Chapter 33
#33. Tower of Trials 6th Floor
Looking through the community, I found that a lot of information about this upcoming Festival had already been released.
I heard there had been a lot of debate about how this fourth Festival would be run.
Apparently that was because the Festival held three years ago was a massive event that brought the whole world together under the name “Grand Festival.”
A lot of people were arguing over whether this one would be a “Grand” Festival like that time, or a regular Festival that only linked countries together.
And now that the information was out, the clear winner was the latter.
This fourth Festival turned out to be a regular one, just like the first and second Festivals. I didn’t care either way, though.
Anyway, there are four noteworthy elements in the Festival event.
First is the special mini-dungeon you can challenge as a party, which apparently lets you farm the main currency used for the event.
Second is the event-limited items you can exchange that currency for, the much-discussed “Meteor Stone” gear on the community.
Meteor Stone gear is special equipment made from materials that can only be obtained during the event, and it boasts excellent performance with no equip restrictions.
I don’t really care much about gear items anymore, but hearing that it’s equipment you can only get in extremely limited ways does pique my interest.
The word “limited” is really attractive in all sorts of ways.
And third, there’s a battle tournament where challengers face off against each other to decide the winner—though I’m not interested in that one.
I’m only stronger than other challengers on my level; I can’t compare to the real rankers who’ve spent years stuck in the Tower of Trials.
Of course, the top rankers who are guaranteed at least an A-rank slot as soon as they leave the tower supposedly don’t show up in the tournament out of decency.
Even so, a mere level 50 normal-class Warrior wouldn’t have any chance of competing.
Lastly, fourth, there’s indirect trading and item import through production-class challengers from other servers.
Among the classes Tower of Trials challengers can have, there are also production classes that have nothing to do with combat.
A blacksmith with the Blacksmith skill, an alchemist with potion-making skills, a jeweler who can make accessories, and so on.
The gear made by these production-class challengers vastly outperforms ordinary drops and shop-bought items.
And one of the common features of these production classes is something called commission crafting.
It’s basically a system where you receive materials from someone else and handle enhancement or item crafting on their behalf.
What’s noteworthy is that this system still works even on event maps where trading is impossible.
In other words, as long as you have the materials, you can obtain top-tier gear made by artisan-level production classes on other servers.
And if nothing else, I have more than enough enhancement materials and gold.
If I can make the right contact this time, maybe I can come back with an item I can use for the rest of my life.
The problem is that I’m a zero-social-skills deadbeat who’s gone years without speaking to anyone.
“Hmm...”
Maybe I should drag an NPC over from somewhere and practice talking with them first?
**
After sorting out my thoughts, I shut off the Open Community and headed off to tackle the 6th floor.
Even if I wanted to practice talking before the Festival opened, that would be impossible on the 6th floor, which is known to have no normal NPCs.
The 6th floor is a place where the entire region is one giant labyrinth.
There are more undead than living people, and the NPCs that do appear are all said to be messed up from wandering the labyrinth for so long.
Clearly, the 6th floor didn’t seem like a place where you could stay sane for long.
“This place is fucking awful.”
I hadn’t run into any monsters or traps yet, and I already felt like shit.
Even a light breath stabs my nose with a rotten stench. It smells like food left in a fridge for two months until it went moldy.
On top of that, there were unpleasant-looking stains scattered everywhere, and when I got close to them, they gave off yet another kind of rotten smell.
A smell you’d expect from a drunk’s vomit being pecked at by pigeons, mixed here and there with the scent of blood.
I’ve been beaten and broken so much that I can tell the smell of blood apart instantly.
-Grrrr...
After walking for several minutes like that, I finally met my first enemy.
It was a horde of zombies, the walking corpses that were the source of the rotten stench spread throughout the labyrinth.
I’d heard from the community that they looked disgusting, but this was beyond imagination.
I can see why challengers rank the 6th floor as one of the worst.
Ugh, fuck, look at those eyeballs just dangling around.
What’s more, each zombie’s degree of decay and damaged parts was slightly different, making each one uniquely disgusting.
They’re so unpleasant to look at that I should just kill them quickly and clear them out.
-Tap!
I charged quickly into the zombie horde with my sword and shield.
I could probably handle that much even bare-handed, but I don’t want to get into hand-to-hand combat with things like that.
-Crack!
I swung my shield and smashed the head of the one in front, then thrust my sword through the next one’s neck.
I’d read somewhere that of the five senses, smell is the one that tires out the fastest.
By the time I’d put down two zombies, my sense of smell was half numb, and I could no longer smell the rot.
-Slash!
I sliced two more zombies’ necks apart, then, beyond the burst of critical-hit effects, targeted the last one standing in the rear.
I needed to raise my Sword Mastery proficiency too, so this time I used a skill on purpose.
Double Slash, the two-hit skill that swings the sword twice in a cross shape.
As the skill activated, the blade shone and my body moved of its own accord to carry out the attack.
But at that moment, something strange about the zombie caught my eye.
The zombie’s neck was hugely swollen. Its posture also looked like it was about to vomit something up.
Oh, shit, no way, right?
-Gueeeeeeeek!!!
“Hey, you fucking bastard!”
A huge amount of blood shot out of the zombie’s throat like a fountain.
**
There was no monster on the 6th-floor bestiary compiled in the community that used a pattern like this.
It was probably another quantity-limited Unique monster, a species that’s long since gone extinct, something you’d only ever see in this tower where I’m the only one around.
But this isn’t some old arcade shooting game, so why the hell is it spraying blood like that?
-Splat-splat-splat!
There was so much blood that I almost wanted to ask where in that body it was coming from.
I’d already triggered the skill motion, so I couldn’t dodge and ended up getting drenched in it.
The shitty rotten stench the zombies had been giving off mixed with the smell of blood and stabbed at my nose.
No, it actually went into my nose physically. Fucking hell.
-Slash!
The skill motion continued as it was, and the zombie that had sprayed blood was cut into pieces and died.
It’s already shitty enough that the first monsters I ran into were zombies, and now one bastard like this is mixed in with them. Was my luck really this bad?
Would it have been so hard to throw in a minotaur or a fresh slime I could beat up?
“Damn it, what the hell is this smell.”
I brushed the blood off irritably, but my blood-soaked face kept burning.
-Ssszzzt...!
What is this, acidic blood or something? Or poison?
So it pierced the poison resistance I built on the 3rd floor by sticking poison arrows into myself, which means this has to be some seriously strong poison.
I do have an antidote potion in my inventory, and it hasn’t really penetrated a wound or anything, so I can just wash it off and be done with it.
“Hmm.”
If it’s a poison strong enough to pierce my poison resistance, wouldn’t my resistance go up if I just endure it like this?
Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything on this 6th floor that could threaten me even if I walked around covered in poison.
Maybe I should try walking around like this?
The only problem is that I keep smelling rotten blood, but smell is supposed to tire out quickly anyway.
It might seep into my body too, but I didn’t come to the 6th floor to go on a blind date or anything. Whatever.
**
As I expected, the blood spray the zombie spat out was an extremely strong poison.
After looking up posts from first-generation hunters on the Open Community, I found that one hit from this could mean life or death.
But the poison resistance I’d built up on the 3rd floor had weakened that dangerous poison to the point where it only felt a little hot.
Well, that makes sense.
Back on the 3rd floor, I used poison arrows instead of utensils. I even speared White Trolls with them and ate them, poison and all.
Anyway, I decided to stay on the 6th floor a little longer this time, planning to push my poison resistance to the limit.
The 6th floor’s overall area was much larger than the other floors, and there were plenty of treasure chests to farm, so it was perfect.
Just like on the 1st floor, I squeezed every subquest dry to raise my specs, spending my days steadily increasing my poison resistance.
Eventually, when my poison resistance had risen to the point where even inhaling a bucketful of blood spray wouldn’t be a problem.
[Regional Joint Event : The Tower of Trials Festival is being held!]
[You may move to the shared server through the portal.]
At last, the long-awaited Festival event opened, and a blue portal appeared before me.
But I didn’t enter the portal right away.
“I should wash up first, right?”
I spent a whole month living covered in blood and poison, so how bad could I possibly smell?
If I went in like this, some challenger might mistake me for a monster and stab me to death.
Honestly, that would just be a natural death.