Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 61

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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 61. The Tower – Defense (2)

“What are you doing?! Get over here now!”
At the Guard Captain’s angry shout, the climbers gripped their weapons tightly.
Sensing the tense atmosphere, the Guard Captain flinched in confusion.
Then the Bearded Guard, who had been startled when first seeing us, whispered something urgently to him.
“What?”
“Yes, sir. We cannot force them. Rather, we should be begging them to stay. If we detain them, The Tower might send lions to punish us. Or are you suggesting we fight an entire squad of ability users?”
The guard seemed to be informing the Guard Captain that we could leave if we wished.
The Guard Captain’s face flushed red and white as he glared at us, then looked toward the city beyond the City Wall.
He was probably wondering if his guards alone could hold out until reinforcements arrived without us.
Then a man standing over two meters tall spoke.
“We are not mercenaries. We owe you nothing, and you owe us nothing. Yet you treat us like hired swords. Do you have a death wish? If you want, come at us. I’ll accept your challenge.”
At the towering Caucasian climber’s words, the Guard Captain swallowed hard, fear evident on his face.
Lee Su-young looked at him with his fierce expression and spoke in a small voice, surprised.
“That person is a famous UFC fighter. Kong McGree. His nickname is King Kong.”
“Really?”
I don’t watch UFC at all, so I had no idea.
King Kong as a nickname—he didn’t really look like a gorilla to me.
Still, his solid muscles and massive frame did give off an intimidating presence.
“He was a top-ranked fighter in his prime, but recently there’s been talk that he’s lost a lot of his edge due to aging and will retire soon. I didn’t expect to see him in The Tower.”
By appearance, he looked to be in his mid-thirties, which for a fighter seemed like the natural decline after his peak years.
Of course, there were some all-time legendary sports stars who competed past forty, but those were extremely rare.
“Su-young, how does a high school girl know about that?”
At my question, Lee Su-young laughed and said she was a martial arts fan.
Now that I think about it, she did want to learn martial arts from me.
A ranged attacker who dreams of close combat—I understand that now.
The psychological standoff between the Guard Captain and the fighter ended with the Guard Captain backing down.
From what I could tell, there weren’t many guards who could handle mana, but the climbers all knew how to use their abilities. They understood that any conflict would only hurt themselves.
It seemed that climbers like me, who could handle mana freely, were rare.
Lee Su-young had said that when she activates her ability, mana is used automatically, after all.
I had suggested she practice using mana consciously, but it didn’t seem easy for her.
Even if climbers couldn’t use mana freely, the abilities granted by The Tower did allow them to use mana.
Whether they could use mana through this workaround or not made a considerable difference.
The Bearded Guard, who had once met a climber before, stepped forward instead of the Guard Captain.
“I apologize for our rudeness! Allow me to explain the situation we’re facing!”
Unlike the rude Guard Captain, the guard began with an apology.
According to the guard’s explanation, for reasons still unknown, a massive migration of monsters had occurred.
While the national government or lords might suspect the cause, a city of this level had no way of knowing.
The monsters’ migration paths branched in multiple directions, and this city lay along one of those branches. Currently, they had requested reinforcements from the Central Territory.
Since this city was one of the crucial strongholds for blocking the monsters’ advance, reinforcements were certain to arrive—but the problem was that the massive monster horde would arrive first.
The estimated time for reinforcements to arrive was approximately six to eight hours.
The golden window to evacuate the villagers had already closed, and we had no choice but to hold the line somehow.
“A minimum of six hours of continuous combat? Is this difficulty even real?”
“The monsters coming at us don’t seem that strong, but you want us to fight for that long? This is insane!”
Several climbers already looked ready to give up.
I surveyed the City Wall and paused to think.
The City Wall was only about five meters high.
That was a height anyone could jump down from without martial training.
Well, five meters was still a bit high, wasn’t it?
Because the inside of the City Wall was piled with earth like a hill, destroying the wall was virtually impossible.
This structure resembled the Suwon fortress. Though the city itself was far smaller, of course.
The monsters rushing toward us were a massive goblin army mixed with Hop Goblins.
Among them were apparently some special individuals like shamans, warriors, and Wolf Riders scattered throughout.
I gathered my thoughts and spoke in a slightly louder voice.
“Isn’t it worth it to hold out for just one hour? We’d be doing a drive hunt while protected by the City Wall. Even fighting for just an hour or two would rack up enormous points. We can give up anytime, but opportunities for drive hunts this safe don’t come around often, do they?”
Several climbers who heard my words seemed tempted.
Even if the height wasn’t that great, a wall was still a wall.
Just raining arrows from above was an excellent way to farm Tower Shop points.
If things looked even slightly dangerous, we could just sprint to the Safe Zone and escape to the 10th Floor.
Even the climbers who had been ready to give up without hesitation, burdened by the thought of facing a massive army for so long, changed their minds.
Anyone who had climbed to the 18th Floor was accustomed to fighting monsters.
Diana and Lee Su-young smiled at my words.
They seemed to have caught my intention.
Who would readily agree to fight for a minimum of six hours without any sense of mission?
I had to appeal to their self-interest—that they could give up anytime, but fighting for just an hour or two would be profitable—to get them to stay and fight.
No one wants to sacrifice themselves.
Especially not for a place with no connection to them.
Of course, to think like this required understanding the relationship between climbers and The Tower well.
Bogard Dellington laughed heartily and slapped my back.
“Ha ha ha! Well said! Drive hunts are the flower of RPGs, after all! It brings back old memories! Back when I was in college, hack-and-slash games were all the rage!”
Jonathan nodded and spoke as well.
“Indeed, it is a statement that benefits everyone.”
Some caught my intention, others didn’t, but everyone began preparing for battle as I intended.
The quick-witted guards simply bowed their heads in gratitude toward me.

* * *

About an hour after arriving on the 18th Floor, smoke began rising in the distance like a beacon signal.
It was a sign that a massive horde of Goblins was approaching.
“The smoke color! Red! Enemy count at least 10,000 or more!”
Over 10,000 Goblins—what a horrifying prospect.
The Guard Corps here seemed to number fewer than a thousand, yet the total fighting force appeared to reach around 2,000 with all able-bodied men from the City.
The Climbers were concentrated in the direction from which the Goblins were approaching.
I drew the bowstring lightly. The bow and arrows naturally came from the Guard Corps.
Diana and I had never shot a bow before, but Lee Su-young was an expert who’d even placed in archery competitions, so we’d hastily learned the basics.
While magic was an option, whether due to lacking formal training or insufficient proficiency, channeling inner force through arrows consumed less mana than casting spells.
“The enemies are coming.”
“Wow, they’re so disgustingly dense.”
Diana and Lee Su-young watched the swarm of Goblins surging toward the City, their tongues clicking in revulsion.
As the Goblin horde drew near the City Wall, they stumbled into the pits and traps the guards had set, slowing their advance or tumbling to be trampled to death by those behind them.
Yet with their sheer numbers, even those deaths seemed to make no dent in the Goblin count.
Once the Goblins drew close enough, the Guard Captain raised a flag and shouted.
“Archers! All units, attack!”
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
As the war drums signaling the attack thundered across the field, soldiers with bows unleashed their arrows in unison, and hundreds of projectiles darkened the sky.
Lee Su-young, Diana, and I fired in sync with the signal.
Most of the Climbers carried bows, though a few whose aim was poor waited for the Goblins to draw closer.
“Rapid fire! Rapid fire!”
“Keep shooting! You don’t need to aim! As fast as possible! Shoot as many as you can!”
With so many enemies, even careless shots found their marks.
We continued unleashing arrows relentlessly.
As an untrained archer, I took about 10 seconds to nock and release, but a skilled marksman like Lee Su-young nocked three arrows at once, firing three per second.
“Wow, look at how fast the Tower Shop Points are accumulating. I haven’t seen them pile up this quickly since Floor 13.”
Floor 13 was where we’d barricaded the entrance to the Goblin Lair, poured in poison, lured them out, and stabbed them to death with spears.
“With so many Goblins, they die as fast as we shoot.”
Of course, most were common Goblins worth only 1-3 points each.
Still, the sheer volume made the points accumulate at an astonishing rate.
“At this rate, even if we run out of arrows and buy more from the Tower Shop, the points won’t feel wasted at all.”
The Shop sold 100 arrows for 1 point.
Each arrow cost 10 credits—about 1,000 won—so firing two or three arrows to earn 1 point was no problem whatsoever.
As Goblins pressed forward despite the arrow barrage, trampling over corpses, the conscripted soldiers and City residents without bows began hurling stones they’d stockpiled, pelting the horde with rocks.
While the City’s arrow reserves weren’t infinite, stones lay everywhere.
Once the Goblins reached the City Wall, the Climbers began their slaughter, each wielding their own abilities.
Those like me, trained in martial arts, or Bogard, a Wolf Man, were far from efficient killers, but one Climber who commanded air temporarily created a vacuum beneath the wall, suffocating entire swarms to death.
Normally, an air-controlling Climber would be defenseless—one could simply hold their breath and counterattack—but the wall provided safety for their massacre.
“Ahahaha! This really is a hunt!”
“Ahahaha! This is a real mob hunt!”
The Climber who manipulated the air seemed genuinely delighted, laughing with pure joy, and the other Climbers, envying him, began slaughtering Goblins using their own methods.
As the Climbers massacred the Goblins, the Guard Captain directed the defense with unwavering focus.
“Pour the boiling oil! Prevent them from climbing the City Wall!”
The Goblins lacked the intelligence to use ladders, but the City Wall was low enough that they could clamber up it.
So they poured boiling oil to fry the Goblins to death while coating the City Wall with oil to make it slippery and difficult to scale.
After roughly four hours had passed, the defensive battle against the monsters appeared to be proceeding smoothly.
Then, from far in the distance, something emanating an ominous magical aura approached this place.

(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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