Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 51

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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 51. The Tower – Skeleton Gladiator (2)

—Your opponent is me!
The Skeleton Gladiator wielding a massive battle axe swung it down at me.
In that moment, the spear-wielding gladiator rushed toward Lee Su-young, who had been waiting in the rear.
I lightened my body with the Feather Step technique to evade the descending axe, then drew a hand axe from my pocket and hurled it at the spear-wielding Skeleton Gladiator as he passed me.
The spear-wielding Skeleton Gladiator moved his spear deftly to block both the water orbs and flame projectiles the slimes spat from the front and the hand axe I’d thrown from behind.
—I said your opponent is me!
When I turned back to attack the spear gladiator, the axe gladiator, thinking I was ignoring him, let out a bone-chilling shriek and swung his axe at me again.
Though somewhat crude, the axe wielded with such brute force was lethal.
I evaded the battle axe and closed the distance, aiming for his neck.
Because the battle axe had a long handle, once I closed in, he couldn’t execute a proper swing.
—Hah!
However, the axe gladiator, as if accustomed to such situations, twisted his body and avoided his neck being severed.
But before he could widen the distance, I stepped forward and drove my blade into his shoulder joint, then wrenched his arm clean off.
Crack!
—What?! No!
The moment he became one-armed, the Skeleton Gladiator could no longer wield the massive battle axe properly, and his head was severed from his body.
Confirming that the axe gladiator’s arm and head weren’t regenerating, I threw the axe far away as a precaution and immediately spun around.
“Su-young!”
Lee Su-young was blocking the spear with her shield while running as much as possible, attacking the spear gladiator with her slime.
The spear gladiator’s bones were broken and shattered in places, but he hadn’t suffered a fatal wound.
Having seized the axe in case the Skeleton Gladiator revived, I immediately turned and threw my hand axe at the spear gladiator.
The spear gladiator, judging that my axe was more dangerous than Lee Su-young’s slime and Mul-poong’s water orbs, turned and blocked my axe with his spear.
It was an accurate judgment.
Since I’d infused the hand axe with inner energy before throwing it, its power far exceeded that of an ordinary hand axe.
—Ugh!
The spear gladiator, apparently not anticipating the force contained in my axe, staggered backward.
The spear shaft that had blocked my axe bent severely.
Unable to guard his rear while blocking my axe, the spear gladiator’s skull shattered from a water orb, sending fragments flying in all directions.
As his skull cracked, the magic stone fell to the ground along with the fragments, and the spear gladiator collapsed.
As the spear gladiator crumbled into a pile of bones, Lee Su-young, exhausted, sank to the ground.
“Phew~! Thank you, oppa. I’m alive thanks to you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I shrugged and approached the axe gladiator’s skull.
The axe gladiator was still alive.
Of course, if one could call his current state—with only bones remaining—being alive.
The axe gladiator laughed as if amused.
-Ahahaha! Yes, at least our deaths should have been like this! Such a pathetic and dishonorable end would have been an insult to us!
Beneath his seemingly cheerful voice lay a desperate longing and bitter resentment.
“Do you have no more regrets?”
The Axe Gladiator answered my question with a sense of relief.
-Yes, thank you, warrior. That damned bastard’s treasure we hid—it’s in the third room to the right after entering through that entrance, buried beneath the floor. We stole quite a bit, so the Colosseum owner must have been in real trouble.
The Axe Gladiator chuckled and asked me to finish him so he could depart with his friend.
At his request, I extracted the magic stone from within his skull.
The Axe Gladiator, who had been maintaining his form, then crumbled away.
Having completed the quest, I spoke to Lee Su-young.
“I think it would be good to acquire more self-defense measures.”
If it were a situation I could handle alone, that would be one thing, but in such a vast space, I couldn’t block all the enemies rushing toward Lee Su-young.
“I was surprised the protective barrier broke so easily too. I thought it would hold up longer.”
One of the magical artifacts Lee Su-young had obtained on Floor 14 was a device that created a protective barrier, and it seemed to have shattered after a few spear thrusts.
After it broke, the cooldown apparently hadn’t reset, so the barrier didn’t regenerate immediately.
It was unreasonable to expect outstanding performance from magical artifacts obtained in the 10th floor range.
“Still, thanks to it, I was able to handle the Axe Gladiator while you held out, so it more than proved its worth.”
“When you put it that way, it definitely helped.”
“I think this time the matchup was just unfavorable.”
A ranged fighter facing a melee fighter who felt no pain in a one-on-one was somewhat unreasonable.
Even in such a vast arena, we couldn’t run indefinitely.
“If I’m being honest about what I could have done better, I should have fought the one wielding the agile spear while sending you against the one with the relatively slower axe—you would have had an easier time dodging and fighting.”
Lee Su-young shook her head at my words.
“No, that’s not it. We actually defeated the slower one quickly, which is why it became a two-on-one situation so fast. The barrier blocked the spear a few times, but the axe tore through it instantly, so I could have been seriously injured.”
At her positive feedback, I let out a small laugh.
“Now that you mention it, that does seem right.”
If both gladiators had been alive, we probably wouldn’t have won so quickly.
The turning point came when I drove my blade into the Axe Gladiator’s shoulder and arm joints, severing his arms.
If the Axe Gladiator had been a living person, the thick muscle would surely have prevented me from cutting off his arms.
Just from observing the force and trajectory of his axe swings, I could vaguely infer this.
“Still, I should think positively about acquiring more protective measures like you mentioned. Or maybe I could learn close combat like you do.”
“If you want to learn later, I’ll teach you martial arts.”
“Really? Is it okay to just teach martial arts learned from The Tower like that?”
I laughed softly watching Lee Su-young’s surprised expression.
“Why wouldn’t it be? There are people outside The Tower who’ve opened martial arts schools teaching techniques they learned here.”
Lee Su-young was probably asking if it was okay to give away my secrets, but martial arts weren’t my real secrets—I could teach them freely without concern.
My true secrets weren’t something I could give to anyone.
At my answer, Lee Su-young apologized but didn’t refuse.
Watching me fight up close must have made her want to learn.
“Still, I can’t just accept it for free, so I need to pay for it. Like I said before, keeping these calculations clear is how relationships last.”
Lee Su-young, who had been thinking, clapped her hands as if struck by a good idea.
“Ah! How about I forfeit my share of the ability stone we obtained from defeating that monster wolf on the 11th Floor? No, is that not enough? If I obtain ability stones in the future, I’ll forfeit my share of up to two of them. Wouldn’t that be a fair price for learning a single ability?”
I nodded at Lee Su-young’s words.
“If that puts your mind at ease.”
“Before we climb to the next floor, let’s explore the area around the place those gladiators mentioned. We might find magical artifacts or other treasures, right?”
Agent K from the Community once said that farming time after a Quest even delays feeding a hungry girlfriend.
It meant there were many hidden secrets and treasures to be found while climbing The Tower.
Though I wasn’t sure why the comparison involved a hungry girlfriend.
“Before that, let me create a grave for them.”
I used simple earth magic to dig a pit in the center of the arena and buried the axe gladiator and spear gladiator side by side.
“May you find peace.”
After offering my respects, I planted the axe and spear they each used in place of tombstones.
As gladiators who feared not even death, I felt no monument could suit them better.
After finishing the grave, Lee Su-young and I explored the interior of the Colosseum as the gladiator had mentioned.
The Colosseum was quite large, and it appeared somewhat disorganized, as if it had been hastily evacuated.
“Brother, look at this. Aren’t these gold coins? Can we sell them?”
When we broke through the floor, we found a chest and about twenty old pouches of gold coins inside.
They said they had stolen quite a lot, and each pouch contained around a thousand gold coins.
“These aren’t Credits, are they?”
Gold coins were not among the Credits.
There were only nine types of Credits—nine coins total.
All coins were the size of a 100-won piece, ranging from 1 Credit to 100 million Credits in ascending order: white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, navy, purple, and black.
I bit into what I thought was a yellow one worth 1,000 Credits, and it left a tooth mark.
These were genuine gold coins.
Credits didn’t leave tooth marks like that, no matter their color.
“How much do you think these are worth?”
“I’m not sure, but since they’re gold, wouldn’t each one be worth at least 1,000 Credits—100,000 won? I’m uncertain about the exact value since gold purity matters.”
“Isn’t 1,000 Credits too little?”
Each gold coin seemed to weigh at least 5 grams, so even with impurities mixed in, couldn’t we sell them for around 400,000 won each?
After securing the pouches and chests, I searched the surroundings further and discovered several rotted garments, some fairly high-quality weapons the gladiators had used—swords, spears, nets, and axes.
I also found an old diary. Reading it, the gladiators we fought appeared to be a famous duo who had ingested poison for match-fixing and fell ill, ultimately dying in the arena without a proper fight.
After that, rumors spread of the two gladiators’ vengeful spirits wandering about, and when foreign invaders suddenly attacked, the Colosseum was abandoned.
Most of the gladiators were conscripted to fight the invaders, and the Colosseum’s owner, having packed things in such haste, seemed unable to take everything.
Inside a chest hidden by the gladiator duo was a kind of secret manual.
“This book contains cultivation methods called Fighting Qi Technique that the gladiators learn, along with sword techniques, club techniques, spear techniques, and so on?”
“Oh! Should we try learning it then?”
“No, wouldn’t it be better to learn from me instead? As we climb The Tower, we’ll acquire even better martial techniques.”
My insight and level weren’t particularly high, but honestly, these didn’t seem that impressive.
There might be better ascending martial techniques, but I had no certainty I could learn them.
“Hmm, thinking about the future, that does seem better. If I learn the martial techniques you’ve mastered, I feel like I could become as strong as you.”
Well, that’s the result of my years of dedicated training.
To be honest, the Cheon Family Clan’s foundational martial arts focused on purifying the body and building its foundation rather than on becoming stronger immediately.
If the goal was to grow stronger right away, gladiator swordsmanship would have been superior to the Azure Wood Sword technique.
“We’ve gathered quite a lot. There’s no way we can carry everything.”
The gladiator weapons in particular were overwhelming in quantity. Combined, they easily weighed several hundred kilograms.
“Let’s take as much as we can to Floor 10. It would be wasteful to leave it behind.”
Naturally, I prioritized items that were small, light, and appeared valuable—like gold coins—gathering as much as possible.
We descended to Floor 10, sold off all the weapons, and immediately climbed to Floor 16.
Since there was no place that would buy gold coins, I had to store them in my inventory at Tower Floor 1.
According to the Guild Staff Member, the Floor 20 District City has a Climber-Exclusive Bank, so he suggested we consult there.
Floor 10 appeared to have only a bank used by the native inhabitants.
The reason they divided native-exclusive and climber-exclusive banks is that the Climber-Exclusive Bank allows you to withdraw stored items as-is even after crossing into the middle layers of The Tower where the world changes, or so I was told.

(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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