Tutorial — The Ninth Floor

I answered Epathos's question.

"Earth."

There was no reason to hide it. He was the sort who helped trainees if he helped them at all — never the sort who harmed them. Besides, with my entire status window already laid bare, concealment would have been pointless.

"...Earth? That place is currently..."

"Yes. It's under invasion. It's the homeworld of the current trainees."

"...Why already? Making a contractor is no simple thing. Is Earth's Administrator in their right mind?"

Epathos looked incredulous — and then the incredulity curdled straight into anger.

Most people only formed a contract when they left the Tower, just as I myself had only become eligible for a selection after dying on the sixtieth floor. For a Dimension Manager, contracting someone who hadn't qualified meant painstaking care, and granting power came at a steep personal cost.

From where Epathos stood, Earth's Administrator had gone and poured his strength into a punishing contract with some middling, unqualified nobody — and this while Earth was already in mortal danger.

Trainees who arrived already contracted, the way I had, were rare.

Almost every case was either a special bond with a Dimension Manager, or another dimension's Administrator investing the moment the Tower opened, stuffing an exceptionally gifted prospect inside for the sake of raising them. Beyond those two, you could practically say it never happened.

Epathos had almost certainly assumed the latter. That was why he'd flown into a rage the instant he heard the contracted Dimension Manager was Earth's.

"...The enemy is the Giants. And this was the only way."

"...Don't tell me. Are you a regressor, lad?"

I nodded.

The moment I confirmed it, Epathos looked as if the world had gone mad.

"That kind of insane stunt! You'd have been better off going to another dimension...!"

I shook my head, my face grim.

Guessing what that meant, Epathos spoke with something close to pity.

"...Did no one... help you...?"

"Our civilization collapsed in a month. In Tower time, that's less than a year. In that span, no one reached the Upper Floors. And a hundred Giants came through. One of them was a prince."

"A prince... Why would a prince descend on such a small dimension... Earth's Administrator truly had no other choice."

"I was the only one who went home."

"I'd prefer that others not know I'm a regressor."

"Of course, lad. Floor Masters know how to keep their mouths shut. Don't you worry. This Tower's going to be chaos. There'll be more than a few Dimension Managers running wild over rewards and the like."

Floor Master Epathos pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose as if a headache were already blooming there.

Gaia had told me the same thing. It was going to be a complete circus.

Ordinarily, contracts with Dimension Managers — those self-styled gods — were only possible after leaving the Tower. That was the efficient way, and the Tower did not tolerate Heroes being siphoned off midway. The exceptions were those who contracted in advance, or the vanishingly few who poured enormous investments into the Tower to pre-claim a handful of prospects. Those cases were extremely rare, and heading to a formally contracted Administrator's dimension only happened after reaching the Upper Floors. Everyone else went back to their original world.

If priority rights were exercised, another dimension's Administrator couldn't extract a Hero without paying an enormous price — and the Hero themselves had to want it. A ruined Earth, however, had been the exception. There was no priority left to exercise, and no way to turn the Heroes' hearts. When I'd been picked last time, Gaia hadn't even appeared.

This cycle would be different. They would scatter classes that had never existed before and lure people by the dozen.

Anyone who had contracted even a single Hero in the past would get their chance.

The Tower was fair, so it would grant compensation. Authority would be doled out according to the number and caliber of Heroes contracted in the first cycle, and they would use that authority to interfere with the Tower, little by little.

Even so, direct interference was impossible.

At most, they could gift items or skills suited to a class, within the bounds they were permitted. Even that wasn't free — you had to complete quests the Tower itself assigned.

Which was why the Tower would become a madhouse. No Administrator had ever lent Heroes for Earth's sake. This cycle, they would be even more aggressive about poaching Earth's trainees to raise as their own Heroes.

The one silver lining was that Administrators couldn't use information. That privilege was mine alone.

Even if they knew something, Administrators could not pass any information to other trainees. That remained true even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now that they had rights of interference.

Hidden quests. High-reward dungeons. The correct clear methods. The path to obtaining skills of Legendary rank or higher. None of that could be conveyed. The Tower blocked it all.

"You aren't the only regressor in the Tower's history, lad. Plenty of Administrators have made that choice. But those who succeeded are vanishingly few."

"...Is that so."

I'd heard the gist of it before.

"Most just use their Interference Power to grant good items or authorities — or if that fails, they pay another dimension and request support. Rewind time and send someone back into the Tower? That's a recipe for doing other dimensions a favor and nothing else. Do you know why?"

"...Because every talented trainee would get stolen."

The Rankers, most of all.

"Exactly so. Earth's Administrator has to raise a great many people, but other dimensions' Administrators can dump even a small amount of Interference Power entirely into one or two gifted prospects and simply extract those one or two. Earth's Administrator has no way to play favorites like that."

Earth-origin trainees were already in a provisional contract with Gaia. Just maintaining that and getting them into the Tower left her with no Interference Power to spare. Earth was not a powerful dimension.

Being her own dimension's trainees, and with priority rights attached, she did have an advantage. Where others paid the Tower a price and inefficiently obtained ten units of resources, Gaia would hold nearly a thousand with the same outlay. But if the people she had to support numbered over a thousand? Each individual received one — while under another dimension's Administrator, they would receive ten.

Naturally, the odds of going under another dimension's Administrator went up. The treatment was that much better. And so, at the moment of choice, some people abandoned their own dimension entirely.

Which was why I had to cooperate with the Floor Master. I couldn't simply let other dimensions' Administrators poach trainees at their leisure. I needed the Floor Master to obstruct them more actively, and I had to provide the support Gaia couldn't — using knowledge of the future. That was how I would gather the talented ones.

"Hoo. This Tower's going to be brutally rough."

Meaning he would cooperate.

"Thank you."

"The Tower's purpose is the salvation of dimensions in crisis, after all. If they cross the line, I'll have to come down on them hard."

He wiped the troubled look from his face and smiled as he said it.

From now on, I would likely receive a little goodwill from every Floor Master. They would support me right up to the line the Tower allowed.

That was enough. No — it was enormous support. With that much behind me, I could push through.

"Then I should head to the next floor as well."

"Aye. Ordinarily we'd have no reason to meet again after the tenth floor... but you'll be different, I expect?"

I smiled.

"I will."

"I'll look forward to it."

"Please put in a good word with the others as well."

"I will. ...Give it your all."

The hardships ahead. He seemed to foresee them. Perhaps, in some earlier age, he had already seen a regressor other than me.

"I will succeed. I swear it."

"...Aye."

"Then I'll choose my dungeon. I'm going to the Dungeon of the Archmage."

Epathos grinned, as if to say that was a regressor for you.

"Aye. Fare you well."

I bowed my last farewell, and was transferred to the ninth floor.

The ninth floor's reward was, by design, whatever you earned by clearing the dungeon you had chosen.

There was no separate prize beyond that.

This was a dungeon I intended to treat with particular care. Looked at properly, it was an extraordinary place.

The difficulty, of course, was hell to match.

The entry requirement was Level 12.

Among every dungeon you could select, that was considered the steepest condition of all. It meant you had to hit the eighth-floor clear requirement of Level 10, refuse to pick a dungeon, and keep hunting until you had gained two more levels before you were even allowed to choose it.

The strongest monster there was a Goblin Lord, so after hitting Level 11 you had to wander around hunting almost nothing but Goblin Lords if you wanted your level to move at all.

Or you killed other trainees.

I had only ever heard about the Dungeon of the Archmage. I had never set foot in it. In the first cycle I had cleared something easy.

A pitch-dark cave. Gloomy from the very first step.

I set one foot lightly inside — and yanked it back at once.

Ping! Thunk!

Fwoosh!

As if it had been waiting, a single arrow hissed past the space where I had been. An instant later, light flared through the cave. The interior was vast.

The Dungeon of the Archmage... and the first trap was an arrow. You've got to be kidding me.

Plenty of people had died to that thing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the starting line and handed their chance away.

They hadn't even been inside long when Entry Available popped up again, leaving a lot of people outside bewildered by the strange situation. The ninth-floor dungeons locked out further attempts once someone cleared them — but until then, as many people as wanted could try.

I let the incredulous look fall from my face, put my seriousness back on, and stepped into the cave, calling up what I remembered.

The Dungeon of the Archmage was made of ten rooms in all. Nine, strictly speaking, plus one hidden chamber underground. Clearing the nine was enough to trigger the completion message, so you could easily miss the tenth — but the one who had cleared this place in the first cycle had found that hidden room as well.

What I wanted was the clear reward, and the rewards from the hidden room besides.

I needed them. Desperately.

I walked the cave with care, watching everything. Torches that had kindled on their own and the occasional magic lamp made the interior surprisingly bright.

Visibility itself was not the problem.

Being able to see, however, was not necessarily a blessing.

I had not gone far before an antique door appeared, utterly out of place in a cave.

The first room. Each chamber had been named for its purpose — a laboratory, a food store, a materials warehouse, private quarters, and so on. Every last one of them was packed with chimeras, which was why the difficulty ran so high, and every room was thick with traps besides. There was a reason the requirement was Level 12.

I let out a short breath, then opened the door.

Creeeak—

Flash!

The instant the door swung, a blaze of light drowned my vision.

I already knew it was coming. I threw a hand up to shield my eyes and stepped aside from the doorway in the same motion.

Kuaaah!

The gatekeeper. An orc chimera posted at the entrance.

You were supposed to reach the Middle Floor before you ever saw an orc. And here one was already.

Each of them was a formidable warrior in its own right — but becoming a chimera had raised its physical power while stripping away its combat sense and its valor.

It simply charged, fearless and blind. Valor and mindless stupidity were not the same thing.

CRASH!

The orc chimera's greatsword slammed into the spot where I had been standing.

I cut across its wrist with the sword in my right hand.

Clang!

The chimera's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hide was harder than I had expected.

In raw defense, it was barely any different from my own.

That, I had not anticipated.

The moment my attack bounced off as if it had meant nothing, the orc chimera shifted its stance and swept the greatsword in a horizontal arc.

Whoosh!

I slipped the blade by a hair, stirred my mana, and drove into its guard in a single burst.

Slash!

A great wound opened across the orc chimera's torso — a very different result from before.

The price of using mana.

Blue blood welled from the cut. Proof that this was no ordinary living thing, but something closer to an artificial life-form.

Kuuuuaaaaargh!

On any normal creature that would have been a mortal wound. This one felt no pain. The orc chimera came at me with no regard for its own life, and I took it apart without much trouble.

I slipped the next swing, stepped into the opening, and left another wound. I met the swing after that the same way, and left another. They had given it a greatsword to exploit the raw power it had gained in exchange for an orc's precise technique... but for me, this version was easier.

I never stepped into the room. I drew the orc chimera out into the corridor instead, and stacked wound after wound.

At last.

Thud.

By the time it had taken more than ten cuts, its movements had gone as sluggish as they were going to get. Even if I had wanted to be hit, it no longer had the speed to oblige me.

The first chimera died, and my level rose with it.

Modified, and in a sense made weaker for it — but it was still a Middle Floor monster.

Not a creature that ought to fall on a mere ninth floor. The one who had cleared this place before had supposedly done it by turning the dungeon's own traps against it.

This was a dungeon. I waited for the orc chimera's corpse to vanish.

Fwoosh.

The body dissolved at once into motes of light, and in its place a single greatsword remained.

I picked the blade up without hesitation.