“Ngh…”
Groaning, I stared blankly at the appetizing jokbal set laid out on the table.
Would it taste good?
Of course it had to taste good. This was wang jokbal I’d paid the hefty sum of 40,000 won to have delivered.
But my experience—my tongue—was sounding the alarm.
Those glossy, gleaming pieces of meat would surely taste indescribably awful.
…Still, you never knew until you tried.
Taking a deep breath, I laid a fresh leaf of lettuce on my left hand.
Then I smeared a generous amount of ssamjang on the meat and gently placed it on top of the lettuce.
I didn’t forget the sliced garlic and chili pepper, either.
I added a proper amount of steaming white rice.
And to put the finishing touch on it, I covered it with another lettuce leaf.
A jokbal wrap, something that absolutely had no choice but to be delicious, was complete.
I had been fasting for two days now.
If it were anyone else, they would have wolfed down rice with nothing but soy sauce poured over it…
Damn it.
I hated myself for being afraid of something like jokbal.
The terror of how food would taste, and hunger, a human physiological response.
Terror could not overcome hunger.
Having surrendered to hunger, I squeezed my eyes shut, shoved the jokbal wrap into my mouth, and.
Chewed.
Munch, munch.
Smack, smack.
And then.
“Gueeeeeeeeeeeek!”
I began to retch.
It tasted bad.
No, the simple, pathetic expression “tasted bad” couldn’t possibly describe it.
It wasn’t exactly a secret.
Ever since the Tower rose tall in the Republic of Korea.
Because of the penalty from my [Unique Trait].
My sense of taste had become horribly distorted.
* * *
Exactly two years ago, without any warning whatsoever, the Tower abruptly rose from the centers of major cities all over the world.
It was a phenomenon that completely defied common sense, so everyone said the same thing.
Humanity had finally reached its end.
But the appearance of the Tower did not mean the end of humanity.
A gigantic Tower also rose in the center of Seoul.
That didn’t mean buildings were destroyed, nor did hundreds of thousands of citizens lose their lives.
Before the Tower rose, Seoul’s area expanded by the size of the Tower.
Not only Seoul, but the major cities of each country also expanded to match the size of the Tower.
As a result, every country’s land area increased.
And the total surface area of Earth increased as well.
No volcanoes erupted because of massive tectonic shifts, and no tsunamis occurred.
As if by magic, as if it had been there from the beginning.
The Tower took root in this land with perfect naturalness.
At the same time the Tower appeared, all of humanity awakened two abilities.
One of them was an entry ticket to the [Tower Gallery].
The [Tower Gallery] was not a site accessed through the internet, but through a person’s thoughts.
No one knew the principle behind it. You could access it simply by thinking, “I’m connecting to the Tower Gallery.”
The [Tower Gallery] was not much different from the community galleries we were familiar with.
If there was one difference, it was that “anonymous nicks” could not write posts.
To write a post, you absolutely had to create an ID and use a fixed nickname.
They said you could register an ID once you succeeded in climbing to the Tower’s 5th floor.
As for where I got that information.
It was openly written in the notice posted by the head mod.
*
Title: [Notice] Tower Usage Notice (Read it, will you)
Written by: Tower Master
Yeah.
This Tower Master and all blue mods (the managers of each floor) bear absolutely no responsibility for any problems that occur because gallery users ignore the Tower usage notice.
We bear no responsibility. I said it twice.
It’s long, so make sure you chew it over and digest it.
*
Probably the entire nation… no, all of humanity must have read that notice.
They say the tone of the notice differs depending on the tendencies of each country’s major communities.
Opinions were still divided as to who the head mod and blue mods of the [Tower Gallery] were.
Some called them gods.
Some called them demons.
At the very least, it was certain they were not human, and that they were connected to the unidentified structure known as the [Tower].
The notice was long enough to rival a thesis, and the amount of content was vast enough that separate notices even existed for each floor…
But it had little to do with me.
Because I had absolutely no intention of entering the Tower.
Under the strict control of each nation’s government, entry into the Tower was strictly prohibited for the first week after its appearance.
However.
Because of the other ability among the two that humanity had awakened, the governments of each country had no choice but to forcibly open the Tower.
[Unique Trait].
A Unique Trait was, literally, a unique trait possessed by only one person.
Just like the entry ticket to the Tower Gallery, Unique Traits were also awakened by all of humanity at the same time.
The types of Unique Traits varied wildly from person to person.
[You must smoke only with your right hand.]
[When washing your hands, you must interlace your fingers.]
[In all situations, you may use only two squares of toilet paper.]
[You must not wear shorts.]
[You must wear only shorts.]
To explain Unique Traits simply, they were a kind of stat.
If you diligently followed your Unique Trait, you became stronger, as if raising stats in an RPG game.
They said which ability became stronger differed from person to person.
If you only looked at it up to this point, you might think Unique Traits were a blessing bestowed upon humanity…
They were not.
Unique Traits were definitely a curse.
If you did not follow your Unique Trait, you received a specific penalty.
The type of penalty varied wildly depending on the person and the Unique Trait.
Well, if someone had a Unique Trait like [When washing your hands, you must interlace your fingers], there’d be no reason not to follow the trait in the first place, so they wouldn’t have to receive a penalty.
[When blinking, you must keep your eyes closed for at least one second.]
…But what if someone had a Unique Trait like that?
They would inevitably end up receiving penalties hundreds, no, thousands of times a day.
Well, receiving a penalty once wouldn’t greatly interfere with everyday life.
The important thing was that penalties grew stronger and stronger as time passed.
If your first penalty was “your pinky finger tingles,” then a month later, it might grow into a penalty where “your entire right hand tingles.”
Perhaps fortunately amid misfortune, inside the Tower, you did not receive penalties even if you did not follow your Unique Trait.
They even said that if you reached the 5th floor of the Tower and succeeded in creating a registered nickname, you would not receive penalties outside the Tower either.
…Though they said that the moment you created a registered nickname, a new “mandatory obligation” to keep climbing the Tower would arise. Still, that was better than developing a permanent disability, I suppose.
In any case, because of Unique Traits, the government had no choice but to open the Tower.
And naturally, groups of people who climbed the Tower appeared.
To alleviate their penalties.
For money.
For honor.
Or for attention, people headed to the Tower.
These were the Hunters of the Tower.
Then here was the question.
What penalty would someone with the Unique Trait [You can only taste things inside the Tower] receive if they never climbed the Tower in their entire life?
The type of penalty differed depending on the person and the Unique Trait, so only that person would know.
…Mm.
Only I knew.
My Unique Trait was [You can only taste things inside the Tower].
After information about Unique Traits was revealed, I thought my world had collapsed.
Because I was the type of person who lived to eat, someone who fully enjoyed the pleasure of eating.
As for the penalty of my Unique Trait, well, it was obvious without even looking.
If I didn’t enter the Tower, I’d gradually lose my sense of taste.
But I was fundamentally a coward, so I couldn’t even bring myself to enter the Tower.
They even said that the moment you got a registered nickname, a “compulsion” would arise that forced you to climb the Tower.
Would I keep my distance from the Tower and give up the pleasure of eating?
Or would I enter the Tower and continue to enjoy the pleasure of eating?
It was a hellish two-choice dilemma, an extreme either-or.
Fortunately—thank God—it seemed I was a person beloved by the heavens.
Even three months after the Tower appeared, my sense of taste was perfectly fine.
Sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, umami, fattiness, and so on—every taste remained intact, and there were no penalties besides taste either.
I heard that the more closely a Unique Trait was related to the Tower, the greater the penalty, but I didn’t know why I wasn’t suffering from one.
Then again, thinking about it, my Unique Trait was [You can only taste things inside the Tower], not [You must only eat food inside the Tower].
In any case, I thought that all was well that ended well.
Six months after the Tower appeared.
[Unique Trait Penalty - Unable to Detect Bitterness]
I became unable to taste bitterness anymore.
It was my historic first penalty.
Dishes with smoky, charred flavors, coffee, chocolate, green tea, and so on became tasteless.
Even so, I wasn’t unfortunate enough to enter the Tower just to remove the penalty.
This much was bearable.
Nine months after the Tower appeared.
I became unable to taste fattiness.
Most foods containing even a single drop of oil became tasteless.
I became a little unfortunate.
One year after the Tower appeared.
I became unable to taste sourness.
Kimchi started tasting somehow vague.
Not just kimchi, but other foods were the same.
How many Korean dishes didn’t use vinegar in some way?
Other foods also became bland, as if a screw had come loose somewhere.
Naturally, even if I chewed up an entire lemon, I could only taste the fruit’s unique sweetness, and not a single trace of sourness.
I became even more unfortunate.
One year and three months after the Tower appeared.
I became unable to taste sweetness.
Not only did I say goodbye to desserts forever, but most foods in the world became horribly tasteless.
I became very, quite seriously unfortunate.
One year and six months after the Tower appeared.
I became unable to taste saltiness.
Even if I scooped up a handful of salt and ate it, or drank soy sauce instead of water, I couldn’t taste any saltiness at all.
This was an emergency of the highest order.
Beyond the pleasure of eating disappearing, the act of eating itself had become agony.
I became fucking miserable, to a degree impossible to describe in words.
…Still, it was fine.
Because I could still taste umami.
But my unfortunate future had already been set in stone.
In probably three months, even this umami would be taken from me.
And yet, for some reason, even after three months passed, four months passed, and five months passed, I could still taste umami.
I thought the penalties had ended.
MSG was god, and it was invincible.
Umami was the source of flavor; as long as I had umami alone, I could somehow eat.
Of course, umami was a taste that only truly shone when it met other tastes.
No matter how ignorantly you dumped MSG into food, that absolutely did not make the food delicious. Rather, it could ruin the balance of flavor.
…Still, being able to taste umami at all was something.
My tongue was already fucked, so I wasn’t in a position to be picky.
And two days ago, on the exact day that marked two years since the Tower appeared.
The penalty took even my umami away from me.
With that, I had lost every sense of taste.
If the penalty had ended there, it would have been better.
Even if my mind grew haggard, I could somehow have clung to life.
But the penalty did not stop there.
The moment I lost my sense of taste, my tongue became horribly distorted in some way.
For lunch two days ago, I ate ramyeon.
Since I had lost my sense of taste, it should have been normal for ramyeon to taste like nothing.
The noodles felt like maggots crawling over my tongue.
The broth felt like sticky snot.
And most importantly, the taste was bizarre and horrific, as though all the sins of the world had been mixed together.
After eating one chopstickful of ramyeon, I vomited up everything in my stomach.
Then I starved for two days.
And now, having surrendered to hunger, I had ordered wang jokbal for 40,000 won.
“Guheeeee…”
Thirty minutes had passed since I ate one jokbal wrap.
It was such a small amount that it wouldn’t even register in my stomach, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat this horrible, distorted food again.
I desperately missed the days when I could at least taste umami.
…It was about time I admitted it.
It seemed I had to enter the Tower after all.
Since I had to fill my stomach first, if only because of this severe hunger, I swallowed the trash-tasting jokbal without even chewing it.
It was truly a tear-inducing taste.
Whether it turned out well or not, I resolved to enter the Tower early tomorrow morning.
Clutching my stomach, I tried to sleep.
…
…
…
And the next day.
[Unique Trait Penalty - Sex Change]
I had become a woman.