Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 22

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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 22. Galactic Martial Arts World – Amusement Park Abduction Incident (5)

Siu exhaled a sigh of relief at my joke.
-Thank goodness. The fact that you’re making strange jokes suggests you haven’t been harmed.
As expected, it’s all about how you play it.
If I’d simply said I was fine, she would have worried whether I was injured somewhere.
Personally, I preferred to ease tension with jokes like this in such situations.
I usually cracked jokes, but since they were from another world, Siu couldn’t understand them at all.
Come to think of it, the reason she was cautious about me using the internet might be because I made jokes she’d never heard of.
-Do you happen to know your current location?
“No, it seems I haven’t left the Amusement Park yet. I can see something like a boiler, and it’s a fairly spacious sealed room with no windows. You’re tracking my location, right? Are you getting a GPS signal?”
-The kidnappers appear to have planned this in advance. The GPS signal in this area keeps experiencing errors. So we’re currently tracking your phone signal using the family’s military satellite detection system. We should have your exact location in about 22 seconds.
I made sure Cheon So-yeon could hear what Siu was saying.
“Then a rescue team should arrive soon if we just wait a bit.”
Cheon So-yeon’s expression brightened at my words.
-However, Young Master, your phone was found destroyed. How did you make this call?
“Oh, this? I wanted to have a backup phone, so I bought one with my allowance. Since you don’t seem to know I bought a phone, I guess you haven’t tried restoring deleted logs?”
A three-year-old couldn’t go to a store alone, so naturally I purchased it online.
I seized the opportunity when Siu occasionally went out. That’s when I had it delivered.
I’d accumulated quite a few items purchased this way without Siu’s knowledge.
Of course, those items were being stored in my inventory through the system.
-I suppose I’ll need to start restoring deleted logs from now on.
“No…! Don’t do that. Besides, there’s parental controls installed, so I can’t access any suspicious sites anyway. That’s an invasion of privacy.”
-I was joking. But when you started receiving an allowance, didn’t we agree you’d keep an allowance ledger? Why have I never seen any purchase records?
“Ha ha, I’m keeping the promise. Double bookkeeping is standard practice.”
I promised to keep an allowance ledger, not to show it transparently.
I was quietly growing my allowance by investing in various funds and stocks based on my pocket money.
The base capital was so small that I couldn’t grow it much.
Since I’d bought the phone with money I’d grown this way, it was natural that Siu—who only glanced at the total amount in my allowance account after I’d quickly restored it to its original state—couldn’t possibly notice.
Siu fell silent at my response, seemingly at a loss for words.
-Perhaps I should cut off the internet after all….
“No…! It’s because I have internet access that I could make this contact in the first place…!”
At my urgent voice, Siu responded with a tone of resignation.
-Understood. Your exact location has been pinpointed. But is Cheon So-yeon with you as well? Her parents are beside me, anxious about their daughter.
“Yeah, she’s right next to me. I’ll make sure the surrounding sounds reach you too.”
The phone had a function that filtered out all surrounding noise except my voice, and another that transmitted all ambient sounds.
Conversely, I could set it so only I heard the caller’s voice, or have it play normally, and there was also a speaker function.
After adjusting the settings, I spoke to Cheon So-yeon.
“Cheon So-yeon, even if you speak quietly, your parents will hear you through this. Just give them a greeting.”
At my words, Cheon So-yeon nodded and whispered into the brooch-shaped communicator in my hand.
“Mom, Dad, I’m safe. Please don’t worry.”
“You don’t need to whisper so close. I can hear you fine.”
Never underestimate the technological capabilities of the 50th century.
The advancement of surveillance technology during the New Cold War era had evolved to capture any human voice, no matter how quiet or distant.
Few things contributed to technological progress quite like humanity’s persistent malice.
-We’re continuing to track your location. Please maintain the call in case you need to move positions.
“Understood.”
I placed the band in my inventory and attached only the brooch itself to the running shirt I wore as an undershirt beneath my clothes.
Since the brooch was thin, it wouldn’t be noticeable unless someone looked closely.
“Let’s bind your limbs again. When the rescue team arrives here, the kidnappers will try to move as well. If they see your restraints are loose, they might knock you out again.”
“But if you bind me again, I won’t be able to move immediately if something happens.”
“It’s fine. There’s a knot technique I can use to free you anytime. Fold the rope in half like this, hook your thumb here. And….”
I taught her a binding method commonly used in escape magic tricks.
To be precise, it was merely a technique that appeared to be restrained—not actual restraint.
With this knot, a simple movement of the thumb would loosen it immediately.
For her legs, I wrapped the rope so that keeping her feet pressed together made it look bound, but spreading them slightly would release it instantly.
“Wow, how do you know something like that?”
“The internet.”
The kidnappers were currently occupied searching for an escape route from the Amusement Park while keeping us locked in the warehouse, but once they discovered this location had been compromised, they would certainly take action.
For now, both Cheon So-yeon and I appeared to be three years old, so the kidnappers wouldn’t be cautious around us.
As evidence, they had only bound us—they hadn’t even attempted pressure point strikes or anything similar.
Well, I was just extra baggage anyway, and even if Cheon So-yeon were a martial arts prodigy, they’d likely think her growth potential was limited at her apparent age.
But judging solely from Cheon So-yeon’s energy signature, she had clearly surpassed the introductory stage and reached at least the third-rate level.
She might even be at the second-rate level, living up to her name as a martial arts prodigy.
“What’s your current level?”
At my question, Cheon So-yeon hesitated.
“I need to assess your full capabilities first so I can decide whether to take action, wait quietly for rescue, or prepare for how to respond if we’re threatened as hostages.”
Because the call was still connected, I heard nagging from Siu telling me to simply wait quietly for rescue.
If I were alone, honestly, escaping wouldn’t be difficult.
I could simply charge at the kidnappers and let them kill me.
The kidnappers wouldn’t care about my corpse since I’m not their target—they’d abandon it and leave. Then I’d create a clone, play dead, contact Siu, and head home.
The only problem was Cheon So-yeon.
No matter how much I claim to be an innocent bystander, I couldn’t just abandon a three-year-old child.
Though honestly, watching how she spoke and acted made me doubt whether she was actually three years old.
“Look, I know it’s rude to ask a martial artist about their level, but given the circumstances, it can’t be helped. Besides, even if your level is revealed now, as a martial arts prodigy your cultivation will advance quickly anyway. If you’re at least that capable, the kidnappers wouldn’t dare pull something this insane right in the heart of the Cheon Family Estate, would they?”
“That’s…true.”
Cheon So-yeon, her expression reluctant, silently mouthed the words without making a sound.
‘I’m second-rate.’
“Hmm, understood. It seems we can’t escape on our own. Let’s wait for rescue after all.”
As I said this, Cheon So-yeon glanced toward the door.
“The kidnappers are coming.”
Cheon So-yeon and I quickly stuffed the gags back into our mouths.
The door opened and two Kidnappers A entered.
“Damn it! Even the ventilation shaft is sealed off! This wasn’t part of the plan!”
“Calm down. This place was abandoned when the Amusement Park was redeveloped thirty years ago, so it’s not even on the internal maps—they won’t find it right away. The Hacking Team said the system managing the Amusement Park has no influence over this building.”
“Still, wouldn’t it be better to rendezvous with the Surveillance Team watching the parents? I’m uneasy with just the two of us.”
The kidnappers were operating in several different teams.
The fact that only two of them had carried out the actual abduction was good news.
“No, hiding here is actually better. You were happy about it too when you came for the preliminary survey—remember asking if there were places this inconspicuous? I’m telling you, there’s no way they’ll search this far in just one day.”
“True, this Amusement Park is ridiculously huge. …Ugh! Damn, things were going so well when the Surveillance Team managed to separate the brat with the Heavenly Martial Body from the parents!”
It seemed Cheon So-yeon’s separation from her parents wasn’t due to any mistake on either of their parts.
Though this was a science-fiction future world, it was also a martial arts world called the Galactic Martial Arts World.
Since martial arts stories always featured formation techniques, there was a possibility they had naturally separated Cheon So-yeon from her parents using something like an illusion formation within the crowd.
Or perhaps some advanced technology I wasn’t aware of had been used.
“By the way, are the kids still unconscious?”
“They should be awake by now. We only used enough drug to knock them out for maybe twenty or thirty minutes.”
“Then are these brats pretending to be asleep right now? They’re pretty clever?”
Oh no, they caught me feigning sleep.
Well, I’d expected as much.
I cracked open my eyes slightly and looked at Kidnapper A.
The two kidnappers were wearing balaclavas—those masks commonly called thief beanies with only the eyes exposed.
“Should we put them back to sleep?”
“No. That drug is expensive. We got the premium stuff specifically because the Heavenly Martial Body can’t be damaged, so we need to conserve it.”
Since we were bound and gagged, they didn’t feel the need to put us back under.
Then the kidnappers’ radio crackled to life.
-You two! Move to a different location immediately! Somehow they’re heading your way!
It seemed to be a transmission from those Surveillance Team members.
The rescue team, those incompetent bastards. They’ve been discovered.
They should have moved in complete secrecy!
“What?! That can’t be! How did they find this place?”
The kidnappers panicked upon realizing their location had been exposed.
Then one of the kidnappers with sharp eyes grabbed my collar and lifted me up.
Upon discovering the hidden phone beneath my clothes, the kidnapper shouted in fury.
“You damn brat! You hid a phone?!”
The enraged kidnapper tried to smash me straight into the ground and kill me.
At this rate, I would die!
“I’ll kill you…! Ugh!”
I pulled a one-handed sword from my inventory and drove it straight through Kidnapper A’s abdomen, piercing the dantian point on his meridian.
No matter how much I trained, my child’s body lacked the raw strength to pierce through a dantian even with a blade in hand.
That’s why I decided to take a gamble.
I pushed my arm’s strength to the absolute limit using my inner energy.
One misstep could have torn my muscles or shattered my bones under the strain, but whether it was the surge of desperation or because—as Cheon So-yeon had said before my abduction—I was already prepared for the next stage, I succeeded on the first attempt.
Once I succeeded, I grasped the general principle of reinforcing my body with inner energy.
I had reached the Third-Rate realm.
“Ughhhh…! Gahhhhh!”
As the dantian shattered, the dormant inner energy within erupted backward, and Kidnapper A collapsed in agony.
The higher one’s realm, the more dangerous a shattered dantian became—but conversely, the higher one’s realm, the harder it was to break a dantian.
Yet seeing that a Third-Rate’s strength had shattered Kidnapper A’s dantian meant he hadn’t reached the peak realm.
Well, peak or not, carelessness meant death in the martial arts world—that was simply how things worked.
He’d paid the price for ignoring the ancient wisdom: beware the elderly and the young.
“What?! Where did that blade come from?!”
Watching Kidnapper A’s shock, I giggled with delight.
“Ta-da! A magic trick where a sword appears~!”

(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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