Chapter 22 · 10 min
Chapter 22
Chapter 22
The peaceful first-floor territory.
With expensive items spread all over the territory, reality stopped feeling real.
“Could this be a dream?”
Aqua and Geumsul grabbed my cheeks from both sides and pulled.
Sluuuuuuurp.
Ow.
That stings like crazy.
Not a dream.
“I was a frog in a well.”
I’ll admit it.
Lately I’d been pretty proud of how much money I was making.
Selling crops practically duplicated money.
But compared to Cheon Ryujin and Wol Hayeon, I was nothing.
Two hundred and fifty sets of equipment!
Worth 170 billion won!
VIPs who spent money like water!
“I hereby promote both of them to VIP status in the territory.”
[Strongly. Agreed.]
[Aqua... Long live VIPs!
づ
]
Even at such a moving moment, some seniors in the sky were still criticizing me.
「What a pathetic tribute for a pathetic territory.」
「Nothing but cheap items unworthy of notice!」
I smiled.
Because I had just gained a way to throw those damn seniors out.
I had just received a whole group of guests.
=======
[Quest: Culture 2]
Objective: Receive a group of guests
Reward: 「Forced Expulsion」 skill
=======
The 「Forced Expulsion」 skill was imprinted into me, and I instinctively understood how to use it.
I stretched a hand toward the sky.
「What are you doing?」
「A fool trying to cover the sky with his palm!」
「What a dim-witted brat.」
Forced Expulsion.
Activate.
[Lord 102 has been expelled.]
[Lord 332 has been expelled.]
[Lord 417 has been expelled.]
[Lord 528 has been expelled.]
[...]
As seniors were kicked out one after another, the atmosphere in the sky turned icy.
Apparently, they had never imagined a rookie lord would confront them this aggressively.
“If the rest of you want to leave too, keep screwing around.”
Silence.
I knew exactly which IDs belonged to the loud ones.
They shut their mouths completely.
「Ohhh. An MZ-generation lord?」
「The junior’s got some fire.」
「I couldn’t do that when I was new...」
The ordinary seniors actually reacted favorably.
Good.
From now on, whenever some asshole showed up, I’d cut them down immediately.
“There was a brief disturbance.”
Back to the matter at hand.
I needed to figure out how to transport roughly 170 billion won worth of equipment to Carcosa.
“First I get the goods, and now transportation becomes the problem.”
The first thing that came to mind was Aqua’s mysterious ability.
Aqua could drink around 500 liters of water without changing shape.
Could it eat items too?
[Aqua... Leave it to Aqua, the territory’s jack-of-all-trades! Items are easy to swallow!
( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ
]
Ohhh!
Aqua stepped forward to show off its skills.
ꉂꉂ (ˆoˆ )
Sluuuuuuurp∼.
Aqua gobbled down the set items.
[Aqua...
Bweeeeeegh!
( ⚆ㅁ⚆)
]
Then vomited the items back out with five times the force.
Of course.
It couldn’t eat just anything.
Aqua was a water spirit, not an inventory spirit.
“Geumsul, what about you?”
[Ugh. If only. I found my. Components. I could help. With transportation. As much as needed.]
“...”
The component issue again...
Whenever the conversation turned unfavorable, Geumsul seemed to bring up its missing components.
Was I imagining things?
“I didn’t realize transportation would be this difficult.”
[Inventory. Is fair. To everyone. Equally. Cramped.]
Inventory size had nothing to do with skill.
Even Cheon Ryujin and Wol Hayeon had needed porters to transport the equipment.
I searched the internet for clues.
Scientists around the world were also challenging inventory limitations.
Papers on how to use inventory efficiently...
Experiments splitting inventory space...
Attempts to create additional inventories...
And so on.
“Nothing useful?”
The Tower’s restrictions were absolute.
Rules humans could not dare challenge.
“Ohh? This country is researching it too?”
There was one country that had produced meaningful experimental results.
Our neighbor, Japan.
The Japanese government had officially announced its research achievement, apparently causing a tremendous stir.
“They extracted 300 items from the first floor?! Alone?!”
That exceeded normal storage capacity.
What trick had they used?
The more I read the article, the more astonished I became.
「Dr. Nakamura’s research team successfully removed 300 sacks of soil from the Tower’s first floor.
The Japanese government has declared this a national triumph, while the United States and Middle Eastern countries have offered ten billion dollars in attempts to recruit Nakamura’s research team...」
Wow.
I nodded.
Japan really delivered when it counted.
For reference, Korea, China, and Japan each approached the Tower differently.
China sought to conquer the Tower through <science>.
Geumsul itself was an artificial life-form created through Chinese technology, so their scientific capabilities were overwhelming.
Japan climbed the Tower through <craftsmanship>.
It looked inefficient from the outside, but every now and then they produced an astonishing breakthrough.
Like this inventory research.
And Korea...
Hard to describe.
There was one representative trait, but the story was complicated.
Complaints about Japan’s research achievement were spreading across the internet.
Even the Plant Gallery was noisy.
=======
[Title: Has our country just given up on Tower technology?]
[Author: Druid Immortal]
Today I’m ashamed to have been born in Korea...
Should I just naturalize somewhere else?
If I entered the Climber free-agent market, the whole world would be shaken...
↳ Idiot lol you think anyone can just naturalize?
↳ What else can we do even if we’re pissed? Korean government gives Climbers zero support
↳ What the hell are politicians thinking fr
↳ Japan gives item craftsmen 0% taxes, guaranteed
↳ Heard they even give you a private hot spring
↳ What kind of shit is a private hot spring lol are you an elementary schooler?
↳ That one’s actually true
↳ You know how many Western blacksmiths naturalize because they give you a private hot spring in central Tokyo? lol
↳ A detached house in Tokyo with an open-air bath? Yeah I’d fold too;;
↳ For reference, blacksmith salaries in America start at 10 billion won
↳ That’s America, the trillion-dollar nation
↳ Even if we can’t be a trillion-dollar nation, shouldn’t we at least be a ten-trillion or five-trillion nation?
↳ National Assembly: Climbers, fighting∼ Please grind away day and night and raise the nation’s prestige, heave-ho, fighting ^^
↳ lol we should be grateful if the Assembly even gives us lip-service encouragement
↳ fr did you see them slapping HACCP on Tower plants this time? They’re completely insane
=======
Wow.
That was painful.
Korean Climbers received no support from the government.
Did that mean we were bad at climbing?
The exact opposite.
↳ Korean Climbers <<< these bastards are just really good at climbing
↳ fr lol
↳ Government shoves them toward death and they still overcome it through individual skill...
↳ You’re still surviving this?
↳ Korean Climbers keep enduring like weeds, so politicians get cocky
↳ Korean Climbers... why don’t they naturalize?
↳ They fucking do.
↳ Big companies like Cheongyeol are the only reason the rest survive
I’d heard about this too.
China’s scientific technology.
Japan’s craftsmanship.
And Korea.
[Aqua... Extremely curious! What growth engine do Korean Climbers possess?
づ
]
“Kill them before they kill you.”
[Aqua... Sh-sh-shiver!
ᕤ
]
Aqua was flustered.
Understandably.
That wasn’t a growth engine at all.
The Korean government oppressed Climbers relentlessly.
But that didn’t mean you should misunderstand.
Korea was a country where the abilities of individual Climbers were terrifyingly brutal.
Overwhelmingly so among Korea, China, and Japan.
I had met some myself.
Cheon Ryujin.
Wol Hayeon.
Ji Wuchang.
Monsters like that just kept appearing from somewhere.
“Foreigners apparently call Korean Climbers weed monsters.”
The Korean government tried to stomp its Climbers to death, but the weeds that survived evolved with insane survival power.
Back to the original point.
Among Korea, China, and Japan, we were a little lacking when it came to new technology research.
A few days later.
An incident finally erupted.
Public sentiment worsened over Japan’s technological development, and approval ratings fell.
The National Assembly summoned Cheon Ryujin.
They were going to hold him responsible for technological development.
“Why are they blaming Cheon Ryujin?”
The lawmakers’ logic was as follows.
Korea’s technological progress was slow because its large corporations were lazy.
“Typical show-trial hearing.”
Sob sob.
Poor Cheon Ryujin.
Hang in there.
The lawmakers fired vicious questions at Cheon Ryujin.
So.
Cheon Ryujin threw the lawmakers too.
“?”
What am I watching?
Cheon Ryujin shouted, “Why the fuck did you drag a busy man here?” and threw four lawmakers out the window.
It was absolute chaos.
He wasn’t even afraid of lawmakers.
There probably wasn’t anything in this world that man feared.
We decided never to mess with Cheon Ryujin.
[Aqua... Supports Cheon Ryujin’s righteous actions!
ꉂꉂ (ˆoˆ )
]
“Should I jump on the bandwagon too?”
If you can’t beat them, join them.
We posted comments defending Cheon Ryujin in the Plant Gallery.
Most of the Plant Gallery found the whole thing cathartic too.
↳ lol Cheon Ryujin is completely off the rails.
↳ Korean Climbers have breathing room these days, that’s why ㅇㅇ
↳ Why? What happened?
↳ Apparently Korean Climbers finally got a special benefit!
↳ Finally!!!!
↳ What is it!!!
↳ Climbers are buying up some kind of brush algae?
↳ Yeah yeah. My dad’s a Climber and when he got chlorella he ran around the neighborhood screaming about it.
↳ Is this real;;
↳ What neighborhood do you live in? Let’s avoid it
↳ Korean Climbers got exploited so hard they finally snapped...
↳ Tragic
↳ Brush algae? Chlorella?
↳ Huh?
↳ That plant lineup sounds familiar?
↳ Where have I seen it?
↳ Don’t tell me it’s 「that bastard」?
↳ What. Who.
↳ You know! That attention seeker who posted Mars photos and claimed it was his front yard!
↳ AH!!!!!!!! ZERG NATURAL EXPANSION!!!!!!
↳ I remember!!@#!@! That fucking lunatic who stuck ramen into the ground to grow chlorella!
↳ The guy permanently banned from the Aquarium Gallery?
Huh!
Are they suddenly talking about me?
Looks like my territory’s products had become pretty famous.
[Aqua... Proud and smug!
( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ
]
[An achievement. Of the Great Lord. Fools of the world. Bow down.]
My cabinet was delighted, but there were trolls ready to throw cold water on the mood.
=======
[Title: Serious Warning) Stop the patriotic hype]
[Author: Druid Immortal]
Have you all gone insane from browsing this gallery?
China is surging ahead through science, Japan through craftsmanship.
And you want to fill yourselves with national pride over some brush algae?
Wake up.
There’s no future in this country.
Naturalize somewhere else.
It’s the only way to survive.
↳ Who the fuck are you to order people to naturalize?
↳ If I wanna get patriotic over an algae bloom, why the fuck do you care
↳ Druid, wanna die?
↳ You think Brush Mom, the Plant Gallery’s greatest success story, is a joke?
↳ Yi Sun-sin Sejong the Great Chlorella Brush Algae let’s go
↳ K-pop and K-food I understand, but K-algae is a bit;;;
↳ Climbers like it, have a drink
↳ Wait, the Aquarium Gallery’s first ever permanent-ban recipient Brush Mom is now the hope of Climbers?;;;
↳ I feel patriotic... but why does everything look so dark...
↳ lol who wrote this garbage worldbuilding
↳ Send Brush Mom to the National Assembly
↳ Throw brush algae at lawmakers
========
Arguments about me went back and forth.
This was a surprisingly fresh shock.
I subtly tried steering public opinion.
↳ lol heard Brush Mom is handsome too lol good-looking guy lol heard he fights well too lol
↳ Are you Brush Mom?
↳ Brush Mom still browses the gallery?
↳ Located at the Zerg natural expansion
↳ (This comment cannot be viewed by Brush Mom.)
!!!!
W-What the hell.
I panicked and closed the Plant Gallery.
How did they identify me?
Am I being watched?
“I should restrain myself. Whew.”
Anyway.
I envied Dr. Nakamura’s achievement.
Transporting 300 sacks of soil by himself.
If I had that technology, I could easily move all those set items into Carcosa.
“Ugh, this is frustrating. Times like this, you need to get some fresh air. Should we go for a drive through the wasteland?”
[Aqua... Yahoo!
Q–(ᵔ.ᵔ Q )
]
[Exciting. Riding. Time.]
I climbed onto the bicycle.
I could roam the wasteland and pick up some lost items while I was at it.
* * *
Europe.
The Global Tower Research Institute.
The German team entered the cafeteria looking utterly depressed.
“The Japanese pulled it off! At this rate we’ll have to start calling them big brother!”
Nakamura’s research achievement had left the German team unable to sleep.
A miraculous transportation method capable of carrying 300 sacks of soil!
The British team watched them.
They got too curious not to ask.
“Hey, Germany. Weren’t you guys friendly with Japan? You were allies back in the day.”
“D-Don’t bring up our dark history!”
The German team jumped up and down.
Could everyone please pretend the Japanese-German alliance had never happened?
“Anyway, you have to respect Japanese persistence. They spent a full thousand days developing that transportation technology.”
“A thousand days is three years. Insane.”
“They made a thousand prototypes and only finally succeeded this time, right?”
“Then they had 999 failures?”
“They conducted the experiments on the first floor. Apparently they just dumped all the failures there.”
“Then the first floor must’ve turned into a complete landfill.”
“No need to worry about environmental pollution. The reset phenomenon would’ve erased everything.”
“Reset really is convenient at times like this.”
I Set Up House in the Tower, and Making Money Became Too Easy