WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

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◈ Escaping the Tower at Hell Difficulty ◈

Chapter 7

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At the end of the stone stairs, I saw torchlight.

The Interfloor Zone.

The only place in the Tower that actually looked like a tower, with its damp, gloomy stone interior.

Right then, though, it looked like heaven.

"Human! You're back?"

Even the Goblin Merchant's grinning face was a welcome sight.

I spread out the loot beneath the torchlight.

Even if it had been unavoidable, I'd killed someone.

It would've been better if they'd been some irredeemable villain.

They'd had such an ordinary face.

I could still clearly see the look in their eyes as they stared at me.

Still, the people left behind had to keep living.

The goblin, unaware of what I was thinking, chuckled.

"You took one down. Human, you're a fine hunter now."

Apparently, being a fine hunter meant being a fine piece of human trash or a murderer.

The first thing I picked up was the rifle.

It had looked like the highest-quality piece among the dead hunter's equipment.

A Soviet-made rifle that used 7mm rounds.

"It has a suppressor."

I was genuinely grateful for that.

It was well maintained too, so it looked ready to use as is.

Honestly, it had only been a cost-effective item in the Tower Escape game...

But now that I was holding one for real, I couldn't have been happier.

The body armor, on the other hand, was a complete mess.

When I pulled it out, it was horribly dented from however many shots it had taken.

Its durability was already at its limit.

It was a little too big for me too.

"How much will you give me if I sell this with the uniform?"

"I'll be generous. Thirty-seven gold."

That depreciation was insane.

Still, I sold it without complaint.

It would only be extra baggage if I kept it.

While I was at it, I took off my Cold-Weather Clothes too.

I'd layered several sets of clothes, so I still had ordinary clothes underneath.

I needed to do some laundry too.

"You have detergent, right?"

"Thirteen gold. You know where the water comes from, don't you?"

The goblin would get rich fast doing business here.

"How much for regular clothes?"

"Plenty in human male sizes. Fifty gold for this."

Looking more closely, my clothes were beyond saving with a wash, so I decided to buy new ones.

I'd been sweating in them for a week. Of course they were.

The dead hunter had carried some gold too, but...

Just as I'd expected, they had almost no food.

Maybe they hadn't dared to wander the fifth floor alone and scavenge for it.

Food was scarce on the fifth floor in the first place.

After selling off most of the loot, I looked at the troll hide one last time.

It would bring in some money if I sold it, but there was nothing I urgently needed to buy.

I still had about a week's worth of food.

"...What grenades do you have?"

"These are one hundred fifty gold each. Smoke grenades are one hundred."

This was driving me crazy.

Two grenades cost as much as a pistol.

Still, there was no better consumable, so I emptied out my wallet and bought them.

"What about Recovery Potions?"

"Special price, five hundred gold."

Special price, my ass.

I gave up on those without hesitation.

Potions weren't merely effective medicine. Their miraculous effects made their high price understandable.

An elixir that healed any external injury in an instant.

After buying pistol ammunition too, I adjusted the rifle's sights.

They had been zeroed for the dead hunter, so I needed to change them.

There was a shooting target in one corner of the Interfloor Zone.

'Bullets are precious... Can't be helped. But how do I adjust the sights on this thing? Ah, it has a red-dot sight. I can do it with this.'

Pshoo, pshoo!

I finally got the sights zeroed after emptying an entire precious magazine.

I checked its operation while I was at it, and the rifle worked perfectly.

As I was finally catching my breath, I spotted a large basin in the corner.

It looked big enough for one person to fit inside.

"Can I use this?"

"Rental? Three gold."

Thankfully, the water was free.

I filled my canteens, then filled the basin with water.

Then I put the Ever-Burning Heart in and slowly warmed the water.

"Ooh..."

My first bath in a long time.

I scrubbed away the grime and the smell.

Now I finally felt human again.

My left arm was completely fine too.

'I've already gone down two floors.'

The two most dangerous floors among the Tower's seven floors were over.

I'd gained two upper skills, so things should gradually become easier from here...

The problem was the other hunters.

The farther down I went, the more hunters there would be.

Most of them probably wouldn't be particularly skilled.

Anyone could enter the higher floors.

Getting out in one piece was the hard part.

'Still, they're strong enough to kill me.'

Even with upper skills, I couldn't block bullets or come back from the dead.

'Can I really escape?'

The fifth floor was an abandoned industrial complex attached to a train station.

Monster density was high, so fighting broke out often.

I was really glad to have gotten a proper gun.

There was a Direct Exit, but it would probably be difficult.

It only opened after defeating the boss...

And there were plenty of competitors aiming for a direct escape.

If someone properly looted the factories on the fifth floor, they could leave with a fortune.

So I had to use a Descending Exit again.

If I avoided the factories, it seemed manageable.

There was nothing in particular I needed from the fifth floor, so I should get down as fast as possible.

I couldn't clear the fifth floor's Direct Exit alone...

And the fourth floor depended entirely on luck, so there was no guarantee.

In my opinion, a complete escape would only be possible from the third or second floor.

Still, I really didn't want to go down to the second floor.

That place was hell, packed with every nobody and hyena in the Tower.

"Whew."

After finishing my refreshing bath, I bought a few more canteens and filled them with water.

Click!

I slid the loaded pistol into its holster. I was ready.

It still made me nervous without a safety, but it was better than nothing.

The feel of the rifle in my hands was unfamiliar, yet reassuring.

"How many minutes are left on my stay?"

"Ten minutes left, human."

"...See you again."

I left the Interfloor Zone ten minutes early.

Flash!

If I landed in the right place, I might be able to escape right away.

Instead, I was greeted by the distinctive noises of a factory.

Screeeech...

A dark, abandoned factory.

The machinery had stopped running long ago, but Guard Golems dragged broken parts behind them as they wandered around.

They were slow but tough monsters that only died if you hit their weak points precisely.

'Of all places, here?'

I thought I could manage as long as I avoided the factories, but I'd landed inside one.

At least I was used to this much.

Since I was already inside, I looked around to see if there was anything worth taking...

A thick rectangular kit sat on a metal shelf.

I picked it up, hoping it wasn't what I thought it was.

It was.

[Thermal Kit]

The very thing used on the sixth floor.

Normally, the standard strategy was to gather Thermal Kits here before challenging the sixth or seventh floor.

But it was completely useless to me.

'Wow... Isn't this too cruel?'

Landing in the factory district was bad enough, but it had to be a Thermal Kit factory.

There was nothing worth salvaging here.

I should leave right away.

I steadied myself and heightened my senses.

The inside of the abandoned factory was confusing and dark.

It was the perfect environment to fully use two upper skills, Complete Senses and Shadow Walking.

The factory's layout was completely unfamiliar, but...

After a while, I started spotting many similarities to Tower Escape.

The game's map recreation was astonishingly accurate.

Maybe it was because there was more data, but it was much better than the seventh floor.

After climbing through a broken window and getting outside, I saw several similar-looking buildings.

It was an extremely dangerous area, since hunters would be likely to target it.

[Complete Senses skill level has increased to 2.]

Upper skills could level up too?

The rifle in my hands felt terribly awkward.

I'd completed my mandatory military service, but I wasn't particularly good at shooting.

Honestly, I wasn't confident.

'Let's get to the outskirts fast.'

Armed Orcs patrolled the outskirts of the factory district.

Gunshots rang out from a distance every so often.

Bang, bang!

It really was the fifth floor, where frequent engagements broke out because the area was relatively cramped.

The environment naturally forced people into combat because there was little room to move.

It was enough to make me feel like dying.

Still, because the map was so damn small, the Descent Exit was close.

'There it is.'

One of the fifth floor's Descent Exits, a sewer entrance.

But I didn't approach carelessly.

Dying after blindly walking up to an exit ranked pretty high among the causes of death in Tower Escape.

Sure enough.

I hid in the shadows and calmly looked around...

Hunters were hiding everywhere.

Five hunters had completely surrounded the exit.

Anyone who approached carelessly would be turned into a beehive.

'Should I throw a smoke grenade? No. Those bastards probably have grenades too.'

It would be best to give up on this exit.

Without hesitation, I headed for another area.

But the other places were crawling with armed Orcs.

It had always been hard to enter them since they were right in the middle of monster territory.

It was too dangerous to approach relying only on Shadow Walking.

This would take longer than expected.

With that in mind, I started looking for somewhere to hide for the night.

It was something I'd never even considered in Tower Escape...

Now that I thought about it, there were no proper hiding places on this map.

In the game, there had never been any reason to spend a full day on a single map.

The map was too small, and the hunters' routes were limited, so my only option was to hide in some secluded room inside a building.

Even then, there was a high risk of being found.

Going out at night had its own problem, though. Night-vision goggles.

If the other hunters used night-vision goggles, Shadow Walking might become useless.

I'd heard modern night-vision goggles were so advanced that many even came with thermal imaging.

How did I know that?

I'd looked it up.

When making strategy videos, you had to throw in some random chatter to fill out the runtime easily.

I was circling the edge of the map, searching for a hiding place...

Then Complete Senses suddenly screamed an intense warning.

'Hm?'

The sensation pricked at my skin, and I instinctively dodged.

The moment I snapped my head around, I caught a strange glint.

A reflection from a high-powered sniper scope.

I had no experience with it, but instinctively, I knew that was what it was.

The glint had come from above a guard post.

That was where sniper monsters were often positioned in the game.

'I'm screwed!'

Tower Escape was infamous for being unfair and cheap.

Even among its worst features, sniper monsters were especially vicious.

In most games, a sniper simply aimed at the player and fired.

Tower Escape was different.

It first tried to snipe the player, and if it couldn't get a clear shot, it sent a patrol to the last location where the player had been seen.

Its shooting was naturally flawless.

A large-caliber round that could penetrate high-grade body armor would kill you in one shot.

Its reactions were disgustingly fast too. The instant you showed your head, it would be pierced.

On top of that, the area around the guard post was naturally covered with booby traps and wire traps, making it hard to recover the loot.

Since they were a major cause of sudden player deaths, anyone who knew what they were doing took out snipers first.

'This is insane. I need to deal with it fast.'

I instinctively hid in a blind spot, but...

If I didn't take it out right now, a patrol would come swarming in.

In that crisis, my Complete Senses skill performed at its peak.

Whoooosh.

It felt like the senses across my entire body expanded outward.

Even the sound of the wind became clear.

But that guard post was too far away.

It was at least three hundred meters away.

'One stab with my dagger would kill that thing too.'

Why did I have to be born into a world where every idiot had a gun?

Then, just as I was grumbling to myself, the information coming through Complete Senses changed slightly.

Nothing unusual had happened around me.

The sense that had maintained a circular range gradually began stretching toward the guard post.

'Huh? Could I control this...? It wasn't limited to detecting things near me?'

When I properly focused on the rifle...

My senses extended far through it.

I could clearly feel the wind in front of the muzzle.

It was much clearer than seeing with my eyes.

I could use it for shooting too.

This might work.

A completely groundless confidence rose in me.

'There's no time anyway.'

Once a patrol passed near the guard post, the sniper would give its orders.

Then it would all be over.

I pulled out the canned food tin I'd used to good effect last time.

The inside was already empty, but that didn't matter.

Whoosh!

Bang!

The moment I threw it hard out from behind cover, the sniper's bullet pierced the can perfectly!

As expected, a perfect shot.

It must have thought it was a glint off my scope.

I aimed my rifle during its reload.

My senses extended beyond the muzzle.

I could no longer feel anything around me.

At that moment, there was only the rifle, the sniper, and the three hundred meters between us.

Even as my thoughts accelerated, my scope settled precisely on its head.

I'd long since forgotten to breathe.

Lost in a trance, I pulled the trigger.

Pshoo!

The flat, deflated sound unique to a suppressor.

I clearly saw a small hole open in its head.

[Complete Senses skill level has increased to 3.]

Footnotes:

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