Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 108

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Admin Who Uses Cheats Climbs the Mythic Tower (108)
With complete focus, Moo-saeng moved at a measured pace.
About five minutes had passed since entering the cave, and the entrance was still visible behind him — he hadn’t ventured particularly deep — yet Moo-saeng could sense it.
“…This feels like a dragon’s lair, at least.”
[Squawk? Where’d you get that feeling, Kim Moo-saeng?]
The entrance may have been hidden, but the interior wasn’t so different from an ordinary cave—
Aside from its considerable size, there were no magical properties or artificial structures, and yet he felt the presence of a dragon’s lair.
“There’s no smell. None of those typical cave odors you’d expect. Nothing like that at all.”
It wasn’t something he saw with his eyes.
It was the tangible sense—that alien perception—that a Dungeon Sherpa who’d frequented such terrain could feel, which Moo-saeng’s keen focus now penetrated.
[…Squawk. You’ve really turned into a beast, haven’t you.]
Wash shook his beak in apparent disgust.
Even at that gesture, Moo-saeng couldn’t laugh.
What dragon’s lair was this?
Information about dragons was extraordinarily rare.
They appeared in the upper floors as a rule, and even the dragons that appeared there weren’t typically fought—rather, it was a matter of cooperation, collaboration, or handling some kind of errand for the dragon.
‘Even if I’ve been to a lot of places, it’s fifty-fifty. Usually, dragon-related work doesn’t bring a Dungeon Sherpa along… and honestly, I’ve only been twice, and both times I was just treated as a pack mule. Such is life.’
Dragons were a high-ranking species.
Races with high intelligence and standing only conversed if they acknowledged the other party as ‘worth engaging.’
In other words, bringing along someone like a Dungeon Sherpa—individuals who typically stopped their ascent in the lower floors—was actually a loss; cases arose where no commission was given at all, so Dungeon Sherpas simply didn’t accompany such expeditions.
The information accessible to a Dungeon Sherpa had its limits.
It meant that information about a single dragon individual was extremely restricted.
“Wash, if it’s a Red Dragon, it’d be hostile toward the Blue Dragon Clan, or something like that, right? Or maybe a Stone Dragon… does something like that exist?”
Much less knowing which dragon occupied this place.
What the relations between each dragon clan were.
Organized data on such things? It couldn’t possibly exist.
[You thought I’d know, Kim Moo-saeng? The only reason I know anything about the Blue Dragon Clan is because it appears as a boss on one of the floors.]
There was no possibility of learning anything more even through Wash.
In a sense, this was a situation Moo-saeng had never encountered before.
“Huh… It’s been a while since I felt this way.”
Across all the towers and dungeons he’d explored, having to prepare for an incident in a place unknown not only to him but to the tower administrator himself.
[Nervous?]
Wash asked, opening his beak slightly.
It was true he felt tension.
But nervous?
“Well, I’m not without something to lean on.”
That was the truth.
There was at least a faint foundation for why Moo-saeng took actions that seemed somewhat reckless, unbecoming of a Dungeon Sherpa.
Wash frowned and adjusted his Black-Rimmed Glasses.
[Didn’t I say I can’t use my power?]
“Uh, yeah? No, that… You’d be a help too, of course, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
[Squawk, squawk?]
To the tower administrator speaking with such seriousness, Moo-saeng found himself responding awkwardly.
It was when Wash’s yellow cheeks had flushed just slightly that Moo-saeng spoke.
“It was the same when I faced Murometsu’s judgment. It’ll probably apply this time too.”
Even with plans laid out, there were moments of difficulty.
And at those times, help had come from an unexpected quarter.
[…Luck.]
“Yeah.”
Luck.
An ability score that had to be maintained without gaps against the other stats, precisely because of the Bone Reinforcement skill.
That Luck stat which Moo-saeng himself knew was generally abandoned, with only conflicting opinions about its purpose—he’d raised it considerably.
‘If it operates in conjunction with some function of the tower…’
It was an ability score that had applied even when facing Lee Jeong-gi.
It couldn’t possibly not function within the tower.
Then there would definitely be something.
An entity matching his prediction would be in this lair.
“A dragon hostile to or rival with the Blue Dragon Clan—a lair of such a drag-”
“Separate from that, if the one perched upon your worthless shoulders hadn’t existed, you would have been dead.”
“—on! What the—!?”
Behind!?
At the voice that came from directly behind him, Kim Moo-saeng reflexively swung out a Poison Fang.
An attack born from pure instinct, executed in a heartbeat.
———Caught.
The mysterious man grabbed Kim Moo-saeng’s arm as if it were nothing.
A black-haired man in his early fifties, not even blinking, looked down at Kim Moo-saeng.
What Kim Moo-saeng sensed instinctively came down to two things.
Immense.
Dangerous.
Gulp. Kim Moo-saeng swallowed hard.
The black-haired man lightly tapped Kim Moo-saeng’s arm and lowered it, then shifted his gaze.
To the yellow rubber duck bobbing gently above Kim Moo-saeng’s shoulder.
“I offer my respects to the one who dwells beyond the heavens.”
[Graff]
─Race: Black Dragon
─Grade: Ancient
The Ancient Black Dragon, Graff, bowed his head lightly.
Wash adjusted his Black-Rimmed Glasses with a gentle push and accepted the greeting.
A brief silence followed, then Wash spoke.
[So in the end, what you’re counting on is me, Kim Moo-saeng.]
Kim Moo-saeng was left speechless.
At this moment, of all times, to bring that up……?
* * *
Graff asked.
“Might I inquire what brings you to visit?”
“That’s—”
Snap!
Kim Moo-saeng was about to answer.
But a snap of the fingers came quicker.
The moment that flick finished, a holographic window bloomed before Kim Moo-saeng’s eyes.
[You have been afflicted with the status ailment Silence.]
[You have been afflicted with the status ailment Dulling.]
[You have resisted the status ailment Fear.]
[You have resisted the status ailment Paralysis.]
Mm, mm—.
He tried to touch his mouth, which wouldn’t open, but his arm rose at such a sluggish pace that he could do nothing.
“Do not let such an inferior species interfere.”
Graff spoke.
Wash’s black bead-like eyes twitched.
[Are you showing contempt for my contractual partner, dragon? If so, then you are showing contempt for me, who made a contract with such a backward and inferior human race?]
Wash…… you didn’t say anything about being backward and inferior.
Such words could not even be spoken.
Rather, with his sluggish movements and mouth that wouldn’t open, he was incapable of doing anything at all.
‘Mana stat should also relate to magical resistance, but even so, how can I be in this state…….’
The ease with which multiple debuffs were applied at once.
He’d been hit with Slow in dungeons a few times before, but to reduce speed to this degree—what rank of skill could it possibly be?
Even without activating Rampage, with his current All Stats alone he was confident he could comfortably clear levels 40 or 50.
Yet this degree of effect, this magnitude of difference.
This was no ordinary power.
It was in this recognition that Kim Moo-saeng felt a chill.
Yes, this was no ordinary power.
Ancient Dragons are inherently strong.
They should be strong.
But to this degree?
This much? No, and on top of that…….
“Surely you cannot mean to refuse.”
[Then release it.]
“I’m afraid that is impossible.”
Graff spoke.
Wash did not hide his anger as he pressed the point.
[What? You joking? You, knowing my identity only in shadow—.]
“I know you were once whole, but are no longer—that much I understand.”
Yet even as she spoke, she had to close her mouth.
Kim Moo-saeng’s eyes went wide.
That creeping dread from moments before.
What had Graff said?
[You…….]
Graff knows Wash.
Not merely as something remarkable, but far more concretely than that.
‘Beyond the sky……. The peak of the Tower, what dwells there—.’
He knows the Tower.
He knows the Administrator.
‘—And that’s not all. If what he just said means what I think it means!?’
And he even knows that Wash was exiled—that she is an Administrator stripped of an Administrator’s power!
If that’s the case, then Graff’s overwhelming strength, far exceeding Moo-saeng’s predictions, becomes comprehensible.
Because the Tower had revealed only one existence so completely beyond the rules.
Not a fifteen-person party difficulty modifier, nothing of that sort.
No matter how Ancient a dragon, no matter the fifteen-person bonus—it shouldn’t be able to handle Moo-saeng this effortlessly. Which meant, ultimately…….
[No Reset here either.]
The same case as Murometsu.
“‘Also,’ you say—I suspected there might be others like you, but if it’s no intrusion, might you share which?”
[Murometsu.]
Wash answered at once.
Moo-saeng felt a twinge of regret.
Wasn’t that information he should have kept close?
He could have had a chance to play some kind of game with Graff using that secret, to maneuver the situation with flexibility.
“……The pinnacle of giants. Indeed, the higher the rank……. I thank you for your forthright answer.”
Graff murmured and nodded slowly.
Wash made her demand at once.
[Then release him. And listen to what my contractor has to say, Black Dragon.]
“The ancient enemy of the Blue Dragon Clan. I despise the Blue Dragons, but I have no intention of lending my strength to mere humans.”
Snap—!
And this was precisely what Moo-saeng himself had not grasped.
The way Graff flicked a finger and simply stripped away every status ailment binding Moo-saeng.
There was no room for petty back-and-forth, no space for negotiation tactics.
Murometsu had shown no such hesitation either, no dragging things out.
‘Is that how it is at that tier, or——.’
A small question lingered, but now was not the time to dwell on such things.
[Kim Moo-saeng? You came here to borrow strength?]
Moo-saeng’s plan—the very one Wash herself had not fully grasped.
Graff already knew it.
“Strength……more like I’m not asking you to lend it so much as offering to add my own, since you said you hate the Blue Dragons. Call it a case of mutual benefit?”
The reason for finding a rival of the Blue Dragons, or some clan or individual at odds with them?
Surely there was only one.
To bait them into confrontation.
Moo-saeng had tried every rephrasing to draw Graff in.
“When the Blue Dragons come looking for me—if I give a signal, might you use a Summoning-class magic on me—.”
“Word games. A useless mouth should stay shut.”
“—N-no, ahem, understood.”
That plan had to be abandoned at once.
This was not an entity that negotiation or this sort of talking would sway.
So what could be done now?
Likely he wouldn’t be given much time.
It was better to think of this as an exchange—a fair trade based on the information received from Wash.
Then there was only one thing to do.
Gather information.
“Then first, one question. Is there a clan that stands in fierce opposition to the Blue Dragon Clan?”
“The Silver Dragons.”
The most immediate information needed.
Confirmation of the species to ally with.
Graff answered without hesitation.
Kim Moo-saeng pressed forward with his questions.
“Silver, then… So dragons are divided into broad categories like Color Dragons and Metal Dragons—a kind of group concept? Different clans that share some fundamental value, that sort of thing—”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re babbling about.”
Confirming the overall structure of dragons.
Kim Moo-saeng asked again.
He’d confirmed the species; now he needed to verify individual specimens.
“I understand. Then, which Silver Dragon would be capable of standing against the Blue Dragon Lapis—”
“None. Only two Adult Rank Silver Dragons survive today; the rest were slaughtered. Lapis killed them all.”
And there, Kim Moo-saeng’s words caught in his throat.
But he couldn’t leave it at that.
Testing another possibility.
Expanding his line of thought.
“…Red… Since there are Blue Dragons, what if Red Dragons might have reason to despise them—”
“Are you suggesting I lied?”
Graff’s tone turned sharp with displeasure.
He’d mentioned only Silver Dragons. Nothing else existed.
Then, with a soft exhale, he continued.
“The lightning of the Blue Clan is lethal to most dragons. Only the Silver Clan’s Cold Ice had the ability to counter it—but Lapis knew that too.”
And then, at last.
“…Ah. Ah, I understand now! Thank you!”
A smile blossomed across Kim Moo-saeng’s face.
[Huh, what? Kim Moo-saeng? What’s gotten into him?]
Wash, hovering nearby, tilted his head in confusion, but Kim Moo-saeng didn’t answer him before speaking again.
One final piece of information to confirm.
“Ah, just one last thing—do you have any idea why Lapis did such a thing?”
“Hard to say. It was unpredictable behavior, but I can hazard a guess. Silver Dragons are relatively benign toward humans.”
Graff looked down at Kim Moo-saeng as he answered.
His eyes remained as cold as ever.
Kim Moo-saeng nodded.
An Ancient Black Dragon—Graff.
An anomalous existence beyond Murometsu, one who had escaped the Instance System and endlessly accumulated experience, technique, and wisdom.
Having come to know him now—
For Kim Moo-saeng in this moment, it meant little.
What mattered far more—
“Then I suppose I should go now?”
[Kim Moo-saeng? Just leaving like this? With your power, you could handle someone like Lapis—]
“No, no, it’s fine, Wash.”
[Fine? You’re ignoring the strength of an Ancient Dragon?]
“It’s not that. But I’ve got a sense of how to handle this now. I won’t fight dragon with dragon. Well then, thank you for everything!”
Kim Moo-saeng gave a polite bow to Graff and hurried swiftly toward the mouth of the cave.
Wash scrambled to chase after him, taking flight.
In his Lair, now that his uninvited guest had vanished, Graff murmured to himself.
“…An inferior human against that wretched Lapis… Now that is something worth anticipating.”
Then his form faded from sight.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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