I remember what it felt like to be human.
Or rather, what I thought it meant to be human.
Years ago, when I first entered this hell, I was seventeen at the time.
Just a boy who had lost everything and was looking for something...anything...to hold onto.
I was a wimp.
My hands shook every time I held a rusted dagger.
My knees knocked together when I heard the growl of a monster.
I was the dead weight of the group.
But back then, I had a team of five.
They were older, stronger, and they looked at me with smiles that felt like sunlight.
We didn't know each other before the Tower, but in those early floors, we became a family.
"Don't worry, Min-ah."
The leader, a man named Hyung-jun, would say.
He'd ruffle my hair and hand me a piece of dried jerky.
"Just stay behind us.
We'll get through this.
We'll see the sky again together."
They shared their food with me.
They let me sleep in the middle of the camp so I wouldn't be scared.
I did whatever they asked.
I carried the heavy bags.
I sharpened their blades.
I was happy just to be useful.
I thought that as long as I had them, I could survive this nightmare.
We laughed and sat around small campfires in the safe zones, talking about what we'd eat when we got out.
Fried chicken, Cold beer...the simple things.
'I loved them...I really did.'
***
We reached the 10th Floor.
It was a "Trial of Balance."
We stood in a room that was slowly filling with poison gas.
There was a stone altar in the center and a single exit gate.
The screen appeared in front of us.
[To open the gate, one person must stay behind to hold the lever.]
[The gate will close the moment the lever is released.]
In a heartbeat, the atmosphere changed.
It was like I was standing with strangers.
"Min."
Hyung-jun said.
What gnawed at my heart was the fact that he wasn't looking at my eyes...but at the gate.
"You're the weakest.
You won't survive the next floor anyway."
"What...?"
I whispered.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed by cold hands.
"Hyung, what are you saying?"
"He's right."
The woman I called 'Noona' said, her voice sharp and cold.
"We've fed you for weeks.
It's time you paid us back."
They didn't even hesitate and pushed me toward the lever.
I grabbed it, my hands trembling.
As soon as I pulled it, the gate hissed open.
One by one, they ran.
They didn't look back. Not once!
"WAIT! PLEASE!"
I remember screaming.
My voice broke, echoing off the stone walls.
"DON'T LEAVE ME! HYUNG! NOONA! I'M SCARED! PLEASE!"
I sobbed until I couldn't breathe.
I held that lever as the poison gas began to sting my lungs.
I watched the backs of the people I loved disappear into the light of the next floor.
"WHY?! I DID EVERYTHING YOU ASKED! PLEASE COME BACK!"
The silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard.
I realized then that it was just my sorry ass that was so used to depending on them.
I wasn't even mad at them at first; I was just upset that I wasn't protected anymore.
I was a child crying for a parent who had thrown him into a pit.
***
I let go of the lever, braced for death, and realized the "poison" was a psychological test.
The gate stayed open.
I walked through that gate alone and I stayed alone for a long time.
Two years passed.
I had climbed floors that others thought were impossible and was at the top.
And yet...
I ran into other groups struggling on a floor boss that was halting all of humanity's progress. They were dying in droves.
I was strong...so strong that I thought I could afford to be kind.
That was my biggest mistake.
I gave that guy; the one who looks like he is going to die and piss himself from fear the 'Shattering Demon Sword', an S-rank weapon I had nearly died to find.
I gave the healers Elixirs of Life that could knit bones back together in seconds.
I gave them armor made from dragon scales.
I thought if I did so... we could defeat the boss together.
But all they did was leech.
They wanted more...And more...And MORE!
They grew fat on my kindness.
And as a result, those same people used the weapons I gave them to block the path so they could escape, leaving the common players to be slaughtered.
I watched as most of humanity on that floor perished.
I watched the blood soak into the ground because of the very people I had tried to save.
Human nature is shitty.
It was shitty on Earth, and it's still shitty even now.
Everyone is selfish.
It doesn't matter what they say.
Even the nice things people do are for themselves.
You help an old lady cross the street? You're doing it to feel like a "good person."
You're buying validation.
You donate to charity? You're doing it to ease your own guilt or to get a tax break.
There is no such thing as a selfless act. It's all just trade and a sense of feeding ego.
"..."
And seeing the woman dead on the floor and the mullet man smiling... it just proves that nothing has changed in thirteen years.
***
Kang Min stood in the center of the junction, his hands at his sides.
The old man was slumped against the rocky wall, his face pale from the pain in his crushed foot.
On the other end, at the dark path that led to the Kobold nest, stood the Mullet guy and the Long-haired man with the 18 year old.
"KEKE!"
The mullet man's laughed.
He stepped over the body of the woman he had just murdered with his axe without a second thought.
He turned his gaze toward the eighteen-year-old kid.
The boy was shaking, his knees knocking together, still clutching the heavy bag of loot.
"Tell you what, kid..."
"We were going to kill off everyone today... including you."
The boy's eyes went wide and a bead of sweat rolled down his temple.
"But..."
The mullet man continued, raising a finger.
"I'm a generous guy.
If you can kill that old man for us... or any of them... we'll let you live."
He reached into his belt and pulled out a jagged, black-steel dagger.
He flipped it in the air and caught it by the blade, holding the hilt out toward the boy.
"How does that souold
I'm sure your sick mom would want to see your face again... eh?"
The boy froze.
The mention of his mother seemed to drain the last of the blood from his face.
Slowly, his trembling hand reached out.
He let go of the heavy bag, which hit the floor with a loud thud, and took the dagger.
The weight of the weapon seemed to make him shake even harder.
He pointed the blade at Kang Min...then he swung it toward the old man...then back to Kang Min.
He was crying now.
Big, fat tears that left tracks through the dirt on his face.
"Y-you have to understand..."
"I don't have a choice.
My mom... she has the Affliction."
He took a step toward Min, the knife waving wildly.
"She's dying! The energy from the Tower... it poisoned her just like it did most of the people in the world when the towers first appeared!
The doctors say she needs Mana-Neutralizing treatments every week or her lungs will turn to stone!
Do you know how much that costs?!"
He screamed the last part, his voice cracking.
"I've worked every job! I've been a porter for three years! I've eaten scraps! But it's never enough! If I die here, she dies alone in a hospital hallway!
I can't let her die!"
He clutched the dagger with both hands, his knuckles turning white.
His eyes were filled with a terrifying, desperate resolve...it was the kind of look a cornered animal gives before it bites.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
The boy let out a gutteral scream and lunged forward, aiming the dagger straight at Kang Min's chest.