Chapter 20
[User: Yumia. Floor of Traps (1/3). Arrow Rain cleared! Mana, HP slightly recovered! Rewards granted!]
[Breakthrough time: 10.99 seconds. Recorded.]
[Please receive your reward!]
Another silver box appeared in front of me.
Just as I was about to reach for the silver box...
[Hey, what are you doing!? You'll die if you keep that up!]
Sera's worried voice rang out.
Well, that was true enough.
If even one had hit a bad spot, I couldn't have guaranteed my life.
But that would only be the case if the arrow had actually hit my body.
“I’m not dead, am I?”
[Haa... just try dying.]
[W-what happened!? How did you get in there and not come out with a single scratch...?]
Woo Suhyeon seemed not to know what had happened.
I did go a little fast.
Woo Suhyeon probably thought I had just dashed in and swung my sword around.
[That guy dodged all of the arrows. With just one sword.]
[...What? Is that even possible...?]
[It is, because Dragon Eye is there. Once dynamic vision is greatly increased, it’s possible.]
[Who would even try something like that knowing it would work?!]
“Haha.”
[There’s someone trying it right there.]
Sera sounded like she was losing her mind, but I was enjoying myself.
Adrian had strengthened my Dragon Eye greatly with his blood.
I could boost my dynamic vision with my own mana too.
But using dragon mana made it feel like the world had almost stopped.
On top of that, I intercepted the arrows with magic and cut down their number quite a bit.
So I was able to slip through and break through it fairly comfortably.
[For now, the Observer drain is bigger than I expected, so I’m going to turn chat mode off for a bit.]
Even if Sera's mana pool could handle it, the trait itself was rare-rank, so keeping it active long-term looked tough.
‘But don’t my traits have no cooldowns or anything?’
Come to think of it, even the Blessing of Language, which I had thought was lame, was always active.
...Could they really all be SSR or something?
They made a huge fuss at the training camp.
But once they realized my traits weren’t producing any insanely huge effects, they lost interest.
The next time they took an interest in me was when they realized, suspiciously, that the name at the top never changed.
“Well, that’s all irrelevant anyway.”
I rubbed my hands together and headed toward the treasure chest.
“Now then. What’s it going to be this time~”
There’s always a certain thrill when cracking this open.
The silver box clicked open as soon as I touched it.
[Status Enhancement Selection Ticket (Floor 2, R), Enhancement Lacquer (R)]
Mmm!
Not bad.
[Status Enhancement Selection Ticket (Floor 2, R)]
I heard this doesn’t show up often in other towers, and even when it does, it tends to be a crappier version.
This one always shows up, welcoming me like gukbap.
Then, let’s try it...
[Choose the status to enhance!]
[Durability] [Stamina] [Strength] [Agility] [Mana]
...Did they add one more?
What is Stamina?
Is this that thing they mentioned when the interference level went up earlier?
If so, how broken is dragon mana?
“What the hell, seriously.”
Maybe [Stamina] means endurance...
I almost reflexively chose [Mana], then hesitated.
To be honest, if I wanted to go with a mage build, Mana would be the right choice.
But...
“It’d be a waste to throw away swordsmanship.”
In the end, the one that creates the opening for me to unleash magic is the swordsman.
That was the same when I hunted the werewolf.
If I’d been alone, I would have mixed magic and sword strikes as much as possible and aimed for effective hits.
Even a basic attack spell needed a fairly long casting time to reach maximum firepower.
Would that get shorter once I moved up to beginner magic?
“It does feel a little wasteful to have shaved that down.”
And then the blue light wrapped around the sword I saw when I hunted the werewolf before.
Aura.
The attack power of the sword strike itself definitely went up.
The regular attack itself was stronger than mine.
Training that would probably help a lot.
Of course, I had no intention of going to knight school or anything, so I’d have to steal lessons from someone else.
[But isn’t mana something you can get from a lot of places?]
Sera’s voice came through.
“Huh?”
[You’ve already increased your mana a lot at magic school. Wouldn’t there be more events where you can get it...? Ah, time’s up.]
Sera’s voice cut off abruptly.
I wouldn’t be able to use Observer again until the cooldown came around.
Though I wondered if I could have used it longer if we hadn’t been on a call.
In any case, Sera’s words swayed me.
Let’s go with this.
[[Durability] has been enhanced.]
Why did I choose durability?
Sometimes people think I love taking risks.
I want to say that’s a huge misunderstanding.
I’m the type of person who puts survival chance first.
I do it because it looks doable.
Yep.
And if durability goes up, I can go to even more dangerous places, right?
“Hmm.”
I pulled at my skin.
I even bit it.
It was still springy and chewy. Maybe a little tougher, too.
Then I slammed my fist into the floor.
“Ow!”
But the effect of durability was immediate.
Pain was still there, but it faded quickly, and my skin didn’t even turn red.
Even the floor was the kind of rough stone you’d normally find at the beach, like barnacle-covered rocks.
It didn’t even get scratched, let alone bleed or redden.
“Wow. That’s amazing.”
My skin seemed better too.
I took the sword out of the inventory and lightly touched the tip of my finger to the blade.
“Ow!”
A tiny drop of blood welled at the fingertip.
“Seriously, why is this sword so sharp?”
Selling such a dangerous sword to a student!
What a rotten old man.
I put my fingertip lightly in my mouth and had an ungrateful thought.
A faint, stinging taste of blood spread at the tip of my tongue.
“Yeah. Let’s go with this.”
There are quite a few ways to raise mana.
But raw stats that aren’t boosted by mana have limited ways to go up.
Besides, status enhancement tickets are a specialty here.
Now let’s look at the other reward.
Looking at the red potion, the description came to mind.
[Enhancement Lacquer (R)]
It enhances blade-type weapons.
If you took it to a famous blacksmith, you might get even better results!
“Oh?”
Weapon enhancement, huh.
I don’t know any blacksmiths in modern times...
“Maybe I should have that old man handle it.”
The kind old man who cheerfully gave me a sword and five shields for 6 silver.
Since it’s rare-rank, it should be pretty good for enhancing the Tier 2 sword I’m using now.
It would be nice if I could see how Tier 2 compared by tower standards.
It would be convenient if the rank were shown, but unfortunately, it isn’t.
“Well, I just have to be satisfied with it being an R-rank lacquer.”
I headed straight for the next room.
[Floor 2, Floor of Traps - Entering the second room.]
The inside was fairly dark, but Dragon Eye also had night-vision functionality.
I could see through the darkness without much trouble, but...
All that was visible was a corridor that was narrower and longer than the last one.
What?
Just go?
I walked forward without thinking.
Then.
Click.
—Fwoosh!
“Aah, it’s hot hot hot!!!”
I reflexively dodged it, but the tail end of my hair caught fire!
After somehow rubbing it out, I realized this room’s gimmick.
So it was a floor trap!
I started running carefully, watching the floor.
Looking closely, I could tell them apart to some extent.
Just run while avoiding the spots that were only slightly raised.
“Wow... what would I have done without Dragon Eye?”
It’s not quite good enough to be SSR.
Even most SSR traits wouldn’t match Dragon Eye in versatility.
[User: Yumia. Floor of Traps (2/3). Pressure Plate Room cleared! Mana, HP slightly recovered! Rewards granted!]
[Breakthrough time: 35.15 seconds. Recorded.]
“That’s a little rough.”
I’d burned 25 seconds just by running carefully.
I should probably clear the next room a little faster.
Let’s look at the reward first.
[Status Enhancement Selection Ticket (Floor 2, R), Destiny Perfume (R)]
Destiny Perfume?
That sounds like a ridiculously impressive name!
I quickly checked the description.
[Destiny Perfume]
It smells very nice.
“........”
I put the perfume into my inventory.
Sigh.
Right. It would be weird if I hadn’t gotten a dud by now.
I’d heard that on the easier difficulty below, you sometimes get unusable items like rusty swords.
That’s a lot better than that.
[Status Enhancement Selection Ticket]
I looked at the remaining reward.
But come to think of it.
Can this go into the inventory too?
After all, the status enhancement ticket was also in the shape of a white orb.
I had turned one into mana on the spot before, but there was no need to do that now.
The white orb slipped neatly into the inventory.
“It works.”
But there’s no reason to save this for later.
Anyway, enhancement tickets get more effective as the floors go up.
There’s no reason to save a mere R-rank enhancement ticket for later.
[[Agility] has increased!]
I was going to raise every basic stat at least once anyway.
I wanted to test the increased stats, but...
“Let’s clear it first.”
I was starting to get hungry.
[Floor 2, Floor of Traps - Entering the last room.]
The moment I entered the room, I realized it.
This was a case where, trap or no trap, I just had to run.
—Rumble rumble rumble rumble....
Because behind me, a house-sized boulder was rolling toward me, with a sound like a toilet flushing.
“Gyaaaaaah!!!!”
I just ran like crazy.
Thanks to the boosted agility, it felt much faster than usual.
But I didn’t have time to worry about that!
A boulder was rolling from behind!!
Arrows flew at me from the front.
I knocked them away with my sword and kept running!
A rattling skull tried to attack me.
“What are you!”
Its head and body were split apart by the sword I swung wildly!
“Just run like crazy!!!”
The traps were firing off randomly, all targeting me.
—Clang!
This time, the shield I’d taken out of the inventory blocked it!
The shields I’d summoned at random and the durability I’d raised helped a lot.
“Casting Bullet, Casting Bullet, Casting Bullettt!!!”
I spammed my basic attack magic like crazy.
It seemed like a lot of traps had been set up, but quite a few were destroyed by the magic.
And then, after hellish time passed.
[User: Yumia. Floor of Traps (3/3). Rolling Boulder Room cleared! Mana, HP slightly recovered! Rewards granted!]
[Breakthrough time: 57.23 seconds. Recorded.]
“Gyaaaah... huff. Huff...”
Smoke was rising from my body in wisps.
My hair was singed in places, and my throat stung as if I’d been through a gas chamber drill.
“Damn... I’m dead...”
I somehow managed to make it in time for the speedrun.
Maybe because I’d run like a madman.
When I looked back right before clearing it, the boulder was still a little distance behind me.
Maybe because I’d sprinted flat-out for the first time in a while, I was soaked with sweat all over.
I barely came to while lying collapsed in the exit room.
“Right. The reward... I need to check the reward...”
[Please check your reward!]
I opened the rewards.
“Oh, this reward is pretty generous!”
As expected, the best healing was financial therapy.
[Status Enhancement Selection Ticket (SR, Floor 2), Enhancement Rune (R), Poison Immunity (R)]
Let’s see.
I’ll decide on the SR enhancement ticket later.
I can’t really use this carelessly.
It’s basically five times the performance of an R-rank enhancement ticket.
Let’s raise Strength and Stamina with the rare-rank one from the third floor.
Next, I looked at the artifact.
[Enhancement Rune (R)]
Use it to enhance R-rank magic-type artifacts.
“Oh-ho.”
That’s a pretty good one.
I carefully tucked it away in my inventory.
My wand was an R-rank artifact.
It seemed like I could enhance this one.
And...
It’s a rare-rank trait, isn’t it?
As soon as I turned my gaze there, a message appeared as if it had been waiting.
[Poison Immunity (R) is added to this trait!]
[Poison Immunity (R)]
Immune to weak poison and microorganisms.
Resistant to strong poison.
If the conditions are met, it will be upgraded to [Poison Immunity (SR)]!
“Pretty solid.”
Really, it was a nicely solid trait.
I also liked the last line.
Traits with growth potential tend to be highly valued, even among rare-rank traits.
Come to think of it, the stinging in my throat had already disappeared.
...Was that from poison too?
Now.
It was time.
I had already received all the rewards, and now was the exact time to leave.
[Hell Difficulty Special: Speedrun!]
[Speedrun Rank: SSS! Speedrun rewards granted! Please choose your reward!]
Yeah.
This is it.
I twisted my whole body and ran like crazy for this.
I looked to see what had come out this time, eyes shining.