Something Only I Can Do
The one thing in this world that only I can do.
The Tower of Mysteries.
Its formal name: the Hall of Mysteries.
A place countless monsters entered seeking a Mystery worthy of themselves.
For any monster that set foot in Kramdel, it was a destination they passed through at least once — much like the hot springs.
"Do you know why so many beasts in Kramdel wear helmets of the same color?"
"……?"
Isaac, leaning against the tower wall, spoke to Isabella.
When she turned her gaze on him, he tapped the stone with his right hand.
"They say rank is decided by the Mystery you claim inside."
"That so?"
"……'That so'? A little curt, aren't we?"
"You're the second servant."
"So that makes you…… the first servant?"
Isabella gave a single nod, her face utterly expressionless. Isaac was left speechless.
"Should I call you senior, then?"
"No."
"Do you simply not want to talk to me?"
"Keep going."
Go on and talk, she meant.
So she was curious after all.
That crow calling himself the Sacred Hornbearer was strange enough — but this woman was no less peculiar.
Strange. My charm should work on any humanoid woman, regardless of species.
Isaac was thoroughly self-aware.
Objectively speaking, he was handsome.
Charm poured off him in waves.
No woman existed who did not fall for it — humanoid or otherwise, species be damned.
And yet the woman before him was ice-cold. A chill radiated from her in sheets.
Those eyes, looking down as if at a lesser being. A queen's eyes.
But when it came to women, Isaac saw through everything.
Isabella's gaze was the unbending stare of a queen — the unique presence of one who had ruled and governed.
Which makes it stranger still. She is not a woman who would kneel to a corpse crow.
The one who once ruled was now being ruled.
By nothing more than a corpse crow, no less.
She had submitted completely. And yet her temperament had not died. To everyone except the self-proclaimed Sacred Hornbearer, this woman would show those same eyes.
"So you also swore a year of service?"
"Something like that."
"What did you bargain for?"
"Freedom."
"Freedom?"
A nod.
The moment Isabella left the desert, she had already gained her freedom.
But it was not complete freedom.
She wanted to know her bloodline — the place of her origin.
And for that, she had bound herself to the Sacred Hornbearer in a one-year contract of service.
He's gathering people. People who will serve him for a year. By what standard?
Isaac crossed his arms.
The man had sought him out without warning and spoken as if he already knew everything. He had clearly come knowing Isaac was in Kramdel from the start.
But no one alive knew Isaac's story in such detail. He had never shared the useless backstory.
Is he truly a Sacred Hornbearer who knows all things?
He couldn't tell.
He couldn't even get a read on it.
Not why the man had sought him out, nor what task he intended to assign.
What was certain was that he was hunting those who hungered for freedom.
That look. She's telling me to keep talking.
Isabella watched him in silence — wordless pressure to finish the story.
A more curious woman than he'd expected.
"……Anyway. Depending on the species, the Mysteries one can obtain sometimes differ. Lesser breeds like goblins mostly receive worthless Mysteries and end up wearing white worker helmets."
"And the black ones?"
"That's the guide color. Beasts who gain a Mystery that lets them see hidden paths usually wear black. Blue is for the superiors who command the workers."
"Other colors?"
"Red is administrator-class in Kramdel. The ones with real power here — the noble class, if you measure them by human standards. Above that, the ruling tier wears fang-shaped crowns. You could call them Kramdel's royalty without much exaggeration."
"Very human."
Like humans, the ruling class and the ruled were cleanly divided.
And yet the reason beasts endlessly flocked to bind themselves to Kramdel was simple.
Fragments of Evolution, and the Goddess's hot spring water.
What ordinary guests received and what Kramdel's laborers received were different in quality altogether.
Isaac shrugged.
"Very human, yes."
Beasts elsewhere were not like this.
Only Kramdel — only the beasts who poured into Kramdel — were this way.
Isaac slowly turned and looked up at the tower.
What Mystery did he go in to claim?
Human Mysteries and beast Mysteries were different.
In meaning, and in use.
A human's Mystery was little more than proof of status, or a minor aid to ability.
The uniform Mysteries one gained by becoming a city's ruler or a guild master.
Simple cosmetic effects one could buy from a Mystery artisan.
Human and beast Mysteries truly are different.
Human Mysteries meant little.
Which was why humans themselves placed little weight on them.
But a beast's Mystery was the beast's own qualification.
The Mysteries one could obtain and wield differed entirely by the species' rank and the beast's innate stature.
And a corpse crow had entered the Hall of Mysteries.
A corpse crow is mid-tier at best, no matter how generously you grade it. Whatever Mystery it can claim won't amount to much……
Even if it reached the end of the Hall, the Mystery it obtained might seem impressive by human standards — but by beast standards, it would be trash.
If it had climbed intending to work in Kramdel, it would walk out wearing a white worker helmet on the spot.
With luck, a blue superior's helmet.
A red administrator's helmet required a high-grade Mystery and formidable combat power.
Anything above that — the ruling tier — was effectively impossible.
Special beasts carry special Mysteries.
In the world of beasts, a Mystery was like a lion's mane.
Who had the fuller mane? That was what Mysteries decided.
Mythic and phantasmic species — beasts whose racial worth was high from the start — were said to receive Legend-grade Mysteries from the Hall as a baseline, though Isaac had never confirmed it himself.
In any case.
At best, something like Eyes of the Corpse — an amplification Mystery — is the ceiling.
Beasts tended to receive Mysteries tied to their racial traits.
Corpse crows were a curse-aspected species.
Naturally, a Mystery that amplified curses was the likeliest outcome.
Mid-grade at best.
A Mystery on the scale of Medusa's — one that blanketed all of Kramdel — was simply out of the question for a corpse crow.
Rumble!
Then it happened.
"The tower……?"
The ground began to shake along with the tower.
And that was not the only change.
"G-gold……!"
Isaac was too stunned to finish the sentence.
The tower had suddenly begun to flush with golden light.
In all his time in Kramdel, he had never seen anything like it.
"What is this?"
"The tower is enraged!"
The surrounding beasts were equally shocked.
Countless monsters were climbing the tower or waiting in line for their turn.
As everyone reeled at the unexpected phenomenon—
"The tower has personally bestowed a trial upon a challenger!"
A black-goat beast trembled as it spoke.
The murmuring around them swelled.
"The tower?"
"Has that ever happened?"
"Did something so powerful go in that the tower itself had to hand down a trial?"
"Don't tell me…… the Minotaur King who just entered?"
"It has to be that young phantasmic beast from earlier."
"What are you talking about? Obviously the Leviathan."
Each offered their own theory, eyes fixed on the phenomenon.
The tower's master had personally issued a trial to someone inside.
But many had entered. Opinions split wildly over who among them had received the special trial.
Isaac shook his head inwardly.
Come on. No way……
The timing was too neat.
It had begun the moment he stepped inside.
Surely not that self-proclaimed Sacred Hornbearer?
No. Isaac shook his head.
After all — the tower would never personally issue a trial to a mere corpse crow.
Sssaaaah.
The instant the tower turned gold, Medusa — the Gate Queen seated upon her throne — reacted.
The snakes that had been sleeping upon her began to flick their tongues and stir.
"L-Lady Medusa……!"
"How many years has it been since she moved!"
Serpents of similar form to Medusa, though far smaller in size.
Born of her blood, the serpents cried out in joy at her movement.
Ever since that incident, Medusa had halted her true body's motion for years, pouring everything into recovery from her wounds.
Splash. Splaash.
The serpents' hands grew busy.
They ceaselessly bathed Medusa's body in hot spring water filled with the tears of a high goddess.
A monster of her exalted stature could not be healed by ordinary means.
But Medusa's reaction was brief.
Someone has opened the Mythic Hall of Mysteries, it seems.
The Mythic Hall of Mysteries had opened only twice before this city ever bore the name Kramdel.
Once for the White King.
And once for a radiant golden elder dragon.
The White King had succeeded in breaking through the Mythic Hall of Mysteries. The golden elder dragon had failed — and met a wretched death.
It has not opened since.
The Hall of Mysteries existed to bestow Mysteries upon beasts.
But the Hall distinguished species with absolute rigor.
Unless one was an elder dragon that transcended every species, or something on the level of the White King, the Myth-grade Hall would not open.
So had someone comparable to those two challenged the Hall?
They will not succeed regardless.
Even that radiant golden elder dragon had died.
The White King himself had found it nauseating.
The Mythic Hall of Mysteries issued an unbroken chain of impossible trials scaled to the challenger's species and stature.
The White King — guardian deity of the North — had challenged the Mythic Hall, gained overwhelming power and a Mystery to match, and still never reached the end.
—This mythic trial is designed so that seeing its end is impossible.
The White King had said so himself. There was no room for argument.
And so she was certain.
Success was impossible either way.
But just in case, she floated one eye in the sky above the Tower of Mysteries.
The tower's changes had to be watched.
Caw!
Caaaw!
Two corpse crows wheeled through the sky above.
Sharing their vision, I looked down from the cliff's edge.
Incredible.
The moment I reached the Mythic Hall of Mysteries, I beheld a sight I could scarcely believe.
Clack.
Clack, clack!
An endless procession of skeleton soldiers.
A host that looked easily ten thousand strong.
I'm supposed to kill all of these alone?
And the problem was that this was only the beginning.
Still — there was one silver lining.
【Lv.4】
Every skeleton soldier was Level 4.
The level of the Skeleton Soldiers matches the challenger's level.
Use of all tools other than equipped gear is forbidden.
All blessings and protections have been stripped away.
Ordinary monsters — but ten thousand of them.
At the same level, even a skilled fighter would struggle past a few dozen.
Good thing I'm not an ordinary Level 4.
My level was 4, but I far exceeded what Level 4 was supposed to mean.
Every time I leveled, every stat maxed out — and those stats were multiplied by 1.2.
All stats at 48 put me roughly on par with a solid Level 6 or 7.
And that wasn't all.
Holding a star had raised every stat by another 5.
I could match even an average Level 7 powerhouse.
If my level had been higher, I'd have been finished.
What if I were Level 10?
A Level 10 skeleton soldier was no ordinary skeleton.
It would use skills, coat its bones in mana, and turn the bones themselves into something like Sword Qi.
I'd be facing ten thousand swordsmen who could wield Sword Qi.
Being low-level was a blessing.
I'd cursed the absurd experience requirements before — but maybe this was what they called a blessing in disguise?
Clack! Clack!
The skeleton soldiers were pouring toward the cliff.
Stand still and I'd be crushed under the sheer mass.
"Rise, caw!"
With the cry, I selected a target and activated the skill. A corpse crow circling overhead plummeted vertically and dove into a skeleton soldier's body.
Clack!
A corpse crow was a Level 4 Boss Monster.
Seizing an ordinary Level 4 skeleton soldier was trivial.
"Merge, caw!"
And the King of Corpse Crows could make corpses more beautiful still.
Artist of the Dead was the right phrase.
The crow that had seized the skeleton began claiming the ones around it in a chain.
Then I poured in my sacred power, and the controlled skeletons fused together, swelling into a golem-like giant of bone.
Two corpse crows linked the skeleton soldiers; I steered them.
Corpse Control. Art of Corpses.
Skills that had become available only after I became the King of Corpse Crows.
There were no better skills for breaking this trial.
"Smash them all, caw!"
KRAAAANG!
How many hours had I been fighting?
Skill level of Corpse Control has increased by 1.
Skill level of Art of Corpses has increased by 1.
Skill level of Corpse Crow Summoning has increased by 1. You may summon one additional corpse crow.
Skill level of Corpse Control has increased by 1.
Skill level of Art of Corpses has increased by 1.
Skill level of Corpse Crow Summoning has increased by 1. You may summon one additional corpse crow.
……
…………
Proficiency climbed without end.
In a way, it was only natural.
My Hidden Trait Dexterity granted +1 proficiency to every skill and piece of equipment — and separately, it raised skill experience at an absurd rate.
In a situation this extreme, even more so.
By the time the endless tide of skeleton soldiers had become thoroughly sickening—
Caw!
Caw!
Caaaw!
Seven corpse crows now wheeled around me.
Skill Level 7. If I pushed it to Level 10 and summoned ten, the skill would undergo Transcendence.
But the joy of skill levels rising was not even one percent of the happiness I felt now.
"CAAAAAAW!"
From the peak of a mountain of shattered bone, I poured every scrap of strength into a single cry.
I won!
At last, I had broken through the wall of ten thousand.
These endless, loathsome things!
If I hadn't been the King of Corpse Crows in this state, I wouldn't have wiped out even half of them.
By now, even the cry of a corpse crow had started to sound endearing.
Trial: Wall of Species — Cleared
🎁 Reward: You may acquire the Myth-grade Mystery Overlord.
Acquire it?
If you decline, you will proceed to the next trial.
This wasn't the end?
A Mystery name I had never seen in my life.
Claim it, and I could leave!
A Myth-grade Mystery — whatever it is, it's enough.
A Myth-grade Mystery used by monsters was an uncrossable wall.
Whatever its nature, it would carry an extraordinary effect. That much was certain.
I had no strength left to fight.
I couldn't take another step.
The mere sight of a skeleton now made me want to retch.
And yet this was not the end of the trial.
But pressing on into a trial with no known end would be pure folly.
It would be courting death itself.
Acquisition of Overlord has been declined.
Anyone watching would have screamed that I was out of my mind and begging to die.
If not now, I will never clear this.
If my reasoning was right, the only time I could climb the Mythic Hall of Mysteries was now.
The higher my level climbed, the more the difficulty would explode.
And what if I leveled up mid-challenge?
My level is fixed anyway.
Killing ten thousand skeleton soldiers hadn't leveled me up.
Even if I slaughtered hundreds of thousands — millions — of same-level monsters, my level would not rise.
In other words, this place was the only location in the entire world where I alone could see the end.
The challenger advances to a higher stage of the trial.