Floor 34, The Waiting Room (1)

Women-only... of all the things to pop up out of nowhere.

So that was why the imperial soldiers had called them the Witches of the Night? Because only women could ride them?

Witches and broomsticks were a classic cliché, sure — but I never imagined the cliché would hold true inside the Tower of Trials.

Having watched Harry Potter zoom around on a broomstick, I simply couldn't wrap my head around it.

Worse yet, the other broomsticks were all the same.

Why only women? What's the mechanism behind it?

And if this was a universe-scale thing, there had to be genders beyond just male and female.

"Hermaphrodites, or a third sex, or—"

...Right.

Could they not ride them either?

Had whoever first developed the broomstick simply hardcoded that restriction in?

Well, it was pointless to agonize over. The Tower had declared it women-only, which meant I couldn't use it.

Maybe I should just recommend it to Heijeong?

When I sent her a message laced with complaint, Heijeong laughed.

The deity who first developed it was a deity; everything after that should have been made by the people of Soborn or some other planet.

It wasn't easy to wrap my head around.

In other words: stop thinking of the magic broomstick as a manufactured product, and start thinking of it as a natural law — like fire, or water.

As expected, she thought along the same lines as me.

After that, we discussed which floor we might pinch an airship from, though we couldn't predict the future.

In the end, we settled on seizing one whenever the opportunity arose.

Right — time to get to combat training.

I stepped into the training room and went to summon Roxanne — and noticed something strange.

For combat training, the achievement points required to summon an opponent scaled with their strength.

And the points needed to summon Roxanne were more than double those required for the Overseer.

Which meant Roxanne was at least twice as strong as the Overseer.

And that made no sense to me.

There's no way, right?

The Roxanne I'd seen was absolutely not that powerful.

Don't tell me she'd been hiding her strength?

And if she'd hidden it from me, did that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mean she was stronger than I was?

But no matter how many times I turned it over in my head, it was absurd.

If she were stronger than me, she could have wiped out the entire punitive force single-handedly.

Instead, she'd focused purely on holding them back, hadn't she?

Which meant she'd done it deliberately.

What is this? Why was something I didn't know about hidden in the 31st floor's trial?

No use wondering. I'd have to face her myself to find out.

Just in case, I'd dial the difficulty down a little.

Achievement points drained away, and Roxanne materialized at the center of the training room.

The familiar elf, glaring at me with eyes full of hatred.

It was combat training, so there was no conversation. Roxanne drew her sword and came at me.

She's definitely stronger than the Overseer, but...

As expected — her speed and everything else — even with the difficulty lowered, she was no match for me.

Then it's not physical strength...

I twisted my wrist and parried the blade cutting in on a diagonal.

The difference in power was obvious.

Yet her half-deflected sword ignored its own momentum and came arcing back around.

She must have used the spirit's power.

At the same instant, my body and my axe grew heavy.

Is Pungwol's level still too low?

Even with Pungwol active, the spirit was pressing down on my body.

The saving grace was that the gap between Roxanne and me was substantial.

I overcame the wind's crushing pressure with raw strength.

I brought the axe crashing down from above and pinned her sword in place.

A little stronger than the Overseer, sure — but not enough to justify double the achievement points...

When I drove the axe forward toward her throat, Roxanne released her sword and hastily fell back.

Clang! The discarded sword struck the floor.

Having let go of her blade, Roxanne's lips moved in a rush.

"O wind of the still silence—"

Yes. Of course I'd assumed she had some hidden ability.

So she was finally showing it to me.

In an instant, the air within the training room turned over on itself.

It was different from when she'd used the wind spirit before. A wind born around Roxanne's body now filled the entire room.

Gust after gust, an endless onslaught.

And I felt the gale's hostility aimed straight at me.

"...Protect the children of the wind."

Behind Roxanne, a translucent figure took shape.

A real, existing spirit.

I flinched slightly at the sight of something I'd never seen before. The sheer, overwhelming presence of it.

Above it, a notification window rose.

The Spirit King...

So this was it.

Roxanne hadn't held her position in the Elf Alliance for nothing.

The Spirit King's gaze turned toward me.

The raging wind pressure — there was no withstanding it, not even with Pungwol.

I hurriedly used my Shadow Shroud to shift my body, but the wind chased down my every movement.

Damn it.

I loosed lightning, but it dimmed and faded in the process of piercing the gale.

Well, she was a Spirit King for a reason.

Omnidirectional wind pressure carved through my body.

The wind only grew fiercer as time passed, until even moving became a struggle.

I cloaked my body in mana for protection, but the blades of wind kept grazing my skin.

And this is a weakened Spirit King.

Frankly, it looked like I'd have a hard time winning.

The only reason I was still standing upright was that the Spirit King had no intention of directly attacking me. Not yet.

Then a resonant voice wove through the training room.

"Your memories are incomplete, and your power differs from before. Your connection to Roxanne, too, is strange. And yet the one I have never seen before wields the power of both the Shadow God and the Wind God, hmm..."

When I gave no answer, the wind softened a degree.

"Which would mean we are copies. You would be a Challenger, most likely."

Challenger.

A familiar word — one I'd heard several times while climbing the Tower — spilled from the Spirit King's lips.

Questions came pouring out of me at its hostility-free demeanor.

"What is a Challenger?"

"A Challenger is simply a Challenger. One has not appeared in a long while... but that is all it is. Neither more, nor less."

What kind of riddle was that?

Thankfully, there was no hostility in it — and with any luck, I might glean information even Heijeong didn't have.

"I've met plenty of beings who call me that. But none of them would tell me anything. What exactly does a Challenger do?"

"One whom the Tower desires. Even should you succeed in your challenge, I know not whether you could accomplish what the Tower truly wishes..."

"What does that mean?"

"Enough. This is all I am able to tell you."

I wanted to beg for more, but the words wouldn't come out.

No — more precisely, my mouth was moving, but no sound passed my lips.

The Spirit King had woven some sort of spell over me.

"You bear the power of the Wind God, so I cannot bring you harm."

"Challenger, to awaken to the truth that you are a copy is an agonizing thing. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ask that you summon Roxanne no more. However many times you call, I have nothing further I may tell you..."

And with the Spirit King's final words, a blade of wind cleaved Roxanne's throat in two.

Roxanne's head dropped to the floor with a soft thud.

And just like that, the combat training ended in anticlimax.

Steadying my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rattled thoughts, I organized what had happened with the Spirit King.

It wasn't certain why Roxanne — someone capable of summoning the Wind Spirit King — had merely watched the punitive force.

The best inference I could manage was that she was manufacturing a pretext for war.

Why bother? Wasn't she planning to commit terrorism anyway?

I didn't know.

Perhaps the Tower of Trials had simply set a trial tailored for me, and there was truly no meaning to any of it.

The one consolation was that even if I entered the full-floor trials after the 35th, the Spirit King could never harm me.

The Wind Spirit King.

A formidable being, to be sure — but it had clearly stated that, blessed as I was by the Blue Dawn Wind, it could do me no harm.

What really bothers me is what the Spirit King said about Challengers.

One whom the Tower desires.

Even should you succeed in your challenge, I know not whether you could accomplish what the Tower truly wishes.

Those words defied understanding.

The Challenger I knew was, without question, someone who had refused the status window.

And conquering the Tower would make them a debt-free deity.

And the Tower desired that?

Wasn't the Tower's whole purpose to strip away ownership?

That was why it forced the status window on us, why it deceived us through its messages...

I was confused.

The higher I climbed, the less my questions were being answered — the doubts only multiplied.

I told Heijeong about it, but she too sent back only a puzzled reply.

If the Tower of Trials had truly meant to steal Earth's ownership—

Why would it make us help the weaker deities?

Only now did I feel how badly things failed to add up.

By the law of the strong devouring the weak — if the Tower were truly as vicious a thing as it seemed, why would it go out of its way to liberate other races?

For a moment, I recalled the Tower's warm voice just before I'd entered the 1st floor.

Unlike its usual dry tone, even though I hadn't chosen the status window, the Tower had offered me a warm voice.

Saying it would wish me good fortune.

As we talked, Heijeong sent another message.

It was a question I couldn't answer.

Heijeong was right.

With no solid information, we could speculate — but we shouldn't leap to conclusions.

There were plenty of suspicious circumstances, sure.

But the one certain fact was simply that the Tower had deceived us.