Second Life Ranker

The dreams were repeating themselves without me even realizing it. 

* * *

“My friend. Your face is so blank. You look stupid.”

I was startled to attention at the face that suddenly popped up in front of my eyes. “What the heck?! Hey, don’t surprise me like that.”

“Your face is funny.”

“Hey. I could say the same about you.”

“No, you can’t.”

“You!” I was about to refute what he said when I stepped back in hesitation. This guy was naively nice to me, but he was too physically imposing. He was easily three meters tall with muscles that could crush Yvlke with one hit. Moreover, his scary face added to his unapproachable aura. 

Valdebich called himself a descendant of the extinct Giants. He was a half-Giant or something. He joked that his Giant genes were so weak that he was neither a human nor a Giant. People would scoff if they heard the joke, maybe even say that it wasn’t funny, but…

I had already been in the world of the Tower for a while, and I knew how impossible this place was. Valdebich was telling the truth. It was an extreme coincidence that we met. The task of Section A was to clear a path through the attacks of arrows. 

For someone like me, who had spent most of my life in my room studying, it was too intense. Half of me still thought it was a hallucination, but I couldn’t stop myself from being afraid because everything was so vivid and lifelike.

And if this was real, then I would die if I as hit. I thought about using the benefit to leave the Tower, but my feet didn’t move whenever Yvlke’s words rang in my mind: I would get a wish at the top of the Tower.  

The image of my sick mother flashed before my eyes. My desire to see her smile brightly and hug us tightly like she had when my brother and I were younger made me waver. ‘All right. Let’s just try it once.’

I hardened my resolve and pressed on. I’d picked the scutum as my weapon, hoping that it would help me survive if I hid behind it and moved forward slowly. However, reality was nothing like my expectations. I couldn’t tell where the arrows were coming from. I would just hear a “swish” and a “pok”, then the scutum would shake as though it would crack at any moment.

I almost lost my balance multiple times, and my left arm hurt from holding the shield. I could stop arrows coming from the front and above, but I couldn’t do anything about the arrows that came from behind. When I made some progress, an arrow flew at me and pierced my left shin before I even realized what had happened.

I fell with a yelp, and I tried to lift the shield again as soon as possible, but it was hard because of the pain. Two thoughts popped in my head: ‘Am I dead now?’ and ‘Why does this seem so familiar?’

I felt a sense of deja vu, like I had experienced this in a dream before. I had died from severe bleeding because I had been impaled by the arrows, but my alarm blared and I woke up again. It felt like such a realistic dream, but of course, that was nonsense.

Someone had saved me right before I could die: Valdebich. I couldn’t forget the first time I saw him. Because of his large size, he was the perfect target for the arrows, but he just lifted me with one arm and swung his sword with the other as he carried me to the entrance. 

He was my savior, although I was surprised by his face. He turned around bitterly, as though he’d been expecting my reaction, and I quickly recovered and thanked him. As we spoke, I learned that Valdebich only looked scary and was actually extremely kind-hearted. 

People were afraid to approach him because of his intimidating air, but if they knew his real personality, they would rush to try to take advantage of him. He was a naïve being who needed protection. The world was a terrifying place, and I had to step forward to be his protector—yes, that was it. It would be impossible for him to find anyone else as nice as me. Of course, in exchange, he would have to carry me. “Hehehe!”

“Friend, you look like you’re plotting something.” Valdebich’s eyes narrowed at me. 

I scoffed. “Nonsense. Anyway, remember what you told me last time?”

“Yun Qi.”

“Yeah. That. You said it was moving magic power, right? What do you do after that?”

Magic power was an energy I had never encountered on Earth, but in the Tower, it was the minimum requirement. I was getting special lessons from Valdebich in order to enter the Tower. I felt like I wouldn’t be able to get past Section A if I didn’t have it. 

“No.” Valdebich shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Friend, you’re still a beginner. You can’t accumulate or move energy yet. Teaching you the activation step would be like teaching a baby to run.”

“Huh? It’s working, though.”

“The fuck?”

I spread my palm open. Something that looked like white fog wafted up and twisted like a cruller. 

“Friend, you tricked me.”

“What?”

“You know magic power.”

“I don’t, or at least, I really didn’t.”

“But how can you do it so easily?”

“Well, I’m good at everything I do.”

Valdebich looked at me suspiciously. 

“Hey! You were the one who said my body was trash!”

Valdebich sealed his lips as if he remembered what he/d said the previous day. He’d touched my hands and feet after I asked him to teach me magic power and said, “Friend, your body is really trash. You’re gonna die at this rate.”

Did he know how much he hurt my feelings? But the thing called magic power was easy to use as soon as I sensed it. It took about a day to get used to it. Valdebich said that if you weren’t talented, it could take several years just to feel it and even longer than that to use it. Was it really that hard?

Valdebich continued to teach me other things, not satisfied with what I could do. After activating magic power, you had to grant, settle, create, strengthen, and change properties. Each step was fun, as though a world opened up before me. I begged Valdebich to teach me more, and I found that I could use all the basics of magic power after a day.

“No way. This doesn’t make sense. It took me ten years to do this. But friend, you did it in a single day.”

“That’s why I said I’m a genius.” I put my nose in the air and shrugged. 

Valdebich stared at me. “Friend.”

“What?”

“You’re annoying.”

I responded with a smile. “I know.”

Valdebich was speechless.

“But what can I do? I can’t help being so great.”

“Friend.”

“What this time?”

“Can I beat you up with this?”

He raised his large sword. 

* * *

After some time, Valdebich and I grew so famous that everyone in the Tutorial knew of us. We were a strange team: a fool who didn’t even know the letter “M” in magic and a half-Giant who just swung his sword around. Did we look like Dumb and Dumber to them?

I led the way while Valdebich swung his sword energetically behind me. We slowly moved forward, as slow as turtles. The skilled players laughed at us, but we still made steady progress.

When we almost reached the middle of the section, someone spoke to us. She was a really, truly, super pretty girl who looked like an idol my age on TV.

“Hehe, are you the ones they call Lanky and Sturdy?”

What were those horrible names?

“I’m looking for a team to join. As you can see, I’m too pretty and slender, and everyone just looks at me in a creepy way. I only know how to use magic, but what do you think? We can just work together until we clear this section.”

She was a sicko, and I liked that. Valdebich and I glanced at each other. He signaled for me to make the decision. For some time, I’d been the one handling the decisions because my mind made quicker judgements than his.

We’d been needing basic magic like searching and tracking since the start of Section A. No matter how sensitive Valdebich’s senses were, there were limits to the traps he could detect, and some traps had to be destroyed with magic. It was true that we needed a mage, and the question was whether or not we could trust her.

I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to work together until we reached the end of Section A. We could make another decision afterwards. “I’m Cha Jeong-woo, and this is Valdebich. You?”

“Vieira Dune.” She smiled brightly as she introduced herself. “The first and last witch.”

* * *

Me, Valdebich, Vieira Dune surprisingly worked well together. After we made it through the middle section, we managed to clear Section A relatively smoothly. It had been difficult when we entered the boss room filled with scarecrows, but by the time we arrived at Section B, we were full of confidence. We’d become a close-knit team.

I made my decision. 

[Would you like to give up the benefit ‘Dreaming a Dream’?]

It was the special benefit that allowed me to move from the Tower and Earth and vice versa twice a day. For a while, I’d been spending my days in the Tower and my nights on Earth.

It was possible because the time zones were different, but I still lost time. When I was on Earth, the time in the Tutorial went by quickly. If I missed it…I would probably regret it forever.

I wanted to tell Hyung everything so many times—what I was going through and the unimaginable things going on in this other world. But I was conflicted. If he believed me, then he would want to climb the Tower himself, and I couldn’t leave dangerous things to him each time. In the end, I made my choice.

[You have given up your benefit. You cannot log in nor log out.]

[A new benefit has been provided.]

I blocked off the path to Earth. ‘Oh. Tomorrow’s the college entrance exam. Everyone will be worried.’ I didn’t leave a letter or anything because I didn’t want people to be worried. I was planning on returning home quickly. 

[You have gained the benefit ‘Drawing Dreams’.]

[Benefit: Drawing Dreams]

[The player can draw the world he wants in his dreams. Past, present, and future don’t matter, and the answers you find can be used in reality.]

[**This is a benefit you gained by giving up the ‘Invitation from the Future’. You cannot change it into another benefit.]

I didn’t understand what the benefit was, but one thing was for sure—I had burned all my bridges. I couldn’t return to Earth until I had what I wanted. ‘A wish.’ They also said there were mysterious medicines in the Tower called Elixirs. Even if I couldn’t reach the top, if I could get my hands on the Elixirs, it would be enough.

I checked my trait Perfect Adaptability, which was really an unfair advantage I had. Although my skills were worse than those of the others, I was confident that I could climb higher. ‘Half a year.’ I clenched my fists. ‘I’ll try to get the Elixir in that time, and if I can’t, I’ll go back.’

Time flowed and flowed. Three people increased to nine, then twelve.

Leonte. 

Bahal. 

Aether. 

Bayluk. 

Leonhardt. 

Sadi, Horst, Kun Khr, and Jeanne. 

Our clan, which hadn’t even been around for a year, became a Large Clan, and I was ranked ninth. They said that no other player had grown so fast in the history of the Tower, or something like that.

But as time passed, the more rushed I felt. I couldn’t find the Elixir, which I thought would only take me half a year. And by that time, there were too many people counting on me for me to go back. And more importantly, I had too many enemies.  

Could I get through them to the top? My doubts were growing. I needed to find a new way. 

* * *

“So? You want me to open the path to Allforone?” The Martial King looked at me in disbelief.