I am just an NPC ,but I rewrite the story-Chapter 64: [] The 3:00 AM Problem

"And somewhere at the top, a wish was waiting to be broken," I said, mostly to myself, though the words felt heavy enough to drop right through the porch floorboards.

"Ren, you’re doing that thing again where you talk like you’re reading the back of a book," Red said, leaning against the doorframe. She was still holding her mug of ale, but her eyes were fixed on the gold glitter slowly dissolving into the wood where the fox had stood. "Can we talk like normal people for five minutes? It’s three in the morning. My brain is about eighty percent mush, and a bipedal fox just told us we’re invited to a death-trap tower that grew out of the bay like a giant weed."

Kaelen didn’t say a word. He just stood there, staring at the silver envelope in his hand. The moonlight—the real, crescent moonlight that we’d just fought so hard to restore—caught the edges of the paper, making it shimmer with a soft, inviting light. He looked like he wanted to drop it, but his fingers were locked tight.

"Tybalt, go put the kettle on," I said, finally turning away from the glowing spear in the harbor. "We aren’t going to solve this by standing here in our pajamas."

"Pajamas? I’m wearing a tactical apron, Ren! There’s a difference!" Tybalt squeaked, though he was already scurrying toward the kitchen. "And I’m making coffee. Strong coffee. The kind that makes your heart skip a beat. We are way past tea-time."

We shuffled back into the foyer. The house felt different now. The automated broom, which had been a constant source of rhythmic comfort, was perfectly still in the corner, its bristles vibrating slightly as if it could feel the hum coming from the harbor. Even Cerberus was acting strange. The four-headed hound trotted to the center of the rug and sat down, all eight of his eyes watching the silver envelope as Kaelen placed it on the mahogany table.

"Mia, go check on your dad," I said softly, nodding toward the upstairs. Valen was still in that deep, magical sleep, tucked away in one of the guest rooms.

"He’s okay, Ren," Mia said, her voice sounding a bit more like her old self, though the blue shimmer in her eyes hadn’t quite faded. "He’s dreaming about the garden again. He doesn’t know about the tower yet."

"Let’s keep it that way for a bit," Lysandra said. She had pulled a cloak over her tunic, her hand resting habitually on the hilt of the rapier she’d leaned against the wall. "If he wakes up and sees that thing... I don’t think he’s in any state to handle another ’world-ending’ event."

We gathered around the dining table. Tybalt returned with a tray of mismatched mugs, the smell of burnt beans and steam filling the room. It was a grounded, human smell, and for a second, it pushed back the surreal glow of the Tower of Wishes.

"Okay," I said, taking a sip of the bitter coffee. "Kaelen, open the thing."

Kaelen slid a calloused thumb under the silver wax seal. It popped with the sound of a tiny bell. He pulled out a card made of what looked like hammered pearl.

"It’s a pass," Kaelen grunted, sliding it across the table. "For the ’Guild of Eclipse.’ It says: Floor 1 Access Granted. Priority Boarding. Your heart’s desire is only ninety-nine floors away."

"Priority boarding," Red snorted, picking up the pearl card. "What, like we’re taking a luxury cruise? I saw the docks, Ren. There are thousands of people down there. They aren’t waiting for an invitation."

"That’s the problem," I said. "The tower appeared in the middle of a power vacuum. Valen’s Consensus is gone. The Royal Guard is in shambles. The people are scared, and suddenly, a giant golden beacon appears promising them anything they want. If we don’t go in there, someone else will. And if the ’wrong’ person reaches the top..."

"They wish the world back into a mess," Lysandra finished. She looked at her coffee, her expression grim. "My father... Admiral Alistair... he’s still in the harbor. If he tries to send the fleet to secure that tower, and it reacts the way the Sky-Keep did..."

"It won’t be the fleet that’s the problem," Cian said. He had been unusually quiet, his nose buried in a fresh notebook. He looked up, his glasses reflecting the dim candlelight. "I’ve been reading the Architect’s note again. ’Nature abhors a vacuum.’ The fragments weren’t just power sources; they were weights. They held the narrative of this world in place. Now that they’re ’sealed,’ the world is light. It’s flexible. That tower didn’t just grow; it was pulled here by the collective longing of every person who just realized their lives were a lie."

"You make it sound like we’re responsible," Tybalt muttered, clutching his mug.

"We are," I said. "We broke the old ending. Now we have to make sure the new one isn’t worse."

"So, what’s the plan?" Red asked. She was leaning back in her chair, her boots on the edge of the table—the same boots that were still stained with the silver sand of the Void. "We walk down to the docks, fight through a few thousand desperate sailors, hop on a boat, and start climbing? We’ve got no supplies, no info on the mobs inside, and our ’tank’ is currently staring at a piece of pearl like it’s a ghost."

Kaelen looked up at her, his eyes hard. "I’m not staring at the pearl. I’m listening."

"Listening to what?" I asked.

"The tower," Kaelen said. He stood up and walked to the window, looking out toward the bay. "It’s not just humming, Ren. It’s calling. It’s like a thousand voices all whispering at once, but they aren’t saying ’Valen is peace.’ They’re saying... ’I remember.’"

"I remember what?" Lysandra asked.

"Everything," Kaelen said. "The East. My sisters. The Academy. It’s like the tower is digging through my head, looking for the one thing I’d give anything to change."

"That’s the lure," I said, standing up to join him at the window. "The Tower of Wishes doesn’t give you what you need. It gives you what you want. And usually, what people want is the very thing that broke them in the first place."

Down in the city, the lights were moving. Torches, lanterns, and magical flares were all converging on the harbor. I could hear the distant sound of bells—the city alarm—but it wasn’t being rung by the Guard. It was being rung by the people. It felt like a festival, but there was an edge to the noise, a frantic, hungry quality that made the hair on my arms stand up.

"Red, I need you to go down there," I said.

"To the docks? Now?"

"Don’t get close to the tower. Just see who’s in charge. Is the Merchant Council trying to stop them? Is Gondar down there?"

"On it," Red said. She didn’t hesitate. She grabbed her cloak and disappeared through the back door before I could even finish the sentence.

"Cian, Mia, I need you two in the library. If there’s any mention of a ’Tower of Wishes’ in the Architect’s old drafts, find it. I need to know the mechanics. Does it reset every day? Do the floors change?"

"I’ll look," Cian said, nodding. "Mia, come on. Let’s see if your papa left any footnotes."

Tybalt looked at me, his face pale. "And me? Am I going to scout the mobs? Because I really think I should stay here and guard the sourdough. It’s very sensitive to spatial anomalies."

"You’re baking, Ty," I said. "As much as you can. Hardtack, travel bread, portable protein. If we go in there, we don’t know when we’re coming back out. I want three days’ worth of supplies packed by noon."

"Noon? Ren, that’s nine hours! I need more yeast!"

"Figure it out, Ty. You’re the miracle worker."

Tybalt grumbled something about "unreasonable labor conditions" but headed for the kitchen. I could hear him already banging pans around, his anxiety finding its usual outlet.

That left me, Kaelen, and Lysandra in the foyer.

"You okay?" Kaelen asked, looking at me. "You’ve been Level 20 for an hour and you’ve already assigned everyone a job. You’re starting to act like a real Guildmaster."

"It’s the only thing keeping me from screaming, Kaelen," I admitted. I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window. "I thought we were done. I thought we could just... be Eclipse. The bakery. Maybe take some S-Rank quests for Gondar. I didn’t think the world would just grow a new problem overnight."

"The world doesn’t care about our vacation plans, Ren," Lysandra said, walking over to us. She looked tired—bone-deep tired—but there was a new steadiness in her eyes. The "White Saint" wasn’t a role she was playing anymore; it was who she was. "If that tower is a threat to the city, we deal with it. That’s the contract we signed."

"I know," I said.

We stood there for a long time, watching the gold glow in the bay. The sun began to rise, but it was a pale, sickly thing compared to the brilliance of the tower. Around 8:00 AM, Red returned.

She didn’t come through the door; she dropped from the roof onto the porch, looking windswept and dusty. She burst into the foyer, grabbing a mug of Tybalt’s coffee before she even spoke.

"It’s a madhouse," she panted. "The Merchant Council tried to set up a blockade, but the sailors just sailed right through it. Half the City Guard has deserted their posts to try and get a spot in the ’queue.’ And Gondar? He’s down there with the Golden Lions. He’s charging people five gold just to get a boat to the base."

"Of course he is," I muttered.

"But here’s the weird part," Red said, her eyes wide. "People are coming back."

"Back from the tower?" Lysandra asked. "Already?"

"Not from the top," Red said. "From the first few floors. I saw a guy come off a skiff. He looked like he’d won the lottery. He was holding a bag of gold and screaming that he’d ’wished’ for his debt to be gone. He walked ten feet onto the pier, and then he just... collapsed."

"Collapsed? Like, dead?" Tybalt asked, peeking out from the kitchen.

"No," Red said, her voice dropping. "Like he was empty. He was still breathing, but his eyes were blank. He didn’t know his name. He didn’t know where he was. It’s like the tower gave him the gold, but it took the memory of why he wanted it."

"A fair trade," a voice rasped from the stairs.

We all turned.

Valen was standing on the landing. He looked terrible—his grey robe was stained, his silver hair a tangled mess—but his eyes were sharp. He was leaning heavily on the banister, watching us.

"Papa!" Mia ran out of the library and up the stairs, hugging his waist.

Valen patted her head, but his gaze stayed on me. "The Tower of Wishes doesn’t create anything, Ren. It’s a recycler. It takes the ’weight’ of your soul—your memories, your identity, your past—and converts it into the form of your desire. The guy Red saw? He got his gold. But he paid with his self."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Because I saw it in the first draft," Valen said, slowly making his way down the stairs. He sat on the bottom step, looking exhausted. "The Architect built the tower as a testing ground. A way to see if humans could handle the power of the fragments without a script. It didn’t go well."

"And now it’s back," I said.

"Because you mended the world," Valen said. "You closed the cracks, but you left the energy with nowhere to go. The tower is the pressure valve. It’s the world trying to find a new ending."

"We have an invitation," Kaelen said, showing the pearl card.

Valen looked at the card and let out a dry, hacking laugh. "Of course you do. You’re the ’leads.’ The tower wants the heaviest souls it can find. And yours? Between the Dark Wolf, the Saint, and the man who remembers a world that shouldn’t exist? You’re a feast."

"We aren’t going in there to make wishes, Valen," I said, stepping forward. "We’re going in to shut it down."

"You can’t shut it down from the outside," Valen said. "You have to reach the hundredth floor. The Throne of Longing. Only then can you tell the tower to stop."

"Then that’s what we’ll do," I said.

I looked at the team. The coffee was cold, the morning was bright, and the mission was clear.

"Tybalt, how’s the bread?"

"Two more hours, Ren! The ’Titan’ is working overtime!"

"Cian, Mia, get anything you can on the first ten floors. Red, get some sleep. Kaelen, Lysandra... sharpen everything. We move at sunset."

The day was a blur of frantic preparation. Tybalt produced mountain after mountain of ’Wayfarer’s Loaves’—dense, honey-soaked bread that would stay fresh for weeks. Cian and Mia found a few notes on the ’Guardian of the Threshold,’ a level-scaling boss that guarded the entrance.

As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, we gathered our gear. I felt the weight of the four fragments in my bag. They were quiet now, as if they were waiting for the tower to acknowledge them.

We walked down the hill toward the harbor.

The city was a mess. Fires were burning in the Lower Quarter, and the sound of shouting was constant. We reached the docks, where Gondar was currently arguing with a group of angry fishmongers.

He saw us and stopped mid-sentence.

"Well, if it isn’t the bakery brigade," Gondar said, wiping sweat from his brow. He looked at our gear, then at the four-headed dog walking behind us. "Going for the big prize, are you?"

"We’re going to fix the bay, Gondar," I said. "You got a boat for us?"

Gondar looked at the golden tower, then back at me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy iron coin. "This is for the ’Morning Mist.’ It’s the fastest skiff I’ve got. Take it. No charge."

I blinked. "No charge? Who are you and what have you done with the real Gondar?"

Gondar grunted, looking away. "That guy Red mentioned... the one who came back empty? He was one of mine. A good kid. He just wanted to wish his mom’s sickness away. Now he doesn’t even know she exists."

He looked me in the eye. "Break that damn thing, Ren."

"I’ll do my best," I said.

We boarded the Morning Mist. Tybalt was clutching a crate of muffins, looking like he was about to vomit. Kaelen took the rudder, and Lysandra stood at the prow, her shield reflecting the golden light of the tower.

As we sailed out into the bay, the water began to shimmer. The closer we got, the quieter the city became, until the only sound was the lapping of the waves against the hull.

The tower was immense. Up close, the white marble wasn’t stone; it was a living, pulsing material that felt like warm skin. The entrance was a wide archway of liquid gold that sat just above the waterline.

We pulled the skiff alongside the landing.

"Everyone ready?" I asked.

"No," Tybalt said.

"Let’s go," Kaelen said.

We stepped off the boat and onto the golden platform.

The moment my boot touched the surface, the "System" flared in my mind.

[Location: The Tower of Wishes - Entrance.]

[Objective: Reach Floor 100.]

[Floor 1: The Hall of Yesterday.]

I looked back at the harbor. Silver-Port looked small, a toy city on a distant shore.

"Ren," Mia whispered, grabbing my sleeve. "The tower... it’s saying something."

"What’s it saying?"

"It’s saying... ’Welcome home, Architect.’"

I froze. I looked at the liquid gold archway.

"I’m not the Architect," I whispered.

"The tower doesn’t know that," Valen’s voice echoed in my head—or maybe it was the tower itself.

We stepped through the gold.

The transition was painless. One second we were in the salt air of the bay, and the next, we were standing in a room that looked exactly like the kitchen of the bakery at 42 Whispering Lane.

The smell of fresh brioche was overwhelming. The sun was streaming through the windows. The cat, Bandit, was sleeping on the counter.

"Wait," Tybalt said, dropping his crate. "Did we... did we fail? Are we back home?"

"Look at the window, Ty," I said.

Tybalt walked to the window and pulled back the curtain.

Outside, there was no Silver-Port. There were no streets, no neighbors, no ocean.

There was only a vast, endless sea of golden clouds.

"Welcome to Floor 1," I said, drawing my rusty knife. "Don’t touch the bread. It’s not real."

"But it smells so good," Red whispered, reaching for a croissant.

"Red, don’t!"

The croissant turned into a swarm of black, needle-toothed moths the moment her finger touched it.

"Okay! Not real! I get it!" Red yelled, jumping back.

The first floor had begun. And it was hungry.

[Arc 4: The Tower of Wishes.]

[Floor 1: 1% Complete.]

[Note: Your desires are being calculated...]

"Stay together!" I shouted as the walls of the bakery began to melt into shadows.

The grind was no longer about maps or kingdoms. It was about surviving our own heads.

"Hey, Ren," Kaelen said, his sword cutting through a cloud of moths.

"Yeah?"

"I think I’m going to hate this place more than the volcano."

"Me too, Kaelen. Me too."

We pushed forward into the melting house.