Chapter 124: 123. Sorting Out the Pecking Order
1.
I knew she was satisfied, but apparently she was even more satisfied than I thought.
But wasn’t Seren affiliated with the Imperial Family?
Was it really okay for her to give me something like unlimited access to her?
What about her guard duties whenever I called her out?
[Cristiano]: Everything else sounds great, but is the third one really okay?
[Cristiano]: What about your guard duties...
Her reply came quickly again.
[The nickname of ‘Seren de Lumiere’ has been changed to ‘Seren’.]
[Seren]: Ah, that’s okay!
[Seren]: I’ve been ordered to focus on climbing now, so someone else will be taking over the guard duties for a while.
Ah...
Well, I had equipped her, so it made sense that they would want something in return.
If she had even gotten permission, then it probably wasn’t something I needed to worry about.
[Seren]: Please don’t feel burdened and call me whenever you need me. I’m pretty useful, hehe.
I knew that.
I’d watched plenty of videos of her swinging a sword around.
I could say with certainty that if you wanted to stay alive, you called Seren.
[Cristiano]: All right, then... I’ll ask you when I need help.
[Seren]: Yes! You absolutely have to!
Anyway, for my first transaction, I’d say it had gone pretty well.
If she had clung to me demanding the next piece of equipment, then the next one after that, I would have kept my distance. But she was making it so obvious how grateful she was...
And since I was human too, I couldn’t help but feel good about it.
As I lay there resting a little longer...
Creak.
"Lionel, the aunties are leaving. Let’s say goodbye."
"Ah, yeah."
Ruby came in to tell me, and I sat up.
Dolores had her Great Trial on the 150th floor next week, and everyone was heading off to take care of their own business.
I should see them off.
I had only briefly crossed paths with Seren earlier and exchanged a quick greeting, too.
When I followed Ruby out to the living room...
"Lioneel..."
Yeomhwa spread both arms wide, whining.
"I wanna take you with me, whole and all..."
"Leave him here."
At Dolores’s sharp voice, Yeomhwa obediently came over and hugged me first.
A faint rose fragrance lingered around my nose.
She patted my back for a while before finally letting me go.
Next was Isabella.
"Disciple, I’ll be back."
She said it coolly enough, but her fingers were tightly clutching my sleeve.
Fidget.
Before long, Isabella finally let go as well.
"How strange. You’re all really close, aren’t you?"
Seren, who had been watching, smiled and walked over to me.
Slowly extending her hand...
"Hello, Lionel. I look forward to..."
She abruptly trailed off.
As though checking something, Seren drew in a small breath.
Sniff.
Sniff...
"...?"
It seemed like she was smelling something.
Then she cocked her head, stared at my face for a long while...
And soon smiled again.
"Uh, yes. I look forward to working with you, Lionel."
"Yes. I look forward to working with you too."
I shook her hand, but...
I’d washed properly. What was that about?
Did I smell...?
Smiling, she released my hand.
"Everyone, travel safely."
When I followed them all the way to the front door and waved, the three of them each said their goodbyes.
Before turning away, Seren bent down and looked at me once more.
"..."
But once again, she only smiled without saying anything.
Sunlight gleamed off her armor, and Seren’s golden hair sparkled.
Mm, she’s pretty.
There was no other way to put it.
She definitely qualified as a Dawn Apostle.
After the three left, I discreetly buried my nose in my clothes.
"Dolores."
"Hmm?"
"Do I smell?"
Come to think of it, she wasn’t exactly someone from whom I could expect an objective assessment...
But the moment Dolores heard my question, she lifted me right up.
Then she buried her nose against my chest.
Inhale...
Then Dolores lifted her head and smiled sweetly.
"...Not at all. You smell lovely."
Hmm.
I had no choice but to believe her for now.
2.
A week passed like that.
If there was one change, it was the balance in my Tower System account.
Or rather, in the storage maintained by the Tower System...
[50,000,000 GOLD]
Fifty million gold had piled up.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem to take a transaction fee or anything.
And I’d sent Seren a list of the ten kilograms of minerals I wanted her to bring me.
The truth was, once minerals were refined and the impurities removed, the usable quantity dropped dramatically.
Even if I received ten kilograms, less than that would actually make it onto the workbench...
But Seren insisted on ten kilograms of raw material.
Ten kilograms of pure usable material after removing all the impurities and waste.
So, in practical terms... it would vary by mineral, but that probably meant forty to fifty kilograms each.
Legendary.
And lastly...
"I’m nervous as hell."
I sat there, my legs trembling.
Today was the day Dolores would challenge the Great Trial on the 150th floor.
Dolores was overflowing with confidence, and the equipment I’d made her was reassuring too, but...
The 150th-floor Great Trial was infamous to begin with.
It was called the final eye of the needle on the path to becoming a high ranker.
The pass rate was only six percent?
And that wasn’t six percent of everyone who attempted it. It was six percent even when you gathered only people who had made it to the 149th floor.
On top of that, the nature of the trial changed every time.
Even if you studied how someone else had cleared it, there was no guarantee you would get the same trial.
In the end, it was a pure contest of skill, where having old records to refer to meant nothing.
Interestingly, though, the trial themes themselves were always highly praised for being fun.
They said the Tower System seemed to pick the optimal test every time.
"Whew..."
Then give her something like a beauty pageant.
She’d take first place without question.
The Great Trial only opened once a month.
And even then, it was apparently packed because there were so many so-called long-term students repeatedly challenging the 150th floor.
Finally, the theme of this trial, announced thirty minutes ago, was...
Ding.
[Big brother, it’s up.]
It seemed to have just been posted.
I immediately opened the community post floating in the air.
─────────────────
[150th Floor — Great Trial]
[Participants: 89]
[Trial: Battle Royale]
[Eliminate the other challengers and survive until the trial ends.]
[Clear Conditions: Survive until the end of the trial and land finishing blows on at least three challengers.]
[Time Limit: 10 hours]
─────────────────
"...Hmm."
Honestly, I didn’t really know what to make of it just from reading that.
But there was one utterly shitty practice that immediately came to mind when I thought of battle royales.
"What about teaming?"
My mama was alone, damn it.
As if proving my concern right, a post popped up on the community.
[This is a fucking mess.]
The post said this:
─────────────────
[List of Company-sponsored climbers on this 150th floor]
[Ivan Toonie]
[Mac Alister]
[David Nunes]
[Ruben Barvis]
[Victor Lindel]
[Leonhardt Letz]
[William Borati]
If all they need to do is survive until the end, they don’t even need to fight each other. They can just stick together and go sightseeing lol.
There isn’t even a rule against teaming, so what the hell is this?
This is seriously confirmed to be the most absurd curb-stomping Great Trial ever.
The Tower has completely lost its touch this time. This makes no sense.
─────────────────
Anonymous: Is this an individual match or a team match?
└ Anonymous 1: A Company get-together.
└ Anonymous 2: Those Company parasites are getting way too cocky, fuck.
Anonymous 3: But if there’s no rule against teaming, doesn’t that mean teaming is allowed?
└ Anonymous 4: Legendary Company-parasite mindset lmao.
─────────────────
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Those Tower bastards were insane.
How could they make a trial where legal teaming was possible?
"This is bullshit."
My blood pressure was already rising.
Climbers who had reached the 150th floor had to be formidable in their own right, and now those people were going to roam around in a pack...
I couldn’t help thinking that my delicate mama, Dolores, was in danger.
I hurriedly sent her a message, but...
"Are you okay?"
Ding.
[The recipient is currently in an area where messages cannot be received.]
Ugh.
They even blocked communication because it was a Great Trial.
After I waited around thirty minutes with my legs shaking, the broadcast finally began.
I immediately entered the stream.
Perhaps because the Great Trial was treated like a major sporting event, the coverage was polished.
The climbers’ positions were displayed across a huge map.
And Dolores had been dropped alone onto an isolated beach.
"Let’s put on both streams."
I would watch the broadcast focused on Dolores, and another one showing the overall situation.
But there was something strange.
Everyone else had been busy doing whatever they needed to do the moment the Great Trial began.
Yet Dolores was crouched on the beach, gathering shells.
"...?"
The comment section had the same reaction.
[What philosophy am I supposed to take from this?]
[The girl collecting seashells, damn.]
[What is she doing?]
At the same time...
"Ugh..."
My concerns had indeed become reality.
The seven climbers gathered halfway up a mountain, and despite this supposedly being a battle royale, they checked one another’s faces, naturally shook hands, and started laughing together.
They even began forming up.
They put a shield bearer at the front, archers behind him, and formed a sturdy formation as they began walking down the mountain.
[LMAOOOOOOOO]
[The greatest teaming cup in history LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO]
[Has the Tower seriously lost its mind?]
It would be hard for anyone to hurriedly form a team after seeing that, too.
After all, those guys already knew each other.
Even if strangers hastily threw together a team to oppose them, there was no guarantee they could win.
These were people who had Company backing and were no slouches themselves.
And since they were blatantly announcing their presence as they marched around, other climbers began quietly veering away the moment they spotted the group from afar.
So in the end, the main strategy seemed to be: avoid the Company and get three kills.
"Oh."
Then the screen caught one climber who apparently hadn’t managed to avoid them.
He was hiding behind a rock...
Bang! Rumble...!
A fireball struck the rock and exploded.
"Ah..."
He’d been found.
The man instantly turned around, but a climber wielding a dagger, part of a separately formed flanking unit, was already standing there...
Crunch.
His abdomen was stabbed, and he collapsed on the spot.
[1 challenger eliminated.]
[Remaining participants: 88]
He wasn’t dead, right?
[Yeah... They say people don’t die if the Great Trial’s theme is PvP...]
"I’ll let you have the next kill~"
The man wiped the blood from his dagger and snickered.
It looked like they were even taking kill distribution into account...
They were putting on their own little show. Seriously.
After some time passed...
The teaming climbers, descending through the forest, began to see the ocean through the trees.
"...Huh?"
I hurriedly looked at the other stream I had open beside it.
The sandy shore, the rocks, even the waves.
"Ah, shit."
The seven stepped out of the shade of the trees and onto the beach.
"Let’s just follow the edge and sweep everyone up."
They seemed to have settled on their own plan, and ahead of them...
"..."
Was Dolores, happily smiling as she picked up shells.
She was sorting through the shells in the palm of her hand.
"...Oh."
The one who spotted my mama first from farther away stopped walking.
"Fucking jackpot."
Creak...
An archer drew his bowstring.
At the same time, the rest of them began spreading out.
Dolores was still sitting with her head lowered, as though she hadn’t noticed them yet.
"Get in formation. You saw the footage, right? Keep moving!"
Keep moving, huh...
They were probably wary of [Primordial Garden].
If they stood still in one place, flowers would erupt beneath their feet and burn them alive.
They knew everything.
It looked like they had watched footage of Dolores fighting in advance and even thought up a response.
Without realizing it, I leaned forward.
"Dolores...! Look behind you...!"
I stared at Dolores’s camera feed.
Just as the teamer’s arrow was drawn back...
"...Found it."
Dolores stopped.
I thought she had finally noticed them, but...
Click.
What she took from inside an opened shell was a small pearl.
Tap, tap.
Dolores gently brushed it off with her fingertips and held it up to the sunlight.
"...He’ll like this."
The pearl’s information appeared on-screen.
─────────────────
[Millennial Pearl] [★★★★★]
『It was nurtured for a thousand years in a sea untouched by human feet.』
『It was nurtured for another thousand years on a beach untouched by human feet.』
─────────────────
"...What?"
Why was a five-star material coming out of there?
Of course, I knew.
The Tower was a place where materials could turn up anywhere.
I knew that things like Red Iron Ore had been obtained from trial grounds and dungeons in much the same way, but...
So that was what she’d been looking for...
But my brief moment of emotion didn’t last long.
No, wait. That aside...
"Dodge!!!"
The instant the arrow was fired...
Bang!
Dolores’s figure vanished.
This was Silver Palace’s Blink.
Dolores was suddenly floating in midair.
"Move!!"
They didn’t panic despite the arrow missing. They hurriedly scattered and looked up at Dolores.
"Oh."
Glimmer.
The ground beneath their feet shone.
"Fuck..."
The one thing they had misunderstood was...
─────────────────
[[Volcano]]
[The mana left behind when the wearer casts magic is gathered beneath the ground to form buds of flame.]
[The more mana accumulates, the stronger the buds become. When they bloom, the stored power erupts through the earth.]
[[Primordial Garden]]
[Ground where flowers have bloomed is converted into the wearer’s garden.]
[Power accumulated within the garden can erupt from other locations regardless of distance.]
[Natural catastrophe.]
[Eruptions generated within the garden ignore the target’s defense.]
─────────────────
Those pillars of flame they had seen in the footage, the ones I had seen too...
The reason they had only erupted in one spot was simply because flowers had only bloomed there.
You could avoid them if you moved?
That was true, but only if there were no flowers where you moved to.
Whoooosh...
The entire beach turned red.
"Huh...?"
The teamer who had been constantly moving and stepping around looked down.
The ones who had moved sideways did the same.
Every time they moved their feet, red light began to leak through the sand beneath them.
"...So she wasn’t resting."
Even as she sorted through shells, she had been working magic...
She had simply turned this whole stretch of beach into a flower field...
Into Dolores’s garden.
As a maker, I often vaguely imagined how I wanted the wearer to use my equipment.
But sometimes...
Maybe because their compatibility was so high, they seemed to understand the equipment better than I did.
"Back! Get into the forest—"
Someone shouted too late.
Far too late.
Clutching the pearl tightly, Dolores lightly opened her other hand.
And without leaving them any chance to respond...
KWA-AAAAAANG!!!
Pillars of flame rose up and engulfed the entire beach.
"...Pretty."
Red flowers bloomed all at once.
[7 challengers eliminated.]
[Remaining participants: 72]
One hour into the Great Trial.
Every climber sponsored by the Company had been wiped out.
By Dolores.
By my equipment.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register