Chapter 30

Chapter 30. Tower - Escort (3)

“You two cross the bridge first.”

“But...!”

When Lee Soo-young hesitated, I shouted,

“I have a plan, so hurry!”

At my shout, the wolves reacted and charged at me.

I cut down the neck of the first wolf that rushed in, then deliberately let the second wolf, which came at me with its jaws open, bite down on my left arm guard. After that, I blocked the third wolf charging in to ram me with its horns using the second wolf.

“Kieek!”

The wolf rammed by its comrade’s horns groaned in pain, but once it had bitten down on my left bracer, it did not let go.

I cut off the third wolf’s neck, then immediately cut off the second wolf’s neck as well.

It had bitten down so hard that teeth marks were left on the solid metal guard.

When three wolves died in an instant, the other wolves grew wary of me and did not rush in recklessly.

In the meantime, Lee Soo-young and Milio had crossed the suspension bridge.

“Oppa! We’re across!”

“Wait just a little!”

When the bull-sized wolf that seemed to be the leader growled and pressured its subordinates, the subordinate wolves charged all at once.

I cut the wolves down with my sword, but with them rushing in all at once, gaps inevitably appeared.

“Yelp!”

“Kiiing!”

Small Water Orb Bullets struck precisely into the eyes of the wolves that charged in through those gaps, and the wolves lost their balance in midair.

Lee Soo-young had covered me with her slime.

I cut down those unbalanced wolves and ran onto the suspension bridge.

The wolves leaped onto the bridge to keep from losing me.

“Huh? It’s not snapping? Then I’ll have to snap it myself.”

While running across the suspension bridge, I stopped and swung my one-handed sword, deliberately cutting the old rope.

“Kyaa! Oppa!”

As the bridge snapped, five or six wolves fell, but I grabbed the rope with my left arm and reached the cliff wall on the other side of the ravine.

I greatly strengthened my physical ability with internal energy, wedged both legs into the uneven cracks of the cliff, grabbed the rope, and climbed up quickly.

When I had almost climbed up, Lee Soo-young and Milio grabbed me and pulled me up.

“Huff! Huff! I thought I was going to die.”

As I breathed roughly, Lee Soo-young scolded me for my reckless action.

“That was really dangerous!”

“Haha, it’s fine as long as I didn’t die.”

In truth, even if I had died, it would not have been a major problem.

Milio looked at me as if wondering whether all Climbers were this reckless.

“The village people can repair that bridge themselves.”

“Hahaha, I’ll probably get scolded later. Still, repairing a bridge is cheaper than a life, so it should be fine.”

“But you said that monster wolf doesn’t leave the center of the forest....”

Just as I was about to ask why it was here, I heard something kick off from the other side of the ravine.

The wolf was flying through the sky.

The horned monster wolf leaped across the ravine, covering a distance of more than ten meters.

SCRAPE SCRAPE SCRAPE!

Of course, it had been close, and it barely avoided falling by scraping the ravine wall with its hind legs, but in any case, it had jumped across that wide distance.

“Damn it. If you’re a wolf, then act like a wolf and don’t fly through the sky.”

I checked my remaining internal energy and raised my sword.

I had used about one-third of my internal energy while killing the wolves.

If this had been the reincarnation clone’s body, I would have had more internal energy and higher efficiency, so there would have been almost no consumption.

But this was an adult body with its muscles and bones already stiffened, so its internal energy efficiency was not good either.

There was a reason Si-woo had tried to maintain my body’s condition by performing Meridian-Acupoint Circulation on me from the time I was a newborn.

When Meridian-Acupoint Circulation was performed right after birth, it prevented the Conception Vessel and Governing Vessel from closing thickly, improving internal energy circulation and efficiency.

That was why Meridian-Acupoint Circulation performed in childhood was also called Hair-Shedding and Marrow-Cleansing.

Tsk. If I could absorb the reincarnation clone, this efficiency problem could be solved at once.

However, that was a problem I could not solve until I obtained an ability that could deal with the clone’s age issue, or until I waited for the reincarnation clone to grow older.

But there was a way to supplement it immediately.

My Strength and Stamina were 9.

In martial arts, the lower the realm, the more prominent the difference in physical ability became.

I bought “Strength Growth Elixir 1” and “Stamina Growth Elixir 1” from the Tower Shop and downed them.

The effect of Growth Elixir 1 was to increase a stat by 1 when that stat was below 10.

Each time I bought one, the price rose by ten times, but for now, this was the only way to strengthen myself quickly.

I had absolutely awful talent in the Tower.

The only reason my Strength had been able to rise from 8 to 9 near the start of the Tower was probably because my Strength had been “8.9999,” and after absorbing “0.0001,” it rose to “9.”

As my Strength and Stamina became 10, vitality circulated through my entire body.

I had grown a whole 10 percent stronger.

It was not simply that my physical ability had grown 10 percent stronger.

The efficiency of physical strengthening with internal energy had also increased by 10 percent.

This was why martial arts placed such importance on physical training.

The bull-sized horned monster wolf was most wary of me and charged at me first.

I also swung my sword toward the wolf.

I blocked the wolf’s claws, circled around the ground, and swung my sword, but the wolf quickly dodged and rammed me with its horns.

I blocked the horns with my left arm guard and grabbed them.

Then I tried to bring my sword down on the wolf’s head.

However, the wolf shook its head powerfully and sent me flying.

“Ugh!”

After rolling across the ground once, I immediately stood and tried to rush at the wolf.

“Oppa! Bitpung!”

At that moment, along with Lee Soo-young’s voice, a yellowish slime flew through the air toward the wolf.

I raised my left arm and blocked my view so I could not see Bitpung the slime.

The monster wolf rushed in with its jaws open, facing me head-on.

FLASH!

With a sound like a powerful flashbang going off, nothing around me was visible.

For about three seconds, even with my eyes closed, an intense light that felt as though it would burn my eyes illuminated the surroundings before disappearing. The monster wolf seemed to have lost its sight and writhed in pain.

Even I, who had closed my eyes and covered them with my arm, felt my eyes grow dry and strained, so the wolf that had seen Bitpung’s light head-on might truly have burned its optic nerves.

I swung my sword to cut the neck of the monster wolf that had lost its balance.

However, whether by instinct, or because it detected my position through hearing or smell, the monster wolf rolled its body and avoided my sword.

But it failed to dodge completely, and the monster wolf received a long cut from its neck to its flank.

“Grrrrrr!”

After being wounded by the humans it had looked down on, the monster wolf snarled viciously.

However, the monster wolf, now blinded and injured, was no longer a match for us.

When I charged toward the monster wolf, it hurriedly retreated a couple steps and dodged.

However, behind me, Lee Soo-young attacked the wolf by firing arrows and Water Orb Bullets.

Its large body, unable to dodge properly, instead became an easy target.

The places struck by Water Orb Bullets had their bones broken, and more than ten arrows turned it into a pincushion.

I swung my sword with all my strength through internal energy and cut the wolf’s neck.

Its neck was so thick that I could not cut it cleanly in two, but cutting its artery was not difficult.

With its neck cut, the wolf staggered, collapsed to the ground, and struggled.

However, not long after, it died from excessive blood loss.

My clothes were covered in wolf blood, but I sat down on the ground with a heavy THUD, relieved that the battle had ended.

“Soo-young, nice. If you weren’t here, that really could’ve been dangerous.”

“No. If it weren’t for you, oppa, I would’ve died without even escaping that wolf pack.”

Lee Soo-young and I high-fived.

When I checked the Tower Shop, unlike the other wolves, which had given 0.5 Points, the monster wolf hunt had given 2.5 Points.

Since the points were divided in half between Lee Soo-young and me, this monster wolf was worth 5 Points. In other words, it was a monster at around the 15th-floor level.

“Why did this monster crawl all the way out here?”

At my question, Milio guessed,

“Maybe it’s because it’s early spring right now and there isn’t enough food? Around this time of year, the wolves become vicious, so even the adults absolutely never enter the forest.”

You should’ve told us that beforehand, you damned brat.

Sigh. There was no point arguing about something that had already passed, so I ended it by giving Milio a single flick to the forehead.

“Taking the wolf corpse would be too much, so should we just take the magic stone?”

“Okay. I’d actually like to take the magic stones from those wolves over there too, but that’s impossible, right?”

“Impossible.”

Since the monster wolf was gone, the remnants would not be difficult to deal with, but to return there, we would have to go the long way around for quite a while.

I split open the monster wolf’s chest with my sword, and inside were a blue magic stone and a yellow ability stone.

“Oh! Is this a reward because it’s a boss mob?”

The magic stone was also incomparably larger than the Goblins’, which had only been the size of a pinky nail.

“An ability stone is the gem that lets you gain an ability, right? I heard those almost never drop!”

Lee Soo-young’s eyes also sparkled as she showed desire for it.

However, she soon shook her head to herself and said,

“Distribution should be proportional to contribution. You contributed more to the fight, oppa, so I think it’s right for you to take it. Honestly, if not for you, I think I would’ve died before we even crossed the ravine.”

At those words, I smiled faintly.

“Well, I agree with that too.”

Even in a raid party, the tank was a kind of noble.

In game raids, tanks were nobles because few people played them, since they were not fun. But in reality, they were nobles because they had to directly risk their lives and block attacks.

“But I shouldn’t just gobble it up. It wouldn’t have been an easy fight for me without you either, so let’s call the contribution six for me and four for you this time.”

I rose from my seat.

“We’ll identify it with an Appraisal Scroll and find out the ability name. If I think I need it, I’ll pay you its value in Shop Points. Conversely, if it’s an ability you need, you can pay me in Points, and if neither of us needs it, we’ll sell it and split the money six to four.”

Come to think of it, I had one ability stone I had obtained after catching the Hobgoblin too.

Did ability stones normally appear this often? Or was my luck just insane?

At my proposal, Lee Soo-young nodded.

“If you’ll do that, I’m happy with it!”

Lee Soo-young and I agreed on the distribution issue.

The wolf corpse was a shame, but it was too heavy, so we decided to leave it behind.

If I urgently needed money, it would be different, but I was not in a situation where I badly needed money, so there was no need to cling to it.

Ah, so this is why the Tower sells Credits cheaply for Shop Points.

It gives you breathing room so you don’t make foolish choices.

Thinking that, we left the forest.

When we left the forest, the few adults in the village were pacing around the village entrance, worried about Milio.

“You’re safe!”

“Sir! I got the herbs!”

Milio chattered away, partly out of relief that he had survived and partly out of a child’s desire to boast about his heroic tale.

Milio’s story was somewhat exaggerated, saying things like how he had proudly led the way, or that the bull-sized monster wolf had been as large as a house, but it was mostly true.

When they heard that the monster wolf had died, the villagers could not believe it, but when they saw me covered in blood, they were astonished.

“Milio, you should give your mother the medicine first.”

When I handed over the heavy sack containing the herbs, Milio nodded and ran home.

“Mom! Mom! I brought the herbs!”

The way he ran while calling for his mother was unmistakably that of a child.

The adults of the village thanked us and became flustered, saying they did not know how to repay this grace.

I told them I had not done it because I wanted payment, then asked if they could give us water to wash with.

The blood on my clothes would have to be washed later with a special detergent, but I wanted to wash my hands and face right away.

Lee Soo-young seemed to feel the same way, because she nodded violently.

After the villagers boiled water for us, we washed roughly and went to Milio’s house. By then, they had already fed his mother medicine made by squeezing juice from the herbs, and her fever had gone down somewhat.

“Thank you! Thank you! With this, I think Mom can hold on until Father comes back!”

“Yeah, that’s a relief.”

Leaving Milio, who thanked us behind, I went to the 11th-floor crystal.

When I checked the time, nearly four hours had passed since we entered the forest.

Unlike the 10th floor, which had been autumn, the 11th floor was early spring.

Since each floor seemed to have a different time axis, there was no way to know whether the next floor up would be night or day.

“What do you want to do? Go up? Or go down?”

We could return to the 10th floor, the residential tier, at any time.

At my question, Lee Soo-young thought for a moment, then answered.