The next day felt quieter.
The huge convention from yesterday had already flooded the internet. Every major news site talked about it.
"WHITE ENT LAUNCHES NEW STREAMING ERA."
"FIRST GENERATION STREARS SELECTED."
"THE FUTURE OF TOWER BROADCASTING."
Park Woonhee saw the headlines everywhere while walking through the White Stars building.
She still worked there as a porter.
Even though the job was simple, the building itself was enormous. White marble floors, glass walls, long hallways, and security everywhere.
White Stars had always been a huge company.
But after yesterday’s announcent, it sohow felt even bigger.
People walked around holding tablets and files. So were already talking about the strears selected yesterday.
"The numbers are insane."
"I heard the views reached ten million during the broadcast."
"White Ent is going to explode."
Woonhee kept walking quietly.
Then her phone buzzed.
A ssage.
"Please report to White Ent. Production Office — Room 1402."
She blinked.
White Ent?
The subsidiary office?
Why would they call her?
She looked at the ssage again.
The sender was one of the internal company numbers.
It was real.
"Did I do sothing wrong...?" she muttered.
Woonhee had only worked normal porter duties until now.
Helping climbers carry equipnt.
Managing inventory.
Small things.
Nothing important.
Still confused, she took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor.
When the doors opened, the atmosphere felt different.
The floor looked newer.
Bright lights.
Glass rooms.
Large screens showing stream statistics and production schedules.
"WHITE ENT PRODUCTION."
The sign on the wall confird it.
People here looked busy in a different way.
Editors.
Cara operators.
Producers.
They were clearly building sothing big.
Woonhee slowly walked down the hallway until she found Room 1402.
She knocked lightly.
"Co in."
A calm voice answered.
Woonhee opened the door.
Inside sat a man in his mid-thirties behind a desk. A large monitor behind him showed several live cara feeds.
He looked up and smiled.
"Park Woonhee, right?"
"Yes."
"Please sit."
She sat down nervously.
The man leaned back in his chair.
"My na is Lee Donghyun."
"I’m one of the producers for White Entertainnt."
Woonhee nodded quietly.
He continued.
"You already work under White Stars as a porter."
"Yes."
"And you’re also registered with the guild system."
"That’s correct."
Lee Donghyun tapped a few keys on his keyboard.
A file appeared on the monitor.
"We’ve been reviewing internal staff."
Woonhee tilted her head slightly.
"Why...?"
He smiled.
"Well, White Ent is growing quickly."
"We need support staff for the strears."
He turned the screen slightly so she could see it.
"Managers."
Woonhee blinked.
"Managers?"
"Sothing like that."
He explained calmly.
"The first generation of strears are awakened players."
"So of them are young."
"So have no experience with dia or contracts."
"So we assign soone to assist them."
"Scheduling."
"Logistics."
"Tower preparations."
"Basic support."
Woonhee slowly understood.
"So... like a caretaker?"
Lee Donghyun nodded.
"Yes. Sothing close to that."
He leaned forward slightly.
"And we would like you to take that role for one of our strears."
Woonhee’s eyes widened.
"?"
"Yes."
"Why ?"
He tapped the screen again.
"We reviewed your records."
"You’ve worked inside tower raids."
"You know how equipnt and supplies work."
"And..."
He paused briefly.
"You have experience dealing with difficult situations."
Woonhee felt her chest tighten slightly.
Difficult situations.
Her mind imdiately rembered sothing.
But she forced herself to stay calm.
Lee Donghyun continued.
"The strear you’ll be assisting is new."
"Only eighteen."
"Very little professional experience."
"We believe soone calm would help."
He closed the file.
"So what do you think?"
Woonhee hesitated for a mont.
Then she nodded.
"I’ll do it."
Lee Donghyun smiled.
"Good."
He turned the monitor toward her again.
"Then let introduce you to the person you’ll be working with."
The file opened.
A photo appeared.
Woonhee froze.
Her hands tightened on her knees.
The boy in the photo had short black hair.
Soft eyes.
A quiet expression.
Na:
SUNG SU-BEEN.
Age:
18.
White Ent Strear — First Generation.
The room suddenly felt very quiet.
Her chest felt heavy.
Images flashed inside her mind.
A dark tunnel.
A ruined raid.
Loan sharks.
A knife.
A trembling boy.
The boy being forced forward.
"Kill him."
"Do it."
"If you don’t, we kill you first."
She rembered everything.
And the worst part...
She rembered what she did.
She sold them out.
The loan sharks wanted the rare resources inside that hidden area.
They wanted everything.
So they threatened everyone.
And Woonhee...
She chose to live.
She told them things.
About the group.
About Kang Min.
About the others.
She betrayed them.
At the ti she told herself it was the only way.
But deep inside...
She knew it was shaful.
She slowly looked back at the photo.
Sung Su-been.
The boy who had been forced to try and kill Kang Min.
The boy who was crying because he didn’t want to die.
Because his mother was sick.
Lee Donghyun noticed her silence.
"Is sothing wrong?"
Woonhee forced herself to breathe normally.
"No."
She looked at the photo again.
"No problem."
Lee Donghyun nodded.
"Good."
"He’s waiting in one of the eting rooms."
"Room 1406."
"You can introduce yourself there."
Woonhee stood up slowly.
"Understood."
She left the office quietly.
The hallway felt longer than before.
Her steps were slow.
Every step reminded her of the past.
But she kept walking.
Soon she reached Room 1406.
She stopped in front of the door.
Her hand rested on the handle.
She took a deep breath.
"This is my chance."
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"I can’t change what I did."
"But..."
She clenched her hand slightly.
"...I can at least try to make up for it."
Kang Min had saved everyone that day.
Even after she betrayed him.
Even after everything.
If Kang Min saw this situation now...
He probably wouldn’t hate Sung.
He would simply want the kid to live well.
Woonhee slowly opened the door.
Inside sat Sung Su-been.
He looked smaller without the stage lights from yesterday.
He was sitting quietly at the table.
When the door opened, he stood up quickly.
"Oh."
He looked surprised.
"Hello..."
Woonhee stepped inside.
"Hi."
There was an awkward silence for a few seconds.
Sung rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
"Are you... from White Ent?"
Woonhee nodded.
"Yes."
"I’m Park Woonhee."
"I’ll be helping manage your schedule and tower preparations."
Sung blinked.
"Oh."
He bowed slightly.
"Nice to et you."
His voice was still shy.
Woonhee studied his face carefully.
He looked healthier than before.
Stronger too.
Still quiet though.
Still gentle.
She decided to say sothing simple.
"How is your mom?"
The question ca out naturally.
Sung froze.
He looked at her carefully.
Like he was trying to rember sothing.
Then his eyes widened slightly.
"You..."
He leaned closer.
"You were there."
Woonhee nodded slowly.
"Yes."
Another silence filled the room.
But this ti it wasn’t awkward.
Just heavy.
Sung looked down at the floor.
"My mom..."
He smiled faintly.
"She got better."
Woonhee felt relief wash over her chest.
"That’s good."
Sung continued speaking.
"I was able to treat her."
"Those mana shards..."
He paused.
"The ones everyone gave ."
Woonhee rembered.
After Kang Min killed the loan sharks...
The group gathered everything.
Mana shards.
Resources.
Valuable materials.
Instead of splitting them evenly...
They gave all the mana shards to Sung.
So he could sell them.
So he could pay for treatnt.
Sung looked grateful even now.
"My mom’s condition improved a lot."
"She’s still weak."
"But she can walk now."
Woonhee smiled softly.
"That’s really good."
Sung nodded.
"Yeah."
He hesitated again.
Then he asked quietly.
"...Do you know where Kang Min is?"
---
The apartnt was silent.
It was a large place given to him by one of the White Stars chaebol families. The building itself stood high above the rest of the city, and from the balcony Kang Min could see the long stretch of Seoul spreading endlessly beneath the night sky. Glass walls, soft lighting, expensive furniture—everything about the apartnt spoke of wealth and comfort.
Yet none of it mattered.
Kang Min sat alone on the balcony, his chair angled toward the railing as he looked up at the sky. A cold breeze passed by every now and then, brushing lightly against his hair and clothes, but he didn’t react to it. His eyes remained fixed upward, distant and heavy.
His thoughts were sowhere else entirely.
Floor Ten.
The mont he stepped into that floor, he already knew sothing felt wrong. The tower had a way of showing things climbers did not want to see. For so people it showed fear. For others it showed regret.
For Kang Min... it showed the one mory he had spent years trying to bury.
The day everything began.
The day he lost his family.
His hands slowly tightened around the armrests of the chair.
"That day..."
His voice was low, barely louder than the wind passing by the balcony.
He could still see it clearly.
The sky had been bright. The day had been normal. There had been nothing strange about it at all. His parents were inside the house, moving around as usual. It had been just another peaceful afternoon.
And then the gate appeared.
Not sowhere far away.
Not in another city.
It appeared right in front of him.
Right in front of their ho.
Kang Min lowered his head slightly, his gaze darkening as the mory replayed again and again in his mind.
"I made it."
The words slipped out quietly.
Floor Ten had shown him the truth he never wanted to face.
He had been the one who created the very first gate to ever appear on Earth.
Even now he didn’t know how it happened. He didn’t understand what caused it or why it appeared that way. But the tower didn’t lie. The mory was clear.
That gate had opened.
Monsters ca out.
Chaos followed.
And by the ti everything was over, his parents were dead.
Because of him.
His fingers dug deeper into the chair.
For years he had lived believing sothing different. Everyone believed the sa story—that the gates simply appeared one day, changing the world forever. No one knew why, and no one was responsible.
That lie had been easier to accept.
But now...
Now he knew the truth.
A heavy silence hung over the balcony.
"If I break through the tower..."
His voice trembled slightly as he spoke.
"If I climb every floor... and reach the top..."
The promise of the tower was sothing every climber knew.
Whoever reached the top would be granted a wish.
Anything they asked for.
Anything at all.
Kang Min slowly lifted his gaze back toward the sky, his eyes reflecting the faint city lights below.
"I don’t want power."
His voice was quiet but firm.
"I don’t want fa either."
All the things climbers chased ant nothing to him.
He only wanted one thing.
"I want to return."
Back to that day.
To the mont before the gate appeared.
Before the monsters.
Before the tower existed.
Before the world was torn apart.
"I’ll erase it all."
His breathing beca slightly uneven as the words ca out.
"Everything that happened... I’ll remove it."
The night air felt colder now.
Yet even as he said those words, another thought slowly crept into his mind, making his chest tighten again.
If what the tower showed him was true...
If he really was the one who created the first gate...
Then sothing else didn’t make sense.
"Hyung..."
His voice was softer this ti.
His older brother.
The one who left and never ca back.
Kang Min stared blankly into the darkness.
"If that’s true..."
His lips parted slowly.
"...then why didn’t you return?"
A quiet fear ford in the back of his mind.
Did his brother know the truth?
Did he know what happened that day?
Was that why he disappeared?
The thought alone made Kang Min’s chest feel tight.
His body slowly slid down from the chair until he was sitting on the cold balcony floor. He pulled his knees close to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, lowering his head until his face was buried between them.
From the outside he looked almost like a small child curled up against the world.
The city below continued moving as if nothing had changed. Cars drove along the streets, lights flickered on in buildings, and distant sounds of life carried faintly through the night air.
But Kang Min remained there, unmoving.
Ti passed quietly.
Minutes... maybe hours.
He didn’t know.
By the ti he finally lifted his head again, the sky had already darkened completely. The orange glow of the sunset had long disappeared, replaced by the deep blue of night.
Kang Min blinked slowly as he looked around the balcony.
"...How long was I like this?"
The question escaped him without much thought.
The city below was now covered in night lights, glowing softly under the darkness.
For a mont, a dull feeling settled in his chest.
Even if he kept moving forward...
Even if he climbed higher...
A part of him felt like nothing would truly change.
Just then—
A blue light quietly appeared in front of him.
A familiar system window materialized in the air.
Kang Min’s tired eyes moved toward the glowing text as it displayed a short ssage.
[The star-seed will be hatching soon]
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