Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 118

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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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Chapter 118. The Tower – Airship (6)

“Why are there so many Gremlins?!”
The Captain, who apparently hadn’t received a proper briefing, couldn’t hide his shock at the current situation.
“Ah, Captain…!”
Lugin stiffened slightly as her superior arrived while she was in an exhausted state.
“Aaah!”
A Gremlin seized the opening and raked its claws deep across Lugin’s back, which had been scorched by its electrical discharge.
“Lugin!”
The Captain cried out in alarm, and Lee Su-young and I rushed past Lugin, firing magic bullets and water orbs at the Gremlin charging toward the power source.
Diana swung her mace and sent one Gremlin flying into the wall, then healed Lugin with holy power.
Lugin’s uniform was already tattered, reduced to little more than rags.
The Gremlins’ claws couldn’t even scratch Diana’s bare skin, let alone pierce Gung-gi’s leather armor, and they couldn’t penetrate Lee Su-young’s defensive slime barrier.
As for me, I hadn’t trained so carelessly as to be hit by attacks from such sluggish creatures.
Even if I couldn’t dodge, I could easily block them with magic or my combat suit.
“Get up and fight! Rest time hasn’t come yet! I’m not resting either, so why are you lying down?!”
At my cold command, Lugin gritted her teeth, rose, and electrocuted the charging Gremlin.
“Aaaaah! Drop dead!”
After fighting for over ten hours without proper rest, her mind was beginning to fray.
Fortunately, either the Gremlin didn’t want to die or the pain of being electrocuted was unbearable—it escaped by becoming ethereal.
Just now, it seemed like she genuinely wanted to kill it with her eyes rolled back. Thank goodness that didn’t happen.
“Damn their ethereal form—they recover from injuries too quickly. This is endless.”
Knowing we couldn’t kill them, they attacked more boldly and recklessly.
They had learned that their survival so far wasn’t due to their own abilities, but to Diana’s holy power.
Of course, Diana’s healing only kept them from dying.
The Gremlins had stamina and couldn’t use their abilities infinitely. Compared to when they first attacked, their movements had grown sluggish, and the cooldown on their ethereal form and invisibility had lengthened.
So after repeatedly severing and recovering, the Gremlin pack retreated—for who knows how many times now.
Even the Gremlins couldn’t endlessly charge at the power source while being cut to pieces.
They were living creatures that understood pain.
They were simply enchanted by that power source, ignoring the pain and endlessly retrying.
“Everyone, rest!”
At my command, Diana and Lugin collapsed to the ground.
“Su-young, you’re done resting. If they charge again, we’ll handle it together. Diana, recover your holy power quickly. Lugin, try to get some sleep if you can.”
Lee Su-young got to her feet, and Diana sat down, immediately beginning her breathing technique.
She was directly experiencing how nothing compared to breathing techniques for both physical recovery and fatigue relief.
Of course, practicing breathing techniques on a battlefield like this was dangerous, but she seemed to trust that I would protect her no matter what, so she focused on recovery.
I asked the Captain, who was staring into the Engine Room with a pale expression.
“Has the external battle ended?”
“…Ah! No, that’s not quite it. I just sent a subordinate to check on the Engine Room, and he came back looking exhausted and babbling incoherently, so I came to see for myself. But what in the world is happening here? What’s all this blood?”
I explained the current situation on behalf of Lugin, who was too exhausted to report coherently.
The Captain appeared terrified upon learning that twenty Gremlins were attacking.
“There were more Gremlins than what I just saw?!”
The Captain had only seen seven Gremlins moments ago.
Since they typically appeared alone or in groups of three at most with their young, he couldn’t help but be shocked at the revelation of more.
These cunning creatures weaponized their numerical advantage, launching attacks in three rotating shifts.
Sometimes fourteen would swarm at once, or they’d rest among themselves before launching a full assault, leaving us with no breathing room.
“Everyone looks utterly exhausted. Are you holding up alright?”
“If I’m not? Should we all just die? Shouldn’t someone maintain composure?”
Of course I was tired, so when he asked such an obvious question, I couldn’t help but answer with a hint of irritation.
Yet the Captain seemed impressed by my sharp response.
“You’re remarkable.”
“If you have the leisure to praise, then take my place.”
At my cutting remark, the Captain lowered his head apologetically.
“…I’m truly sorry. We’re engaged in fierce combat up there as well. Of course, compared to your efforts just now, it’s nothing particularly impressive, but we have no margin for error. The moment I leave the helm, the outer hull will be breached in an instant.”
To make a corvette-class vessel weigh like a speedboat, the armor would be paper-thin—unavoidable.
We could only block their approach with suppressive fire and shoot them down with anti-tank rounds.
I exhaled deeply, then raised my magic pistol and shot a Gremlin that was trying to strike at the Captain’s blind spot from behind.
The Captain startled in alarm, then jumped at the Gremlin’s screech from behind him.
Just because something fell outside my line of sight didn’t mean it escaped my perception.
With guided magic on the bullets, curving their trajectory to shoot around obstacles was hardly difficult.
“Don’t worry, sir. Until my colleague recovers, I’m controlling my power. Gentle shots don’t hurt much.”
“What do you mean by—?”
Without Diana’s recovery ability, there were many constraints when attacking the Gremlins.
Because of Diana’s holy power, I could attack without worrying about killing them, but this situation was the worst.
Of course, when Diana wasn’t using her holy power, the Gremlins seemed to realize they might actually die, so their attacks felt somewhat less aggressive.
But the battle was inevitably more difficult.
Unlike simply avoiding instant kills, having to worry about exsanguination and shock deaths multiplied the combat difficulty several times over.
No matter how I thought about it, fighting without killing was far too difficult.
And if it had to continue for hours on end.
As combat resumed and Lee Su-young and I engaged them with power-reduced magic bullets and water bullets, the Captain spoke with a look of resignation.
“…I don’t know if this will be any comfort, but if we reach our destination safely, I’ll empty my entire personal fortune to reward you generously.”
Neither Lee Su-young nor I had time to respond before the Captain saluted and left the Engine Room again.
Why did he even come if that’s all he was going to do?
I thoroughly protected Diana with magic while she recovered, then darted between the Gremlins, striking them with a leather bludgeon just hard enough to avoid killing them.

* * *

“Ahhhhh….”
Lee Su-young, half-delirious from exhaustion, entered a trance-like state and unleashed Water Orb after Water Orb.
Her accuracy was so flawless that I wondered if the slime was conducting automatic hunts rather than Lee Su-young actually aiming.
“Snore… Cough! Wheeze! Ah, I dozed off… Gasp! I’m so sorry! How long was I asleep?!”
Lee Su-young suddenly jolted awake and apologized frantically.
“What are you talking about? You were fighting just fine.”
“Huh…? Oh… then… that’s a relief… Snore….”
Reassured by my words, her tension eased slightly, and her eyes lost focus as she began snoring again.
Meanwhile, the slime diligently drew upon Lee Su-young’s mana and unleashed a barrage of Water Orbs.
“Impressive—fighting while asleep.”
It seemed the slime had sensed Lee Su-young’s will to fight and was battling on its own.
Even in sleep, she remained aware of the danger; the barrier slime, Bangpung, continued maintaining its protective shield without pause.
With a bit more refinement, she could become a complete combat machine that fights in full sleep mode.
Of course, mana consumption would continue, so I’d need to wake her periodically to drink mana recovery potions.
“Wow… I’m envious.”
Even Diana, the tireless prodigy, gazed at Lee Su-young with hollow eyes as the battle stretched past twenty hours, envying her ability to fight while sleeping.
“If you envy that, Lugin has been sleeping just fine, hasn’t she?”
Lugin was currently sprawled beside the power source, unconscious and deeply asleep.
“But we can’t exactly drug her to achieve that.”
After fighting for roughly fourteen hours, Lugin apparently decided she’d reached her limit; her trembling hands fumbled for the Steam Pack she’d been issued.
Diana was horrified and scolded her to just sleep instead.
When I forced her eyes shut and made her lie down, Lugin muttered protests before falling asleep immediately.
“She’s slept six hours—that should be enough. Let’s wake her and let Diana rest.”
While Lugin slept, the rest of us hadn’t taken a moment’s rest.
“It’s Ji-woo who needs rest. Lee Su-young and I took turns resting, but Ji-woo hasn’t rested once.”
When she said it like that, I felt a pang of guilt.
On Tower Floor 1, I’d taken two-hour rest intervals, and six hours before Lugin fell asleep, I’d actually slept for about eight hours and reabsorbed and regenerated my clones.
My current condition was roughly equivalent to having been awake for only six hours.
“I can go a week without sleep just fine.”
By repeating clone regeneration and sleep on Tower Floor 1, I could endure not just a week but a month without issue.
“That’s absurd. If you don’t actually rest, I’ll be angry. You must rest once the Sergeant wakes up.”
“Understood.”
I kicked away a Gremlin clawing at the power source and woke Lugin.
“Hey. Wake up.”
“Huh…?”
“Wake up. This isn’t a game!”
My sharp command snapped Lugin to alertness.
“Ah…! I’m, I’m sorry! I fell asleep without realizing! How, how long was I asleep?!”
Still groggy, she momentarily mistook me for someone named Jon.
“About six hours? We should reach our destination in another four or five hours.”
“Ah! I-I’m sorry!”
“Instead of apologizing, pick up a weapon and fight! Look at her. She’s fighting even while sleeping.”
Lee Su-young now stood in a completely upright posture, deep in slumber, while her slime conducted automatic hunts.
“Well, if I don’t rest now, I really will get in trouble, so I’ll take a brief respite.”
I drained a mana recovery potion and sat near the Engine Room.
“Ugh, I’m stuffed. How many potions are you drinking? We’re running a complete deficit.”
I’d barely eaten anything, yet the potions had filled my stomach.
Each low-grade mana recovery potion cost 10 Shop Points, but since I hadn’t killed a single monster, the deficit was catastrophic.
If I hadn’t accumulated plenty of points by hunting monsters while relying on the City Wall on the 18th Floor, things could have become dangerous.
I’d calculate it at 3,000 credits per Shop Point and bill the Captain.
Surely after doing this much, he wouldn’t pretend not to know me.
While I was resting, soldiers with wild eyes came rushing in.
“We’ve come to relieve the shift.”
Finally, had they defeated all the wyverns?
But did these people really get hit with steam packs?
Are they really okay?
As the soldiers came rushing in, the gremlins began scurrying away in panic.
These creatures had hidden like mice when soldiers were present, so fleeing when soldiers arrived was only natural.
Of course, they seemed thoroughly enchanted, so they might attempt another ambush.
But now it seemed to be beyond my jurisdiction.
“I….”
Lugin, who had been sleeping soundly until moments ago, seemed to feel guilt at the sight of her fellow soldiers with bloodshot eyes as if intoxicated by drugs.
I rose from my seat and lightly patted her back as I spoke.
“You’ve worked hard. Let’s hand over command and head topside.”
“B-but…!”
“Look at your current state. Don’t you see them pitying you?”
Our current appearance, especially Lugin’s, was no laughing matter.
We were caked in blood—both from gremlins and ourselves—and the once-neat boarding uniforms were shredded by gremlin claws until it was impossible to distinguish whether they were clothes or rags.
My hair was disheveled, and my eyes were severely bloodshot from just waking. Though I had slept, considering the intense combat before sleep, I was still sleep-deprived.
“Ah, understood. I’ll hand over command immediately.”
Lugin led a squad to the Engine Room and explained to the incoming squad leader all the battles that had occurred, how they’d endured, how many gremlins there were, and their attack patterns.
The man who appeared to be the squad leader spoke with admiration.
“Hah, our hardship was nothing compared to this. You’ve suffered greatly, Lugin. Go up and get some proper rest.”
“No, sir. Marcop. It’s thanks to these climbers here who fought so hard.”
“Just because they suffered more doesn’t mean your suffering wasn’t real. Leave this to us and go up.”
At the squad leader’s words, Lugin seemed choked with emotion.
I paid no mind to whether she cried or not and carried the sleeping Lee Su-young on my back.
“Should I carry Diana as well?”
“I’ll ask you next time. My back has no room right now.”
Diana and Lee Su-young, who had climbed up, lacked the energy to bathe, so I cleansed them with my purification artifact and they fell asleep immediately in the Female Soldier Barracks.
I accepted a sleeping bag and headed toward the Officers’ Lounge.
Though this wasn’t a campsite, I couldn’t sleep soundly among soldiers I’d only just met yesterday—or was it today?—so I assigned spirits to Diana and Lee Su-young.
They were merely Level 1 spirits, barely more useful than a lighter, but they were sufficient to send me an immediate signal if danger arose.
As for me, even if I died, I could simply create another clone, so there was no real need to worry—but it was only prudent that at least one of me remained awake to ensure everyone’s safety.

(To be continued in the next chapter)

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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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