mustaches smugly. Britain and Germany hated France precisely because of that greasy attitude.

“Don’t make me laugh, you baguette bastards. My grandfather broke a tooth eating a French baguette. You lunatics eat weapons hard enough to use as baseball bats.”

“Hoho. A baguette is best when hard... Perhaps it is still too much for an immature German?”

“Urgh.”

“Anyway, how are your results? Our French team has made progress in cultivar improvement research.”

Cultivar improvement!

A field dedicated to modifying Tower plants, regarded as having tremendous future value.

France in particular was obsessed with vineyards and had long possessed extensive expertise in improving plant varieties.

The so-called birthplace of plant breeding.

The British and Germans’ expressions darkened.

“Ahem... How far have you progressed with cultivar improvement?”

“We modified Tower grapes and successfully planted them on Earth.”

“R-Really?! What was the effect!”

“They grew into extremely delicious grapes. Hoho. We’re currently aging wine in the laboratory.”

Britain and Germany doubted their ears.

“Any effect besides tasting delicious?”

“None!”

“...”

“Want a sip once the wine is ready? No. I changed my mind. You get none. We’ll drink it ourselves!!!”

“...Sounds like the experiment failed.”

Why are they so cheerful?

Are these people insane?

“Furthermore, we sent a [Cultivar Analysis Module], containing the culmination of our improvement technology, to the first floor and collected soil data.”

“What! Could you share that first-floor soil data with us?”

“No!”

“...”

“We lost the Cultivar Analysis Module on the first floor.”

“Why!”

“It got reset.”

“Overall, it really sounds like the experiment was a catastrophic failure...”

The French team laughed, chatted, and enjoyed lunch as though failure didn’t bother them in the slightest.

They were impressive in an entirely different way from China.

I Set Up House in the Tower, and Making Money Became Too Easy