Chapter 61
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Unknown Person
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"Oh, you're out already?"
"……."
"S-Sen… pai…?"
Thoughts crowded my mind.
No, actually, no thoughts came at all.
Was it an impossible dream?
Was what I wanted just a pie in the sky?
"You said you needed more information, right?"
"……Pardon?"
"For now, I'll explain from the 12th floor up to the 20th. Telling you too much at once would just make it hard to remember."
If it was going to be like this, they should have blocked me from the start.
Why give me this kind of quest now?
They left it alone when I pulled out the sword from my memories for Harman.
But the moment I tried to take one more step toward that place, the tower blocked us.
"It's what I need, but this isn't the time to talk about it, is it?"
On the way back to the request office with nothing to show for it, Rien stopped walking.
"Anyone can see your reaction was off. And not just anyone—how could Harman act like he's seeing that sword for the first time…?"
Rien's doubts were valid.
Even with her lack of adventurer experience, her quick situational judgment allowed her to notice that Harman's behavior was anything but normal.
How should I explain this?
Sentences formed and vanished in my head over and over.
I realized that giving her no answer at all was the right choice.
"You said your reason for climbing the tower is the Sword Saint, right?"
"What does that have to do with this…?"
"If you want to achieve that goal, it's better not to hear it. This whole thing was pointless."
I must have gotten too comfortable staying on the first floor, lulled by the village's peace.
Otherwise, I never would have thought I could beat the tower.
Seeing the tower's end? Restoring all of Harman's memories bound to the tower?
The tower isn't material. It's not a living being.
It certainly wasn't something I could defeat.
Traits, items—all part of the tower. If the tower doesn't want it, what can I do?
Rien's goal was a human.
The tower was just the backdrop; the target was a real person.
So I could endorse Rien's goal and even push her toward it.
"My head's too hot. To cool it down, I need to grab something."
"Even if it's a monster, the only ones around are slimes."
"Yeah, slimes."
Back to square one.
I always cleared my head this way.
Even when I gave up on my first goal, I sorted out my thoughts like this.
Hunt slimes, let a day pass, hunt again.
Having something in hand to swing made it easier to ignore the swirling thoughts.
I took a request from Ellie.
Rien followed my lead and picked up the same one.
"We don't have anything else to do anyway. You said your head hurts right now, so let's talk about the 12th floor while we hunt slimes."
'Hunting them won't give much experience anyway.'
'It was efficient when I first entered the tower, but at my current level, it's way past that.'
—Lines like that rose to the tip of my tongue before I barely swallowed them back.
They'd just come off as pointless nitpicking.
Especially since I was the same way.
"So, where did you rush off to earlier?"
"The smithy."
"Something happen?"
"No, nothing. It's been a while since I last saw Sylvia, so I just stopped by to see her face."
"I see."
Ellie didn't press further despite my half-hearted reply.
"Oh, and another adventurer just took a request and headed to the forest. Well… you might run into her if you go now."
"Another adventurer? With two of the usual trio here, that leaves only Sua, right?"
"She asked me to call her as soon as Earthbound Spirit showed up. She kept saying she'd wait."
She didn't seem eager to relay it, her tone curt, but even that was buried under Ellie's habitual kindness, and she passed on Sua's request faithfully.
Ever since Sua stepped down as guild master and hunkered down on the first floor, she brazenly inserted herself into my daily routine of solo slime hunting.
With no duties or responsibilities left, she must have time to spare every day.
She didn't seem particularly drawn to slime hunting itself—I'd never seen her go out alone.
Most of the time, she'd approach me saying we should hunt together if we crossed paths, or she'd wait ahead at the forest entrance right when I was due back from the request office.
Today was no different.
"Eek? Hup!"
"What are you doing?"
"B-B-Behind you…."
Sua hid behind Koon, who stood guard motionless.
His armor made him look even bulkier than an average man, but it still wasn't enough to fully conceal someone ducking behind him in a hurry.
It was pretty ridiculous.
Like a cat that thinks it's invisible if it just hides its head.
Nothing special behind him when I looked.
How many adventurers could scare Amelia anyway?
The only one back there was Rien.
"Um… what are you doing behind my back?"
"Guard! Don't talk to me!"
"No, I… won't talk."
"I said don't talk! Why'd you reply?!"
Poor Koon, clueless, just took the hit.
Sua probably thought she'd whispered quietly enough for only him to hear, but her voice carried clearly all the way here—hiding was pointless.
"I can still see you. Stop acting weird and come out."
Sua poked her head out sheepishly.
"Ahem, who's that? I saw her at the request office earlier too—why'd she follow you all the way here?"
"An adventurer I know."
"I don't know her, but you do? She looks like a total newbie."
If Sua had mobilized guild members for background checks like in her Amelia days, she'd have uncovered Rien long ago.
Her reaction suggested she truly hadn't seen her before—meaning she hadn't been meddling lately.
"…No need to worry about her, right?"
"Think she'd recognize you? Your outfit's nothing like your known look, starting with your clothes."
"What? That's not what I'm worried about! She already knows who I am. You're sure the rumors won't spread?"
Word of the former Crimson Flame Guild Master enjoying a retirement life on the first floor wouldn't do her any favors.
With no intention of climbing the tower anymore, Amelia's popularity had become nothing but exhausting attention.
"That's Amelia, right?"
"Ah, no, it's not."
"It is though. Where's all your high-grade gear? Why are you dressed like a beginner adventurer?"
"…Don't know who you're talking about."
Sua awkwardly covered her face with her hand.
Her joints creaked like they'd rusted stiff.
"Ah, ah~! Time to go hunt some slimes~!"
"Are you going in alone? You waited over 20 minutes for Earthbound Spirit—"
"Shut up!"
She muttered to herself in a tone so forced anyone could tell it was fake, then bolted into the forest without looking back.
"Is this another one of those unexplainable situations?"
"You'd let it slide without complaining if I didn't explain?"
"Well, no, I can't. Frias suffering big time because of one person. Someone who went back on their word and scrapped the recruitment."
It was the backlash from her snap retirement from the powerful guild master position.
Unresolved issues were blowing up one by one.
The core Crimson Flame members were on high alert.
Like covering up a supervisor's decision, they'd chosen to bury Amelia's whereabouts completely.
The disappearance of the top authority would deal a massive blow to the group's image.
Withing even single floors starting to take a lot of time, no one batted an eye at the stalled 61st floor.
The real problem was guild recruitment.
Without the final decision-maker, they couldn't proceed with an empty seat.
Announcing the vice guild master taking over was tricky too, so they had no choice but to cancel recruitment under the excuse of internal circumstances.
The ones bearing the brunt were a few adventurers hoping to join Crimson Flame and Fria who had been directly invited by Amelia to join.
"I don't mind if you pry, just don't spread rumors. It'd make things messy."
"I know that much. If word got out that Amelia's on the first floor cosplaying as a beginner, the reaction would be insane."
True. I wouldn't buy a low-level newbie act like that either.
On days we hunted together, I'd witness the bizarre sight of her, capable of wiping them out with one spell, poking slimes one by one with clumsy swordplay.
"Now we've got two self-proclaimed newbies."
"…One of them's me?"
Rien drew her sword and gripped it.
Then she hurried ahead of me toward the forest entrance.
"Let's go in too. Didn't you come to relieve stress?"
Excited at the prospect of hearing about the next floors, Rien was even more eager for slime hunting than I was.
"Stress, huh…."
More like forgetting than relieving.
But right now, anything would do.
I needed something to immerse myself in, to avoid deep thinking.
"Take care, Koon."
"Safe hunting."
Simply… I wanted to cool my head.