Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 192

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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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Episode 192. The Tower – The Princess of the Spire Tower (9)

The Demon-kin Prince Crobans slipped free from his prison and moved with utmost discretion toward the Spire Tower where the human princess Phelibroulea waited.
That Phelibroulea remained alive despite being captured alongside Crobans by the Demon-kin General Gula was entirely because the Demon-kin’s grand invasion was drawing near.
At first, the Demon-kin did not know that Phelibroulea was the princess from the Divine Oracle of Lamberton.
Had they known, they would never have allowed her inside the fortress—they would have killed her while she was still in human territory.
By the time they realized who she was, not long after bringing her within the city walls, Crobans had already entered the fortress with her, and Lamberton had dispatched its Rescue Force. To kill the princess now would be reckless.
To do so would unravel the Demon-kin’s grand invasion plot, painstakingly prepared in secret for years.
The Location Tracking Magic bound to Phelibroulea could be severed, but the magic that revealed her survival could not be removed in so short a time.
More than that—with her location already cut off, should they also obscure whether she lived or died, the wrathful full military force of Lamberton would descend without mercy and raze the fortress. So even if they could have removed the magic, they dared not.
If the fortress fell, the war materiel would pass into human hands. For the Demon-kin, it meant more than mere loss of supplies—it would be damage severe enough to shake the very fate of their nation.
Yet neither could they release the princess, the protagonist of the Divine Oracle.
The Oracle had spoken: her child would be a Warrior who vanquishes the Demon-kin. By that logic, the Demon-kin had no choice but to kill her.
Crobans himself had been imprisoned because he had brought this crisis upon his homeland.
For any other, discovery would have meant death—a sin beyond redemption. But Crobans was the valiant son whom the Demon-kin King cherished most, so his sentence remained mere imprisonment for now.
Through his horns—his sensory organs—Crobans read the chaotic atmosphere spreading through the fortress and marveled.
“That human has truly wreaked havoc.”
Though he could not read the exact positions of all the fortress troops, it was plain that no ordinary commotion was unfolding.
Crobans, who had harbored little faith, offered silent gratitude to the Climber of The Tower whose name he did not even know.
Surely such disorder meant the Climber had gone to his death unflinching.
He paused a moment in reverence for the man who had cast his life away like dust for the sake of himself and the princess, then bolted toward her.

* * *

While Han Ji-woo tore through the fortress ransacking the Warehouse, ravaging his path as he went—
Gillen, the Climber of The Tower, and the Knight Commander of Lamberton made their way toward the Spire Tower.
“Demon-kin have keen noses. Blood will give us away at once. The scent from outside the City Wall is thick with today’s battles, but if blood spills within, they’ll sense it immediately.”
The Knight Commander warned Gillen in a low voice, and Gillen heeded the caution, dispatching soldiers by snapping their necks with his bare hands rather than using his dagger.
Thanks to Gillen’s Concealment ability, eliminating the Demon-kin soldiers proved effortless.
Yet tenseness from fighting deep in enemy territory made it difficult to discern whether each soldier was truly dead or merely unconscious.
The two of them, dispatching Demon-kin soldiers through ambush, climbed ever higher in the Spire Tower until at last they reached the topmost chamber where the princess lay.
The chamber door was locked, but the Knight Commander cut through it without hesitation using his Sacred Iron Sword.
Though protective magic guarded the door, there was scarcely any magic in this world capable of withstanding a Sacred Iron Sword wielded by a high-ranking knight.
This is why Snow Iron was treated as a strategic weapon.
“Your Highness!”
Bursting through the door, the Knight Commander spotted Phelibroulea, princess of Lamberton, and at once threw himself into a prostration before her.
“You are… Rom?”
When the princess recognized him, the Knight Commander’s eyes glistened with emotion as he gazed up at her.
For a moment, he felt as though he had become that noble knight from the tales, the one who rescues the princess.
“I have come to save you. Everyone worries for your safety.”
At Rom’s words, Phelibroulea’s expression darkened.
She had run away of her own will. Returning now was not what she wished.
Above all, she was consumed with worry for Crobans, imprisoned in the dungeons because of her.
“I… I cannot leave.”
Rom’s face fell at the princess’s refusal.
“Cannot leave? What do you mean by such words?”
“My… a friend of mine is locked in the Underground Prison. I must save him.”
Phelibroulea could not bring herself to speak of her beloved imprisoned below.
“Ah, but there is no need for concern. Since we could not determine where you were held, we split our forces and covered three likely locations. The Underground Prison was among them, so Nagrang the Priest will rescue whoever is there.”
At Rom’s words, Phelibroulea’s expression grew even darker.
Nagrang was a battle priest who, after losing his wife and daughter brutally to the Demon-kin, had devoted himself to the Holy Temple.
There was no chance he would save a Demon-kin.
“There is no time, Your Highness. We must escape now.”
If they did not leave soon, the soldiers dying outside the fortress walls would have no time to retreat.
Even now, they were falling without distinction of friend or foe.
Gillen stepped forward to extend his Concealment effect to the princess as well, but she withdrew.
“I… I cannot go.”
“Your Highness!”
Rom felt a surge of frustration at the princess’s tantrum. People who didn’t need to die were dying because of her alone.
Owell, one of the kingdom’s most renowned knights, had headed straight for the most dangerous heart of the castle—he was certainly a dead man.
Yet to Phelibroulea, Lamberton’s royal palace was a suffocating prison that crushed her with its weight.
Her parents and those around her, who refused to see her as herself, treated her like breeding stock.
Rather than return there and drag out a life of suffocation, she wanted to live freely, even if it meant a shorter life.
It was fair to call it the selfishness of a thoughtless child.
Yet she, who had already tasted freedom with Crobans and spent happy moments beside him, could never return to her past.
It was deeply selfish, but it was the truth in her heart.
As the argument between the knight and the princess dragged on, Gillen—an outsider to this world—began to grow irritated.
He couldn’t understand why the princess was throwing a fit, nor did he care to.
He had infiltrated deep into enemy territory to rescue the princess; all he wanted now was to hand her over to Megroleta, her brother, collect the rest of his payment, and return to the Lower Levels’ Common Floor.
“We’re running out of time. If you don’t want the princess to die, put her to sleep briefly and let’s escape.”
Rom nodded at Gillen’s words, though his expression remained troubled.
They had reached this point because of many sacrifices.
To not waste those sacrifices, to prevent further loss, he needed to act with resolve.
“Your Highness, I shall beg your forgiveness for this rudeness once we return to the palace.”
“Don’t do this! I’ll jump!”
As Rom approached, Phelibroulea shrank back against the wall, but the small window was far too narrow for her body to fit through.
“Your Highness….”
Rom furrowed his brow and reached out toward the princess.
Crack!
Someone struck the back of his head.
Rom spun around, blood trickling down his face.
The moment he saw the blue-skinned figure that had attacked him, he forced his lips to move.
“De-demon-kin…! The princess… you mustn’t…!”
“What good is a man if he threatens a lady?”
The loyal knight, unable to finish his words, collapsed and lost consciousness, while the demon-kin who had struck him smiled wickedly.
Gillen, a climber, immediately concealed himself with Concealment at the sudden appearance of the enemy, then drew his dagger and prepared to strike.
“Crobans! I was so worried!”
It was only until the princess threw her arms around the demon-kin with tears streaming down her face.
That was Gillen’s fatal mistake.
Caught off guard by the incomprehensible situation, Crobans bound Gillen with magic.
If Gillen’s Concealment had been active from the start, he would have been extremely difficult to find, but using Concealment right before someone made it easy for anyone sensitive to magical auras to track him.
Had he moved quickly, pursuit would have been harder, but thanks to Gillen’s hesitation, Crobans subdued him with ease.
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
Crobans pulled his unharmed beloved close, exhaling in relief.
Then he spoke toward Gillen’s direction, bound and invisible due to his concealment.
“I owe a debt to the climber who freed me from the Underground Prison, so I won’t attack you, a fellow climber. The binding will break in fifteen minutes at most. Your Concealment is impressive—once you’re free, slipping safely out of the castle will be well within your reach.”
With those words, Crobans took Phelibroulea’s hand.
“Let’s run.”
“Yes!”
Gillen was dumbfounded by the stark contrast to how Crobans had treated the loyal knight Rom.
Gillen struggled desperately to break the bindings, but the resilient magic only tightened its grip the more he resisted.
He could only watch helplessly as the two lovers fled.

* * *

“Hee-yah! Try and catch me!”
I bounded between the castle roofs, acrobatically dodging arrows and magical attacks that rained down on me.
Unstable footing and relentless assaults with no mercy shown.
This is good training, I’ll admit.
“Grab him! You must not let him escape!”
“That thief! What did you do with the things in the warehouse!”
Looking down at the demon-kin desperately trying to capture me, I felt a rush of joy.
Having given up on clearing out the warehouse, I was instead enjoying a pleasant game of tag with the demon-kin.
Thanks to me, those who went to the castle center and those who went to the Spire Tower should be breathing easier.
Occasionally some would climb up onto the roof to chase me, but since they’d never fought on steep slopes before, they swung their swords weakly—one punch packed with shatter-breaking force sent them flying off the rooftop.
When the occasional one in Eternal Steel Armor came up with a weapon, I tensed for a moment, but they had the same problem with their footing; I knocked them out myself, stripped them of their gear one by one, picked out the useful bits, and discarded the rest.
“Give me back my armor and weapon!”
Still, the one who’d worn the Eternal Steel proved sturdy as befitted a high-ranking knight, waking quickly and giving chase again.
“If I were just going to hand it back, why would I have stolen it in the first place? If you want it back, come and take it!”
“You thieving bastard!”
“Aha! Call me the righteous phantom thief!”
“If we don’t catch that madman and beat him senseless, I’ll burn this whole fortress down!”
What an ungrateful wretch.
Did he truly despise his own fortress so much?
So he wanted to burn it to the ground?
As I pondered this, I spotted the demon-kin I’d released from the Underground Prison emerging from the Spire Tower below, carrying something concealed beneath cloth.
Gillen and a knight called Rom should have gone to the Spire Tower—why was that creature carrying something out?
I’d only freed him to be of use. Had he betrayed me?
If my suspicion was correct, the demon-kin would not be bringing the princess to Megroleta, her brother.
But from my position, I needed the princess delivered before Megroleta regardless of what happened to those two.
So I decided to shake off the demon-kin pursuing me first.
Just as I was preparing magic to lose the chase, a dizzying sensation erupted beneath my feet, and I threw myself from the roof.
Crash!
Sure enough, a thick sword aura burst from within the building and tore through the spot where I’d been standing.
“You there! Where are the supplies that were in our warehouse?”
A demon-kin clad in ornate Eternal Steel Armor glared at me savagely and demanded an answer, while the knights around us cried out in alarm.
“General Gula!”
General Gula. Before infiltrating this fortress, I’d heard about a demon-kin named Gula.
If I recalled correctly, he was the lord of the fortress and the general commanding the demon-kin forces in this region.
His skill level was first-rate. But with the Eternal Steel Sword, he could channel the power of an absolute master—perhaps even beyond.
A general ought to remain in the safest position, yet here he was, stepping onto the field himself.
Poor leadership indeed.

(To be continued in the next episode)

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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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