WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

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◈ Alone Against the Tower ◈

Chapter 85: Tower of Trials, Floor 9

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Rooooar...!

The Tree Golem let out a monstrous roar as it entered its next phase.

It had been enormous from the start, but it now stood over six meters tall.

But with Hysterical Strength and Mana Enhancement active, its size did not mean much to me.

I leaped over the Golem’s head in one motion, ignored every incoming root attack, and kicked off the ceiling of the boss room.

With my doubly enhanced leg strength, I launched myself through the air, dropped straight down, and swung my sword with all my strength.

Creeeak!

Countless roots burst from the Golem’s body and blocked my sword’s path, but they could not stop my sword.

Craaaack!

Sparks flew as the Golem’s body was violently split in two. Without a core, it could not regenerate, and it collapsed.

The Golem split in half and fell. After a brief delay, system messages appeared.

[Congratulations. You are the first to clear the 8th Floor of the Tower of Trials.]

As always, more system messages followed in a noisy chain.

[You have obtained Clear Reward: ‘Experience Points’, ‘Gold’.]

[You can activate the Transfer Gate to the 9th Floor of the Tower of Trials.]

[You have obtained First Clear Reward: ‘Leaf Earrings’.]

[You have obtained Maximum Contribution Reward: ‘Fallen Leaf Bracelet’, ‘Experience Points’.]

[You have obtained Final Blow Reward: ‘Old Tree Bow’.]

The First Clear Reward and Final Blow Reward were the same, and both the earrings and bracelet had a Mage-only equipment restriction.

I knew the basics of using a bow, and it had no equipment restriction, but if I needed a ranged attack, I could just throw iron balls.

Maybe because it had been an easy boss, but the rewards were even less useful than those from a field boss.

There were no other Challengers, so I could not put them up in the auction house. Since they were accessories, I could not use them as makeshift shields either.

Well, I no longer expected to grow much stronger from things like this.

“I’ll sell them to a shop later.”

I closed my inventory and activated the Transfer Gate leading to the ninth floor.

* * *

The setting of the ninth floor also continued directly from the seventh and eighth floors.

The seventh floor took place before the Three Major Powers had begun clashing. The eighth took place after their conflict had started in earnest.

And this ninth floor took place during the period when war had finally broken out between them.

Perhaps because of that, the Elves’ Great Forest beyond the Transfer Gate looked very different from before.

For one thing, there were far fewer trees. They had not been logged. Each one had been snapped and broken in a different way.

They must have burned and been destroyed in the flames of war. First, I should head to the Dark Elf village.

[Elf Quest Floor 9 Full Map.jpg]

Unlike the eighth floor, which I had entered in a hurry, I had properly looked up a map of the ninth floor on the Open Community this time.

I had worried that fog would block my way and scramble my senses again, but fortunately, I could find my way normally.

When I arrived at the entrance to the Dark Elf village, I was shocked.

It was difficult to call the Dark Elf village a village anymore.

They had built high stone walls, placed numerous watchtowers and guard Golems, and it seemed the terrain had changed somehow as well.

This was no longer a village. It was a fortress.

It was far larger than the screenshots posted on the Open Community. Was that because of the Epic Quest?

I did not know much about siege warfare, but even at a glance, it looked impregnable.

“Who goes there!”

As I slowly examined the fortress exterior, someone shouted from atop the wall.

“Identify yourself, or we’ll fire! Who are you!”

I looked up and showed my face. There probably was not a single Dark Elf in the village who did not know me.

“It’s me.”

The Dark Elf on the wall held the bowstring and frowned at me.

Then their expression changed several times. They were too far away for me to tell exactly what expression they were making.

But at a glance, their final expression clearly looked like someone making a decision.

Whoosh!

An arrow flew toward me.

* * *

On the seventh floor, I had learned Dark Elf swordsmanship from Rizmel.

It was certainly excellent. But Dark Elves were Elves at their core, and their greatest skill was ultimately archery.

So after learning swordsmanship, I had considered learning archery as well.

But I could not.

Not because the Dark Elves refused to teach me, but because it was simply not a skill I could learn.

Just as they were born with Mana Affinity, Elves knew how to handle a bow from the moment they were born.

It was not something they could teach just because they wanted to, nor something I could learn just because I wanted to.

Elven arrows had accuracy that defied common sense and trajectories that defied reason.

But after awakening Mana Detection and gaining transcendent senses, they were not so impressive before me.

Thwack.

I caught the arrow as it shot toward me. I had caught it half on instinct, but then I wondered what this was about.

Why was a Dark Elf firing an arrow at me?

I understood that they were on edge because of the war, but it was not as if they could fail to recognize my face and the insignia on my epaulet.

“What is this?”

Had a tiny number of Dark Elves who did not know me happened to be assigned as guards?

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The Golems guarding the fortress moved. They approached me with heavy footsteps.

Not only that, but the Dark Elf soldiers on the wall raised their weapons at once.

This did not seem like an ordinary situation. They clearly saw me as an enemy.

“Hey, don’t you know me? Have you forgotten already?”

I asked in disbelief, but an arrow volley was the only response.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Relying on Mana Detection and Intuition, I knocked away and blocked the incoming arrows.

Meanwhile, the Golems continued approaching me. Could I destroy them? It would not cause problems later, would it?

I took a blunt weapon effective against Golems from my inventory, raised my guard, and faced them.

Hummm...

But the Golems only approached me. They showed no sign of attacking.

What was this now?

The Dark Elves atop the wall had begun murmuring among themselves as well. Had they finally recognized me?

When I approached the wall again, the Dark Elves shouted.

“Stop! Move, and we’ll fire!”

Since I did not understand the situation, I stopped as ordered.

When I complied without resistance, the Dark Elves whispered among themselves.

Then, a short while later, one Dark Elf sprang down from the wall and landed in front of me.

The person dressed lightly and holding two swords was Rizmel, who looked slightly different from when I had seen her on the eighth floor.

“Take this.”

Rizmel threw the practice sword she had brought at me. I caught it and took my stance.

It seemed they had not failed to recognize me after all.

* * *

I met the diagonal slash head-on.

Even after I blocked it once, Rizmel pressed in with another thrust. Our blades locked as I pushed back.

We put force behind our swords along various Sword Paths, locked in a close-range contest to aim for each other’s throats. Gaining the upper hand would have been easy.

I only needed to use Hysterical Strength to boost my physical strength for an instant.

But I did not.

Instead, I loosened my grip slightly and maintained my balance.

Then Rizmel’s free hand grabbed my blade and tried to tilt it upward.

I responded by gripping the end of my blade as well, meeting the contest of strength while moving my body to the side.

I let go of the hilt and shifted my stance around the hand gripping the end of the blade.

It was a technique I had first learned here, gripping the blade and using the pommel as a blunt weapon to strike at the head.

Clang!

Rizmel lightly blocked the unusual attack without hesitation and adjusted her grip on her sword.

She demonstrated the same response and counterattack she had taught me alongside this technique.

The difference from then was that Rizmel’s movements had become a little slower.

Had she said that she had stepped away from Reconnaissance Team duties after getting married?

Even now, judging by her clothes, which were not suited for combat, she must have been wielding a sword for the first time in a while.

“You’re not as good as you used to be.”

Clang!

I blocked Rizmel’s dulled sword attacks, then struck her sword away through an opening.

Rizmel did not panic after losing her weapon. She simply shook her hand and let out a shallow breath.

“You haven’t changed nearly enough, brat.”

As she spoke, Rizmel waved toward the wall. Every bow aimed at me was lowered.

Only then did I understand what had happened. There had been a gap of twenty years between the seventh and eighth floors.

Then how much time had passed between the eighth and ninth floors?

That sturdy fortress, built up so thoroughly that it had even changed the terrain, did not look like something that could have been made in only a few years.

There was a reason the Dark Elves had recognized me, hesitated, and still been forced to fire an arrow.

“A hundred years have passed. How do you still look exactly the same?”

A hundred years. Not a short time even for long-lived Elves.

“This is ridiculous. Really.”

The clash of our swords clearly carried the passage of time.

Too much time to dismiss as mere background setting for Non-Player Characters.

This floor was not going to be easy from the very beginning.

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