Let’s Talk
"The Saint" and "the Saintess" have cleared the 4th floor.
The conditions have been met.
The "event" will begin soon.
"W-what? What’s going on...?"
"W-we can’t even get outside! We can’t leave...!"
"Let us out! Please, just let us out!!"
The Waiting Room had fallen under the rule of chaos and confusion. The faces of those who had been climbing the tower at a steady, ordinary pace had turned ashen white, and some had even slipped into a state of full-blown panic.
Carmia could only feel a deep, drained helplessness settle over her. She knew the situation had slipped beyond her control.
"Our promising young talent sure is calm. Not even crying, huh?"
The presence standing beside her tilted her lips into a smile as she looked up at Carmia.
"Being upset won’t change anything."
Chaos bred more chaos. If she, who was practically the de facto leader here, broke down now, then things might spiral into a situation no one could ever control.
"Hmm..."
As if the reaction surprised her, the Shut-in Sage shifted her gaze elsewhere.
"You cannot leave right now."
She couldn’t get out. Even for someone like her, a climber who had once worked the middle and upper-middle floors, this was the first time she had ever experienced something like this.
We’ve been isolated. What a nuisance.
She didn’t know what exactly was happening down in the lower floors, but the source of the whole mess was easy enough to identify. The timing was practically pointing a finger at her, obvious enough that even a goblin idling by on the road would have understood it.
The "event" will begin soon.
Right. That thing.
"You said you met him once, didn’t you?"
"...Yes."
"What was he like? That guy?"
Carmia recalled the man whose image had burned itself so fiercely into her memory. He had worn a face and manner so harmless they almost seemed innocent—
—whoooosh...
"...!"
And then, with complete indifference, he had shown her the hell of that day.
"...I don’t know."
"You don’t know?"
Tap. Tap.
The tip of her tail beat irritably against the ground.
The Shut-in Sage watched the motion, too.
Oh...
Dragon worship had been the root of the Dragonkin, and their descendants knew nothing of fear. They were the sort who had ripped out the part of their brains that felt emotion, leaving behind none of the things a living creature ought to have.
But that feeling...
"Well, if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. I’ve already gathered the important stuff for now anyway."
What she had called information was nothing more than surface-level scraps. If they wanted to dig out the truly important details, they needed the people who had been behind this absurd so-called event.
"Huh, ah—!"
Then, from outside, a noisy stir began to roll in.
"The Saint" has entered the Waiting Room.
"The Saintess" has entered the Waiting Room.
"...Ha."
At the very moment the rumor’s protagonists finally arrived, even she had no choice but to turn her attention their way.
"Looks like the main characters have arrived."
And with that, seeing the two figures appearing from the entrance to the Waiting Room—
The sage of the library closed her book, then finally stepped away from the place she had stayed in for so long.
..
...
....
#
Ah, that familiar ceiling... no, wait. Not exactly.
The moment I walked in, I couldn’t help flinching at all the hostile eyes fixed on me from every direction.
"What’re you looking at?"
"Y-you—"
Lisha growled, trying to intimidate them, but the voices kept bursting out as if her presence didn’t matter at all.
"The connection to the outside has been cut off. We’re completely isolated!"
"...What?"
"This event! It’s your doing, isn’t it...?!"
What the hell was this event supposed to be? Before I could even get a question out, I was met with resentment.
"Hey, aren’t you being a little harsh on people who just crawled back from the dead?"
When I asked that with a hint of irritation, the shameless faces in front of me finally clouded over with awkwardness.
"Woojin!"
And then—
"Wow... it’s been a while."
I spotted someone pushing through the crowd from farther back.
Red hair, two horns perched atop her head, and a long tail besides. Carmia, displaying all the traits of the Dragonkin without a hint of restraint, had finally appeared after a long time.
"...Carmia."
Lisha, standing beside me, greeted her too.
But why did she look so unhappy?
Well, I figured since we were all gathered like this, we might as well say hello after all this time—
Why does the mood feel so weird?
It didn’t look like the right atmosphere for that, so I sent a pleading look at her, clearly the one acting as the leader of this area.
"...For now, come with me."
Reading my request with impressive speed, Carmia led us to a quieter spot with fewer people around.
..
...
....
"So, what the hell happened?"
"We’re the ones who’ve never seen anything like this before."
"Never seen anything like this?"
An event.
Just as Lisha and I had been moving the quest forward after obtaining the hidden piece, something interesting had apparently happened in this area too.
Severed from the outside world, a notification sound whose meaning nobody could understand, and the start of the event.
"...So everybody was just waiting for you two."
"We can’t exactly do anything about it either."
"What else would it be? Weaklings screaming their heads off, obviously."
Lisha, after hearing the whole situation, let out some very unkind words.
"Hmph..."
That was troublesome.
Forget the fact that public opinion among the other climbers had already hit rock bottom. The bigger problem was that we had literally just arrived in this area ourselves.
How are we supposed to do anything if we don’t even know what’s going on?
Maybe we should start dissecting the notifications one by one.
"Wow, it’s a celebrity~"
While I was thinking about what to do next, someone approached us after recognizing us.
"Ah."
The moment Carmia recognized her face, her expression stiffened.
She had already looked pretty expressionless, but now she seemed even more sour.
"....!"
"What’s with you now?"
Lisha also jumped in surprise when she spotted the newcomer.
It drove home the fact that I’d drifted far away from their little world.
"Nice to meet you~ Do you remember my nickname? Shut-in Sage."
"Oh my!! Our hidden supporter and number one contributor is here!!"
"M-Ma’am...?"
"Out here, the person who knows the most and has the most experience is the senior, the one you call boss, isn’t that right?"
The instant I sprang to my feet and gave her a proper greeting, she stared back at me in alarm.
"H-haha...? You sure know how to greet people."
"Of course. This is the only thing that kept me alive out in the field."
Only after I learned her community nickname did a buried sense of familiarity begin to rise to the surface.
Compared with Carmia and Lisha, she had a remarkably small frame—so how much smaller did that make her next to me, a sturdy adult man?
Her height barely came up to my solar plexus, and just looking at her made people feel almost solemn.
But I, Kang Woojin, had the confidence to judge people with the fairest and most impartial eye anyone could have.
"I’ve always appreciated you on the community. You explained all sorts of things so well..."
"Ahaha, that’s what comrades are for, isn’t it? Helping each other out is a good thing~"
The first thing that stood out about her was her skin, white as chalk, and the dark circles settled beneath her eyes.
She’s one of us.
"...W-why are you looking at me like that...?"
"I feel a sense of kinship."
I knew that look. It was the mark of a laborer who had to wear out their body nonstop, without ever getting a real break.
"I was curious what you’d be like in person... and I have to say, you’re even more, um, unusual than I expected."
"I get that a lot."
After we finished the round of introductions, we moved on to business.
"You already heard about the event, right?"
"Yes."
"Then let me start with my side of things."
The Shut-in Sage, whose real name was Illycia.
"Oh, middle-to-upper floors."
"Yeah. I’m a washed-up has-been who gave up on clearing now."
"Still, just having you here is reassuring."
Watching Illycia avert her gaze awkwardly, I thought for a moment.
If she’s a middle-to-upper-floor climber, there’s a decent chance she’s already passed through here before.
Every climber experienced a different theme, sure, but at the end of the day, everyone knew everyone else by one route or another.
"So, could you share a little about the things you experienced starting from the lower floors?"
"Of course."
If it was related to the anomaly currently swallowing the Waiting Room, there was no reason for her not to cooperate.
...Yeah.
Lisha, gently nodding from beside me, seemed to be offering her own guarantee of trust as well.
The King of the Dead, and the Apostate.
Since they already knew the titles of the Saint and the Saintess, I gave them the fragmented details of the bosses we had cleared and the stories tied to them.
....
After listening to our story, Illycia fell into thought for a moment.
"I think it’s probably about to start."
"Huh? What is?"
"I don’t know."
"...?"
"But there’s still one thing you two don’t have yet."
What were we missing?
The Waiting Room, the people here, and the thing you were supposed to do right after clearing a stage—
Oh.
"Once the score tally is finished, something’s bound to happen after that."
Score tally and rewards.
We hadn’t even properly opened the rewards from the previous stages yet, and apparently there was more waiting for us.
Nice.
The more rewards, the better. The more I had, the more advantageous it would be when preparing for the next stage.
"So this so-called event is likely to be set in motion after the tally, then?"
"Exactly. Everything that happens in the tower has its order."
There was no such thing as “suddenly.” Ever since the moment Lisha and I received our titles, everything that had happened up to now had been telling us it was all connected.
"But the tally doesn’t come out until a day after we arrive in the Waiting Room."
"Right."
"Then until then, I guess we just kill time somehow?"
"Exactly."
Good. Then we’d just spend the remaining time opening our rewards.
Once the matter of the event had been roughly sorted out, I started getting up from my seat and headed for the Rest Area. The fatigue I’d been carrying around lately was no small thing.
"Ah. I-I’ll come too—"
"Lisha."
But the moment Lisha tried to follow, her steps faltered at a familiar voice.
Carmia.
"Let’s talk."
....
The one who looked like she had a great many things to say reached out and stopped Lisha in her tracks.