Hellfire in the Elevator
The elevator hummed with a loud mechanical whine as it poured out light.
The device the system called a magitech station revealed a majestic form, every last trace of age and ruin scrubbed clean away.
“Woooow!”
Ciel’s eyes sparkled at the wondrous sight.
Do-yun kept his own excitement carefully hidden, but he felt the same thrill she did.
How much time can I cut with this?
Yet the only thing that greeted him when he stepped quickly onto the platform was a control panel with a single glowing stone set into it.
No up button. No down button. Nothing that even suggested open or close.
He had no idea how the thing was supposed to work.
Ciel put her hand on this earlier, didn’t she?
The moment Do-yun laid his palm on the only distinctive stone, a complex magic circle bloomed into the air, weaving itself through empty space.
He glanced sideways on a hopeful impulse and met only Ciel’s equally blank stare.
Do-yun let out a small sigh and looked forward again. An indignant Ciel immediately began poking his arm.
“Doyun-nim! Just because I’m a fairy doesn’t mean I can do everything, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He hadn’t planned to blame her for it. Repairing and riding an elevator was clearly a deviation from any normal progression. Even a fairy wouldn’t have a manual for this situation.
“Hmm.”
Leaving Ciel to her own devices, Do-yun studied the magic circle more carefully. The overlapping geometric shapes were dense and difficult, yet scattered here and there were parts that felt almost intuitive—like the figure drawn with an upward-pointing arrow.
He pressed it experimentally. The circle remained utterly still. The elevator, of course, did not so much as tremble.
“There’s some other condition, then.”
He had even spent his Authority to get this far, and still had no idea how to use the thing. Looking down at the panel with open regret, he thought,
Does this mean I have to give up the Tower of Trials S-rank reward?
The Hall of Fame ranked challengers by the order they cleared the trials, so that part didn’t matter. Clear rank inside the Tower of Trials, however, was absolute. The standard for S-rank was reaching the summit within three hours. Do-yun had already burned a considerable amount of that time dealing with Grham.
Without the elevator, shaving enough time is impossible.
To make matters worse, he could still run into another Repechage participant on the way up. Do-yun clicked his tongue and lowered his hand. It was a shame, but the S-rank reward would have to be abandoned.
Still, it wasn’t a pure loss. He had already decided to claim something else in place of the Tower of Trials reward.
The rewards for eliminating Repechage participants.
Facing veteran challengers would not be easy, but the payout would be just as sweet.
Splash.
A faint water-like sound brushed Do-yun’s ear. He froze mid-motion and poured every scrap of focus into his hearing.
A Repechage participant?
He shook the thought away at once. The system window had made their role clear: defend the passage assigned to them. They would not casually abandon their posts. That left two possibilities—an experimental subject freed from the Magic Tower’s prison, or another challenger who had entered after the effect of Do-yun’s early entry ticket expired.
“Ciel. Can you get a look at their appearance for me?”
“Leave it to me!”
Ciel answered with blazing enthusiasm. Invisible to anyone else, she was perfect for one-sided reconnaissance. She fluttered off and called back in a loud voice from farther down the passage.
“A woman wearing a star-shaped pointed hat! She’s in a navy-blue robe!”
An outfit he half-remembered from a fleeting glimpse on the 0th floor.
No need to face a mage type head-on.
Do-yun silenced his footsteps and melted into the darkness. Not long after, the figure came into view.
“Haa… haa…”
She looked as though she had just finished a grueling fight. The robed woman leaned heavily on her staff, gasping for breath.
What? She didn’t come through the passage where I took down Grham?
Do-yun tilted his head. There was more than one route leading here, so a mid-path battle with another Repechage participant was entirely possible—yet that should have made it impossible for her to arrive this quickly.
“Huh? Why is the station running?”
Still leaning on her staff and advancing one laborious step at a time, the woman stared in open confusion at the elevator pouring out brilliant light. It was something that had never appeared on the ordinary 7th floor; her shock was only natural.
And that was precisely the opening Do-yun had been waiting for.
Shadow Step (F)
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat and opened them again. Blonde hair was already fluttering right in front of his face. Do-yun swung without the slightest hesitation.
“Kh—!”
She must have sensed something wrong; her hand moved at once. But she had just come from a hard fight, and the glowing elevator had stolen half her attention. Mana gathered into the shape of a small shield—yet Do-yun’s blade reached her throat first.
Lily uses Shield (F)
The mana barrier bloomed a beat too late. Lily froze exactly as she was, hand still half-raised, feeling the cold edge of steel against her neck.
“If I sense even a hint of mana, I cut.”
“Understood.”
Even with a slip that could open a fatal wound, her tone stayed remarkably level.
“More importantly—did you start that station?”
Her eyes locked onto the grandly glowing platform. The next instant she was already striding toward it.
Wait—what?
There was still a sword at her throat. Her utterly unhesitating movement made Do-yun flinch and shift the blade instead.
“You weren’t planning to kill me anyway, were you?”
If he hadn’t moved the sword, half her neck would have been sliced open—yet Lily only offered a calm, smiling glance. Momentarily overpowered by her sheer nerve, Do-yun found nothing to say. Lily’s long robe flared as she set her hand on the magic circle.
“From the looks of it you don’t know how to work the station properly. Mind if I give it a try?”
She looked up as if seeking permission. Do-yun nodded reluctantly.
“Fine.”
He disliked surrendering the initiative, but Absolute Sight would let him see through any underhanded move. The second she tried an attack spell, the sword would fall.
“Transportation inside the Magic Tower always requires personal authentication.”
Lily spoke while her fingers danced across the circle. The same formations that had ignored Do-yun completely now answered her gestures like obedient lambs.
“It’s to keep black mages from reaching the highest floors.”
At last the circles fused into one brilliant whole; the upward arrow lit. She pressed it. The elevator that had refused to move for Do-yun now rose smoothly. Lily turned a provocative smile on him.
“Well? I can teach you things you don’t know.”
“Ha. Aren’t you a little too confident?”
Do-yun gave the hilt still in his grip a slight twist. That kind of boldness was hard to believe with steel resting on her throat.
“If you’d meant to kill me, you would have taken my head in one stroke. The fact that you didn’t means I’m useful.”
The 7th floor’s backdrop was the Magic Tower. He had already expected a mage-dressed challenger to know something—he just hadn’t expected her to handle the facilities this well.
She knows this place as thoroughly as that old man on the 6th floor.
There were any number of questions he wanted to ask. Do-yun opened his mouth, but Lily spoke first.
“I have only one condition. We find the Magic Tower Master’s room hidden on the top floor—together.”
“The Magic Tower Master’s room?”
Do-yun furrowed his brows as though the term were unfamiliar, yet inwardly he was startled. It was a hidden piece he already knew. Like the summit of the 6th floor where he had obtained Sun Swordsmanship, it was infamous for offering almost nothing relative to the difficulty of locating it.
Is something actually hidden there after all?
He might claim a new opportunity the way he had claimed Sun Swordsmanship. Still, he kept that calculation off his face and made his refusal plain.
“Do you really think you’re in a position to set conditions?”
The blade slipped a fraction and drew a thin red line across Lily’s skin. A single thread of blood ran down the mage’s slender neck.
“I do.”
She did not so much as blink. Instead she casually tapped the magic stone at the center of the panel.
“Stopping the station right now wouldn’t be convenient for you either.”
A taut silence stretched while each weighed the other’s intent. In the end Do-yun was the first to lower his sword.
“All right. How do you plan to split the rewards, then?”
Lily answered with an ambiguous smile.
“We’ll decide that after we find the Magic Tower Master’s room… ‘depending on the situation.’”
Look at this one.
Do-yun smiled at her transparent scheme. Once the room was found she would stab him in the back without a second thought.
Does she think I’ve only dealt with plunderers once or twice?
She was buying time to recover from her injuries while they “searched.” Right now her mana looked completely spent, but after enough wasted minutes it would begin to return. The moment an opening appeared she would seize every reward and vanish.
Will things really go the way you hope?
The formula for locating hidden pieces was already engraved in Do-yun’s mind. Without exaggeration he could find it in ten minutes. He wondered whether Lily’s shamelessly innocent expression would still be intact then.
Rumble.
Conversation died, leaving only the rattle of the platform. Their upward speed was not particularly fast, yet when he considered the distant monster cries leaking through the walls, the ride felt almost luxurious. How long would the stairs have taken if he’d had to fight every last one of them?
BOOM!
He was still estimating height and remaining time when a tremendous impact shook the entire elevator.
“What the—!”
Do-yun instinctively kept his balance and swept the surroundings. At first glance nothing seemed wrong. Focus revealed the difference.
The elevator’s climb just slowed noticeably.
Which meant the weight it had to carry had suddenly increased.
He snapped his head up. Sure enough, the center of the ceiling was caved inward. Something—or someone—outside was trying to smash the elevator open by force.
BOOM!
A second impact. The crack in the ceiling widened further. Do-yun swung the tip of his sword away from Lily’s throat and aimed it at the roof. That was the greater threat now.
“Hoo…”
He held even his breath and stared into the fracture. He had been told no monsters existed inside the elevator shaft. If a variable like this still appeared, only one explanation remained.
Another Repechage participant.
Crack.
The stressed ceiling finally split wide. A long iron rod thrust through the gap. At a casual glance it might have been mistaken for some elevator component, but Do-yun knew exactly what it was.
“This fucking shit! It’s a flamethrower!”
The silver barrel began to glow cherry-red. High heat bloomed outward; the metal groaned as it expanded.
WHOOOOSH!
A sound closer to an explosion than a simple roar filled the car, and flames that looked as though they had clawed their way out of hell flooded the elevator’s interior.