Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 2

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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 Administrator Using Cheats Climbs the Mythic Tower (2)
Sacrifice Offering.
At that inescapable word, Lee Eun-woo and Park Do-hyun’s faces twisted, along with the rest of their escort detail.
“What—what is this? Should we use an Escape Scroll?”
“Everyone, prepare for combat! Protect the director!”
Did they need to flee immediately?
Or defend their charge?
What on earth did “Sacrifice Offering” mean?
Screech, screeeeech—!
It was warmth—a steady glow—that cut through the chaos swallowing them in darkness.
Somewhere in those panic-stricken moments, the dungeon Sherpa had drawn materials from a backpack and fashioned a Torch.
“Steady, everyone. This looks like a Dungeon Entanglement Phenomenon. It happens from time to time.”
Mu Saeng spoke with measured calm.
“A—a Dungeon Entanglement? Two dungeons merging together?”
Say, the 10th and 11th Dungeons fusing in a single impossible moment.
Separated by Gates that cut all passage, their locations physically distant by design—such a thing should never occur in any rational geometry.
“Yes, it defies physics. But then again, dungeons themselves defy physics. Here, take this Torch.”
Mu Saeng had been entering dungeons and only dungeons since he was sixteen; even he had experienced this phenomenon only a handful of times.
Perhaps it was the sight of Mu Saeng studying their surroundings, or the Torch he’d handed them—whatever it was, their spirits lifted.
“Phew. Thank goodness an Ace Sherpa is with us.”
Park Do-hyun and the escort detail’s expressions brightened considerably.
Mu Saeng’s face, by contrast, remained perfectly composed.
More precisely, he was concealing what lay beneath.
‘This is no reason to relax. Dungeon Entanglement Phenomena are typically between adjacent levels…’
If such an event had occurred here in the 15th Dungeon—
Then the intruding dungeon had to be either the 14th or the 16th.
Yet nowhere in the forest terrain of the 14th Dungeon—
Nor anywhere in the village terrain of the 16th—
Had he ever seen a stone temple like this.
‘And a serpent’s master? I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere…’
Information about the Tower and dungeons was treated as classified almost universally.
It made sense. Even in games, people guard their intel.
So Mu Saeng weighed the choice carefully.
The danger was unknown. The stakes unclear.
Yet this was a place no records covered.
“We could use an Escape Scroll and leave right now. Or—”
“No, wait—we’ve come this far, so we’d better document something! At least retrieve something, right? Even if it’s not an Artifact!”
In other words: intel from this place might hold tremendous value once word reached the outside world.
Mu Saeng watched Lee Eun-woo’s eyes light up with that particular hunger.
After a brief pause, Mu Saeng nodded.
“…I suppose so. This is a dungeon, after all. Though I must say—absolutely never attempt something like this in an actual Tower?”
In the Tower, once you commit, it’s victory or death.
Dungeons, by contrast, offered the mercy of escape—which was precisely why a stunt like this was even conceivable.
“Got it, got it! Let’s move. Take point.”
Lee Eun-woo, brimming with confidence moments before, quietly slipped toward the rear while raising his voice.
Mu Saeng stepped forward carefully.
One step, then another, pushing back the darkness of the relatively broad corridor.
Walls, ceiling, floor—boxes and jars scattered across every surface.
Mu Saeng’s eyes moved constantly, taking it all in.
“It’s not a maze layout, at least. The floor tiles are different from any trap mechanisms I know of, and… in any case, go slowly. Please step only where I’ve stepped. Based on the building’s structure, this should be the main passage.”
“U—understood.”
And so, without quite noticing when it happened, Lee Eun-woo and Park Do-hyun and the escort detail had begun following Mu Saeng’s guidance with absolute precision.
They felt it instinctively.
‘He’s barely older than a kid… yet he knows more than Park Do-hyun?’
‘We’ve been inside this temple less than thirty minutes, and he’s already mapped its structure?’
‘Follow the footsteps ahead. Follow the footsteps ahead. Follow the footsteps ahead…’
That they needed to follow Mu Saeng.
That an Ace Sherpa’s reputation was not won by accident.
Of course, Mu Saeng himself had no idea what was running through their minds.
Gulp.
Firelight spreading sharply left and right down the corridor.
The narrow passage ended and a vast space opened before them.
“Right then, everyone—prepare yourselves. By the feel of it, this place is…….”
Four passages extending in a cross formation.
Monsters could pour in from any direction.
If that were the case, given the dungeon’s nature…….
“This has to be a combat zone. Keep your Escape Scrolls ready to use at any moment!”
Definitely a location where monster hordes would converge.
Shhhhhhhh……!
A strange sound began, accompanied by the flutter and thrash of movement.
Mu Saeng’s eyes swept all four directions in an instant. “Bats in the air! Spiders on the walls! Skeletons head-on! Three types of monsters!”

Roaring and screeching, the monsters surged forward.
“Protecting Lee Eun-woo comes first!”
Park Do-hyun shouted the order and activated the protective skill Grand Shield.
The monsters’ threat level was still unknown.
In that case, Lee Eun-woo’s protection became the obvious priority.
Lee Eun-woo himself huddled into the barrier, eyes wide with alarm.
Mu Saeng did the same.
Once combat began, there was precious little he could do.
Mu Saeng quickly assessed their fighting power.
“Hnnngh!”
Crack-boom……!
The one wielding the War Hammer brought it down in a vicious sweep, as if to shatter the skeleton’s frame.
‘Crash skill. The weapon too—so his Awakening Ability must be blunt-force enhancement.’
Mu Saeng himself possessed no skills whatsoever due to his useless Transmission ability marked with an X.
That was precisely why he had to live as a dungeon Sherpa, watching carefully.
Which skills came from which Awakening Abilities, and what effects they produced.
‘That one’s……probably Fire Wall.’
Measuring their allies’ and the monsters’ combat strength precisely and comparing them was the only way to survive; his accuracy in doing so had to far exceed that of any other Awakened.
“I’ll keep the armored spiders from closing in as much as I can!”
Judging by the fact that no serious attack skill had been deployed yet, his Awakening Ability was probably Fire Play or Fireworks.
“I’ll join in as soon as the bats are cleared!”
Swift-swift—arrows flew at the bats in a torrent.
‘Hawk Eye, but there are too many bats. We’re losing ground. If this keeps up, I’ll…….’
Yet despite the whistle of arrows, the flutter of bat wings did not diminish.
Somehow, bats that had slipped past the combat personnel were already reaching Park Do-hyun’s barrier!
They were the size of large dogs.
If an enormous bat surrounded the barrier like that, an ordinary human would lose consciousness just laying eyes on it.
“Park!”
“I could fight them off, but if I drop the barrier, Lee Eun-woo might get hurt—”
Lee Eun-woo swung his blade uselessly, but without stepping forward aggressively, he had no chance of making contact.
All he could do was shout at his subordinates.
“Shoot straight! What are you doing? The bats are already climbing over here—”
———————————……!
“—Huh?! What, what is that?”
“Suddenly, what’s that scratching sound—”
A sound like metal being scraped?!
Then Lee Eun-woo and Park Do-hyun witnessed something they could scarcely believe.
Screech-screech-screech! Screech, screech!
The flock of bats that had been fluttering forward lost their bearings, tangling chaotically in midair.
Crashing into walls, slamming against the barrier, colliding with each other and falling in a heap?
In their shock, Mu Saeng shouted: “Now! Quickly!”
“Oh—understood!”
Lee Eun-woo and Park Do-hyun moved on instinct.
Even as they dispatched the bats floundering on the ground.
“What, what? How……does that work? Wait?”
“What……is it? What’s that?”
What occupied their minds was the secret behind this situation.

To be precise, it was the steel piton that Mu Saeng gripped in both hands and scraped against the stone.
The source of that sound—”Screee, screee”—that sent the bats tumbling through the air even now.
“An Artifact? What’s that?”
A steel piton? Was there an Artifact like that?
At Lee Eun-woo’s question, Mu Saeng shook his head as if to say, what are you talking about?
“Sorry, no. It’s a Piton for rock climbing.”
Then he added the explanation as casually as breathing.
“Deserts aren’t just sand, after all. When it’s a rocky desert, you need these—good to have them on hand. Bats are much easier to deal with if you’ve got equipment that can emit high-frequency sounds.”
The resourceful use of something that wasn’t even a weapon.
And a dungeon Sherpa who spoke of it as though he’d done this sort of thing countless times.
“You use that… for that?”
“If it keeps you alive, you use it.”
Watching Mu Saeng speak with such calm certainty, not only Lee Eun-woo but even Park Do-hyun lost their words for a moment.
Of course, there was no leisure for such bewilderment.
“Director! The skeletons—they don’t even have cores, and no matter how many times we smash them, they just keep rebuilding—”
There were still skulls and spiders left.
At the escort’s cry, Mu Saeng bolted forward.
His movements as he snatched something from the wall were swift and precise.
“Separate them! Skull, spine, pelvis—all apart!”
“But they’ll just recombine right away, won’t they?!”
“Smash them now, do it!”
The agent wielding the War Hammer didn’t quite grasp what Mu Saeng meant, but he swung his weapon reflexively.
Crash!
In that instant, Mu Saeng hurled something.
“If I break them apart like this, they’ll just recombine again—wait…”
The agent who’d swung the War Hammer had to stop mid-word.
The skull that ricocheted to the left didn’t come back. It stuck to the wall.
The pelvis that flew to the right was the same. It tangled with the legs and stayed.
The spine that shot backward twitched, but there was no way it could form a complete body.
“How…?”
“What do you mean ‘how’? There’s Spider Web holding them.”
Mu Saeng had bound the separated parts with Spider Web.
At least from this point on, they were certain.
‘Granted he’s run a lot of dungeons, but this level of improvisation… from just a Sherpa…’
‘That nickname “Ace” didn’t come for nothing.’
There was no doubting Kim Mu Saeng’s ability.
Mu Saeng spoke without loosening his guard of the surroundings.
“In a dungeon that doesn’t even drop Stats, nobody wants to hunt any more than necessary, right? Most people do their hunting back at the Tower. Let’s move.”
A joke threaded through even this moment.
That attitude of reassuring the client.
Just as Mu Saeng’s words ended—words that drew even Lee Eun-woo into a broad smile—
[The Serpent’s master demands a Sacrifice Offering.]
Another holographic window appeared.
It was a system message they’d seen before. There should be nothing to fear.
There should have been nothing to fear.
“Ngh?!”
“Ugh—!”
“Hgh!”
Everyone, including Mu Saeng, had to gasp.
Bodies growing heavy, as if gravity itself had intensified.
Breathing becoming labored, constricted.
Blood vessels beginning to swell…
“Mana Pressure spike—this isn’t 15th Dungeon level! Scroll, now!”
Mu Saeng shouted.
At minimum fifty floors of Mana Pressure, perhaps even sixty-floor grade.
Enough force to send explorers in their thirties to their knees.
‘Hgh, my arms won’t move properly. But how is that guy—’
Even as Park Do-hyun fumbled to pull out an Escape Scroll with arms grown as heavy as lead, he felt it.
Though his posture had lowered somewhat, Mu Saeng remained relatively unaffected. That wasn’t normal.
But now was not the time to concern himself with Mu Saeng.
“The scroll—it won’t work!”
Lee Eun-woo’s face was grotesquely swollen, and if he hadn’t consumed a Mana Pressure Resistance Potion beforehand, he would have literally burst—which was precisely why he was screaming now.
“What? Surely not—”
Mu Saeng tore at his own scroll as well, but……
[You cannot leave without offering a Sacrifice Offering.]
[Once the Sacrifice Offering is determined, all other personnel will be expelled.]
Only these desperate messages bloomed before his eyes.
The scroll won’t work?
In a dungeon?
‘This makes no sense……’
Not even in a Tower?
“Saaaac-iffice, how many—! How many—!”
His entire face had puffed up, his eyes slitted open like cuts.
Even his tongue was swollen, mangling every word he tried to speak.
As if answering Lee Eun-woo’s cry, a system message appeared.
[The Sacrifice Offering is one.]
One person.
Sacrifice one person and we can leave?
Mu Saeng’s breathing quickened as he surveyed the surroundings.
An altar. Bas-reliefs on the walls.
A sealed entrance. An unidentified Temple.
With a structure like this, there had to be a mechanism.
“But we can’t sacrifice anyone. This could just be a temporary phenomenon—let’s keep going and—”
He wanted to suggest they search for another way out.
That’s what he meant to say.
“-Aaaaaaaagh!”
If his thigh and forearm hadn’t been cut.
If Lee Eun-woo, who couldn’t land a blow when facing monsters, hadn’t just slashed him.
“Sac-iffice, this! This one!”
“You absolute madman—”
Mu Saeng wanted to lunge at Lee Eun-woo, pain forgotten, but he couldn’t move.
Park Do-hyun and three others had already positioned themselves beside Lee Eun-woo.
“You—hah—never properly climbed the Tower, and I don’t know how you’re enduring this Mana Pressure—hah—but I’d appreciate it if you’d stop moving.”
“I’m sorry. Huff. Huff. But our manager is more important……”
The faintest apology flickered across their faces.
And something else far stronger: wariness.
Caution directed at Mu Saeng, who bore this crushing Mana Pressure with far greater ease than they did.
“This—this makes no sense—! Ugh, no, there has to be another way! That’s not what I—!”
The moment all of them closed in around Lee Eun-woo, the system message appeared.
[The Sacrifice Offering has been determined.]
Light flashed.
Everyone vanished.
Only Mu Saeng remained.
Shhhhhhhhh……
From the darkness, the sound of something awakening echoed.

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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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