The Flying Tower
The hogryphon Vulcher shot into the air with a powerful beat of his wings, clamping both claws around the ropes tied to the watchtower.
“Look over there! The giant eagle is lifting the whole tower!”
The sight of the heavy tower soaring upward as lightly as a basket of fruit drew gasps from the people watching from the distant city wall road.
“Good, that’s even better than in practice! At this rate, we might as well rename you from Vulcher to DropShip.”
Vulcher was strong to begin with, and now that he had polymorphed into an eagle, it was even easier for him to grip objects with his talons and fly. On top of that, thanks to all the buffs he’d received—Pioneer designation, Blooming, and the rest—he could now carry out precise orders without trouble.
So when he said distance wasn’t the important part, direction was—this is what he meant. Now I wonder how the Fog Hogs will react. Will it really turn out the way Count of the Border Region predicted…? For now, I guess we’ve got no choice but to trust him and follow his lead.
Owensytn clicked his tongue in admiration, but his eyes remained fixed on the Fog Hogs’ movements.
- Fooo?!
The Fog Hogs were flustered.
Finding the tower, which was shining brilliantly, had been easy. Rushing across the open plain with no obstacles or interference had been even easier.
- Fogh!
And yet their target had suddenly shot into the sky.
“Hah. Idiots. What are you going to do when you can’t even fly?”
The monsters clustered where the tower had been and stared up at the sky. Most of them couldn’t even lift their heads properly, their necks being far too short and heavy.
“Even if they’re monsters with the same ‘hog’ in their names, Fog Hogs and hogryphons are on completely different levels.”
Ho-yeong taunted them cheerfully.
“Man, this might actually be a freebie. If we just hold out for an hour like this, do we win for nothing?”
As if they understood him, the Fog Hogs’ enormous snouts turned bright red.
- Foguuuk!
They all snorted at once, and instead of mist, straight jets of steam burst from their noses.
“Vulcher! Fly higher!”
Alarmed, Ho-yeong hurriedly ordered him to gain altitude.
“Jeez, that startled me. I thought they only blew mist from their noses, but this is like a water cannon—no, a steam cannon.”
Thanks to the evasive maneuver, neither Ho-yeong nor Vulcher was harmed. The steam merely brushed the lower part of the tower’s supports.
“Whoa, that’s not just steam, is it? If that hits you, you’re in trouble.”
And the steam was so hot that it had peeled the outer skin clean off one of the pillars.
“So they can’t fly, but they’ve got a long-range attack? That kind of pattern wasn’t in the game.”
Ho-yeong was somewhat taken aback by the unexpected attack.
“But there’s no way they can use that whenever they want.”
Powerful skills always had cooldowns or consumed some other resource.
“Vulcher, dip down just a little. When I give the signal, you need to shoot back up immediately. Got it?”
Hovering and vertical flight were hogryphon specialties.
- Kweeeek! (Got it!)
His cry had changed to that of an eagle, but his broad, magnificent wingbeats remained the same—no, they’d grown even stronger.
Seeing the tower sink lower and lower, the Fog Hogs grew excited all over again, their snouts flushing red.
- Fogu!
Only now, instead of spurting out like a boiling kettle, steam merely leaked from them.
“Yep, there’s the cooldown. In that case, I’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”
Ho-yeong taunted the Fog Hogs by alternately descending and climbing back up.
Each time, the monsters had to strain their short, thick necks to look up and down, clearly suffering for it.
- Foguk!
They were furious, but there was nothing they could do about it.
“Vulcher. Now let’s move sideways!”
They’d tested movement on the y-axis; now it was time to test the x-axis.
The Fog Hogs hurried along below, matching the tower’s movement.
“You must be having a rough time moving that heavy body around. Hah. If we keep this up, we can drain your stamina dry. But what are you going to do? Unlike you guys, Vulcher’s stamina is overflowing, right?”
- Kweeaaak! (Flying for an hour straight doesn’t tire me out at all!)
When he’d faced them as an enemy, Vulcher’s limitless stamina had been infuriating. Now, it was reassuring beyond words.
If we can just stall for an hour, this’ll be an easy win!
At that moment, the world froze gray.
Huh? You could pause in the middle of a stage?
Ding.
Message from Saliad, the angelic guardian of adversity: “You’re not even pretending to be impressive. Is that really how you intend to overcome hardship?”
Ho-yeong let out a faint snort of laughter.
“Wow, thanks for the praise. But you said there wouldn’t be any more variable difficulty, right? So nothing’s going to change, I’m guessing? Like, those guys won’t suddenly switch targets and march on the wall or anything?”
“A promise is a promise. The concern you’re raising will not come to pass.”
“That’s a relief. No chance of any stray fire, then. If we just keep floating like this, the stage’s as good as cleared! I may not study, but my brain’s got some use to it after all.”
“However, remember this: if you only ever dodge down the easy road, you will not be able to overcome the hardships ahead. The wicked will grow even more cunning to match your little tricks.”
He’d succeeded in baiting Saliad into handing over free information by deliberately needling him with that gentle, almost mocking tone.
“The guardian of the crossroads, the angel Oriad, sends this message: ‘I had been watching because you had only ever made brave choices at every crossroads, but now you disappoint me.’”
“Oh, the guardian of crossroads—I’ve heard that name before. Crossroads, huh… so he’d be the one in charge of branching paths in the System.”
Correct.
“Please tell him, from now on, not to put a branch inside a branch inside a branch?”
“…Guardian, if you continue speaking to me through another party like this, please be advised that your RP may be deducted.”
Daliha, who had unintentionally become a messenger, offered her warning in a chilling voice.
“Sorry, Daliha. And all of you, Lord Saliad and the rest of the System people? You seem to think I’m going to cheese the stage. You’ve misjudged me. If I wanted to take the easy route, I could do it any time, but I’m not actually going to.”
The torches flickering atop the distant wall came into view.
“That’d just be pathetic. The whole city’s watching, and I win by some cheap trick? That’d be embarrassing.”
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason.
“Even if I stall it out and clear the stage that way, my rank would be lower too.”
When he had first thought of using the hogryphon strategy, Ho-yeong had confirmed a few things through Daliha. What if he won by running out the clock, but the monsters and the tower were still left standing?
More than anything, clearing it like that would cause problems.
1. Would the summoned Fog Hogs disappear?
2. If they didn’t disappear, would their highest-priority target still be the tower?
3. Since the stage would still be cleared and the “conversion penalty” would disappear, could he then convert them easily right away?
All of the answers were “no.”
“There’s no benefit to stalling. Unless the Fog Hogs disappeared when the stage ended, that is.”
If he could eliminate a threat without fighting, it was certainly worth considering.
“But that’s not the case, so I’ve got no choice but to beat the hell out of all the Fog Hogs.”
He did want to keep one or two alive if possible and convert them later.
Anyway, I have to finish this fast. That way the stage-clear reward gets bigger, and I save time too.
When he muttered that under his breath, he was speaking for the System’s benefit; the real thoughts stayed locked away in his head.
“So please relax and lift the pause. Let’s start the game again.”
The stage will resume shortly. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
The gray veil covering the world lifted. When the night sky was revealed again, Ho-yeong thought it somehow looked a little less dark than before.
“Whoa—pretty as it is, this isn’t the time to admire the view. Let’s move on to the next plan.”
Even though it was late at night, it wasn’t the time to get lost in thought.
“Still, a little disappointing. If I’d brought just one mage, we could’ve completed an airborne magic tower!”
He had considered putting a mage on the tower too, but abandoned the idea. If they added any more weight, the tower might not withstand the load and collapse, or Vulcher might strain himself.
“You guys, pour it on!”
So Ho-yeong changed plans.
If he couldn’t load people because of the weight, then what?
- Guruk. Kyaek! (Grem!)
- Ukkiik! (Understood!)
He just had to load the lighter gremlins and goblins instead.
- Gururuk!
As the gremlin untied the sack, iron filings spilled out. They were the scraps Macdonaf had gathered earlier with magic while forging the spears.
- Ukkii!
The goblin poured a jar of dye all over the place.
- Fog?!
The Fog Hogs panicked. Before they could even react to the prickly, stinging sensation, a wave of cold liquid came pouring down over them.
“Those pig bastards have such muddy fur and skin that it was hard to spot them under all that dirt. But now look—nice and colorful, aren’t they?”
The orange dye, enchanted with a glow spell, stripped away the Fog Hogs’ camouflage. And the dye’s sticky viscosity helped the iron filings cling to them.
“Nice work, Peach.”
This idea had come directly from Peach’s orange incident. Ho-yeong had ordered the city market overseer of Ios to confiscate all the dye the fruit vendors had been using on oranges, under the pretext of seizing goods used in price gouging and fraud.
“Fire the ballista!”
The goblin manning the ballistae mounted between the tower’s railings took the shots. He already knew how to operate a ballista, and thanks to his Pioneer designation, his marksmanship was even more skillful.
The gremlin ran after him, loading bolts. Quick and dexterous, he was perfect for the support role.
Though the weapons were simple, single-shot ballistae, the monsters’ coordination was so sharp that they were putting out a rate of fire rivaling a repeating crossbow.
Special Achievement [Airborne Tower] achieved! Guardian, you built an aerial tower using flying-type monsters. That was truly impressive! Reward: 100 EP and 200 RP.
- Fogfog!
The Fog Hogs simply roared in anger; they didn’t even try to dodge. And that was only natural, considering that the bolts fired from the small ballistae looked like toothpicks compared to their massive bodies.
“Well, I never expected the little ballistae alone to hurt those giant pigs.”
Arrows couldn’t even easily pierce the thick fur and hide covering their torsos, let alone do anything more than scratch them.
“If you jabbed a toothpick into a human body, you wouldn’t exactly get a fatal wound, would you? At worst, it’d just sting.”
He’d already expected that much, so he wasn’t disappointed.
“But what if those toothpicks came flying at your face, five or six at a time? Goblin Eight! You can slow your shots a little, but aim for the weak points—eyes and nose!”
- Ukkiik! (Got it!)
The weak points were the eyes and nose. The nose in particular had no fur or hide to protect it, only exposed mucous membrane, so arrows sank in well.
“Even a professional wrestler like John Nace wouldn’t be able to take this.”
And every single arrow had been coated with poison. Luckily, among the adventurers he’d gathered, there was a poison specialist.
“He said it definitely had a paralyzing effect, so why isn’t it that strong? No, it’s not that the poison is weak—it just doesn’t work well on them. They had high disease and poison resistance in the game too. Still, if one shot isn’t enough, then we shoot more! Keep firing!”
Ho-yeong was also picking up arrows and hurling them with his own hands.
Each poison arrow on its own wasn’t particularly powerful, but...
- Foguk…
As the poison stacked up, the Fog Hogs’ bodies were growing slower and slower.
- Fogu!
Unable to endure it, they all blasted out steam in unison.
- Uki ukek! (The steam makes it hard to aim precisely!)
The billowing fog rising from their snouts was just like smoke grenades going off.
“Cease fire. Good work. You two prepare for the next operation.”
After praising the goblin and gremlin, Ho-yeong raised his sword and shouted,
“Tank corps, sortie!”
- Minoho!
The minocentaurs shoved the wagon forward with force. It no longer looked like a wagon at all, but more like a chariot—a battle cart.
The cargo bed was packed with spears instead of tribute. A ballista had been mounted in the front seat. And on the roof, troops were riding along.
“Eollugi, Minho, stop!”
Ho-yeong controlled the minocentaurs through Remote Control.
Once the war chariot halted at a suitable distance, he brought his sword down in a sweeping arc. The blade, catching the gathered moonlight, left behind a white, comet-like streak across the black night sky.
“Javelins!”
Led by Captain Owensytn, the Rainpa guards hurled their spears in unison.
It was nighttime, and the fog from the hogs’ snorts obscured their vision, but there were almost no missed throws.
- Foguk!
The chief contributor was the orange dye smeared all over the Fog Hogs’ bodies. They were easy to spot even without that, and now that they were gleaming under glow magic, aiming at them had become child’s play.
“Heh. Not bad at all. Worth every bit of the EP.”
The second key contributor was the Blooming ability applied to the spear throwers. He had carefully selected those with talent for throwing and granted them the throwing buff, and the effect was excellent.
- Foguuu!
The Fog Hogs howled in agony as spears sank into them all over their bodies.
“They can endure arrows, but they can’t endure javelins. Good.”
The dull spearheads had been honed to a razor edge by Sera the dwarf’s hands. By her own words, they were sharp enough to “pierce dragon scales.”
“They say primitive people hunted mammoths with spears. These guys are only slightly bigger boars—no reason we can’t bring them down!”
The monsters began rampaging wildly.
As their movements became more erratic and the hit rate bounced around, Ho-yeong gave his next order.
“Macdonaf, magic!”
“Condensation!”
Light burst from the staff of the mage Macdonaf and wrapped around the spears.
The glowing spears made aiming even easier.
“Oho, it’s like tracer rounds… no, I guess I should call them tracer spears? Either way, that’s an unexpected bonus.”
Ho-yeong marveled at the surprise side effect.
But the spell’s true effect was something else entirely.
- Fog?! Foguuk…
“Tracer rounds only help with aiming.”
The Fog Hogs were thoroughly thrown off. Spears that should have missed were changing direction and burying themselves in their bodies.
“Homing projectiles hit the target.”