Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 112
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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 Cheats: Climbing the Mythic Tower (112)
Originally, Floor 31 is a forest.
It’s a quest to eliminate monsters that have invaded the forest where elves live in harmony.
Awakeners can handle it directly, or they can contact the elves, convince them, and eliminate the monsters together.
Regardless of which route an Awakener takes, the completion condition was ultimately that they would Clear once the monster swarm was eliminated, but——
“This is telling us to run, isn’t it, Moo-saeng?”
“Yeah. Right, if we endure for 720 hours it’d be an automatic Clear condition. Since there’s no other note attached.”
It had changed.
A Survival Quest. The duration to endure is 720 hours—a full thirty days.
No matter how much they were riding Moo-saeng’s “bus,” they were still Awakeners.
They understood the tower’s fundamentals.
“This is going to be rough.”
“Usually these are the kind of thing that starves you to death.”
The difficulty would be considerable.
Even without party adjustment compensation and without Contribution Rate calculations, such conditions made it especially so.
No matter how much they trusted Moo-saeng, faced with a Modified Quest, everyone couldn’t help but feel anxious, restless, and tense.
“Moo-saeng, you’re not even flustered about this Modified Quest—why?”
Park Hyun-gu glanced around at the gathered personnel before raising his voice deliberately.
Moo-saeng understood Park Hyun-gu’s intent well enough.
“What’s there to be flustered about? You don’t remember Floor 21? Compared to that, this is easy.”
He shrugged his shoulders and answered matter-of-factly.
Everyone except the two of them had experienced Floor 21.
The party members, excluding Moo-saeng, had no idea whatsoever about Murometz’s true identity—that he was the apex of all giants——
“R-right. When Kim Moo-saeng did that back then——”
“Ugh, thinking about how we were completely surrounded by the giant tribe and nearly got crushed flat—yeah, things are definitely better now.”
The threatening atmosphere was incomparable to now.
Being left alone in that judgment arena of the giant tribe, something like a giant colosseum, was far more unnerving than this desolate forest or whatever it was—any space where you could see your surroundings gave natural reassurance.
“Oh! And if the situation now is the same as back then——. Rewards? Could there maybe be rewards for us too?”
Moreover, what had happened after they Cleared Floor 21?
“Right. Special conditions—hm—exist. I was wondering if such a case could happen, so I looked it up, and sure enough, nothing comes up in searches at all, it’s that unusual——”
One line written in the [Status Window] special conditions of the party members who had experienced Floor 21 with Moo-saeng.
[Someone Who Knows Kim Moo-saeng]
It was a reward that allowed them to avoid preemptive attacks from giant monsters—one that could make them avoid combat with those creatures entirely depending on their ability.
There were other stat bonuses as well.
Wasn’t each person granted a whopping fifty stat points?
“Come to think of it, that’s true. We all got individual rewards in stats and skills after Clearing Floor 30 thanks to you, after all——”
“Right, right. I was way too scared, honestly.”
A question Park Hyun-gu casually threw out and Moo-saeng’s answer.
From that exchange, the flow of conversation naturally eased the tense atmosphere.
Park Hyun-gu and Moo-saeng looked at each other and laughed quietly.
Moo-saeng put on Mage Maia’s Goggles.
“We brought lots of snacks too! Since we didn’t know how things might go, we packed things to play with during downtime——”
When Park Hyun-gu clapped his hands together to refocus everyone.
“Hyung!”
“—Whoa?!”
Thwip, thwip, thwip!
Three arrows struck.
At the spot where Park Hyun-gu had been standing, at an angle that would have pierced through his back and waist had he been just a moment slower.
“Yelp!?”
“W-where did that come from all of a sudden——”
They hurriedly looked around their surroundings, but saw nothing.
Only to Moo-saeng’s eyes.
“Dark Elves! Surrounding us—thirty of them!”
To be precise, the Dark Elves were only visible beyond Mage Maia’s Goggles.
* * *
“How do we——”
“Gather together! If it’s just regular-grade arrows, Metal Rhine’s Class-A Artifacts will hold them off!”
Moo-saeng rushed forward and issued orders immediately.
Thirty Dark Elves—hardly a small number.
But the real problem was something else——
‘Even now, they’re invisible. If I didn’t have Mage Maia’s Goggles, I’d never have seen it coming.’
Typically, Invisibility prevents attacks entirely—or the Skill breaks the moment you strike.
Nearly every Invisibility Skill Moo-saeng knew worked that way.
‘Of course, there must be higher-tier Awakeners with transparent attack Skills I’ve never heard of, but—.’
Yet here and now?
Thirty Dark Elves, all capable of it at once?
A group spell?
Or perhaps a racial technique?
‘—Since Dark Elves aren’t exactly common knowledge either, damn it.’
The origin was unknowable, but one thing was certain.
[Krkrkrkk, now that’s a funny design, isn’t it? Invisibility separated purely as a visual layer. Who the hell engineered that?]
What the Dark Elves had mastered was no ordinary stealth—even Wash couldn’t perceive it instantly, requiring a filter to see through their veil.
Whip-whip-whip-whip, piercing through the air—!
At least the arrows they fired were visible. That much was a mercy.
Moo-saeng launched himself upward.
Arrows clustered and stuck where he’d stood moments before, and through Mage Maia’s Goggles, he caught the shock on the Dark Elves’ faces.
They were surprised.
That he could see them at all.
Then speed was everything.
‘Rampage.’
Fifteen minutes. Accounting for backlash, only a fifty-percent boost to Strength and Agility.
———————————……!
As crimson light blazed from Moo-saeng’s eyes,
his body surged forward at a new velocity.
Poison Fang in his left hand, Blue Warning in his right.
His approach was meant to sweep everything away in all directions—
“Cursed thing. It’s aware of us. Scatter, everyone! His physical ability surpasses ours. Do not engage directly!”
One of the Dark Elves barked the order.
In the same breath, thirty Dark Elves fractured and dispersed.
“You can’t outrun—”
Not that he couldn’t catch them.
They wouldn’t escape.
He would suppress them. And capture them alive for information.
How many more Dark Elves were there?
What structure did they employ to torment his party on this floor?
Learning even that much would grant him considerable tactical advantage.
Moo-saeng intended to extract information about traps, snares, and the like—smooth, efficient data to Clear Floor 31—but then—
“—Huh?”
It wasn’t only dispersal.
A dozen Dark Elves were charging toward his party.
Still cloaked in Invisibility.
Arrows posed no threat to his tightly grouped comrades.
But direct assault?
A thrust into the joints, gaps the armor couldn’t cover?
That meant death.
“Damn it all!”
Crash—!
With Void Step, Moo-saeng kicked the air before him and spun his body mid-motion.
He pivoted as smoothly as a swimmer’s backstroke turn, then bolted forward—but catching the Dark Elves who’d gotten a head start was cutting it close.
In truth, he might only manage to pursue three or four of them.
Once they scattered in different directions and charged, he couldn’t intercept them all in a single move—!
[If you wielded Murometz’s technique, I guarantee every last one of these inferior creatures would perish.]
There was one area Skill, though Wash’s assessment stood.
Murometz’s Limited Strike was devastatingly powerful.
Even a Class-A Artifact from Metal Rhine couldn’t withstand it.
Which meant, as long as there was any chance his attack could kill his own party—
“Moo-saeng! Dark Elves—some of them are heading your way! Be ready! Shin Hyun-dong, Kim Woo-min, you too!”
He had to shift tactics.
Far more efficient and effective than him chasing them all himself.
“Here—? Where? Which direction?”
At the sound of Moo-saeng’s cry, Park Hyun-gu jolted in place, stumbling backward.
An unseen enemy was closing in.
An invisible blade might pierce through him at any moment.
An emergency escape scroll? That only works in dungeons.
Once you enter a Tower, you cannot leave until you clear that floor.
All that remained was death.
“Based on my position, three of them at eleven o’clock! One from the direction Shin Hyun-dong’s left arm is extended! Two at five o’clock from Kim Woo-min! Keep in mind you cannot see them! Cover the area completely—think in terms of a surface, not a point! I’m counting down!”
If not that, if he rejected that option, then they had no choice but to fight.
This was Floor 31.
Moo-saeng and his party had just cleared Floor 30.
And?
“Hmmmmm……!”
Park Hyun-gu drew in a deep breath.
Watching him, Moo-saeng shouted.
“Three! Two!”
Before the Dark Elves attacked, someone had mentioned it.
That they’d received individual rewards for clearing Floor 30—Stat points and Skills.
What Skills they’d received.
Who could do what.
“One!”
The key was that Moo-saeng was not the type to leave such things unchecked.
In time with Moo-saeng’s countdown.
Shin Hyun-dong unleashed a torrent of flame from his mouth.
Blaze Breath.
The unbroken stream of fire engulfed the charging Dark Elf entirely.
Kim Woo-min sent forth a small but swift and violent whirlwind.
Small Typhoon.
Two Dark Elves maintaining their approach staggered and were blown backward.
As the dust rose from where they crashed, it revealed their exact positions.
“Hyaaaaaaah!”
Park Hyun-gu hurled his fist forward.
Crack-boom───────……!
His punch tore through the air with a deafening roar.
There was no need to aim precisely at any target.
The heat and energy released from the fist extending at Mach 3 speed.
“Kraaagh!?”
“Ughh.”
“Cough.”
And the shockwave.
The Skill Atomic Punch.
A fist thrown with the force to cleave apart matter at the atomic level.
The impact was such that a sizable crater formed where the punch landed.
“Hah, hah, hah…….”
Aside from testing it the moment he acquired it, this was his first real use.
Park Hyun-gu, startled at his own power, trembled and slowly withdrew his fist.
Watching from a distance, Wash cackled.
[Kyakakaka! So these worthless insects finally earn their keep, Kim Moo-saeng?]
“……Well, if I agreed to that phrasing, it’d be far too presumptuous of them, so I won’t say yes…… hehehe.”
Moo-saeng gave a small laugh and shrugged.
In any case, they were Awakeners possessing C-rank or thereabouts Awakening abilities.
The Skill rewards from Floor 30 proved to be every bit as effective as Moo-saeng had anticipated.
Moreover, there was a clear reason why Moo-saeng was able to hold back and take his time.
“How is this even-.”
“Human-. No, there was surely only one cursed human……? Why do these other humans also possess abilities so richly deserving of a curse-. Hack!?”
Their companions, reduced in an instant to a wretched state, were forced to reveal themselves.
At the sight of this shocking spectacle, the other charging Dark Elves could not maintain their momentum.
“Hup.”
“Breathe, breathe-. Gasping…….”
Which meant the Poison Fog Enhancement that Moo-saeng had deployed was more than sufficient to catch up with them as the venomous mist crept across the floor.
As the Dark Elves collapsed one by one, their nerves paralyzed across their entire bodies, Moo-saeng raised the Blue Warning and shouted.
“I’m giving you three seconds! If you don’t drop the Invisibility, every last one of your allies dies. Three, two, one!”
Three Dark Elves dead.
Eight Dark Elves incapacitated.
Having lost roughly thirty percent of the ambush force, the raid commander faced a single choice.
“Am I to understand that as a guarantee of my life, accursed human?”
A Dark Elf stepped forward, revealing itself before them all.
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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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