Farming in the Tower Alone [EN]: Chapter 0

There’s Someone Here!

“Haa… I’m so tired… so tired.”

A monthly salary of less than 2 million won. After paying rent and student loan repayments, and saving on living expenses, he managed to put 1 million won into savings each month, accumulating 12 million won. It was a significant amount, but far short of Sejun’s goal.

“Sigh. At this rate, when will I ever buy a ticket? Will I even be able to?”

Sejun sighed at the daunting goal.

Ten years ago, a 99-story black tower suddenly appeared in the middle of Gangnam, Seoul. The tower had geometric patterns and a structure that defied the laws of physics.

Such towers appeared simultaneously in 100 cities around the world. Each country investigated the towers that appeared in their territory, but they didn’t gain much information.

The information they did gather was that the towers were 990 meters tall, made of a material so strong that even a nuclear bomb couldn’t penetrate it, and there were no doors anywhere to enter.

In that situation, people suddenly started coming out of the towers one by one. They naturally passed through the walls of the tower.

Investigators quickly identified them and found that the people who came out of the towers were those who had recently gone missing.

“How did you get into the tower?”

To the investigators’ questions, they said they hadn’t entered, but were sucked into a black hole, and when they came to their senses, they were on the first floor of the tower.

That’s how information about the tower began to be revealed by the people who came out of it.

-The 100 towers are connected as one.

-When you enter the tower, you awaken and gain one of two jobs: mage or warrior.

-From the second floor of the tower, there are monsters, and the higher the floor, the stronger the monsters become.

-Each time you clear a floor, you can receive rewards, and the higher the floor, the better the rewards. However, there are no rewards for clearing a floor again.

No one knew the purpose of the towers. But one thing was certain: climbing the tower was profitable. Items obtained inside the tower were sold for high prices on Earth.

Among those items, there were also tickets. Tickets were one of the main sources of income for the awakened, and clearing a floor had a high probability of yielding one or more tickets.

Those who had already awakened did not need tickets to enter the tower. However, if ordinary people possessed a ticket, they could enter the tower.

And once inside the tower, they would awaken and gain the qualification to climb the tower. Therefore, the price of tickets was not cheap, and they were not easy to obtain.

In Korea, the Korean Awakened Association was purchasing tickets from hunters in bulk and selling them.

The price was 150 million won per ticket. There were even news reports that the price would rise to 200 million won in a week due to high demand. There were hundreds of people who had already paid in advance and were waiting to buy tickets.

‘I can’t give up!’

And recently, as news about gold farming and tech farming started to appear frequently, Sejun made a big decision.

Let’s grow crops at home!

A way to tighten his belt even further. He wasn’t planning to grow anything fancy, but he thought he would buy a few things that would grow well just by watering them to save on living expenses.

‘I should start right away.’

So, on his way home from buying green onions and a few other things at the supermarket,

“Hum hum hum…”

Sejun hummed a tune.

It was because of the anticipation that if he grew fruits and vegetables at home, he could save a lot on food expenses and eat as much as he wanted.

‘If I save money like this, I can buy a ticket and enter the tower. And in the tower, I’ll make a lot of money and then with Sera…’

“Hehehe…”

Sera was a member of the top Korean girl group, Moonlight Fairy. In short, it was just Sejun’s fantasy.

As Sejun was walking, lost in his fantasy and grinning foolishly, a black hole appeared in the air in front of him, opening its mouth.

And then,

Whoosh.

It began to suck in everything around it.

“Huh?! This is…!”

Sejun was greatly surprised to discover the black hole where the other side was not visible at all.

‘It’s a Vanishing!’

Vanishing was the phenomenon of being invited to the tower, and all the first awakened people went through Vanishing… [Vanishing is the term used for the initial teleportation into the tower].

Anyway, this was luck even rarer than winning the lottery!

Thump thump thump.

Sejun quickly sent messages to his family. He was worried that his family might look for him if he disappeared without a word.

After sending all the messages,

‘Why am I still here?’

Even if he was being sucked into the hole, he should have been sucked in a long time ago…

Sejun kept staring at the black hole, waiting for it to take him. But the suction of the hole showed no signs of getting stronger.

“Hurry up and take me. Hey! What? Why is it getting smaller?!”

The hole was even closing.

‘No! My future! Sera!!!’

Sejun made a decision. The future is something you create.

“Alright! I’ll go to you!”

Sejun ran into the hole. And just like that, Sejun disappeared into the pitch-black darkness.

***

“Where is this?”

As soon as Sejun came out of the hole, he realized that something was wrong. It was very different from the information he had heard about the first floor of the tower.

He had heard that the first floor of the tower had fancy chandelier lighting, white marble floors, and a large plaza with shops selling equipment and potions, and training facilities where warriors and mages could learn skills.

But here, there were no shops or training facilities, just a cave made of rocks.

The only thing similar to the first floor of the tower was that it was spacious.

The only fortunate thing was that although there were no fancy chandelier lights, there was a ray of sunlight coming through a hole in the cave ceiling.

‘Let’s find an exit first.’

Sejun looked around, trying to find a way out.

The first place he had marked as a possible exit was the hole in the cave ceiling. But climbing the walls to reach the arched hole in the ceiling of the cave seemed impossible unless he was Spider-Man.

‘Let’s look for another place.’

Sejun put his bag down on a rock and began to explore the cave.

After a while.

“Why is it so big…”

The cave was much larger than he had thought. The end of the cave was so dark that he could barely see anything.

“I need to save it…”

Sejun had no choice but to turn on his smartphone’s flashlight weakly and continue exploring the cave.

Three hours later.

The cave exploration was over. The cave was a completely enclosed space with no exits. He had checked every gap and weak spot between the rocks, but there was no way out.

“There’s no exit… Am I stranded?”

Sejun muttered in a daze and trudged back to the spot where the sun was shining through the hole in the cave ceiling.

“What should I do…”

He had to admit it. It was impossible to get out of here alone.

“He-llo-! Is there anyone here-!!!”

Sejun shouted towards the hole in the cave ceiling as a last resort.

But

“He~llo~ is there anyone here~!”

Sejun’s desperate cry did not escape the hole and only echoed within the cave.

“He-llo-! Is there anyone here-!!!”

Sejun shouted at the top of his lungs. But no one, let alone a person, passed by the hole.

“Damn it. There’s someone here!!!”

Thud!

Sejun couldn’t contain his anger and kicked the ground for no reason. And just like that, a day passed.

Day 2 of being stranded.

[May 11, 6:00 AM]

Beep beep. Beep beep.

The alarm he had set for work went off.

“Ugh…”

Sejun struggled to open his eyes, waking up from an uncomfortable sleep, and turned off the alarm on his smartphone.

“……”

After waking up, Sejun spent the whole day staring at the hole in the cave ceiling.

No one passed by for hours.

“Is there anyone here!”

Only Sejun’s cries were reflected off the damp rocks, returning as a gloomy echo.

Grumble.

Sejun’s stomach rumbled. He was worried sick, but he had to eat to survive.

“Ugh… I’m really hungry.”

Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten anything since he left work.

‘Should I eat something?’

Sejun found a flat rock and sat down.

And then,

Rustle.

He took out an apple wrapped in a bag from his bag. It was a washed apple that his colleague at the office had given him.

‘Thank you, Minjun.’

Sejun decided that if he ever got out of here, he would repay his colleague Minjun with sweet and sour pork. It wasn’t that Minjun liked sweet and sour pork, but he just wanted to eat sweet and sour pork with black bean noodles right now.

With that thought, Sejun tore open the plastic wrapping of the apple and took a big bite.

Crunch.

The sweet and sour juice of the apple filled his mouth.

‘It’s so delicious!’

His appetite was stimulated, and his hunger became uncontrollable.

Crunch. Crunch.

Sejun ate the apple like a madman.

“Ah.”

He stared at the remaining apple core and seeds with a desolate look. It wasn’t nearly enough.

Thump. Thump.

Sejun dug a hole in the ground and buried the apple seeds and core together.

Then, he began to take things out of his bag.

A laptop and a 500ml bottle of water he had left over from the office.

Green onions, cherry tomatoes, and sweet potatoes he had bought to grow at home.

“One, two, three…”

Sejun began to count the number of cherry tomatoes in the plastic container. It was to accurately assess the amount of food he had.

27 cherry tomatoes, 10 green onion stalks, and 7 sweet potatoes.

First, he would plant all the green onions, then 3 cherry tomatoes and 2 sweet potatoes, and save the rest for food.

Cherry tomatoes had many seeds inside, so even 3 would be enough to plant a lot. And the sweet potatoes… they were the only source of carbohydrates among the food he had, so he couldn’t plant too many.

‘Let’s fill my stomach more first.’

Swish. Swish.

Sejun washed one sweet potato and 5 cherry tomatoes clean in the pond.

It was fortunate that there was a small pond in one corner of the cave. At least he could solve the problem of drinking water.

‘It would have been nice if there were fish…’

There were no small creatures the size of minnows in the pond. Come to think of it, there were no insects or small animals like mice in the cave at all.

Sejun, who would have been terrified to see insects or mice, should have been happy that they weren’t there, but now that they weren’t there, he felt a little disappointed. In movies, he had seen many scenes where people ate insects or mice when they had nothing else to eat.

‘If I really run out of food, I might have to eat something like that.’

Of course, the best thing to do was to get out of here before he ran out of food.

Crunch.

The crisp sound of chewing the sweet potato made all his random thoughts disappear. Now was the time to focus on the sweet potato.

Chew chew.

Delicious! The more he chewed, the sweeter it tasted. He always steamed or baked them, but he thought it might be okay to eat them raw sometimes.

“Now, shall I get to work?”

After eating one sweet potato and 5 cherry tomatoes, Sejun picked up the green onions first.

And then,

Snap.

He broke the green onion about a third of the way up from the root and put the green leafy part aside on the floor.

‘I’ll eat it later.’

It wouldn’t taste good, but he might have to eat it to survive.

Sejun buried the white part of the green onion with the roots in the ground where the sun was shining and the soil was soft.

Then, he planted 2 sweet potatoes on the left of the green onions and cherry tomatoes on the right.

He just buried the sweet potatoes one by one in the ground, and for the cherry tomatoes, he crushed them and planted the seeds that came out.

Slurp slurp.

Sejun sucked the tomato juice off his hands and went to the pond. He filled the 500ml water bottle with pond water and thoroughly watered the soil where he had planted the crops.

After finishing the work, Sejun lay down on a rock, looked at the ceiling, and waited for someone to pass by. He also tried to conserve energy as much as possible since he had no food, and occasionally shouted, “Is there anyone here!”

But no one passed by.

Beep beep. Beep beep.

[May 12, 6:00 AM]

It was day 3 of being stranded.