Floor 4 (1)

Vwoooom──

With a warping, twisting distortion of my vision, the scenery around me traded itself out for somewhere new.

"...Ugh."

The now-familiar sensation of my brain getting rattled around like a cocktail shaker. A short groan escaped me, but it was a level of motion sickness I could mostly grin and bear.

I steadied myself quickly and immediately scanned the forest around me.

Trickle...

"Is there water nearby?"

Along with that earthy smell you get after rain, I could just barely make out the sound of flowing water. The trees weren't densely packed either, giving the place a very different feel from the pitch-black forest back on Floor 3.

I headed straight toward the sound, and before long a small stream revealed itself.

And there, soaking in that stream, I spotted a familiar elf.

"Oh."

"...Hm."

The elf in question was Iris.

Except she was currently about half-naked, with nothing on her body but a single towel.

SPLASH!

The flesh crammed into the towel she'd cinched by hand bulged under the strain, wobbling precariously, one wrong move away from spilling out entirely.

The sight instantly turned my face beet red, and I wrenched my head away from her in a panic.

"S-sorry! I wasn't trying to look, I swear—"

"AAH!! Human... no, Lord A-yeon??"

But the person herself apparently felt no shame whatsoever. Iris jabbed a finger at me as if she'd just stumbled upon a runaway guitar.

"Why are you only showing up NOW?! It's been almost a whole month!!"

"...What? It's been a month already?"

"YES!!"

Out on Floor 0, only a single day had passed.

Did the flow of time inside the Tower actually run differently from the outside?

'Well, it's a common enough thing in the Tower.'

Even below Floor 10, every climber's point of entry into the Tower was wildly different. One person dropped smack into the middle of a war that had broken out a thousand years ago; another landed in a peaceful era long after that same war had ended.

'Come to think of it, what era is the floor I'm on, anyway?'

By most accounts, the higher the difficulty, the further back in time you end up.

A Lunatic-difficulty floor would probably be set quite far in the past.

Curiosity suddenly piqued, I tossed a light question at Iris.

"Hey, Iris. What year is it on the Imperial Calendar?"

"Pardon? The Empire?"

"...Right. What did I even just ask you."

Yeah, I should've seen that coming.

There was no way this strung-out druggie would know anything like that.

Elves were a reclusive bunch to begin with, so odds were even the other elves had no clue about human affairs.

Having finished her bath, Iris climbed out of the water, gathered up the clothes she'd folded neatly on the bank, and started dressing while interrogating me.

"Anyway, do you have ANY idea how desperately I waited for you to come?"

"And how desperate was that, exactly?"

"My hands were shaking uncontrollably... I could barely breathe... goosebumps all over my body..."

"...I don't think that was from waiting."

This junkie lunatic.

That was textbook withdrawal, no matter how you looked at it...

Then again, considering how much she normally pumped into her system, the real miracle was that withdrawal ever came at all.

The fact that she hadn't dropped dead from side effects by now was nothing short of divine intervention.

But Iris just brushed it off and kept talking like it was nothing.

"It's not serious. If I circulate my mana through meditation, it all goes away."

"......"

Typical mana-supremacist elves...

Mana and magic power solve everything, huh? Huh? EVERYTHING.

'I mean, I've heard elves are a race born with mana's blessing in their very blood...'

But using that divine gift to scrub drug side effects off your nervous system? Really?

If the elves had a creator somewhere, that being would be weeping openly.

"Anyway, hand over the candy. Now."

"......"

Iris held out her hand and demanded the candy like she was picking up a reserved package.

I gazed at her with the pity she deserved, then spread my empty hands with an apologetic shrug.

"Sorry, but I'm all out."

"What?? Why???"

"I ran out of Ferum Flower extract."

The extract I'd brought back back then had been about five cans' worth, and that was the end of the line.

Two of them got condensed into candy for Iris, and I ate the rest grinding my trait.

My 420% addiction rate didn't fall out of the sky, you know.

"Aaah, right, the Ppeokkeumis."

But the veteran junkie, of course, had a plan all along, didn't she?

At the news of my empty stock, Iris puffed up with a triumphant grin.

"No problem! I figured this would happen, so I've been cultivating some nearby!"

"...What?"

Ppeokkeumis... so, Ferum Flowers...?

Cultivating them...? The drug flowers...?

With the purple grow-lamps... the plastic tubs... scraping white powder off a sheet of glass...

That sketchy chicken joint in Suwon...

CLANK CLANK...

'Ugh... my head...'

The image of Iris in handcuffs kept flickering at the edge of my vision. While I suffered from this mysterious headache, the elf in front of me chirped on with the innocence of a child.

"Follow me! I'll show you the way."

She seized my wrist and started hurrying off toward who-knows-where. I shook her off and asked in a strained voice.

"H-hold on...!! Aren't they dangerous...?"

"Not at all? Our Ppeokkeumis are gentle souls. Very well-behaved children."

"......"

Why did that sound exactly like "my dog doesn't bite"?

I have never once met a gentle dog whose owner said those words.

"You're really sure about this...?"

"Of, of course... they do recognize humans as prey... so they m-might nip a little..."

"...Hey."

Sure enough — an unforgivable statement, followed by a pair of eyes darting away from mine. When I glared at her with frost in my gaze, Iris hastily rewrote her sales pitch.

"B-but I'll be right there with you, so it'll be fine...!"

"You're sure?"

"...Probably!"

"....."

I had my doubts, but there wasn't exactly a second option on the menu, so I fell in step behind Iris.

How long had we been trudging along the maze-like tangle of forest paths? The trees gradually shot higher and crowded the sky, until before I knew it, the same inky-black forest from Floor 3 spread out around us.

And not long after entering that dark forest—

Far in the distance, I began to make out the familiar shape of red flowers.

Beneath a sheer cliff face, a dozen-odd Ferum Flowers stood planted in a spaced-out colony. The soil beneath the shade had gone black and was damp to the touch, and for some reason a rotten stench seemed to drift off it.

A whole colony of Floor 10 boss monsters huddled together like this.

Any other ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Awakener who saw it would have a full-blown panic attack.

While I filed away that brief mental note, Iris spread her arms and proudly unveiled her farm.

"Ta-dah! This, my friend, is my pride and joy— huh?"

But something was wrong.

The Ferum Flowers that should have been welcoming us with writhing, tentacle-like vines hung utterly limp, not so much as twitching.

The buds that should have glowed blood-red were withered and twisted, turned brown to black.

Squelch...

And most damning of all — the extract that should have pooled inside every bud was dribbling uselessly onto the ground.

At the sight of it, Iris let out a scream.

"PPPEOKKEUMIIIIIS!!!!"

A wail of grief, the kind you'd expect from a parent who'd just lost their child.

Except instead of mourning the withered flowers, she scurried straight over to the extract soaking into the dirt and burst into tears over that.

"WAAAAH...!! Their precious, precious extract...!!"

The sympathy I'd briefly mustered just evaporated into something closer to disgust.

Give me my emotions back, you junkie.

"...If we could somehow salvage the parts that haven't touched the soil, maybe...?"

"......"

Just as Iris stood there staring down at the fallen extract, her tongue hovering on the verge of slipping out—

—a faint sound began drifting in from somewhere.

Shhhhh──

'The wind?'

Sensing something off, I turned around on instinct.

And in that exact instant, a single vine lashed out like a whip and came crashing down toward Iris — who was busy sticking her tongue at the extract.

──BOOOM!!!!

With a thunderclap that threatened to split my eardrums, a cloud of dust billowed up where Iris had been standing.

"GYAAH...?!"

The scream arrived a beat late.

As the dust settled, a metal plate — crushed and warped beyond recognition — dropped limply to the ground in front of Iris, who had hunched herself into a ball.

KU-BOOM!

"Th-this is...?"

"...Haa, haa."

I exhaled roughly, reining the mana back out of the hand I'd flung toward her.

In that fraction of an instant, I had transmuted a metal plate out of thin air and thrown it up to shield her.

Then I rounded on Iris, who was still face-down in the dirt.

"You crazy woman!! You said they don't ATTACK!!"

"D-didn't they...? Th-this shouldn't be happening...?"

SKEEE──

"...ARGH!! Damn it!!"

The vines stopped bothering to hide it now, whipping through the air in multiple braided bundles, out in the open.

This time they were coming for me instead of Iris, so I quickly raised a metal pillar at my feet and flash-stepped forward.

BANG!

One dodge bought me a moment to breathe — and only then did I finally get a clear look at what had attacked us.

Yep. A Ferum Flower.

But it wasn't just any ordinary Ppeokkeumi.

This one was wicked.

Grrrr...

Sticky, violet-black slime clung to the thing like a layer of tumors. And in the glimpses of its mouth whenever it bleated, the nectar sloshing inside wasn't the familiar white extract — it was Black Sludge.

Iris had apparently spotted it too, because she murmured under her breath, her voice thick with disbelief.

"Black Sludge... on a Ppeokkeumi...? Why...?"

The boss of Floor 10 and the boss of Floor 5.

The opium flower and the grape smoothie.

The two of them had gone and performed a full fusion.

"...Hell."

Seriously, what the fuck am I supposed to call that thing?

Grape Flower? Opium Smoothie?

WHY ARE MONSTERS FUSING IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

Fusion is for transforming robots and sibling duos, everyone knows that!!

Right then, a quest window popped up before my eyes as if it had been waiting for this exact moment.

The reason a quest was appearing at precisely this timing was painfully obvious.

Apparently, clearing Floor 4 required taking down that abomination.

"Alright!!"

SHLURP!

I reshaped the aluminum shield that had been guarding Iris into the form of a sword, gripped it, kicked off the ground, and charged straight at the flower bud.

FWIP, SKEEE!!

The vines, now moving in earnest, unfurled across the air like the flight paths of guided missiles.

They spread wide, then wove themselves into a net around my body, while forearm-thick tendrils came whipping in from every direction.

Attacks like these would have caught me dead to rights in the old days.

But now — they couldn't touch me.

My current addiction rate: a whopping 1420%.

My dynamic vision, enhanced fourteenfold from before, chased the motion of every single vine, hunting for the opening among them.

"There you are!! The thread in the gap!!"

I twisted my body in midair, threading between the incoming vines.

The one that grazed me by a hair's breadth slammed down into empty earth.

KWAAANG!

A pillar of dirt and dust erupted skyward.

And then, cleaving straight through that rising dust column, an unseen blade came slicing in.

"'Wind Cutter'!!"

SWISH!

Iris's wind magic.

There was something about this spell that just demanded you shout the name of the wound it made — it carved up the vine stems like a butcher trimming well-aged chitterlings.

That bought us a few precious seconds of open ground.

I made a metal pillar erupt beneath my feet without hesitation.

"Transmutation."

BANG!

My body, riding the acceleration, launched forward. The scenery stretched into long streaks as the distance to the bud collapsed.

I gripped the horizontally-laid aluminum blade in both hands and threw my full weight behind it.

SHWK─

Another crisp cutting sound rang out —

and a long horizontal gash opened across the bud cradling the Black Sludge.

......

...

...

"...Did I get it?"

Glub, krrrkk...!

"Fuck. No, I didn't."

Shouldn't have planted that flag.

This damn mouth of mine and its mouth-running.

FWOOSH!!

"Ugh, gross."

The gash yawned open, and violet-black slime sprayed outward in every direction.

Having zero desire to melt another set of clothes, I ducked the spray and pulled distance from the Ferum Flower.

"D-did you get it...?"

"No. Not even a dent."

I shook my head at Iris, who had just planted a second flag in a row.

The thing was still alive even with its bud sliced open — which meant the Ferum Flower itself had never been the main body to begin with.

Was the Black Sludge puppeting the Ferum Flower, using it as a living host?

"...'Wind Cutter'."

SWISH!

Iris fired off another spell, but all it did was gouge the bud — no real damage, it seemed.

So that bud was shielding the Black Sludge inside.

Like a hermit crab squatting in a borrowed shell.

"...This is infuriating. Nothing we throw at it works."

"We find the core and smash it."

"Easier said than done... I can't even get close because of the toxicity."

Iris wrinkled her nose at the stench and complained.

For me, though, it honestly wasn't that hard.

Just slip inside the bud like last time, smash the Black Sludge's core, and walk back out.

Its slime didn't work on me anyway.

But — actually climbing into that thing...

'...Nope. Hard no. Absolutely not.'

I'll say it again: Black Sludge reeks.

And not just reeks — it reeks like a motherfucker. Enormously. Catastrophically.

How do I put it — imagine a sewer drain during monsoon season where somebody dumped a pan of kimchi pancakes. That smell.

On top of that, one touch and it selectively melts your clothes in an instant.

If my last remaining outfit dissolved, I'd be living in the nude for the foreseeable future.

Naked — well, not fully naked, but walking all the way from the Tower to my home wrapped in nothing but a towel.

That, and only that, was something I absolutely could not allow.

No — it was something that must never be allowed to happen.

'...I need another way.'

I immediately pulled up the Awakener community.

And with a snapshot of the abomination before me — the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Grape Flower — I uploaded a question post laced with maximum bait.

The comments came pouring in the moment the post went up.

But the vast majority were pure shock, and almost none of it was actually useful.

Getting antsy, I frantically posted follow-up comments to hurry things along.

"Hmm..."

At the comment ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the familiar fixed-nick, I glanced down at the ring on my finger for a moment — then shook my head.

I couldn't use Hong Yeon-hwa's magic here.

Anyone who'd seen her usual conduct knew: that woman was a certified firepower maniac.

The instant she cast anything, this entire forest would become a sea of flames.

I couldn't exactly torch the whole forest just to take down one flower.

"SpeedVegan, not you too..."

Even SpeedVegan had never seen them fuse before.

He'd been the one person I'd pinned my hopes on, but apparently getting help out of him was off the table.

"...What are you doing?"

"Wait a second. I'm thinking."

I gave Iris a half-hearted answer as she hovered beside me, and started refreshing the page, reading the latest comments to trickle in.

"Oh...?"

A familiar fixed-nick, appearing right on cue.

Famous as the most oldbie of veterans despite wearing the word "Newbie" in his handle.

I immediately fired off replies to his comment.

About fifteen seconds passed after his "looking up the link" comment went quiet—

At SaveTheNewbie's follow-up comment, I clicked the link he'd sent without a second's delay.

Clicking through led me to a single strategy guide.

Written a full five years ago, it was a legendary concept post with over a thousand comments attached.

I skimmed my way down the guide at speed.

And at the contents written there, a smile of genuine interest crossed my face as I looked up at the elf standing before me.

"Oh...?"

"...What. Why are you looking at me like that."

If this worked out...

I might be able to take that thing down without ever setting foot inside it...