WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Tower at Hell Difficulty ◈
Episode 97
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Developing the new weapon hadn't gone smoothly.
"Ah, this isn't easy..."
Even with help from weapon engineers around the world, we hadn't made much progress.
Whenever we seriously tried to make something in the workshop, we seemed to struggle.
The Hand Cannon was probably our best result.
Even that had been designed with HTT's help.
After getting the result she wanted from the UV printer, Yuki finally seemed interested enough to ask.
"What are you making?"
"A weapon that uses electricity."
To organize my thoughts, I explained from the beginning.
What was the greatest strength of human hunters?
Guns, obviously.
Unlike hunters from other races, who relied on skills and other types of weapons, firearms had plenty of power without requiring much Mana investment.
Even pouring Mana into them didn't improve their performance much.
After all, they were propelled by gunpowder.
"That's why human hunters usually have Mana to spare."
That was where the idea for a new weapon began.
I wanted to put that unused energy to good use.
"Is that where electricity comes in?"
"Yes. You can convert Mana into electricity with a simple device."
Even if we didn't do that, we had an excellent power source in Tower Batteries.
"At first, I tried to make a Coilgun... but it was more complicated than I expected."
I showed her the prototype Coilgun.
It was about the size of a rifle, but its power was only around that of a pistol.
Coilguns were also trickier to design than they looked.
Pouring in more electricity didn't increase their power endlessly. You had to properly arrange the coils and control their activation timing.
So I gave up on the Coilgun early on and switched to the Railgun, my second option.
With this one, more power directly meant more force.
It was also much easier to design.
"I thought making the barrel from Ultra-Alloy would solve it... but there's still a lot to improve. Still, it's much more useful than the Coilgun."
It already had the output of an ordinary rifle.
The problem was that it had expensive Tower Batteries stuck all over it, so ordinary-rifle power wasn't enough to make it worthwhile.
"Ah, there's still some room in the battery capacity. I think I need to increase the peak output..."
I couldn't fail now.
I'd bragged that I was going to give it to Sang Hajun. If I failed after saying that, it'd be embarrassing as a team leader.
I had decided on the direction and was steadily improving it when Bellion contacted me.
Beep!
"Ah, hello."
[Is the weapon development going well?]
"It's only just getting started. How are things on Modus's side?"
[Not good. The Necromancer Lords are being subjugated too quickly. But it seems the Hunter Lords are taking this situation quite seriously.]
"Really?"
Honestly, I hadn't expected much from them.
They had only sent token reinforcements when the Reapers were about to obtain Doll Technology.
There was a reason for that.
[Quite a few Hunter Lords have a grudge against Modus. If Modus becomes the Death Emperor, who do you think he'll target first?]
"W-Well, the people he hates. The ones who threaten him."
It was pretty ironic.
In a way, the Hunter Lords trusted the Reapers more than Modus.
At least the Reapers weren't an immediate threat to them.
"When are they attacking?"
[It'll take a month for the army to gather. If you're planning to enter the Tower, hurry and go in now. In my experience, places are usually wide open at times like this, so the rewards are good.]
That would take quite a while.
Still, considering the Hunter Lords' usual behavior, this was probably an astonishingly fast response.
My time to re-enter the Tower was coming up, and I had been debating whether to go in. This worked out well.
When I thanked him, Bellion hurriedly added something.
[Ah, if you're planning to clear the 13th floor, you can delay it a little.]
"Huh? Why?"
[I'm making the next piece of Death Priest equipment for you. It'll be better to enter after you receive it.]
"Oh, really?"
This would already be the fourth piece of equipment.
That was fast.
I didn't ask, but it had to be unusually quick even among the Death Priests.
Maybe they had high hopes for me.
"Will the fourth piece help with the 13th-floor clear?"
[I can't tell you because of the Tower's Curse. Anyway, you can look forward to it. It's quite useful.]
"Thank you. See you next time."
Thanks to that, our next clear was set for the 12th floor.
I left the prototype Railgun with the Association staff and packed my gear.
Unlike our first attempt at the 12th floor, I only brought essential equipment, leaving me with points to spare.
"Hmm... Should I bring the grenade launcher?"
"Let's check out the artifacts at the shop."
We had earned plenty of gold by now.
It was time to make a serious reinvestment.
The shop price of the Gale Boots I used so often was twenty thousand gold.
That was before the Dimensional Shop opened, though...
In the Dimensional Shop, similar artifacts were selling for two hundred thousand or more.
You could never lose by securing mobility.
"Show me some artifacts. The best ones."
"Then I recommend these products."
The Goblin Merchants lined up artifacts worth five hundred thousand gold or more.
"Wow, those prices..."
"That's insane."
To be honest, five hundred thousand gold was a lot even for us.
We had captured quite a bit of equipment from other hunters, but...
We hadn't sold all of it. We had recycled some for research and production.
In reality, we had sold less than half of the captured equipment.
"How about this?"
[Protective Coat: Upon activation, deploys a powerful Barrier for 30 seconds. The coat itself also offers strong protection.]
The coat looked heavy at a glance.
It said it needed to be activated separately.
A defensive artifact, but was it manually activated?
Its defensive power would be incredible because of that.
Used with Han Juwon's Reinforced Barricade, it would make us nearly invincible.
"How many points... no, what item level is it?"
"One hundred points."
"Wow, a hundred points for one piece of equipment? It's expensive even considering it's a major piece of armor."
Wasn't the Monster’s Gauntlet one hundred points?
That meant this was an artifact capable of turning the tide of a battle.
There would be all kinds of ways to use the Barrier.
"Can I try it on?"
"We'll help you over there."
Han Juwon put on the coat, moved around a little, then activated the Barrier.
Crack!
Its defensive power went without saying...
The Barrier physically blocked people from entering or leaving.
"Huh? I can't get out. Ah! My arm came out. What's this?"
"You can choose who can enter or leave based on the caster's will."
"Then we could cast it on an enemy and use it like a prison?"
"We could also block off a narrow path."
It really was the versatile type.
Han Juwon seemed impressed by how unexpectedly light and flexible it was, twisting this way and that.
"Team Leader. Isn't five hundred thousand gold too expensive, no matter what?"
Don't be fooled.
Han Juwon acted like that when I went shopping with Yuki last time.
It wasn't that they liked the item itself. They wanted me to buy them a gift.
In the end, they were asking me to buy it.
Kim Yuna caught on and smirked.
"Yeah, it's expensive, so take it off."
"I was talking to the Team Leader, not you."
"It is a little expensive, isn't it?"
"Wait! Weren't we rich?"
After teasing Han Juwon for a bit, we bought it.
Once we returned to the hideout, Sang Hajun attached a suppressor to his sniper rifle and asked,
"By the way, Team Leader, is there a reason you're in such a hurry at a time like this?"
"I want to get my Transcendence skill to level 10 before fighting Modus."
"Ah... It's still level 9."
It had been quite a while since it reached level 9, but it still hadn't reached level 10.
Maybe it was about time.
The difference between skill level 9 and level 10 was enormous in practice.
The burden from Complete Senses had dropped sharply the moment it reached level 10, enough to keep it active at all times.
"Won't you get a genuinely higher-tier Basic Skill when it reaches level 10?"
"What do the other races say? Didn't your seniors teach you anything?"
"Even if they did, it wouldn't be useful as a reference. My skill is EX-rank."
"Ah..."
There were so few EX-rank skill holders that there were almost no cases we could use as references.
Yuki raised her fist and said,
"An EX-rank skill like yours should have an upper skill!"
"Why are you saying that while waving your fist? Are you going to beat someone up if it doesn't give you one?"
"Yes!"
"Ah, what happened to that bastard Millon? He didn't run off to Modus, did he?"
"He can't run away. He's already addicted to comics. He also cooperated with us during the last operation, so he got lodging."
"... Are we seriously capable of achieving a cultural victory?"
Seeing Orca get hooked on dramas, we might actually have a chance.
"Everyone brought the new Mana Vision Goggles, right?"
"Hajun's eyes are installed and ready."
Once we finished preparing, we headed for the 12th floor again.
Flash!
Thick Spore Fog filled the area.
The new Mana Vision Goggles, designed to be worn with masks, activated.
"Oh, I can see clearly."
"Can I try them too?"
"Here you go!"
I put on the pair Yuki handed me, and... I really could see clearly.
Even in this dense fog, I could see about a hundred meters ahead.
"This is enough to shoot with."
"Team Leader, what's our route?"
"Let's go to the underground lake and get the Regeneration Spore Mushrooms first."
Thanks to the Reversion skill, our team could enter and leave freely even without a key.
We moved forward without any trouble, reverted the door, and went inside.
"Hm? Monster ahead."
"Not bad."
Monsters in a major farming area meant there were no hunters around.
Was it really wide open, just as Bellion had said?
We avoided the monsters for now and continued gathering.
We were frantically harvesting Longevity Mushrooms when, surprisingly, we spotted hunters' corpses in a corner.
"Huh, hunters. Their equipment is still here. Did monsters get them?"
"Well... That happens sometimes. Maybe they provoked the Firefighters?"
Their equipment wasn't complete trash when I looked closely.
If hunters had killed them, they would've taken the equipment...
Was it a trap?
Yet even after staying alert for a long time, there was no sign of one.
There wasn't even a trace of other hunters nearby.
Only then did I properly examine the corpses.
They didn't seem to have been dead for long, but mushrooms were already growing from them.
There were strange yet familiar holes in their vital areas.
'Cause of death was penetrating trauma... Wait, there was tumbling inside their bodies? Don't tell me...'
Tumbling.
Just as the name suggested, it was when a bullet tumbled and tore through a victim's body.
Bullets spun for ballistic stability, which caused that effect.
Even with the same penetrating wound, something like a thrown spear wouldn't cause tumbling.
In other words, these corpses had been killed by bullets.
When I focused Complete Senses, I found bullets still lodged inside the bodies.
'Human hunters?'
The Earth Tower's difficulty on the 10th floor and below was extremely high.
That made the 11th floor and above relatively easy.
Since the monsters didn't fire guns, they might have looked manageable.
In fact, many hunter teams had entered the 11th floor and above and achieved some results.
But hardly any teams should have attempted the 12th floor.
More importantly, the dead hunters' equipment was far too intact.
If human hunters had killed them, they would've stripped it all.
That left only one possible conclusion.
I led my team to find the exit.
"Grab their gear quickly and let's find the exit so we can head down."
"What? Why all of a sudden, Team Leader?"
"I think the monsters have started using firearms."
"What?"
At that moment, Treants on patrol approached us.
If we avoided them, we might run into boss-level monsters, so we couldn't avoid a fight.
I quietly aimed my pistol.
'Ah, just as I thought...'
The Treants were holding what looked like AK-pattern rifles.
They were already tough enough, and now they could spray bullets at us from range.
That was cheating.
"This is crazy..."
"Hajun, can you take them out quietly?"
"One of them, maybe."
This was driving me crazy.
Even if we didn't fire any shots, those bastards would.
Then other monsters would come rushing over.
There was no time to think for long.
I made a quick decision.
"Concentrate firepower and take them out fast, then move toward the exit."
"Give the signal, Team Leader."
You alien hunters had it easy until now, huh?
From now on, hell difficulty begins for all of us.
Clicking my tongue inwardly, I pulled the trigger.
Footnotes:
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