Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 29

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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 29. The Tower – Escort (2)

Milio returned directly to his residence and prepared for herb gathering.
He brought along a rough map of the Forest interior drawn on parchment, though it was far from precise.
Given the Village’s level of development, it resembled a medieval European settlement, so it was only natural.
Still, the City on the 10th Floor had modern conveniences scattered throughout and an aesthetic closer to the modern era, whereas this place looked like the medieval period before the Black Plague ever struck.
Not all indigenous inhabitants living within The Tower existed in the same environment.
Perhaps there were indigenous people living in primitive huts from ancient times.
The handful of adults protecting the Village regarded me and Lee Su-young—the sudden outsiders—with wary eyes, but upon hearing Milio’s explanation that we had emerged from the crystal connected to The Tower, they marveled at whether the legend was true.
Of course, their amazement aside, their cautious gaze remained unchanged.
There was some minor dispute among the Village elders who worried about Milio, but ultimately an atmosphere formed where they decided to trust us since The Tower had sent us as escorts, allowing us to depart for the Forest.
“Milio, you and your Village people are indigenous inhabitants, right?”
Indigenous inhabitants weren’t confined to residential floors alone.
Looking at the Community, Quests to climb The Tower could take the form of fulfilling requests from indigenous inhabitants, or they could be tasks The Tower itself assigned independent of any indigenous involvement.
Come to think of it, indigenous inhabitants on the Common Floor receive protection from climbers, but these people don’t.
The reverse applies as well, but what’s the reason?
At my question, Milio nodded.
“Yes, that’s what I understand to be the case.”
Milio had simply lived on this land, in this Village, since his distant ancestors, without ever sensing anything unusual.
Or rather, it would be strange to feel anything unusual about it.
He had merely lived as he always had since birth, without any artificial interference.
Lee Su-young and I entered the Forest under Milio’s guidance. The trees were so densely packed that despite it being midday, it was quite dark.
Milio carefully observed his surroundings and headed off the path.
“From Bear Rock here, 230 paces in the direction the moss grows. From there, 70 paces to the left in the direction the moss grows. Beyond the Ravine, from Toad Rock, 150 paces or so downward to the left in the direction the moss grows, and that’s where the herb colony I’m looking for is located.”
Looking at the rough map, a wolf face was drawn in the section beyond the Ravine.
“Is that the wolf’s territory?”
“…Yes. The entire Forest is the monster wolf’s territory, but their primary hunting grounds are beyond the Ravine. That’s why most herb gathering is done without crossing the Ravine.”
What level are these monster wolves?
Probably the wolves are no different from goblins or slightly stronger.
But the wolf alpha would be considerably more powerful.
As my expression grew serious, Milio watched my face and spoke.
“Still, the monster wolves don’t move much from the Forest’s center. Even if we encounter them, most will be subordinate wolves. Ordinary wolves can usually be driven away with this.”
What Milio handed me looked like a small cluster resembling a pea-sized pellet.
“Light it and throw it, and it releases a smell and smoke the wolves hate, so they usually flee immediately.”
The preparation was better than expected.
Upon seeing the pea-pellet cluster, Lee Su-young smiled.
“It seems safer than I thought?”
“Let’s hope so.”
Following Milio’s guidance, once a bear-shaped rock came into view, I walked northward in the direction where moss grew at the base of the trees.
I opened my senses to examine the surroundings, but I detected only a few wild animals—nothing that felt like a wolf.
Inwardly relieved, I somehow found my way through the forest of nothing but trees and arrived at the Ravine.
An old suspension bridge hung across the Ravine, and Lee Su-young visibly recoiled at its dilapidated and precarious state.
“D-do we really have to cross here?”
“Yes, if not here, we’d have to detour all the way upstream for a full day.”
“Then turning back would be… no, never mind.”
Lee Su-young swallowed hard at Milio’s earnest expression, closed her eyes, and clung to my left arm as if clinging to me for dear life.
She couldn’t bring herself to suggest turning back when her mother’s condition could worsen at any moment.
One way took a day, so the round trip would be two days.
I didn’t want to spend two days in this dark, wolf-infested forest either.
I casually matched Milio’s pace and crossed the suspension bridge.
The bridge swayed considerably, but as long as we didn’t run across it, two or three adults should be able to pass without trouble.
“Su-young? You’re heavy.”
“Ugh…! A-are we almost across?”
“We’re almost there.”
At my words, Lee Su-young cracked one eye open, then squeezed both shut again.
“Kyaaah! Y-you liar!”
At her reaction, I laughed pleasantly.
“Hahahaha! It’s not a lie. If we’ve come halfway, we’re practically done. The beginning is always half the battle, so if we’ve gone more than halfway, only half of half remains.”
“D-don’t spout such strange sophistry!”
“Come on. A person should stay positive. The glass is half full, you know?”
Lee Su-young gritted her teeth and spoke.
“Just say that after we arrive without splitting in half.”
Wait, she gritted her teeth because she was scared, right? She wasn’t actually threatening to split me in half?
Once we crossed the Ravine and reached safe ground, Lee Su-young made an incomprehensible sound like “Uuuugh~!” and collapsed as if to embrace the earth, pressing her hands against it.
“Were you really that scared?”
“No, rather, how aren’t you scared of that bridge, Ji-woo? It looks downright menacing.”
Now that I think about it, I’ve never had a fear of heights since childhood.
Besides, after dying a couple of times, all I could think was that the pain from falling would be brief.
“Come on, let’s go. We need to gather the herbs quickly and get out of this Forest.”
“Ugh… we’ll have to cross that bridge again on the way back, won’t we?”
Lee Su-young groaned at the thought of crossing that bridge again.
I let out a quiet laugh at her expression, but I felt a gaze from far away.
When I suddenly looked toward the Forest, Milio and Lee Su-young looked at me.
“What’s wrong?”
“A wolf. But it’s smaller than I expected.”
The wolf I had imagined was larger than the ones I’d seen on the internet.
But the wolf caught by my senses was larger than a medium-sized dog and smaller than a large dog.
“Is it originally a small species?”
Wolves came in different sizes, both large and small.
Or perhaps the Forest lacked sufficient food, stunting their growth.
Throughout my journey here, the only wild animals I’d sensed were small creatures like rabbits and pheasants.
The largest I’d encountered was a wild boar, though even those weren’t particularly massive. And I hadn’t crossed paths with them very often anyway.
“You can see that?”
Lee Su-young looked at me with fascination as I described even the creature’s size.
But I wasn’t seeing it with my eyes either.
Whatever else I lacked, I’d been born with an innate sense for manipulating qi.
“Since they’re not attacking immediately, they don’t seem to be starving.”
At my words, Milio spoke with urgency in his voice.
“Still, let’s gather the herbs quickly and go. We don’t have much time left.”
Milio quickened his pace, and Lee Su-young, who had been sitting on the ground, rose and moved swiftly alongside him.
I had no desire to fight wolves in the middle of the Forest if I could help it.
Fortunately, we reached the herb growth site not long after.
Milio busily gathered from the dense undergrowth, apparently able to distinguish medicinal herbs from ordinary plants.
I watched his collection efforts for several minutes before asking.
“Will this take long?”
“Just a bit more… Why?”
“Wolves are heading this way. They seem to be measuring their approach?”
Three wolves from the south and west, or was it four?
No, there were more behind us.
My skills still fell short—I could only vaguely sense animals behind us, unable to determine their exact number.
At my words, Milio’s expression darkened as he hastily finished gathering the herbs.
I took the bundle of herbs from Milio’s hands and placed it in my inventory.
“I’ll return it at the Village. …Run!”
At my shout, Milio and Lee Su-young bolted back the way we’d come.
As the two ran, the wolves that had been creeping silently from the south and west gave chase behind us.
Running at the rear, I reinforced my strength with inner energy and hurled my hand axe.
The hand axe I threw split the head of the leftmost charging wolf clean in half.
Up close, I could see a pair of horns like a bull’s sprouting from the wolf’s head.
So this wasn’t any wolf I knew.
“Damn! I really need to learn proper throwing technique!”
I was hitting targets through sheer luck, but the one I’d actually aimed for was the one beside it.
It was a shame to waste the wolf’s mana stone and hide, but stopping to collect them could get me killed.
As I ran hard, I sensed wolf presence ahead as well.
“Su-young! One o’clock! Two wolves coming!”
At my shout, Lee Su-young, who had been keeping her slime—Water Breeze—on standby, fired two water orbs in rapid succession the moment the wolves appeared.
Unlike my throws, the slime’s water orbs boasted perfect accuracy, and the two wolves struck in the head collapsed with crushed skulls.
“More coming from ahead! These bastards remembered the path we took and set up an ambush!”
Insane! How is this the 11th Floor!
Could it be that we formed a party together and got assigned a high-difficulty Quest because of it?
If we both possessed powerful superhuman abilities, it wouldn’t be a problem, but neither Lee Su-young nor I were anywhere near that level.
“Oh! I leveled up!”
In the midst of the chaos, Lee Su-young’s Slime Summoning had apparently reached the next level.
I could feel the mana radiating from the Water Slime growing stronger as well.
“I think I can split and fire them now!”
“Eleven o’clock! Three wolves incoming!”
The moment I spotted the wolves, I enhanced my strength and hurled my hand axe.
The axe embedded itself in the leg of the wolf charging ahead.
The wolf’s leg didn’t just get sliced—its bone shattered—and it tumbled across the ground.
“I was aiming for the head this time….”
The Water Slime fired four smaller water orbs from its mouth.
The projectiles struck both eyes of the two wolves following behind.
Because they were smaller, their impact was reduced and didn’t kill the wolves, but both eyes burst, blinding them.
“I think I can split one shot into up to three parts and fire them!”
Lee Su-young said “I think” rather than “I can.”
The superhuman abilities granted by The Tower seemed helpful yet frustratingly vague—I had to figure out the precise mechanics through trial and error.
It was as if The Tower expected us to explore our own abilities and grow stronger through personal experimentation.
I slashed the throat of a wolf charging from behind with its horns lowered.
As I continued running and felling wolves, I arrived at the suspension bridge spanning the Ravine.
But the moment we reached the bridge, thirteen wolves surrounded us in a semicircle as if they’d been waiting.
Surrounded by the wolves, I finally understood.
“Ah, I should have chased down and killed that first wolf when I saw it.”
If I’d managed to catch and kill that wolf then, we either wouldn’t have become targets like this, or they wouldn’t have discovered the path we’d come from.
But it was too late now.
From the Forest, a single horned wolf the size of an ox ambled toward the Ravine.
“Grrrrr.”
The distinctive guttural growl characteristic of wolves echoed through the air.
The suspension bridge was behind us, but it wasn’t sturdy enough to withstand these wolves if they pursued us across it.
I grinned wickedly and spoke.

(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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