WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
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◈ Escaping the Tower at Hell Difficulty ◈
Episode 109
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Pshh, pshh!
The outskirts of the 13th-floor city.
The farther out we went, the stronger the creatures of the night seemed to get.
Near the entrance, there had only been hounds like the ones we'd faced at first...
Then handlers controlling those hounds and even shadow giants began to appear.
'I don't have good memories of handlers...'
Of course, they couldn't compare to the Hellhound Handler, the seventh-floor boss.
I was still getting good use out of the Hood of Hell it had dropped...
The handler might find that a little unfair.
Still, the shadow monsters on the 13th floor only dropped one thing.
Black coins.
After we gathered several dozen, my Appraisal skill finally identified them.
[Nightmare Coin: Currency used on the 13th floor.]
I'd thought they felt strange for shadows.
They were nightmares.
Then I supposed those monsters should be called Nightmare Monsters too.
Kim Yuna looked utterly dumbfounded after hearing my explanation.
"Are we supposed to trade with monsters now?"
"Why not? Goblin Merchants are monsters too, when you think about it."
I didn't expect much from them.
I'd be satisfied as long as they didn't shoot at us.
After hunting diligently, we had a little over a hundred coins.
That was a fairly quick pace.
Everyone on our team had suppressors fitted to their firearms, so we could hunt quickly and safely.
Even Yuki had been issued a suppressed handgun.
Every now and then, something tougher, like a Nightmare Giant, appeared.
I dealt with them easily using All Currents.
Firmament Veil combined with Effortless Motion.
Tiiing!
Effortless Motion, which optimized the flow of energy, had almost completely silenced the Hand Cannon.
"Still, something's bothering me. Why aren't those Night Watchers coming over here?"
"Right. Have they completely given up on managing the areas where Nightmare Monsters appear?"
The Night Watchers only patrolled near streetlights and houses.
They didn't touch the Nightmare Monsters at all.
Judging by how Hunters fled from them, they seemed much stronger than the Nightmare Monsters.
Were they avoiding unnecessary expenditure of energy?
Thanks to that, the Nightmare Zone was fairly safe.
The streetlights and Night Watchers, the biggest threats, weren't here.
Still, something called a nightmare couldn't possibly be good for us.
I decided to retreat for now and proceed cautiously.
"Let's head back to the outskirts and get ourselves sorted out."
"Sounds good. I need to load some magazines too."
I raised the Death Priest’s Lantern and took the lead.
The Nightmare Monsters had souls too, but they looked shriveled and twisted beyond recognition.
They clearly weren't in a normal state.
'Though it'd be stranger if monsters were normal...'
I also carefully examined my teammates' souls.
Yuki's soul had been flickering uneasily for a while now.
'Just as I thought...'
I couldn't feel it clearly because of Adaptability, so I'd been keeping a close eye on everyone.
There had been a Soul Erosion debuff even on the ninth floor, which was far below this one.
There was no way hunting nightmares came without a price.
'The symptoms appeared after roughly two hours... I need to be careful.'
We had brought Spirit-Nourishing Grass potions, but should I save them for now?
We rested in an alley on the outskirts.
The environment wasn't great, but we didn't have much choice.
"Yuki, are you feeling all right?"
"Yes... I feel much better than before."
We had a quick meal while watching rats scurry through the alley.
There was damp air nearby...
When I looked closely, I saw a large stream.
It wasn't strange for a city.
"I heard cities are often built around big rivers."
Not every city had modern water and sewage facilities.
A river was practically necessary to supply the enormous amount of water a city needed.
I didn't expect the water quality to be good, so we should avoid falling in.
"Will it even get light as time passes? Shouldn't we explore farther into the city?"
Sang Hajun had a point.
Since the Tower was such a strange space, its day and night cycle might work differently.
"I'm not sure... Let's watch things for another six hours. The moon is still moving, at least."
"All right."
If I'd seen correctly, dawn would come within three hours.
After resting for about an hour, we went back to hunting Nightmare Monsters.
We slowed our pace considerably.
It was better than pushing too hard and getting ourselves killed.
Once we had gathered around 180 Nightmare Coins, a rooster finally crowed and dawn came.
Cooock-a-doodle-doo...!
Even the sound of a rooster crowing was creepy here.
When daylight arrived, the nightmares vanished as quickly as shadows disappeared.
I wondered whether they had dropped any coins, but they hadn't.
They had simply retreated.
That made the bleak scenery of the Nightmare Zone easier to see.
"I-It's light out..."
Click!
The streetlights soon shut off, and all the Night Watchers vanished as well.
The doors of the buildings opened, and residents began coming outside.
Contrary to what I'd expected, they looked quite normal.
Other than being slightly translucent, they were ordinary residents.
There were even all kinds of races among them.
"Hmm... Unlike the nightmares, those residents' souls aren't twisted."
"Will they attack if they see us?"
"I don't think so."
They busily began their day.
Babies crying energetically in the morning, men and women drawing water.
It was a scene that didn't suit a brutal place like the Tower at all.
"What is this...?"
"Yuki, let's send out your Clone."
"Okay!"
Even after noticing Yuki's Clone, the residents showed no unusual reaction.
Were they used to the presence of Hunters and travelers?
It seemed we really were supposed to spend Nightmare Coins during the day.
"Yuna and I will go check things out. The three of you rest here."
A two-person group would be able to escape easily if anything happened.
Yuki insisted on coming with us, so the three of us went in the end.
It wasn't a bad choice, since we could use her Clone as a diversion.
Sang Hajun and Han Juwon, who had been left behind, set up a temporary base in an abandoned barn.
It looked like this clear would take longer than expected.
"Newspapers! Get your newspapers..."
"The price of bread went up again?"
I listened to the residents' complaints and carefully observed what they did.
The currency they exchanged was all Nightmare Coins.
Just as I thought, ordinary gold wasn't used for transactions on the 13th floor.
Still, it was impressive how they carried on with daily life despite being spiritual bodies.
"Let's head toward the city center."
"Huh? Wait. Over there..."
Yuki and I sensed the same thing, and I turned toward the corner.
Stairs leading down into a pitch-black underground passage.
Two guards stood in front of an iron-barred gate.
Naturally, they were armed with firearms.
The problem was that I could sense an exit beyond them.
It even felt like a Direct Exit.
'Not a Descent Exit... A Direct Exit is placed on the outskirts like this?'
There had to be difficult conditions for using it.
Sure enough, as I approached very slowly, a guard held out a hand.
"Toll."
There was no life in their eyes.
Most residents of the 13th-floor city felt like this, but these guards were particularly bad.
At least they seemed able to communicate.
Respecting the authority of the city Guard Unit, I asked as carefully as possible.
"How much is the toll?"
"Five hundred coins per person."
"What...?"
We had earned around 180 coins from hunting all night.
We had proceeded carefully because we weren't used to this place.
Even so, the nightmare status effect limited how fast we could hunt.
No matter how fast we were, earning more than 400 coins a day would be difficult.
Yet it was 500 coins per person.
For a five-person team to escape, we'd have to hunt for six full days.
And we'd effectively leave empty-handed afterward.
Nightmare Monsters dropped nothing but Nightmare Coins.
Even if the 13th floor had an unusual concept, we still needed to take something out with us when we escaped the Tower.
'This is a terrible deal, isn't it?'
Was there another way to earn a large amount of Nightmare Coins?
Like a top-class Hunter, the first thing I thought of was raiding.
The greatest economic activity in human history.
If it succeeded, the profit was guaranteed.
'Are we supposed to take coins from other Hunters or residents?'
The residents used Nightmare Coins too.
If we killed them, we could probably take their coins.
"... How much is the toll for the Descent Exit?"
The guards answered again in soulless voices.
"The Descent Exit costs 250 coins per person."
Half price.
It was still expensive.
The numbers still didn't add up.
If we stayed here for three days, shouldn't we get something out of it before leaving?
It wasn't as if we were sitting around doing nothing.
"Thank you, Guard Unit members. We are always grateful for your efforts to maintain the city's public order, and may your organization continue to prosper..."
"What are you doing...? Come on."
Kim Yuna tried to pull me away, but I brushed her hand off.
"Yuna, we need to respect public order here."
"Ah, right...?"
It wasn't an era with CCTV everywhere.
The city Guard Unit was basically acting as investigators on the spot too.
There was no harm in being careful.
Then again, perhaps the streetlights that turned on at night could be considered a kind of CCTV.
Fortunately, they weren't operating at all during the day.
When I shone the lantern on them, the light of their souls had vanished completely.
The Guard Unit let us go without complaint.
'Yuki's soul has stabilized.'
It seemed to recover rapidly when exposed to sunlight.
The light from those streetlamps at night couldn't possibly have been good for the mind.
I considered buying food from one of the street stalls, but gave up because none of it looked remotely appetizing.
The black, hard bread-like things and dried fish were tolerable, but there were also foul-smelling fruits and meat with a gamey smell.
"... You're not that hungry, right?"
"We ate earlier. I'm fine."
"I heard the food in this era looks good but doesn't taste very good..."
"Is that information even right? It doesn't look good either."
When we finally reached the city's central district, we ran into another Hunter team by chance.
Unlike us, who reflexively took up fighting stances, they didn't even grab their weapons.
Were they certain the city was completely safe during the day?
The Orc Hunters actually scolded us.
"What are you doing? Take your hands off your weapons. The residents and guards are watching."
They clearly didn't want to get dragged into pointless trouble.
We were the ones acting like Hunters, so it felt unfair.
Once we lowered our guard, they finally relaxed and spoke.
"Are you rookies?"
"Yeah, we're rookies. Do you have any useful tips?"
"Don't cause trouble for no reason. Especially where people can see you during the day."
So causing trouble where people couldn't see was fine?
There was a limit to how many coins we could get from hunting at night...
Naturally, we'd have to take some risks during the day too.
When I tried to follow them and ask more questions, they gave us more information to shake us off.
"You can pay 200 coins at City Hall to buy a Door Plaque."
"A Door Plaque?"
"It's like... a permit. Hang it on a door, and you can avoid the Night Watchers for one night."
Ah.
That was why the Night Watchers had carefully examined the Door Plaques the night before.
Since it only lasted one night, it was probably a consumable.
Two hundred coins was quite expensive.
Still, it would likely apply to the entire team.
'But if we hide inside a house all night, we can't earn coins at night, can we?'
I set that question aside and asked something else.
We only had around 180 coins to begin with, so we couldn't afford a Door Plaque.
"Is there any other way to spend the night safely?"
"Secretly kill residents during the day and take their house. But if the number of family members doesn't match, the Night Watchers will notice."
It seemed the Night Watchers could detect souls.
If there were five people in a house where four had lived, they would naturally become suspicious.
There was no way houses with exactly five residents were common.
'This is tougher than I thought...'
The Tower’s Curse worked inside the Tower as well.
Yet they had given us information surprisingly easily.
Since we were all on the 13th floor, the curse was probably weaker...
They also seemed to be checking whether we really were rookies.
Thanks to the Tower’s Curse, they could sense it instinctively.
"Thanks for telling us, seniors. If I get the chance later, I'll save you once."
"Hmph. Stay safe, human."
They had been unexpectedly helpful, so we parted on good terms.
I had gotten a rough idea of what the 13th floor was like.
"We need to move around secretly, day or night, and gather as many coins as possible. If the guards catch us, they'll raise the alarm immediately. The bigger the trouble we cause, the more of them will come."
"This is a very unusual floor."
"Right? What is the Tower even trying to do here...? The 13th floor itself is similar to a famous game."
I thought of a popular game series that had been around for a very long time.
New installments still came out steadily, but the series itself had a long history.
Of course, Kim Yuna didn't understand at all.
"Uh... What kind of game is that?"
"You know, that game where you steal cars."
"Oh. That one?"
I guess that was how I had to put it for her to understand.
There was still plenty of time left during the day.
For now, we decided to look around City Hall.
Footnotes:
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