Floor 7: The Eerie Forest and the Mad Tiger-Men (1)
Ha Heijeong's second run, Floor 6.
The Community of the Dead.
Welcome to Floor 7 of the Tower of Trials: the Eerie Forest.
This forest is home to the maddened Tiger-Men. Kill at least three Tiger-Men. Should you slay more than five, the King of the Tiger-Men shall appear.
In that event, you must either slay the King or offer a sacrifice sufficient to satisfy him. Time remaining: 5 hours 59 minutes.
The message in the notification window was unusually considerate. Had the Tower ever explained anything in this much detail before? What else was it hiding this time? Having been burned by the Tower's tricks more than once, suspicion was my first reaction — even to a helpful explanation.
Out of habit, I glanced at Ha Heijeong, and she shook her head. Figure this one out yourself.
"Ugh, this gives me the creeps."
"I know, right? It's positively eerie."
The forest was dead silent. Not a single insect chirp or birdsong drifted through the thin mist clouding our view. The trees stood packed tight together, every last branch bowed low toward the ground.
"Well, well. Dobby, good to see you. You've grown a bit, haven't you?"
"Kkiik! Baldy! Good to see you!"
"...Heh heh. Apparently our Dobby doesn't know what a 'baldy' is."
"Kkiik! Human! Shiny-shiny! Baldy!"
The remark struck the uncle with such psychological damage that he froze mid-sentence, mouth hanging wide open.
Hmm. It was as if someone had cast a time-stop spell on him. I barely managed to hold in the laughter bubbling up from my gut before it could drag the corners of my mouth skyward. Laughing here would be a grave insult to the man.
"PUHAHAHA!"
Of course, Seo Harin was the exception. The only person entitled to laugh out loud in this situation was the uncle's own daughter. I bit down on my lip, honestly a little envious of how freely she could let it fly.
"Ahem. Dobby, you happen to be a baldy too, you know."
"Kkiik! Goblin! Naturally! No hair! Human! Naturally! Has hair!"
The uncle turned to face us, forcing a smile onto his face. Was it just my imagination, or did his eyes flash with resentment as they swept past me?
...I was definitely going to have to sit Dobby down for a serious talk in the next Waiting Room. About how the word "baldy" can wound a man far more deeply than a blade.
Ah, this is uncomfortable. What do I do? I should say something to cut through this pitiful atmosphere — and just then, Cole, apparently struck by the same thought, tossed a question to Ha Heijeong.
Phew. A round of applause for Cole's quick reflexes.
"Ms. Heijeong, how exactly should we go about this floor...?"
"I honestly don't know. Foresight isn't something you can just switch on whenever you feel like it."
"...I see."
Cole's face fell with disappointment, and watching him, I realized Ha Heijeong was right.
It wasn't just about me — it was for the whole party. We'd only moved together on Floor 6, and already everyone was reaching for her to carry them.
All right. Think for yourselves. None of us knew when or where we'd hit a wall. Starting from the lower floors of the Tower, we had to build the strength to solve our own problems.
"We need to kill at least three Tiger-Men, so... I suppose finding them comes first?"
"I'd say so. Three within six hours... I take it the Tiger-Men must be hard to track down in this forest."
It was the uncle who answered my question. He was right — the quota was small for the time we'd been given. At some point the conversation had branched off without me, and the uncle now gave Cole a warm pat on the shoulder.
"Oho, then it's your turn to pull some weight this time, Cole. You're an archer — aren't you supposed to have sharp senses and all that?"
"Haha, that's true, but wouldn't Suhyeok's instincts be sharper than mine?"
Cole looked at me with an awkward chuckle. It didn't feel like he was shoving the responsibility onto me — more like modesty. Or maybe it was simply too embarrassing to big himself up in front of me.
There was no way I could keep a straight face about it, so I just smiled back at him.
"So what do you suppose it means — the King appearing if we kill five of them?"
Seo Harin's voice jolted us back from the tangent we'd drifted onto thanks to the uncle. Hmm, achievement points, maybe? Even on Floor 6, there'd been people grumbling that they'd settled for farming zombies and come up short.
"Maybe it's a warning that getting too greedy over achievement points can get you killed?"
"Hmm, that could be it. 'Slay the King or offer a sacrifice,' it says. The sacrifice would be people, wouldn't it?"
"It certainly seems that way. The party system shows up, and immediately we get a mission like this..."
Cole, answering Ha Heijeong, let his words trail off. In the sudden silence, every gaze in the party swung to him.
"It feels like the Tower is trying to drive a wedge between us. The party leader is usually the strongest one, right? So it's probably designed to make us weigh achievement points against our own party members."
"Hmm, that tracks, honestly — just look at how much authority they handed the party leader. Any party that was already at each other's throats back in the Waiting Room is in for a world of pain."
The uncle nodded with a worried look. Cole's theory definitely held water. A party with bad blood would be bickering from the Waiting Room onward.
'By Floor 7, a party could be a complete mess.'
Hm? While I was mulling it over, the uncle was eyeing me with a sly, sideways look. What's this about... Don't tell me it's because I'm the party leader?
"Suhyeok, you..."
"Uncle, you don't actually think I'm some kind of heartless bastard, do you?"
"Heh heh. Kidding, kidding. Gyah!"
The uncle let out a satisfied chortle, then suddenly yelped. Harin, evidently not amused by the joke, had pinched him squarely in the side.
...Thank you, Harin. Truly, you are the only one who can rein that man in.
In the middle of silently offering my gratitude, Harin asked a question, almost as an afterthought.
"By the way, do we actually need to worry about any of that?"
"Harin, what do you mean?"
"The King of the Tiger-Men. Can't Suhyeok handle him just fine? He took down the Seraph Queen on Floor 6 without breaking a sweat, didn't he?"
"...Now that you mention it, he did. Suhyeok killed the Seraph Queen with two swings of his mace, plain and simple."
Suddenly, every eye in the party was on me.
It was true — right now I wielded power on a staggering level. Even against the Seraph Queen, I'd only been overwhelmed at first by her appearance; in truth, she'd been easy to handle.
But still, come on. Weren't these people being a little too optimistic? Or had they simply been dazzled by the sight of me cutting down the Seraph Queen — so much so that they trusted my strength without question?
Well, I was grateful for the confidence. But as party leader, I couldn't nod along to that kind of thinking without a second thought. If the King of the Tiger-Men turned out to be stronger than me, the only option left would be to hand over my companions as sacrifices.
I had no intention of creating a situation where someone had to die for nothing.
"But what happens if the King of the Tiger-Men is stronger than me?"
"Would a floor boss really turn out that strong out of nowhere? You killed the Queen all by yourself, so if we just back you up..."
"You always plan for the worst. I have no intention of offering my party members up as sacrifices."
For stating the obvious, the whole party looked at me like I'd moved them somehow. Embarrassed, I turned my eyes away — and caught Ha Heijeong watching all of us with a warm, contented smile. That look of hers stung my pride a little, but there was nothing to be done.
Even in small things like this, I had to keep sharpening my party members' problem-solving and judgment, little by little.
"Let's find the Tiger-Men first."
Uncomfortable with everyone gazing at me with moved expressions, I hurriedly changed the subject. Besides, all of those worries only mattered after we'd bagged three Tiger-Men.
"Yes, sir!"
"Heh heh, let's get to it."
"First, should we decide on a direction? To find the Tiger-M—"
That was the moment the leaves shattered.
At the first crackle of brush, my head snapped around; Cole, mid-sentence, followed a beat behind. The thin mist cut our visibility to almost nothing, and in that hazy field of view, the rustle of branches swelled louder.
Crack, crack — brittle, withered limbs snapped and rained down.
"...—them won't be necessary."
Through the pale fog, the Tiger-Men began to emerge. They bore the shape of humans, but their claws were as keen as a tiger's—
Damn it all. No time to stand around studying their looks.
"Battle stations!"
At my shout, the uncle was at my side in an instant, shield raised. Six Tiger-Men had shown themselves — and behind them, the rustling kept coming.
'How many of them are swarming in...?'
Shit. Of course. That notification hadn't been detailed for nothing.
The moment I faced that horde of Tiger-Men, I understood: everything we'd agonized over meant nothing. We had been thinking about this floor all wrong.
Floor 7 was never about hunting down Tiger-Men and killing them. The real trial was surviving the Tiger-Men who had come to hunt the climbers.
Worse — we couldn't even kill them freely.
'We don't know how strong the King is yet.'
The moment we put down our sixth Tiger-Man, the King would appear. Without any certainty we could beat him, we couldn't act rashly. We'd have to endure six hours, cutting down the swarming beasts five kills at a time — unable to even swing our weapons at them with a clear conscience.
In the end, the structure of it was this: dodge, and dodge again, until stamina gave out, and then — with no other choice — kill a Tiger-Man, and meet the King.
...Can we actually pull this off?
I glanced back at Ha Heijeong for just a moment, but she was simply watching the Tiger-Men with an unreadable expression. A flicker of frustration rose in my chest, and I shook my head at once.
'Ha Heijeong is the one person who wants me to succeed more than anyone.'
Don't lean on her. She'd told me I was Earth's hope — that I was the only one who could clear this Tower. In the end, this was something I had to carry. Something we had to carry.
No one grows into a hothouse flower. That was exactly why she kept her mouth shut. We had to grow on our own and fight our way through. Think of Ha Heijeong as nothing more than a last line of safety.
So we'd try, and keep trying — and if it still came to nothing, then we'd kill every last Tiger-Man.
The King of the Tiger-Men?
Just like the Seraph Queen on Floor 6 — couldn't I simply beat him to death myself?
"Do your best not to kill any of them. I'll carve the path."
With that, I broke into a run toward the direction where the fewest signs of life stirred. The Tiger-Men who had been circling us, testing the waters, charged head-on to meet me.
Come on, then. It's time for battle.