Temple Knights 2
Even though the Temple Knights had advanced toward the 31st floor, their purpose was securing safe zones and having priests and nuns treat the wounded free of charge — so our combat situation hadn't become dramatically easier.
Due to the elemental mismatch between archers and undead, Grace had to carefully conserve her arrows, and Katie was forced into restricted fighting on the narrow strips of ground Han Se-ah created. Irene's Holy Power at least kept them unharmed when toxic fluid splashed, but the inconvenience remained the same.
"Whew, it really… feels like the floor has changed. This is way harder than the 30th."
"If only we could've brought the golem, we wouldn't have to worry about this poison crap…!"
The party muttered under their breath as they stood right before the passage leading up to the 32nd floor. The cave terrain had been just as narrow, but at least their enemies had moved to match that confined space. The undead appearing in the swamp, however, moved without the slightest regard for the poison — leaving the party at a one-sided disadvantage.
For Katie, whose specialty was agile movement combining swordsmanship with footwork, this terrain was pure accumulated stress.
But what could they do? The Tower's terrain was just that vicious. From what Rebecca and other Highest-grade adventurer contacts had said, after the swamp came a highland full of cliffs where they'd have to face flying monsters like harpies.
…Even if it was galling, they'd just have to adapt in advance.
The viewers watching all of this live grew increasingly worried. People just spectating with no intention of playing snickered and laughed, but the strategy-focused players flooding in after Han Se-ah and Kim Seok-hyun couldn't exactly join in.
Han Se-ah was at least a mage, so she could focus on support by creating footholds and filling in the swamp — but most of the viewers in chat would have to, like Katie, swing blades against zombies and skeletons in those narrow paths.
"Still, we found the passage to the 32nd floor faster than I expected."
"That's all thanks to Hanna. Without her, we'd be soaked up to our knees in toxic fluid by now, getting treated with Holy Power."
"Even so, we arrived a bit late, so once we reach the 32nd floor we should find a safe zone right away. Finding where the Brothers are stationed won't be easy, so should we fill a small pool with Miss Hanna's magic and set up a tent there? Hmm… with my Purification Holy Art on top of that, it might work."
"If we're doing that, let's cut down all those horrible gray trees too. The way they writhe, it feels like they'd strangle us in our sleep. I've seen ash-gray trees plenty up north, but never ones this creepy."
After smashing the Lizardman skeletons and watching with fascination as the bones turned into Mana Stones, the party chatted among themselves as they moved forward. Since it was a swamp with only sparse trees, the passage was clearly visible in the distance.
Still, the visibility was better than a dense forest or a dark cave, so climbing to the next floor was a bit faster. Unlike a cave, if needed they could either pour out all of Han Se-ah's mana or I could carry two people on my shoulders and just cross the poison swamp.
"There won't be any injured adventurers right past the passage this time, right?"
"Come on, no way. Word's spread and the Temple even made an official announcement — they should at least have antidotes prepared."
"It's not impossible. Even Upper-grade adventurers, not just Beginner and Intermediate, always have guys who overestimate their own abilities."
"Roland, you know about jinxing things, right?"
Excited about finding the passage so quickly, the party chatted as they circled around a deep-looking poison pool toward the passage.
As the tank, always crossing the gate first to check the safety beyond — that was an unspoken rule our party knew well. Just as Grace the scout stood by my side, and Katie the rear guard circled around Irene and Han Se-ah.
The first sight that greeted me on the 32nd floor wasn't, as Grace had said, a poisoned adventurer fleeing.
"What the— fuck!"
It was a troll's club flying straight at my face.
"Roland? What, cough, is this?"
"Ugh, bleeeagh— ah, the stench…"
"Kehok, kehuk—! O-Oh Goddess!"
The party members who came through the gate turned bright red like new recruits who'd just stepped into a hazmat training chamber. Of course they would — right in front of the passage they'd crossed lay the remains of the troll I'd smashed.
And not just a regular troll corpse, but one that had mutated into an undead and exploded like a gas bomb with a bang.
A yellowish troll that died in a single counterattack after startling me with a club flying out of nowhere. Seems skills using Holy Power rather than mana deal bonus damage to undead. Anyway — covered in yellow tumors, a troll that causes a gas explosion when it dies.
"Is that, ahem, a troll?"
"Yeah. Looks like as the swamp got contaminated, monsters that should be higher up are appearing at random. Trolls, like horned wolves, orc hunters, and blind snakes, are only supposed to appear on the 40th floor."
"And a dangerous thing like that was waiting at the 32nd floor entrance?"
Thanks to the Purification Holy Art Irene used immediately, the party members finally opened their eyes and glared at the yellow troll corpse with tear-filled eyes. Whether it was a quest token or a named monster that had come down, the massive corpse lump wouldn't disappear and kept spewing gas.
Zombie crocodiles, Lizardman skeletons, paralysis tentacle snakes, and now gas bomb trolls.
The concept from floors 31 through 40 was so vicious I had to wonder if it was designed specifically to "kill melee DPS." Even I had killed it by smacking it with my shield only to get thoroughly doused in gas. If I hadn't unconsciously coated my whole body in Holy Power, I would've run out of the Tower just to wash off.
"Ugh, I'm a mage so I'm fine, but what the hell are melee players supposed to do with game balance like this? I know mages are rare in fantasy, but isn't this going too far?"
While the party debated whether they needed to harvest that troll corpse or dig a Mana Stone out of that horrific pus mass, it began evaporating and disappearing at a noticeable speed. So after a certain time, the gas-spewing corpse vanishes and only the Mana Stone remains?
The party, still carrying residual Purification Holy Art and immune buffs. The sight of beauties with hair sparkling from Holy Power clustered around a horrific corpse was a bit amusing.
That said, I had no desire to stick my hand into that disgusting pus pile and pull out a Mana Stone. For efficient exploration we needed to handle it quickly, so coating my hand in Holy Power and pulling it out would be right — but considering a troll's bulk, it wouldn't just be my arm going in; my whole upper body might get buried.
"…I'll try using Purification on that corpse too."
"Yeah, that would be good. It's already blocking this narrow path…"
Since trolls are three meters tall — just barely not classified as large-type — the corpse was big too. Seeing even me hesitate in front of it, Irene stepped forward boldly and once again unleashed Holy Power as if swinging it.
Like scrubbing a filthy bathtub or sink with cleaner, the yellow pus melted away cleanly. As the gas-spewing corpse mass dissolved and vanished, what remained alone in its place was a fist-sized Mana Stone. The party's eyes focused on its clearly larger size compared to the Mana Stones from the caves.
Originally Tower trolls are named monsters appearing on the 40th floor, so having quit and come down from the 37th floor, I didn't know if this Mana Stone was from a normal troll or a mutated one.
"So this troll was camping right in front of the passage?"
"Yeah. Trolls normally appear on the 40th floor — I never expected one to suddenly be at the 32nd floor passage."
"Then you've never seen a troll either, Roland?"
"Not inside the Tower. Outside the Tower, especially in the south, there are lots of trolls so related commissions come in frequently. They can't use mana and their size is just barely small enough not to be classified as large-type, but because of their unique regeneration, they're hard to hunt without a mage, so the commission fees are pretty high."
These trolls are dirty monsters like home shopping sales tactics. The kind that claim $49.99 is cheaper than $50.
Clearly smaller than large-types of five meters or more, but still a hefty three-to-four-meter bulk with the monstrous strength that comes with it. Skin not reinforced by mana, but tough and sturdy enough to withstand blades. Plus the grotesque vitality of regrowing arms and legs within half a day if cut off.
Not classified as large-type, but a troublesome opponent Intermediate-grade adventurers would have to risk their lives to take down. That was the swamp troll. And when one of those dies, it spreads toxic gas around? What kind of nonsense is this.
"Umm, does this mean when we go higher later, there'll be floors packed with mage killers? Magic-immune monsters, or traps that make mana unusable. Honestly, when a map this biased toward one side appears, the opposite map showing up is the golden rule."
Han Se-ah and the viewers shuddered as I explained about trolls. Having something that even Upper-grade and below adventurers struggle to hunt appear from the 32nd floor, not even the 40th, was enough to make anyone sick of it. Still, becoming undead seemed to have removed the regeneration ability…
Is Tower difficulty also Beginner, Intermediate, Upper-grade? Getting harder in thirty-floor increments.
Instead of regeneration that could be solved by burning with fire, exploding with gas that poisons the surroundings upon death was just as endlessly annoying.