Chapter 14 — I Figured if It Had Already Happened Anyway, I Might As Well Enjoy It
The tower was in chaos.
To be precise, the artificial spirits that controlled the tower were in a panic at the state of affairs unfolding before them.
First was the breaking of the Soul Paths. The tower collected the energies known as “mana” and “spirit,” and used them to maintain the barrier. Those energies ran through a complicated network of pathways that had been built into the tower. But in defiance of all reason, a hub within that network of pathways had been destroyed.
Besides the fact that they were in a location resilient enough to effectively be called indestructible, the pathways were designed to repair themselves if they were damaged in any way. And yet, without warning, the hub had completely failed.
Of course, that disaster alone wasn’t enough to allow for the Dark God’s resurrection. The barrier that sealed him away was the final fortress standing in defense of humanity, so naturally there were numerous safeguards in place. Although the situation was certainly unprecedented, backup pathways existed to allow the tower to continue functioning unhindered.
But it was impossible to ignore that something had happened. The barrier around the tower had failed. The outage had only lasted for a moment, but they couldn’t be sure that no one had noticed it. There were numerous cults and surviving spawn of the Dark God who were always watching carefully for any opening that would allow them to resurrect their master. The chance that they had noticed the barrier’s brief failure was high. But the area beyond the barrier was outside of the tower’s jurisdiction. The tower’s only concern was to maintain the seal, so as long as that remained in place, no thought was given to anything else.
The tower had resumed its normal operations quickly, but not long after, another issue arose: one of the door mechanisms had failed.
Although this new problem wasn’t connected to the barrier itself, and the mechanism ran strictly on surplus energy that the tower held, it wasn’t something that should have broken.
Then, one after another, more doors, traps, and various other mechanisms began to fail. Searching for the source of the anomaly, the tower located its quarry immediately: a boy and a girl. Wherever the pair went, parts of the tower failed. Recognizing that those two had some sort of connection to the damage occurring wasn’t much of a leap.
So the tower decided to kill them. And once it made that decision, a number of the artificial spirits controlling the building suddenly vanished. Thus, chaos.
The tower quickly lost track of what it was trying to do. It was forced to run a diagnostic scan on itself, during which it located these very same abnormalities all over again. Noting that the source of those problems was a pair of humans, it again attempted to remove them, prompting yet another spiral into chaos.
Piece by piece, the tower was dying.
? ?
“Congratulations, Number 97. You have reached one hundred points,” the magic doll announced to Rick.
As he’d expected, defeating the participants who had chosen to challenge him had allowed him to claim their points. Rick had begun with no intention of taking anyone else’s life, but no matter what he did, enemies had come for him. While defending himself, his score had continued to grow.
He was now in a safe zone on the fifth floor. The first floor was only a short distance away, but he couldn’t let his guard down. After all, if someone were to defeat Rick at this point, it would be enough for them to pass the trial. Of course, you couldn’t tell how many points someone had just by looking at them, but it wasn’t hard to guess that an applicant who had reached the lowest levels of the tower would have amassed plenty of points by then. The fighting would only get more intense on the last few floors.
Rick gathered his wits and continued his descent. The beginning of the fourth floor was already a battle zone. Dodging an attack that came at him from behind the door, he instinctively cut down the source. These kinds of ambushes had been plentiful on his journey towards the bottom. There was no way that such an attack would succeed against him at this stage.
Quickly finishing off his attacker, he moved on. Before him was a room which, according to his map, was not a section that was necessary to pass through. But he could hear the sounds of combat coming from within. Curious, he approached the door, where he heard some familiar voices from the other side.
“I’m sick of this! Please, just let me go!”
“Dammit! What are you doing? Just kill me already!”
“Just do it! Someone like him should be easy for you!”
Inside the room was a strange scene. Two men were fighting within a cage of fire. Some distance away, a woman was watching the match. The fire spanned several meters on each side, but had no gaps to allow anyone through.
Rick recognized two of the people in the room. The woman was Frederica and one of the men fighting at the center was Lynel.
“Who are you?” Frederica asked as she noticed Rick enter the room.
“My name is Rick. Do you not remember me standing with Lynel on the rooftop?”
“Oh, right, you were there, weren’t you? You’re pretty lucky. I just made it to a hundred points a little while ago,” she said, as if to suggest that she would have killed him on the spot otherwise.
“I am also satisfied with my total points, so I have no intention of fighting you. But what are you doing here?”
“Ah, this guy was being such a pushover; he was so scared to do anything on his own. He made it all the way here without getting any points, so I’m helping him out.”
“You’re...helping him?”
“Something wrong with that?”
“No, not at all.”
Lynel was wearing armor and holding a sword, but they looked all wrong on him. His opponent also wore armor, but he looked much more like a proper Knight. The fight itself was difficult to watch. The area inside the cage was incredibly hot, if the combatants being drenched in sweat was any indication. Lynel was uninjured but his opponent seemed to be on his last legs.
The long, drawn out fight was likely a result of the difference in their equipment and skill levels. Lynel’s armor was strong enough to deflect his opponent’s attacks, while his weapon cut through the other man’s armor with ease. In contrast, his opponent was clearly more skilled. He was more than able to dodge Lynel’s weak attacks and riposte with precision.
In the end, Lynel would eventually win. But perhaps because of his personality, he couldn’t seem to finish his opponent off.
“Ugh, this is so annoying to watch! You have one minute! If you don’t finish by then, I’ll roast you both!”
The flaming cage around them flared up, making the room even hotter. That seemed to be the last straw for Lynel’s opponent, who began to waver on his feet, unable to take the higher temperature. A haphazard swing from Lynel finally landed, cutting cleanly through the man’s torso and killing him instantly.
“Man, what a waste of time!” snapped Frederica.
The fiery cage vanished and the room immediately began to cool. Lynel staggered over to Rick, collapsing in front of him. “Ah, nice to see you again,” he gasped.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes...after rolling the gacha ten times, I actually managed to get some decent gear! That rarity guarantee is an absolute life saver!” He seemed strangely energetic.
“This guy looked pretty weak. I bet he only had around ten points. Hurry up and check!” Frederica pushed her “friend” forward.
“Shall I accompany you, Lynel?”
“Oh, please! Please do!”
Rick was wary of the way Frederica was talking. Certainly, she appeared to be helping him gather points. But she was dangerous. If left alone with Lynel, he wouldn’t be surprised if she killed him eventually.
With that in mind, Rick joined them for the final stretch.
? ?
“Uhh, maybe I’m just being overly self-conscious, but doesn’t it seem like they’re all targeting me?” Tomochika asked, looking down at the recently deceased man wearing nothing but black cloth and a skull mask.
He had attacked them with some sort of vulgar declaration, and that had been the last of him. Mokomoko had warned them at the start to be especially careful of this guy, but in the end, they hadn’t had time to see any of his abilities.
“You’re kind of right. They seem to be fond of telling me to ‘leave the girl behind.’”
They had reached the third floor of the tower. In what they figured was a corridor heading to the second floor, they found numerous bodies scattered around them. It had become a rather common sight.
“Right? But why are guys like this trying to become ‘holy’ Knights in the first place?!”
You could say the same about most warriors. It’s hard to say that the Swordmaster himself is a man of virtue. They all seem like fairly vulgar people to me.
As they made their way through the tower, the amount of space on each floor had shrunk, bringing them into contact with more of the other participants. As such, the two of them were being ambushed with increasing frequency. Of course, none of their attackers had any idea how strong other participants might be, so they had no way of knowing what would actually happen if they chose to fight. It would have been smarter for them to be more cautious, but for some reason, almost everyone they had come across had been extremely eager to do battle.
So Yogiri had killed every single one of them.
If they were willing to talk, he let them, and if he could avoid fighting them, he did. But in the end, they still ended up with heaps of bodies surrounding them at every turn. Each of those people had underestimated them, attacking without stopping to listen.
“I guess these guys put too much trust in their Stats.”
Tomochika shrugged. “To be fair, we don’t look all that strong, do we?”
“But if they had any brains, they’d at least be curious about how we got this far in spite of seeming so weak. They must have all been idiots.”
How blunt. But I suppose it’s true that their lack of imagination killed them.
Tomochika finally gave in and asked the question that had been on her mind for a while. “I know it’s kind of weird for me to ask this, but am I really that attractive? They all seem to become obsessed with me and attack us right away.”
Ever since they had come to this world, everyone they met seemed to be targeting her for one reason or another.
“I mean that in, like, an objective sense. With what’s going on here. I’ve never considered myself all that impressive, but maybe my acting that way is part of what’s causing problems. Or maybe it’s just that in a weird situation like this, where people are told to kill each other, it brings out the worst in them.”
Tomochika recalled stories from back home of animals being pushed to the brink, which awakened their protective instincts. Perhaps it wasn’t that she was particularly attractive, but rather an instinctive response on the parts of others.
“Yeah, as far as being attractive, I’d say you’re pretty cute. You’ve got a great figure, so I can understand why they’d all be after you.”
Tomochika jerked to a stop at the shameless, point-blank compliment. Yogiri stared at her, confused by her reaction.
“Uh, it’s not like I’m going to attack you or anything. Asaka told me I’m not ever allowed to force people.”
“Does that mean you would attack me if I was okay with it?”
“Why would someone even need to attack you if you were okay with it? I mean, obviously there would be no reason for someone to hesitate either.”
“I-I mean...I guess...but wait! When we were in Hanabusa and you pushed me over to protect me from the Sage, I seem to remember you being more than happy to plant your face in my chest!”
“That was just an accident. But since it happened, at the time, I figured I might as well enjoy it.”
“You seemed awfully proactive about it to me!”
This is the first time I’ve seen someone so honest about being a lucky pervert, Mokomoko commented, crossing her arms as she floated in the air beside them, seeming strangely amused by it all. I’m also impressed that one of my descendants is so capable of handling these romcom-esque developments while surrounded by dead bodies. You are certainly not lacking in boldness.
“A-Anyway, enough chit-chat, let’s go!” Tomochika said quickly, stepping around the cadavers as she walked purposefully down the hallway.
Yogiri immediately followed, coming up alongside her. The door that they eventually reached seemed like a sign that they were on the right path. Beyond was yet another staircase, which they descended without hesitation.
As they opened the door that led to the second floor, they were greeted by a white hallway, marking the first safe zone they had seen in a while. On the right side of the corridor was a reception desk, behind which sat another of the magic dolls they had been encountering throughout the tower.
“Congratulations on reaching the second floor. Would you like to take a rest?”
“Aren’t we pretty much finished now?” Tomochika asked. “And don’t we need to reach the bottom by three o’clock?” Checking her watch, she saw that it was now two o’clock. It seemed odd to be concerned about passing the test at this point, but she figured it was better to finish within the time limit if they could.
“That’s right. There aren’t many people who would stop to rest on the second floor. But beyond this zone is the final part of the trial. Don’t you think that taking a break and having a meal will help you perform better?”
“You seem awfully desperate for some reason,” Tomochika commented. While the puppets all looked identical, they seemed to have different personalities. “Are you lonely here?”
“Shut up! Fine, whatever! Just go! Oh, first let me review your points for you. Number 98, five points. Number 99, one point.”
“We didn’t even have to ask...”
Yogiri must have been Number 98, making Tomochika Number 99. Their numbers were probably based on the order in which they had entered the tower.
“Wait! What’s the point of getting all the way down here with so few points?! What were you thinking?! You need one hundred of them to get to the first floor! Wait...that’s so strange. There are many rooms where you have to kill others to pass through, so there’s no way you could get so far with so few points to show for it...”
“Well, time to go.” Yogiri immediately made to leave, with Tomochika close behind. They both figured that a continuation of the conversation would only cause more problems and unnecessary delays.
After walking for a while longer, they passed through another door into a gray hallway, which split off into three directions. They didn’t have a map of the lower floors, and all three pathways looked identical. Without any clues about which option to take, Yogiri picked the middle one and on they went.
Tomochika felt that she was beginning to understand him. Actively picking a direction was too much work, so he had just decided to avoid any choice at all and simply walked straight ahead.
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