I am just an NPC ,but I rewrite the story-Chapter 76: [75] The Grass Beneath the Glass

"The one from the farm. The three-legged one. He’s waiting for you at the gate."

Jace’s words were still ringing in my ears when the golden light of the portal swallowed us whole. This time, the transition didn’t feel like being pulled through a straw or falling through a vacuum. It felt like waking up from a long, heavy nap in the back of a wagon. There was a sudden rush of warmth, the kind of heat that doesn’t come from a heater or a magic spell, but from a sun that actually has some weight behind it.

I hit the ground with a soft thud, my boots sinking into something that wasn’t glass, metal, or salt.

It was dirt. Real, honest-to-god, smells-like-manure-and-rain dirt.

"Oh, thank the stars," Tybalt groaned, face-planting into a patch of clover. He didn’t even try to get up; he just spread his arms wide and took a deep breath. "It’s grass. Actual, living, green grass. If I never see a transparent office building again, it’ll be too soon. Ren, I’m staying here. Just leave me. I’ll start a wheat field. I’ll be happy."

"Get up, Ty. We don’t know what kind of grass this is yet," Red said, though she sounded a lot less sharp than usual. She was standing a few feet away, squinting at the horizon. She had her daggers out, but they were lowered. "Ren, look at the house."

I pushed myself up, brushing dry soil off my trousers. My Level 25 stats made the movement feel effortless, like my body was finally catching up to the speed of my thoughts. I looked toward where Red was pointing, and my heart did a slow, painful somersault.

It was the farm.

Not the "perfect" version Valen had shown me in the Chronos-Well. This was the real one. The fence was sagging in the middle. The roof of the barn had that one patch of mismatched shingles I’d helped nail down three years ago. The air smelled of woodsmoke and wild rosemary.

"It’s... it’s mine," I whispered.

"It looks peaceful," Lysandra said, stepping up beside me. She looked at the rolling hills and the small farmhouse with a look of genuine longing. "Is this where you lived? Before the bakery?"

"Before everything," I said.

We were standing in what the System called ’The Garden of Lost Hopes.’ But it wasn’t a garden of flowers. It was a valley of memories. Looking around, I could see other structures in the distance—buildings that clearly didn’t belong in my world. A neon-lit noodle shop sat on a hill to the left, likely from Theo’s world. A jagged bone-tower loomed over a forest to the right.

"Ren," Kaelen said, his voice unusually soft.

I followed his gaze to the front gate of the farmhouse.

Sitting there, right next to the mailbox I’d fixed with a piece of wire, was a dog. He was a scruffy, black-and-brown mix with one floppy ear and a coat that looked like it had never seen a brush. He was sitting patiently, his tongue lolling out, watching us with bright, intelligent eyes.

And he only had three legs.

Whine.

Cerberus—the four-headed, smoke-legged version of the dog—let out a sound that I’d never heard from him. It was a high-pitched, confused whimper. All four of his heads tilted in perfect unison, staring at the small, scruffy dog by the gate.

"Ren... is that...?" Mia trailed off, her hand tightening on my sleeve.

The three-legged dog stood up. He didn’t roar. He didn’t glow. He just let out a sharp, happy bark and started limping toward us, his tail wagging so hard his entire back end was wiggling.

Cerberus stayed rooted to the spot. The two versions of the same creature stared at each other. The giant, mythical guardian of the void and the small, injured farm dog.

The three-legged dog reached us first. He ignored Cerberus and ran straight to me, jumping up and resting his paws on my knees. He licked my hand, his tongue warm and wet.

"Hey, boy," I whispered, kneeling in the dirt. I buried my face in his scruffy neck. He smelled like dust and home. "You’re really here."

"I don’t understand," Theo said, walking over and peering at the dog through his glasses. He looked back at his system screen. "My data says that entity shouldn’t exist. He’s a ’Null-Variable.’ He has no stats. No level. He’s just... an animal."

"He’s the reason I’m here, Theo," I said, standing up with the dog in my arms. "In the first timeline... before the reset... he died protecting me. I wished for him to come back."

"And the Tower gave him to you," Red said, looking at the dog with a soft expression. She then looked at the giant Cerberus. "So what does that make the big guy?"

"The version of him that survived," Mia said. She walked over and touched Cerberus’s middle-right head. "He’s the dog’s strength. The little one is his heart."

As if sensing her words, Cerberus sat down. The smoke around his missing leg dimmed, and he leaned one of his heads down to sniff the smaller dog. The little dog licked Cerberus’s nose.

It was a quiet moment. A human moment. After the madness of the Glass City and the Boardroom, it felt like the first time we could actually breathe.

"Okay, so we have two dogs and a farm," Red said, breaking the silence. "But we still have a mission. Ren, look at the screen."

I tapped the air.

[Floor 12: The Garden of Lost Hopes.]

[Mission: Protect the Core of Longing.]

[Status: Quiet Period (05:59:00 remaining).] 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Six hours of peace," I noted. "The Tower is letting us rest."

"Good, because I’m starving," Tybalt said, already heading toward the farmhouse. "Ren, if there’s a kitchen in there, I’m making a feast. I saw some wild onions by the fence. And I think those are potato plants."

"Go for it, Ty," I laughed.

We followed him inside. The house was exactly as I remembered it. The wooden table with the deep scratch from a dropped iron. The smell of cedar in the hallway. It was a localized instance of my soul’s deepest desire for comfort.

We spent the first few hours doing nothing. Lysandra and Kaelen sat on the porch, watching the perimeter but actually talking—really talking—about their time at the Academy. Red was sprawled on the rug in the living room, tossing a ball for the three-legged dog while Cerberus watched with a look of dignified confusion. Cian and Theo were in the barn, which had apparently manifested a high-tech workbench for Theo to work on.

I sat at the kitchen table, watching Tybalt work. He was humming a tune I recognized from Silver-Port, his hands covered in flour.

"You okay, Ren?" Tybalt asked, not looking up from his dough. "You’ve been staring at that wall for twenty minutes."

"Just thinking about the ’Audit,’ Ty. Henderson said I was just an expense. A clerk playing at being a hero."

"Well, Henderson was a prick," Tybalt said matter-of-factly, slamming the dough onto the counter. "And he’s currently a pile of binary dust. You got us here, Ren. You got Mia back. You found Jace. If that’s being a ’clerk,’ then I hope more clerks start leading guilds."

"Thanks, Ty."

"Don’t thank me. Just make sure you eat your vegetables. You’re Rank 1 now. You need the vitamins."

Around hour five of the "Quiet Period," the hub’s floor began to vibrate. It wasn’t the rhythmic ticking of the Clockwork City; it was a deep, tectonic rumble.

A massive holographic notification appeared in the center of the kitchen.

[Attention all Participants!]

[Special Event Initialized: The Peak of Sovereignty.]

[Description: A massive mountain has appeared at the center of the Floor 12-20 Cluster. This is Garchvabd, the Mountain of Frozen Wills.]

[The Challenge: Compete against all remaining participants to reach the summit. The environment is lethal. Non-party aggression is fully enabled.]

[The Reward: The first participant to touch the ’Crown of the Mountain’ gets to add ONE NEW RULE to the Tower of Wishes.]

I stood up so fast my chair scraped harshly against the wood. "A new rule?"

"Ren!" Red shouted from the living room. "You seeing this?!"

The rest of the team piled into the kitchen. Even Theo and Cian came running from the barn, Theo holding a small, glowing device.

"A new rule," Theo whispered, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "Ren, do you know what that means? You could change the level cap. You could turn off the separation protocol. You could... you could make it so everyone gets a wish."

"Or," Cian said, his face pale, "someone like Zero—or the people from Sector-4—could make a rule that only their world survives. They could change the win-condition of the entire Tower."

"The Mountain of Garchvabd," Kaelen said, his hand on his hilt. "I can see it from the window. It wasn’t there ten minutes ago."

I walked to the window.

Beyond the rolling hills of my farm, the sky had turned a dark, frigid blue. Rising out of the earth like a jagged, obsidian tooth was a mountain so tall it pierced the clouds. It was covered in ice that glowed with a sickly violet light, and I could see avalanches of what looked like white fire cascading down its slopes.

"It looks... dangerous," Tybalt whimpered.

"It’s an S-Rank environmental hazard," Theo said, checking his device. "The temperature at the base is already minus forty. At the top? It’s probably absolute zero. And the gravity... look at the way the clouds are swirling around the peak. It’s a literal vortex."

[Event Start in: 00:30:00]

[Participants must gather at the base of Garchvabd to register.]

"We have to go," I said, grabbing my satchel. "If someone else gets that rule, it’s game over for us."

"But Ren, the ’Audit’ drained us," Lysandra pointed out. "We haven’t fully recovered our mana. And you’re still Rank 1—you’re the biggest target on that mountain."

"I’m not going alone," I said. "We’re Rank 1 together. Theo, can you do anything with that workbench?"

Theo held up the device. "I built a portable signal-jammer. It’s Level 1, so it won’t stop a spear, but it might mess with their sensors for a few seconds. And I managed to salvaged some of my suit’s nanites from the penguin-transformation residue. I can give one person a temporary armor boost."

"Give it to Kaelen," I said. "He’s our vanguard."

We packed the rest of Tybalt’s food and headed out. I looked back at the farmhouse one last time. The three-legged dog was sitting on the porch, watching us. He didn’t try to follow this time. He just barked once, a sharp, encouraging sound.

"Stay here, boy," I whispered. "I’ll be back."

Cerberus let out a low rumble, his four heads fanning out as he took his position as the "Big Brother" guardian of the farm.

The walk to the base of Garchvabd took the remaining twenty minutes of the countdown. As we approached, we saw them.

Participants. Dozens of them.

They were coming from every direction. I saw Garra and his wolf-men. I saw a group of mages in floating robes from a "Pure Magic" world. I saw a squad of soldiers in power-armor—Sector-1 Enforcers who had survived the butterfly-incident and were looking for revenge.

And then, I saw Jace. She was standing near a pile of ice-covered rocks, checking her vibro-blade. She saw me and waved.

"Told you it was going to get vertical!" she shouted over the rising wind.

"You’re climbing too?" I asked, joining her.

"Everyone is climbing, Ren. A rule-change? That’s the ultimate loot. My world’s Central Committee wants me to make a rule that ’Technology overrides Magic’ across all floors. If I don’t, they’ll probably deactivate my heart."

"That’s a bit extreme," Red muttered.

"Welcome to my world," Jace sighed. She looked at the mountain. "Watch out for the ’Gale-Wraiths.’ They live in the ice. They don’t like visitors."

[Event Start!]

[Objective: Reach the Summit.]

A horn sounded—a deep, resonant note that seemed to come from the mountain itself.

As one, the hundred participants charged.

It was a mad scramble. We weren’t just fighting the mountain; we were fighting each other.

"Eclipse! Form up!" I yelled.

We hit the first slope. The ground was slick, black obsidian covered in a layer of "Dry Ice" that burned if it touched skin.

"I hate this! I hate cold! I hate heights!" Tybalt shrieked, but he was moving. He had tied his boots with mana-twine from Cian’s kit for better grip.

A group of participants from the "Dark Fantasy" world—Sector-4—tried to cut us off. They were the ones in bone-armor, led by a man wielding a staff made of a human spine.

"The Rank 1 heads!" the leader roared. "Take them!"

"No," Kaelen said.

He didn’t draw his sword. He just stepped forward and shoulder-checked the leader. With the Abyssal Plating and Theo’s nanite-boost, Kaelen was like a living tank. The bone-armored man flew backward, sliding a hundred feet down the icy slope.

"Don’t stop!" I shouted. "Keep climbing!"

The climb was brutal. Every few hundred feet, the gravity would shift, trying to pull us off the cliffside. Mia was our savior here, using her ’Pull’ and ’Gravity’ skills to anchor us to the rock whenever a gust of wind threatened to blow us away.

Halfway up, the air became so cold that my breath was freezing into crystals before it even left my mouth.

"Ren... look up," Lysandra panted, her shield held over her head.

Coming down from the peaks were the Gale-Wraiths. They were beautiful and terrifying—spirits of wind and ice that looked like tattered white veils. They moved with the speed of a blizzard, their claws made of frozen air.

[Target: Gale-Wraiths (Level 30)]

"They’re too fast!" Red yelled, her daggers scraping uselessly against the spirits. "It’s like stabbing a cloud!"

"Theo! The jammer!"

"On it!" Theo smashed the device onto the ice.

A pulse of white noise erupted. The Gale-Wraiths shrieked, their forms flickering. For a second, they became solid.

"Now! Hit them!"

We unleashed everything. Kaelen’s Void-Cleave, Lysandra’s Holy Light, Cian’s Gravity-Well. The spirits shattered into ice-dust.

But we weren’t the only ones moving.

Higher up, I could see a silver blur.

Zero.

He wasn’t Zero anymore—he was just a kid in a t-shirt—but he was moving with an efficiency that was inhuman. He was using a pair of glowing climbing picks he must have bought from the shop, and he was already three hundred feet above us.

"He’s going to win," Theo (our Theo) whispered, watching his counterpart. "He’s playing the solo game again. He doesn’t care about the wraiths; he’s just using them as platforms."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," I said.

I looked at my inventory. The ’Space’ fragment was still dim, but it was starting to hum.

"Ren, what are you doing?" Lysandra asked.

"I’m going to skip a few pages," I said.

I looked at the ’Edge of Reality’ knife. I didn’t use it to fight. I drove it into the ice.

"Mia! Give me a ’Push’! Upward!"

"Ren, you’ll freeze!"

"Just do it!"

Mia placed her hands on my back. "GO!"

The world blurred. I wasn’t running; I was being launched. I shot up the side of the mountain, the silver line on my knife acting as a rudder against the energy-fields of Garchvabd. I passed groups of stunned participants. I passed the Gale-Wraiths.

I was closing the gap on the other Zero.

He looked back, his eyes widening behind his glasses. He tried to speed up, but he was hitting a wall of absolute-zero wind.

"Too slow!" I yelled, though he couldn’t hear me.

I reached the summit ridge. It was a flat plateau of glowing violet ice. In the center sat a simple, stone pedestal with a crown made of starlight.

Zero was ten feet away. I was twenty.

He lunged for the crown.

I threw the obsidian shard—the one from Korg’s axe.

It didn’t hit him. It hit the ice right in front of his hand.

The shard exploded, creating a small rift of dark energy. Zero flinched, pulling back his hand for a split second.

That was all I needed.

I dived. I slid across the violet ice, my hand outstretched.

My fingers touched the cold, stinging light of the starlight crown.

[Notice: Participant Ren has reached the Summit of Garchvabd!]

[Event Complete.]

The mountain went silent. The wind stopped. The Gale-Wraiths vanished.

I lay there, gasping for air, my heart feeling like it was going to burst. Zero—the other one—stood over me, looking down with a face full of pure, silent frustration. He didn’t attack. He couldn’t. The event was over.

[Reward: The Sovereign’s Right.]

[You may now add one New Rule to the Tower of Wishes.]

"Ren!" My team was scrambled over the ridge, exhausted and battered, but cheering.

"You did it!" Tybalt screamed, falling onto the ice. "You actually did it!"

I sat up, the starlight crown glowing in my hands. It felt like holding a piece of the sun.

"What’s the rule, Ren?" Red asked, walking over and leaning on her knees. "Make it good. Make it so we get free muffins forever."

"Or make it so the Covenant can’t enter," Lysandra suggested.

I looked at Zero. I looked at the other participants who were now reaching the summit—Jace, Garra, even some of the bone-reapers. They all looked at me, waiting to see how I would break the game.

I thought about the Tower. About the separation. About the "solo" queue that had almost broken us.

I looked at the crown and spoke.

"I add a new rule," I said, my voice carrying across the entire floor.

"Rule 101: The Bond of the Guild. From this floor onward, participants in a registered Guild may share their Dimension Hubs and participate in all trials as a single unit. Separation is no longer mandatory."

The crown in my hand vanished into a shower of gold sparks.

[System Notification: New Rule Added.]

[Processing...]

[Confirmed. Rule 101 is now active.]

The other Zero stared at me. "Why? You could have made yourself invincible. You could have kicked us all out."

"Because," I said, standing up and looking at my team. "I’m tired of being alone. And I think the Tower needs more bakers."

The golden portals appeared behind every participant.

"We’re going home," I said to the team. "Together."

We stepped through the portal.

But as we landed in our shared hub, I noticed something on the wall. A new screen.

It wasn’t a mission log. It was a timer.

[Time until the Arrival of the ’High Architect’: 12:00:00]

"Ren," Theo said, pointing to the screen. "Who’s coming?"

I looked at the timer.

"The guy who wants his pen back," I whispered.

The Fourth Arc was only just beginning. And now, we were a real army.

"Tybalt," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Make some coffee. It’s going to be a long night."