WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Tower at Hell Difficulty ◈
Chapter 42
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The boss fight was going fairly smoothly.
The problem was that we were in the heart of the boss's base.
Reinforcements kept pouring in.
Most were Guard Dolls armed with crossbows...
But some carried fairly dangerous weapons.
Yuki and I handled those.
'What?'
I was maintaining Four Seasons when a sharp sense of danger stabbed at my skin.
Whoosh!
Without a second thought, I dove behind cover.
A bullet struck where I had been standing.
Bang!
A sniper shot from above.
A sniper doll was positioned near the ceiling, holding a fairly decent sniper rifle.
'That's pretty far...'
[Physical Technique skill transcended, Inhuman Strength skill activated.]
I stepped onto a shelf and climbed onto the beam where the snipers were stationed.
It was wide enough to support one or two people.
Bang! Click.
The moment I took out the sniper, the boss below tried to launch another alchemical potion.
The boss wasn't throwing it directly by hand. The vial flew through the air on its own.
I picked off the especially dangerous ones.
'Acid and fire vials. There's even a Chimera Enhancement Potion.'
Pfft, pfft!
The Nightfall Custom in my left hand spat bullets at maximum RPM.
The lever-action rifle's magazine was nearly empty...
And wasting those rounds on things like this would be a shame.
I still held the lever-action rifle in my right hand.
But I'd trained to shoot properly with my left hand too.
After my shoulder had been wrecked last time, I fully understood the need to be ambidextrous.
I probably spent more time practicing left-handed shooting than anything else during the preparation period.
Crash!
As the dangerous vials shattered one after another, the boss grew irritated.
"You... You know about Alchemy! And you still dare point a gun at the great alchemist Marhen?!"
Even the supply of Barrier Recovery Potions seemed to have limits.
He had probably used almost all of them already.
I spun the lever-action rifle with my right arm to reload it.
The shortened modification made it feel perfectly natural.
Whirr, click! Bang!
The last sniper on the beam fell.
Whirr!
I tossed the nearly empty pistol magazine into my Subspace Pouch, pulled out a new one, and reloaded one-handed.
I hooked the slide against my belt and racked it.
Click!
Brown would scold me for treating a gun so roughly if they saw this...
But it was an emergency.
Bang!
Thanks to taking them out quickly, the reinforcements were finally starting to thin out.
The alchemist pointed at me.
"Kill that one first!"
The Guard Dolls all aimed their guns at me at once.
There was no way I could dodge while standing on the beam.
I jumped down.
The exhilaration of a double activation of Transcendence.
Strength overflowed through my body, and I could see everything.
It felt as if I had become invincible.
Bang!
Yuki's shotgun dropped the dolls targeting me one after another.
Whenever it looked like she might take even a little return fire, she swapped places with a clone in a safe location.
She was following our training well.
I landed in an area with plenty of cover, saw that the magazine was empty, and put away the lever-action rifle.
The Guard Dolls were rushing in. I didn't have time to reload leisurely.
Crunch!
I pulled out my dagger and drove it into the chest of a doll coming around the corner.
Then I used its body as a shield while firing at the ones behind it.
It was made of reasonably bulletproof material, so it was dependable enough.
Pfft, pfft, crash!
After emptying the magazine in an instant, I kicked away the doll I'd stabbed.
The dolls that fell with it flailed around.
I used the opening to reload quickly.
Click, pfft! Pfft!
The pistol was already on its last magazine.
I'd thought I'd packed plenty...
But once a full-scale battle began, ammunition vanished at an absurd rate.
Of course, the Nightfall Custom used common 9mm rounds, so I'd taken plenty of ammo from the armory...
The problem was that I hadn't brought many magazines.
To keep using it, I'd have to load rounds into magazines myself.
As I slipped toward the Kitchen Zone, I heard Han Juwon's voice as they pressured the boss.
"Team Leader! This is my last magazine!"
Damn, that side was on their last one too.
It was an old RPK-74 with a wooden stock, so it used old-fashioned magazines as well.
Forty-five-round box magazines.
There should have been plenty of magazines, but Han Juwon had already gone through all of them.
Machine guns really burned through ammunition too quickly.
Without Ghost Bullets, we'd have had to wear the enemies down with hit-and-run attacks.
"Got it. Keep pushing!"
Kim Yuna looked like she was nearly out of ammunition too.
I reloaded the lever-action rifle and decided to target the boss directly.
"Yuna, I'm going to finish this. Move me over there."
"Got it!"
We'd already reduced the number of guards considerably through our earlier hit-and-run attacks.
Kim Yuna teleported me over.
Bang! Click, bang!
"Move!"
I fired a few rounds, and whenever explosive potions flew at us, we changed positions.
Yuki was distracting the boss with her clones too, so he had to be having a miserable time.
That let Han Juwon keep pouring in bullets without worry.
Ratatatatat!
"Aaargh!"
Crash!
The alchemist's Barrier finally shattered completely.
Kim Yuna tried to fire her submachine gun...
But her magazine was already empty.
"Ah, damn it!"
Was the MP7's RPM 950?
When fired full-auto, it ran dry in no time.
Kim Yuna put away the gun in annoyance and picked up a rifle from a fallen Guard Doll.
But the rifle wouldn't fire properly either.
Click, click!
"What? Why isn't this..."
Whether it was malfunctioning or simply out of ammunition, this was why we couldn't rely on captured weapons.
Bang! Click, bang!
I advanced while emptying my magazine in an instant.
The alchemist's clothes seemed to have bulletproof properties...
Still, every bullet hit hard.
The body twisted, bones snapping.
Yuki approached from behind, swapped places with her clone, and fired her sawed-off shotgun.
Bang!
Thanks to the Paralysis Enchantment, the bastard reaching for a potion froze completely.
"Aaargh!"
I carefully aimed for its head.
Bang!
I wasn't about to miss a shot like this now.
Naturally, it hit.
But what happened next was very different from what I expected.
Instead of the grisly sight of blood and flesh bursting apart...
There was a dull impact, and mechanical components scattered everywhere.
Crunch!
"Huh?"
Was it not a living creature?
Hard.
Some seriously high-performance bulletproof material.
But there was damage.
If one shot wasn't enough, I just needed to put in two or three.
The alchemist froze completely when it saw that half its head had been blown away.
"What? I'm... a doll? Since when..."
Sorry, but I had no intention of letting it struggle any longer.
Click, bang!
The second shot completely shattered the outer shell...
And the third burst open what was inside.
Everything that spilled out consisted of complex mechanical parts.
There wasn't a trace of blood or flesh.
"Huff, huff..."
The moment the boss fell and all the guards were cleared out, I deactivated Transcendence.
Overwhelming exhaustion washed over me.
The battle had lasted quite a while, and I'd maintained Four Seasons for a long time.
"Kang Hyun! Sit here."
"Huff... Thanks, Yuna."
My heart pounded painfully.
It felt like I was taking all the breaths I'd been holding back at once.
As I slumped into the chair, Han Juwon and Yuki came over.
"We got him... That bastard was ridiculously tough."
"Yuki, watch that side and that side. Everyone else, collect the loot!"
"Ah, okay!"
This place wasn't safe.
I forced my aching body up and brought over my backpack.
First, I swept up everything on the alchemist's workbench.
There was something like a sturdy metal case...
It obviously wasn't an ordinary item.
This was probably the main loot.
A few more items came from the alchemist's corpse.
There was a garment with excellent bulletproof properties, like an overly roomy lab coat.
It was full of holes, so we decided to take fabric samples and throw away the rest.
We didn't have the technology to repair something like this.
"There are a lot of potions."
"Let's take all of them for now."
There was still plenty of room in the backpack, so we thoroughly looted the Central Zone.
Like last time, it was a treasure vault filled with high-grade loot.
We focused on small, lightweight items first.
"Take those gems. Alchemy materials too. Don't leave behind any electronics."
"Okay."
"Yuna, the sniper doll on that beam had a gun that looked useful."
"I'll get it."
This was different from when Yuki and I had entered alone.
There was much more leeway under the weight limit now that Han Juwon had brought a large-capacity Subspace Backpack.
We could take far more than just a hundred kilograms.
The backpack that had been slim quickly swelled up.
When I returned to the Kitchen Zone later, I found that the cup noodles had gone completely soggy.
"Aah... I'm going to shoot that corpse some more."
"Don't. Bullets are valuable."
Han Juwon spoke while loading rounds into magazines one by one.
Now that we were on the eighth floor, everyone was short on supplies.
We decided to move to a safer room in a corner.
Even if all the Guard Dolls were dead, we could still run into other hunters.
Everyone was in poor condition and needed time to recover.
"This should be fine."
"Team Leader, lie down over here!"
Yuki quickly made room and patted the spot beside her.
The best thing about having more teammates was that our watch shifts were much shorter.
"... Is it okay if I rest first?"
"Of course. You look terrible right now, Kang Hyun. You were practically flying around while fighting earlier."
"Go to sleep. We'll wake you when it's your turn."
Han Juwon and Kim Yuna both urged me on.
In the end, I roughly took off my equipment and fell asleep as if I'd collapsed.
"Mmm..."
[Physical Technique skill level has increased to 8.]
[Appraisal skill level has increased to 6.]
I'd slept like I was unconscious, and just as my awareness began to return, I heard a soft, pleasant voice.
"Benefactor... For some reason, you weren't happy outside, were you?"
Hm?
"You like wandering through the Tower with me the most. Honestly, I do too."
Rustle, rustle.
A strange sound accompanied her cheerful voice.
It felt warm.
It was like I had a pillow.
"I have much more fun in the Tower with you than I do outside, where it's safe and boring. I'll keep working hard from now on."
Only then did I finally open my eyes.
My body still ached, but I'd recovered considerably.
When I came to my senses, my head was resting on Yuki's lap.
She looked down at me with concern.
"Ah, you could've slept a little longer..."
"How many hours has it been?"
"Eight hours."
What?
They hadn't woken me for eight hours.
They'd skipped my entire turn on watch.
Kim Yuna and Han Juwon looked like they'd slept well too.
Han Juwon handed me a fully loaded magazine from across the room.
It wasn't Han Juwon's. It was one of my Nightfall Custom magazines.
The firearms had even been cleaned and maintained.
"Here. Shall we eat something soon? You're hungry, right?"
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"You were in the worst condition. I couldn't sleep anyway."
So they had been looking out for me.
Still, Yuki had been whispering weird things while I slept.
It wasn't like some old sleep-learning method.
While Yuki started cooking, I went over to Kim Yuna and asked,
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"What? Oh, the whispering while you slept? Do you think someone like her would listen if I tried to stop her? It'd be the worst if I said something and we got into a fight for no reason."
"..."
I couldn't argue with that.
Either way, the sleep had restored a lot of my stamina.
Having four people on the team really was reassuring.
Yuki took out the canned fish from last time and started cooking it again.
We'd eaten plenty of meat earlier, so this might have been better.
The team members rated it highly too.
"Oh, this canned food is pretty good. It's amazing with rice."
"The Team Leader gave it to me on the fourth floor."
"Really? Kang Hyun is such a gentleman."
"I didn't just give it to her. I sold it to her for money..."
Now that we'd filled our stomachs, it was time to continue exploring.
We stopped by the Central Zone to check whether we'd missed any loot.
There was still no sign of other hunters.
"Are we going to the Room of Mirrors now?"
"Yes. It'd be a waste to leave like this."
Before entering the Room of Mirrors, we appraised the loot...
And found a jackpot.
[Alchemist's Ammunition Box: A prototype made by a Doll Alchemist. Insert loot to create the type of ammunition you want.]
"Oh, this..."
This was amazing.
The reason we couldn't use heavy weapons on the eighth floor wasn't just the weight of the weapons themselves...
The real problem was the ammunition's enormous weight.
Heavy weapons used heavy ammunition too.
But with this box, we could consume loot to create ammunition.
And the box itself was quite small and light.
Han Juwon said happily,
"We need at least one thing like this for balance."
Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to use heavy weapons at all.
We replenished our ammunition and decided to enter the Room of Mirrors.
There was high-value loot scattered all around us anyway.
Clatter!
When we put in a piece of loot, ammunition poured out of the box.
"It seems like more expensive loot produces more ammunition."
"It's like a tiny personal ammo shop."
After securing enough ammunition, we entered the Room of Mirrors.
Fortunately, there was no sign that anyone else had entered.
Ssssh!
A Mirror Knight began taking shape in the mirror at terrifying speed.
But I broke the mirror before it could even emerge.
Bang!
"Another one's coming!"
"This time, it's over here!"
Bang!
After breaking three like that, things finally quieted down.
We filled the empty space in Han Juwon's backpack with Mirror Shards.
"That's at least 100,000 gold secured."
This time, we'd gathered plenty of loot too...
Wouldn't we already be over 500,000 gold?
I stood before the two remaining mirrors and considered them.
Mini Dungeon.
Since my condition was still unsteady, clearing both would be difficult.
Besides, once we cleared one, a Direct Exit would open immediately.
"Which one should we enter?"
One showed a landscape that reminded me of a battlefield.
The other showed a massive stone structure.
Was it an abandoned castle?
A battlefield and a ruined castle.
Neither was somewhere I wanted to enter.
"... I prefer number two. It'd be better to enter a battlefield after all five of us are together."
"Having cover does make you feel safer, doesn't it?"
"... Then let's enter the ruined castle mirror."
"I like that too!"
We unanimously chose the ruined castle mirror.
Kim Yuna touched the mirror first, and she was sucked inside in an instant.
"It worked. Let's go too."
Yuki and I held hands as we entered.
Flash!
[You have entered the Prison of Bonds. A Direct Exit will open upon successfully clearing it.]
Dark, damp air welcomed us.
Footnotes:
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