His voice echoed over the dim garden. The bushes rustled in the wind. Distantly, a strange bird cawed.

He rubbed his forehead. Okay. Focus. I can figure this out. What’s the last thing I remember?

A tower. Pale as the moon, and equally unforgiving. Tall enough to reach the stars. He stepped toward it, reaching for—

For what? A weapon? A… a tome? I…

Flashes of memories flew past his eyes. People’s faces, but blurred. Strange scenery, rushing by so quickly it dazzled his mind. Battle. Fighting. Killing. Blood splashed. So much that he grew inured to it.

Vivian clenched his fist, brows furrowed. That’s right. I… I entered the Tower. But why?

A girl smiled. She reached her hand out to him. “I’ll wait for you at the top.”

Monsters. Party members dropped around him. He faced a monster, and then—

“Ah, that’s right. I died.”

Vivian looked at his hand, then looked at the bodies around him. He snorted. “It doesn’t seem like that big a deal any more, really.”

But if I died, then how am I alive now? And why am I immortal?

Well… I don’t know if I’m immortal, but I have been so far, anyways.

Vivian frowned. He rubbed his forehead. “If I’m in the Tower, then… Status!”

[Welcome Back]

[Level Up +4]

Name: Vivian | Age: 21 | Sex: M | Level: 1->5

Role: [Gardener] [NPC]

[Status]

HP: 7/10

SP: 5/5

STR: 5

MAG: 1

SKL: 7

SPD: 7

MDEF: 5

DEF: 5

[Skills]

[Gardener Tool Proficiency] [LOCKED] Lvl 1

[Trim] Lvl 1

Vivian wrinkled his nose. Alright, let’s unpack this. I wasn’t an NPC before, I know that. NPCs are fake people spawned by the Tower who play out events and give quests. Before, my role was [Player]… and I existed. I was a real person. I entered the Tower from outside. From the real world!

On top of that, I definitely wasn’t a Gardener! I don’t remember everything about my past, but I was a real Player with a real Class and real Skills. Besides, that LOCKED… I can’t remove that skill. I’m stuck with gardening tools, whatever I want to do.

Vivian shrugged. That’s pretty normal, though. Most classes lock you into a set of… weapons, not tools, but…

But that [NPC] tag… is that why I respawn, now? He tapped his chin, looking around at his bodies. Yeah, from what I remember, you could kill NPCs, and they’d come back. At low levels, they were worth some juicy EXP, but higher levels… it was pointless. Generally, the guard mobs would shut down NPC-killing pretty fast, but it looks like there’s no guard mobs around here.

Still, the point is, NPCs would come back. The Tower is nothing if not fair, at least on the surface. One Player can’t kill an NPC and keep all the other Players from getting a quest forever.

If I’m classified as an NPC, now… He glanced at his bodies again. Can I count on respawning?

Immediately, Vivian shook his head. No! I know I wasn’t aware for all those deaths, and I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I abruptly came to awareness, but I vaguely remember being a gardener for a while. I don’t know why I’m aware right now. I can’t risk it until I know for sure I can respawn and remain aware.

But… why am I an NPC? I died in the Tower, but if the Tower recycles all those who die in the Tower into NPCs, someone would have noticed by now. Hell, I would have noticed. Plenty of companions and acquaintances died in the Tower. What makes me special?

“Right. Three quests. Figure out why I’m awake, figure out if I respawn, and figure out why I came back as an NPC!” Vivian declared. He paused, putting a hand on his chin. “And figure out if I can leave the Tower. Four quests. Uh, and figure out what happened that I ended up in this situation, and who I am…”

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Okay. There’s a lot of things I need to do. First off… He glanced down. I need to get rid of these bodies. It’s bothering me. All this blood is going to make the roses’ roots rot. At the very least, let’s space them out so they aren’t all piled under this one bush.

He rubbed his brows. Is this the [Gardener] role influencing me? Why do I care about these roses? I’m a Player, not an NPC, no matter what the label tells me!

But I worked so hard on these roses. I can’t just let them die.

Vivian sighed. He bent down and grabbed the first body, dragging it off. Alright, alright. Let’s handle this first.

By the time Vivian finished dragging the bodies around, the dim light had grown dark. The glowing roses acted as pale night-lights through the maze. He wiped his hands on his pants and looked down at his loot.

Studded leather armor… Mage’s robes… some low-tier steel plate. The tome is ruined, but I got a few knives and that sword. If I can sell these… ha. Can an NPC sell things?

Only one way to find out, really. He pointed his hand at the items. “Inventory.”

The items wavered, then vanished.

A popup appeared in the corner of his vision, and Vivian glanced at it.

[Skill Acquired]

[Compost] Lvl 1

Curious, Vivian tapped on the skill.

[Compost]

You’ve discovered how to compost! By breaking down [Dead] materials into rich soil, your plants will grow much stronger. Cost: 1 SP.

Does that really count as composting…? Eh, whatever. I’ll take whatever skills a gardener can get.

It has an SP cost… that is, a skill point cost. Is it an activatable skill, then? He flexed his hand and pointed his palm at the nearest body. “Compost!”

The body trembled. Before his eyes, it decomposed rapidly. The flesh fell off the bones, and the bones bleached. In a few moments, dark topsoil appeared where the flesh and skin had been moments ago, the white bones sticking up out of the soil like bleak markers in the dark garden.

Vivian raised his eyebrows. That’s convenient. The only problem is that I’ve only got five SP right now. I should probably apply those levels I gained.

Four levels for beating two level… what, eights? Tens? And a level… it’s hard to calculate, because I don’t have a [Status]-viewer and he was grinding on NPCs, so it’s not like he actually had skill—skill, as opposed to [Skills] or SKL, but at a guess, a level six. I wasn’t a big Player Killer back in the day, from what I remember, so I can’t be sure, but that seems a bit low for EXP. NPCs might level slower than Players.

Though, come to think of it, why can NPCs level at all?

Vivian put a hand on his chin thoughtfully. The Tower’s System… well, my school memories are still mostly intact, it seems. Ten… no, probably more like twenty years ago, now, when the Tower suddenly descended, it spread its game-like System across the world. Anyone who wants to can opt for the chance to become a Player, though it’s not without risk. Players must enter the Tower and clear a quest once a year or die, and they’re required by most governments to take part in destroying Exclusion Zones when they pop up—that is, areas outside the Tower where monsters, events, and sometimes even NPCs appear.

Nor does everyone who wants to become a Player become one. The Tower chooses them based on its own internal metrics, lottery, or… well, something. No one quite understands it, but it’s about a one in a thousand chance that anyone who puts in to become a Player will get chosen.

Although it’s controversial among non-Players, any Player will agree that the Tower’s System is a bit glitchy. The Tower exists in reality, as far as anyone can tell. You enter it physically. You bleed. You thirst. You hunger. And if you die…

He looked at his hands. You usually die for real.

Yet, the Tower couldn’t exist entirely in reality. The Tower, massive as it was, still wasn’t as large as the immense landscapes contained within it. Entire branches of physics had been invented to handle the impossibilities of the Tower, and still, no one had a definitive answer. The System, the Tower, the monster-infested zones the Tower spawned at random around it, the Players, Bosses, Roles and NPCs… no one fully understood the Tower. Where it came from, what its purpose was. All anyone knew was that the Tower came with opportunity.

Materials that couldn’t exist in the real world. Magic. Incredible weapons that could give even an ordinary human access to super-human strength and magical powers. All kinds of wonderful things emerged from the Tower. Physically emerged from the Tower, as real as anything that entered it. Hundreds of people made fortunes in the Tower, selling items and information. Thousands more made a career of it, of Climbing and discovering new parts of the Tower, or simply farming lucrative parts of the Tower.

And yet, Vivian thought, shaking his head.

As if it’s a game, there’s some strange quirks about the Tower and its System that can be used to hack the System, or conversely, which can totally screw over a Player. Weird environmental scenarios, broken Skill combinations, Quests that deadlock or never finish even when the Player has long since completed the floor. The Tower’s even been known to send out Patches on occasion to adjust known hacks. Somewhere between the real and the false… no one fully understands the Tower.

A few extremists even worship the Tower or the “Programmer,” who isn’t even confirmed to exist. Though I guess most gods aren’t confirmed to exist, so what makes Programmer-worship any different than any religion?

Vivian nodded to himself. All that to say, maybe… maybe this is a glitch, of sorts. All of it. My waking up as an NPC. My leveling as an NPC. Maybe even my respawning.

If that’s the case, I’ll have to be careful not to draw the Tower’s attention, or I’ll get Patched. As nice as this garden is, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wandering mindlessly in it. He rubbed his hands over his arms. The only saving grace is that I won’t know it. I’m not sure if that’s comforting or terrifying, but it certainly seems to be true.