Tower of Growth (6)
Tower of Growth (6)
I never particularly liked the rain.
I don't exactly hate it, but if you asked me whether I prefer it to sunny weather, I'd shake my head.
I don't have many genuinely good days to begin with. If I look out the window and the sky's overcast, with rain drizzling down, my mood sinks for no real reason.
That said, I can agree it has a certain charm.
There were times I'd sit on the veranda chair, hug a pillow to my chest, and stare blankly at the rain clouds.
Now, though, the feeling was remarkably different from back then.
My eyes couldn't see. I was taking in the sound of the rain only through my hearing.
And since my auditory perception was on a whole different level from those days, the impression itself had simply changed in a lot of ways.
Also, back then I was appreciating it alone, absentmindedly. Now I wasn't alone.
"A-rin, did you watch that movie? What was it... Frozen Empire?"
"Yes, I saw it when I was little. It was so good I'm honestly glad the records survived."
"Whoa... a movie from over two hundred years ago. That's practically an ancient relic. Now that I think about it, A-rin, you really like old culture, don't you? Like those weird candies too."
"Ellia... that isn't you insulting my taste, is it?"
Voices lightly pushed aside the sound of the rain, ringing out nearby.
It was a conversation between Baek A-rin, sitting with her back against the opposite wall, and Ellia, seated beside me.
Baek A-rin had shown up with a bizarre joke about building a snowman in the middle of a downpour.
When I showed wariness in case she might attack, she flinched, startled, and raised both hands high to signal she had no hostile intent.
After a series of events, the three of us ended up huddled together inside the cave. That was the current situation.
Gathered in the cramped cave, our voices echoed against the walls.
"Ellia, you saw it too? They were going at it hammer and tongs."
"I watched from a distance. It looked so vicious I quietly slipped away."
"It was utter chaos. Things are gradually winding down now because of the weather, but it was a complete mess."
Baek A-rin shook her head as if lamenting. She said she'd been active outside for quite a while before heading here.
From what I gathered, a brawl involving nearly a hundred cadets had broken out.
She said it was the night of the second day now. By this point, at least one or two scuffles were bound to happen. The chase I went through was also technically a mob fight and a brawl, if you thought about it.
'......'
Baek A-rin and Ellia chatted in a remarkably easygoing atmosphere.
Neither had an eccentric personality, and both were highly sociable, so they'd grown naturally close in a short time.
After pondering for a moment, I tapped Ellia lightly during a lull in their conversation.
Ellia turned her gaze to me.
I conveyed my question to Ellia using sign language.
"Yeon-hwa is probably running wild about now. The brawl earlier started because of her."
"?"
An answer came back. Of course, the question had been meant to get an answer in the first place.
I turned my head. The voice wasn't Ellia's. Baek A-rin had answered.
It's true I'd planned to ask Baek A-rin through Ellia because I can't speak, but still...
"I've been learning sign language as a liberal art, you know? Thanks to the Tower of Harmonization, even a rough grasp gets translated, so it was easy."
Baek A-rin said it with a light laugh.
The heir of the Changhae Family. Naturally she'd have received an education befitting that status, which apparently includes sign language.
...Does that mean Hong Yeon-hwa learned it too? I'd have to ask her later.
Anyway, I signed a question about what I found puzzling from her answer.
Why was Hong Yeon-hwa running wild?
Given Hong Yeon-hwa's combative personality, her rampaging wasn't strange in itself. But rampaging to the point of getting a hundred cadets entangled? That was what puzzled me.
Baek A-rin answered like it was nothing.
"Ah~ it's no big deal. She and I ran into each other and were traveling together, and when I mentioned that Lee Ha-yul was being chased by a bunch of cadets, she flipped her lid and bolted."
"?"
I hadn't expected that answer. Ellia seemed to feel the same, showing a puzzled look.
"Wasn't Ha-yul already hiding in the cave by then?"
"Yes. I spotted a group of cadets gathered, figured from Lee Ha-yul's situation that he might be there, and just mentioned it. That's all I said. And then Yeon-hwa went charging out."
Without even listening to the rest. Baek A-rin shook her head as if she couldn't believe it.
So in the end, didn't that mean Hong Yeon-hwa took Baek A-rin's bullshit bait and was now brawling her head off?
"Ahem. Let's gloss over such trivial details. There's something more important to discuss."
Seeing my dumbfounded expression, Baek A-rin cleared her throat and changed the subject.
"How about the three of us take down the boss? With three people splitting the score, the payoff would be pretty sweet."
Baek A-rin finished speaking and waited for a response. Ellia's gaze shifted toward me. Wondering what my answer was, I supposed.
'Hm...'
A party proposal. Nothing unusual. If you stepped outside right now, you'd see plenty of cadets in parties.
Dividing the points by headcount lowers your personal take, but it enables safe and efficient score acquisition, so it's not a pure loss.
'But is it really necessary?'
Still, did Baek A-rin really need to form a party? With me and Ellia?
"There's a reason, of course. When we first got the notice, they informed us the boss's rank is 5th Rank. A 5th Rank is a bit much for even me to handle alone."
Baek A-rin made a reluctant face and waved her hand.
"A 5th Rank is no joke. Later, maybe, but if I try it alone now and get eliminated, it's a loss, isn't it? So let's form a party with people we already know and take it down safely. That's the idea."
She had a solid point.
Even in the original story, the main cast found a 5th Rank burdensome at this point in the timeline.
After a moment's thought, I turned my head toward Ellia.
'What about you, Ellia?'
When I asked in sign, Ellia smiled brightly and answered.
"I think it's a good idea. Fighting alongside A-rin can't hurt, right?"
She was right.
Baek A-rin was the top seat of the 122nd Cohort. Her pure combat ability was lower than Hong Yeon-hwa's, but her overall stats were on a higher tier than Hong Yeon-hwa's.
Her versatility, to the point that she even held the title of All-Rounder, became an even greater force when she had allies.
Far from rejecting it, this was a proposal worth welcoming.
I lowered my head briefly and felt the mana around me. My own mana, notably pure compared to the surroundings. Ellia's mana, like warm sunlight.
And Baek A-rin's mana, clean yet cold.
As my Mana Affinity grew, I could perceive mana with even greater detail. Consequently, Baek A-rin's coldness came through more vividly than ever.
That was one of the reasons I was feeling resistant to this proposal right now. But that wasn't the only reason.
It was because the proposer was Baek A-rin. Because I felt this resistance toward her.
Why? Because of knowledge from the original work that amounted to nothing more than a game.
I felt this resistance toward Baek A-rin even though she had done nothing whatsoever to me.
A stupid thought. I'd resolved not to judge people based on knowledge from a mere game, and yet.
Now I was feeling resistance toward someone precisely because of that game knowledge.
It wasn't even something I'd experienced firsthand. I didn't even know this person well.
'......'
I felt Baek A-rin's peculiar gaze fixed on me.
- Nod.
After hesitating a moment, I nodded.
.
.
.
Third day of tower entry.
Thanks to the bloodbath on the first and second days, the number of cadets had apparently dropped quite a bit.
The remaining cadets would still need to take down the boss, so I imagined a mood of mutual restraint would settle in for a while.
Of course, you still had to stay on guard, since one wrong move would get you backstabbed.
A faint bird's cry and the trickling sound of a stream reached my ears. Morning must have broken.
I carefully raised my upper body. Sleeping in the cramped cave had been less uncomfortable than I'd expected.
We didn't have sleeping bags or anything, but I'd used magic to level the ground and substituted large leaves for bedding, which made for a fairly decent sleeping spot.
"Udadadada..."
I crawled out awkwardly from the cave. As I was tapping the grass with my toes, as if stepping on it for the first time in a while, a strange sound came.
The source was Baek A-rin. She was stretching both arms high and working the stiffness out of her body with faint cracks. Her large chest expanded as she filled it with the clean air.
Just hearing that groan was refreshing.
It was an unguarded groan, far removed from the gentle, soft aura Baek A-rin usually gave off.
I turned my head away with an odd expression.
I thought about the boss we'd soon be tracking. When we'd been briefed on the tower schedule, we'd already been told about the boss.
'A 5th-Rank Parasitic Moth. An Alpha Individual, at that.'
5th Rank. In the original story, it's just trash mob that gets obliterated by the aftershock of a single attack from a fully grown player character. In reality, the status is different.
There aren't many cases these days, but if a 5th-Rank Monster suddenly appeared in a city center without preparation, hundreds of people would be swept away as if it were nothing. An utter monster.
And they'd slapped an Alpha classification on top of it.
Alpha Individual is a designation for an entity that is exceptionally dangerous even within its given rank.
There are several reasons. The individual could be a variant species exceptionally stronger than the common species, or it could have been strengthened under the dungeon's blessing, and so on.
From now on, we had to track that. The monster rated as a 5th-Rank Alpha Individual, which must have appeared somewhere in this Tower of Growth.
If this were reality, I'd have bolted immediately. But since we were inside the tower, the danger was nonexistent. It was a good opportunity to get some experience.
Having finished her stretches, Baek A-rin clapped her hands.
"Alright! Let's head out!"
Baek A-rin took the role of leader for our temporary party. It was natural, considering her strength and her overwhelming edge in experience.
Baek A-rin took point. Ellia, who had the weakest combat ability, stood in the center.
I was in the rear support and containment role. I'd already informed them that my detection ability had become less effective.
We hadn't been searching for long. Maybe a little over ten minutes at most.
"...Whoa."
Baek A-rin, at the front, let out a gasp of admiration. Ellia, following behind, showed a mix of surprise and alarm.
My eyes being what they are, I couldn't see the sight, but I was sensing it in another way.
The wind blowing was scorching hot. Also, every trace of mana in the vicinity had been burned completely away, and here and there, flames that still hadn't gone out were flickering.
I carefully pressed down on the ground. The heat passed through the soles of my shoes.
Crunch. The earth gave way softly. When I scraped the area with my foot, plants and such crumbled into powder, spreading everywhere.
At minimum, the whole forest in this area had been completely wiped out.
'Just how wildly did she rampage?'
Baek A-rin murmured in a flat, dry tone.
"She certainly went on a spectacular rampage..."
Blatant traces of Calamity Flame.
My right hand twitched. I checked the arm sleeve wrapped around it for no real reason.
"If Yeon-hwa tries to kill me over that little lie, Lee Ha-yul, you have to stop her, okay?"
'Me?'
"Yeon-hwa always folds when it comes to you, doesn't she?"
When I gave her a questioning look, she replied as if asking the obvious.
Does Hong Yeon-hwa really do that with me?
...Now that I thought about it, maybe she does.
We passed through the forest that Hong Yeon-hwa had burned to ashes.
Baek A-rin led the party skillfully, and I pushed forward while sensing the surroundings as best I could with my amplified senses and Mana Affinity.
We also hunted down miscellaneous monsters here and there, earning a small amount of points.
Occasionally we took breaks, and we also gathered suitable fruits and other food.
Like that, perhaps several hours passed.
Through good luck, we managed to find the boss in this vast tower.
- BEEEEEEEEEEP─!
- CRAAAASH!
"Gah! That fucking—. Seriously."
Along with Hong Yeon-hwa, who was already in the thick of a brawl with said boss.