Looting is Irresistible

Unlike before, when their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠charge had shaken heaven and earth, the forest was now silent. Though thousands of Void Dogs slipped through the trees, advancing forward, only the faint rustling of grass could be heard. There was none of the thunderous vibration from before.

Poppy sprinted down the long, stretching road. I rode on his back, leading the legion from the absolute vanguard.

'I have about three thousand Void Dogs... I can't really call that a lot.'

Although the legion's total count on my status window exceeded four thousand, about a thousand of them were Void Grubs. While the Void Grubs possessed sharp teeth, their movement speed was incredibly slow, making them useless as a combat force. The number of units that could actually participate in battle was three thousand.

'And the enemy... is at least five thousand, at a conservative estimate.'

Before beginning our final charge, I had scattered the Void Dogs to search every corner of the forest. If we broke through the enemy's main camp only to find no exit, it would be an absolute disaster. After scouring the forest thoroughly for the past three hours, I had managed to pinpoint the enemy's approximate location and numbers.

The enemy was positioned at the very end of the road, their backs to the white barrier that marked the end of the third floor. Since I had searched every other area except the one guarded by their army, the exit was undoubtedly at the end of this path.

"It's about to begin."

"Woof!"

I reached into the leather pouch slung at my hip and pulled out a stone I had picked up earlier.

Whoosh! The stone sliced through the air and struck a winged fish. Upon impact, the fish popped like a balloon.

The appearance of those creatures meant the enemy's main force was right in front of us.

Screeech! The cries of the enemy scouts echoed through the forest.

I could personally shoot down the scouts within my line of sight, but I couldn't deal with the ones out of my reach. In any case, this attack was far from a surprise raid. It was a straightforward, head-on clash of strength against strength. The only variable was that our goal wasn't to annihilate the enemy, but simply to secure the exit.

'We're outnumbered by two thousand, but in terms of actual combat power, the gap is more like threefold.'

Although things had improved slightly after raising the Void Dogs to level 4, they were still outmatched in one-on-one combat. With both inferior quality and quantity, a simple head-on battle would guarantee a hundred defeats in a hundred matches.

As I pondered, a structure resembling a watchtower caught my eye. Atop a three-meter-tall tower built from stacked giant barnacles, a crustacean with long, stalk-like eyes like a crab stared down at us.

"Woof!" A Void Dog kicked off the ground and leaped, pouncing on the crab monster.

Unable to withstand the Void Dog's tackle, the crab monster tumbled to the ground. Even as it rolled on the dirt, it managed to dig its claws into its attacker. However, other Void Dogs swarmed from all directions, tearing the crab monster to shreds in an instant.

Though we were inferior in overall physical capabilities, our legion possessed one clear advantage: our unity and breakthrough power were a cut above.

In the distance, a long wall blocking the road came into view—a rampart constructed from massive barnacles, with monsters lined up along the top.

"Poppy."

"Roooar!!!"

The moment Poppy roared, the Void Dogs that had been running in a wide, horizontal formation halted in unison.

Our goal was strictly to clear the third floor. There was no reason to break through this entire long wall. The widely scattered Void Dogs converged around me all at once. Perhaps caught off guard by this sudden concentration of forces, the monsters atop the wall began to panic.

"I'm not the kind of commander who just hides in the back."

"Woof!"

Led by Poppy and me, the legion charged toward a single point on the wall. As we leaped over the rampart, the enemy army waiting on the other side was revealed—monsters packed tightly across the long road and the forests on either side.

Riding atop Poppy, I focused on swinging my sword to carve a path. As Poppy and I acted as a wedge, piercing a crack in the enemy's formation, the Void Dogs followed close behind to widen the breach.

"Agh! Get this thing off me... Aaaargh!!!"

Outmatched in both numbers and combat power, our defeat would be sealed the moment we lost momentum and our breakthrough ground to a halt. Even if a single Void Dog was blocked by an enemy, another would step over its body and leap forward.

It was a tactic possible only because they didn't care about their own lives in the slightest. Though our corpses piled up faster than the enemy's, we were steadily advancing.

"Move as planned! Block their retreat and don't let a single one escape alive!" A man with crab claws for hands, who appeared to be an Abyss Priest, redirected his forces to cut off our rear.

However, as their troops pulled back to the rear, the number of enemies directly in front of us decreased, actually accelerating our pace. The enemy's command was working to my advantage.

If this were a conventional war, plunging blindly into the heart of enemy territory like this would have been a death sentence. But this was the Tower. As long as we reached the exit, victory was ours.

The moment I looked back at the priest with that lingering question, I caught his expression. 'Huh? Is he smiling?' As if mocking a moth flying into a flame, the priest was definitely grinning at us.

'What is it? Is the exit not here? No, that's impossible.' Unless the exit was completely invisible, it had to be somewhere around here. Sensing something amiss, I pulled Poppy to a halt.

"I'm sorry. Fight for me."

"Woof!"

Poppy, who had been leading the charge, pulled back, and the other Void Dogs filled the gap. Because our strongest asset had stepped back, our breakthrough speed slowed, but since the enemy's main force had also shifted, we still made steady progress.

'Wait, where is the commander?' The Abyss Priest only gave orders to his fellow cultists; he didn't possess the ability to command the monster army itself. If so, who was the one who had sent the vanguard and erected the walls to prepare this defense?

As I continued to ponder, I saw the road bend ninety degrees to the right. A high cliff stood beside the path, blocking our view. In other difficulties, the exit appeared once you rounded that cliff.

The moment the leading Void Dogs rounded the corner—Boom! A massive tentacle slammed down, flattening them like pancakes.

Against a monster of that scale, the physically outmatched Void Dogs would be useless. I ordered the Void Dogs to fall back and stepped forward with Poppy.

Thud! It looked exactly like what one would expect if a deep-sea Kraken were walking on land. A monster with tentacles as thick as telephone poles was blocking the path. And behind those writhing tentacles, the white portal signaling the clearance of the third floor shimmered.

"Poppy, you can do this, right?"

"Woof!"

Poppy's body swelled to massive proportions. His shoulder height, which had been well over a meter, grew past two meters to nearly three. His body length, previously over two meters, stretched to nearly five. He now looked more like a truck than an animal.

One might simply think that doubling in size would double his combat power, but when volume doubles, weight increases eightfold. And since his muscles had grown proportionally to support that massive weight, his actual combat power had increased nearly tenfold.

Slash! "Grrr..." Poppy let out a low growl after slicing through the Kraken's tentacle with his claws. Hearing that sound, the marine monsters backed away from the road.

The severed end of the tentacle wriggled as new flesh sprouted. This place had now become a one-on-one arena for Poppy and the Kraken. I quietly stepped back and accessed the Transcendent Gallery.

'The weakness is the space between its eyes. Use the flat of the blade rather than the edge, like a blunt weapon.' Recalling only the crucial details, I stepped forward. Due to his massive size, Poppy was struggling to close the distance to the mini-Kraken.

My legs were instantly covered in chitinous armor. With a light kick off the ground, my body soared a meter into the air. If I ran at full speed, I felt like I could outrun Poppy before his Gigantification. Sprinting past Poppy, who was locked in a struggle with the tentacles, I dashed straight toward the Kraken's main body.

"Woof?" Poppy let out a bewildered bark.

"Screeech!!!" The octopus's face wrinkled as a tentacle whipped toward me.

"Too slow." I dodged the incoming tentacle, uttering the fourteenth phrase on my list of things I wanted to say once I became an Awakened.

Boom! The tentacle slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. Whoosh! Another tentacle swept horizontally, generating a powerful gust of wind, but—

"I said, you're slow." With a Perception stat exceeding 200 and the leaping power borrowed from Poppy's leg muscles, every single attack looked like it was moving in slow motion.

Realizing it couldn't catch me with speed, the mini-Kraken retracted its tentacles to form a wall. It stacked them layer upon layer, as if daring me to try and break through.

"Did you forget something?" I sneered, stepping onto the stacked tentacles. For a monster appearing on the third floor, its physical abilities were formidable, but its intelligence seemed lacking.

"Roar!" Now freed from the threat of the tentacles, Poppy lunged at the wall. His razor-sharp claws shredded the tentacles to pieces.

"I'm definitely going to use those claws as a weapon someday."

"Woof, woof, woof!!!" The obstructing tentacles collapsed, exposing the space between the mini-Kraken's eyes. Without a moment's hesitation, I drove my sword deep ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into the spot. The mini-Kraken's pink skin instantly turned bone-white, and its tentacles shriveled up.

"Poppy, go play some more."

"Woof!"

"R-Run away!" Overwhelmed by Poppy's terrifying aura, the monsters and cultists who had been hesitating to approach fled into the forest all at once.

"Good heavens... For a creature of legend to appear in this forest, what on earth is the world coming to..." The Count, who had ridden over on a Void Dog, dismounted and approached the mini-Kraken.

"Father! It's dangerous!"

"Quiet, you fool. Lady Haram, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠apologize for asking, but would it be alright if we took a portion of this monster? We need proof if we are to secure support from the royal family."

"Do as you wish."

"Thank you." The Count handed a massive chunk of the tentacle to Sebastian and stepped into the portal. After confirming that the remaining two servants had safely entered the portal as well, I turned around.

"Looting is irresistible." Even if it was time to leave, I had to do what needed to be done. I constructed a Void Pool in front of the mini-Kraken's corpse and dropped the carcass inside.

Anticipating this, I had already dismantled the Void Pools in the rear beforehand. Once the entire corpse was thrown in, the message I had been waiting for popped up.

Once everything was finished, Poppy returned, his Gigantification duration having expired.

I looked around at the Void Dogs gathered near me. Excluding the Void Grubs left in the rear, the surviving Void Dogs didn't even number three hundred.

Even now, new marine monsters were steadily emerging from the white barrier that marked the edge of the map. And considering the Abyss cultists who had fled because of Poppy...

"Woof!" As if reading my thoughts, a Void Dog nudged my hip.

"I'm sorry. I won't hesitate anymore."

Only Poppy and I could leave the third floor from here. If the children remaining on the third floor didn't disappear after I left, they would eventually be killed by the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠endless waves of enemies. Yet, my legion seemed to hate the thought of me wasting time more than they feared their own deaths.

My decision had been made long ago. No matter the sacrifice, I would climb the Tower. And one day, when I cleared the Tower and achieved transcendence, I would return to meet these children again.