A Sub-Tower’s Mana Vein erged at random spots across a 100km radius.
This was the first ti Magic Stones had appeared as minerals in the real world, outside the Tower.
For the mont, the only practical thod of exploration was to follow the bits jutting out from the surface and dig along their roots, pulling them up the way you’d pull a string of sweet potatoes.
Once the rough scale of the Mana Vein was mapped and the estimates were in, full-scale mining would begin.
Japan, too, had been throwing itself into Magic Stone exploration within the radius of the Sendai Sub-Tower.
“…Huh?”
The scholars and specialists running the survey froze in confusion when the Magic Stones in their test pit suddenly went dark.
The anomaly wasn’t confined to that one site.
Every Magic Stone at every spot Japan had discovered so far lost its glow at the sa instant. As if they’d reverted to being plain old rocks.
The only Magic Stones still intact were the tiny amount that had already been extracted as a sample.
It was as though a river had gone dry; the Mana Vein had been cut off in a single mont.
“What the hell is going on?! Why did the Mana Vein vanish all of a sudden!”
“Every other country is fine? Why are we the only ones…!”
Japan was in uproar.
So ti later, a post went up on the Communication Channel.
[Person123: The conqueror of a Sub-Tower is granted the authority to activate or deactivate its Mana Vein.]
[Person123: Should a Mana Vein give rise to disputes, I will deactivate that country’s Mana Vein.]
Person123’s post threw the Communication Channel into another fit.
[Torch: Sub-Tower ownership? So conquerors get personal rewards on top of everything?]
[DanceWith: Japan’s Mana Vein just totally evaporated, they’re losing it. So that was Person123’s doing.]
[Insomnia: Why? What did Japan do?]
[Pepper: dug through the news, looks like they pulled out of so accord unilaterally]
Japan’s withdrawal from the Magic Stone Accord had barely registered as a global story amid the chaos of Sub-Towers appearing, but Person123’s post pulled all the aggro right onto it.
[Turkey: lmaooo got smacked first for being greedy]
[Blaze]: World peace really is Person123]
[Sherlock]: A healthy market economy is Person123]
[ProbAndStats: Brazil and Mongolia got lucky. Japan took the hit for them before they could pull anything weird]
[MangoJuice: Wait so China knew all about Sub-Tower ownership and hid it to squeeze more out of Mongolia?]
[Bant: Really, not the slightest bit surprising]
Japan, having pulled a stunt that torched a massive national windfall, was getting roasted up and down the Communication Channel.
[Hyaru: but this also ans Person123 definitely isn’t Japanese]
[phisto: who knows. Person123 seems like the type to smack down their own country the mont it crosses a line]
[Curd: yeah that tracks]
[Blizzard: or maybe they’re from one of the countries tied up in the Magic Stone Accord?]
[333Draw: which countries are those?]
[Finger: look it up yourself]
[Jennifer: Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia]
[Ullaryu: it wasn’t even a real news story and the punishnt hit imdiately. honestly might be one of those countries]
[Gold: or maybe they just watch a lot of news?]
While everyone else gathered around to enjoy the spectacle, the burning house, Japan, was in absolute chaos.
It always cuts deeper when sothing is given and then taken away.
The chance to beco one of the world’s premier Magic Stone superpowers had landed in their grasp and then fluttered right back out…
“Damn it!”
Pri Minister Sato was about to co unhinged.
If only he’d known, he would have read the room and tread carefully. If he’d had any inkling that sothing like Sub-Tower ownership existed!
“How was anyone supposed to know there was such a thing…!”
There was no other choice.
Sohow he had to grovel to Person123 and get the Mana Vein reactivated.
But Person123, who ignored everything except Nightmare consultation, predictably gave no reply to ssages sent through the Communication Channel…
Pri Minister Sato issued an official statent at once.
“…The withdrawal from the Magic Stone Accord was an unfortunate incident that arose from a lack of mutual communication, and we express our regret. Our cabinet feels deep responsibility for actions that may have appeared sowhat unilateral.”
The roundabout statent, translated bluntly, ca down to this:
We won’t withdraw from the accord, we’ll apologize to the mber nations and work to negotiate properly with them, and if Person123 has any demands of their own, we’ll accept them all.
So give back the Mana Vein, pleeease.
Person123’s response? Nothing.
No posts went up on the Communication Channel, and the Sendai Sub-Tower’s Mana Vein remained dark.
Public sentint across the Japanese archipelago boiled over against Pri Minister Sato.
Person123 was the one who had switched off the Mana Vein, but no matter how badly Japan felt about having sothing snatched back, was there any way criticism of humanity’s savior could possibly catch on?
The only natural outco was for every arrow to turn on the already low-approval Pri Minister instead.
Of course, if the result had been good, no one would have blad the governnt, and frankly nobody would have cared in the first place, but the outco had been the worst possible, hadn’t it?
The narrative spread like wildfire: the Pri Minister had bungled it spectacularly and squandered everything.
Watching this whole sequence unfold, Mongolia, despite having done nothing in particular, felt a quiet sense of relief.
“We will pursue coexistence and cooperation so that everyone may benefit.”
Brazil, which had been quietly gearing up to test its neighbors, hastily put on innocent eyes and rushed out a statent of its own.
And… Korea and the Southeast Asian nations, the actual stakeholders, were honestly just a little bewildered.
Person123 had stepped in for them? What was this?
A matter this trivial, of course not at all trivial to the parties involved, but was it really significant enough that Person123, busy saving humanity, would care?
The only ti Person123 had stepped into a political issue before was when the conflict between governnts and associations was reaching its global boiling point. This was hardly on that scale.
It was hard not to tilt one’s head at it.
“Maybe they got pissed off because soone pulled a stunt with a Sub-Tower they’d personally cleared?”
“They could be taking the conflicts a Mana Vein might trigger seriously, trying to cut them off at the root. Either way, Japan got served up as a textbook example.”
“It’s not a bad situation for us, but how we respond is the question…”
Japan now had a fire under its feet and was practically clinging to the accord nations, Korea included.
It seed they thought that if they could sohow stage a convincing reconciliation with the affected parties, they might be able to turn Person123 around.
The Korean governnt had its own dilemma about what stance to take.
If they could just rework the accord’s clauses so a few crumbs from the Mana Vein fell their way, sure, they’d be happy to hold hands and play nicely. A win-win is a win-win.
But would Person123 really flip the Mana Vein back on if they did?
Japan was clearly in Person123’s bad books at the mont, so Korea couldn’t help but tread carefully.
The countries involved, Japan included, simply waited with bated breath for Person123 to issue so kind of follow-up statent.
*
After shutting off the Sendai Sub-Tower’s Mana Vein as an example.
Whispers kept coming in through the Communication Channel from people claiming to be with the Japanese governnt, but I ignored them all.
I had no real intention of switching the Mana Vein back on.
Sothing that didn’t exist before just doesn’t exist now, simple as that.
I’d already cleared the Tower for them; nobody’s dying because the thing’s not turned on.
‘Hmm…’
But the more I thought about it, my thinking started to shift a little.
Maybe that was a bit harsh?
China would be rrily mining Magic Stones out of their Mana Vein while only this one stayed shut down. That was a real loss, sure.
Still, I didn’t want to start personally barking demands at Japan, and I didn’t know the first thing about international politics or affairs of state.
So I just decided to handle it like this:
[Person123: Negotiate with the accord nations and conclude a treaty on the matter of the Mana Vein. If all five, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia, agree, I will activate the Mana Vein.]
If they could sort it out among themselves, that was the best outco.
At the very least, this would keep Japan from running off with the whole pie.
The Sub-Tower was on Japanese soil, so technically it was Japan’s, and honestly that’s not really sothing to call wrong.
But watching Magic Stones spring up in the country next door while we just sat there sucking our thumbs? Sour deal, honestly… I’m the one who cleared it, after all.
I’m only human; it was an emotional thing I couldn’t really help.
That said, I didn’t actually want to rig it so only my country benefited either, so this was about as far as I’d push it.
Either work it out and split the profits reasonably, or nobody gets a piece.
End of discussion.
[Ti until fifth Sub-Tower appears: 5 minutes 1 second]
Ti passed.
The appearance of the last and fifth Sub-Tower was finally bearing down.
Hoping for a closer country this ti, I sat in my chair and waited.
[The fifth Sub-Tower appears.]
The ssage popped up.
But there was another one right after it.
[A more special reward will be granted to the first to clear the fifth Sub-Tower.]
[Fifth Sub-Tower Ti Limit: 29 days 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds]
“…?”
A special reward?
And the Ti Limit was thirty days, on top of that. The other Sub-Towers had all been seven.
Was the fifth Sub-Tower sothing different?
[Satellite: y’all see that? a special reward, huh?]
[Hwiba: ti limit’s not 7 days, it’s 30]
[Huhahu: them throwing a curveball makes nervous;]
[Blade: where’d the Sub-Tower spawn?]
I kept watching the Communication Channel and waited for word of where the Sub-Tower had appeared.
The location was Tajikistan.
It had erged in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
‘Central Asia, huh.’
I pulled up a map to find the spot. The country sat right next to China.
Distance: roughly 5,000km.
Well… yeah, miles better than Brazil.
Subtracting the roughly 120 hours of charge I’d built up over the week, I’d need about 280 more.
I started charging the Warp Device right away.
If they were promising a special reward, though, would the difficulty really stay the sa?
Probably not. They wouldn’t have stretched out the Ti Limit for no reason.
It was definitely going to be harder than the other Sub-Towers.
But since I had to clear all ten floors in one go, surely each individual floor wouldn’t be as bad as Nightmare difficulty…
Topping up my Willpower as the tedious hours dragged by, I finally finished charging the warp.
I oriented toward Tajikistan and warped imdiately.
I arrived at a point well outside the radius, adjusted my heading, and warped once more.
[Will you enter the fifth Sub-Tower?]
I had stepped inside the Sub-Tower’s radius.
“Enter.”
I stepped in with my guard slightly raised.
[You have entered the first floor of the fifth Sub-Tower.]
Out of habit I froze ti and checked over what I could see.
The setting wasn’t noticeably different from the other Sub-Towers.
Weapons were laid out on the ground in front of too, but…
‘…Nothing here?’
There were no monsters to fight.
I let ti start back up.
I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn’t green enough to get rattled by sothing this minor.
I calmly began to scan my surroundings when,
In that instant my Sixth Sense flared. Killing intent at my back.
Whoosh!
A Goblin appeared out of nowhere and lunged at with a dagger.
But I had already leapt clear of where I’d been standing.
Keuruk-
It was a dark-skinned Goblin with a strange pattern on its face.
‘Concealnt.’
A Concealnt ability.
It wasn’t just invisibility, either.
Like Diul’s ability, it was the kind of concealnt that erased the presence itself completely.
That said, judging by the speed of that attack just now, its physical stats were pitiful. Maybe a touch better than an average Goblin.
I could’ve just taken the hit head-on and not even gotten a scratch.
The Goblin went transparent again.
“Like that’s gonna work?”
I fired a Fla Strike straight at the spot.
The freshly concealed Goblin went up with a pop.
[You have successfully cleared the first floor.]
I watched the ash drift down through the air.
‘A Concealnt-type assassin Goblin, huh…’
Already off to a weird start on the first floor, huh?
The last and fifth Sub-Tower.
As expected, it wasn’t ordinary like the others.
Just a hint, but I could taste it. The taste of Nightmare.
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