[Tower of Lust, 49th Floor] Knight of Pure Love — "WHY WON'T YOU TWO JUST DATE ALREADY!!!"

[Tower of Lust — 48th Floor]

Clack-clack. Clack-clack.

Having moved from the freight car into a passenger compartment, I gazed out the window. For a moment I found myself drunk on nostalgia, like a kid riding the train with his parents to visit some far-flung relatives. Comfortable, without even needing to tap my aura... a locomotive trip doubling as a tower climb. It would have been a perfect journey if only those V-slingshot perverts hadn't been visible off in the distance.

Just this morning I was in bed with my girlfriends. What the hell am I even doing here?

No one attacked us anymore. Word of what happened on the lower floors must have been reported upward, because every lewd mare trotting past the train dropped her brainwashing gun on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the ground and raised both hands. Effectively, they were all waving the white flag.

"...Unbelievable. They're straight-up losing their minds at the sight of you."

"I'm not just holding this seat down for nothing, you know~!"

Hehe. Nose in the air, Ian preened — and I mined her for intel on Ms. Lee Soyeon. Hearing the details of the skill that had made her World Rank 1, in particular, gave me a splitting headache.

"A hundred evil eyes..."

And unlike Ian's Broken Dish (SS), it hadn't even been toned down to E-through-D-rank. This was SSS-rank — the absolute pinnacle of world-class skills. Even the fact that its output could be tuned to the user's own strength was absurd. Which, come to think of it, explained the epithet too.

[Hundred Eyes] Lee Soyeon.

She bore that title because she wielded a hundred evil eyes.

"Does your mother actually handle that thing well?"

"She only received it after clearing the Tower of Silver, so... 'passably well' is about right? Day to day she runs around A-rank skills, S-rank if she's a little annoyed, and then SSS-rank once she properly loses it. The output shifts with Mom's mood, but on average it sits between A and S."

"Don't spit bullshit at me, seriously..."

I cracked the window open, took a couple of hard drags on my cigarette, and pressed a hand to my forehead.

...Okay, but how the hell am I supposed to beat that?

Not to mention there's still the whole business with Uhwudong.

She had told us herself: right before she was locked away in the tower, figuring she was about to be raped, she had asked Rank 1 to petrify her. Any fool could see she must have been hit with something like the [Evil Eye of Petrification].

"That doesn't make her invincible, though. Like I keep saying, my mom's airheaded streak isn't just one or two things. She flusters easily, so if you strike at her openings, half the time she panics and can't do anything at all."

"She still had to have real skill, though. Otherwise conquering the Tower of Silver would've been out of the question."

"She didn't conquer it alone. Mom and I cleared it together, patching over each other's weaknesses as we went."

Blowing my cigarette smoke out the window, I asked how exactly they'd cleared it. Ian answered, chest puffed with pride.

"Mom's natural aura pool was no joke~! So Mom handled the firepower, and I handled support! Leave her on her own and she just freezes up, so I'd snap out orders at exactly the right moments and we powered through every hardship the tower threw at us!"

"Just how hopeless is she that you talk about your own mother like that?"

"She falls over mid-battle, that's how. When she reinforces her body with aura, her mind can't keep up, so she never commits to big movements. Back in the day, Auntie Jita got her and me matching costumes — full witch outfits, a set — and Mom was so embarrassed she couldn't take a single step. She even twisted her ankle because the heels were too high. I swear."

"So she's got two left feet?"

"She's a housewife who should have stayed home, forcibly hauled onto a battlefield. The problem is that said housewife happens to be holding a nuclear launch button."

"Then comparing raw reserves — who's got more aura, me or your mother?"

"Probably about the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠same as you?"

A fucking monster, then.

Only recently I'd had my soul reinforced on top of returning my girls' memories to them. And just today, Madam had piled a golden buff on top of everything else. And this woman was telling me her mother was roughly even with me — me, after being stuffed with every one of those ridiculous buffs?

"Her aura reserves are huge, so her output's great, but with a hundred skills in the deck it takes her about five seconds to search for the one she wants. 'Hundred Eyes' or not, she's still only got two of them, so that's the cap on what she can fire at once. And if her gaze isn't on you, none of it works — watch out for that alone and we'll manage somehow."

It was exactly like some grizzled veteran walking a rookie through the raid patterns and then saying, See? Easy, isn't it, newbie?

"Easier said than done."

"I'll make it easy for you, so don't worry."

So I had my strategy. Ian kept helpfully walking me through it — "This is how I'm going to take her down" — and for the time being, I accepted it. Thank goodness that, since this was her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own mother we were dealing with, she had a thorough grasp of exactly how to beat her.

[Tower of Lust — 49th Floor]

Somewhere in the middle of all that strategy talk, we reached the final stretch without my noticing. We passed through the pillar of light, and at last — the 49th floor. Everything up to now had been a matter of cracking gimmicks, so I hadn't worried much, but for the first time it actually felt like an adventure.

What happens if I screw this up?

Even as that worry swelled, the sky cleared overhead. Perhaps because we were approaching the 50th floor gate — the wasteland was gone, and green fields spread out in its place.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"Was the 49th floor always this green?"

"How would I know? This is my first time here too."

Ian pulled out her paperwork and skimmed through the file on the 49th floor.

"The tower's been shut for three years now, right? Going by plain common sense, it must have just developed on its own."

"But the ones ruling this floor are Mom and that whole freaky pervert empire, aren't they? Why is only this place so spotless?"

"Beats me."

The scenery kept shifting by the minute. The fields gave way to densely wooded forest, and then the train came barreling toward an artificially built bridge.

"Hold on. You're right, something's off. What is this place? Why does it feel like this?"

"See? Told you it's weird."

Ian and I stuck our heads out the window like a couple of idiots, gawking. White castle walls unfolded before us, a massive river serving as their natural moat. The rails the locomotive rode on crossed that bridge and plunged on toward a blue-roofed tower and a royal palace. It looked like the capital of some fantasy realm — a proper royal city.

"Until five minutes ago this was a wasteland where the Legion of Evil had its camp!!"

"I know, right!? Sure, it's been abandoned for three years, but isn't this way too developed~!?"

Clack-clack! Clack-clack!

As if mocking our astonishment, the locomotive let out a long pwoooooo of its whistle and thundered through the castle walls. And then a white-and-blue country — one so clean it looked like not a speck of dust had ever touched it — welcomed us.

And that wasn't all. The white knights lined up along both sides of the tracks cried out as one.

"HE HAS ARRIVED!"

"STAND IN AWE!"

"WORSHIP!"

"THE GUARDIAN OF PURE LOVE—!!"

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!!!!

The knights, blooming white, scattered golden petals into the air as they extolled someone. There was such fervor packed into their voices that a few of them were literally sobbing. Watching them rejoice like that, the two of us just stood there flustered.

"Who the hell is all that for?"

"God, I hope it's not because of us."

"All I did was blow up the lower floors, so strictly speaking, Changki, isn't it your fault?"

"Don't say scary things."

Even as we stood there bewildered, they kept chanting. Clapping their hands, showering golden petals.

"PURE LOVE—!!"

"PURE LOVE—!!"

"PURE LOVE—!!"

"...Hold on. I think I know who's behind this."

"So it was your fault after all."

Exactly one person came to mind at that slogan. Our locomotive rolled past that crowd(?) and pulled into a rail station built on the capital's outskirts.

"Shall we get off?"

With the locomotive stopped, there was no other option anyway. Half-worried we might be swarmed, I pushed open the old door and stepped down onto the platform — and that was the moment—

"Ah, for fuck's sake."

The curse slipped out of me unbidden as a suit of white armor came toward me with both arms spread wide.

"Oh~! Comrade! Welcome — to the 49th floor, the 'Pure Love Kingdom'—!"

Sure enough, it was the Knight of Pure Love there to greet me. And this time, unlike his usual look, he wore armor with a far sharper silhouette, a red cloak streaming from his back.

"Are you seriously Pure Love?"

"Wathaha! I'll admit my appearance has changed quite a bit! Still, it wounds me that you did not know me at a glance! Where else in all the heavens will you find a Constellation who welcomes his comrade so warmly~!"

With that, he planted a hand square on his hip and wiggled his backside. It has been an age, comrade! — or so the butt-wiggle seemed to say, celebrating our reunion with gusto.

"I have heard word of you two! Now, that person behind you — would she be Lee Ian, our comrade's companion~!?"

"Oh! Yes! A pleasure to meet you! Um — are you the representative of this floor? In that case, as the head of the 6 Great Guilds, allow me to formally pay my—"

"Wathahaha!! No need for such stiffness! This body is, at most, a mere Constellation, while you are our saviors! I, the Knight of Pure Love, welcome you both with all my heart!"

"Ahahaha..."

He shook her hand and pumped it up and down without ever letting go. His barely-contained excitement left Ian unable to hide her own bewilderment. This was evidently their first meeting — and unable to keep pace with the Pure Love energy, she retreated a step and offered me up as a sacrifice instead.

"Introductions are done. What is this place? Why is only the 49th floor so bright and cheerful?"

"Comrade, did you not meet those three brothers on the lower floors and trade words with them?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

Not that it had been much of a trade — closer to a one-sided ambush. Pure Love, delighted by who knows what, stopped swinging his hips and flung both arms toward the heavens, red cloak snapping.

"You will have heard it from them! We are in the midst of a war between factions, and this region near the 50th floor is their stronghold, so we could scarce push them back an inch! But thanks to your absorption of the lower floors, our faction gathered its strength — and lo, we have claimed the 49th floor for our own~!"

Wa-haha! Wa-haha!

I double-checked with him as he laughed boisterously.

"So like the Humiliation faction's forward base down below, this is the Pure Love faction's forward base — that's how I should take it, right?"

"Mm-hm! Precisely understood! Unlike the floors below, this one lies wholly within our grasp, and so the very atmosphere of the map has changed — there is no need to be bewildered~!"

So a floor's whole vibe shifts depending on the disposition of the Constellation holding it? No wonder the map itself looked so cheerful.

"Then the 'savior' those knights on the tracks kept screaming about...?"

"You, of course! Thanks to you, our tower marches in the right direction! Do you know how they rejoice at your exploits!? Wa-hahahahaha!!!"

Ha... fucking hell.

Yeah. I'd figured as much. I hid my burning face behind my palm and sighed, again and again. Apparently I was something of a superstar among the Pure Love crowd.

"More to the point — if you have made it this far, then another boss battle awaits! You have come all this way, so have a drink before you go! I know a fine tearoom!"

The Knight of Pure Love, for reasons known only to him, went prancing and capering along as he escorted Ian and me toward a nearby tearoom. Here I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was, visibly moping right in front of him, and he didn't spare it a glance — the man simply radiated joy.