The Real Goal
Lucia stepped inside the tent.
She knelt politely on the mattress, sitting back on her heels.
"...It's warm."
As she said it, she pressed down on the mattress firmly with her left hand, once, twice. Checking how soft it was, maybe?
[Hold on just a moment. I'll grill the meat right away.]
I opened my subspace and floated the beef I pulled out into the air. I'd seasoned it in advance, so both sides were already coated thick with spices.
Shall we cook this, then?
With telekinesis, I shaped a transparent frying pan and set it over the campfire, then laid the meat on top.
Sssssizzle!
The meat seared with an intense, appetite-stirring sound. Just hearing it made my stomach growl.
And better yet—
This is actually pretty convenient.
The telekinetic pan was completely transparent. That meant I never had to flip the meat to check whether the underside was done.
The real problem, though, was the interior.
There's no way to tell if the inside is cooked.
Unfortunately, no such thing as see-through meat existed. Checking the internal doneness seemed impossible—
...X-ray vision.
I peered slightly through the surface of the meat, and at last its inner structure came into view.
Technologia.
Thanks to this revolutionary cooking method, the meat came out perfectly done. A technique worth trying now and then, as long as you had telekinesis and clairvoyance. I'd have to keep using it in the future.
[Lucia, here.]
I placed the perfectly cooked meat on a plate and handed it over. Unlike the transparent pan, the plate was a real, physical object.
"Thank you."
Lucia bowed her head slightly and picked up her fork. She chewed the meat slowly and swallowed.
"...It's delicious."
Then she set the plate down on the floor and reached out toward me. I didn't refuse her touch.
Sliiide.
I spent the evening being thoroughly petted.
...This is nice.
The campfire pushing back the dark. A cozy tent, and delicious food on top of that. Once we left this tower, would I ever get to experience something like this again? Probably not, honestly.
But once Lucia achieves her goal.
Once she overcame every hardship that threatened her, surely she'd be able to live days like this without a single worry in the world.
Harboring that vague hope, I sent a telepathic message.
[Lucia.]
Perched on the mattress, I looked up at her. She was still kneeling.
"Yes."
She fixed both hands on her knees as if to focus on my words. Even this was completely, unbearably adorable.
[Nothing. Just felt like calling you.]
"..."
She stared down at me blankly for a moment.
"Master."
[Hm?]
"I just... felt like calling you too."
...I couldn't say exactly why, but lately I kept catching glimpses of a smile on Lucia's face.
Then again, it was probably just my imagination.
After a night of healing both body and soul, Lucia and I headed for the second floor.
"I'm going."
Lucia reached her hand toward the portal.
Entering Floor 2.
Warning! Floors 2 through 5 are linked...
I casually ignored the tower's system window and scanned our surroundings.
The second floor had the exact same layout as the first—though that was to be expected of the tower, so I let it slide. If I had to pick out an actual difference, it was that there were about ten red portals spawning monsters scattered around us.
A wave will begin shortly.
Defeat 100 enemies to activate the portal to the next floor.
Directly across from us stood a gray portal.
[Chirp. Run around, fight smart, and before you know it, that portal will turn blue.]
"Sounds tougher than the first floor."
[Chirp. Yeah, a little?]
Lucia steadied her breathing and waited for the wave to begin.
Monsters will appear in 3 seconds.
The instant the countdown ended, Lucia spread her mana wide. Her spellwork was unfolding at rapid speed when—
Monsters came pouring out of the red portals. Goblins, orcs, kobolds—the types weren't much different from the first floor.
"Graaagh!"
Dozens of monsters charged in from every direction. On the first floor, the orcs and small fry had come packed together in one mass, so a single high-firepower spell had wiped them out all at once. But here, the enemies swarmed in from multiple directions at once.
In other words, no herding them into a kill zone.
Kill the orc first, or clear the small fry first?
It was the kind of situation that would have made an ordinary magic-department student hesitate.
"...Hoo."
Lucia exhaled lightly and completed the spell she'd been preparing since before the wave even started.
The wind spell with the most overwhelming firepower she had—West Wind.
⟨ West Wind ⟩
WHOOOOOOM!
The wind erupted outward like a detonation and shredded the orc to pieces.
Did she predict this from the start?
Lucia had readied West Wind before the wave even began. Had she anticipated this exact scenario the moment she saw how the portals were arranged?
Impressive.
Some of it was luck, sure, but pulling this off required genuine instinct.
Anyway.
[Chirp. Nothing left but the small fry now.]
Only one orc spawned per wave on the second floor. Which meant it was time for the Mana Bullets.
BOOM! Boom-boom!
Lucia carved through the mob of kobolds and goblins, firing Mana Bullets nonstop. Most of the monsters were dead before her attacks even seemed to reach them, and on the rare occasion one closed the distance—
CLANG!
It simply bounced off her barrier magic.
This is a massacre.
More than four monster heads were exploding every second. This level was probably far too easy for Lucia.
The one-sided slaughter continued until—
The portal to Floor 3 is now open.
We'd hit the clear condition in less than a minute.
After that, similar battles kept coming one after another.
Of course, we never cleared a floor in under a minute the way we had on the second. The difficulty spiked sharply with every floor we climbed—and besides, the second floor had been an abnormally fast clear to begin with.
Reaching the fifth floor took us about three hours.
Still, nothing we can't handle.
Right after clearing floor five, I sent a telepathic message to Lucia.
[Should we call it a day here?]
She hesitated for a moment—
"...Yes."
—before nodding.
It probably looked like we spent far more time resting than training, but maximizing efficiency demanded it.
...Probably?
From floor six onward, the difficulty is on a completely different level anyway.
It was better to make absolutely sure we were rested up.
So we built another campfire and pitched the tent. Having done it once yesterday, I was noticeably more practiced at it now.
And so, after settling into the tent with Lucia again, this time we both lay down on our stomachs and gazed at the fire together.
Crackle. Pop.
The flames burned in serene silence. Fireside contemplation inside a magical tower—I was off lost in that absolutely insane level of romance, admiring it all by myself, when—
"Master. Would you come over here?"
Lucia offered her arm as a perch.
[Hm? Sure.]
The moment I floated down to the mattress without a second thought, I saw it—Lucia's arm was resting against something round and soft.
Behold: the Great Squish Mountain.
[...]
My entire body froze solid.
"Master?"
Lucia tilted her head, peering at me.
This was a matter of grave importance—one that touched upon the very dignity of man.
[...I'd kind of like a more open view of things. I'll just stay on your shoulder.]
"I see."
Lucia touched her index finger to her chin, looking thoughtful. Then, with an expression of boundless calm:
"...If you want an open view, how about on top of my head?"
A shocking statement.
No, I mean, there's nothing technically weird about it.
The joke had been milked so many times it was getting stale, but still—Lucia was a seventeen-year-old girl.
Sitting on top of a seventeen-year-old girl's head? Me?
...Hmm.
But it was just a matter of perching on her head, wasn't it? Was there really any reason to make it weird?
Okay. Takeoff approved.
I climbed up onto Lucia's head.
The result—
This is...
A tranquility so deep I could fall asleep right that instant washed over me. And Lucia's hair was tickling my whole body on top of that.
Deadly.
If this went on, I'd never manage to move a single muscle. It was a situation of pure, absolute force majeure. Nothing to be done about it.
I would simply have to settle in on top of Lucia's head for the foreseeable future.
Happy fire-gazing.
A few minutes of silence drifted by after that.
I was in the middle of reclaiming my inner peace when Lucia spoke up, calm and measured.
"Master. This may come out of nowhere, but may I ask you one question?"
[Sure.]
After hearing my answer, she stared at the campfire for several seconds. Then, as if she'd finally made up her mind, she let it out.
"...At this rate, how far up could I climb?"
[...]
Being on top of her head, I couldn't even see her expression—but for some reason, an inexplicable sense of déjà vu seized me.
That dawn.
The day she finished the mock training with Chloe, Lucia had seemed strangely listless. Was it because she doubted her own potential?
I still didn't know the exact reason, but of one thing I was certain: her future hinged on what I said next.
...
I knew myself well.
I was not a wise enough person to guide someone toward a positive path on my own. And so, I asked about her goal first.
[How far do you want to go?]
She seemed to ponder it for a moment.
"...I think I'd be satisfied just making it to the seventh floor on my own strength."
The Tower of Time might as well have started at the sixth floor. Every floor had a boss monster, and their difficulty rose absurdly fast. Moreover, this tower had been built for the Chloe of one year in the future. For Lucia at this stage, clearing just the seventh floor would be a miracle.
And so, I told her the truth.
[With your current skill? Impossible. Even if you worked hard for the remaining five days, the sixth floor is probably your ceiling.]
"...Is that so?"
[Yeah.]
Conviction without a shred of doubt. With Lucia's abilities as they stood, she absolutely could not clear this tower.
In the world of the original story, she was weaker than Chloe. No matter what happened, she could never beat her. However hard she struggled, she was fated to meet an unhappy ending in the end.
[But, Lucia—]
[The fact that you can't do it doesn't really matter.]
She had me by her side now. So whatever dream she dreamed, it didn't matter in the least. Because I would be the one to make that dream come true.
And—
[The you I remember was never someone who'd settle for a mere seventh floor as her goal.]
I leapt down from her head. Blue eyes looked down at me.
Just now, I hadn't been denying Lucia's goal. I was only—
[Tell me the real goal you want.]
I hated fake goals, cobbled together through compromise with reality. I wanted to cheer for Lucia's true dream.
"...I—"
After her hesitation, Lucia finally opened her mouth.
"I want to keep challenging myself, as far as I can possibly go."
"Even if I fail again and again. I want to keep getting back up and trying."
"...Master."
"Can you help me do that?"
Because Lucia was someone who would never, ever give up—
[Of course.]
—I, too, would never give up on her.
We headed straight for the sixth floor.