True Tower Floor 1: The Never-Ending Ball
Fenrir was having the single greatest panic of its life. Even the day its mother had held the treasure orb out to it, it hadn't been this flustered.
"Daengdaengi! Hurry! The third song's about to end!"
Pressed by Doha's relentless urging, Fenrir gently lifted her up.
It measured the distance to the swarm of teddy bears. Its master had said that anyone who left the tower came back to life — and still.
Having lost every one of its siblings right before its eyes, it never wanted to watch someone at its side die ever again.
With the utmost care, Fenrir swung its muzzle.
The wind shrieked past her ears as Doha dropped toward the swarm of teddy bears and landed squarely on one— or so it seemed. Even an approach from the air, it turned out, was something the teddy bear could sense.
"Eh…?"
Doha ended up dangling from the teddy bear's head.
The bear, too, had apparently never had a hunter drop onto it out of the sky; flustered, it stopped mid-dance and froze in place.
"Mmm… so this is what a big teddy bear's head feels like? So soft~"
Seizing that brief window, Doha stretched her hand toward the back of its head.
The moment her fingers touched the zipper—
♩- ♪ - ♬ - ♩♪ ♬ -
The music began to flow faster.
"Ack…"
The teddy bears surrounding her started converging on Doha at a visibly accelerated pace.
"W-wouldn't you rather call it a draw…?"
Unfortunately, the teddy bears, possessing no vocal organs, did not answer her proposal.
Grrr—! Instead, the ever-faithful Daengdaengi reached her even faster than they did.
Whump— Daengdaengi shoved the teddy bears aside and swung Doha up onto its back.
"Daengdaengi! You can't pop them yet!"
At her words, Daengdaengi froze mid-swing, forepaws suspended in the air.
"For now, let's circle the edge and shake off the teddy bears!"
Growl—! Fortunately, the ballroom was vast, and the chase could go on.
This'll make good stream footage too… right?
Waving their stubby limbs as fast as they could manage, the teddy bears in hot pursuit actually made for quite the spectacle.
Lost in thought amid the fur of Daengdaengi as it tore through the wind, Doha worked through the problem. The teddy bears had already gone berserk. Even before that, she hadn't been able to pull the zipper — now, with them faster, it was clearly impossible.
Do I really give up, go outside, and start the whole thing over…? That would mean waiting another three days.
The ever-quickening music only tangled her frantic mind further.
"The music…?"
The teddy bears sped up along with the accelerating melody, chasing her down. And there was the memory she'd read from the shattered bear's remains — they had to dance to the music.
The teddy bears move to the music… so where is that sound even coming from…?
Doha scanned the ballroom. No piano, no violin — nothing that could be called a source of the music. The sound poured in from every direction at once, as if deliberately scrambling a hunter's senses to hide its origin. Even the ceiling offered no apparatus that could produce such acoustics. Had something magical been at work?
Finding it by ear is impossible… in that case…
Doha looked at Darami, clinging to Daengdaengi's fur just like she was. The squirrel's smaller body couldn't beat the speed, jolting up and down with every stride.
"H-hey, Darami, can you hold on…?"
— At my limit. Rescue required.
"I've got you…!"
Once tucked inside Doha's arms, Darami recovered its composure.
Now I can activate the skill… right?
"Darami, that music we're hearing right now — can you use your Exploration skill to find out where it's coming from?"
— Exploration. Attempting.
[The tamed monster 'Ratatoskr's'Exploration' skill is gathering information.]
[Exploration Target: The source of the sound]
Darami's eyes glowed red for a moment, and then it pointed a short paw at a single spot.
— There. Source.
It was indicating the chandelier hanging from the very center of the ceiling.
"And how am I supposed to get up there…" The ballroom's height matched its size — considerable indeed.
"Daengdaengi, one more super-hero landing…?"
— Impossible. Bears frenzied. One failure means death.
"We come back to life outside the tower anyway…?"
Low growl… Daengdaengi, evidently displeased with her line of reasoning, simply kept circling the edge.
"Daengdaengi! It's the only way there is…? I'll hang on by your head, so you can do it like before, right?"
Even Doha's pleading could not easily win Fenrir over.
Earlier, if Fenrir had been even a moment too slow, its tiny master's fragile body would have been torn apart in the monsters' grasp. And now she wanted to attempt something more dangerous still — trusting in the tower's miracle and repeating reckless feats. Even if she revived, would even the pain suffered on the way to death simply vanish?
Fenrir, which had witnessed countless deaths before meeting its master, had no wish to push a newly gained member of its pack toward death yet again. If anything, it would rather itself…
And in the depths of that worry, a good answer came to it. This time, after all, it wasn't a job that demanded delicate work like before, was it?
— The decoration. Destroy it?
"That's right, Daengdaengi!"
— Will try it myself. Hold on tight.
"Wha? O-okay!"
Fenrir felt its master grip its fur all the tighter.
It bolted from the edge and charged straight for the center of the ballroom. It judged the distance and leapt into the air.
It caught the chandelier — blazing with light, brightening every corner of the hall — in its jaws.
The supports couldn't bear Fenrir's weight and tore clean out of the ceiling.
"W-whooaah!"
— Screeeech…!
Amid the screams of Doha and Darami, the light plummeted toward the floor.
CRASH—
"It stopped! Well done, Daengdaengi!"
The instant the chandelier slammed into the ground, the music cut off.
"What on earth is the principle behind that…? Magic?"
Doha examined the chandelier, smashed to pieces against the floor. The jewels adorning its ornate frame still glittered — perhaps serving in place of light bulbs.
In the darkened ballroom, Doha picked up one of the gems to get a look at the teddy bear.
"Darami, look at this. A glow-in-the-dark jewel."
— Mysterious object. Expensive value.
Darami took an interest in the shining gems and began prying them off the broken chandelier one by one.
Leaving Darami to its collection, Doha and Daengdaengi approached one of the teddy bears. Doha raised a jewel to inspect the motionless bear.
"Kind of terrifying, honestly…?"
A teddy bear frozen mid-pose, limbs outstretched in bizarre angles within the darkness, was genuinely horrifying.
Like something out of an abandoned amusement park…
Climbing onto Daengdaengi's back, Doha grabbed hold of the bear's head.
Gulp— Heart pounding, she drew the zipper down, revealing stuffing packed to the brim inside.
"What…? That can't be right?"
Bewildered, she pushed her hand deep into the stuffing.
"Hmm…"
Just as she was rummaging through the soft fluff, something hard caught her fingers.
"A magic stone…?"
She drew the object out of the doll and held it up to the jewel's glow.
"H-hyaaaagh!"
A human skull was hanging in Doha's hand.
"Uuuh…"
Her hand trembled with terror — but she couldn't let the skull go.
Maybe… a hunter who entered the tower, just like me… I can't dishonor the dead…
"Tell me — what happened to you, that you ended up sealed inside a doll."
[The skill 'Monster Understander' is activating.]
[The skill 'Monster Understander' is interpreting the individual's language.]
[Interpretation failed.]
[The target's information cannot be separated from the melody.]
[Transmitting with the melody intact.]
"W-wait a second—"
Before she could stop it, the song came flooding into Doha's mind.
The magic tower of the kingdom — the very pinnacle of magic
We hung our lanterns higher than the stars
No shadow ever fell beneath that light
And the tower's name became the name of the age
It was steeped in sorrow, like a bard's elegy mourning a fallen homeland.
A stranger came knocking at our gate
It was we who opened the door
It was we who gave up our seats
And it was we who pushed them on their way
Goosebumps rose along Doha's arms. What on earth had they let into the tower, that every one of them had ended up like this?
The Traitor —
only one name do we call her by
A single speck of impurity
brought down the tower that was to shine forever
Doha found herself holding her breath without meaning to. As the next verse began, voices started rising from all around. She looked about — every teddy bear in the ballroom was staring at her.
The mages of the magic tower
have become actors upon the stage
In a ball where the curtain never falls,
their names and faces lost,
until the Traitor's bones crumble into dust
they dance within a song that never ends
When the skull's song ended, the bone crumbled to powder and scattered into the air. All that remained were eight enormous lumps of stuffing.
Doha organized the information she'd gained from the skull.
The first floor's theme was never the doll ball from the strategy guide…
It's a battle against the undead sealed inside the dolls…
Granting rest to these people who became undead against their will might be one way to clear it…
But the reason no one ever knew any of this… is that no one ever uncovered the secret the tower had hidden on the first floor…
So which one is the resolution the tower actually wants?
Doha replayed the song in her mind. Impurity. Traitor.
Do I have to deal with the traitor who turned them all into undead, and grant them eternal rest?
Then that traitor would be… at the very top of the tower. The tenth floor.
The moment Doha finished her deliberation, a notification blazed to life before her eyes.
[Congratulations! You have uncovered every contradiction of the 1st Floor.]
[First-clear rewards will be granted.]
[A large amount of experience has been gained.]
[The proficiency of the tamed monster 'Ratatoskr's'Exploration' skill has increased.]
[Exploration Lv.1] → [Exploration Lv.2]
After Jurang had snatched up her bow and rushed out the door, Seoa was left alone on the Association's top floor, working through paperwork, when a notification bloomed in her vision.
[The True Tower has been unlocked.]
[First to unlock: Kim Doha]
"What is this…?"
As Seoa poked at the notification window with her finger, urgent knocking sounded at her door.
"Madam Chairwoman! Did you confirm the notification just now?"
"Yes, I was just looking at it myself."
"The True Tower…? Do you happen to know anything about it, ma'am?"
Even Seoa, who raced at the very head of the pack of tower climbers, had never once heard the tower's name. And the unlocker's name bore the very name that had been cropping up so often lately: Kim Doha.
"I don't know either… We'll have to investigate. Has Jurang not come back yet?"
"She… did return a moment ago, but… she took the Association's tracking artifact and went out again."
"Ha… leaving her post at a time like this…"
Seoa clutched her aching head, buried under the mounting work. Of course, Jurang's free-spirited dereliction of duty was part of it — but the true cause lay elsewhere.
"Kim Doha… I would very much like to see this hunter's face for myself…"
And so the hand of Lee Seoa — the true power behind the Hunter Association, and South Korea's Rank 1 S-Class — began reaching out toward Doha.