Farming in the Tower Alone [EN]: Chapter 399

“Heh heh… Am I finally one of the cool kids now?” Sejun’s words seemed to hang in the air of the grand office. This was the President’s Office, high up on the 75th floor of the Black Tower, in the Wandering Merchant Association Headquarters. From here, the city below looked tiny.

President Mason, a man with tired eyes and neatly combed hair, sighed as he looked over the papers on his large desk. ‘Another day, another mountain of numbers,’ he thought. Just then, a knock came at the door. *Knock. Knock.* His assistant’s voice followed, “Mr. President, Mr. Theo Park is here to see you.”

“Ah, Theo,” Mason said, pushing back his chair quickly. “Send him in right away.”

Mason remembered Theo. This was the same Theo who had brought amazing people before – like the Great Destruction Magician, the Great Merchant Yuren, and even the diplomat Piyo from the Cove Kingdom! And yet, Theo still couldn’t pass the first part of the Great Merchant test. Mason wondered, ‘Who has he brought this time instead of those famous people?’

The door opened, and Theo bounced in, tail twitching. “President Mason! I’m here for the Great Merchant exam, nya!” he announced with a grin. Behind him were three people.

Mason blinked. He knew Iona, of course. But the other two… “Hmm,” Mason said, looking closely. He didn’t recognize them at all. “Who are these people, Theo?” he thought.

Mason frowned slightly. ‘Maybe I’m just having a bad day,’ he thought. But he couldn’t take chances. For this exam, he needed to be sure. He reached for a blue, square panel on his desk. It was the Fame Reader, a strange device that could measure how famous someone was in the Black Tower.

‘Let’s see,’ he muttered. ‘Detect Fame.’ He carefully placed Sejun, Kkuengee, and Iona under the panel’s light and pressed a button.

Suddenly, numbers flashed on the blue panel:

[Fame Score]

Park Sejun: 3 points

Kkuengee Park: 13 points

Iona: 91 points

Mason stared at the numbers, blinking hard. ‘Three points?’ he thought in disbelief. ‘For Park Sejun? And thirteen for… Kkuengee Park?’ Only Iona’s score was good, over ninety. The pass mark was seventy. ‘This can’t be right,’ Mason thought, his mind racing. ‘Why would Theo bring these two? Their fame is… terrible!’

“Maybe,” Mason thought, trying to find a reason, “Great Merchant Yuren and Diplomat Piyo were busy today. Maybe Theo had to grab whoever he could find at the last minute.’ He sighed. ‘Theo should have just taken the easy pass I offered him before.’ But rules were rules. An exam was an exam, and the President of the Wandering Merchant Association couldn’t just ignore the results, no matter how much he liked Theo.

Mason looked at Theo, a little sorry for him. ‘I have no choice,’ he thought. In a firm voice, he said, ‘Failed.’

The moment Mason said “Failed,” the air in the room changed. Theo’s cheerful face turned red. “What?! Failed?!” he shouted. “President Park is Vice President Theo’s *president*! And Kkuengee is my brother, nya!”

“There’s no way they have *no* fame!” Theo insisted, voice rising. “This Fame Reader is broken! You’re a cheat, President Mason, nya!”

Mason, hoping Iona would calm Theo down, turned to her. “Ms. Iona, perhaps you could…” But before he could finish, Iona’s eyes flashed. “Kkyu-kkyu-kkyu-kkyu-kkyu!” she cried, stamping her foot. “You insulted Mr. Sejun! You made Theo angry! How dare you?!”

Mason’s eyes widened in horror. He had heard tales of Iona’s legendary “Fury Kkyu” outbursts, but he never thought he’d see one, especially not the dreaded *fifth stage*! “Ms. Iona! Please! Calm down!” he pleaded, his voice shaking.

Just as Iona’s fury reached its peak, a calm voice cut through the chaos. “Guys,” Sejun said gently, stepping between Theo and Iona. “Calm down, please.”

It was like magic. Theo’s angry shouts stopped instantly. “Understood, nya,” he mumbled, ears drooping slightly. Iona’s furious cries faded to soft whimpers. “Kkyuk kkyuk kkyuk… Yes,” she agreed quietly, looking at Sejun with big eyes.

Mason stared, jaw dropped. He had just seen Sejun silence Theo Park, the most fiery cat in the Black Tower, and Iona, the Great Destruction Magician, with just a few words! ‘Incredible,’ Mason thought, his mind reeling. Suddenly, Sejun didn’t seem ordinary at all. The idea that Sejun was just some nobody with zero fame vanished completely. There was something truly special about this man.

Now that Sejun had calmed the storm, Mason felt a wave of relief. ‘Thank goodness,’ he thought. ‘Someone reasonable!’ Sejun turned to Mason, a puzzled look on his face. “So,” Sejun asked, “why did Theo fail exactly?”

Mason, grateful to finally talk to someone who seemed to understand, rushed to explain. ‘If I can’t make *him* understand,’ Mason worried, ‘who knows what will happen next? This whole office might be turned to dust!’

“Well,” Mason began, “the first stage of the exam… you need to bring three people who each score seventy points or more on the Fame Reader.”

“So,” Sejun repeated, thinking it over, “you’re saying to pass, we need three people, each with over seventy points?”

“Exactly!” Mason nodded quickly, relieved Sejun was getting it. “It’s not my rule! It’s just the exam!” he added, as if to defend himself.

“Then, can you show me the Fame Reader?” Sejun asked.

“Of course!” Mason quickly showed Sejun the Fame Reader.

“Hmm…” Sejun’s expression hardened as he checked the scores on the Fame Reader.

‘It’s too low! Aileen and Kaiser, Kellion, Lamter, and Tier, the administrators of the Black Tower, how much do they love my cooking?! Moreover, my name is known to the dragons of other towers, and the gods are asking me to build them temples! And my fame is only 3 points?! And why is Kkuengee’s fame higher than mine? By 10 points, too. Something is seriously wrong with this.’

At that moment,

“Kkuhehehe. Kkuengee! Kkuengee has more fame than Daddy!” Kkuengee, climbing up Sejun’s body, stood on Sejun’s shoulder and laughed while looking at the Fame Reader.

Sejun’s expression hardened even more.

“President Park, your face is rotting, nya!” Theo hurriedly massaged Sejun’s face with his front paws. Sejun felt a little better thanks to that.

“Aileen, please take a look at this.” He sent the Fame Reader to Aileen. He thought the item was broken no matter how he looked at it.

“Kkuengee! Kkuengee! Kkuengee won the food fighter competition! Kkuengee is famous!” Meanwhile, Kkuengee also realized that his fame was excessively low and grabbed Mason by the collar, shaking him.

“Ugh… please calm down! Shaking me like this won’t increase your fame!” Mason pleaded.

‘Kkyuk kkyuk kkyuk. Mr. Mason, how can the president representing the Wandering Merchants have such poor judgment?’ Iona looked at Mason with pity. It was all his own fault.

Black Tower Administrator Zone.

“Keuhing? What is this?” Aileen tilted her head, examining the Fame Reader she received from Sejun. However,

“How dare they give our Sejun only 3 points?!!!” She soon became furious after seeing the panel of the Fame Reader.

“But why is our Sejun’s fame so low?” Aileen said with an incomprehensible expression. Sejun was practically as hot as an idol among the dragons these days. More than half of the Great Dragons, who had no interaction with each other, knew or had heard of Sejun’s name, which showed how famous he was. And Sejun’s fame score was 3 points?

“Is it broken?” Aileen, like Sejun, thought the Fame Reader was broken and examined it thoroughly, but there were no errors.

At that moment,

-Kuhahaha. Aileen, Grandpa is back!

Kaiser, who had returned from the Red Tower, manipulated the Black Dragon statue to inform Aileen of his return.

“Ah! Grandpa!” Aileen exclaimed.

-Oh, my! Your grandpa missed his granddaughter…

Kaiser said with a touched voice as he saw Aileen welcoming him,

“Grandpa, why is our Sejun’s fame like this?!” Aileen showed Kaiser the Fame Reader.

And

-Huh? Sejun’s fame? What?! Why is our Sejun’s fame 3 points?!

Kaiser’s drunkenness instantly vanished after checking Sejun’s fame.

“That’s right. It’s strange, isn’t it?” Aileen agreed.

-Indeed. This can never be… Even if our Sejun is insignificant, he is recognized by our Great Dragons. 3 points is too much.

Kaiser fell into thought.

At that moment,

-Ah!

Kaiser realized that he had blocked external information from entering the Black Tower in the past to hide Aileen’s identity.

-Aileen, check the external information link.

“External information link?” At Kaiser’s words, Aileen quickly picked up the crystal ball and searched for the external information link.

[External Information Link: Blocked]

“Grandpa, the external information link is set to blocked,” Aileen reported.

-I see… Change it to connected, Kaiser instructed.

“Yes!” Aileen put magic power into the crystal ball and changed the external information link to ‘Connected’.

Then,

Whoosh.

[External information is being updated to the Black Tower.]

[The amount of information to update is large due to the external link being closed for a long time.]

[Update will take 30 days.]

Alarms appeared on the crystal ball.

“Prioritize updating information about Black Tower Top Farmer Park Sejun,” Aileen commanded.

[Prioritizing information about Black Tower Top Farmer Park Sejun.]

[Update will take 3 minutes and 30 seconds.]

A moment later.

[Information update about Black Tower Top Farmer Park Sejun is complete.]

An alarm appeared on the crystal ball.

“Oh. It’s done!” Aileen quickly checked the Fame Reader.

“Kehehehe. Now Sejun’s fame is the highest. Sejun, there seems to have been a problem with the administrator settings. Check it again!” Aileen, having solved the problem, sent the Fame Reader back to Sejun.

Seed Shop Headquarters.

[Six sharecropper mushroom ants of Black Tower Top Farmer Park Sejun have passed by your temple.]

[Divinity increases by 0.0006.]

“The mushroom ants are diligent today as well,” Rea, the Goddess of Abundance, smiled contentedly at the divinity entering her body and injected some of the divinity she had gathered into a golden box.

Rea was creating a new divine artifact to give to Sejun.

‘Heh. If I give this to Sejun later, he’ll build my temple even bigger, right?’ Rea smiled pleasantly, thinking about the time she met Sejun, and headed outside. She had to take care of the gods whose bodies were uncomfortable due to the lack of divinity.

As Rea came out of her residence,

“Waaah!” She heard the shouts of the gods.

“What is it?” Rea went to the place where the sound was coming from, and there, almost all the non-combat gods were gathered together.

“Oh! Four mushroom ants just passed by my temple!”

“Waaah!” The other gods cheered at the words of Peblos, the God of Gravel, who was emitting a bright light after gaining divinity.

“Guys, take this.” Peblos handed over some of the divinity he had received to the gods who looked unwell.

“Thank you,” the gods said. The complexions of the gods who received the divinity improved slightly.

“Oh! Mushroom ants just passed by me too!” Meanwhile, the body of Sants, the God of Sand, shone.

“Waaah!” The gods cheered again.

And

“Take this.” Sants also handed over some of the divinity he had obtained to the gods who looked unwell.

Until now, Rea had been almost solely responsible for taking care of the gods without divinity, but now other gods who had received temples from Sejun were doing the work together.

“As expected of Park Sejun. Park Sejun! Park Sejun!” Rea chanted Sejun’s name as she walked towards the place where the gods were gathered.

“Park Sejun!”

“Park Sejun!” The gathered gods began to shout Sejun’s name.

As the non-combat gods shouted Sejun’s name and strengthened their unity,

“What’s all the noise!” A combat god from the next building shouted loudly.

Normally, they would have immediately shut their mouths, but

‘We can now self-supply divinity!’ They were not their former selves.

“Park Sejun…”

“Park Sejun…” The non-combat gods continued to chant Sejun’s name in small voices that could barely be heard.

“Kkuengee! Kkuengee! Kkuengee’s dad is Park Sejun, and Mom is Pink Fur! Kkuengee’s teacher is the Bull Demon King, so why isn’t Kkuengee famous!”

“Ugh…” Mason had been grabbed by the collar and shaken violently by Kkuengee for several minutes.

[The Tower’s Administrator says there was a problem with the Black Tower administrator settings.]

[The Tower’s Administrator says to check the Fame Reader again.]

“Okay. Thank you, Aileen.” Meanwhile, Sejun was rechecking the Fame Reader that Aileen had sent.

“Hehehe. It was wrong after all.” Sejun smiled contentedly as he looked at his fame.

“Kkuengee, just a moment. Here. Look. I pass the exam now, right?” Sejun stopped Kkuengee, who was shaking Mason by the collar, and showed Mason the Fame Reader.

[Fame Score]

Park Sejun: 553 points

Kkuengee Park: 113 points

Iona: 131 points

Kkuengee and Iona’s fame scores also rose together because of their relationship with Sejun.

“Huh?! Three digits?!” Mason was shocked by the three-digit fame score he was seeing for the first time. The highest fame score one could receive in the Black Tower was 100 points. But he had never seen 100 points before. But… three of them had fame scores exceeding 100 points. Moreover, the highest score was 553 points?!

As Mason was in shock,

Park Sejun: 554 points

Sejun’s fame increased by 1 more point. Thanks to the gods shouting Sejun’s name. Sejun’s fame was still rising.

‘Heh. Am I finally one of the cool kids now?’ Sejun looked at Mason with a smug expression.