Adrian had the dream again.
It always began the same way.
Dark skies stretched endlessly above him, choked by heavy clouds that rolled like a dying storm. The air smelled of blood and ash. Broken weapons littered the ground like discarded bones, and the earth itself seemed soaked with something darker than mud.
In the distance stood the Tower.
A black spire that pierced the heavens.
Its countless floors rose higher and higher until they vanished into the storm, its jagged silhouette looming over everything like the finger of some cruel god pointing at the world.
And beneath it, a man crawled.
The adventurer dragged himself forward across the battlefield, leaving a thin trail of blood behind him. His armor was shattered, his chest plate cracked open as if something had torn straight through it.
Yet somehow he was still alive, clinging to the last fragile thread of life.
With trembling hands, the dying adventurer pressed the dagger into Adrian's palm, forcing his fingers to close around the weapon as though he feared Adrian might refuse it. His breathing had become shallow and uneven, and when he spoke again his voice was barely more than a fading whisper carried by the cold wind sweeping across the battlefield.
"Take it…"
Blood stained the man's armor, spreading slowly across the cracked metal plates covering his chest. His eyes, however, remained fixed on Adrian with desperate intensity, as though he were clinging to the last fragile thread of hope left in the world.
"This world… is already damned."
His gaze slowly drifted toward the towering black structure looming in the distance. The Tower rose against the dark sky like a jagged spear piercing the heavens, its endless floors disappearing into the storm clouds above.
"You have to climb it."
The man's fingers suddenly tightened around Adrian's wrist with surprising strength, his fading life forcing one last surge of urgency through his body.
"Climb the tower," he rasped. "It's the only way to escape death."
For a moment the grip remained firm, as if the man were trying to anchor Adrian to the promise of those words. Then the strength left his arm just as suddenly as it had appeared. His hand slipped away, his body sagged against the blood-soaked ground, and the faint light in his eyes slowly faded.
The battlefield fell silent.
And then Adrian woke up.
He sat upright in bed, drawing in a slow breath as the last fragments of the dream dissolved in the quiet darkness of his room. Pale morning light filtered through the small window of his apartment, casting faint gray streaks across the wooden floor and the bare walls surrounding him.
Adrian rubbed his face with one hand, letting out a tired breath.
"Again…"
It had been months since the dream first began, yet it still returned every few nights with the same relentless precision. The battlefield never changed. The dying adventurer was always the same man, bleeding out beneath the shadow of the Tower while delivering the same desperate warning.
Climb the tower.
It's the only way to escape death.
Adrian eventually swung his legs off the bed and stretched before standing, the stiffness in his muscles fading as he moved around the room.
The dream had disturbed him when it first began, but over time he had grown used to it. Worrying about strange things in this world rarely accomplished anything useful, and Adrian had long ago accepted that trying to make sense of every mystery surrounding the Tower would only lead to frustration.
After all, nothing about this world made sense in the first place.
His gaze drifted toward the small wooden table beside his bed.
A dagger rested there.
The blade was narrow and silver, its edge unnaturally clean as though it had never touched blood despite the faint dark patterns etched across its surface. Strange runic markings curved along the metal in intricate lines that resembled a language Adrian had never seen before.
It was the same dagger from the dream.
Or at least, it looked exactly like it.
He had found the weapon lying beside his bed months ago after the dream first appeared. No one had broken into his room, and none of the people he knew claimed to have left it there.
The dagger had simply been waiting.
Adrian picked it up and turned it slowly in his hand, studying the unfamiliar runes carved along the blade. The metal felt cool against his skin and far lighter than a weapon of that size should have been, as though the dagger had been forged from something other than ordinary steel.
For a brief moment, the words from the dream echoed faintly in his thoughts.
Climb the tower.
It's the only way to escape death.
Adrian exhaled quietly and set the dagger back on the table.
"Yeah… not happening."
He raised his hand casually, and a faint blue glow flickered into existence before him as a transparent interface materialized in the air.
His System Window.
Everyone had one.
It had appeared the moment humanity arrived in this strange world beneath the Tower, becoming as natural a part of life as breathing.
Adrian glanced over the familiar information displayed across the floating panel as pale blue lines of text arranged themselves neatly in the air.
Name: Adrian Cross
Level: 5
Title: DelveMart Clerk
HP: 190 / 190
MP: 90 / 90
EXP: 298 / 300
Strength: 9
Agility: 10
Endurance: 10
Perception: 11
Intelligence: 8
Free Stat Points: 0
Skills: None
Occupation Rewards:
Daily Work EXP: +5
Coin Balance: 312 Bronze
Iterations: 50
The system window hovered quietly in front of him, the numbers glowing faintly as if waiting for something interesting to finally happen.
Adrian studied the title for a moment.
DelveMart Clerk.
It had appeared years ago after he began working at the dungeon supply store. Unlike adventurers, whose titles often reflected heroic feats or dangerous achievements inside the Tower, civilian titles were usually tied to occupation. Blacksmiths gained titles related to forging, healers gained medical titles, and merchants received titles connected to trade.
His own title was about as unremarkable as they came.
Still, it did come with a small benefit.
Every day he completed his work shift at DelveMart, the system quietly awarded him a tiny amount of experience. It wasn't much, barely enough to matter compared to what adventurers earned by killing monsters inside the Tower, but it was something.
That was how he had reached Level 5 without ever setting foot into the deeper dungeon floors.
The system also tracked currency.
Adventurers earned coins by selling monster cores, dungeon materials, and equipment they recovered from the Tower, while ordinary workers like Adrian simply received payment for their labor.
The coins were then used for everything else in this world, from buying food and equipment to renting housing or purchasing potions from stores like the one Adrian worked in.
Adrian skimmed over the numbers one last time before his attention drifted toward the bottom of the interface.
[Iterations: 50]
Adrian frowned slightly as he stared at it.
"Iterations…?"
He still had absolutely no idea what it meant.
It wasn't part of the original system interface when people first arrived here. At least, no one had ever mentioned anything about it.
Adrian had even asked a few adventurers about it out of curiosity.
But no one knew what it was.
One had shrugged and said it was probably just another useless system parameter.
Another joked that it might be how many times the system would tolerate them before throwing them out.
No one actually knew, and thinking about it wouldn't magically produce answers, so he dismissed the window with a casual wave.
Adrian got dressed quickly, pulling on a black jacket before heading out the door.
Outside, the city of Thalvoria had already come alive.
The narrow stone streets bustled with the quiet rhythm of morning activity as people moved between tightly packed buildings whose rooftops climbed unevenly toward the skyline like a set of crooked stairs. Market stalls were beginning to open, lanterns were being extinguished after the long night, and the low murmur of conversation drifted through the air as workers, merchants, and adventurers alike began another day beneath the shadow of the Tower.
Because no matter where one stood in the city, it was impossible to ignore it.
The Tower dominated the horizon with an overwhelming presence, its colossal structure rising hundreds of meters into the sky as if it had been driven into the earth by some ancient force. Its dark surface cut through the clouds like the edge of a massive blade, the upper floors disappearing into a permanent shroud of mist and storm that no one had ever seen part.
One hundred floors.
That was the promise humanity had been given when they first arrived in this world.
Clear the Tower. Reach the top.
And those who succeeded would be allowed to return home.
At least, that was what the Kharu Wardens had told them.
But three years had passed since that day, and the promise had never been proven false, yet it had never truly been confirmed either. For every adventurer who climbed higher, countless others never returned from the dungeon's depths.
Some people still chased that dream with desperate determination.
Many more had already died trying.
Adrian had stopped caring about it a long time ago.
Turning down a quieter side street, he approached a familiar building nestled between two taller structures near the edge of the adventurers' district. A large wooden sign hung above the entrance, swaying gently in the morning breeze.
DELVE MART
The dungeon supply store.
Adrian pushed open the door and stepped inside as the faint chime of a bell announced his arrival. The familiar scent of alchemical potions and burning oil lamps filled the air immediately, mixing with the dry smell of leather, metal, and old wood.
Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, neatly stacked with the equipment adventurers relied on before risking their lives inside the Tower. Bundles of rope hung beside racks of torches, polished daggers rested inside locked display cases, and rows of small glass bottles filled with glowing liquid were arranged carefully along the counter.
Healing potions. Antidotes. Lantern oil. Field rations.
Everything someone might need before stepping into a place where even a single mistake could mean death.
Behind the counter sat a tall figure made of pale gray stone.
The creature's body was humanoid, but its surface looked like polished marble carved into the shape of armor. Faint glowing lines ran across its chest like veins of dim light.
A Kharu Warden.