Pioneer Project 2
Passing through the Stone Dwarves' city, we had moved from underground to underground — and in doing so, gained a path from the 41st Floor to the 42nd. For an ordinary adventurer, that was a journey of three days spent climbing steep mountain trails under constant harpy harassment. We had covered the same distance in a single comfortable day.
But for the Magic Tower, which intended to establish a massive research facility inside the Tower; for the Guild, which needed to maintain an adventurer front line on the 45th Floor; and for the Temple, whose ambition was nothing less than purifying the entire Tower — this was the kind of news that turned the world upside down.
Even when a hero's party hunted a suddenly appearing boss monster and used its byproducts and mana stones to construct a Gate spanning ten floors at a time, they were still relying on a magical installation called a "Gate" to travel the Tower. The Stone Dwarves, on the other hand, had simply bored a tunnel straight through the underground. No Gate. No fancy apparatus. Just a hole.
"We'll have to report this to the Guild, right?"
"Obviously. If it's not just us helping the Stone Dwarves on our own — if the Guild steps in at an institutional level to protect the Vacuum Stones — we might actually be able to build a passage that runs all the way to the 50th Floor."
That would leave the suddenly appeared red harpies high and dry, but they probably had some related sub-quest of their own. There was no way the story would just go, Well, we dug an underground tunnel, so forget the harpies and hop on up to the 51st Floor~
As we talked, a few Stone Dwarves were still picking through the ruins, refusing to accept reality. But Old Man Bobo and several of the auction losers had come back to our side and begun to face the facts.
Apparently one of the mansions that hadn't been crushed head-on — merely buried under debris — had belonged to a Stone Dwarf they knew. You couldn't read expressions on faces made of rock, but the way the atmosphere around them sagged and darkened was unmistakable.
"…Hey, Softies. Was there a reason you went outside?"
"Do you remember what I explained last time — about the Demon King and the Tower?"
Han Se-ah quietly approached the Stone Dwarves and began explaining the Tower to them. There were cities of humans. A Goddess existed. A Demon King bent on conquering the world had raised this Tower — all of it drawn from quest logs and the Temple's accumulated knowledge. As she spoke, the Stone Dwarves' mood grew steadily heavier.
Of course it did. The fact that their own city had been pulled inside the Demon King's Tower meant, ultimately, that the allied forces of other races — the Stone Dwarves' regular customers — had been defeated by the Demon King, and that the world had fallen.
No matter how hard they tried to deny reality, the evidence shoved in their faces laid bare the truth: they had been caught up in the Demon King's army. Even if they wanted to dismiss Han Se-ah's words as a joke the way they had on the first day, the ruins stood right before their eyes — and inside those ruins lay the collapsed homes of people they had known.
"So then… haah. What do we do now?"
"W-well, at least that means there's a Softie city outside, right?"
"If there's a Softie city only a few days' Softie-walk from here, then we need to open trade with them. First thing we'll do is put in a request to find and eliminate whatever destroyed this city."
Maybe they had found a scrap of hope in the fact that their own city was still intact, and that the world hadn't been completely annihilated — that a new Softie city existed out there. Old Man Bobo and the older members of the group, who had been muttering darkly among themselves, began talking about some unidentified monster dwelling in the underground depths.
My party and I had been imagining something like a Great King Earth Beetle even larger than a King Earth Beetle, but it seemed the Stone Dwarves had never seen — or even heard of — a monster bigger than a King Earth Beetle.
They set aside the talk of the Demon King for now, thoroughly preoccupied with the idea of hunting down and exterminating whatever colossal monster was capable of wiping out a city. At Bobo's words, the quest window finally updated as well, beginning to speak of the culprit behind the city's destruction.
The underground city of the 42nd Floor, now accessible thanks to the passage carved by Vacuum Stones.
But the underground city of the 42nd Floor appeared to have been utterly destroyed by something.
Is there something far more terrifying than harpies lurking beneath this mountain range…?
"That's more like it! We've got a suspiciously obvious ruin sitting right here, we've climbed all the way to the 42nd Floor — it'd be a real letdown if the quest didn't update."
The quest window had updated, and Bobo and the other Stone Dwarves seemed ready to open relations with the humans of the city. All that remained was for us to serve as the stepping stone between them.
The Temple had been pouring its focus into the Tower's interior.
It went without saying that the Temple branch in the adventurer city was only a tiny fraction of the Temple's power, which spanned the entire kingdom. Just because the Tower's interior was a blasphemous space beyond the Goddess's reach didn't mean every believer would fixate on it.
The reason the Temple had become one of the kingdom's three great powers — capable of checking the royal family and the nobility — was the priests and nuns who traveled every corner of the realm in accordance with the Goddess's will, and the believers of every social class who came to trust and follow the Goddess because of them.
From a farmer clearing fields in some rural backwater to a count whose name rang through high society, the blessings of holy power were distributed equally to all who believed in the Goddess. Holy power did not heal nobles better and leave farmers untreated.
Of course not — holy power healed monsters, too.
"An untainted new race, and an entire city of them?"
"O Goddess!"
"To think something like Brother Manash's case has happened again — this only makes our reason for climbing the Tower all the clearer! Aiding our innocent brothers and sisters whom the Demon King's malice has not yet reached! That is our sacred duty!"
And so the Temple never suffered a shortage of personnel simply because the Tower was being pioneered. On the contrary, the faithful from every corner of the kingdom — people who had been honing their devotion and their swordsmanship — had begun flocking to the city.
Even if they weren't Temple Knights proper: the third sons of noble houses with no inheritance to claim, wandering knights who had found no lord to serve, mercenaries and retired soldiers who had witnessed miracles of holy power and converted — one by one, they heard the tales of the hero and gathered in the city.
Not enough to pioneer the entire Tower, but enough heads to found several villages. Add support from the royal family and the Magic Tower, guarantee their safety, and throw in merchants willing to enter the Tower for profit…?
"Let us go! For the will of the Goddess!"
The exchange with the Stone Dwarves began progressing at a speed that let you experience firsthand what it meant to roast beans over a flash of lightning.
"You know, I've thought this for a while, but the Temple people are kind of terrifying when it comes to getting things done. Super impulsive, but they move with this insane passion? Is this, like, ENFP taken to the absolute extreme?"
The Temple Knights' reaction was especially intense — probably because of Manash, who had been staying with them since parting ways with us. We had relayed the news of contact with another race through the nuns rather than the knights, hoping to reach the Temple's upper ranks properly… and yet the Temple Knights looked ready to charge in headfirst on their own, which was honestly frightening.
What exactly have you been doing with the Temple Knights on the lower floors, Manash…?
At any rate, the Temple seemed so taken with Manash that they were preparing the exchange with the Stone Dwarves in the spirit of aiding Demon King refugees. After hearing our report, they also gave a firm commitment: if we wanted support when hunting the monster that destroyed the city, they would provide it.
Matching the Temple's fervor stride for stride was the Magic Tower, which had grown equally feverish.
"Stone Dwarves whose entire bodies are made of rock?"
"They have no mouths, yet they eat metal? You say a silver coin vanished into thin air when they chewed it?"
"A red crystal that melts rock and soil with mana but leaves minerals and raw gemstones untouched — and massive insect-type monsters that sense that mana wavelength and come looking for it?"
I could practically hear the Magic Tower mages' eyes rolling back in their heads from here. Hnnngh—
Researching a single new race would have produced more than enough material for papers. But on top of that, they had metal-refining techniques and alloy knowledge accumulated across generations in another world, gem-cutting expertise, specialized mineral lore covering Vacuum Stones and Lava Stones, and information on the earth beetles that were the Stone Dwarves' natural predators.
And then they heard that a passage had been opened from the 41st Floor to the 42nd without any Gate at all — and the mages' eyes flipped over like drug addicts whose supply had just been cut off.
In this situation, two mages held an absolute advantage: Antenor, who had been promised minerals in exchange for teaching Han Se-ah lightning magic, and Charlotte Cavendish, who had continuously aided us in pursuit of her own ambitions.
"Miss Cavendish — or would you prefer I call you Mage Charlotte?"
"Yes. I much prefer being Charlotte of the Magic Tower over being a Cavendish."
"Very well, Miss Charlotte. Regarding this newly discovered city on the 41st Floor…"
Fortunately, the two mages' interests diverged just enough. I didn't understand the technical details, but with so many research topics and trade goods on the table, the two of them joined forces rather than fighting — and began protecting their stake together.
Mages were creatures stuffed full of intellectual greed and monopolistic desire, so when a high-ranking mage like Antenor teamed up with Charlotte — who had cleverly used Han Se-ah to build a whole network of collaborators — they formed a kind of breakwater.
In short, the mages who used to come pester Han Se-ah directly had mostly vanished. Unlike before, when guests would show up at the inn in a nonstop relay, they were now being filtered out at the Antenor-and-Charlotte stage.
"Ugh, being a hero is such a hassle of a job."
"Hehe. The higher you climb, the more work there is to do."
Still, as the hero who had pioneered the Tower and the adventurer who had brought back the information, Han Se-ah had worn herself out running around on foot — and Irene patted her gently and led her along.
As always, the viewers wailing for Mamang to give them their bottle could safely be ignored.