Chapter 39
"Please leave."
"Huh?"
*
- Thud....
When I come to my senses, I'm outside the cathedral.
“Ah, no way...”
I had dreamed of forming a contract with the highest-ranking Constellation, but it hadn't happened.
“What the hell is this?”
- Yeah, what is it?
- If you don't know, how are we supposed to know?
- When did you even make a contract with a Constellation?
[Do-heeTunaSoDelicious donated 100,000 won]
You secretly made a contract behind our backs, didn't you? Open your Status Window, Do-hee.
“No, I really didn't do anything like that!! Status Window!!!”
I open the Status Window and meticulously scan it for anything strange.
“Okay, first, the stats haven't changed, and the other traits look fine... huh?”
<???> : Unlock Progress 14%
<???> : Locked
- Oh, that?
- Yeah, that was there. What is it?
- Is that a trait only Lee Do-hee has?
- Nope, other people have things like that too.
The so-called locked trait.
It's not particularly unusual.
Most Awakeners live with traits like that, and what people call a Second Awakening usually occurs when one of those locked traits is newly unlocked by some kind of event.
What are the unlock conditions?
They differ from person to person.
That's why most Awakeners live thinking, ‘If I get a good locked trait too, I can turn my life around!’
“Could this be related...”
‘No, maybe it's because of the contract from my past life?’
I don't know.
I still can't use the contract with the Constellation I made in the past, but I can't contract with another Constellation either... Isn't this just too sad?
“Er... I don't know either, so let's move on?”
- LMAOㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
- For real, nobody knows.
- How the fuck can you not know your own trait!!
“No, all I see are question marks too, so how am I supposed to know!!!”
- Well, fuckㅋㅋ
- Ah...
- Lee Do-hee's Constellation contract was a dud~~
- She's probably saving another insanely broken trait for later.
- For real, with this much buildup, there's a 100% chance it's going to be completely busted.
“Phew... well, that's something for later... then...”
- Straight to Floor 11?
- You can just go to Floor 11 anyway.
"No. Let's go get my weapons first."
- Go get them?
- ?? Did you leave your weapons somewhere?
The Tower's rules.
One additional equipment slot becomes available every five floors.
At Floor 10 you get two slots, and at Floor 20 you get four, and so on.
When you equip a weapon in an equipment slot, you can put it on and take it off freely, just like with subspace, and the weapon's stats and special skills are added to your Status Window.
You can use a weapon without placing it in an equipment slot, but you won't receive its stat bonuses or special skills.
Naturally, merely putting it in the slot isn't enough; you have to be holding or equipping it for its stats to apply, and in the case of armor, it doesn't provide defense for areas it doesn't cover.
Of course, this isn't possible in the Tutorial.
You might think this makes rich people automatically overpowered, but there are quite a lot of Trials where you can't use weapons at all, and some Trials even restrict your stats outright. So the rich simply live comfortably off their wealth, and almost no chaebol would risk their life climbing the Tower for no reason.
Also, once equipment is slotted, you can't change it until the Trial ends, and once a slot has been unlocked, its equipment can't be changed at all.
Normally, you're supposed to get a weapon as the Floor 11 reward and equip it, but going back and forth is a hassle.
"Yes. That's right, isn't it? I've left some weapons in storage."
And my weapon would probably be better anyway. I'll get armor on Floor 11.
- ??
- When did she do that?
- Who paid for it??
- When?
"A tall man left them behind."
The tall man.
Me.
- Ah.
- Ooh?
- He's finally being useful!
- Ha... Who the hell is he?
I'd mentioned him once during the Choi Tae-soo incident, so the viewers accepted the explanation without needing any further details.
"Hmm, where was that secret underground base again..."
- But is that okay?
- For real, won't the mega-guild bastards come running right away?
- It could be dangerous if there's a lot of stuff inside.
"It's nothing special. There should only be a few weapons, I think."
In truth, the warehouse on Floor 10 is just an unremarkable weapons storage room.
It's a place where I stored weapons that were too good to throw away but that I didn't use, planning to hand them out to promising prospects for free later.
Since the items here are weapons I used when traveling alone on the lower floors or left sitting around as if abandoned as soon as I obtained them, there's no chance of my identity as the tall man being exposed.
I leave the village and walk slowly, taking in the scenery.
The sunlight is pleasantly warm.
A cool breeze.
There's a reason so many Awakeners live here.
Most of all, I love that there isn't a single insect.
Feeling the refreshing breeze, I walk straight south from the village for about ten minutes.
"Here it is."
- ???
- Here?
A small grave.
The gravestone has neither an inscription nor a name.
‘A virtual character inside the Tower died, after all...’
A friend I met there, back when I was so immersed in climbing the Tower that I lost myself in it.
No, she was my lover.
‘Diana...’
Because she was someone inside the Tower, she would forget me and come back to life within the Trial...
But somehow, even that fact felt so lonely that I once made this grave.
And if I dig a little beneath this spot with my hands...
- Rattle!!
A wooden door leading underground appears.
- What's with the grave? Why is there nothing inside?
- This is kind of sad.
- Looks like there isn't a body. Maybe they just piled up some dirt?
"It's nothing special. I'll take a look downstairs."
It's a shoddily built basement, so even the walls are just stone.
Recalling where it was, I reach toward the wall and flip a switch. Mana flows into the luminous stones in the ceiling, and they light up.
And mounted there are seven types of weapons.
Swords, spears, hammers, axes, greatswords, shields, and crescent-bladed polearms.
"I'll take just one spear and store the rest for now."
I pick up the spear I haven't seen in a long time.
The sturdy spear that carried me through the early part of my climb.
In the end, I couldn't protect Diana with this spear, but it was a good one.
"This spear's name is... Diana."
<Dojester's Long Spear>
A spear painstakingly crafted by Dojester, a master craftsman from the city of Embana.
Strength +20
Agility +10
Defense + 5
Special Skill: <Full-Charge Overspear> is unlocked.
- That's Dojester's spear, you fucking bitchㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
- ?
- ????
- Huh? Wait, this thing is insanely broken!!!
- Tall man......
- Wow;;
- What's the skill???
- Wait, are the other weapons that high-tier too??
That's right.
If the weapon's performance had been mediocre, I wouldn't have bothered coming to get it.
Since the average stats of an Awakener on Floor 10 are around 20 to 30, this is absurdly overpowered for a weapon I'm using at this stage. I made this warehouse after reaching Floor 60, so naturally it's inferior to the weapons I had then, but didn't I say these were weapons too good to sell?
"Ahem... anyway, this spear's name is Diana. I'll use it to climb quickly."
You can't use weapons on Floor 11 anyway.
Since weapons or armor are normally given as the Floor 11 reward, perhaps the Tower considers using weapons on Floor 11 cheating, so the Trial there doesn't allow equipment items.
I walk back slowly and entrust the remaining weapons to an employee of the Awakener Association in the village for safekeeping.
And...
"I'll start the timer now!!"
It's finally beginning.
168 hours.
I have to reach Floor 20 in one week.
‘If I can clear Floor 11 quickly, it's possible. Please let the difficulty be easy...’
There are quite a lot of floors where you can force your way through by sheer power.
[Would you like to enter Floor 11? The recommended number of people is 4]
And parties become possible starting from Floor 11.
The difficulty doesn't decrease just because you do it alone. If anything, it's harder because you have to do the work of four people by yourself.
Instead, the reward increases.
That's why I have to do it alone.
I'm not going to climb to Floor 79 hand in hand with the mega-guilds, so I have to show everyone that I can clear them all alone.
On top of that, I can even increase the reward grade, so this is exactly the scenario I wanted.
"I'll challenge it alone."
[The Tower's Trial begins]
‘Let's go....’
***
[Tower Climbing Support Gallery]
---
[Title] : Oh, it's the bro. Came to tell you what Floor 11 is.
[Content] : The theme of Floor 11's Trial is prison escape.
Normally, the standard strategy is to start a riot with the other prisoners and break out of prison.
But if you escape without getting caught, that's the true ending. Easy, right?
[Comments] :
- Easy as fuck.
- Nothing this time?
- Doesn't look like it'll be hard alone either.
- What the hell are the guys above talking about... It's similar to Floor 1.
ㄴ Similar?
ㄴ The death rate is 30%, so the difficulty is fucking brutal. You'll know when you see itㅋㅋㅋ
- Sounds fucking easy just hearing about itㅋㅋㅋㅋ
- Soo--easy~
- Don't come back here again.
- Ah, this asshole spoiled it for me.
└ Author: Fuck, you guys asked me to tell you.
***
My consciousness cuts out for a moment, then returns.
[You are a death-row inmate. Escape from prison before you are executed]
“Ah...”
The first thing I see when I open my eyes is the inside of a bus.
I hear the rumbling of an engine.
It's a prisoner transport bus, with the windows blocked by bars and panels, and each seat separated from the others.
My hands are cuffed, and something is fastened around my neck as well.
“Wait..... A bus?”
- Wow... We're fucked, Do-hee!!!
- S-rank, congrats!!!
- Fuckㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
- Why did it have to be Floor 11 of all places...
Technology advances, making prison escapes more difficult.
Medieval wooden prisons are B-rank, modern prisons are A-rank, and prisons with modern CCTV are S-rank difficulty.
"Haa... damn it, I'll check my status first."
My body feels strange too.
<Final Stats>
[Some stats have decreased due to a special power]
Strength : 10
Agility : 15
Defense : 32
Holy Power : 0
Lust Power : 18.3
Regeneration : 1
“I'm screwed...”
My Strength was fixed at 10, and my Holy Power had dropped to 0.
It was probably because of this suspicious necklace.
‘This isn't just the modern era.’
You can't assume that modern means the modern-day Earth you know.
It only indicates the level of civilization's development; it could be a strange world where psychics, mages, heroes, hunters, and other superpowered people live.
No, on average, it's far more likely to be a strange world like that.
"Ha.... I'm fucked..."
- Bang!!!
“Hey!!! Shut up, number 69748!”
‘Whoa, that startled me...’
Someone strikes the back of my seat hard.
When I turn around, a man in a blue uniform is glaring at me with a frightening expression.
‘A prison guard...?’
For now, there's nothing to gain from standing out.
My goal is to escape this place as quickly as possible.
And since I keep my mouth shut, we arrive at the prison before long.
“Everyone out!!”
- Whiiiiir...
The partition opens, and the prisoners file out one after another.
‘What? I thought they were all women... Are there men too?’
“Wow~ All the new girls this year are well-developed~!”
“Sure are. Hey, hey, look at that pink-haired bitch's tits. Heh heh heh...”
“I should go fuck her later.”
‘This seems like some kind of strange world setting...’
Looks like I got a total trash-fire setting.
The prison guards feel more like gangsters than police officers.
I get off the bus and enter the building under the guards' escort.
‘I need to examine this place carefully.’
Not starting inside the prison is a kind of advantage.
‘One huge watchtower on each side, thick iron doors at the main gate that can't be opened by hand. The ordinary walls are impossible to escape through because of the high-voltage current... I'm screwed.’
Nothing about this is easy.
The walls aren't even concrete; whatever alloy they're made of, they look incredibly sturdy.
“Hey, watch where you're going!”
As I walk slowly, looking around, the woman behind me shouts at me.
“Huh?”
“What the fuck are you looking at, bitch?”
A thug-like woman with short golden hair, who looked like she had smoked quite a few cigarettes back in the day, glares and spits out a curse.
Her face and figure are exactly those of a pretty delinquent who looks like she'd be great at taking Instagram photos, but her personality is filthy.
‘Tsk... Is this some kind of power struggle?’
I want to keep a low profile, so I let it slide for now.
“Your ass is fat like a pig, making you slow as hell...”
‘I'll deal with you later...’
Please let me end up in the same cell as that bitch.