Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 35

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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 35. The Tower – Escort (4)

William took the lead in negotiations with Lorolren.
Naturally, with bankruptcy hanging over his head, the talks proceeded in our favor.
Instead of accepting the usual compensation, we agreed to receive two magical artifacts per person.
Of course, since magical artifacts would strengthen our combat capabilities, we took them as an advance.
The condition, naturally, was that we’d return them if the escort mission failed.
This time, we even drew up a contract.
Lorolren wore the expression of someone who’d just been robbed, but it was a bargain compared to bankruptcy.
The magical artifacts Lorolren had been carrying were all merchandise, complete with instruction manuals describing their names and abilities.
William chose a necklace that increased mana recovery speed and a orb that assisted magical calculations.
Since the time required for magical calculations was essentially cooldown, the orb could also be described as reducing cooldown.
Lee Su-young selected a bracelet enchanted with a barrier spell to replace heavy shields and a slightly corroded belt that granted one additional summoning slot.
Unlike other magical artifacts, it seemed to be an excavated relic rather than a crafted item.
The belt that increased summoning slots was apparently so valuable that Lorolren pleaded for her to choose something else, but Lee Su-young had already equipped it and summoned a new slime.
The new slime was a red one that spewed fireballs.
“Your name is Flame Balloon. I’m counting on you from now on, Flame.”
It was still such a straightforward name that I couldn’t help but smile.
Retihoa, finding nothing particularly appealing, deliberated before selecting a staff capable of firing up to ten fire projectiles per day and a magical water pouch that could hold up to one hundred liters without any change in weight.
Both items had excellent versatility and looked good for reselling later as capital.
That water pouch was something I would have coveted if I couldn’t utilize the space on Tower Floor 1.
As I examined the items, I discovered a stone with no description written on it.
On the surface, it barely radiated mana, but something seemed dormant within.
It felt similar to yet different from a mana stone.
“What is this?”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure? I obtained it as a bonus along with other relics—a lucky stone from the excavation, so I don’t know much about it.”
When I glanced at Retihoa, she nodded, confirming he wasn’t lying.
“Hmm, I like how it looks, but I’d rather not take something I don’t understand as compensation. I’ll buy it instead. How much do you want?”
I had no intention of accepting an unknown item in place of a magical artifact. Who knew if it might be cursed?
At my words, Lorolren smiled like a true merchant.
“Since it came from the ruins, it’s worth about as much as a magical artifact.”
Retihoa shook her head.
Lorolren broke into a cold sweat under my icy gaze.
“Well, that said, since I don’t know what it is either, I can’t price it the same as a magical artifact. Seven thousand credits… six thousand… sigh, just give me three thousand five hundred credits.”
Faced with his natural enemy Retihoa, Lorolren finally quoted a price that was his true valuation with only a slight markup.
He should have done that from the start.
Magical artifacts would cost at least hundreds of thousands of credits—how much was he trying to swindle me?
I handed over three thousand five hundred credits and placed the stone into my inventory.
Then I selected my reward, and since there were about twenty magic books, I pretended to deliberate while secretly placing them one by one into my inventory without anyone noticing—taking them back out just as quickly.
To the naked eye, it looked like they’d entered and exited my inventory in roughly 0.1 seconds.
But in that 0.1-second window, I used my reincarnation clone’s body to copy the magic books and store them on my computer and the portable phone I occasionally used for listening to music with my main body, then printed and bound them into physical books that I kept on Tower Floor 1.
My conscience pricked me a little, but since Lorolren suffered no loss, it should be fine.
For my magical artifact rewards, I chose a bracelet enchanted with a cleansing spell that could disinfect and remove grime up to three times a day, and an anklet that allowed unlimited “double jumps.”
Now I wouldn’t have to bother with tedious laundry even if I was covered head to toe in monster blood.
“Oh, double jumping really does work.”
I immediately tested the magical artifact’s performance, and it felt like an invisible platform appeared for three seconds whenever I wanted to jump again.
To create another platform, I had to touch the ground at least once, so I couldn’t leap continuously through the air, but this artifact essentially allowed me to hover in midair for three seconds.
After finishing the reward collection, we resumed the escort.

* * *

“Phew, if Floor 14 is like this, I’m dreading Floor 15.”
William sighed as he drank a low-grade mana recovery potion he’d purchased from the Tower Shop.
It seemed like the number of monsters appearing increased the closer we got to York.
With more monsters came naturally more that broke through ranged attacks and approached the carriage, and I handled most of those.
At William’s sigh, Lorolren rolled his eyes.
“Is there something else you’re hiding?”
“Huh? Ha ha, that can’t be.”
At my question, Lorolren offered a smile.
Whenever he spoke, I naturally found myself looking at Retihoa.
“It’s vague. You’re not exactly hiding anything, but it feels like you are.”
Faced with Retihoa’s observation—her natural talent for reading people—Lorolren’s eyes wavered.
“The truth is, the canyon path we must pass through to reach York City is home to a significant monster population.”
“Near the city? They don’t subjugate them there?”
“Subjugation? Of course we do. However, even after subjugation, the area has many caves ideal for hiding, and the canyon’s structure makes it difficult to deploy large forces at once.”
Still, wouldn’t they have built the city somewhere without such monsters?
Lorolren answered my question.
“In fact, in the distant past, this city was invaded by a foreign power. At that time, the Monster Ecology Research Institute—the recipient of the goods we’re transporting—already existed, and since the city’s military forces were insufficient, they released monsters to prevent the invaders from approaching easily.”
“They released monsters? Those madmen!”
It was absurd.
Yet it wasn’t entirely mad—it was calculated.
Most of the monsters released then were killed by the invaders, and the foreign forces, having suffered considerable casualties fighting the monsters, attempted to invade the city but were easily defeated by the exhausted yet numerically superior defenders.
However, they apparently hadn’t anticipated that the small number of surviving monsters would multiply into a significant force decades later.
So the research institute, now located in the canyon, conducts various studies to eliminate those monsters, and the goods we’re transporting are apparently among the materials needed for that research.
Guessing why a growth elixir for monsters would be necessary for monster extermination, I suspected they planned to use it as bait—placing it at the center of traps so the monsters would swarm to it like moths to flame.
“We’re about to enter the harpies’ territory. Harpies have exceptionally keen sense of smell, so they’ll definitely come.”
This time, Lorolren gave the warning kindly, perhaps because his own life was on the line.
About ten minutes after Lorolren’s warning, harpies began swarming down from the distant sky.
Even at a glance, there were easily over fifty harpies.
“Keep the carriage moving. Focus only on reaching York as quickly as possible.”
At my words, Lorolren soothed the frightened Mule and kept the carriage from stopping.
I climbed onto the canvas canopy of the cargo carriage, drew my sword, and observed the harpies.
Harpies were monsters combining the upper body of a human with the lower body of a bird.
Their bodies were small, roughly the size of elementary school children, but their wings were disproportionately small, and they didn’t move like hummingbirds with invisible wingbeats.
It was strange that they could fly at all with such an impossible structure, so I examined the flow of mana and discovered that their wingbeats created specific currents of magical energy, generating upward drafts and gravity-reducing effects that sustained their bodies.
The harpies were flying through primitive magic.
“Aim for their wings rather than their heads, which are harder to hit!”
If their wings were injured, they couldn’t maintain their specific wingbeat pattern, and they’d naturally plummet.
Harpies weren’t light and small like actual birds, so falling from a height meant certain death.
At my shout, Lee Su-young and William began shooting down harpies with ranged attacks aimed at their wings.
But with so many of them, it was impossible for just two ranged attackers to shoot down every harpy.
Retihoa also attacked with the flame lance staff she’d been saving, but ten shots a day meant the ammunition depleted quickly.
The harpies that reached the carriage dove at me first, since I was on the cargo canopy.
I slashed at the harpies thrusting their taloned legs at me with my sword.
“Why do all the birds in The Tower have blades on their legs?”
From the sensation through my sword, the harpy bones felt hollow, as if they suffered from osteoporosis.
Of course, even if they used primitive magic to fly, their bodies had to evolve toward becoming lighter to stay airborne.
“Once they can’t fly, these creatures are weaker than Goblins!”
Retihoa also fired soul rays at the harpies, shooting them down.
The soul ray’s range was short, so it didn’t connect properly when they flew too high. Indeed, there was a reason it was called a close-combat weapon.
I jumped up from the carriage, stomped on a harpy diving at me, swung my sword gracefully, and tried to leap back into the air.
“Ugh!”
But jumping again from a falling object wasn’t easy.
The harpy couldn’t support my weight and plummeted, and I fell to the ground with it, like stepping on a plank floating on water.
As I suddenly fell, everyone’s eyes turned toward me.
Ugh! How embarrassing!
“Damn it, if only I had lightness technique.”
I hadn’t progressed to lightness technique yet.
When I returned to my reincarnation clone body next time, I’d have to learn lightness technique first.
Still, the harpy beneath me served as a cushion, so I wasn’t injured.
Naturally, the harpy crushed under me died instantly.
I jumped to my feet, my face flushed red, and pulled stone axes from my inventory to throw.
Hand axes could be sold as scrap metal, but stone axes made by Goblins had no real use, so I’d collected plenty of them on the way, figuring I could throw them freely.
They still didn’t fly in the direction I aimed, but with thirty harpies crowding the sky around the carriage, even careless throws connected well.
Whether I hit wings, heads, or chests with throws powered by my inner strength, they fell every time I landed a hit.
Since they’d descended to target the carriage, falling from that height didn’t kill them, but harpies on the ground were weaker than Goblins.
Naturally, the fallen harpies were slain by William’s and my swords.
Once we’d wiped out all the harpies that had swarmed us, everyone let out sighs of relief.
The most dangerous flying creatures are gone, so things should get easier from here on out.
It took only a few minutes to realize that assumption was premature.
“A swarm of harpies!”
More harpies were descending from the sky in a massive flock.

(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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