Chapter 282
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 282
Chapter Title: Lesson 55. Heart of the Tower - 2
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After taking down a flock of birds massive enough to fill two or three rooms,
Lucelle leisurely scanned the ground below while flying through the sky using her tail.
"It looks like that cursed flock is dragging this entire vast room into ruin. I feel like we've seen a room like this before."
"There aren't that many factors capable of dragging a world to destruction. War, plague, curses, or maybe a monster wave or something like that."
Laying them out like this, it adds up to quite a few.
But Ban Yu-won, who in less than a year had experienced numerous worlds both inside the Tower and in other dimensions, had directly encountered most of those destructive elements.
...Actually, on second thought, intact dimensions might have been rarer.
―Whirrr
Tike, whom he'd sent out ahead of time, pinpointed the area dense with humans and transmitted the info mentally to Ban Yu-won.
Lilith, receiving it as well, banked the fighter sharply, descending at an angle toward the ground.
"Follow me. Let's head down for now."
"Yes!"
"Ugh, dealing with NPCs again? I wish we could just hunt monsters on our own and move on..."
Lucelle followed him down obediently, but As Light guessed his intentions and made a face like she'd rather not.
That was probably because, unlike the other Rebellion members, she tended to empathize deeply with the Tower's NPCs.
Ever since entering the Tower—even when her body had been possessed by an ancestral spirit—she'd treated the NPCs like real people and looked out for them.
But now, gradually realizing that climbers' involvement with NPCs more often led to their deaths than their salvation, she wanted to avoid them.
"Huh?"
However, as the ground drew nearer, her expression began to change.
Ban Yu-won, sharing Tike's view and confirming the humans below, realized the reason right away.
"It's the Savior!"
"The Savior has come to rescue us once more!"
By sheer coincidence, the NPCs who had survived to the end of the previous chain room were here.
They were the inhabitants of the world where the constellations had built a tower mimicking Babel Tower.
The Tower had directly punished that world, collapsing the tower and stripping the constellations of their ability to interfere, leaving the few remaining humans to face inevitable doom.
That had all happened in the outside dimension in the past, but the NPCs left in this isolated fragment inside the Tower had endured the recreated apocalypse in the trick room—thanks to Rebellion's help—and survived.
'I figured the chain room was done since we hadn't run into them again.'
No, there really wouldn't be any more rooms tied to that world.
Ban Yu-won's group had already absorbed the Tower's lessons there fully. Moreover, the cursed flock they'd encountered earlier bore traces of the constellations.
This room was clearly based on a different world from the previous chain room.
"Heavens, it really is our Savior!"
"Savior! You've descended once more for our sake!"
Yet the people below, arms outstretched toward the descending group, tears of joy streaming down their faces in welcome—they were unmistakably the NPCs from that prior trick room, and they seemed to retain their memories intact.
That meant... after the room had served its purpose and vanished, the Tower had plucked them out and relocated them to this new stage, deliberately putting them in contact with the climbers they'd met before: Rebellion.
Ban Yu-won instinctively knew his long-held "NPC recycling theory" had hit the mark.
How climbers treated the NPCs they encountered could influence later climbs.
'Of course, most students wouldn't care even if they knew.'
NPCs were still just NPCs. Compared to the elite students cherry-picked from across dimensions, they were like humans to mayflies.
Whether mayflies followed or opposed humans, what impact could it have?
If they didn't get annoying buzzing around and swatted, that was good enough.
Honestly, even Ban Yu-won had only treated them differently because he suspected it might affect the settlements and rewards in Eden. He didn't think they could significantly impact his group.
"You're alive!"
But As Light, who empathized deeply with NPCs, reacted with genuine joy upon seeing them—memories of that time still vivid, even if she hadn't been in control of her body.
She accelerated, landing lightly on the ground, then approached them with a bright smile.
They, however, didn't share her emotions and tilted their heads in confusion.
"Hmm... Are you part of the Savior's group too?"
"Come to think of it, there was someone with a similar vibe."
"What are you talking about? I saved your lives— Oh."
As Light let out a groan, realizing a beat too late what she looked like now.
It was only natural they didn't recognize her. Back then, she'd been in the closest thing to a "feminine" form she'd ever had in her life.
Now, having reclaimed her true self—embarrassing as it was to say it herself—she was a blooming beauty!
"Ahem, can't be helped if you don't recognize me. I didn't expect to turn out this pretty myself..."
"......"
"W-What, Lucelle? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Nothing at all."
Around then, Ban Yu-won and Dokgo Yeon disembarked from the fighter and landed.
The NPCs, flustered by As Light's approach, brightened up again upon seeing Lilith—now a small doll—land lightly on Ban Yu-won's shoulder after transforming from the fighter.
Lilith, freely shifting between tanks and other vehicles, had clearly left a strong impression in their memories.
"It really is the Savior!"
"It's been a while. But this isn't your original world."
"When we came to, we were here! P-Please come with us for now. This area's under the erosion's influence—it's dangerous."
Erosion—probably referring to those cursed things.
Ban Yu-won, having fought plenty in the sky, reviewed the concepts of curse and fusion piled up in his Code Core by the thousands as he followed them with his group.
Crackle—the sound of the candle flame seemed eerily ominous, making As Light shudder and cling to Ban Yu-won.
Lucelle had been like that for a while already, while Dokgo Yeon stood a step apart, wearing a pitying expression.
The hideout where the NPCs were holed up was cramped and dim, reflecting the world's dire state.
"So those curses swarming outside are what you call erosion?"
"From the moment we awoke in this world, more than half of it was already eroded."
"Explain what the erosion is first. Seems like a kind of curse."
"According to the natives, it's the result of a constellation going berserk."
The NPCs who'd led them to the hideout hurriedly explained the world's situation, as if being pursued.
This world had two great powers that had clashed endlessly throughout history, each backed by a patron constellation.
At this point, Ban Yu-won already felt like he knew the whole story, but he listened quietly to the rest.
"The war escalated until the two constellations even descended in person."
Constellations had descended? Ban Yu-won's ears perked up.
If traces remained here, he might extract heaps of substantial rare concepts from their descent bodies!
But since it was just history from this dimension, whether it persisted in this Tower-transferred fragment was uncertain—so he tamped down his expectations.
"In the end, with no way to stop the war on their own, the humans sought outside aid."
"From a higher dimension?"
"Exactly."
Yeah, figures.
Lately, Ban Yu-won suspected most calamities in dimensions stemmed from higher-dimensional meddling.
"We don't know which dimension they appealed to. But as a result, the two guardian constellations retreated, and the descent bodies they left behind went berserk, unleashing disaster on the world. That's the erosion."
"They sought aid from a higher dimension, the constellations retreated, and the descent bodies rampaged..."
When Ban Yu-won gave a pointed look, wanting details on the rampage, one of them stepped out to fetch a native survivor.
Ban Yu-won excused himself to the remaining NPCs and erected a barrier isolating them from his group.
Then, grinning, he said,
"This place might be a goldmine."
"I figured you'd say something like that."
Dokgo Yeon let out a small smile at his words—his perspective on the Tower worlds apart from typical Union students.
"No, Yeon, hear me out seriously. I've thought this since we first hit that cursed flock—they resemble the chimera balls we fought in space."
Chimera balls, monsters from the abandoned dimension.
They absorbed and fused everything, leading to ultimate destruction. Given the Chancellor calling it an "experimented dimension," they seemed tied to Union or Babel Tower.
Which meant this place might be another "experimented dimension" on the brink.
"The core concepts from chimera balls are fusion and collapse, which we used to complete Senior Shati's authority. Substantial concepts, in other words."
Chimera balls were life-risking foes, but if he could harvest those concepts here in the Tower, it'd be a huge gain.
The ones they'd seen lacked the collapse concept—either incomplete or an upgrade over chimera balls...
Ransacking their lair would reveal how the experiments here were conducted.
"What a coincidence."
Dokgo Yeon looked displeased.
"Why does the Tower always show us worlds on the verge of destruction like this? A warning? It's getting on my nerves."
"Heh, we still don't know how the Tower's connected to these dimensions."
"Hmmm, maybe..."
Dokgo Yeon's vague hostility toward the Tower persisted.
Considering her dimension's isolation from others and Diabolo's Demon King acting like he knew her world's unique martial arts, its roots made sense.
'Her world had some nasty history with other dimensions—something big enough that most higher ones knew but hushed up.'
Yet her "martial realm" had protected it.
Not for nothing was it now rated Ex-1, beyond standard grades.
If he visited her dimension this break... would she explain?
"W-Why are you staring like that?"
Lost in thoughts of her world, his gaze had drifted to her unwittingly.
She flushed unnecessarily, stepping back, and said something utterly unrelated.
"Don't look at me like that—I have no intention of clinging to you in a place like this. Unlike those two beasts in heat regardless of time or place."
"H-Heat?! That's not it?!"
As Light, preemptively guilty, hurriedly released Ban Yu-won's arm and protested.
"Oh my, Dokgo Yeon. Does that mean at the right time and place..."
Lucelle smirked at the slip—but before she could claw out, the hideout entrance burst open, revealing a stranger.
"S-Save—! The erosion has finally reached even here—!"
The next instant, he vanished, buried under the black flock blotting the sky.
Ban Yu-won watched as every concept in the NPC's body fused into curses, merging into the flock—evoking Hitchcock's masterpiece and a certain Japanese grail tale—but first deployed his barrier to block the curse wave.
―At last, we meet again, my beloved child!
And sensing the aura of a constellation he'd heard before—possibly tied to this dimension's "experiment"—he let out a quiet sigh.