Tower of Paradox Floor 1: The Doll Masquerade
‘Three years of effort weren't wasted after all... it was all groundwork for this very day!’
Doha began preparing to head for the Tower with a spring in her step. She had memorized most of the strategy guides to farm likes on the gallery, but before stepping inside, she gave the Floor 1 guide one more look.
Welcome, newbie Hunter Gal regulars. Memorize the whole guide before you set foot in the Tower, if you know what's good for you.
Basic Info
- Theme: Doll Masquerade (identical for Floors 1 through 10)
- Monsters: Giant Dolls
- Count: 4–12 (Easy–Hard)
- Clear Condition: Destroy them all
- Recommended Specs: Anything below D-Rank goes Easy, no exceptions / Skill Lv.2 plus below B-Rank takes Normal / Only A~S-Rank should even attempt Hard.
Traits
- The dolls do nothing but dance when you enter. They never attack first, so claim the best position you can before fighting.
- BUT if the song repeats three or more times, they go berserk. Wiping them out before that is the whole key to a clear.
- Low physical resistance, low magic resistance.
- They drop special stuffing on top of magic stones when they burst.
Farming
- [Doll Stuffing] goes for 80,000–120,000 KRW a bundle
- Apparently used in cold-resistance gear, and the performance is supposedly insane
- The Hunter Association buys it up on a regular schedule, so the market price is stable
- Newbies: don't leave a single tuft behind. Bag it all.
Tips
- Hit them head-on. They never, ever show you their backs.
Don't waste time trying to circle around behind them. You'll just burn clock.
- They have a habit of clustering toward wherever the music is coming from.
Corral them to one side and finish it with one AoE. Fastest clear in the business.
‘Doll monsters? Won't they just pop like bubbles the second Daengdaengi so much as taps them with a paw?’
When it came to combat, she trusted Daengdaengi completely. It was the other parts that worried her.
‘What on earth is hidden on Floor 1...?’
She had to find whatever it was that eleven guide revisions had failed to uncover. Every piece of Floor 1 content she'd seen on the gallery had looked perfectly ordinary to her eyes.
‘Then again, the Floor 0 hidden dungeon was tucked away in the most ridiculous spot imaginable...’
If she spent the whole day lost in thought, a day was exactly what she'd lose. Doha decided to just charge in and see.
‘Hmm... I guess I have no choice but to trust the skills...’
At the far tail end of the gallery's endless sea of text — threads even Doha herself couldn't remember — one hunter had once posted a question about Floor 1.
Happened to me a few months back running Floor 1. Nobody believes me.
Popped one of the dolls and something came out that wasn't stuffing.
Long and white... and when I looked again, it was gone.
Ever since that day I keep having this dream where someone keeps knocking on a door in the dark.
Reported it to the Association. They said stress-related. Sent me to a psychiatrist. Went, came back.
Climber No. 1, welcome back to the Tower of Paradox!
From Floor 1 onward, you are granted only three chances at revival.
Floors 1 through 10 proceed as a single act.
The difficulty chosen on Floor 1 carries through to Floor 10.
Please choose with care.
Select a difficulty → [EASY][NORMAL][HARD]
“Daengdaengi shreds monsters...!”
Without a single second of hesitation, Doha pressed HARD.
[Hard difficulty has been selected.]
In an instant her vision brightened, and the shape of Floor 1 unfolded before her.
“A manor...?”
Floor 1 called to mind a grand European ballroom. Unlike the grim, oppressive Floor 0, curtains draped in lavish ornamentation hung along the walls.
Long banquet tables stood scattered across the hall — serviceable enough as cover.
‘Checking monster positions...!’
Since combat hadn't started, she could make out the giant dolls through the transparent barrier still holding them in place.
“Bears...?”
Great teddy-bear dolls, the kind you'd win at an amusement park, stood spaced between the tables.
‘Four per team, twelve total — just like the guide said.’
Having finished her survey, Doha felt Daengdaengi and Darami come up beside her.
“Daengdaengi, I'm going to be focused on scouting this time, so don't wipe them out too fast, okay?”
Nod, nod—
“Darami, trigger Exploration the instant combat starts, and don't leave my side.”
- Command, confirmed
Having issued her orders, Doha drew out the shield she'd received on Floor 0. At the same moment, a notification window floated up.
Hard Difficulty · Floor 1
The transparent barrier vanished along with the alert. Music began to drift through the ballroom, and the bear dolls began to move. True to the guide, they didn't charge Doha right away — instead they started to dance, limbs swaying to the tune.
“Daengdaengi, wait for my signal.”
Doha held Daengdaengi in reserve and turned her eyes to Darami.
“Darami, can you activate Exploration?”
- Exploration?, attempt
The Tamed Beast 'Ratatoskr's skill Exploration has been activated.
Along with the notification, both of Darami's eyes glowed crimson.
“Did it work...?”
- Complete, further investigation required
“A picky little skill, huh... so it's not going to spoon-feed me the hidden content?”
Swallowing her disappointment, Doha patted Daengdaengi's back.
“Daengdaengi, take out that group over there, far away.”
To split the aggro, she sent Daengdaengi to the opposite side of the hall.
Krrrng—!
Daengdaengi shot across the floor and crashed into a cluster of bear dolls.
KA-BOOM—
Four bear dolls burst apart in an instant. Under Daengdaengi's crushing weight, the doll husks simply evaporated, leaving nothing but stuffing scattered on the floor.
And in that very moment, Darami — who had been hiding behind the shield with Doha, watching the battle — lit up with a bright glow.
The Tamed Beast 'Ratatoskr's skill Exploration is gathering information.
Individual traits of 'Bear Doll' have been understood.
Skill Weakness Detection has been triggered.
“Wah-wah! Great job, Darami!”
- Simple task
Doha stroked the head of her proudly wagging squirrel and checked on the remaining bear dolls.
“Huh...?”
The rest of the bear dolls were still dancing away, perfectly carefree — and no vivid red points had appeared on them, the way they had on the acid spiders.
The hand stroking Darami's head turned rough.
“What is going on, Darami?! Are you lying to me?!”
- Check closely! Back of head, small red point location!
“The back of the head? Of course hitting a living thing's head kills it! Why is this skill telling me obvious things?!”
But even as she spat the words, Doha felt something was off.
“Bear dolls aren't living things...?”
It was written in the guide, too. The monsters of Floor 1 were exactly what they appeared to be — dolls that danced to the music.
Granted, the weak point could be the head, same as a living creature. Smashing a computer's CPU stops it just the same.
“Then why is that one still fine...?”
Her eye caught a bear doll sprawled at Daengdaengi's feet. Its head and body were clearly separated — yet its limbs were still twitching.
Had the cloth not vanished and the inside not spilled out as stuffing, it would have been an utterly horrifying sight. Only after Daengdaengi had shredded the bear doll into pieces did the fabric disappear, leaving just the stuffing behind.
‘Weakness Detection isn't showing me how to easily cut a monster's throat... maybe that bear doll has a weakness worse than being destroyed?’
Having reasoned it out, Doha looked at the bear dolls still dancing merrily away. Just as Darami had said, a small red point glittered on the back of each of their heads.
Catching and glittering back at that light was a single object.
“That's... a zipper...?”
But that didn't resolve her question. To gather more information, she approached the doll wreckage under Daengdaengi's escort.
‘Can I really read the memories of an inanimate bear doll...?’
She reached her hand toward the stuffing with that worry in mind — and then,
Skill Monster Understander has been activated.
The skill engaged, and memories began to pour into Doha's mind like water down a drain.
- It's dark.
- So cramped.
- Must get out.
- My hands won't move.
In that darkness, the only thing she could perceive was the music, repeating over and over.
- There's a gap in the back of my head.
- If I open here, then...
But the body wouldn't obey. And even if it had, stubby little arms could never reach the head.
- The music.
- The music won't stop.
The grand swell of an orchestra at play. The body moved to its rhythm, powerless to refuse.
- Murmuring... murmuring...
Voices drifted in from outside. The voice of a young girl.
- I'm trapped.
- Please, help me.
For some reason, no voice came out. Even as it screamed without sound, the body went on dancing.
It sensed a presence nearby.
- Please.
- Look this way.
- Look at the back of my head.
- There's a gap there—
Thud—
Damaged memory could not be restored — level too low.
Wrenching herself out of the memory, Doha hugged Darami to her chest, her face drained of every drop of color.
‘There's no way a doll could feel cramped...’
‘Something is trapped inside...’
Her speculation had wandered straight into the territory of horror.
‘Don't tell me... there's a person inside...?’
At the dreadful hypothesis, her body shrank in on itself all on its own.
‘D-did I just kill someone...?’
But she quickly shook her head and rejected the possibility.
‘If it were human, there's no way my skill could read its memories... then what on earth is it...?’
While Doha was deep in thought, Darami stirred in her arms and tugged at her sleeve to get her attention.
- Master, third song, soon
“Th-that fast? Thank you for telling me, Darami...”
There was little time left before the berserk phase. Eight bear dolls remained. If Daengdaengi went all-out, she could clear them in moments — but...
‘Once the berserk starts, unzipping them will get so much harder. I have to finish investigating before that.’
Doha's goal wasn't simply to destroy every bear doll and haul out the stuffing.
It was to uncover the paradox of the Tower's first floor — and, further still, the secret the Tower itself was hiding — and lay to rest whatever regret burned inside the thing trapped within the dolls.
‘If Daengdaengi touches the back of the head, the bear doll will just burst right there.’
‘And Darami's too small — its paws will never reach...’
‘I have to do it myself.’
Having made up her mind, Doha set Darami down and rose to her feet. She pulled Daengdaengi back, and approached the dancing bear dolls herself.
Muffling her footsteps, she crept carefully toward one doll's back — and then—
Whip—
“Hwaah...!”
The instant Doha's hand stretched out, the dancing doll spun its whole body around.
“U-urgh... th-that's not an attack判定— I mean, that's not an attack, right...?”
Fortunately, the bear doll did not proceed to tear Doha apart.
She tried several more times after that, but every time she reached for the zipper, the dolls sensed it like startled ghosts and spun around. It was only after repeated failed grabs that Doha finally remembered what she'd read in the guide.
- Hit them head-on. They never, ever show you their backs. Don't waste time trying to circle around behind them. You'll just burn clock.
‘Uuuugh... it was right there in the tips section... then how the heck am I supposed to...’
As she agonized, Doha recalled an age-old maxim.
‘If brute force can't solve it, ask yourself whether you simply didn't bring enough brute force!’
“Daengdaengi! Over here!”
Grr?
Doha wedged her own clothes onto Daengdaengi's fangs.
Her plan: the moment Daengdaengi raised its head, she'd dangle from it like a puppet on a string.
“Daengdaengi! In this position, hurl me hard at the bear dolls...!”
Gr... grrr...?
“No time! Hurry up!”
Daengdaengi kept hesitating, staring at the woman hanging from its own jaws.
Impatient, Doha smacked it on the snout.
“Even if I die I'll just revive outside the Tower, so throw me already!”
After all, if she failed to uncover the paradox of Floor 1, she'd simply put off the clear and walk back out of the Tower.
Trusting in the miracle of revival, Doha had resolved to do one completely insane thing.