I'm the Only Wizard Climbing the Tower - Chapter 13

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B.

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 13: 013

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Flash!

As the glow faded, I slowly opened my eyes.

Before me was a vast cavern.

A small village stood ahead, surrounded by fences and watchtowers.

Beyond the fence were dozens of huts made of grass and leather.

It looked exactly like the Goblin Village described in the guide.

"Shall we get going?"

Step. Step. Step.

I strode forward without hesitation.

The guide said never to approach from the front and to take a wide detour to the left...

That was for ordinary people playing Easy-rank, Normal-rank, or Hard-rank.

There was no reason for an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard to disgrace himself by looking for a side path.

After taking a few steps forward...

Clangclangclangclangclangclangclang!

The alarm bell rang.

The Goblin on the watchtower must have spotted me.

"Kieeeeeek!"

"Keuruk! Keuruk!"

"Kyaaaaaak!"

Then came the cries of Goblins.

The ones in the village had heard the bell and begun swarming out.

I stood still and waited.

'The more that gather, the more I can kill in one shot.'

I could've started spamming magic right now...

But if they realized I was a wizard, they were bound to scatter and flee in every direction.

Then I'd have to chase them down one by one and kill them.

I could wait a little longer.

"Keurururuk!"

"Karuk! Karuk!"

"Kieeeek!"

Goblins poured out from the front of the village.

Green little bastards rushed at me with daggers and bows clutched in their hands.

There were already around a hundred in sight.

The Goblin Village supposedly had over three hundred in total, so more must still have been on their way.

Pipipiping!

Arrows came flying toward me.

The archers in the Goblin Village had begun shooting at me.

Of course, they posed no real threat.

I raised my staff toward the barrage of arrows.

'If I compress the air just a little and fire it...'

Baaang!

A large mass of air knocked away the volley.

Crude arrows bounced aside and clattered weakly to the ground.

I grinned.

"Practicing magic in daily life really paid off."

Instead of compressing air to an absurd pressure and firing it, spreading low-pressure air over a wide area worked well for deflecting projectiles like arrows.

Anyway, enough of them had gathered.

It was about time.

'Fireball.'

Hummmmmm!

My staff glowed white-hot, drawing up and arranging a huge number of Blue Motes.

Fireballs formed above my staff.

One, two, five, ten, twenty...

Thirty.

Fwoooooosh...!

Thirty massive Fireballs rose into the air and circled around me.

Maybe I'd grown stronger as I climbed the Tower, but if I focused solely on Fireball, I could now control as many as thirty at once.

It felt strange.

It seemed like only yesterday that I was amazed by floating five Fireballs during the Tutorial...

Now I had thirty.

Fwoooosh...!

The blazing flames dyed the dim cavern red.

"Keuruk...?"

The Goblin horde stopped dead in its tracks.

Just as I thought, these bastards froze whenever they saw magic.

Did they know what a wizard was?

Well, Goblins had Shamans among them.

They probably understood magic instinctively.

I aimed my staff at the ones standing there with dumbfounded looks on their faces.

"Fire."

Shwaaaaaaak!

One Fireball shot out in a red streak.

The wildly blazing sphere struck the middle of the Goblin horde.

Kwoooooong!

A violent explosion erupted.

A mist of blood burst out as limbs and chunks of organs flew through the air.

Dozens of Goblins were caught in the blast and blown apart in a single strike.

"Kieeeeeeeeek!"

They must have finally understood what was happening.

Screaming, the Goblins turned and fled in panic.

Unfortunately for them, I had more than one Fireball.

Kwoooooong!

Kwang!

Kwakwakwakwaang!

I sent one Fireball after another into every spot where they were gathered.

Each explosion tore Goblins apart, sending their limbs flying.

Blood mist sprayed everywhere, and chunks of flesh scattered in all directions.

'Fucking disgusting.'

Disgusting was disgusting.

I silently continued using magic.

Puk! Puk! Puk! Puk! Puk!

I fired an Air Bullet at each scattered Goblin, piercing it through the forehead.

Kwoooooong!

The groups that fled into huts got blown up along with the huts.

Flimsy houses made of crude branches and leather couldn't withstand my Fireballs.

Explosions continued one after another.

Thunderous blasts and the sound of air tearing filled the cavern.

Each time, Goblins died in heaps or were sent flying, while huts and watchtowers shattered and collapsed.

Blood mist and scraps of flesh flew across my vision.

How many green monsters had I erased like that?

"..."

At some point, silence fell.

I sharpened my spiritual senses and scanned the surrounding space, but I couldn't sense anything moving anymore.

Somehow, I had wiped out the entire Goblin Village.

I slowly looked around.

'The Goblin Village is completely wrecked.'

It was nothing like before.

The watchtowers had been smashed and toppled.

The huts had become piles of rubble.

Chunks of flesh lay scattered everywhere, along with spilled organs and severed limbs. Blood soaked the ground.

It was a scene of utter slaughter.

"Ugh... Time to get to work."

The real labor started now.

I pulled out several sacks made from rough, durable cloth.

If I destroyed the Goblin Village, there was no way all the loot would fit in my usual leather bag.

I'd prepared these sacks in advance for exactly this reason.

Carrying a sack, I started gathering the loot.

"Fuck! These organ chunks feel awful!"

Every time something soft, slippery, and sticky touched my fingertips, shivers ran down my spine.

I dug through piles of corpses and searched between the remains of the huts, stuffing every piece of loot I found into the sacks.

There was a lot.

252 Goblin daggers.

51 Goblin bows.

Several metal ingots found inside the collapsed huts.

Leather from the outer storage hut...

'There really is a lot.'

It wasn't until two sacks were packed full and even my leather bag was stuffed that I managed to collect everything.

Still, this was fucking heavy.

Of course it was.

Each Goblin dagger weighed around 300 grams, and there were 252 of them. That was 75 kilograms.

Each bow weighed around 400 grams, and there were 51. Roughly 20 kilograms.

Five junk metal ingots weighing 10 kilograms each. Another 50 kilograms.

Plus 10 kilograms of leather...

'That comes to around 155 kilograms. That's completely insane. It's a miracle the sacks haven't torn.'

But my body was crazy too, carrying all this.

Was this the body of an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter...?

It was a ridiculous weight, yet I could carry it without any trouble.

Anyway, I gathered up the loot and took the Escape Portal without a second thought, leaving the ruined Goblin Village behind.

[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 4)]

[You have completed Tower Floor 4.]

[You have defeated 252 Goblins (1).]

[You have defeated 51 Goblin Archers (2).]

[Points are being calculated.]

[Tower Floor 5 has been unlocked.]

[Returning.]

* * *

"Sis!"

The moment I returned to reality, I shouted at the top of my lungs.

I was calling for my older sister.

"..."

But my older sister didn't come.

Normally, she would've immediately opened my door and come over.

What was this? Why wasn't she coming?

I checked my smartphone.

[Sis: I talked to Hyeji over the phone, but I think she's still considering it. I'll go convince her in person. I made soybean paste soup, so eat that.]

There was a text from my older sister.

It looked like she'd gone to meet the porter candidate while I was in the Tower.

I clicked my tongue.

"I wanted to brag to my older sister about all the loot I brought back. Of all times, she had to be out."

I wanted to puff out my chest and show off my bulging loot sacks. Look how amazing I am.

But she wasn't home.

Well, there was nothing I could do.

'I should brag on Hunter Gallery.'

I couldn't resist showing off.

Click!

I took a photo with the sacks and bag wide open so the contents could be seen clearly, then made a post.

[Post Title: Newbie Hunter Cleared Floor 4 Today]

[Author: Blue Dot]

(Photo of sacks and a bag packed full of loot)

Newbie Hunter... went to Floor 4 today

Went in and there really was a Goblin Village like everyone said

So I stomped right over there and the bell started ringing, then Goblins came swarming out;

Arrows started flying too...

Their hospitality for a visitor was completely awful

So I just killed them all :(

Whew, gathering the loot was hard though

252 Goblin daggers, 51 bows, 5 ingots, and leather too...

A bunch of stuff dropped, the sacks almost tore lol. Good thing I brought sturdy sacks

Anyway, if I sell all this and cash out the Points...

The loot should be about 7.65 million won after taxes.

354 Points.

Would that be around 11.2 million won total?

Made a ton in one day lol

Now I get why Floor 4 is a cash-farming floor

I'm going to pour rice into hot soybean paste soup tonight

└This crazy concept freak is still doing this shit.

└If you're going to write fiction, at least make it believable, fuck. A Floor 4 scrub massacring hundreds of Goblins?

└You'd need at least a Hunter in the Floor 20s to wipe out the Floor 4 Goblin Village alone. How the hell would a newbie who just reached Floor 4 wipe it out?

└└Blue Dot: You need to reach Floor 20 at minimum? Hunters in the teens aren't much, then... It's not even that hard, and you can't do it?

└└At this point, your bullshit is a disease.

"Hehe."

As expected, the Hunter Gallery users couldn't believe it.

I felt great. Browsing the gallery right after climbing really was the best.

As I kept reading comments, one in particular caught my eye.

└The photos don't look edited or fake... Isn't this just a High Floor Hunter coming down to stomp low floors, then showing off while pretending to be a newbie?

"Oh. That's another way to look at it."

It was a fairly plausible guess.

High Floor Hunters did sometimes enter the Lower Floors to change things up.

Of course, the reaction wasn't favorable.

└└No way a High Floor Hunter would make posts fishing for attention like this. Wake up.

└└Do you think high-ranking Hunters who keep the Republic of Korea alive would do something as low-level as showing off?

└└Don't insult the High Floor Hunters. They're the people who stayed in this country and keep earning Points until the end.

Replies flooded in as soon as High Floor Hunters were mentioned.

Their respect for top Hunters was obvious.

'Well, that makes sense. High Floor Hunters are patriots by default.'

They were the people who turned down the immense money and dazzling fame offered by the United States and Europe to remain in their homeland.

Cash-farming Hunters on the Lower Floors were treated as parasite bugs wasting climbing slots, but public opinion in the Republic of Korea viewed top Hunters as patriots and heroes.

I casually left a reply.

└└Blue Dot: I'm seriously not a High Floor Hunter. I'm a newbie who just cleared Floor 4... But I'll probably become a High Floor Hunter in about a month?

└└Bullshit.

└└If this bastard reaches the higher floors, I'll fry my own hand.

└└This guy isn't even a Hunter, much less a High Floor Hunter, and he's lying his ass off.

"Kehehe."

I kept browsing the gallery while giggling, ate rice mixed into the soybean paste soup my older sister had made, then lay down on my bed.

As I settled in to sleep, a stray thought came to mind.

'How's recruiting the porter going? She's not going to fail, is she?'

She couldn't fail.

I didn't want to rummage through corpses anymore...

Ah. Please let my older sister convince her.

Praying for that, I closed my eyes.

* * *

A dormitory at a university in Seoul.

It had once been a living space for students, but it was now surrounded by armored vehicles and soldiers.

In Room 302, two women sat across a small table from each other.

One was Baek Jiye.

Baek Jiho's older sister, and the person currently acting as his manager.

The other was Na Hyeji.

She wore large glasses, and her long hair framed deep dark circles and a gloomy expression.

Only a few days ago, she had been a proprietary trader achieving strong results at a securities firm.

Now, she was confined under the Hunter General Mobilization Order and forced to climb.

Baek Jiye looked at Na Hyeji with a frustrated expression.

"Hyeji, you don't like being locked up and forced to climb either, right? Just party up with my little brother and get out of here."

"..."

"You hated fighting, didn't you? My little brother will do all the fighting. You just have to pick up the loot."

Jiye eagerly tried to persuade Hyeji.

They had already talked over the phone, but Hyeji wouldn't accept the proposal, so Jiye had come here in person.

Na Hyeji pushed up her glasses as she answered.

"Are you, are you trying to get me killed?"

"What?"

"No, that doesn't make sense... Floor 5 with a two-person party? That's not much different from suicide... And your little brother does all the fighting while I only pick up loot? Where's this easy deal supposed to exist? It's not like your brother came from Hard-rank."

"He didn't come from Hard-rank... but he got a difficulty just as extreme! Please believe me, Hyeji."

"Don't be ridiculous... Forget it. I won't do it. I can't. I don't want to kill myself."

Na Hyeji firmly rejected the proposal.

Naturally.

Tower of Trials, Floor 5.

The floor where Goblin Warriors appeared.

It was a wall of despair for Easy-rank Hunters, a trial for Normal Hunters, and a floor only Hunters from Hard-rank could clear without much trouble.

That was why Floor 5 practically required a five-person party.

The standard strategy was for five people to work together and subdue the powerful Goblin Warriors.

And they wanted to clear that Floor 5 with only two people?

It was absurd. It was practically telling her to die.

Anyone in their right mind would reject that proposal.

Unless she saw magic firsthand, of course.

Baek Jiye grabbed at her hair in frustration.

"Ah, ah, aah...! I can't exactly show you!"

"Forget it and leave already. I don't want to talk anymore."

"Hyeji..."

Na Hyeji sharply turned away and raised her smartphone with an indifferent expression.

It was a gesture that said she wouldn't continue the conversation.

"Haah... I guess there's nothing I can do."

In the end, Baek Jiye had no choice but to give up and back off.

Well.

Even Jiye herself hadn't believed it until she saw magic right in front of her. There was no way Hyeji could suddenly believe it just because her friend told her.

On top of that, magic was supposed to be secret, so Jiye couldn't even bring it up.

All she could say was, "My little brother is strong. Please trust me."

There was no way Hyeji would accept such a pushy proposal.

"Okay. Sorry for bothering you. I'll bring something tasty next time."

"..."

Maybe Hyeji was angry about the persistent persuasion.

She didn't even look back at Jiye and ignored her.

Jiye clicked her tongue and began gathering her things.

The persuasion had failed in the end.

Now it was time to head home empty-handed.

"Then I'll get going. Take care of yourself."

Jiye said goodbye and was just about to turn around when she caught sight of Hyeji's smartphone screen.