A Place Full of Stars 3
I'd never been there myself, but from what I'd heard through adventurer acquaintances who occasionally came down — and through guild connections including Elise — the 41st Floor was a brutal alpine range.
Blade-sharp mountain ridges and steep trails. Bottomless cliffs that dropped into nothing. Monsters that scaled those cliffs like open ground, or simply flew. One-horned mountain goats and shadow leopards crossed sheer rock faces as if they were flat roads, while harpies wheeled through the sky above.
A subtle, oppressive tightness that protested the thin air with every breath. One-horned mountain goats charging down cliff faces like open plains, trying to ram you into a fatal fall. Shadow leopards that made no sound as they sank their teeth into an adventurer's ankle and dragged them away. Harpies that used gravity itself to glide in and snatch people off the trails.
"What the hell is this now…"
"Get the full story from Miss Rebecca."
"She came down again?"
Hearing that a field that godforsaken had gotten even more vicious made it hard to even picture. A swamp getting polluted I could roughly understand — but how does a high mountain range with barely any footholds change? Thinking that, I sheathed my sword and headed into the guild building with Katie, who'd just finished catching her breath.
The guild wasn't crowded, but it was noisy. At one of the tables sat a familiar head of red hair. Rebecca — her hair a wild, fluffy mess like a large dog that had freely romped through three full rounds of walks — was huffing and yelling about something.
"Those fucking bitches got even more goddamn awful!!"
"What changed, how, and why…"
"How the hell would I know why it changed, you dumbass! That's for you lot to figure out, or go ask the Magic Tower!"
Even when she normally ran on pure instinct and acted like a beast, she usually kept a line with the guild staff. Watching her spew vulgarities at everyone who so much as spoke to her like some mass shooter, she had to be seriously pissed. With her face flushed as red as her hair, snorting rough breaths through her nose, she almost looked like a kid on the verge of tears.
Looking around like a child hunting for someone to take it out on, those red eyes locked onto me.
Hmm. This is going to be a hassle.
"Hey! Roland! You bastard — you cleared the 40th Floor, right?"
As if the timing couldn't have been better, she didn't just pass the table — she shoved through it with her whole body and charged straight at me. Looking at her like this, she seemed less like a large dog and more like a bear. As the enraged red bear barreled my way, the adventurers and guild staff who'd been listening came swarming after her.
Whether they did or not, Rebecca did her own thing at her own pace, as always.
"But what's this — this kid already broke into Upper-grade? Brat, you've got talent."
"Ah — hello, Miss Rebecca!"
"What's with the 'Miss'? You're from a noble family, right? Now that you're Upper-grade, just drop the formalities."
"Yes — uh, yeah… okay!"
"That 'okay' is still formal, but anyway — you greeted me first this time. Good. Keep it that way."
Whether the people stuck behind her looked ready to die of frustration or not, she first had a warm greeting with Katie. Only when someone tried to grab her shoulder did she finally turn and speak to me.
She seemed to have cooled off a little while talking with Katie, but the moment she tried to bring up the 41st Floor with me again, her temper flared right back up. Either way, her story split cleanly into good news and bad news.
The good news: thanks to the gate that had opened on the 30th Floor, the safe zone that had appeared on the 35th, and the Temple's active intervention, the Highest-grade adventurers who'd been stuck on the 43rd Floor had pushed forward all the way to the 45th.
The bad news: whether they'd tripped a five-floor event trigger on the 45th or not, the highland maps from the 41st through the 45th Floors had also twisted in a bizarre, vicious direction — and gotten significantly harder.
"What changed, and how?"
"Those harpy bastards got insanely smart."
"…That's it?"
"Yeah, that's it! But they're fucking smart! So smart I want to catch them and tear them apart!"
Originally, the harpies that appeared in the Tower weren't beautiful half-human, half-bird creatures out of some subculture. Just as goblins and orcs weren't pretty green-skinned boys and men, harpies were large eagles with old hag heads dangling from their necks.
The problem was the floor enhancement event that kicked off the moment the Highest-grade advance party set foot on the 45th Floor. Because of it, enhanced named harpies had started to appear.
Huge wings with glossy red, yellow, and multicolored feathers that brought macaws to mind. Sharp talons that belonged on a bird of prey. And everything else — a voluptuous, glamorous beauty. Heroes Chronicle-style harpies had arrived.
…Those were probably 1★ bestiary filler mobs.
If the black mage Lich on the 40th Floor had shown up as a scenario boss, these harpies — as you could guess from their beautiful appearance — were characters users could pull and use. Not from the paid gacha that went up to 5★, but junk characters from the friendship gacha that only topped out at 3★.
Just 1★… I wanted to say. But their appearance had a far bigger impact than expected.
"Those bastards don't come down anymore!"
"They do ranged attacks?"
"Yeah! They throw rocks — or they've tamed the one-horned mountain goats. Blow something like a flute and every monster in the area comes swarming in!"
Even as trash mobs, being gacha characters meant they'd gained intelligence.
The old-hag-headed eagle harpies had always fought the same way — gliding in for brutal claw strikes. But the Heroes Chronicle beauty harpies didn't do melee. They threw rocks from the sky and had zero intention of coming down.
And with stars attached, they treated the old hag harpies like subordinates. Having gained intelligence, they'd even tamed one-horned mountain goats like livestock and used them as meat shields.
"Those fucking bitches even throw sand in your eyes!"
From above the cliffs, old hag harpies struck down with sharp talons. From below, one-horned mountain goats climbed the walls and charged. And from the sky, the beauty harpies directed the whole assault while pelting adventurers with rocks. For anyone on the receiving end, it was enough to drive you insane.
Monsters with infinite malice toward humans had gained human-level intelligence.
"Seriously — I'm so pissed I could fucking…"
That was why Rebecca's eyes were rolled back and she was snorting through her nose.
After gauging things with rock throws and finding no way to deal real damage, they'd started hurling old hag harpies to try to knock people off the cliffs. When a startled Rebecca slaughtered those, they threw one-horned mountain goats — heavier than the harpies — trying to collapse the narrow trails.
When even that failed, they scavenged gravel and rocks from somewhere and threw those too, only for Rebecca's blade to cut them down. So, with no way to kill her, they switched to sand instead of stones — just to drain her stamina.
…No, fucking hell. Even if they're named mobs, do they have to make them this vicious?
"Roughly one smart bitch with about a dozen old ones roaming in packs. When they blow the flute, the one-horned mountain goats come — but after I blocked it once they never blew it again, so I don't know how many there are."
"Ha. Just hearing about it is overwhelming."
"Right? I feel like setting the whole mountain on fire — but it's a rock mountain. This is when you need skilled mages."
"Your mercenary group has mages."
"When they see someone with a staff instead of a blade, they don't even throw rocks — they just watch from way off. Our people aren't enough. You'd need to drag in someone like a Magic Tower elder."
Listening to Rebecca's story, the faces of the adventurers and guild staff nearby darkened as well. Highest-grade adventurers could handle anything that charged them — but if the enemy refused to engage and fled into the sky, there was no way to deal with them.
If they escaped outside a mage's range, the only option left would be a skilled archer landing a sniper shot. Mages excelled in firepower and versatility, but archers had far greater range.
As we sat through that grim conversation, Han Se-ah — who'd gone to the alchemy workshop district, perhaps because a quest window had popped up — walked into the guild with Grace in tow. Three colorful heads of blonde, silver, and red hair gathered at one table made them easy to find, and the camera immediately followed.
"What's going on, Roland?"
"Hmm. Apparently there's a problem on the 41st Floor."
Even though she already knew from the quest window, she seemed to want the explanation anyway, casually drifting to my side. Pretending not to notice the camera naturally settling in front of my face like an interview setup, I started explaining.
Rebecca, the one who'd actually brought the information, still hadn't fully burned off her anger — after venting at me, she'd stormed straight out of the guild. She'd go drink her stress away, which meant the explanation for Han Se-ah and the viewers fell to me.
"So basically… we have to fight monsters that drop boulders and try to shove us off thousand-foot cliffs, on alpine trails clinging to the sides of those same cliffs?"
"Yeah. Against monsters smart enough to be human — vicious, relentless, and dedicated to harassing you."
"…Hey. Maybe I should learn some alchemy first and then go to the 41st Floor? I feel like I'm going to need to stock up on a ton of alchemical arrowheads for Grace."
Having heard the whole story, Han Se-ah and the viewers reacted much the same way I had.
Temple support, royal recognition — none of it mattered. Until someone found a way to deal with those harpy bastards, a long, miserable road was already booked and waiting.