WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Escaping the Tower at Hell Difficulty ◈

Chapter 31

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After quite some time, I finally calmed down.

This gun was basically a freebie anyway.

It'd be nice if it was useful, but if not, so what?

I didn't think I could handle it otherwise.

Still, it had to be better than having nothing.

I had to make do with what I had.

As I kept trying to convince myself, I examined the box of ammunition beside me.

Unfortunately, it didn't list a brand or caliber.

It was just a clean white box.

'Fifty rounds, maybe.'

At least it wasn't a twenty-round box.

I couldn't expect any additional supplies.

I took out a round and examined its base.

[R-P 44 REM MAG]

.44 Magnum rounds?

At least I'd hit the jackpot there.

They were obviously much bigger than 9mm pistol rounds.

I'd seen this type during training.

The lever-action rifle held ten rounds.

It also seemed to have some kind of enhancement effect, but...

I couldn't figure out what it was.

My Appraisal skill couldn't identify it.

'Should I transcend Appraisal?'

It was a basic skill, so there probably wouldn't be much backlash.

I debated it briefly as I was about to eat, then sensed something from the stairs beneath the steel bridge.

It looked like a crude mass of flesh pressed together.

It was one of the monsters that had been writhing on the floor earlier.

Had it spotted me and come all the way up here?

The sound of water in the Sewage Treatment Plant had kept me from noticing until it climbed the stairs.

The monster resembled a bundle of rags, and it was not something I wanted to approach.

Its skin had been bloated by gas.

Bits of flesh or bone might explode and injure me.

I decided to shoot it.

But pistol rounds clearly wouldn't be enough.

The lever-action rifle didn't have a suppressor...

But with all this water noise, I didn't need to worry about that here.

Click.

I carefully aimed at it and pulled the trigger.

Fortunately, it wasn't very fast.

Bang!

.44 Magnum.

It was the kind of round often used to hunt bears.

And since I was firing it from a rifle, not a handgun, its energy would be fully put to use.

One concern was that it was a slow round built for stopping power.

Its blunt bullet clearly wasn't designed for penetration.

Still, if it could take down a small bear, it was worth hoping.

Crunch!

The next moment, I saw a huge hole blasted through the monster's upper body.

"... Huh?"

Something was strange.

It didn't look particularly hard or armored.

But even with all that stopping power, it shouldn't have done that much damage.

The thing toppled over, spilling a huge amount of dark, ominous liquid.

That was far more power than I'd imagined.

Thud!

Its heavy corpse hit the ground, making the steel bridge shake slightly.

"What the hell..."

Was this just how eighth-floor items were?

I couldn't hold back any longer and transcended my Appraisal skill.

[Appraisal skill transcended. Loot Expert skill activated.]

It had only been level 1, but thanks to Transcendence, I could properly understand the rifle's structure and properties.

[Permanent Penetration Enhancement enchantment applied.]

[Appraisal skill level has increased to 2.]

So it did have a separate effect.

It counted as a Tower artifact.

Penetration Enhancement, though.

There couldn't be a better Enchantment.

I suddenly liked this gun.

'Looking at you again, you're kind of cool.'

I still wasn't used to the lever-action loading mechanism...

But its power was reliable, and since it fired one round at a time, it was easy to shoot accurately.

That meant less wasted ammunition.

The Enchantment had been applied to the firing pin, chamber, and trigger group.

Even using the same rounds, it fired them with greater force.

Click!

After working the lever again to chamber a round, the nearby loot naturally caught my eye.

I could see everything, even things inside boxes or behind walls.

I could even roughly tell how valuable each item was.

That was the effect of the transcended skill, Loot Expert.

'This is... better than I imagined.'

I could quickly grab only the important loot with this.

Fwoosh.

When I deactivated the transcended skill, a faint dizziness washed over me.

It was probably because I'd used it for quite a while despite its low level.

I was also using Complete Senses far too often.

I smashed open a wooden crate on the steel bridge and took out the canned food inside.

"Good."

Things hadn't been going badly so far.

I'd obtained a weapon and food, and found a stable source of drinking water.

I was following the Zero to Hero success formula.

Once I closed the management office door, the rancid smell faded a little.

I took out a chocolate bar and slowly chewed it.

I had plenty of food...

It would be better to explore the area while I still felt fresh.

This place felt like the edge of the map.

I'd heard the Central Zone had more valuable loot and was more dangerous.

'Should I find an exit first?'

I should secure an escape route for emergencies.

Every exit on the eighth floor was a Direct Exit.

Because of that, there probably weren't many.

Exits were usually located near the edges of the map.

Of course, there were plenty of exceptions, like the morgue passage in the Abandoned Hospital on the third floor.

Rumble.

After finishing my simple meal, I headed into a corridor I hadn't explored.

It was in a direction similar to the room where I'd first arrived.

Probably near the very edge of the map.

You could usually recognize an exit instinctively just by getting close.

They were tunnels or stairways to begin with, so they were easy to identify.

'Ah, patrol.'

Once again, it was a two-member patrol.

I hid in the shadows and shot them in the head with my pistol first.

Pshht! Pshht!

Then I immediately switched to the lever-action rifle and shot each of them in the torso.

Crunch!

A single round completely shattered each torso.

"Whew."

I was about to casually walk past the dolls' corpses when...

The Gargoyle statue sitting beside a pillar suddenly opened its eyes.

'What?'

This was a monster too?

Living statues were a cliché in this genre...

But there had been no magic power reaction, so I hadn't noticed it.

Complete Senses had made me careless instead.

'This is going to get me killed.'

Reflecting on that, I fired the rifle.

Bang!

But the Gargoyle didn't even flinch.

This thing clearly had Physical Resistance.

It was made of stone, so the bullets couldn't penetrate it at all.

'How am I supposed to kill this?'

The Gargoyle charged at me with its wings and claws forward.

I jumped back to dodge it and pulled out my dagger.

Slash!

The dagger barely grazed its arm.

That was enough.

Rumble...

The Gargoyle broke apart, scattering stone fragments across the floor.

"Wow."

There had to be a proper strategy besides using the Instant-Death Dagger, right?

Thinking that, I searched through the stone fragments and found a gemstone the size of my thumb.

It had been attached to the Gargoyle's forehead.

It carried a power similar to what I'd felt from the lever-action rifle.

It was probably an Enchantment material.

'Ah, so you're supposed to break or remove this.'

Naturally, if I destroyed the gemstone, there'd be no loot left.

I'd have to kill them with the Instant-Death Dagger whenever possible.

After pocketing the gem, I wandered through the corridors until I finally found a staircase.

Stone stairs that could be freely used.

They led to another floor, not another room.

There was one problem, though.

'Why do these go up?'

Stairs leading upward instead of downward.

They weren't a Direct Exit.

They were a passage to the floor above.

There was a ninth floor?

That was information I really wasn't happy to learn.

I left the staircase behind and entered the next room.

Rumble.

When the stone door opened, a stale smell rushed out.

Still, it wasn't damp like the Sewage Treatment Plant.

'Hm?'

Rows of shabby beds stretched out on both sides.

It suddenly reminded me of the barracks from my active-duty days, which put me in a bad mood.

The real problem was that this place looked better.

Aside from being old, dusty, and covered in cobwebs...

At least this place had beds that were still usable.

Of course, it was still laid out like barracks, so it wasn't luxurious.

Privacy had gone straight to hell.

'The servants' Residential Area?'

It had been a while since I'd seen somewhere that felt inhabited.

But considering it was next to the Sewage Treatment Plant, they probably hadn't been treated very well.

Could I find food in this area?

[Appraisal skill transcended. Loot Expert skill activated.]

Sure enough.

Food was hidden throughout the room.

Most of it was extremely old preserved food.

'There's a ventilation shaft here too.'

Could it be connected to the first room?

Fortunately, there were very few monsters in the Residential Area.

I claimed a corner and began making a hideout.

This would be my base.

I'd sleep and eat here, of course.

If anything happened, I planned to run here and use it as a defensive position.

Rumble.

I gathered sturdy furniture and cover to make a barricade, then camouflaged it with old cloth.

I also set traps nearby.

'Ah, but I'm really short on explosives. Can't be helped.'

I only had one grenade left.

I needed to save that for an emergency.

Instead, I decided to use some .44 Magnum rounds to make Cartridge Traps.

They were improvised traps made by placing nails or metal fragments on the floor, then setting camouflaged bullets on top.

When an intruder stepped on a bullet, the metal fragment would strike the primer and fire the round.

It was an old-fashioned trap used during the Vietnam War...

The chance of a misfire was high and it wasn't very lethal, but it was far better than nothing.

'Ah, wait. There are explosive and vial traps in this room too.'

I even used my transcended skill to figure out their construction, then carefully disarmed them.

If I dug around the side or rear and took them out, they wouldn't explode.

After barely disarming one from a distance with tongs...

[Sleight of Hand skill level has increased to 10.]

[You have acquired the Upper Skill, Eye of Disassembly.]

It finally appeared.

It was about time I leveled up.

As its name suggested, Eye of Disassembly was a skill focused on dismantling rather than crafting.

Disarming locks and traps was effortless.

[Eye of Disassembly skill level has increased to 2.]

I disarmed nearly every trap in the room and placed them around my hideout.

Fortification complete.

Pshht! Pshht!

After taking care of the doll monsters, I searched the Residential Area more thoroughly.

Fatigue was starting to hit me, but not yet.

'Oh, a weapon rack.'

It was a weapon rack similar to the one I'd seen in the Sewage Treatment Plant's management office.

But... the lock on the outside had already been broken.

It hadn't been picked with refined skill like mine. It had simply been smashed.

A chill ran down my spine.

'This was done by a hunter.'

There was no way the dolls here had done this.

Was another hunter on the eighth floor?

Honestly, that was unexpected.

The video where I announced I was challenging the eighth floor right before entering had also been a warning.

It was a warning not to enter and pick a fight with me for no reason.

It felt strange to say it myself, but I was fairly famous.

After the Korean government officially recognized me as an EX-rank hunter, my channel had surged past a million subscribers.

Most of those subscribers had come recently, so the videos must have gotten a crazy number of views.

There was no way they hadn't heard the news.

Had they entered before me?

I hadn't even gotten near the Central Zone yet, and there was already another hunter.

I didn't like that.

I went ahead and cleared out the Residential Area completely.

The moment I took down the last doll...

Beeeeep!

A loud alarm suddenly rang out.

[Decrease in the number of doll units in the outer area confirmed. Patrol squad deployed!]

So even if I dealt with them quietly, a patrol squad would appear once their numbers dropped below a certain point.

Cheap and dirty.

Though from the guards' perspective, it might have been natural.

'Damn...'

I entered my hideout and picked up my gun.

I had around thirty rounds left after setting the Cartridge Traps.

They were doll guards anyway, so every shot would be a kill.

Rumble!

The stone door slid open, and a unit of doll guards appeared.

There were more than ten of them.

Was that the direction of the Central Zone?

I remembered it, then shot every one I could see.

Bang! Click, bang! Click, bang!

Every doll hit in the chest fell with a single shot.

Once I got used to the lever action, its firing rate was pretty fast.

Then, before long, two Gargoyles appeared.

The dolls charged in with the bulletproof Gargoyles positioned in front like tanks.

"Eliminate the intruder!"

A doll that seemed to be their commander shouted from behind the Gargoyles.

Without hesitation, I used the Ghost’s Cartridge Necklace.

Fwoosh!

The necklace's power flowed into the barrel.

Bang!

The bullet passed through the Gargoyle like a ghost and hit the Commander Doll in the chest.

"Screech..."

"Commander lost! Continue the operation!"

The dolls were slightly shaken, but they fired their crossbows.

Every bolt embedded itself in the barricade.

I was shooting through the small gunports I'd made in it.

But then...

Boom!

The next moment, one bolt exploded, and the barricade began to burn.

Their crossbows had powerful Enchantments too.

"Ah, damn it..."

I'd worked so hard to make it, and it took an instant for it to burn down.

Still, without it, I might've been the one hit.

I quickly tried to retreat, but one Gargoyle charged before I could.

That was fine by me.

Slash!

"Guard Gargoyle heavily damaged!"

The Gargoyle struck by my dagger crumbled apart, and the others faltered.

I used the opening to retreat to my second line of defense.

Of course, that one didn't take long to catch fire either.

Whoosh!

If I let those bastards fire their crossbows however they wanted, none of my defenses would survive.

The dolls that had been advancing confidently finally entered the trap's range.

Boom!

Three dolls were instantly shattered by the explosion.

They'd installed traps that powerful in their own living area.

They had that coming.

Click, bang! Click, bang! Click, tick, tick...

'Ah, am I already out?'

The ten-round tubular magazine burned through ammunition too quickly.

On the other hand, reloading took forever since I had to load each round through the side.

Without hesitation, I put the lever-action rifle into my Subspace Backpack.

Pshht!

I fired my pistol as I retreated behind the stone door.

Then I threw the grenade I'd been saving at the pursuers.

Boom!

The final grenade took care of most of the dolls.

The Gargoyle still advanced without slowing down.

The gunpowder smell and blast smoke made my head spin.

I might've inhaled some smoke earlier.

I gave up on recovering the loot and aimed for the Gargoyle's forehead.

Pshht! Crash...!

At last, the final Gargoyle fell.

"Huff, huff..."

As soon as I confirmed they were all dead, I took out the rifle and reloaded it.

My hands trembled from exhaustion.

I'd used up a huge amount of supplies in that fight.

Should I have retreated instead of trying to hold the defensive line?

No. They would've wandered through the outer area anyway, so holding them there had been the right call.

'I need to get some sleep soon...'

My stamina was drained, and my body kept sagging.

The fatigue had built up from using transcended skills, even if only briefly.

When I was alone, sleeping was the most miserable and nerve-racking part.

But it seemed the eighth floor still had no intention of letting me rest.

Rumble...

From far away, I faintly heard a stone door opening.

At the other end of the corridor.

Another Guard Unit sent as reinforcements?

Or the hunter whose presence I'd confirmed earlier?

It didn't matter who it was.

I aimed my rifle from within the shadows and waited.

But...

The sound of footsteps approaching in quick little steps was strangely familiar.

Footnotes:

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