The Impossible Difficulty Is Too Easy

The safe zone that had been blotting out my vision vanished, and the colossal entrance to the ruins stood revealed before me.

I unsummoned Poppy and Lucy, then activated my stealth skill.

"The advance party enters in one hour! Everyone get ready!"

Crowds of people bustled around me, but I ignored them and sprinted straight for the ruins' entrance.

The sixth floor was the stage where you were supposed to clear a massive dungeon alongside the natives. I had zero intention of cooperating with them.

Descending the long staircase into the ruins, I was met by damp, clammy air. Unlike the vast entrance, narrow tunnels branched out like an ant nest.

"Woof!"

"Run, Poppy!"

"Me too! Me too!"

Lucy and I climbed onto Poppy's back—now shrunk to the size of a horse—and tore through the ruins.

"Lucy! You sensing anything?"

"Uh… left! Then right over there!"

I left the navigation to Lucy and Poppy while I finally checked the sixth-floor mission I'd been putting off.

"If we just rush to the second floor, does that count as a perfect clear, Haram?" Lucy asked while peering at the system window with me. During the expedition she had grilled me about every aspect of the Tower, and by now she understood the system well enough.

"Even if we make it to the second floor, it won't count if the expedition members die on the way up, right?"

Those expedition members were teammates we would have to stick with all the way to the tenth floor. This wasn't some virtual world the Tower had cooked up; if I simply bolted to the second floor, they could easily get wiped out trying to break through the first.

While Lucy and I studied the window, goblins burst out from every corner of the ruins to block our path. They bounced off Poppy's charging body like deer hit by a truck and went flying.

"Stop here!"

"Woof!"

Judging that we had covered about half of the first floor, I reined Poppy in.

"Start crafting Void Ponds!"

"Grawr!"

Poppy released the miniaturization on its front paws alone and began digging. The moment the pits were ready I planted Void Ponds and started mass-producing Void Hounds.

I dumped every resource I had stored in the Void. One thousand Void Hounds poured out.

"Sweep the first floor clean and meet me on the second!"

"Woof! Woof!"

I scattered the hounds through the ruins, then climbed back onto Poppy and ran.

—Whoosh!

—Ting!

Poison traps and flying blades the goblins had set up came at us from every angle.

"Kyaaaak!!!"

A giant goblin over two meters tall in steel armor and a staff-wielding goblin that looked like a shaman appeared, but—

"Woof!"

"Gack."

The instant they collided with Poppy they turned into bloody paste and vanished.

"Impossible difficulty is trash, isn't it?! Way too easy!"

"The sixth floor takes place in the same world as the fifth. With our current forces it would be ridiculous if this was hard."

"My Squishies and friends weren't this weak!"

In truth the goblins here were stronger than Lucy's marine monsters. Unlike the pure physical power and sheer numbers of the sea beasts, the goblins formed front and rear lines, laid poison and traps, and fought with real tactics.

Even if their raw physical stats fell short, their coordination, unit composition, and strategy put them in a completely different league. Unless it was one of Lucy's personal creations like Squishy or Bighead, ordinary marine monsters wouldn't stand a chance against the goblins in these ruins.

"If regular goblins were this strong… ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more than a few dimensions would have already fallen."

Ever since the Gates and Awakeners appeared, goblins had become the poster child of F-rank Gates. Ordinary goblins were so weak even an armed civilian could take them down.

But once a lower-deity-level leader showed up, everything changed. They didn't just get smarter and more organized—hobgoblins and goblin warriors bulked up and their strength skyrocketed.

—Ting!

—Thud!

"Kyaaaaak!!!"

"Woof."

Of course, even that was still trash that got cleaned up by Poppy's body-check alone.

We pushed deeper into the ruins until a staircase leading downward appeared.

I shut down the Void Ponds I had just made and headed to the lower floor.

"It's not a small number… so why does it feel so little?"

Maybe because I had just come from running the expedition. The new score felt disappointingly meager.

"Well, the main reward is over here now."

"Aren't you going to raise the other stats…?"

"Haa, just talk casually."

"Okay!"

"Stamina is a bit risky, but I can top it up with Magic Conversion if things get dicey. For now I'm focusing on raising the ceiling."

I opened my full status window for the first time in a while.

With Lucy joining the Legion, the list of shareable skills had grown. Ghostification made me immune to physical attacks but limited me to mental attacks as well, so it wasn't particularly useful. Eyes That See the Abyss was a downgraded version of Eyes That Chase the Sky, capable of both mental defense and offense.

"Mm, before heading to the seventh floor I should fill the Void pouch first, right?"

I left the Tower, took Poppy and Lucy, and stripped every tree around the lake. Ecological parks ringed the water, so gathering resources was easy.

"This place is home to goblins controlled by a great demon. Never underestimate them just because they're goblins."

"Many knights died here during the last expedition! Stay sharp, all of you!"

Shortly after Haram left for the second underground floor, the joint advance party of the Empire and the Holy Kingdom entered the ruins.

"Scouts! Check for traps!"

"There are signs a trap has already been triggered here!"

"Watch for traps—wait, what? Already triggered?"

A knight with a red sash on his shoulder moved to where the scout was examining the ground. A black cord had been cleanly severed by something sharp, and opposite the wall a poison arrow fired from the trap was still embedded.

"…Someone is already inside."

"Could it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be an old trace?"

"Judging by the condition of the arrow and how clean the dust is, they passed through today."

"Heighten the alert."

The knight swallowed the saliva that had pooled in his mouth, cold sweat beading on his skin.

"All hands, listen up! Once more: goblins under a demon's command excel at traps and tactics! Think of them as an entirely different species from the goblins we know!"

"Yes, sir!"

"A hobgoblin under a demon's command has the strength of an orc! Don't get careless and die!"

"Yes, sir!"

It was a speech he had repeated dozens of times, yet the knight-commander leading the advance party wiped the sweat from his brow as old memories surfaced. Back when he was still a squire, he had barely survived alone against a goblin legion commanded by a demon.

Orc-level hobgoblins holding the front line, goblin shamans launching mental attacks, and small goblins sniping with poison crossbows—he still couldn't forget that sight even decades later.

"This is only the beginning. Only the beginning…"

The knight-commander advanced into the ruins with every nerve on edge. But the Legion's Void Hounds had already cleaned the place out.

The Void Hounds, their intelligence raised to adolescent levels after extracting High Elf Queen DNA, were smart enough to dismantle goblin traps and recover the corpses of fallen comrades. Before long the main expedition force entered the ruins as well, yet they found only traces of battle—no living creatures remained.

The moment we entered the seventh floor, a vast cavern opened up with tunnels branching in every direction.

"Woof!"

"Huh? You guys got here first?"

"Woof woof!!"

The Void Hounds I had produced on the first floor were already hunting goblins and securing a safe zone inside the cavern. I immediately crafted Void Ponds and began pumping out the Legion.

"It is good to see you again, my Queen."

"Bread says hi!"

"Where do the managers go when a Void Pond is closed?"

"That is… I apologize. We do not know either."

"Nah, if you don't know, you don't know."

The manager who had appeared from the first-floor Void Pond now emerged from the new one I had just made on the second floor.

"How far has the expedition force gotten?"

"According to the Void Hounds, the advance party only just entered the first floor."

"Then we still have time."

Back on Impossible Difficulty Floor 3 we had first met the Count while already holding overwhelming force, and even though we held the initiative we still helped him so the Legion would be understood as allies.

This time, however, we would be meeting a well-trained native army. There was a real chance they wouldn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠accept that we were on the same side. Fighting separately would be far more comfortable than coordinating with half-hearted allies who couldn't stay in sync.

"All right then—shall we clear the seventh floor real quick?"

"Woof!"

"More points! More level-ups!"

Lucy thrust both arms into the air and shouted. Even now, goblins were being hunted by Void Hounds all across the ruins.

"No matter how low the power ceiling is, that era is still a long way off."

The dimension the Tower was currently running through was a low-power world where only knight-commanders of a nation could use aura. Void Hounds that reinforced their bodies with magic power had no reason to struggle here.

"Impossible difficulty… is way too easy."

"This is supposed to be Impossible? The Tower is trash!"

"Woof!"

Unlike the first floor, which had taken Poppy nearly an hour of running, the second underground floor was packed with enemies but not particularly large. We destroyed every spawning chamber in just thirty minutes. Clearing the eighth floor—the third underground floor and the goblin encampment—took only fifty minutes.

"…Come to think of it, Lucy. How did you find the stairs from the first underground floor to the second?"

"Huh? I just went whatever direction I felt like."

"…So the first floor wasn't actually that big."

Only then did I realize why breaking through the first underground floor—where we had met almost no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠real resistance—had taken the longest.

In any case, we had cleared floors 6, 7, and 8 of the Tower in the blink of an eye. Hearing the truth about the first underground floor from Lucy made me think of the Transcendent Gallery, whose members had always given me precise advice. Lava Princess had been furious that I had connected to the Transcendent Gallery so late.