Rock vs Flight 4
"This actually works?"
"Even so, they're still just monster-level smart."
At my reply to Han Se-ah's mutter, the party members nodded. Including the harpy that had hit her with a spicy twenty-four-hour ban, this was already the fourth one we'd captured alive.
They were clever harpies — sharp enough to recognize a staff and a bow, and to tell an archer from a mage — but at the end of the day they were only one-star. Their intelligence wasn't anything extraordinary, so Han Se-ah had tricked them with almost insulting ease. The method: her inventory.
"Well, they never would have imagined arrows popping out of thin air. Even if you'd told my past self, I wouldn't have believed it."
"Our family doesn't have a treasure like that either. At best, something that lightens the weight or shrinks the volume."
Even a magically enchanted wagon didn't store things in empty space the way an inventory did. Load a hundred kilos and it might weigh sixty; compress a three-meter load down to one meter — that was the extent of it.
So the harpies had learned that when mercenaries pulled something from a wagon — more precisely, when bare-handed humans suddenly moved toward a cart to retrieve something — that was the moment to watch for. What they had never imagined was that two empty-handed women, with no wagon in sight, no staff, no bow, would simply reach into thin air, draw out a bow and arrows and a staff, and fire a sticky arrowhead in the blink of an eye.
They might have studied enchanted wagons all they liked. An inventory that pulled objects from empty space was a privilege granted only to the player — Han Se-ah.
"I'll turn the camera around first, then show them after we've captured and tied them up nice and tight."
We searched for a passage, ranging as high along the mountain paths as we could, wearing down the harpies' wariness. Even when a wild shadow leopard lunged out, Grace and Han Se-ah stayed out of the fight. Then, the moment one drifted into that razor-thin range where an arrow could reach, Grace and Han Se-ah pulled their weapons from inventory and — bang.
Even with a capacity to learn, a captured harpy wasn't about to telepathically brief the ones still free. So the live captures were going more smoothly than expected.
Aside from how long it took to lower their guard, the flow was about as good as it got. Even when we couldn't hunt and only picked up the occasional mana stone from a wild shadow leopard, the stone dwarves' side quests and the bounties for turning harpies over as research material kept us from ever running a deficit.
"Handing this one over to the Magic Tower too?"
"Or should we send one to the Temple as well?"
"Hmm… I wonder how much the brothers and sisters would actually be able to learn from it…"
After that, to find the fallen harpy and dodge another stream suspension, we wrapped it in thick cloth, bound it tight with rope, and rolled it up so only the head and feet stuck out. The party chatted about it all with complete composure.
Kyaat? Kyaaaak—!
True to a named monster of the 41st Floor, those vicious raptor talons were nearly the size of kitchen knives, gouging rock and splitting stones with every thrash — but a body shaped like a human's still had its limits. With knees and calves bound tight so only the ankles could twitch, all that claw-flailing accomplished was kicking up dust.
"Think the rest of them will just run for it again this time?"
"Their commander got taken. They probably figure charging in would only get them killed."
"Fair enough. Even if we can't talk to them, they've got a cunning streak."
I slung the thickly wrapped harpy over my shoulder. It twisted its face into a venomous scowl and thrashed its head around — not that biting me a hundred times would help. It didn't even have a beak, just human teeth, and those weren't getting through my steel armor. After cracking its forehead against the plate a few times, the thing finally settled down. The party watched without much thought, then turned on their heels without hesitation.
…Five of them now. Something ought to progress soon.
"How about we turn this one in and head up to the 42nd Floor? I think we've found the passage… it's on that peak over there."
"Really? We're already at the 42nd Floor passage. The stone dwarves' request is still outstanding, so let's head outside first, come back, and this time skip the live captures and go straight to the 42nd. What do you think, Hanna?"
"That sounds good. Capturing harpies pays decently, but we can't stay on the 41st forever."
I'd hit the symbolic number of five and suggested we push for the 42nd Floor at once, and Han Se-ah nodded without a second's hesitation.
Explore until a harpy dropped its guard, capture it. Return, hand it to the Magic Tower, explore again, capture another, return again. Being on the 41st Floor meant we weren't dropping to the 35th — we were shuttling between the city and the 41st through the 40th Floor's gate, over and over.
All we could do was hope a quest would kick off soon.
Five was the kind of number that felt like something should happen, wasn't it?
You know how it is.
If there's a hidden element, five or ten repetitions feel more convincing than an awkward seven or eight. When people decide to try something again, more of them say "just five more times" or "ten more times" than "let's do eight."
"Huh. So since there was a wolf lure incense, they can make a harpy one too?"
"…Ugh, this is basically the smell of rotting meat I used to catch in the forest. Do harpies eat carrion because of the eagle bodies?"
Selling five harpies to the Magic Tower had unlocked something new: harpy lure incense.
It attracted the eagle-bodied crone harpies rather than the red-feathered beauties — but so what? Being able to pick a fight with a field-roaming monster pack was a signal flare that a quest could finally move forward.
Though between the wolf lure and the harpy lure, wasn't this basically half-forcing players into alchemy…?
"It says to crush this onto a broad rock on a mountain peak, put on a camouflage cloak, and hide — then the harpies will come close."
"Camouflage cloaks on top of everything. What a pain these monsters are."
Anyway, that was BB Games' problem. Our party's job was clear. In a Tower where anomalies clustered on the fifth and tenth floors of each set, the destination was the 45th.
The starred beauty harpies had only appeared after a Highest-grade adventurer party cleared the 44th Floor and set foot on the 45th, hadn't they? So the quest trigger almost had to be waiting on the 45th. As a hero, to smash the Demon King's schemes; as adventurers, to explore the unknown; as a player, to conquer the Tower — we had to push for the 45th Floor.
"We'll visit the stone dwarves' city later. For now I want to climb toward the 45th as fast as we can. Like that giant tree on the 35th — if we find whatever's on the 45th too late, there might be some irreversible Demon King plot waiting for us."
"Miss Hanna is right. Where an anomaly begins, a wicked conspiracy may well be lurking. Now is the time to advance in the Goddess's name."
So Han Se-ah, it seemed, was ready to charge in headfirst — trusting me, the innate 6-star tank.
We could ambush and wipe out harpies with lure incense on the 42nd Floor after clearing the 41st, but that could wait. If the harpies didn't block our path, we'd ignore them and punch through. The Magic Tower had already started researching them and even produced results like the lure incense —
That was the pitch, and the party nodded without a hint of resistance.
Well, when our leader — the genius beauty hero-mage with titles plastered all over her — said so, who was going to argue? The only real flaw in the plan was that if a powerful enemy showed up, the party's tank would have to take the risk…
Me? In danger?
Judging by the enhanced lich on the 40th Floor, I figured I could hold out at least through the 60th Floor boss.
"Then we leave first thing tomorrow morning. For today, just in case, we'll buy camouflage cloaks and head to the lodging… no, to the mansion."
"Having a mansion still doesn't feel real."
I'd been spacing out watching Han Se-ah lead the party as leader, and before I knew it the conversation had drifted naturally from harpies to the mansion.
The mansion in the adventurer city, granted by the princess and managed by Maid Emma and Butler Sebastian. "Lodging" was the wrong word — "guild house" fit better for a place that large and lavish. Past the big iron gate lay a well-tended garden and even a small fountain.
A noble estate with a coachman, a gardener, a butler, and a maid. Katie might have been fine with it, but Grace and Irene clearly felt the weight of it. Between all the harpy-capturing runs in and out of the Tower lately, they still hadn't gotten used to the place.
"Still, Miss Emma's cooking is truly delicious. I'd love to learn from her and use it inside the Tower too."
"True enough. Miss Emma's food was practically restaurant quality."
Being waited on by a maid was still awkward as could be, but nobody disliked good food. Irene had fallen so hard for Emma's cooking that she looked ready to take her on as a culinary master.
Because Emma's cooking came closest to modern flavors of anything in this world.
Even with chicken and beer available, not every inn cooked at the same level. There was good chicken and bad chicken; cafés had macaron specialists and coffee specialists — a bizarre game-fantasy world. And in that world, Emma was a hub NPC prepared for the player's comfortable progression, so her cooking skill was top-tier.
"We leave early tomorrow, so no drinking… I'll have to ask Miss Emma for some seasoned fried chicken."
"That sounds perfect. Sweet and spicy — it was really good."
"Watching Grace unnie and Irene unnie get all excited about demolishing seasoned fried chicken is so funny… it feels like watching some chaotic Korean-pride brainrot TV show live."
Aside from how absurdly funny it was to watch a leather-armored archer with a massive bow and a priestess in a nun's habit request that a maid deep-fry them some seasoned chicken, it was a truly peaceful day.
Peaceful, that is, except for the night visitor who showed up at the mansion before the day was even over.