Chapter 138

The Devil of the 50th Floor (1)

The basic rules of the Tower were the same as the dungeons, but there were also apparent differences that distinguished it from ordinary ones. For example, in a crisis, one could escape to Earth using a Returning Stone, but to re-enter, one had to pay additional experience points as a penalty. Therefore, we decided to discuss whether to return to Earth on a 25-stories basis unless there were unrecoverable injured members or other significant accidents comparable to such a case. It would be unnecessary to go back and forth numerous times when we didn’t have to. And when we finally broke through the 25th floor, everyone had the same opinion.

“I don’t mind going on like this. Magic solves hygiene problems… and so does food. I didn’t even have the symptoms of claustrophobia that I was worried about at the start.”

Hibiki calmly talked about her weaknesses that she had never mentioned before in my previous life. It was a symptom caused by an accident she experienced when she was young.

“What about Nate?” “No problem. I don’t have a family that worries about me if I stayed here for as long as we need to anyway.”

I nodded to their words.

“Okay, we’ve made a decision. Then…” “Wait, why aren’t you asking me about my opinion?” “We proceed straight to the 26th floor.” “Hey, I’m asking you!”

Leaving the protesting dragon behind, we kept moving forward. The difficulty level increased noticeably from the 26th floor, which also affected the speed of the breakthrough. Still, it was much faster than our pace in my previous life, and it was incomparable to other world climbers without [The Successor’s Eyes]. A month had passed since we started climbing the Tower.

“Now, finally…. the 49th floor awaits.”

We had the half point of Clear right in front of us. A dry field appeared as we passed through the portal connecting floors.

Woosh! Swoosh!

The cool wind permeated through my collar. Its topography was no different from a typical field-type dungeon. The Tower looked like a building from the outside, but it was actually a multi-dungeon hub. It consisted of separate spaces on each floor. That much would become evident the moment a hunter stepped inside. As I looked around the familiar scenery…

Cr-rack!

I gritted my teeth quietly.

‘I can’t believe long we had been stranded here in my previous life!’

As Hibiki was informed beforehand, she invoked penetrative vision-based magic. She observed the underground scene that ordinary eyes couldn’t capture. After a while, she uttered words in a way that told me she was horrified.

“Looking through the ground like this, it’s like we’re standing on a secret mass burial site.”

Nate, who couldn’t see the view due to his eyes lacking the necessary spell, shrugged his shoulders with a look of ‘Really?’ Euclid, who had not learned even a single penetrative vision magic spell while she aged for a few hundred years, asked a question out of curiosity.

“What is it that makes you say so?”

Looking down, Hibiki gritted her teeth.

“The monsters down there… Thousands, tens of thousands? There are tens of thousands of them that stand out to me. And those are Ghost Lurkers!”

I added a few words.

“What’s worse is that they’re not dying and rotting down there, but they’re still alive and breathing.”

What Hibiki saw was an army of monsters hiding underground in such a seemingly peaceful field, waiting for food to pass by. Coherent to the name, they waited quietly below the surface for the chance to attack when their opponent approached. I had never counted the number of them hidden in the plain, even in my previous life. I wasn’t certain how many of them were there. I just knew that there was a lot. They numbered so many it felt disgusting. In fact, each of the Last Five threw up, taking turns. The reason for that was that the Clear condition for that floor was…

– Welcome to the 49th floor. To Clear this floor, destroy all the monsters hiding here!

That’s right. We had to lure out and kill all those bastards to Clear the floor.

“Taking each of them down isn’t that much of a problem. They’re stupid, too. The problem is somewhere else. Hibiki, the perspective magic you just used is SSS-Rank for sure, right?” “Yes.” “Then the limitations on your vision through the underground is 500 meters, and those gross bastards dig a few kilometers underground when they sleep. That means the number of those you haven’t discovered yet is more than the ones you’ve already seen.”

She had a nauseous look on her face.

‘Situations were worse in my past life. We had no choice but to struggle.’

At that time, Hibiki’s [Universal Mastery] was S-Rank, and the perspective magic was only at that level as well. Therefore, it was too much to find all the Ghost Lurkers hidden deep underground. And it was impossible to dig the entire field 5 kilometers deep and turn it upside down just because the situation demanded us to do so.

‘In the end, we had no choice but to take them in reverse when they were after us and when they woke up and climbed up to the shallow mess.’

From that point, the second reason why the Last Five suffered came in.

‘These maniacs will only ever wake up after three or four days since they fall asleep even though they’re only monsters!’

The monsters that we needed to catch and kill were sleeping like logs underground where they couldn’t be reached for days. There was no way that we could have sped up our Clear. In the end, those who were not that physically strong had the worst conditions, causing speed-hunting to become impossible.

“Ah, is that why you told me to prepare this?”

Nate shook his shadow.

“Yeah, they could be wiped out by an earthquake, but the plain is too wide, so it’s only going to be a waste. Instead, we’ll just do this.”

I also took out an item.

“Let’s lure them out with bait. In principle, it’s similar to squid fishing.”

In my hand, I had one of the SS-Class items that I received by trading with the ministry spirit for the first time.

[The Flute of the Imperial Palace Artist (Rank: SS)] -A musical instrument that can play a psycho-reactive score approved by the imperial court.

At that time, I received it with [Wartime Emergency Production Supply System – Type 3 (Rank: SS)] and [The 3rd Class Imperial Guard Program (Rank: SS)]. Since then, the flute’s functionality remained dormant since I hadn’t been able to experiment with it. That was because playing ordinary sheet music showed no effect at all. It was evident that it was necessary to have a ‘psycho-reactive score’ mentioned in the item description, but I didn’t have any clue on where to get it. As a result, it was left deep in the snake inventory for a long time. Sometimes, ‘snake 2,’ the smartest of the five black snakes, threw it up in front of me without me asking and hissed with a glance that seemed to say: “Perhaps you forgot that you had this?” But I shook my head quietly at it every time. I couldn’t help it because I didn’t know how to use it. I couldn’t even imagine that it would be through an unexpected event that the deadlock would be resolved.

‘Guild Master, we found something interesting while we were studying the tactical fortress!’

It was a particular piece of music prepared for the crew of the tactical fortress. As soon as I saw it, it was a given that I naturally remembered the existence of the flute. I tried to play it immediately, but performing it wasn’t easy. It didn’t work by only moving my fingers. The psycho-reactive score was editorially directing how much Mana should be infused in a particular manner to produce each note. Eventually, after stubborn practice, I was barely able to play a few sheets of it.

“Now, first, everybody in the air.”

Ghost Lurkers did not have the ability to fly, so the best place to carry out the operation was in the air. Particles of light scattered behind my back and created a wing shape. The other companions also rose to the sky in their own ways. After reaching an appropriate altitude, I started playing with my mouth closed on the flute using a sophisticated technique.

Tu-re-lu-re-lu!

Then, the faces of my colleagues, as they had been somewhat drained by long hours of climbing and hunting, changed radically.

“Huh?”

Nate’s face was becoming brighter.

“My mind is clearing up!”

Tu-re-lu! Tu-re-lu-re-lu!

I spread the notes, and I signaled with my eyes at Hibiki, who I had already spoken.

[Sonic Wave (Rank: A)]

Originally, it was a spell that turned enemies into powder with powerful vibrations, but its form had changed a little. At that moment, Hibiki could play around with such spells with as much freedom as she needed. That time, its destructive power was decreased to the lowest level, and the vibration waves, whose range had been increased all the way to the maximum, resonated across the plains. The magical vibration carried the melody I produced into places far away, deeper, and filled the space completely, not even missing a single spot. I was sure that the notes would be delivered to the Ghost Lurkers that had been hiding and sleeping deep in the underground. Such monsters wouldn’t usually respond to any noise once they had entered a state of a deep sleep, but…

‘This is going to be different!’

According to the Tactical Fortress manual, that sheet music was broadcast to all crew members every morning. The effect was to drive sleep away and induce immediate rise. It was not until I was convinced that I had woken up the underground Ghost Lurkers without leaving out any of them asleep that I stopped playing.

“Nate, hand me that.” “Mmhmm, here.”

What he took out of the shadow and held in his hand was a fruit the size of a watermelon. Of course, it’s clearly not of Earth’s. The peel had a pitch-black color with no distinction of shades—a black sphere with a smooth extending surface.

[Fruit of the Last Moon Tree (Rank: S)] – It is an excellently ripened fruit of the Last Moon Tree. When the night comes, it attracts monsters within a wide range of radius.

It was the fruit of the tree colony that we extracted the seedlings of from the gray Earth’s dungeon and planted in a dungeon that no one knew the existence of. It came from the very seedlings that were used to haunt the monsters around it. Before climbing the Tower, the fruit we were waiting for had developed, and the effect was more potent than the tree itself.

“Hibiki.”

[Weather Control (Rank: SSS)]!

As she stirred her hand, black clouds overcast throughout the plain.

“The 49th floor’s environment is always in the daytime. We have to lower the luminosity artificially. The fruit won’t have the same effect as when it’s used during the night, but…”

As the surrounding area darkened, a subtle light spread along the black sphere’s right edge. It was a luminous phenomenon that responded to the surrounding environment. If one were to look at the Last Moon tree with fruits hanging in the middle of the night, it created a mysterious scene that looked like dozens of Dark Moons were floating around it all at the same time. Although there was only one fruit at the moment, it was more than enough for low-intelligence monsters.

“Huh, look over there!”

The soil throughout the Earth began to wriggle, and monsters soon began to emerge out of the holes they drilled. The scene would’ve made hunters unfamiliar with it mistake it for a soft mudflat, not a solid ground.

“Every single monster that has kept themselves hidden in the ground is headed towards us!”

Ghost Lurker approached us with a hard shell on its back, swinging their sharp claws. However, all of us, including Nate, who was holding the fruit, were floating a couple of meters above the sky. They swung with their claws up against the sky. They tried to catch the fruit, but it was futile. As we waited a little longer, a similar black wave began to approach slowly, wriggling beyond the horizon. Nate’s face became distorted.

“There were that many hidden under the ground?”

I spoke quietly in my mind.

‘That’s the reason why it became so much of a struggle for us back then.’

After we waited for another hour or so, the black waves under my feet had reached an enormous scale. It would’ve been an overwhelming attack based on their numbers.

‘We had taken months just to clear this place.’

It was the part where the designer’s blatant malice was exposed.

“Hmm… I think most of them have gathered by now. There are no more monsters that are coming out of the ground or drilling any holes.”

Hibiki then asked me a question.

“Should I finish them with magic?” “No, there is a better way. Against monsters with an intelligence level that low, this works the best.”

Following my command, Hibiki invoked Mute magic to the companions. Although I thought that there would be no dangerous effect since we weren’t beasts with low intelligence, I still didn’t want to take any chances. Using such a measure was better to prevent anything unexpected from happening. After confirming that she had finished the preparations, I played the next musical piece.

Tu-re-lo! Tu-re-lo-re-lo!

That score was something that, even within the Imperial Army, was allowed to be played only in particular circumstances. The song was made in order to raise tension among the crew members and to intensify the belligerence and battle spirit of the combat troops. Perhaps it only had such positive effects for those who were as logical and intelligent as modern sentient beings. However, due to the nature of psycho-reactivity, it had an extreme effect on animals with low intelligence.

“… Squeal! Squeaaal!”

Gradually, unusual events began to unfold below us. The Ghost Lurkers were swinging their claws faster at us. Even though they were already filling the space with no room for another foot, they clashed with each other roughly. Clack! The sound of the shells brushing and colliding. Their movements gradually became more and more aggressive. Then eventually, the first bloodshed broke out.

Crush!

“Squeaaal!”

Blood brought more blood. Within the blink of an eye, the chaos spread among their ranks.

“Oh, my God!”

A devastated voice came out of Euclid’s mouth. The ground below us was gradually turning into a river of blood and gore. Even when the fruit in Nate’s hand shone, the monsters densely gathered together, but they did not attack each other. However, things changed when I started playing the tune. Ghost Lurkers poured out their ferocity and bloodlust on each other when it should’ve only been directed against their prey.

Crack! Crush! Riiiip!

“Squeal!” “Kyaaaagh!”

Shells and flesh flew everywhere. Their attacks were aimed not on the Awakened above them but their own kind. Monsters entered a berserk state, causing them to kill and be killed by each other. They bit each other with their fangs and ripped them with claws. It didn’t take long for a disgusting smell of bodily fluids to envelop the air. After a while, the remaining living monsters on the plains could be counted with my fingers.

“…”

My low voice rang.

“There’s still a few left. Shall we wrap this up?”

In my past life, it took us few months. In my current life, it only took two hours. Just like that, we ever so quickly cleared the 49th floor.

*

“Now, next is the 50th floor.”

Most of the time spent on the 49th floor was devoted to attracting monsters and retrieving Cores. After finishing up, we finally entered the portal to the next floor. Feeling slightly afloat, I whispered to the devil’s sword.

“You will see a familiar face soon.” ‘… What are you saying?’

It replied in a sour manner since it didn’t understand the context behind my words. The 50th floor was a dungeon that could be completed as fast as the 49th if it was handled properly. The Clear conditions of it were simple and straightforward. All we had to do was defeat the Boss Monster.

Wee-ing!

The field we were in disappeared and the environment changed in an instant. As soon as the portal’s light disappeared, the first thing that welcomed the party was a malice-filled mental wave.

– K-hahahahah!

Heavy and low laughter echoed. Telepathy slowly permeated our minds.

“That’s… the boss.”

Nate’s eyes became fierce. The Boss Monster talked to us, expressing its emotion that it didn’t know what to do because its mouth was watering.

– Foolish mortals have crawled into my lair again… Please, sing me a song to soothe my boredom. However, this time, please make it last for a long time.

And as each of the party members was beginning to raise their spirits for the boss match… Only one sentient being was shouting in bewilderment.

‘… What? What the hell are you doing here?!’