WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

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◈ Escaping the Tower at Hell Difficulty ◈

Chapter 51

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Smoke Screen was not normally useful somewhere with winds this fierce.

The Smoke Screen skill could be activated multiple times at once, but...

On a cliff like this, it would be blown away before it could properly form.

But its Transcendence version, Sea of Clouds, was different.

The smoke was much thicker and heavier, and it lasted considerably longer.

It also had a fairly useful additional effect.

"Where are they?! I can't see!"

"Ah, they're behind us!"

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

The dwarves trapped inside the smoke began firing wildly.

They fired in our direction, of course, but they were shooting at each other too.

That was Sea of Clouds' effect.

It was a special smoke that disrupted the senses.

Not even Complete Senses could overcome it.

I had already taken Yuki and moved in another direction.

Bang!

While they happily fired away, I sent buckshot into the smoke.

They did not look like they had much armor, so it should be effective to some extent.

Grenades would have been perfect here, but it was a shame I did not have any.

Flash!

Yuki confused them with her clone.

We could deal with the ones that emerged from the smoke first.

Rat-a-tat-tat!

Maybe because they were already out of their minds, the sensory disruption had completely overwhelmed them.

They kept firing, but I was not intimidated as I fired my shotgun.

It was something I had read about in the military...

Apparently, a famous Korean general once said,

'Make soldiers shoot at a candle while running. They will not even graze it.'

It was supposedly a saying about the importance of aimed fire...

Bang!

"Ugh!"

Then a bullet pierced my left forearm.

I had been firing the shotgun from behind cover...

The bullet happened to come flying in just as I stuck my arm out.

It did not seem like they had aimed for me, but my luck was terrible.

Clutching my arm, I hid behind a rock and held back a groan.

Won't even graze it, my ass!

Maybe military stories were useless after all.

Or maybe I remembered the wrong version.

[Regeneration skill Transcendence. Undying Blood skill activated.]

I immediately activated the Transcendence skill.

The wound on my arm began healing at an incredible speed.

"Urgh..."

My Smoke Screen skill was still low level, so the backlash from its Transcendence version was severe.

I had used it diligently during training, but it was only level 3.

I was not in great condition either, so I would need to save my other Transcendence skills.

By then, the dwarves had finally begun escaping the smoke.

"I-I'm out! Agh!"

I stabbed the one in front, then turned the muzzle and fired straight into the smoke.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

Was this an M1918 BAR Automatic Rifle?

It was old, but usable.

The dwarves inside the smoke dropped in an instant.

'How many are left?'

Sea of Clouds blocked even my Complete Senses as its caster.

Four Seasons, a Transcendence skill, would work, but I had a reason to save it.

Click, click!

The M1918 BAR Automatic Rifle ran out of ammunition quickly.

Just as I was about to switch back to the shotgun, a dwarf rushed at me from behind.

'What? Was one hiding?'

I was about to react immediately, but I sensed something off and stopped.

There was no weight to the creature at all.

Sure enough.

The dwarf charging at me with a gun vanished like a mirage.

A hallucination caused by Soul Erosion.

It struck at your weakness when you were busiest and most exhausted.

The sharper your senses, the stronger the hallucinations became.

'This is driving me crazy.'

[Regeneration skill level has increased to 10.]

[Upper Skill Adaptability acquired.]

The news came at a welcome time, but I had no room to pay attention to it.

Click, click-click!

Empty guns clicked from all around.

They had run out of bullets too.

They probably had not had much ammunition to begin with.

Whoosh!

I dispelled Sea of Clouds and cleared away the smoke, then shot them one at a time.

The dwarves who had run out of bullets charged at me while swinging their empty guns.

"Let's hear you scream too!"

"Throw him off the cliff!"

Bang!

That made them easy to deal with, but I ran out of bullets.

I had not even had twenty shotgun shells to begin with.

Yuki and I had split them between us too.

In the end, I took the last dwarf's weapon, grabbed the bastard, and walked toward the cliff.

"Gh! Let go, you Goblin-shit bastard!"

It struggled desperately, but it could not overcome the strength of my level 8 Physical Technique.

Maybe because it was a dwarf, it was pretty light.

I let it go over the cliff.

"Fly."

"Aaaaaagh!"

Maybe the Statue of the Man Who Surrendered to Fear was satisfied with the performance.

The moment the last dwarf disappeared below the cliff, the statue began shining.

[Statue of a Man Who Surrendered to Fear dismantled. Until you escape the 9th floor, your resistance to mental effects will slightly increase.]

[Cliffside Dwarf Tribe eliminated. Upon escape, additional reward acquired (Skill Card)...]

Done.

I gave a nod toward where the statue had stood, then hurried over to Yuki.

"Yuki, are you okay?"

"Ah, yes... Benefactor."

Yuki looked noticeably worse than before the battle.

Her eyes were not looking at me. They were scanning the empty air.

"Kiaaah..."

"You lot, come over here too!"

Auditory hallucinations kept mixing with the sound of the wind.

Soul Erosion was definitely progressing faster in this cliffside region.

I crushed another Soul Crystal to drive away the voices, then gathered the guns with Yuki.

There were quite a few, so I took the ones in decent condition and converted the rest into shotgun shells.

Tiririck!

"It's in good condition. I think we can recycle it."

"B-Benefactor, don't let go of my hand."

"All right."

It slowed us down, but there was nothing we could do about it.

The dwarves had dropped plenty of Soul Crystals as well.

After gathering all the loot, we searched the surrounding area a little more.

I found a path leading down the cliff and was about to send a clone down it...

Then Yuki suddenly screamed.

"A-Aaah!"

"What's wrong, Yuki?"

"J-just now... I thought your arm was covered in blood..."

Were Soul Crystals no longer enough to block the hallucinations?

It had always been poison fighting poison, so it could not be helped.

This was bad.

Her symptoms would only get worse from here...

Clearing the ninth floor in this condition would be difficult.

"I'm fine. Check down there first."

"O-okay. Hoo, hoo..."

A horn was hidden in a small cave below the cliff.

We quickly retrieved it and began heading back to camp.

Whoooosh!

We had nearly left the cliffside region when a hallucination I had never seen before appeared in front of me.

It was a hunter who looked foreign.

They were wearing fairly modern equipment.

The bastard glared at me and shouted.

"You bastard... Do you think you'll get away with killing me?!"

"... What are you supposed to be?"

"Benefactor. I-I can see them too."

Yuki could see them too?

Was it a ghost monster rather than a hallucination?

I searched my memory and barely remembered who they were.

The foreign hunter team we had fought in the Underground Shopping Mall on the seventh floor.

They were the machine gunner.

I had put a bullet through their head.

Why were they appearing on the ninth floor?

This place was called the Island of Sleeping Souls.

Could other hunters who died in the Tower be sleeping here too?

"This bastard... Your group snuck up and ambushed us first, so what do you have to complain about by showing up in front of me?"

"What?"

"Come here. I'll kill you one more time."

"Aaaagh!"

I drew my dagger and threw it, and the bastard scattered in an instant.

Yuki stared at it blankly for a moment before finally relaxing.

"Team Leader... Please keep holding my hand. Stay beside me."

"All right."

Yuki's symptoms had appeared later than mine, but they were worsening far too quickly.

It was probably because she was mentally on edge.

Still, we had dismantled one statue and obtained loot and a horn...

That was enough for today.

We could return to camp now.

"Don't you feel a little better now that we're out of the cliffside region?"

"Yes... Sniff."

Yuki was trembling all over now.

Barely walking beside me, she spoke.

"Keep talking to me. Team Leader, how can you be okay in a place like this?"

I was not actually okay either.

I chose my words carefully.

"Because I'm the team leader."

"Then what should I do as a team member?"

Had I made it too much about myself?

Since it was Yuki...

If I said the wrong thing here, my life would be over.

For some reason, I had a feeling that would happen.

Maintain social distance.

After thinking it over, I found the most appropriate response that was not excessive.

"... You just need to treat me, your team leader, with respect."

"R-respect?"

"Yes. Honestly, this is what I think."

It could not be helped if I got shot and fell, or died miserably in the Tower.

That was beyond my control.

But until then, I would do what I could.

Gather loot, look after my team members, stab enemies with a knife, and steal things too.

I would not be afraid, feel guilty, or stop in the process.

Because I had to survive and escape.

That was how I showed respect to myself and my team members.

Yuki listened quietly, and her trembling gradually subsided.

"... Then what will you uphold for me, Kang Hyun?"

Another time to choose.

My mind spun harder than it had while fighting the dwarves.

I had to find words that kept an appropriate distance without sounding too cold.

"If you do that, I'll be loyal to you too, Yuki."

"... Loyal."

Yuki slowly repeated the word as if tasting it.

Then she finally gave a small snort of laughter.

"Okay. I'll be respectful."

As we returned to camp, Yuki calmer now, we found edible plants and gathered them.

I was starting to worry about our food supply.

Sang Hajun had said he would hunt animals that passed near the camp...

But after all the gunfire last night, I could not expect much.

Then my senses caught the presence of an unfamiliar animal.

"Oh, a rabbit."

"I'll catch it!"

Yuki stepped forward eagerly, but I stopped her.

The brown-furred rabbit was staggering badly.

It was worse than the rabbit we had hunted on the first day.

Thinking about it, there was a good chance this was caused by Soul Erosion too.

Animals would be affected to some extent.

'Wait. Could it be...?'

That thought gave me a strange hypothesis.

The wild boar we had hunted right after the rabbit on the first day.

That one had definitely been severely affected.

We had caught it, but could not eat any of its meat.

My skill had judged that the meat contained poison...

But what if that poison was Soul Erosion?

"... Team Leader?"

"Yuki, isn't this strange?"

"Yes?"

"How can an animal that small stay alive after being affected by Soul Erosion?"

Small animals usually had very fast metabolisms.

That made poison affect them more easily.

Soul Erosion was a poison that acted on the soul, so there might be differences.

Still, animals like that should have been poisoned long ago and gone mad.

The wild boar had.

But how could a rabbit, much smaller and weaker than it, remain fine until now?

It was hard to expect a normal ecosystem inside the Tower...

But it did have something similar.

At the very least, it was an environment where living things could survive long-term.

"Let's leave it alone for now. We'll follow it."

"Ah, okay."

The rabbit kept stumbling, but it ran determinedly toward a particular destination.

It had a clear purpose.

We followed without making a sound.

'Are we... southeast?'

It was a forest filled with all kinds of plants.

The rabbit hopped along before disappearing into a thicket.

The entrance was hidden by thick grass and could not be seen from outside.

"Hm?"

We followed it inside...

There was a meadow lit by sunlight filtering through the trees.

It was much larger than expected.

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary field of weeds.

The rabbit settled in front of it and eagerly began chewing grass.

[Spirit-Nourishing Grass: Alchemy ingredient. It prevents and treats unclean energy or mental interference...]

Just as I thought.

There was a way to treat the Soul Erosion of the ninth floor.

If there had not been, small animals like this could not have survived.

They said injured animals instinctively sought out medicinal herbs.

It seemed rabbits did the same.

Yuki used Appraisal too, and she was genuinely moved.

"Team Leader... How did you know? I never would have imagined it..."

That was because she had been mentally overwhelmed.

Observing things calmly could come in handy someday.

We sat down beside the rabbit and chewed on the grass with it.

It perked up its ears in surprise, but it kept munching without pause.

Footnotes:

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