Marks of the Spirits
He swung his sword in a wide arc and severed the tree roots.
There was no need to use a skill. The weapon’s raw attack power was so high that simply brushing the blade against them was enough—the roots were chopped apart in thick chunks.
Thud. Crash.
The severed pieces slammed into the ground with heavy sounds. Yet almost at once the cut surfaces began to bubble and seethe, and new roots sprouted in the blink of an eye, as though time itself had been fast-forwarded.
“What kind of regeneration is this?”
Do-yun recoiled and swung several more times, but the roots mended their wounds almost instantly. Worse, a single root would split into two, and with every passing second more of them writhed and twisted around him.
“Don’t tell me this is the type that multiplies the more you cut it.”
Petty wounds meant nothing. The only solution was to smash them so thoroughly that regeneration itself became impossible.
Bash (F)
A faint light gathered at the tip of Do-yun’s sword. The roots instinctively flinched and tried to draw back, but his blade was already faster.
KWA-AAAANG!
A violent shockwave raced along root after root; countless of them exploded mid-air and shattered into fragments no larger than a fist. Those pieces no longer regenerated.
The remaining roots froze. As if some intelligence still lingered within them, they stopped attacking and retreated.
“Who said I was letting you leave?”
Do-yun had no intention of watching them withdraw in peace. If they had struck first, they should have been prepared to be torn out by the roots.
He kicked off the ground and sprinted forward. For all their thrashing, they were still only tree roots; their speed was laughable compared to his full dash.
Is that the main body?
He batted aside every root that tried to block his path and soon found a thick trunk that looked like the core. No expression could be read on the wood, yet the frantic writhing of the nearby roots conveyed the tree’s desperation clearly enough.
“No use, you bastard.”
Still under the effect of Bash, he swung. The blade never even touched them, yet the sheer wind pressure hurled the surrounding roots aside. A clear path opened straight to the trunk. Do-yun closed the distance in a heartbeat and cut; the tree toppled, split cleanly in two.
You have slain a Corrupted Ent.
You have acquired 13p.
The system alert revealed the enemy’s name. The roots had not been some natural phenomenon; they were a type of monster.
“I’ve never heard of monsters appearing on the eighth floor of the Tower of Trials.”
He was already tired of making comparisons.
So this eighth floor has monsters hidden all over the place?
At least the points were decent. He had no idea how the Hall of Fame rankings would shake out, but an S-rank clear back in the Tower of Trials was already in the bag.
“Still… ‘corrupted,’ huh.”
Do-yun turned the wording of the alert over in his mind. An Ent was a tree monster that attacked living things through its roots. Even without corruption it was hardly a friendly creature. Why bother adding the modifier when it was a monster either way?
“Maybe because it regenerated twice as fast when I cut it.”
Wondering whether a source of corruption might be nearby, he searched the area and soon found a rock that radiated an ominous aura.
“Here it is.”
The stone sat buried in the soil where the Ent had taken root. Every time black, fog-like miasma rolled off it, nearby plants twitched and writhed. The sight was pure nightmare fuel, yet Do-yun already knew exactly what the rock was.
“A Mana Stone, just as I thought.”
One of the chief culprits that, together with the gates, were destroying the world. He had never expected to find a seed of evil like this here. Leaving it alone would only increase the chance of surrounding plants mutating into monsters, so he drove his sword straight through it without hesitation.
You have destroyed the Source of Contamination.
You have acquired 53p.
The suspicious aura around the Mana Stone faded, and the point-acquisition notice floated before his eyes. An unexpected windfall.
“Are these Mana Stones scattered all across the eighth floor?”
Unlike the Tower of Trials, where points came mainly from exploring new phenomena, the Tower of Ascension looked as though it would demand far more combat. That was not good news. Even setting aside the ruined chance of peacefully hunting for hidden pieces, the real question was whether he could survive the full forty-eight hours at all.
Mana Stones don’t only mutate plants and animals.
Nearby living things were affected first, but over time the very ground in which a stone was embedded began to rot. The soil blackened, water turned foul, and even the air grew toxic. Once it reached that stage there was no hope. Perfectly ordinary objects twisted into grotesque shapes the moment they touched a contaminated zone.
“Back on Earth there were plenty of regions we simply had to abandon because of Mana Stones.”
Of course things would not grow that extreme in only forty-eight hours, but it was still going to make survival harder. If he did not thin out the stones while scouting, the contaminated areas could spread beyond control.
“Ah, whatever.”
Do-yun shook his head hard, scattering the thoughts that were growing too complicated.
There are other challengers here. It’ll work out somehow.
Irresponsibly put, this was not even his world. Once the eighth-floor mission ended he would never see the place again. Whether it became overrun by monsters or not was none of his business.
For now he decided to return to the lake he had not been able to examine properly. The sudden battle had forced him off course, but his original goal was to befriend the spirits that remained at the lake.
Even after the brawl with a living tree, the still lake continued to glow with a mysterious light.
Why are they so far out?
The will-o’-the-wisps he needed to contact, however, were flickering in the very center of the lake, far from the shore. Before the Ent appeared they had drifted closer; the black aura pouring from the roots must have frightened them off.
Reaching them like this will take forever.
Do-yun planted his sword nearby and sank into thought. Luring the spirits this way looked full of headaches.
Even if I wait ages, another monster will just show up and ruin everything.
He considered patrolling the area and wiping out every monster, but the lake was simply too large. Even then, something might slip past. He could end up exhausted with nothing to show for it.
“Ciel, do you know anything about spirits?”
He glanced at the fairy beside him. Spirits and fairies—if you traced their origins, they were practically cousins.
“Hmm… what if we approach them first?”
“Rejected.”
That was exactly why Jeong Se-ah had failed. Instead of waiting for the spirits to come to shore, she had simply swam out to the center. A spirit never closed the distance with anyone it had not chosen first.
“Then… maybe show them something interesting?”
Ciel clutched her head, fretting, then offered another idea. Do-yun had been about to retort that that was precisely why he had brought a sword imbued with spirit affinity, but her choice of words sparked a new thought.
Something interesting, huh.
Simply bringing an intriguing object was not enough. He needed a show that would seize the spirits’ attention at once.
My target is a flame spirit.
Among all the elemental spirits, he had chosen flame for a simple reason: it should help raise his proficiency with Sun Swordsmanship. And there was no need to wonder what would catch a flame spirit’s interest.
Scorching Sword (C)
Blazing mana raced along the blade. Crimson light flared, swallowing the surrounding darkness in an instant and announcing its presence as though a tiny sun had been born right there.
“Whoa!”
He had started the display to draw the spirits’ eyes, yet Ciel was the one who looked more excited.
“It’s a fireworks show! Fireworks!”
Limited mana soon forced Scorching Sword to fade, but the action had not been wasted. In that short time a single reddish will-o’-the-wisp had begun drifting toward him.
“That’s it. Come here.”
Whenever his mana recovered he cast Scorching Sword again, patiently baiting the flame spirit. At last he could study it up close. He clenched his fist against the urge to reach out at once—and a voice slammed directly into his mind.
— You. Who?
Judging by the situation, it could only be the spirit before him. Do-yun was startled all the same; he had believed only upper-rank spirits or higher could communicate this way.
The spirit flickered insistently, as if pressing for an answer, so he quickly offered something it might find satisfactory.
“Someone who came to solve this forest’s problems.”
A forest thick with Mana Stones and monsters, and spirits huddled together on a lake as if fleeing them. The situation was obvious at a glance.
The moment the words left his mouth, a storm of raw emotion crashed through his mind. Scenes he had never lived unspooled like a film: spirits living in peaceful days; then black stones raining from the sky like hail; the stones pouring out dark energy that twisted the beloved forest into a den of evil.
— Can. Fix this?
The spirit’s tone was skeptical. This lake had never been their original home; they had simply retreated and retreated until they ended up here.
“I’ll do what I can.”
Completely purifying land that was already fully contaminated was impossible. Even a purification potion crafted by a returnee who had pushed alchemy to its limits, even a saintess pouring out every last drop of holy power— the best anyone could manage was to halt the spread.
But protecting their final sanctuary… that much should be possible.
This lake was the last resting place of the spirits remaining in this world. Guarding this tiny haven was within reach.
— I’ll. Watch.
The red will-o’-the-wisp sank into the back of Do-yun’s hand.
It felt exactly like accepting a quest in a game. The condition was to make the eighth-floor environment safe enough to satisfy the spirits within the time limit. Succeed, and a formal contract would become possible.
“Doyun-nim? Could you look over there for a second?”
Do-yun had been staring curiously at the crimson mark on the back of his hand when Ciel’s trembling voice made him raise his head.
“Tree roots again? I’ll cut those in a single—”
He started to shout with confidence, then saw the scene before him and, like Ciel, lost every word.
The entire lake glittered with multicolored light. Countless will-o’-the-wisps were flaring all at once, and every one of those lights was racing straight toward him.
“Wait—hold on!”
Startled, Do-yun raised a hand as if to stop them, but the spirits had abandoned all their earlier caution and closed in at terrifying speed.
Why are they doing this?
Only one thing had changed: a flame spirit now resided on the back of his hand. Did they think he had kidnapped it?
“This was a mutual agreement!”
He shouted in protest, yet the spirits never slowed. A green will-o’-the-wisp shot toward his forehead. Do-yun squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for a damage notification.
The system message that appeared a moment later was completely different.<|eos|>