WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Escaping the Tower at Hell Difficulty ◈

Chapter 3

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Russia, was it?

A few years ago, there was a country that sent hundreds of active-duty soldiers into the Tower at once.

They intended to conquer an entire floor of the Tower.

They mobilized enormous supplies, manpower, and even special forces.

The floor they entered was neither the seventh nor sixth floor, but only the second.

They probably planned to conquer the lower floors one by one.

The result, though, was a disastrous failure.

Fewer than half returned, and the survivors all said the same thing.

Each survivor said only five people, them included, had made it there.

They hadn't encountered a single other ally during their escape.

The Tower had split hundreds of people into groups of five and sent each group into a different Tower.

More than five people had entered before, but everyone assumed they had simply been dropped in different areas.

So no reinforcements or rescue teams were coming.

I had to get out on my own.

"Growl!"

The seventh floor had countless challenges.

But Hellhounds were the worst among them.

I'd never run the numbers, but weren't they responsible for the highest hunter death rate on the seventh floor?

At least, that was how it was in the Tower Escape game.

'Hup!'

I flattened myself against the ground without making a sound.

I was still inside the corpse pit, so it probably hadn't spotted me yet.

Hellhounds were sensitive to smells, but this place reeked of garbage and rotting corpses.

Once one set its sights on you, you were finished.

Hellhounds kept reviving and chasing you no matter how many times you killed them.

They barked loudly enough to draw in more monsters, too.

The usual strategy was to kill the Hellhound Handler or toss them a special consumable called a dog treat...

Naturally, I didn't have any.

It was one of those consumables where more was always better, so I wouldn't find one even if I searched corpses.

The Hellhound prowled around for a while before wandering off somewhere.

The Hellhound Handler appeared in random locations, but I hadn't expected it to be this close.

For now, I decided to put some distance between us.

I was far too unprepared.

'I've lost almost all my equipment and supplies.'

I expected my backpack to be looted, but they'd stripped it clean.

There probably wouldn't be anything worthwhile even if I searched the dump.

Holding my only remaining weapon, a dagger, I headed for a nearby house.

It was too short to rely on much.

Could I even stab a living person or monster in the first place?

Click.

Thankfully, nobody was inside the house.

That made sense, considering it was near the guard post.

There was even a drink and a can of food on the kitchen table.

'Thank goodness.'

Someone obviously hadn't left them behind.

The Tower had created them anew.

They said that even if hunters took loot from the Tower, similar items would reappear in similar places a few days later.

Bosses and monsters worked the same way.

I searched the house from top to bottom.

A few miscellaneous items turned up, and a calculator started running in my head.

'This would sell to an Interfloor Merchant for 30 gold. This is useless... Why are there cigarettes here?'

The seventh floor was said to have high-quality loot, but not enough for premium items to pop up everywhere, even in ordinary houses.

To get good loot, you had to go somewhere dangerous.

Since it was getting late, I spent the night in the bedroom, then headed out again the next morning.

The Hellhounds' territory was too dangerous, so I moved to a different area early on.

To take down the Hellhound Handler, I needed at least a grenade or a sniper rifle.

Preferably one made by the Tower.

[Mr. Kang Hyun, what's different about Tower items?]

[Even if they're the same gun or knife, the ones made by the Tower are superior in every way.]

It was like having the finest master craftsman make bootleg copies for you.

Tower equipment was beyond what humanity's technology could produce.

That was why everyone risked their lives to enter.

There was loot scattered around, but I needed proper weapons and supplies.

For times like this, corpse farming was the best.

I had to collect the equipment other hunters had left behind.

The problem was, there weren't any corpses around when I actually needed them.

Bang, bang!

My body trembled at the faint gunshots coming from far away.

[Detection skill level has increased to 5.]

[Stealth skill level has increased to 5.]

Before I knew it, Stealth had caught up to Detection.

Since I was traveling alone, I hid whenever I heard even the slightest creak.

While searching through the alleys, I spotted a rather fresh-looking corpse in the distance.

'Huh? That...'

A corpse holding a gun and wearing a thick backpack.

The moment I saw it, something felt off.

It didn't look like it had been dead long. Why was everything still intact?

The corpses I'd searched at the start had been in a larger group, and they had already been half-looted.

Some loot had remained because there had been too much to carry.

'It's a trap.'

My instincts as a Tower Escape streamer told me so in a tenth of a second.

Holding my breath, I climbed through a broken window and hid.

I didn't know where the others were hiding, so I couldn't move carelessly.

How much time passed after that?

As I focused all my senses, I heard footsteps nearby.

There were light and heavy ones mixed together. Orcs and Goblins.

[Detection skill level has increased to 6.]

"Ki?"

The moment they found the corpse and carelessly approached it...

Pew, pshht!

Gunfire rained down from a nearby building, accompanied by the muffled sounds of suppressors.

The monsters were wiped out before they could even scream.

It really was a trap.

The corpse was real, of course, but the hunters who set the trap had placed the loot there.

They came down from the building and searched the Goblins and Orcs.

They wore military uniforms and carried guns, but they looked under-equipped.

There was no sign of expensive equipment like night-vision goggles or high-grade body armor.

They were probably hoping to turn their lives around by hunting other hunters.

The price of the equipment worn by hunters from developed countries was beyond imagination.

They cursed and kicked the corpses.

They had to be speaking their native language, but somehow I could understand them.

"Damn it, trash mobs took the bait. What a waste of bullets."

"Anything good?"

"It's all junk. Let's go."

The hunters packed their bags and moved on.

Asking people like that for help would be stupid.

They'd shoot me without blinking if they decided I was a hassle.

Long after they left, I searched through the Goblin and Orc corpses.

They might have been trash to those hunters, but they were precious supplies to me.

'All the armor is wrecked.'

Idiots.

What loot did they expect to get by shooting like that?

They should've aimed their shots.

There must have been too many enemies, so they sprayed bullets everywhere.

A few pieces of Goblin armor were still intact, but they didn't fit, and I didn't feel any need to wear them.

Once I was discovered, I was finished anyway.

Still, I did get a gun.

An old rifle, but one that still worked properly.

It was much better than having nothing.

There was also a small backpack and a few supplies.

'Ah, but there aren't any recovery items at all.'

I wasn't expecting a Recovery Potion, but it would've been nice to have hemostatic agents and bandages.

I gathered the supplies and returned to my temporary hiding place.

Then I found the hunters from earlier searching for loot nearby.

"Anything?"

"What would there be in a tiny house like this? Let's head toward the apartments."

[Stealth skill level has increased to 6.]

Good thing I'd erased my tracks when I left.

I almost got caught.

'The seventh floor really isn't a place to stay for long.'

Not that any floor in the Tower was a pleasant place, but this one was especially bad.

Still, my weapons were far too weak...

Did I have no choice but to do it like this?

No.

It wasn't like I could land several headshots like I did in the game.

No matter how I thought about it, the odds weren't there.

In the end, I moved to an area likely to have weapons and supplies.

A large hospital building.

It had once been used as a base by Goblins and Orcs before they built their guard posts.

It was a popular location because high-value loot appeared there often.

The chances of encountering other hunters or monsters were several times higher.

But I could never kill the Hellhound Handler like this.

I had to accept this much risk.

The hospital was huge, and there were many buildings nearby, so I could run if things went wrong.

'I need to leave right away.'

The hospital wasn't that far, but moving so carefully took nearly two hours.

I was practically crawling.

Still, I arrived without incident and began searching.

The moment I entered the hospital, I could feel the quality of the loot improve.

There were bandages, medicine, and bullets.

I even found a grenade.

'Oh, this is 500 gold per kilogram.'

I'd played Tower Escape so much that I automatically calculated prices by weight.

Before I could find a proper weapon, though, I heard extremely light footsteps.

[Detection skill level has increased to 7.]

Thanks to the skill, I could tell not only the direction but exactly what it was.

'It's downstairs! They're too light... Could it be a Hellhound?'

That was impossible.

The Hellhound Handler was a boss that wandered all over the place.

That was why it could proudly claim the highest death rate on the seventh floor.

But I'd definitely seen it near the guard post earlier.

There was no way I could have such absurd bad luck that it moved to the hospital the moment I arrived.

'This is insane...'

I left without hesitation.

I had a gun now, but killing Hellhounds only made them revive.

I had to wipe out all three at once with a grenade, then kill the Hellhound Handler while I had the chance.

That was the proper method.

The Hellhound Handler wasn't easy to kill either, so I needed at least two grenades.

But the dogs' footsteps grew louder and louder.

They were following my stench.

Click!

I shut several doors, but they wouldn't hold a Hellhound for long.

I had no dog treats, so once I had been marked, I couldn't escape.

'I have to kill the handler.'

"Woof, woof woof!"

When one Hellhound barked, another rushed over.

But I couldn't find the handler.

It had cleverly taken refuge somewhere safe on its own.

'All three will be here soon. Should I use the grenade?'

If I used it on the Hellhounds, though, dealing with the handler would become difficult.

In the end, I shut the door to a relatively sturdy emergency stairwell and went down a floor.

Then I detected the last one downstairs.

'I'm losing my mind.'

I had to think calmly.

A single Hellhound wasn't that strong on its own.

The problem was that it kept reviving.

I'd have to kill at least one with the gun and keep going.

After steadying myself, I kicked open the door, and a vicious large dog that looked ready to draw blood lunged at me.

Its blazing red eyes made my body freeze, but I forced myself to pull the trigger.

Bang!

"Growl!"

Hitting the first shot was pure luck.

I tried to keep firing on full auto, but then I heard the ominous sound of a click.

"Ah, please!"

Its durability hadn't been great to begin with, but it was already malfunctioning.

There was no time for a quick repair.

I threw away the useless gun and drew my dagger.

Then the Hellhound that had been about to bite me to death suddenly hunched up and jumped back.

"Yelp!"

"What?"

Its large eyes were fixed on the dagger in my hand.

Was it afraid of this?

I hadn't expected an unfamiliar item to have that effect.

Come to think of it, a Death Priest might have something to do with hell.

Then Detection picked up another presence.

"What are you doing? Why aren't you biting him already? If you're chewing dog treats again, I'll boil you into soup..."

The Hellhound Handler.

It was walking this way from beyond the wall.

The Hellhound hadn't been able to finish me off, so it must have come to check.

With trembling hands, I pulled the pin from the grenade and released the safety lever.

I hadn't handled one since graduating basic training in the military.

Click!

After cooking it for a suitable amount of time, I hurled it as hard as I could toward the corridor where the voice had come from.

Boom!

As expected of a grenade made by the Tower, the entire building thundered from the blast.

But that wouldn't have killed it.

Gripping the dagger, I approached it.

I had to stab it before it regained its senses.

The Hellhound Handler lay sprawled in the ruined corridor.

The dark-red-skinned elder spotted me and glared.

More precisely, it saw the dagger in my hand, the Death Priest’s Ritual Tool.

"You crazy bastard!"

The Handler suddenly thrust its right hand into its own chest.

Crunch!

It died on the spot, then was sucked into the ground.

Only a small heart and a few pieces of loot remained on the scorched spot.

[Hellhound Handler hunt complete.]

[Achievement Reward: Hound’s Tenacity trait acquired.]

"... What?"

Had it killed itself because it didn't want to be stabbed by this knife?

It wasn't like suicide was trendy these days.

No. Looking at the suicide rate, I guess it was trendy.

But I didn't know it happened in the Tower too.

'Get it together. Other hunters will be here soon!'

I pushed myself and stuffed the loot into my backpack.

If I blanked out like this during a stream, the viewers would chew me out.

Right now, I had to do better than I did in the game.

After thoroughly looting even the Hellhound's corpse, I hurried out of the hospital.

Footnotes:

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