WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Tower at Hell Difficulty ◈
Chapter 34
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Fortunately, the handwritten journal was filled with useful information.
There were simple formulas, the properties of each ingredient, and more.
Since it belonged to an apprentice, it was hard to find any complete formulas.
Only then did I properly understand the concept of the eighth floor.
"It looks like the eighth floor used to be an alchemist's workshop."
The Residential Area we had passed through had once been used by alchemist apprentices.
At some point, though, the dolls had taken their place.
The equipment in the armory had naturally been enchanted by alchemists as well.
When we opened the tap in the corner of the Potion Warehouse, purified water from the Sewage Treatment Plant poured out. There was even a small alchemy cauldron beside it.
Yuki, who had been reading the journal, spoke up.
"I think we need to put the ingredients into the cauldron and boil them."
Normally, getting fuel would have been a real hassle...
But I had the Ever-Burning Heart.
Whoosh!
When I poured plenty of magic power into the heart, the cauldron quickly heated up.
"Okay. What's next?"
"Let's start by adding water and one bottle of Tearsgrass Juice."
What we needed to make was the Heavenly Elixir.
It was a powerful restorative that could heal any wound.
Naturally, it could heal damage to the Mana Heart as well.
It was one of the most well-known high-grade elixirs, so it seemed the apprentices had tried to make it many times...
But they had never succeeded.
Still, we could learn the basics of the formula.
Once the Tearsgrass Juice began boiling furiously, Yuki narrowed her eyes.
"This is the important part. We have to add more ingredients... Apparently, the closer it gets to completion, the higher the quality of the Recovery Potion becomes."
"Hmm? I don't really get it..."
"In other words, the Recovery Potions hunters have been using all this time are failed products created while making the Heavenly Elixir."
"Ah...!"
So if we pushed a Recovery Potion's quality to the limit, it became a Heavenly Elixir.
Then what should we try first?
I brought over some common ingredients.
"Benefactor, they say Night Moonflower is good for healing wounds."
"I added it."
The color of the bubbling liquid in the cauldron changed sharply.
It was the familiar red of a Recovery Potion.
"Is it done now?"
"Let's wait like this. It seems we need to simmer it down until there's enough for one bottle of potion."
"Ah, then I'll raise the heat a little."
When I increased the Ever-Burning Heart's heat, the contents of the cauldron reduced quickly.
Thankfully, the cauldron had been small to begin with.
"It's done."
I took one of the empty bottles piled up like a mountain and poured the potion into it...
[Low-Grade Recovery Potion]
"Ah, it's low-grade."
"Let's add more ingredients. It looks like the finished product used a total of four ingredients."
"Four?"
There were so many ingredients, yet we had to pick four of them.
The number of possible combinations was practically endless.
Still, Yuki quickly narrowed down the candidates based on the journal.
"Tearsgrass Juice and Night Moonflower are essential... Even if it's low-grade, we made a Recovery Potion. I think we're generally headed in the right direction."
"That makes sense."
"Let's test a Lightning-Struck Branch next. Ah, and I think it would be better to simmer it more slowly."
Yuki read through the journal at an incredible speed.
Did she have some kind of speed-reading skill?
She picked out only the important points and made deductions at the same time.
"How are you reading that so quickly?"
"Come on, this is easy. I can understand live chat messages in under a second and deal with hateful comments... No, I mean correction requests."
"..."
This was the first time a teammate's amazing ability had felt this unreliable.
I tried again as she suggested.
[Mid-Grade Recovery Potion]
"The quality went up. It's mid-grade."
"It seems the mid-grade one came from simmering it slowly... The Lightning-Struck Branch doesn't seem very helpful. Let's change the ingredient."
Normally, we wouldn't even have been able to properly appraise the ingredients without alchemy knowledge.
But Loot Expert, the transcended skill, let us keep trying.
[Appraisal skill level has increased to 4.]
"Hmm, it isn't rising past mid-grade easily."
Normally, we would have needed to gather more information from other areas.
Instead, we kept retrying and gradually improved the quality.
[High-Grade Recovery Potion]
[Appraisal skill level has increased to 5.]
"Oh, it jumped straight to high-grade."
"We found the third ingredient. It was Cat's Tears."
Once the Appraisal skill level had risen enough, we made progress in identifying the ingredients too.
Yuki looked through the journal and frowned.
"The final ingredient seems rare and expensive..."
"Then we won't get many tries. Let's go with this."
[Frozen Mana Crystal: An alchemy ingredient. It pairs well with Recovery Potion and Mana Potion recipes.]
It was the same material I had picked up on the sixth floor.
The Appraisal skill's description had become more detailed, so I chose it.
"Whew, here we go."
After adding the ingredient, I lowered the heat.
When you thought about it, we were in the middle of enemy territory.
We had no idea when the guards might come barging in.
How many more attempts would we get...
"Hmm? The color's different this time."
I picked up the blue-glowing medicine.
Since we had simmered it slowly, it had naturally become jelly-like.
[Basic Skill Enhancement Pill: Strengthens a Basic Skill up to S rank.]
"..."
"Did, did we succeed?"
"We did, but... it isn't the Heavenly Elixir."
Something incredible had come out during our trial and error.
It could strengthen a Basic Skill to S rank.
The one I had obtained as Tower loot before only went up to A rank.
"... Yuki, you take this."
"What? Is it really okay for me to have it?"
"Of course."
It wouldn't affect me because I was EX-rank...
But Yuki was A-rank, so this could greatly improve her combat strength right away.
Yuki eventually swallowed the pill I offered her.
"Urgh..."
"How is it?"
"It, it's incredible! I feel full of strength."
She immediately summoned two clones.
The number she could summon at once had increased.
"Oh..."
"I think I can still do something else."
"Still?"
Flash!
The next moment, Yuki and her clones became slightly blurry...
Then the real Yuki moved to where one of the clones had been.
She had switched places with her clone.
"It's a switch!"
"Crazy..."
Her skill had already been absurd, but it became even more absurd at S rank.
It wasn't enough that one skill covered combat, scouting, and distraction. Now it could handle movement too.
I wanted to make more Basic Skill Enhancement Pills...
Unfortunately, we had no more Frozen Mana Crystals.
We had only tried it because it was a rare ingredient in the first place.
"For the next ingredient... let's use this."
The next result wasn't very good.
[Waste: The result of a talentless alchemist wasting precious ingredients.]
[Appraisal skill level has increased to 6.]
... Sorry for being talentless.
Did it really become this just because I added one wrong ingredient?
It would have been nice if there were a separate Alchemy skill.
Apparently, there wasn't.
Well, it wouldn't be useful anywhere except the eighth floor.
After a few more rounds of trial and error, I began to feel anxious.
We were really only one step away now.
How much longer could we keep this up?
While I added a new ingredient and simmered the mixture, Yuki used the clone she had sent into the ventilation shaft to watch the hallway and one adjacent room.
Then she got to her feet.
"Benefactor, it's a doll!"
"Hide!"
Naturally, that didn't mean we could put out the cauldron's fire.
Creak.
A doll carrying a tray had been about to take something from the shelves when it noticed the cauldron boiling furiously and froze in surprise.
"Guar..."
Crunch!
The moment it caught on, I killed it with my dagger.
For now, we had dealt with it quietly...
But its companions might come.
"Yuki, keep watch."
"Okay!"
The slow simmering was taking too long.
As I shifted anxiously from foot to foot, I appraised my dagger again.
My skill level had gone up quite a bit. Maybe I could read more information now?
[Appraisal skill transcended. Loot Expert skill activated.]
[Death Priest’s Ritual Tool: Returns all life to its rightful place... ???]
The description had gotten a little longer...
But there were still parts I couldn't appraise.
That sounded quite grand.
Considering the dagger's performance, though, it wasn't just empty boasting.
Just as the contents of the cauldron had nearly reduced completely, Yuki brought bad news.
"It's the Guard Unit! They're irritated because the servant doll is taking so long. They say the alchemist will be angry..."
So the one I killed earlier had been a servant doll that came to collect alchemy ingredients.
The eighth floor really was an alchemist's workshop.
The guards around here were far more competent than the ones on the seventh or fifth floors.
"We need to buy some time."
"H-how..."
I took out the Luger pistol with a fire Enchantment and shot a distant shelf.
Bang!
The shelf began burning at a frightening rate.
It was full of flammable things, after all.
Creak!
Thanks to that, the Guard Unit that came in through the stone door didn't pay attention to the alchemy cauldron in the corner or the strange smell.
"Fire!"
"Put it out now! If the alchemist finds out, we'll all be discarded!"
Did dolls fear death too?
Or did they fear disappointing their master?
It was a surprisingly philosophical sight.
We covered our noses and mouths with wet cloths, then lay flat on the floor.
The ventilation fan was working hard, but smoke was dangerous.
'... It's done!'
At last, the contents of the alchemy cauldron began giving off an otherworldly glow.
[Heavenly Elixir: A top-grade healing elixir. Brewing a Heavenly Elixir is the mark of a first-rate alchemist. It can heal all wounds, including damage to the Mana Heart.]
There it was!
We hit the jackpot at the very end.
It had called me a talentless alchemist earlier, hadn't it?
A good result really was the best argument.
"It's done. The final ingredient was a Starlight Crystal. Let's go!"
Before the guards returned, we tried to leave by the way we had come.
It was a little far...
But Yuki had found an exit there last time.
The moment we stepped into the hallway, though, Yuki grabbed my arm and ran in the opposite direction.
Her second clone had detected enemies too.
At first glance, heading into an unexplored area might have seemed dangerous...
But things were different now.
If guards had been stationed in that room, they would have come out to put out the fire already.
I considered using Firmament Veil, but I wanted to save it.
I had been using Transcendence skills nonstop, and I wasn't feeling too great.
Creak.
When we opened the door and entered, we found a spacious, cozy room.
It didn't feel like the bleak, musty storerooms we had seen so far.
The atmosphere felt more like a hobby room.
Even the lighting was warmer.
"There was a room like this too?"
The room was filled with easels like the kind used for painting...
Most were covered with cloth.
"It looks like an art storage room. Did the alchemist paint?"
"I guess so."
Maybe the alchemist had an unexpected hobby.
As I slowly looked around the room, I finally found an easel that wasn't covered with cloth.
They were all turned around, so I couldn't properly see the canvases.
'Wait, those aren't canvases?'
They looked heavier and more solid.
When I slowly walked around to the front, I frowned.
Light reflected off them.
What sat on the easels weren't canvases, but mirrors of various sizes.
Even the smallest was bigger than a person's torso.
"This is... the Room of Mirrors the Goblin Merchants told us about."
It was right next to the Central Zone.
We had come farther in than I thought.
Since we were here, should we complete the quest too?
They had asked us to bring back some Mirror Shards, so it shouldn't be too difficult.
Though getting here had been quite the journey already.
The guards were focused on putting out the fire, so we had some room to spare.
"W-wait. That mirror..."
The moment I looked at the mirror Yuki pointed to, my body stiffened.
What reflected in it wasn't me.
It showed a barren field.
Soon, the other mirrors began showing different scenes as well.
An old battlefield, an abandoned fortress, and more.
They were all landscapes from different worlds.
'They told us not to enter one right away.'
Remembering the Goblin Merchants' advice, I finally noticed the Mirror Shards scattered across the floor.
Just as I picked one up with my gloved hand...
Flash!
A fully armed knight emerged from the mirror showing the battlefield.
The knight wore silver armor and glared at me while holding a sword and shield.
Of course.
They weren't going to let me take them easily, were they?
Clicking my tongue inwardly, I raised my lever-action rifle.
[You're a thief. I will free you from your vile greed. Forever!]
With a voice that seemed to echo through the room, the knight charged at me.
Footnotes:
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