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Chapter 169
“Roughly ten months from now… Earth may face a catastrophic crisis.”
“…What?”
“…Yes?”
Jiwon and I froze—completely stunned.
Did he just say Earth was in danger?
Michael Jeter calmly continued.
“First… let me explain how I came across this information. And—if you don’t mind, may I help myself to something to drink?”
He didn’t wait for permission.
He casually walked over, opened the fridge, and pulled out a 1.5-liter bottle of water.
Without even bothering with a glass, he chugged the entire thing in one go.
“Whew… much better. Now, let me ask you something first. How long has it been since you were summoned to the ‘Tutorial’?”
“…About three months, I think.”
“For me, it’s been four. I was one of the earliest people to be summoned. In fact, I cleared the 15th floor two months ago.”
“…That fast?”
“Yes. I gathered reliable people and moved as a team. Other than the delay waiting on the 4th floor until we had a hundred people, we wasted no time. We’ve already cleared up to the 23rd floor.”
The 23rd floor…
I wasn’t sure if anyone had climbed higher than him, but being at the 23rd floor almost certainly put him at the peak of human progression.
Four months… twenty-three floors.
Considering there were sixty-six floors total, that pace was insane.
If he kept it up, he could reach the top in just a year.
“So… what’s the connection between your fast progress through the Tower and this supposed crisis facing Earth?”
“In the Tower, the higher you go, the more information you gain. It’s been three months since I became Chairman of the Player Association. A position of immense responsibility—but also great access. I used that ‘authority’ to discreetly train certain individuals… Players with powers that are, frankly, too dangerous.”
“…Too dangerous?”
“You remember how I just teleported here from the U.S., right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“What if I hadn’t been a person… but a bomb?”
“…”
“If a human can jump from New York to Seoul instantly, what’s stopping someone from doing the same with biochemical weapons… surveillance bugs… or falsified evidence? And the worst part—there’s no trace left behind. Right now, Earth has no way of detecting a Player’s abilities.”
He clasped his hands together and rested them in front of his mouth.
“A power like long-distance teleportation— When world leaders see something like that, their reactions fall into two categories: One… gain complete control over it. Two…”
“…Destroy it.”
“Exactly. That’s why I said some abilities are too dangerous.”
Murdered—because your power is too strong.
It wasn’t hard to imagine.
If the Player’s base stats were weak, they’d be even more vulnerable.
“So, whenever I discover Players like that… I erase their records from the Association database and bring them into a hidden team. It’s the only way to keep them alive. So far, I’ve gathered seven such individuals.”
His voice was calm, like he was reporting trivial, daily news.
“One of them… is an Indian Player named Mahesh. About three weeks ago, he cleared the 15th floor. His ability is called ‘Divination.’ It allows him to identify the path that will produce the best possible outcome, based on his current situation.”
“So it’s… kind of like a navigation system?”
“Exactly.”
Michael Jeter went on to explain that Mahesh—the Indian Player—had actually come looking for him.
After returning to the real world, Mahesh had used his “Divination” ability, and the result was simple:
Find the Chairman of the Player Association.
“Just like you two, Mahesh cleared the 15th floor without much trouble. The old man handed him a decent reward, the blue portal opened, and all that was left was to step through.”
But something about it felt… off.
A strange unease lingered in Mahesh’s chest.
To ease that feeling, he used his ability again.
“The divination told him this—
‘Use the Scroll of Appraisal on the dragon-shaped statue.’”
“…The Scroll of Appraisal?”
I remembered that item clearly.
It was a reward from the 12th floor—
Had a number like [25], if I wasn’t mistaken.
I still had one myself.
And now he was saying the statue on the 15th floor was somehow… connected to that scroll?
“At that moment, Mahesh saw this number.”
Michael Jeter pulled a small scrap of paper from his coat pocket.
The handwriting on it looked rushed—numbers scrawled quickly with a pen:
325 : 11 : 24 : 41
“…A timer?”
“Yes. The 325 at the front likely means days.”
He tapped the paper softly with a finger—tap, tap, tap.
His expression remained calm, but the air in the room grew undeniably heavier.
“I wasn’t the first person to clear the 15th floor. But when I entered it… There were very few statues. Since then, though, I’ve heard that their numbers have increased. Is that true?”
“…It is.”
“In that case, we can reasonably assume that a new statue is created each time a Player enters the floor. If we reverse-engineer the timer… it seems to be set to approximately one year from the moment someone clears the 15th floor. Would you agree?”
“…I would.”
The timer read 325 days three weeks ago.
And if Michael Jeter cleared the 15th floor roughly two months ago, it lined up.
Most likely, the timer had started from the moment he, or someone before him, first cleared it, counting down from 365 days.
“Then let me ask—what do you think will happen when that timer runs out?”
I thought back to the statues I’d seen on the 15th floor.
Most of them… were shaped like monsters.
Goblin.
Wolf.
Dragon…
“Our current theory,” Jeter continued, “is that those statues will gain form—and manifest in the real world. On Earth.”
“…”
“They could reappear inside the Tower, yes. But that would likely make it impossible for anyone else to clear the floor. Which is why we believe… Earth is the more likely stage.”
“...”
“Of course, this is just a hypothesis.”
He paused for a moment, letting the weight of that possibility settle in the air.
“It’s possible that nothing will happen. But given the structure of the 11th and 12th floors… I believe it’s better to prepare.”
Ji-won and I said nothing.
Not because we found his theory absurd—but because it was far too believable.
A timer on a monster-shaped statue?
What else could it mean?
“The reason I haven’t appeared in public lately…” Michael Jeter said, voice heavy, “...was because I’ve been searching for a solution.”
I remembered reading something he posted online back on the 2nd floor.
Back then, he had a more lighthearted tone.
He wasn’t this endlessly heavy man weighed down by the world.
What changed him in these last four months?
Maybe… like me, he realized the crushing burden on his shoulders.
“If I fail my role, the world ends.”
Maybe it was that kind of responsibility that reshaped him.
That thought struck me suddenly and stuck with me.
“We ran some tests,” He continued. “First, it’s impossible to inform the public about the monsters. Or more accurately—anyone who hasn’t reached the 15th floor can’t even comprehend the warning. My theory is that it gets filtered as ‘Tower-related information.’”
“…Then that means we can’t realistically prepare people.”
“I agree.nWe might be able to hint at it or find loopholes in how we present it, but nothing significant. We simply don’t know where, how, or on what scale those statues will appear. The only thing we do know… is the time.”
“Tch…”
This was bad. Seriously bad.
Monsters appearing on Earth, and we can’t even warn people?
That’s just a scheduled massacre.
And the statues?
They were shaped like dragons.
I doubted even modern military weapons could stop something like that.
“…Can’t we count on help from the Association?”
Ji-won asked cautiously.
But Michael Jeter shook his head.
“The Association’s upper members… They’re all preoccupied with something else right now. I’m not sure of the full details, but I know they’re involved in a massive joint project with the U.S. government. I doubt they’d even listen to me.”
“…So there really was conflict between you and the Association.”
“It wasn’t exactly conflict. More like a… mutually exploitative relationship.”
He stood up, grabbed another bottle of water from the fridge, and chugged it just like before.
Then, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm, he stared blankly up at the ceiling, his dark eyes sunken in thought.
“We can’t stop the initial chaos. That’s something we’ll have to accept. What matters more… is how we prepare for what comes after. If monsters start pouring out endlessly, humanity, at least the non-players, won’t survive.”
He lowered his gaze from the ceiling and raised two fingers toward us.
“In theory,” He said, “there are two potential solutions.”
First:
Severely limit the number of Players allowed to reach the 15th floor.
The logic was sound.
If each new Player who reaches the 15th floor creates a new statue…
Then preventing them from entering would, eventually, stop the statues from being made.
Earth could, in time, become safe again.
“But… that’s not realistically possible, is it?”
“I don’t think so either,” He replied. “In fact, it would likely backfire.”
There’s no way to control who enters the Tower.
And telling people not to go to a specific floor?
That would just make them want to climb even more.
“Which is why… the second option is the only viable solution.”
He slowly lowered one of his two raised fingers, leaving only his index finger raised.
Then, with a voice filled with conviction, he said:
“We need to drastically increase the number of strong Players. Far beyond what we have now. We need an infrastructure in place where, no matter when or where a monster appears—someone can respond immediately.”
“…You mean…”
“Yes.”
He folded the final finger into a fist—scarred, calloused, and solid with purpose.
“For humanity to survive… a new era must begin.”
“...”
“An era of the Players, by the Players, and for the Players.”
---The End Of The Chapter---
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