Chapter 40
Chapter 40
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Floor 19
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Floor 19
The next day, I immediately opened the door leading to the 19th floor.
The moment I passed through, a heavy air pierced my lungs.
It felt several times more toxic than the previous floors.
“Ugh….”
The foul air was so bad it made me dry-heave involuntarily.
Any ordinary person would’ve collapsed from respiratory failure the instant they stepped in.
I’d never heard stories of the 19th floor being this intense, so this must be because of Extreme mode too.
But I was fine soon enough.
The World Tree seed was emitting a brighter blue glow than ever.
It greedily sucked in the surrounding poison, spitting out pure, clean mana in its place.
Thanks to that, the air around me felt as refreshing as if a powerful air purifier was running.
The seed’s output was getting stronger by the day.
Though that was turning my house into a total mess….
I cautiously activated Desertification.
Having gathered various clues on the 18th floor, I planned to secure only the minimum amount of sand this time too.
That’s when something strange happened.
The pendant hanging around my neck began to tremble, emitting a faint green light.
The pendant I’d picked up on the 18th floor. The World Tree’s dried leaf.
Since it was a growth-type item, I’d decided to keep wearing it.
It trembled in resonance with the World Tree seed hovering above my head.
The seed responded in kind, shining even brighter than before.
And then, an unbelievable sight unfolded before my eyes.
The dense jungle blocking my path parted on its own, like Moses’s miracle, clearing a way forward.
“What the hell…?”
I maxed out my visual acuity.
Then I saw it.
A thin green beam of light extending from the pendant, pointing deep into the jungle.
It was obvious something was there.
“No way I’m passing this up.”
Unable to contain my curiosity, I stepped onto the newly opened path.
Of course, I didn’t let my guard down.
I placed two sand clones in front of me.
Super #1 and regular Sand Clone #1.
The further I followed the path, the stranger the surroundings grew.
Soon, Lizardmen corpses started appearing.
Every one of them had been run through or slashed by something sharp.
“Dark Elves’ doing…?”
But the wounds were too deep and brutal to match the Dark Elves I knew.
They looked like claw marks from some massive beast.
The mutilation got worse the deeper we went.
Eventually, I even found Dark Elves with limbs torn clean off.
It was clear: something here had massacred them.
At last, I reached the end of the path the light indicated.
A massive waterfall cascaded fiercely down the cliff face.
Around it, enormous trees lay uprooted and toppled.
And midway up the cliff.
Behind the waterfall, a stone temple faintly visible.
Covered in moss and vines, bearing the marks of ages past, the temple looked like it could crumble any second.
An ancient ruin. And guarding its entrance: the protectors.
These guardians were completely unlike any Dark Elves I’d seen so far.
Their bodies were twisted beyond reason.
Branches and vines sprouted from all over them, like someone had forcibly fused a treant with an elf.
Madness gleamed in their eyes.
“Grraaah!”
The moment they spotted me, they let out eerie shrieks in unison.
One swung a vine-covered arm.
An attack reminiscent of the 15th floor slime’s tentacles.
Clang!
Before I could even react, a sand barrier rose around me automatically, deflecting the tentacle.
I gave orders to my sand clones.
“Don’t overdo it. Just take down one.”
Super #1 and #1 charged at a single foe.
From behind, I fired sand bullets to preemptively clear the others.
Boom!
The nearest one’s head vanished lightly under a single bullet.
I took a step back to watch Super #1 fight.
One grabbed Super #1’s spear thrust barehanded.
Crack.
Its arm stretched out long, piercing straight through Super #1’s torso.
Sand poured from Super #1’s body.
I bit my lip anxiously.
“The core better not get damaged….”
Super #1’s current form had my flesh-and-blood core at its heart, bulked up with attached sand.
If that core got pierced, Super #1 was done for.
All the training from the past few days would be lost.
But Super #1 didn’t back down.
It charged even with the hole in it, grabbing onto the enemy.
#1 didn’t miss the opening. It rushed in from the side, stabbing its spear into the foe’s head.
“Keh….”
The elf-treant hybrid let out a short scream and collapsed.
It was an easy fight, but tense for me.
“…Prioritize defense from now on.”
I said as I repaired Super #1’s wrecked body.
Super #1 was good as new in no time.
Ignoring my nagging, it seemed drunk on the thrill of victory.
The moment repairs finished, it was full of energy again.
Super #1 and #1 faced each other for an awkward high-five, then bounced around in place, unable to contain their joy.
“Jeez….”
I couldn’t help but smile at the sight.
Anyway, nothing stood in my way now.
Naturally, I decided to enter the ruin.
It’d be weirder if there wasn’t a hidden piece in a place like this.
“Wonder what’ll come out…. Skillbook? Item? Item would be nice.”
I stepped into the ancient temple, expectations high.
The ruin’s interior was shrouded in pitch blackness.
Darkness so thick I couldn’t see an inch ahead.
But the instant I entered.
The pendant around my neck glowed faintly green once more.
In response, the patterns carved into the walls and ceiling began lighting up one by one with blue light.
“Oh….”
I let out an involuntary exclamation.
The darkness lifted, revealing the ruin’s true form at last.
Gigantic murals covered the walls.
I felt like I’d stepped into a museum.
“These are usually no-photo zones.”
I muttered as I pulled out my phone.
I snapped pictures of the murals with the flash on.
Couldn’t just look at treasures like these and move on.
I was tempted to leave a Korean scribble in the corner, but held back.
There were four murals in total.
The first depicted a magnificent World Tree shining brilliantly.
Beneath it, countless elves lived in peace.
Elves with kind, beautiful faces.
From the second mural, the mood shifted completely.
A black tower rose from the earth.
Affected by it, the once-radiant World Tree withered rapidly.
The tree turned black, and the lush forest began morphing into jungle and swamp under poisonous miasma.
The elves gazed at the sky, wailing in agony and despair.
The third mural showed division.
Beneath the withering World Tree, the elves split into two groups.
One side’s skin turned pitch-black as they fell to corruption.
The Dark Elves I knew.
They aimed weapons at their unchanged kin.
The final fourth mural showed the tale’s end.
The unchanged elves lay fallen, bleeding.
The World Tree had turned completely black, a tree of calamity devoid of any life force.
Amid it all, a few surviving elves extracted something from the tree’s heart.
A small seed.
I recognized it instantly.
The World Tree seed floating above my head.
They cradled it preciously, turning their backs on their ruined homeland and departing far away.
All the puzzle pieces fell into place.
This was the origin of the Dark Elves.
The tower appeared, corrupting their home and god, the World Tree.
Some succumbed to the corruption, others resisted to the end.
The resisters fled with the seed, leaving the rest to become today’s Dark Elves.
I realized why the Dark Elves had ambushed me.
“They only showed up for me because of this seed?”
This forest was originally their land, and the seed their last hope.
But sentimentality lasted only a moment.
I snapped back to reality.
“That’s that, and this is this.”
I began ransacking the ruin thoroughly.
No way a spot like this had just murals and nothing else.
There had to be a hidden item or skillbook somewhere.
“What the—why’s there nothing?”
But after searching for a while, I found zilch.
I even mobilized Super #1 and #1 to comb every corner.
Every brick crevice, under dust-covered altars.
But really, nothing.
No way, right?
A unique place like this should have a legendary item, no?
That’s how it always was in games.
Oh yeah. Games?
“Ah, right—these places always cough up something if you smash ’em….”
I clapped my hands in belated realization.
I started using Erosion.
Carefully turning the walls to sand.
A sort of excavation.
But the result was the same.
Still nothing.
“Seriously nothing?”
By now, the ruin was mostly pulverized by my hand.
The beautiful murals had long since vanished.
Screw it. Sad history of long-dead elves.
It’s not like the tower’s elves were real anyway….
That’s when I’d turned the entire cliff—including the ruin—to sand.
My body was suddenly enveloped in light.
The familiar floating sensation, being forcibly ejected from the tower.
And right on cue, the clear message appeared.
[Tower Floor 19 (EXTREME) Cleared.]
[First Clear Reward…]
“Heavens…!!”
I screamed my injustice at the empty air.
Unable to hold back my rage, the moment I got home, I booted up my computer.
And immediately logged into the Mage Gallery to vent about the day.
[Title: No way there’s no hidden piece in a place like that, right?]
Author: Anon (H33.333)
Found some ancient ruin on 19F.
(Mural photos.jpg)
This screams hidden piece, doesn’t it no matter how you look?
But nada. Nothing.
Ugh, I’m so pissed I could spit venom.
The Mage Gallery users reacted with disbelief at my grievance post.
└ Magic is Firepower: Dude, the murals are a hidden piece…. No one’s found them before.
└ Pketchu: You think every floor drops an item? Lmao
Meanwhile, Fridge fixated on something irrelevant.
└ Fridge: Murals about Dark Elves?
└ Fridge: They show up on 30F too—why’s there a ruin here? What are the ones on 30F then?
└ Fridge: And the black tower appearing in the murals is super ominous.
I shot back curtly at her serious analysis.
└ Anon (H33.333): That’s not important. No point overthinking what we can’t know. I don’t sweat that stuff.
└ Anon (H33.333): The important thing is no hidden piece for me to brag about on Hunter Gallery….
└ Anon (H33.333): Can’t even flex these murals there. So unfair.
└ Fridge: Wait, so you’re not mad about missing an item or skillbook—you’re mad you lost a chance to brag?
└ Magic is Firepower: Why’s that the mad part?
The mages reacted like it was the dumbest thing ever.
Why couldn’t they get it?
Pketchu, you’ll understand me, right?
But even my expectations there were betrayed.
└ Pketchu: Greed’s just oozing outta you. Bet you’ll snag some weird shit solo on 20F tomorrow too.
“Tch….”
Couldn’t argue—it was spot on.
Anyway, 20F.
The day I’d officially register as a hunter was right around the corner.