Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 117

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

Chapter 117. The Tower – The Airship (5)

“This is insane! There were this many gremlins hiding here?!”
Lugin gasped as twenty gremlins burst forth from their hiding places.
I fired neural bullets with increased output while asking, “So they don’t normally swarm together like this?”
I wasn’t a sharpshooter like Lee Su-young, but with the homing function enabled by default, every shot found its mark.
However, the power still seemed insufficient—the gremlins either shook off the paralysis quickly or evaded it by becoming ethereal.
One or two wouldn’t be a problem, but with so many converging from all directions, the situation was becoming dire.
“Gremlins normally travel alone, or at most with offspring—just three total. They never swarm like this!”
Lugin hastily retrieved a tranquilizer syringe from a cabinet, loaded it into an air gun, and fired at the gremlins.
The twenty gremlins rushed toward the power source as if drooling for it.
As I drew upon my inner strength and gripped my leather bludgeon, Lugin cried out urgently.
“You absolutely cannot kill them!”
“Understood!”
I continued firing neural bullets in rapid succession, and the gremlins were struck, paralyzed and trembling, or evading before getting their heads clobbered by my leather bludgeon and losing consciousness.
“Hmm, I could hit them harder. But don’t these creatures have electrical resistance?”
Even as I kept increasing the electrical output, they only remained paralyzed briefly before regaining awareness.
By contrast, those struck by the bludgeon and knocked unconscious stayed down.
Diana, swinging her leather bludgeon enthusiastically, noticed that the gremlins I’d knocked unconscious didn’t emit destructive waves to the machinery, so she drew out an iron mace.
“This is dangerous! Please use only the designated weapons!”
At Lugin’s cry, Diana spoke as if unconcerned.
“As long as we don’t kill them, it’s fine.”
Diana swung her mace, infused with holy power, with all her might at a gremlin’s torso.
“Kyaaah! What if we do kill it?!”
The gremlin’s chest caved in completely from the mace’s impact, crushed and bleeding.
Yet Diana spoke in a calm voice.
“Look carefully. It’s not dead.”
Diana’s holy power not only kept the gremlin alive despite injuries that should have been immediately fatal, but was gradually regenerating it.
“As long as we don’t kill them, it’s fine.”
How could the phrase “not killing them” sound so cruel?
I thought it might be more merciful to simply kill them, but I had to admit—I liked it.
“Alright! They’re all done!”
Lee Su-young fired her water bullets without restraint, turning the gremlins into sieves.
I too abandoned any notion of holding back and fired magic bullets in rapid succession.
Lugin shrieked in horror, but Diana’s holy power would not permit the gremlins’ death.
Turned into sieves yet unable to die, repeatedly healing, the gremlins desperately became ethereal and fled, while those who’d lost consciousness before they could escape lay sprawled on the ground.
Looking at a gremlin that still hadn’t died, I asked,
I asked while looking at the gremlin that still hadn’t died.
“When the Gremlin dies, what will be the range of the shockwave I emit?”
At my question, Lugin seemed flustered, as if her startled heart hadn’t yet settled.
“Surely you’re not trying to kill the Gremlin? You can’t! The shockwave’s range is too wide—it would be at least a hundred-meter radius!”
“This ship’s diameter isn’t a hundred meters, is it?”
“Length of ninety-two meters, beam of thirty meters. With lightweight technology integrated, the displacement is approximately two hundred tons.”
The dimensions were those of a corvette-class vessel, yet the weight was that of a speedboat. Truly, this was technology from another world.
“Ninety-two meters, then….”
This wouldn’t do.
Even if I restrained these creatures, if I couldn’t prevent their ethereal transformation itself, capturing them alive would be meaningless.
Since I couldn’t kill the enemy, we would be forced into an endless war of attrition.
“What if we threw these creatures outside the airship?”
Understanding the meaning of my words, Lugin shook her head.
“Outside, a swarm of Wyverns is attacking the ship. They’d be devoured before they even fell a hundred meters.”
It wasn’t simply a matter of the power source failing—I had to consider the navigation systems as well.
The Gremlins were drawn to more complex mechanical devices, which is why they swarmed the Engine Room, but if the navigation system broke down, that would be equally catastrophic.
“Then there’s only one possible method.”
“Is there a way?”
At Lugin’s question, I smiled cruelly and spoke.
“We teach them through terrible agony that coming here means disaster. We need to carve such horrific pain and terror into them that even their bestial minds would understand.”
Several Gremlins that had lost consciousness were already regaining awareness and escaping through ethereal transformation.
“Diana. Can they recover even if beaten half to death in their ethereal form?”
I knew magic to strike ethereal beings, but magic to restrain them required Fourth Class or higher—something I couldn’t use yet.
At my question, Diana pondered for a moment before shaking her head.
“Recovery itself doesn’t seem impossible, but the cost would be enormous.”
What a shame. There’s nothing quite like striking their ethereal forms to instill such horrific pain and terror.

* * *

Captain Bilrum of the Chamsuri Aerial Battleship was in complete chaos.
“Starboard 23 degrees! 1100 meters distance! Five wyverns approaching at 30 knots!”
“Port 64 degrees! 1900 meters distance! Eight wyverns approaching at 35 knots!”
The operators were calling out the swarms of wyverns descending from all directions.
“Deck Squad 1, move to the port aft! Deck Squad 2, move to the starboard bow! Supply Officer! What’s our ammunition and steam block inventory?”
“Current ammunition and steam block reserves are abundant. We have enough supplies remaining to sustain 100 more hours of full suppressive fire in all directions!”
The supplies had originally been loaded for the forward units, but to survive this onslaught, we were cracking open the supply crates and throwing everything at the wyverns.
“Tch, I’ll need to file a report later.”
Even in an emergency, using supplies designated for forward units was grounds for disciplinary action.
Of course, given the urgent circumstances, it would likely end with a formal report.
In fact, even if we exhausted all supplies while safely delivering the ‘critical cargo’ we were transporting, it would reflect positively rather than negatively on my record.
Even if it reflected negatively, I couldn’t afford to die without putting up a fight.
And right now, supplies weren’t the priority.
“Captain! The soldiers are starting to spread thin!”
Due to the nature of a supply vessel, we had minimal crew aboard to maximize cargo capacity.
Under normal circumstances, this was never an issue, but in a situation like this, whether combat personnel or engine crew, everyone had to work without rotation or rest—constantly ferrying ammunition and manning the machine guns.
“How long have we been in combat?”
“Ten hours of active combat. Fifteen hours of continuous duty.”
Despite downing countless wyverns, they kept coming in waves—so many that I couldn’t fathom where they were all originating from.
“What about the soldiers’ meals?”
“We’ve distributed calorie bars.”
I paused to consider the situation.
“Everyone knows we don’t have personnel for rotation. Distribute caffeine supplies. Tell the medical officer to prepare steam packs for the worst-case scenario.”
“…Understood. What about the Engine Room?”
In the chaos, I’d nearly forgotten, and I nodded.
“Right, Lugin is down there. I should check on her.”
I ordered one of the operators to briefly check the Engine Room as an errand.
In the operator’s absence, I stared at the radar and exhaled deeply.
“The worst crisis of my military career.”
I never imagined I’d end up manning the radar myself just because one person was missing.

* * *

To conserve my mana, I drew my mana pistol and fired at the gremlins targeting the power source.
Lee Su-young and Diana seemed too preoccupied fighting the gremlins to pay much attention to my pistol, which they’d never seen before.
Even as the gremlins’ bodies were riddled with holes and torn to shreds, they merely retreated momentarily before resuming their assault on the power source.
Despite what must have been excruciating pain, they seemed almost entranced—as if possessed by something.
“W-what is this?!”
A soldier who’d opened the Engine Room door gasped in horror at the battle unfolding before him.
Apparently, he’d never witnessed twenty gremlins causing such chaos before.
“Stop gawking and fight!”
At Lugin’s shout, the soldier fumbled for his steam-block pistol in panic, then hastily lowered it.
“W-wait! We can’t kill the gremlins, can we? What’s all this blood?!”
The Engine Room floor was now drenched—no, completely flooded—with gremlin blood.
“Avoid the vital points! As long as you don’t kill them instantly, you won’t be killing them!”
At Lugin’s command, the soldier hesitated before crying out, “I’ll report this situation to the Captain!” and fled.
“That damned bastard!”
Lugin, who’d been fighting relentlessly without rest for so long, gritted her teeth and cursed at what appeared to be her subordinate.
“Don’t mind him—keep fighting!”
“Ugh!”
At my shout, Lugin wielded her sasumata with renewed vigor, while I severed a gremlin’s legs.
Diana’s holy power healed the wounds and sealed the lacerations, preventing fatal blood loss.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me these damn things have regeneration?!”
Lee Su-young snarled in fury, using Mul-poong’s new ability—the water pressure cutter—to dismember a gremlin.
The water pressure cutter was essentially a rotating saw made of water, repeatedly expelling and retracting water in a ring formation.
Originally, it had fired water at ultra-high pressure, but it had evolved during combat.
“My apologies! I only ever repelled them before, so I didn’t know either!”
Lugin apologized while using her electrified sasumata to pierce a gremlin, electrocuting it.
By sharpening the sasumata’s head—a tool designed for restraint without injury—and embedding the blade into the skin before electrocuting it, even gremlins with electrical resistance remained unconscious longer.
Gremlins weren’t called fairies for nothing; they displayed an eerily powerful regenerative ability.
Or rather, it wasn’t regeneration so much as restoration—they materialized their severed limbs as ethereal forms and reattached them to their wounds.
To prevent such restoration, we either had to kill the gremlins outright or destroy the severed limbs.
But with chaos erupting everywhere, the moment we blinked, they’d already materialized their severed limbs, slipped them beneath the floor, and reattached them before returning to the fray.
Still, as the battle raged on, Lee Su-young and I burned away the limbs scattered across the floor, leaving three gremlins unable to run on their legs and forced to crawl across the ground.
The horrifying truth was that even reduced to crawling, their obsession with the power source showed no signs of waning.
“Su-young, take a break.”
“Yes!”
At my command, Lee Su-young immediately retreated toward the power source and collapsed on the floor to rest.
Even though the floor had become a sea of gremlin blood, she didn’t care in the slightest.
Tough as nails, that one.
Gone was the hesitation she’d shown at the beginning when I’d told her to rest, questioning how she could rest alone.
Had we really been fighting for ten hours now?
Unlike Diana, who rarely tired, and unlike me, who could briefly return to my main body on Tower Floor 1 for a quick nap, Lee Su-young needed regular rest intervals.
Even if I took a brief nap on Tower Floor 1, it didn’t fully dispel my body’s exhaustion—but circulating my inner energy allowed me to recover most of the fatigue.
Diana asked with concern as she swung her mace.
“Shouldn’t you rest a bit? Both Lugin and I took short breaks, but you haven’t rested even once this entire time.”
“I can still manage. I’ll rest later, so please don’t worry.”
Every two hours I’d return to my main body to rest, then come back—a fact that pricked my conscience slightly.
Physical exhaustion and mana depletion could be remedied with potions, but mental fatigue was impossible to resolve.
“In thirty minutes, Lugin will take a break.”
As I said this, I continued attacking the gremlins relentlessly when the Captain came rushing over to check on the Engine Room situation.
“W-what is this?!”
The Captain was horrified at the sight before him.

(To be continued in the next chapter)

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