Chapter 73
‘…That was a close one.’
I almost had to face an intruder after draining my blood to the point of near death.
For now, I had to stop learning derivative techniques of Sight.
I stood with one hand against the wall and focused all my attention on the Blood Knight’s consciousness through Persona Divide.
The view of the 100th floor took shape in my mind.
Through the Blood Knight’s senses, I read the ripples running through space.
Thud—! Kaaaaang—!
Several vibrations kept traveling through the marble floor.
'How many people... are there?'
I moved the Blood Knight slightly and tried to analyze the number of footsteps.
I soon figured it out.
“…Ten?”
*
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*
*
*
The demonic realm outside the Tower.
The Human Alliance expedition’s encampment.
Inside the expedition commander’s tent, Kael sat across from the senior leadership of the Holy Knights and spoke with them.
The commander of the Holy Knights unilaterally made an unwelcome request of Kael.
“Please remove that boy—the Hero’s descendant—from the scout roster. This is an official request from the Holy Kingdom.”
“What?”
The scout party was already short on personnel, and they wanted to take one more person out.
Moreover, wasn’t the Hero’s descendant one of the expedition’s advisers? He was also the person most devoted to eradicating the demonkin.
Kael narrowed his brow and asked for the reason.
“Why? He has volunteered to serve at the head of the scout party. Furthermore, he is one of this expedition’s advisers. Does the Holy Kingdom have the right to crush his will?”
“That boy is a descendant of the Hero, and therefore someone under the protection of the Holy Kingdom. With everything above the 100th floor still unexplored, we cannot send him into the jaws of death.”
Kael found it absurd.
He placed a hand on the desk and asked,
“I don’t understand. If he is so precious, shouldn’t you have prevented him from coming on this Demon King Tower expedition in the first place?”
“That…”
It was just then, as the commander of the Holy Knights moved his lips to speak.
Someone came rushing into Kael’s tent and cut him off.
It was Kael’s adjutant.
“Commander! We have a serious problem!”
He reported with a deathly pale face.
“Several people, including the commander of the Sahad Empire’s warriors, have disobeyed orders and headed for the Tower!”
“What?”
When Kael ran out of the tent, the sight that unfolded before him was dreadful.
It was complete chaos.
The flapping of tent canvas and the soldiers’ shouts tore through the night wind.
It was out of control.
Soldiers from every faction, and even mages, were tangled together as they ran in a mass toward the Tower.
They trampled and shoved one another as though competing to claim the gold coins on the 100th floor first, surging toward the entrance.
The commander of the Holy Knights standing beside him muttered,
“It seems the Tower Rush has begun…”
According to the original plan, the eleven selected scouts were supposed to enter the Tower first.
The remaining personnel were supposed to wait according to the predetermined order.
Then, all the parties were supposed to join one by one until everyone in the expedition had gathered inside the Tower.
But all those arrangements were broken at that very moment.
The iron barricade that had been erected around the Tower to control access had already been destroyed.
“You fools! Everyone, return immediately!!”
The Hero’s descendant shouted until the veins stood out on his neck, but it was useless.
The maximum number of people who could form a party and enter the Tower at once was fifty.
By the time Kael and his adjutants reached the Tower’s entrance, panting as they tried to stop the people charging forward, the door was already firmly shut.
“Damn it! Open up! Let me in too!”
The man who had arrived fifty-first was pounding madly on the firmly closed Tower door.
“Let’s turn back.”
*
“Everyone, please take your seats.”
After temporarily repairing the entrance to the Tower, they held an emergency meeting in the military tent.
The old adviser who had survived the Tower clicked her tongue and explained.
“Once a party of fifty enters and the door closes, the next party must wait exactly twenty-four hours before it can enter.”
The Hero’s descendant slammed his fist down on the table and erupted in anger.
“Even that noble who was one of our advisers has disappeared too! When did he conspire with those Sahad bastards?!!”
At that moment, the Tower Master of Ram cut in, using wind magic to float a teacup to him and sipping from it.
“Hey, don’t be so hard on them. Maybe they were dragged along against their will, right?”
The Tower Master’s gaze shifted to the commander of the East Empire’s knights, who stood silently in the corner of the meeting room.
“Isn’t that right, Commander? If they were threatened, they couldn’t exactly refuse, could they?”
It was a sudden question.
Those with keen senses felt that something was off about his asking such a question of the commander of the East Empire’s knights at that particular moment, but the commander answered immediately.
“I will refrain from carelessly speaking of unverified facts. More importantly…”
The commander looked at Kael.
“I cannot even presume to gauge how great the expedition commander’s burden must be.”
The Tower Master of Ram clapped his hands.
“Ha-ha! As expected of the East Empire, the birthplace of chivalry! How exemplary.”
Kael bowed his head to the commander.
Then he summed up the situation.
“There is no choice. As soon as the door opens in twenty-four hours, the eleven scouts who were supposed to form the planned vanguard will enter immediately.”
Kael had barely finished speaking when—before the commander of the Holy Kingdom’s Holy Knights could even say that the scout party would consist of ten rather than eleven, excluding the Hero’s descendant—
a mercenary captain belonging to the artifact-search party suddenly stepped forward.
“Excuse me, Commander. Could you let our search party join the scout party too?”
The Hero’s descendant brightened and asked,
“Have you finally realized the greater cause and decided to lend your strength to the scout party?”
“No, we’re just going to fill out the party’s numbers… We’re not going to serve as scouts above the 100th floor.”
“How shameless!”
They were growing impatient because fifty people had already entered ahead of them.
Fearing that their share of the gold coins would disappear, they wanted to join the scout party so they could enter the Tower as soon as possible.
After all, there was no chance that the fifty who had broken the agreement and entered first would wait for them to join up.
Kael calmly nodded.
“I accept.”
“Commander! How can you make such a decision!”
The Hero’s descendant sprang to his feet.
“Isn’t this effectively the same as safely guiding those greedy people to the 100th floor?”
The mercenary captain said incredulously,
“Puhahaha! Why are you looking at it the other way around? There’s no way those eleven scouts are stronger than us, is there?”
Kael nodded.
“That’s right. You will provide considerable strength to our scout party. And since the vanguard has already departed, there is no reason for the second party to contain fewer than fifty people.”
*
In the end, they formed a party composed of the eleven scouts and the artifact-search party.
The party’s fifty slots were filled by the Tower Master of Ram and his mages, the duchy’s mercenaries, the Holy Kingdom’s Holy Knights, and a few messengers and porters.
But some people never volunteered.
The East Empire’s Third Knight Order, one of the great powers.
Unlike those who had volunteered but failed to make the list, they had not put their names forward in the first place.
The Tower Master of Ram asked the commander of the East Empire’s knights,
“Why haven’t you volunteered, Commander? You act as though you aren’t even slightly interested in the Demon King Tower’s treasures. Is that chivalry?”
The commander did not answer the question.
*
Exactly twenty-four hours later.
The Tower’s door opened, and the second party of fifty entered.
The 1st floor.
The enormous chamber was completely empty.
The old adviser trembled as she gripped her cane and muttered,
“…Has it disappeared entirely…”
“So the Gatekeeper wasn’t replaced by another monster—it simply disappeared.”
After seeing that the 1st floor was empty, they exchanged various theories, but this was the conclusion they reached.
They then climbed the stairs and reached the 2nd floor.
It was empty as well.
“It’s not here either…”
“Does that mean the monsters the first party defeated still haven’t revived?”
Someone asked the adviser,
“Old woman, how many hours does it take them to revive?”
“It varies greatly from monster to monster… Let’s head to the next floor.”
3rd floor, 4th floor, 5th floor… 10th floor.
No matter how far they climbed,
There was no sign of any monsters.
Kael turned to the old woman and asked,
“Is the first party on the floor directly above us?”
“That is possible, but…”
The old woman cautiously offered another possibility—one more likely than that.
“The very reason the Tower’s demonic energy has disappeared… may be that the monsters themselves have vanished…”
Several mercenaries flung their weapons onto the floor and reacted irritably.
“Damn it! I knew this would happen!”
“Then the people who entered first yesterday must have already reached the 100th floor! We’re late! We’re too late!”
The old woman clicked her tongue at those venting their frustration and said,
“Do not worry about that. The gold coins on the 100th floor are piled up like a mountain, so there isn’t a single large chest on this continent that could hold them all.”
The Tower Master of Ram added while lying on a cushion of wind in midair,
“Yes. And you don’t need to worry about the amount of gold. There will probably be far fewer mouths to feed than there were yesterday.”
The burly warriors immediately understood what the Tower Master of Ram meant.
“If you mean those vulgar desert bastards, certainly.”
But the Hero’s descendant, who did not understand, asked innocently,
“What do you mean?”
The duchy’s mercenary captain sneered at the boy’s innocence and answered,
“Isn’t it obvious? Before they even reach the 100th floor, they’ll try to monopolize the gold and end up fighting and killing one another.”
The boy said as though he couldn’t believe it,
“Good heavens! No matter how greedy they are, how could they do something so pathetic?”
*
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Several hours before the scout party set out.
The first party, which had entered the Tower in violation of the agreement.
The Tower Master of Ram’s prediction had come true, and the fifty people were in the midst of fighting one another.
The slaughter was taking place on the 84th floor.
Since the monsters had already respawned from the 60th floor onward, the Tower’s fatigue limit was the 84th floor.
They were bleeding here.
“Hahaha! To launch a preemptive attack because you fear us—I can’t believe that’s how people who claim to be noble behave!”
“…Weren’t you going to kill us once we reached the 100th floor anyway?”
“Correct. Die.”
Schlick—!!!!!!!!
A curved sword cleaved the elf’s white skin and sent fresh blood spraying.
That was the end.
The warriors of Sahad were victorious. They had won after a fairly long battle.
They had lost six soldiers, leaving nine, half of them wounded, but they had successfully reduced the number of ‘mouths.’
Several hours later.
Ten people, including one noble adviser, opened the door to the 100th floor.
But.
What they encountered was an utterly empty chamber.
“Huh…”
“…!”
There wasn’t even a single coin, let alone a pile of gold coins.
But their reaction was no different from when they had seen the mountain of gold coins.
Unable to believe the scene before their eyes, they rubbed their eyes.
“Why is there nothing here?…”
“Where is the golden chest from the Sun God myth!!”
Several of them collapsed to their knees in despair.
What had they done all this for?
There was only one thing in existence: a single monster standing alone in the center.
A helmetless knight in red armor, likewise wielding a red greatsword.
The warriors’ commander was so utterly dejected that, failing to keep his eye on the monster, he turned toward the adviser.
“Adviser! What is that monster? None of this matches the information you gave us! Where are the treasure and the Treasure Keeper?”
“That is…”
The adviser, who was equally flustered, could not even finish speaking.
Whoosh—! Slash—!
The red-armored monster swung its sword and cut away the part of the adviser’s body where the mouth was.
The severed head shot into the air.
The red knight closed the distance in an instant.
Its speed was terrifying.
Its power was incomparable to that of the lava golem they had fought earlier.
“What is this…!”
They were thrown into profound confusion.
They could hardly help it.
They had believed that the Demon King Tower’s monsters grew progressively stronger.
Amid the instant confusion, battle began.
“Spread out and get behind it! Use our numbers to attack its blind spots!”
That was the warriors’ commander’s first order,
and, at the same time, their undoing.
The Blood Knight had a 360-degree field of vision. It had no blind spots whatsoever.
But the commander had no way of knowing that.
This red-armored knight
was a monster found nowhere in the Tower’s records.