The Tower - Tutorial (3)
I created a new avatar and entered the fourth floor of the Tower. Ten seconds had passed, so my previous body was sprawled on the ground. The goblin that had killed me had discarded its chipped hand axe and was now gleefully swinging my one-handed sword through the air.
To me it was a one-handed sword, but for a goblin the size of a child, it might as well have been a two-handed blade. The moment the goblin became completely absorbed in the weapon and turned its back to me, I didn’t hesitate. I snatched up the fallen hand axe and slammed it down on the goblin’s skull exactly as it had done to me.
“Skull bash!”
Crunch!
The goblin died without even managing a reaction, just like I had. I quickly looted its Mana Stone and weapons. One chipped dagger and two hand axes. Including the one I’d taken from the previous floor, I now had three axes in total.
I stacked the three axe heads together, loosely wrapped the blades with the leather skirt the goblin had been wearing, and shoved them roughly into the right cargo pocket of my pants. The axes weren’t that big, so even with three heads crammed in, they fit inside the pocket with room to spare. The handles kept smacking against my thigh and rattling with every step, which was annoying, but bearable.
Since I still wasn’t comfortable using the inventory, I kept the axes in my pocket so I could pull them out and throw them at any moment.
“Tsk, the weight limit is really annoying.”
The one-handed sword was over five hundred grams, so it wouldn’t fit in the inventory. The dagger, however, was under the limit and went in just fine. I placed my hand on the crystal and moved on to the fifth floor.
* * *
Unlike the open chamber of the previous floors, the fifth floor presented a narrow, straight corridor.
Reach the end of the path.
The quest on the fifth floor was simply to reach the end of the corridor. From what I knew, it wasn’t very long—maybe around a thousand meters at most. According to the Tower returnees I’d read about online, the path would be blocked by walls every two hundred meters, with a door leading to the next section.
I walked forward as the Tower instructed. Of course, simply walking wasn’t the end of it. A goblin waited in front of the first door.
“Just one goblin, huh.”
Looked like the information I’d read online was accurate. Three sections with one goblin each, one section with two, and a final section with three—continuous combat practice. If the first floor was for testing abilities, the second for killing living creatures, the third for real combat practice, then the fourth had been for fighting multiple enemies at once. Seeing it laid out like this, I finally understood why people called these early floors the tutorial section.
“Krrrk!”
The goblin let out a shriek and charged at me. Still, it didn’t feel as tense as before. I lowered my stance, thrust my shield forward to block the goblin’s hand axe, then bashed it aside. The moment the goblin staggered, I swung my sword and sliced across its torso.
I picked up the hand axe and Mana Stone, then immediately passed through the door and continued down the path. Goblins in one-on-one fights were no longer difficult.
I cleared the next two sections the same way and reached the eight-hundred-meter mark where two goblins waited. I considered throwing an axe but decided against it. Throwing an axe to create a one-on-one situation would be easier, but it wouldn’t help me train. I could skip three-on-one for now, but two-on-one was something I needed to experience.
Fortunately, the corridor wasn’t wide enough for them to easily get behind me as long as I stayed alert. I slammed the goblin charging from the left with my shield as if shoving it away, while simultaneously swinging my sword along the flowing trajectory of Blue Wood Swordsmanship toward the one on the right.
The right goblin panicked and retreated. My blade only managed to graze its arm. I didn’t miss the opening created when the left goblin I’d shoved fell on its backside. I closed in on the right one, thrust my shield forward to block its axe, then swung my sword and cut through its neck.
I hadn’t severed it completely, but the right goblin died all the same. I immediately spun around and slashed at the other goblin as it tried to get back up.
“Hoo! Nice. As long as I don’t get too tense, I can handle this.”
I had taken down two at once. If I avoided overthinking things, I could definitely survive anything below the tenth floor. I wrapped the Mana Stones and the goblins’ weapons in their leather skirts and stowed them in my bag. The reason I bothered collecting weapons and stones I wouldn’t use was to sell them later.
According to the returnees, Mana Stones could be exchanged for Shop Points through the Tower Shop, while monster weapons and materials could be sold in the cities on the residential floors. The Tower Shop only required points, but daily life in the cities required a common currency called “credits.”
“Hmm, this is getting pretty heavy.”
It wasn’t unbearable. I’d only added three hand axes and two daggers. Each one felt like it weighed less than five hundred grams, so…
“Oh, right. I can just send them to my main body.”
I didn’t know whether time flowed inside the inventory, but time definitely didn’t pass for my main body, and the space there was plenty. It was perfect for storing items. Of course, the passage connecting to my main body was still restricted by that five-hundred-gram limit.
There were probably ways to increase inventory capacity later. That would make things much more convenient. I went back and forth between my main body and avatar, transferring the miscellaneous loot. Then I passed through the final door and reached the crystal guarded by three goblins.
The moment I arrived, I hurled my hand axes before they could react. The first axe sank deep into the left goblin’s thigh. The second buried itself in the right goblin’s forehead.
“Damn, I was aiming for center mass on both.”
Looked like I had no talent for throwing. I’d even done some target practice back in the day. The third axe flew straight at the middle goblin, but it managed to knock the weapon away. While it was off balance from the deflection, I closed in and slashed it down, then used my shield to block the axe swing from the left goblin.
“Kiiiieek!”
“Whoa! Dual axes! That’s pretty cool!”
The left goblin had pulled out the axe I’d given it and was now swinging two weapons at once. I blocked with my shield and countered with my sword. This was my first time facing an opponent with two weapons, and it was surprisingly tricky. Its wild swings left plenty of openings, but actually thrusting into those gaps required better swordsmanship than I currently possessed.
Fortunately, the heavy bleeding from the leg wound I’d given it earlier took its toll. The goblin soon exhausted itself, and finishing off a tired opponent was easy. After looting the weapons and Mana Stones, I sat down for a short rest before placing my hand on the crystal and ascending to the next floor.
* * *
The sixth floor had a similar layout to the fifth. Except…
Pass through the maze.
From here on, it was a maze. Naturally, I had no idea of the correct route.
“Too bad I don’t have a ball of string.”
In Greek mythology, Theseus had used a ball of thread to retrace his steps through the Labyrinth of Crete. Then again, I wasn’t supposed to go back the way I came—I had to pass through to the exit, so maybe the string wouldn’t have helped anyway.
I took a notebook and ballpoint pen from my bag and began drawing a simple map as I moved forward slowly. I treated each line in the notebook as one square and drew a new line every ten steps. Whenever I reached a fork, I marked it in the notebook and smeared some of the goblin blood from my leather skirt onto the wall of the path I chose. The blue color stood out nicely.
For choosing directions, I used the right-hand rule—always keeping my right hand on the wall. It was one method of solving mazes. No matter how complicated the labyrinth, if there was an exit, every wall eventually connected to a single surface. So in theory, if you kept one hand on the wall and kept walking, you’d eventually find the way out.
“Are there no monsters in this maze?”
The moment I muttered that, I ran into a horned rabbit at the next corner. It naturally charged at me. I blocked its headbutt with my shield. The rabbit failed to land properly after the impact and tumbled over. I sliced it apart without hesitation.
After encountering six horned rabbits and two goblins, I finally reached the exit about three hours later.
“Three hours for a maze this size isn’t too bad.”
I moved on to the next floor.
* * *
The seventh floor was a wider but shorter path. Roughly five hundred meters?
Pass through the trap corridor and reach the end.
Just as I suspected—a trap corridor. There were no monsters, so it made sense. Online, complaints from Tower returnees about trap corridors were everywhere, whether on social media or in communities.
I took a cautious step forward. As I slowly advanced, I heard a mechanical sound—whirrr~!
I quickly raised my shield toward the hole the sound had come from.
Thwack!
An arrow embedded itself in my shield. The impact that traveled through it was surprisingly strong—at least as powerful as the hand axes the goblins had been swinging.
“So stepping on certain spots triggers arrows from those holes. At this speed, wouldn’t it be faster to just run?”
Having made my decision, I broke into a sprint without hesitation.
Whirrr~! Whirrr~! Whirrrrr~!
Multiple mechanical sounds overlapped as arrows flew toward where I had been standing.
“Agh!”
Tsk! There were holes behind me too! An arrow struck my shoulder and I pitched forward. Feeling an ominous mechanical sound coming from above—from the ceiling—I forced myself up and raised my shield to protect my head.
Thudthudthudthud!
A rain of arrows poured down from above. The shield grew heavier with every arrow that stuck in it.
“Argh!”
Arrows from the left diagonal hit my forearm and buttock. Arrows from the right diagonal struck my side and thigh. Gritting my teeth, I kept running. Sometimes I blocked arrows according to the direction of the sound, sometimes I just took the hits. In the end, I somehow made it through the five-hundred-meter corridor.
“Fuck, is this thing actually designed to be passed? Why is it raining arrows?”
I grumbled out loud, but I had to admit it—I had been stupid. If I had walked slowly and responded to each trap carefully, I probably would’ve only taken a few arrows. Instead, I looked like a damn porcupine.
Still, thanks to the shield, I had protected my head and heart—vital spots that would have meant instant death. If I kept going like this, I’d probably die from blood loss or metal poisoning. Without hesitation, I opened my ability window and selected [Absorb].
* * *
When my consciousness returned to my main body, the ability window greeted me with a message.
Did reaching the seventh floor make my level seven? No—when I checked my status window, my Strength, which had been eight, was now nine, and Blue Wood Swordsmanship had reached level seven. It seemed that the [Multidimensional Avatar] ability leveled up based on the growth of the avatars I absorbed.
Since this was still the early stage and there weren’t many immediate ways to use Avatar Points, growth was probably fast for now. Once levels got higher and there were actual uses for the points, I doubted levels would rise so easily. Honestly, at this point there wasn’t much practical difference between level one and level seven.
“But why did my Strength go up?”
I couldn’t figure out why Strength had increased. It had been my lowest stat, but I hadn’t done any strength training.
“Oh, unlike death, absorption doesn’t seem to have any penalties.”
Unlike when I died and the slot turned gray and inactive for a while, absorption let me create a new avatar and enter immediately. No time had passed either. The new avatar had all the arrows that had been stuck in my body pushed out, clattering to the ground.
I checked if I could absorb consecutively, but [Absorb] was now grayed out and inactive.
“Tch. Guess I can’t use the tactic of intentionally getting injured and recovering repeatedly.”
I’d thought it would be useful in fights. Grumbling to myself, I moved on to the next floor.
(To be continued)