A Story Only I Don't Know 2
A system window that appeared out of nowhere. From it, there wasn't much I could deduce about the helmet clasp around my neck.
First: my origins might be a major plot hook. Being called Sir Roland of Lombardo suggested Lombardo wasn't some backwater slash-and-burn farming village tucked into a rural corner. Even in my past life, people had called me things like "Jeongseon's son," but nobody ever went down to the township-and-village level when addressing someone.
Second: the owner of the voice currently ringing through the temple. Anyone who could freely command temple knights and invite guests into the temple's secret areas had to hold a fairly high position. And that high-ranking person was speaking as if they already knew about me.
Of course, my brain didn't go any further than that. Like the saying that a weak body makes the head work overtime — I'd long since grown used to overcoming every hardship and adversity with raw physical power and mana, without ever needing to reason things out.
"Irene unnie, what is that? No — who is that?"
"Y-yes? Huh? What?"
While I fretted over a brain that refused to turn over, the party's gazes all locked onto Irene, who was acting unnaturally by anyone's standards. After receiving a blessing, a promise of temple support, and escaping the temple under a barrage of applause and burdensome stares from the temple knights, Han Se-ah and Grace immediately wrapped their arms around Irene's like they were taking her into custody.
They paid no mind whatsoever to the changes matching the increased difficulty — free temple healing, temple knights joining the 41st-floor highlands to help adventurers conquer the tower if the swamp anomaly was resolved — and the chat filled up with questions they wanted to throw at Irene.
Well, of course. Anyone could see Irene was acting like she knew the beautiful voice that had come from thin air. Unlike the rest of the party, who reacted with wonder at a voice flowing from empty space, her reaction was more like she couldn't understand why that voice was being heard here and now.
"You acted like you knew whose voice that was, unnie. When they called you, you were so overwhelmed you even bit your tongue."
"N-no, I didn't!"
"Is it because you're a nun? You really can't lie at all…"
She bit her tongue answering, her legs shook so hard walking out to the center of the hall that one of the temple knights almost went to support her, and when she received the promise of support she even bowed her head toward a certain direction.
"Th-that's… I'm not supposed to talk about it to places like the guild."
"Come on, unnie! Why would we report this to the guild? It'd just make more people jealous and cause trouble."
Whether she thought her own reasoning wasn't convincing, or because of the sense of camaraderie from receiving the Goddess's mission together, the hesitant Irene finally opened her mouth without shaking off Han Se-ah and Grace clinging to either side of her.
"Th-that person is… the Saintess. She's always in the capital, so I was startled when I heard her voice."
If there's a fantasy world with a goddess and a temple faction, that name is indispensable: the Saintess.
Perhaps for that reason, when the word "Saintess" left Irene's mouth, neither the viewers nor Han Se-ah — nor even Grace and Katie — were particularly surprised. After all, if a temple-born nun bowed her head in reverence, you could guess the person was quite high-ranking.
"In the temple, those who directly receive and carry out the Goddess's revelations are called Saints and Saintesses."
Irene's explanation continued in her characteristically soft, gentle manner. Summarizing what she said about Saintesses and Saints was simple. There were quite a few Saintesses and Saints — but the voice just now belonged to the most renowned among them.
The most famous Saintess was placing her expectations on a candidate Saintess.
So I'm just a side character, and Irene's character quest is a Saintess promotion quest, huh.
Her story, heard on the way to the grocery store to buy dried grains. Hearing the explanation that a nun who receives the Goddess's revelation becomes a Saintess, the party's cheeks flushed red — not simply from being given a mission to climb the tower, but from the elevated feeling of sharing the journey of a Saintess's birth.
Katie in particular seemed to feel like she'd become a protagonist in a story. Her cheeks flushed so red her shoulders bounced, and her steps subtly quickened.
"I wonder if this scenario appeared because Irene unnie is a candidate Saintess, or if other people also get this when they push the story with priest and nun characters. Anyway, now that the tower's difficulty has gone up, the temple faction is joining in and the player side's forces seem to be getting stronger in various ways too."
While the thoroughly excited Katie completely forgot to buy sword-maintenance oil and cloth at the general store and stuck right to Irene's side, Han Se-ah and the viewers exchanged various opinions. The fortunate thing was that the aggro drawn to Irene meant the questions thrown at me were easily ignored.
"Anyway, if we clear out this damn swamp, something should come of it. But surely a temple NPC isn't going to steal the boss last hit, right? The 30th floor was easy thanks to the mecha, but on the 20th floor I was pretty scared Rebecca would snatch the last hit."
As they filled their inventories with finely ground grain flour and dried meat, stocked Grace's quiver with expensive alchemical arrowheads, and purchased equipment-maintenance oil and cloth scraps, the party's mouths showed no sign of closing.
"Looks like we've bought everything… We should go to the guild and check the requests."
"Ah, right. The temple knight came looking for us so we couldn't check the requests. We also need to settle the mana stones and gathered materials we didn't process yesterday."
Katie clinging to Irene, Grace smiling and chiming in, Han Se-ah whose conversation suddenly veered off into fantasy clichés — laughing and chatting as they headed to the guild, yet another unexpected piece of news awaited us.
"Ah, Roland! You haven't entered the tower yet — good!"
"What's going on, Elise?"
Opening the guild door, even around lunchtime the place was packed with adventurers and guild staff bustling about. Most eye-catching among them was Elise, cradling a stack of documents with a thoroughly irritated expression.
Elise, the guild's real power and the senior sister of the clerks, whose usual work could be summed up as networking and snacking — she was personally doing menial labor?
Even the cheerfully smiling party members clamped their mouths shut at the ominous atmosphere. If the Adventurer's Guild was in this much of an uproar, it meant something had gone wrong in the tower, and there was a high probability adventurers had died in droves.
"We've lost contact with the safe zone on the 35th floor. Not just the adventurers who went to the 35th floor — the Mage Tower wizards managing the communication magic tools, and the temple knights who had established a sanctuary — all of them, completely cut off."
"…And nothing from the 36th floor and above?"
"The 34th and 36th floors are communicating normally. Only the 35th floor has gone dark. So they're discussing whether to send adventurers from adjacent floors to the 35th, or wait and send a large-scale search party."
As expected, what came from Elise's mouth was thoroughly negative. Not just an ordinary safe zone — a sanctuary created by gathered temple knights, priests, and nuns had gone dark. And of all floors, the 35th, not the 34th or 36th?
Bosses appear every ten floors. If events trigger every five floors, doesn't that feel like a mid-boss appearing? While I was thinking that, Elise continued explaining the situation.
"Of course other adventurers will go check the 35th floor, but conversely there will also be quite a few who consider the 35th too dangerous and pull out, so… if you're entering the tower today, could I ask you to investigate the 35th floor?"
With exploding trolls appearing and monsters turning into undead, adventures from the 31st floor onward had become distinctly harder, so many adventurers were pulling out for safety. Well, there must have been quite a few Intermediate-grade adventurers at the upper end who'd been safely hunting in the troll-free swamp.
Even with the clear weakness of explosions, the increased difficulty was undeniable, so even with the temple stepping in, Intermediate-grade adventurers pulling out was inevitable. You can't force troll hunting on people who aren't ready yet.
"Yes, of course!"
"If it's for our brothers…"
With Intermediate-grade adventurers pulling out and the 35th floor investigation left to a handful of Upper-grade adventurers, Elise looked quite busy. At her request, Han Se-ah and Irene nodded without a moment's hesitation and readily accepted.
Strictly speaking, our party's combat power excluding me should also be considered upper Intermediate-grade, but having received the Goddess's mission and even encouragement from an unidentified Saintess, we couldn't exactly back out.
In a good light, a sense of mission — more crudely, thoroughly drunk on religious high — the party members also didn't raise any particular objections as the two accepted without even discussing it. The Goddess's vision and the Saintess's voice — what medieval fantasy resident could defy that terrifying combo?
And so the party, shoulders squared with determination, began making their way toward the 35th floor.
"Ugh, how am I supposed to say I want to rest half a day just to pick up some alchemy skills in this situation? Mamang would spank me."
Together with the viewers who were suspiciously obsessed with troll bombs.