“But why would people who aren’t climbers agree to stay in the tower-zone restricted to one place?”

Sakura sighed. “There are few troublemaker politicians who try to stir up that line of thinking. There are methods to obtain a visa to leave, though it’s not done that often.”

Max remembered hearing rumors about a man who had worked at his high school supposedly being a former tower-zone citizen. Kids would get him to try and divulge secrets of the mysterious other city, but he wouldn’t budge. It was illegal for tower-zone immigrants to speak about the tower-zone in the outer-rim. It was part of the contract in obtaining their visa. To do so was punishable by lethal injection.

“But why? If you weren’t able to climb, wouldn’t you want to leave the tower-zone? Leave Zestiris altogether,” said Max, beginning to daydream. “Go surfing in California. Eat deep-dish pizza in Chicago.”

Sakura looked at Max, funnily. “Surfing? Deep-dish pizza?”

“What—you don’t know about—”

Max stopped.

Of course, she didn’t. Just as certain information wasn’t talked about in the outer-rim, so too, were things about the rest of world kept from those in the tower-zone.

Max wondered who controlled and managed all the knowledge flowing in and out of Zestiris, but figured it was a question to save for another day.

“There’s a lot of good reasons to live in the tower-zone if you’re not a climber,” said Sakura. “Less than 5% of Zestiris’ population of five million become climbers. For the rest of the population, though, there are still climber-adjacent professions that attract those who can’t unlock a profile or trait. Scholars, archaeologists, and manatechnologists just to name a few. Then there’s the access to healing. Tell me, Max. What would’ve happened to your legs in an outer-rim hospital after the fight with the minotaur?”

Max let out a long sigh. “Nothing good. Certainly it wouldn’t have ended with me walking as if I was never once in a wheelchair.”

“Exactly,” said Sakura. “That’s a pretty attractive premium for a lot of people. The life expectancy in the tower-zone is surprisingly quite high for a place that deals with monster attack waves once a month.”

They eventually stopped in front of a tall glass building.

The place looked like an ordinary office building with people with briefcases walking in and out of the spinning glass doors.

“Welcome to the climber’s guild!” said Sakura, excitedly.

Max looked around cautiously. A few groups of people loitered outside, smoking cigarettes. They all had metal badges pinned to their shirts and jackets. The pins were mostly copper with the odd silver glimmering here and there.

Max had already figured out that those colors and the letters engraved on them signified their rank. It was interesting that so far he hadn’t seen anyone with the ruby-colored badge that Sakura wore.