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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: A New King
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“Do you know something?”
“Master doesn't know anything~.”
“……”
“Big Bro, just a hint…!”
“Hyung-nim, uh, like Seth said, just a little hint… Please?”
“Big Bro doesn't know a thing.”
Ged's party seemed to give up quickly at my deadpan remark.
Why not ask a little more? I have other versions ready.
Soon, a different kind of animal emerged from the hole.
“Snakes?”
They were thread snakes. Not just one, but a swarming, overwhelming number of them.
Huh, this is pretty standard, isn't it?
“Ugh, what's this? Smoke?”
“Don't breathe it in! It's a deadly poison!”
Surprisingly, Brett was the first to recognize the poison and shout a warning.
It was their first time facing an enemy that spewed poison, but they remained calm, like a party that had grown by using crises as stepping stones.
‘Their ability to handle this is on par with mid-level prisoners.’
As always, I casually stepped back to watch.
‘Was I worried for nothing?’
The sight of the wheat field, as if stained with blood, had bothered me a little, but this was manageable.
And just as I expected, the party steadily thinned out the snakes.
And then it was time for the boss to appear.
“...What is that?”
“Well, it's n-not a scarecrow, I don't think!”
“I know that. Ged, you okay?”
“Yeah. I'll have to try and block it!”
“Hahaha, this is a little creepy.”
It certainly looked human, but its face was pure white, completely devoid of eyes, a nose, or a mouth—like a mannequin.
It didn't look difficult to fight, but the problem was its numbers.
Not just one, but an overwhelming horde, enough to turn my vision white. It created a chilling scene.
“Mommy, Mommy… where are you?”
“Daddy! Help me. Daddy!”
“Waaaaah!”
“...What is this.”
Aside from the lack of facial features, they looked like intricately crafted people.
As these faceless figures began to speak in the voices of children, everyone froze.
One of the figures raised its hand high and cried out.
“Soothe me! Mommy!”
“Soothe us! Soothe us!”
“Don't hurt me!”
“No!”
“There's a bad kid among us!”
“There is!”
“Find them!”
Only Helios and Brett maintained their composure. Helios turned to Haira.
“Whatever they are, we have to take them down. Haira, can you make it so we can't hear the sounds?”
“Huh?”
“I think you can use your bewitchment on our own people.”
“I'll try.”
Helios and Ged's party soon began to move with agility.
The figures still cried and spoke in children's voices, but the party calmly thinned their numbers as if they couldn't hear a thing.
Haira's ability didn't work on me, anyway, so I heard every word loud and clear.
“Mama?”
There was one particularly grating voice, but it was soon silenced cleanly by a disc I created.
‘Is this it?’
It was a rather bizarre sight for the average person, but they didn't seem particularly strong.
In fact, the previous floors Helios and Ged's party had passed through seemed even more difficult.
And so, the last standing figure fell to the ground.
“Did we get them?”
“Hyung, I… I saw it in a book. That's a forbidden spell…”
“What the hell, Seth? What kind of books have you been reading?!”
While everyone was looking at each other, relieved and chatting, I shot up from my spot.
“...Tch!”
In an instant, I was standing in front of the party. I met Helios's eyes. He looked puzzled.
“Master?”
“My apologies.”
“What?”
With no time to explain, I grabbed Helios and threw him.
I heard the sound of discs—one for each person—appearing and smacking the rest of Ged's party away.
“Agh, Hyung-niiiim!”
“Kyaaak!”
“Sorry, everyone.”
I gave a half-hearted wave.
“Good little children should rest now.”
“Cough, ugh, that's too much! Why did you only throw the captain by hand!”
“Well, our princess is precious.”
“Who's your princess!”
He's got good ears. I can hear Helios's indignant shout all the way from over here.
I leisurely cleaned out my ear and stared ahead.
*Splat!*
A viscous liquid grazed my cheek.
The moment it hit the floor, the ground sizzled and melted away.
‘Poison? Acid?’
Seeing it melt like that, it was both.
‘This is insane.’
I was at a loss for words.
What the hell is this?
‘There's no way the low-level guys can block this. Even the ones from the upper floors would get poisoned. What is this supposed to be?’
The Tower, with its 100 floors, had its own set of stages.
The difficulty was distributed appropriately, as if to prevent people from getting stuck on a single floor.
But this is where the role of the top-tier ‘Head’ comes into play.
The Head can control the overall difficulty of the Tower, as well as the creatures and materials that appear in the trials.
In other words, they can crank up the difficulty of the entire Tower if they want to.
Just like now.
‘How is Helios supposed to deal with something like this?’
The fallen mannequins began to move like living people, squirming back into the hole.
And soon after, a massive creature rose from the hole.
It was a snake.
Moreover, it was a snake that spewed a thick poison just by existing.
‘Thank god this is the 29th floor.’
The theme of the trials changes from the 30th floor.
Even if the Head can adjust the trials, they can't change the main theme set for each block of floors.
So, while they can make a snake appear on the 29th floor, they can't change the pattern of ‘animals’ appearing, followed by a ‘boss,’ which is the theme from floor 20 to 29.
“But you know, there's something strange about all this…”
My Kia enveloped the snake, forming a massive hemispherical dome.
As I stepped inside without hesitation, I suddenly recalled what Sergeant Steven had said.
“No, it's not something a junior needs to worry about. It seems the prisoners on the upper floors of the Tower have been causing a commotion lately.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, it's not common for several people to die outside the Tower.”
The drastically changed difficulty of the Tower.
The fact that several people had died on the upper floors, above the 80th, where no one had died when I was there.
It all pointed to one thing.
“...What kind of crazy bastard became King?”
***
“Is there still n-no word from the Boss?”
A woman in her mid-thirties fretted, biting her nails.
She had a gloomy impression, her eyes hidden by her bangs, and the pupils visible between the strands were unfocused, like a blind person's.
This was ‘Doris,’ a prisoner from the 92nd floor who could see everything with her Kia.
“Don't ask me.”
“B-but if you don't know, who does…? The twins s-said they don't know either.”
“I don't know. There's no word! Just how far did she go this time that she's not coming back?!”
The person who answered Doris's question was none other than Deril.
“Dammit, what is she doing? Enough time passed that a new Head was chosen…”
For Deril, who had shared a cell with Mint and considered herself her right-hand woman, the current situation was just plain wrong.
“What are those damn guards plotting? Has anyone talked to the Warden?”
In front of Deril were several prisoners. All of them resided on the 90th floor or higher.
If they had one thing in common, it was that every single one of them was stained with blood and covered in wounds.
While most of them shook their heads or remained silent, a snickering laugh was heard.
Doris, the most timid of the group, flinched.
“Eek, so this is where you were?”
*Sizzzle.* It was a sound that sent shivers down one's spine just hearing it. The sound of walls and floors melting from acid and poison.
When they turned their heads, a woman with short, pink hair was snickering.
Ramona.
A prisoner who, like Deril, had shared a cell with Mint.
And she was the new ‘King’ who had recently taken over.
“You've all been so good at hiding.”
She always said things that were hard to understand, but they had thought she genuinely followed Mint.
“It's disappointing.”
But now, looking at the countless bodies lying on the floor, it would be difficult to say such a thing.
“Did you think I wouldn't know if you hid in the Tower?”
“……”
“Oh, right, do you like the difficulty? I tried to make it fun.”
“……”
Deril gritted her teeth.
“A difficulty designed to kill everyone?”
“My, my. It's just a system where if there are strong people, strong things come out, tailored to the floor.”
“Don't be ridiculous. You've completely overturned the system the Boss created.”
“So?”
“……”
Ramona remained unfazed by Deril's accusation. This was the reason they had failed to carry out Mint's final order: to guide the new prisoner.
One side, to aim for the position of the Head; the other, to stop that person, Ramona.
“Unfortunately, the Boss isn't here to say anything about it.”
