Shall I Climb Again?
June arrived, the spring weather fading as the air grew muggy and close.
Nearly half a year had already passed since she stopped climbing the Tower when Esdel received a phone call.
"Hmm. Kang Youngchan."
"Lady Esdel. Forgive me for calling during class."
A sidelong glance—
Esdel eyed the students sprawled at her feet. Dust-caked and exhausted, they lay collapsed where they had fallen. Lee Haerin looked the most thoroughly battered of them all.
"It's fine. I was about to give them a break anyway."
She had already wrung them out to their absolute limits; push any further and they would truly collapse. How many troops had she trained over the centuries? She could say with confidence that no one in this world knew better how to drive people right up to the edge.
"So what business is it? Contacting me this rudely means it must be important, yes?"
"As expected, your insight is exceptional. Would you be able to spare a moment after work today?"
"Your tongue grows smoother by the day. Very well. I shall come by the Bureau."
She hung up and checked the time. About ten minutes of talking. Growing old really did make one long-winded, didn't it? Esdel let out a dry little laugh and shouted at the kids still rolling around on the floor.
"You've rested long enough—move! On your feet!"
Groans and screams rose from every direction, but they never reached an elf's ears.
After finishing her biweekly class, she headed for the Awakener Management Bureau.
"L-Lady Esdel. Welcome."
Kwon Minah, working the reception desk, felt the urge to cry the moment she saw the problem elf.
What kind of scene is she going to cause this time?!
Somehow the woman always showed up the second her senior stepped away. Kwon Minah forced the corners of her trembling mouth upward into a smile.
"I have an appointment today, so I stopped by."
"Ah, yes! Who are you here to see?"
"Tch. After seeing this face of mine so many times, you still don't know? I come here often enough."
"R-Right, of course! J-Just a moment!"
The smile she had plastered on nearly crumbled. Kwon Minah scanned the appointment list, hunting desperately for Esdel's name.
It's not here…?
Cold sweat slid down her back. If she said there was no reservation, who knew what kind of tantrum would follow. Her mind went blank—then a name flashed through her head.
"I-I've confirmed it…! I'll notify them, so please wait just a moment."
"Mm."
Watching Kwon Minah tremble, Esdel wondered if she might have been teasing her a little too hard.
I should stop before I become a genuine nuisance.
Whether she already was one remained an open question. The problem elf resolved then and there to treat Kwon Minah kindly from now on.
"They say they'll be right down."
"Good."
True to the words, Kang Youngchan came down to the lobby the moment he got the call.
"You work hard, young lady. Hang in there."
"Th-Thank you."
Watching Esdel follow Kang Youngchan's lead toward the director's office, Kwon Minah finally let out a long breath of relief.
"Please stop tormenting the reception staff."
"Me? I haven't done a thing."
"……."
Well.
Afraid of the increasingly fierce look on her face, he hurried his steps. He knocked on the Bureau Director's door and stepped inside.
"Welcome."
The director who had been waiting within greeted Esdel.
"I hear you've been teaching the children lately."
"Annoying as it is, it's rather entertaining."
"Allow me to thank you once again for accepting our unreasonable request. Talent like yours is rare… You've been an enormous help."
"Mm. Your tongue is getting smoother too. Not bad."
Even empty flattery, heard often enough, could lift a person's spirits. Esdel's ears gave a pleased little twitch at the praise.
"There's even talk that the government is considering offering you a seat among the Divine Beasts."
"A Divine Beast? Far too grand for a perfectly ordinary elf."
"Divine Beasts receive national merit status, pensions, and various tax benefits."
"Come to think of it, I am the only elf in this world. Surely that warrants Divine Beast treatment, does it not?"
"…I think so as well."
A shameless elf, changing her tune without so much as wetting her lips.
"In any case. To the main point—"
"A moment."
Esdel stopped the director just as he began to speak in earnest. She already had a fair idea of what was coming. Requests to climb the Tower, to share whatever materials came out of it—that sort of thing.
I have no interest in being dragged around by the government.
That was not what she wanted. Her investigation of the Tower was entirely for her own sake. Living comfortably in this country meant responding as graciously as possible, but she had no desire to become anyone's doormat.
"I already know what you mean to say. But as I told you before, I said I would cooperate as much as I could—not that I would accept every word that came out of your mouth."
"…I understand."
"I grasp your position. Instead, let me ask one question."
"Please."
"Did you convey my position to the government? Word for word, without changing a single syllable."
The director recalled the statement Esdel had delivered previously.
I will research the Tower myself. Do not give me orders.
Just remembering the day he had carefully polished that message and delivered it to the government still sent cold sweat rolling down his back. Even if the current administration was more sensible than the last, there were things it would swallow and things it would not.
Though that, too, is already old news.
Even if it hadn't been a real fight, she had defeated one of the two Divine Beasts supporting this nation—the White Tiger Divine Beast. And she had done it overwhelmingly. Every student who witnessed the scene told the same story. Seo Hojin himself, after waking from unconsciousness, had said the same.
She is someone who must be handled as peacefully as possible.
The threat she had once made to Kang Youngchan—that she would "topple" them—was quite possibly no empty boast.
"Yes. The government has issued an official notice stating that every one of Lady Esdel's requests will be granted."
"Oh-ho? The power-brokers around here still have their wits about them. Back in my day, they were so hungry to devour people they couldn't sit still."
Depending on who the person was, of course. The words rose as far as his throat, but he forced them back down.
"You need not concern yourself with foreign governments. We will handle them. However…"
"However?"
"The government side is requesting that, if possible, you climb whenever you have the time…"
Even as he spoke the words, the director watched her carefully. Under that cautious gaze, Esdel deliberately leaned back into the sofa with a sigh, pretending to deliberate.
I was going to do it anyway without being asked… but accepting too readily wouldn't be wise right now.
Whether she was considering it or preparing to refuse, an unreadable silence filled the room. The director and Kang Youngchan were nearly crushed under the weight of it, on the verge of forgetting how to breathe—
"Very well."
Esdel's mouth opened.
"Thank you."
Less an agreement to a request than permission graciously granted to a plea. The director clearly understood what she meant to convey.
"I will convey it carefully to those above."
"…Mm. If anything comes up, tell them to pass it through you. Anything that doesn't come from you or Kang Youngchan, I will treat as unheard."
His quick grasp of the situation drew a smile from Esdel.
Consolidate the channel of communication into one, and people will start groveling to that channel.
Power would naturally gather there. She had laid the board; how he used it was up to the director's skill. He beamed as he saw her out.
"Should anything arise, we will contact you through this fellow."
"Do your best."
She greeted a startled Kwon Minah in the lobby and left the Bureau.
"Are you heading straight to the Tower?"
"I have overdue homework to catch up on. I've made enough concessions already, haven't I?"
Just thinking of how the government had made a fuss when she brought Lee Haerin into the Tower still irritated her. All she had wanted was to train the girl on the lower floors without climbing, and the amount of noise they made… Esdel gave Kang Youngchan's shoulder a couple of pats in farewell and set off for the Tower.
She blasted through the lower floors she had once cleared with Lee Haerin and returned to Floor 10.
"If Floor Stones were that easy to come by, I'd have climbed back up sooner."
Items obtained inside the Tower could not, as a rule, be taken outside. Mana stones were the exception. But exceptions always existed—and the Floor Stone, which allowed an Awakener to return directly to previously cleared floors, was one of them.
"Hmm."
Esdel surveyed the landscape of Floor 10, a wasteland centered on the ruins. Unlike the lower floors, which restored themselves each time she returned, Floor 10 remained exactly as it had been when she destroyed it. Even the hole where the false World Tree had stood was still there.
"Irritating."
Perhaps it was because the environment so strongly recalled the Great Forest. The Great Forest, reduced to ruin by the Demon King, rose unbidden in her mind. Looking out over the jungle turned barren stirred old memories, and with them came a swell of irritation and anger.
"Enough. What more is there to see?"
She checked the ruins once more just in case, but as expected, there was nothing—nothing but the stone tablet. Esdel left the ruins behind and walked toward the portal. Without hesitation she stepped into the red portal and arrived on Floor 11.
"So from Floor 11 onward it's supposed to look like a dungeon."
Esdel slowly took in the dungeon interior spread before her. Luminous stones cast intermittent light through the dark corridors. The sight brought back vivid memories of the dungeons she had explored with the hero's party. The warrior who charged mindlessly ahead and triggered a trap. The hero who poked at everything out of curiosity and set another off. The saintess who missed her footing and fell into one.
?
Why were the only memories that came to mind the ones of them falling into traps?
"Tsk tsk. Without me they would have wiped ages ago."
Esdel clicked her tongue and pressed forward. She did not forget to scatter mana into the surroundings while casting detection magic, mapping the structure as she went.
"Hmm. Interesting."
As she processed the information her magic and mana brought back, a deep smile spread across Esdel's face.
"They called it a dungeon, yet…"
Somehow, to her eyes, it had appeared as a labyrinth.