Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The next morning.

The first thing I did was request leave from work.

I had to develop the first-floor wasteland, so I couldn’t waste time anywhere else.

“Enter the Tower!”

Flash.

My territory, the first-floor wasteland, appeared.

According to Spirit Master Wol Hayeon’s interview, vegetables and produce grown in the Tower were extremely valuable.

For starters, Tower plants cannot be cultivated on Earth. The Tower and Earth are different worlds.

Soil, magnetic fields, gravity...

They’re so different that even if you try growing Tower crops on Earth, they just wither and die.

In other words, mass cultivation is impossible.

“Having Wi-Fi makes studying ridiculously convenient.”

Long live the internet.

Long live smartphones.

“Whew. How do other people even climb this place?”

Just the fact that Climbers have to part with electronic devices while climbing tells me how hard their lives must be.

On the other hand, if the restriction on electronic devices inside the Tower were ever lifted, the difficulty of climbing would drop dramatically.

Someday, I’ll build a communications base station and bestow my blessing upon all Climbers.

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Vegetables first.”

From a vegetable garden to a communications base station.

I’ve got a long way to go.

“Open marketplace!”

Is this how it works?

The marketplace is a remote store where Climbers can trade with each other, and as long as you pay, the goods are teleported to you.

The technology is incredible.

“Oh, right. You can’t use the marketplace inside the Tower, can you?”

Simple logic.

If you could buy items through the marketplace inside the Tower, clearing the Tower would become too easy.

You could simply purchase potions and items in real time. The Tower would never allow that kind of looph—

Pop!

The marketplace window opened.

“What the hell?”

[Lord Han Jain of the First Floor]

[You have acquired permission to use the Tower Marketplace.]

Wow.

Being a lord lets me do even this?

The royal treatment is alive and well.

Lords receive all kinds of privileges.

Except when it comes to actually climbing the Tower.

“Let’s see... Wow. These prices make you gasp.”

Most items started in the hundreds of millions of won. Even one worn-out dagger cost several million.

I applied the shopping wisdom of a commoner and sorted [All Products] by [Lowest Price].

Scrollllll.

Now the products looked a little more reasonable.

=======

[Seller: Moonlit Beauty]

[Cherry Tomato Seeds X 5]

Description: Basically brand-new lol. 20% discount for a quick deal

Price: 10,000 won

=======

Oh? Some crop seeds happened to be listed cheaply.

At this price, they were worth buying.

Flash!

The Tower’s teleportation technology activated, and the cherry tomato seeds appeared in front of me.

The 8,000 won payment was automatically deducted from my bank account.

The moment I thought I’d gotten a good deal, a dry laugh escaped me.

‘And I’m calling this cheap.’

Not even a basket of cherry tomatoes. Five seeds for 8,000 won.

And the condition of the seeds?

Wet∼.

A sticky liquid coated the seeds.

[Aqua... Eww!

(꜆꜄•ㅁ•)꜆꜄꜆

]

Son of a—

In an industry where one worn-out dagger sells for five million won, 8,000 won for seeds is cheap.

Not just cheap.

Ridiculously cheap.

Why?

“You damned seller... You spat out the seeds from the cherry tomatoes you were just eating and sold them, didn’t you!”

Has business ethics fallen through the basement floor?!

Even if I bend over backward and say it’s fine to sell leftovers!!!

Your spit is dripping all over them!!!!

“My money!”

The Lord of the First Floor was furious.

Severe punishment was in order.

I immediately slammed seller [Moonlit Beauty] with a one-star rating.

Too bad. Your seller temperature is about to turn ice-cold.

While I was at it.

I also wrote a heartfelt review.

「I trusted the description saying they were basically brand-new!!! But the product arrived all wet and sticky ㅠ」

The moment I carried out my revenge, the seller contacted me.

[Moonlit Beauty: Hey.]

[Moonlit Beauty: Hey, you!]

[Moonlit Beauty: Whaht did you do to my seller temp@#$%[!?]

Get lost.

I closed the chat window.

Then messages started coming in, so I changed my message settings to [Disabled] too.

Finally, peace and quiet.

I carefully buried the cherry tomato seeds in the wasteland. The seller was the guilty one. The seeds had done nothing wrong.

“Aqua. Water.”

Aqua stores 500 liters of water inside its body! Truly worthy of being a water spirit.

When necessary, it can even act as a watering can like this.

[Aqua... Pewpewpew!

︻╦̵̵͇̿̿̿̿══╤─

]

Aqua sprayed water everywhere.

The so-called water-gun mode.

Even so, the first floor refused to become properly wet. The soil here was unbelievably dry.

It was impossible to even guess when it had last rained.

“I planted the cherry tomatoes, but... can plants even grow in soil like this?”

The ground was so dry that no matter how much water we poured, it simply seeped underground.

Gushgushgushgush...

Who knows how much more water we poured. Eventually, puddles finally began to form across the wasteland.

But even that didn’t seem enough for life to sprout.

“This isn’t going to work.”

According to my lordly intuition, the seeds definitely wouldn’t germinate.

“Ugh. Is this a failure?”

I’d even gotten someone else’s saliva on my hands for nothing. But they say failure is the mother of success.

“I’ll have to use a shortcut.”

I pulled out my shortcut machine.

My smartphone!

With this device packed full of Earth’s latest technology, I can search all the knowledge in the world!

“Inside the Tower, no less!”

Click!

I took a photo of the wasteland and uploaded it to the <​Plant Gallery>.

The Plant Gallery was home to kind enthusiasts who cherished plants. I planned to ask them for advice.

=======

[Title: lol guys this is my front yard.]

(Photo)

I wanna grow something here.

Taking recommendations!

=======

Replies appeared instantly.

As expected of the Plant Gallery.

↳ LMAO is that soil for real?

↳ Makes me wanna puke, look how red that dirt is lolololol

↳ Are you on Mars?

↳ Martians use the gallery now? This place is doomed...

↳ Noted: Martian IP

↳ OP, even if you turned yourself into fertilizer, you couldn’t save that

Because everyone there cared so deeply about plants, they reacted to my wasteland with even more horror.

Was the first floor really that hopeless?

Farming won’t be easy.

At least a few helpful comments appeared.

↳ lololol you should just grow cyanobacteria

↳ Even cyanobacteria are too luxurious... Brush algae might barely survive.

Cyanobacteria? Brush algae?

I searched them immediately.

“Ah∼.”

Cyanobacteria were the culprits behind the green algae blooms floating around every summer. So that’s what you were?

Brush algae, meanwhile, were black, limp things that looked a bit like seaweed. I remembered seeing them here and there too.

“Where was it? In some neglected aquarium at school?”

In any case, brush algae were superstars. Thanks to their famously tenacious vitality, they were the sworn enemy of aquarium hobbyists who raised aquatic plants and ornamental fish.

“How tough can they possibly be?”

This time I entered an aquarium community.

It was no joke.

I understood immediately.

=========

[Title: KIEEEEEEKK! BRUSH ALGAE GOT INTO MY AQUARIUM!!!!! WHAT DO I DO?]

↳ Yeah, smash the tank with a hammer

↳ You’ve been infected.

↳ Welcome, infected Terran lol

↳ Starting today, you’re a Brush Mom too

↳ Burn your house down immediately

↳ Once brush algae gets into your tank, your constitution changes

↳ Everything you raised from now on = brush algae food lololol

↳ Brush algae: lol good luck

― BRUSH ―

========

Holy crap.

Brush algae.

Do they really grow that well?

I looked it up and apparently, as long as they have water and light, they reproduce endlessly.

How is that even possible? Are you an alien life-form?

Apparently, if water just sits somewhere, they settle in and start growing on their own.

They supposedly have even greater survivability than mold, to the point that Elon Musk himself made the growth of brush algae the first task in terraforming Mars.

“What kind of demonic plant is this...”

It was a little creepy, but perfect for growing in a wasteland. If I wanted brush algae, I’d have to look around polluted streams.

At that moment...

Aqua and I both flinched.

“!!!!!”

[Aqua... Super startled!

ᕤ

]

There was ‘something’ in the patch of wasteland where we had poured water.

Something black and limp, floating there...

Goosebumps ran all over me.

“Bru, brush...”

All that had happened was a puddle forming in the wasteland for a brief moment.

I remembered a saying from the aquarium gallery.

「Brush algae are everywhere, and nowhere.」

* * *

Night in Seoul.

Tonight, the headquarters of 「Cheongyeol」 was as dazzling as ever.

Cheongyeol Group is a giant in the climbing industry that employs Climbers. It owns dozens of subsidiaries.

Every one of them casually rakes in hundreds of billions of won in net profit.

The secret lies in Cheongyeol’s vicious elitism.

Cheongyeol employs only the finest Climbers, making the chance of being hired brutally low.

As a result, society looks up to Cheongyeol employees.

At matchmaking agencies, they rank as top-tier marriage prospects.

In neighborhoods where someone gets hired, they even hang celebratory banners.

Better than a judge or prosecutor: a Cheongyeol employee!

But once people actually join Cheongyeol, they’re subjected to brutal workloads.

For example, tonight there was a group night-training session.

A large number of employees had gathered, and they had only one opponent.

Cheon Ryujin.

A member of Cheongyeol’s royal family and the headquarters director currently ranked third in the line of succession.

An undisputed powerhouse.

And also, indisputably, a complete lunatic.

Madman. Vermin. Son of a bitch. Trash. Rotten bastard. Man you want to murder. Mad-dog bastard...

And so on.

Cheon Ryujin had many nicknames.

And Cheon Ryujin had always proven that none of them were exaggerations. Every single nickname was simply a plain, unvarnished fact.

Among all those nicknames!

Not one was slander!

“You’re not coming? Should I go to you?”

Cheon Ryujin strode into the center of the training room, red hair fluttering behind him. The air in the room grew heavy.

The employees surrounded him, but none dared attack easily. Cheon Ryujin might be a lunatic, but his strength was real.

He had been famous ever since his academy days as a child.

“Now...! Attack the headquarters director!”

At the team leader’s command, every employee charged Cheon Ryujin and unleashed their finishing moves.

Cheon Ryujin disappeared beneath a storm of light.

“D-Did we get him?”

Of course not. Cheon Ryujin walked out of the light drenched in blood. He survived that?

It was difficult to tell whether he was a member of the royal family or some kind of monster.

“You stupid bastards... How did you even get hired with skills this pathetic?”

Cheon Ryujin released his mana.

It was hard to tell whether his mana was truly infinite, or whether even he himself couldn’t fully contain it.

“Today I’m filtering out every paycheck thief in this company.”

BOOOOM!

Mana erupted like an active volcano.

“Stop the headquarters director!”

“Team leader, your salary’s too high too!”

“Aaaagh!”

Several hours later.

The employees limped out of the training room, while Cheon Ryujin remained behind alone, sitting cross-legged and regulating his breathing.

“Hah. Useless bastards.”

If he didn’t train them like this, he could never be satisfied. In this enormous company, there wasn’t a single truly useful bastard around.

At that moment.

A chunk of mana escaped from inside his body.

This goddamn—

His mana was decomposing.

Every time Cheon Ryujin breathed, his mana shattered into fragments and dispersed into the air.

This feeling.

You can’t understand it unless you’ve experienced it yourself.

“Hehe. I lose more mana to natural decomposition than I use in training. Makes me want to kill something.”

Mana decomposition.

It is the chronic affliction of Climbers.

The air inside the Tower is rich in mana, helping Climbers become stronger at astonishing speed. But the moment Climbers return to Earth.

Earth’s barren air begins tormenting them.

Earth’s atmosphere sucks the mana straight out of Climbers.

The feeling is absolutely awful. As if Earth itself is leeching the marrow from your bones.

“Hehe. This filthy, rotten Earth bastard... Greedy as hell... Hey! Secretary Lee!”

“Yes, yes. Coming.”

Secretary Lee, Cheon Ryujin’s right-hand man, hurried over and handed him carrot juice.

The moment Cheon Ryujin drank it, his mana decomposition slowed. The carrots were premium produce from the Tower.

“Ugh. Tastes fucking awful... How many carrots do we have left?”

“We’re almost out of stock. You’ll need to secure more soon.”

“Like I don’t know that? No one’s selling even when I offer a premium!”

They live in a world where money solves everything.

Yet even when he offered money, nobody would sell.

The reason was simple. High-floor Climbers didn’t even have enough vegetables for themselves.

Low-floor Climbers were useless.

“But Director. There’s a strange rumor going around among ultra-high-floor Climbers. Apparently, someone has appeared who sells Tower vegetables every single day.”

Cheon Ryujin’s eyes twitched. As mentioned earlier, the high-floor bastards consumed everything themselves. And the low-floor bastards were worthless.

Yet some guy is bringing Tower vegetables to market every day? How?

“Why are you only telling me this now?”

“Director. Let me confirm something first. If it’s Tower vegetables, how far are you willing to compromise your tastes?”

“? Why would I need to compromise anything if it’s Tower vegetables? I’ll eat whatever it is.”

“Seriously?”

“Have you ever seen me care about taste?”

“You will this time. I’m not even sure it’s right to call it a vegetable...”

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