John sat on the ground holding his head in his hands crying.

What had he done? What had come over him?

He had spent months training with Miki to prepare for this climb. The training had only intensified when he found the journal from a Medium Difficulty climber buried in the Academy library that outlined hints and clues about the true nature of Tower and the Hard Difficulty.

The author was certain the Hard Difficulty was meant to be climbed as a team. John was convinced the author was right. It didn’t make sense that no one had completed the Hard Difficulty in 300 years unless it had to be completed as a team.

When he had learned team tactics he realized that unless it was well trained, a large team might be a greater burden than a help. As such it made sense to only climb with people you knew and trusted.

And who did John trust more than Miki? No one.

For months they trained together and John pushed his friend to get better.

It was not surprising that Miki excelled in the Academy. John viewed Miki as a brother and knew he would have been miserable spending his whole life working in his family’s store. Sure having a stable flow of money was nice but there was no challenge and John’s best friend was at his best when there was a challenge to concur.

An outside observer may have thought John to be the better candidate to excel at the Academy. He came from a family with nothing while Miki was relatively wealthy. John sought out new experiences while Miki was content to read a book. John wanted to impress people while Miki was comfortable with who he was.

Everyone liked to cheer for the underdog, but John was a realist. His entire life John struggled to overcome obstacles. And while he did overcome many challenges, it was only due to Miki. Everytime he ran into a problem, his best friend was there to help him out.

And now he had walked his best friend upto the greatest challenge of their lives only to choke.

Why did he select the Easy Difficulty?

He meant to say ‘Hard’. He had the word so firmly planted in his mind that he did not even fully read the prompt that appeared when he touched the Tower. He skipped straight to the description of the Hard Difficulty.

Upon reading the success rate he looked over to his best friend and…

He opened his mouth and said…

Easy.

Maybe it was like the stories of traders who come across monsters when traveling and can’t help but soil themselves.

Maybe he was so terrified at the thought of death, his brain took over and utter the word to protect him.

What was Miki going through? What sort of death awaited him now that John had abandoned him?

He knew what people would think. Miki’s parents were so pissed at John when he convinced Miki to join the Academy that he wasn’t invited to dinner for a year. Miki’s sister, Emily practically worshiped her older brother. She was going to skin him alive.

And Joanne…

He hated to say that he thought about Joanne alot. When they first met when he was applying to the Academy he was absolutely smitten by her. He had met her a couple of times further before the Academy started. Sure he was jealous when he found out that she was dating Miki, but he couldn’t really blame her. Miki just had a way of shifting things and people around him. It was so natural it might as well be a force of nature. If you couldn’t blame the sky for raining, you couldn’t blame Miki for attracting Joanne.

Despite dating Miki, Joanne remained good friends with John. Far too often people were friendly to John only to completely ignore him once Miki was around. Joanne was different. They quickly became a trio. Often she would confide in him about her worries and concerns.

John knew Joanne and Miki were having issues recently, but he had full confidence that his best friend would once more fix everything after the climb.

Anyway, Joanne couldn’t have been too mad with Miki. She even met with John before they planned to climb the Tower to try to get him to convince Miki to not climb the Tower. She didn’t want either of them to climb the Tower. He had promised her we would try to convince Miki not to climb and that if he was not able to, he would climb as well.

Joanne would be crushed when John came back alone. If he came back at all.

He looked at the screen floating in front of him once more:

Welcome to the Eternal Tower Floor 1 Easy!

Goal: Avoid the traps and make it to the end of the path.

Time limit: 30 hours

Time remaining 28 hours, 1 minute, 17 seconds.

He knew the traps would be random. The Academy had prepared him for this and more. Even from where he sat he could see a pitfall trap, poorly concealed.

He was half tempted to throw himself into the trap but two things stopped him. First, he knew that Miki would want him to do his best, even though he had betrayed him. Second, the pitfall trap was likely only a few feet deep and served as a warning of dangers to come.

No, there was no point in trying to harm himself. The Tower would have plenty of opportunities to hurt him and he didn’t need to seek out pain. Instead he solidified his resolve as he rose to his feet. He would overcome the Easy Difficulty and return home. Once there he would spend the rest of his life doing whatever Miki’s family and Joanne wanted him to do. He would happily lower himself to be a servant to make up for his weakness.

Walking forward he kicked at the covering of the pitfall trap and checked the inside. Every level had a secret reward hidden somewhere. He knew the first floor tended to have a gold coin hidden in one of the pitfall traps. Seeing the trap empty he moved forward, slowly heading to the end of the floor.