Chapter 109: The Ruined Tower

After defeating the pestilence knight, James continued traversing the cave. It stretched on and on. At the end of the tunnel was a door that led straight into the destroyed city.

“What kind of city has caves tunneling straight into it?” James sighed. “Well, not the strangest dungeon I’ve encountered.”

“But this might be the first time I’ve witnessed a city get destroyed before my eyes without me doing anything. No… this might be the first time I actually saw it destroyed. I didn’t get to see the village destroyed during the HUMA incident.”

James then headed toward the ruined tower. Infected creatures lurked and surrounded him, but he exterminated them all. They were small fry. Being infected didn’t mean you suddenly got a boost in stats. Their stats remained the same as before, though they became more durable due to the infection.

James doused them with fire and pinned them to the ground with ice spikes. Their death throes sent a cacophony of eerie melodies echoing across the deserted city.

Meanwhile, Andrew was shocked when he received news that the knight order had been destroyed. With its grandmaster killed, the order fell into disarray. It could no longer give out favors. Without favors, he couldn’t hire knights or trade in the relics he might find on this floor. It was a disaster.

“What do you mean you can’t send knights to guard us to the star tower!?” Andrew pressed the pitiful receptionist. Panic reeled inside him as he imagined having to face the third-floor boss alone.

Andrew didn’t want anyone to die anymore. He wanted this dungeon raid to be flawless, with none of his teammates lost. He wanted everyone to make it back alive from this dungeon. The terror, the faces of his former teammates flashed before him. They prayed for his well-being, for the future of the earth. They prayed for a hero.

“As I said before, with our grandmaster gone, we can’t sign any papers. And without that, no orders can be issued either. That includes approving any request you may have.”

“How? Why did he disappear? We need him to defeat the seven-handed Knight of Pestilence!” Andrew grabbed the receptionist, his voice desperate.

“Andrew, you’re losing it.” kouki stopped him. He hadn’t gone too far yet, but a little further, they might view them as hostile.

“Yes… You’re right. I’m sorry. Dammit! That James! I should’ve locked him inside a box until we needed him.” Andrew cursed the certain monster that had accidentally killed the Knight Order leader.

“This floor is relatively narrow. He might’ve bumped into a knight by chance during the evacuation,” Kouki said.

“I know it was not his fault! But without the knight order, this floor boss will be hard. Everything is going outside of my plan! I thought hard about how to beat this floor. So many people have perished here—my friends, comrades-in-arms!”

“As long as we beat this floor, it’s all good, right?”

“Hah… As long as we beat it, huh? No use crying over spilled milk. Now that the grandmaster is gone, we can only do what we can. Let’s meet up with James and climb the Star Tower to the next floor.” Andrew sighed. “Sorry. I just don’t want any more deaths.”

“We’re much stronger compared to back then. Don’t worry,” Kouki said.

“Yeah! Let’s go meet up with Boss James. Sorry, leader—Andrew—but I don’t intend to let James hog all the glory. I ain’t gonna let him babysit me again like in the previous dungeon,” Sanders said. Kouki chuckled beside him.

They bought jerky, water, and bread from a nearby store and marched toward the Star Tower.

“Careful now. James was immune to fire and could light himself on fire to fight off infection, but we are not. If an infected creature gets you, it’s over,” Andrew said. To James, infected creatures were small fry, but Andrew knew their dangers too well.

“Or you get a severe burn. As long as it doesn’t hit the head, it’s fine. That’s why we have health potions.” Hain shrugged.

“That’s right. It’d be nice if burns were all we had to worry about, but we might lose our eyes or other important organs.”

“Andrew, come to think of it, James could swap his body, right? Can’t you use James’ organs to restore others? We’re missing a hand and a leg right now, aren’t we? Delilah seemed pitiful,” Kaina said.

“…If he has a human hand and legs, then it’s possible,” Andrew replied as he recalled his ability. He couldn’t transfer Hain’s cyborg arm to his comrades, but he could transfer Delilah’s hand to him. And when he saw James’ body through his screen, the non-human parts were greyed out.

They marched cautiously, defeating every opponent with Sanders’ magic and Kouki’s dragon before the enemies even came close. They checked nearby houses, pinning monsters with spears before burning them. Once they reached the star tower, they found James there, staring at the unmoving door.

“Boss! Did you wait long? Sorry, we got held up by the administration!” Sanders waved. James jumped to the side, his sword at the ready.

“Fuck! I almost roasted you with my fire.” James spat out the fire he had prepared to the side. “I wasn’t waiting for you in particular. It’s just that this door won’t open. It’s protected by the system, so I can’t break it.”

“You can’t get inside through the front door. If you want to enter, you have to go through the sewer, then the well inside the building. Only after that can you open the door,” Andrew explained.

“Firsthand experience, huh?”

“If nothing else goes wrong, that’s how we did it last time,” Andrew hinted to James.

“Hm?”

“James, did you kill the Knight of Mystis’s grandmaster?” Andrew asked.

“Well… sorry. But they chased me all the way to the cave.”

“Hah… it can’t be helped. We just gotta roll with what we have. The boss on this floor is a seven-armed knight. Five of those arms can’t use weapon skills, but they can retract and extend like tentacles. They’ll stab you in the back.”

“Oh, that’s easy then.” James sighed in relief. If the enemy couldn’t use weapon skills, then James was confident he could beat them. He only needed to watch the enemy’s main hands.

“They might not be able to use weapon skills, but they are still dangerous. I lost two of my comrades there despite having a squad of Mystis’ knights guarding us,” Andrew said. “Anyway, let’s go. If I remember correctly, we should go this way. If we find a well near the star tower, it should connect to the well inside the tower.”

“Should?”

“There are many things different here. Not just you and your antics, James, but I also remember the buildings being a little different,” Andrew said. He had recalled and noted all he could from the last time he was here, but there were some discrepancies.

“I see.”

“Ah, there’s the well.” Andrew pulled a rope from his backpack and tied it to a nearby pillar. James, who had little patience, leaped in without waiting. He set himself ablaze, like a flare dropped into a pitch-black well.

James believed in his stats, and they didn’t disappoint. He landed on the watery floor of the well with a splash. The water reached his knees and bubbled up, releasing a cloud of steam as it touched James’ burning body. Seeing that nothing was amiss, James turned off his firefur, and darkness enveloped his vision.

A rope soon dropped beside him. Andrew and his crew had enhanced stats, but they weren’t as reckless. They still followed common sense and rappelled down the well.

As they traversed the well, Sanders found a chest and opened it without hesitation. James was about to scold him, but he remembered Sanders had skills to detect traps inside a chest. His skill was still as good as expected—there was no trap inside.

Inside the chest was an egg. When James looked at it, the system explained that it was a monster egg.

[Creature Egg:
Keep the egg with you at all times. When it hatches, the first person it sees will be considered its master. If no survivors are present when the egg hatches, the creature will turn wild and must be exterminated.]

“Of course, you won’t tell us what kind of egg this is, will you?” James sighed. Sanders looked around him.

“I don’t need it. I have my raptor back at home,” James said. While he was jealous of Kouki’s dragon and Andrew’s winged unicorn, he remembered he was not an animal lover. He still recalled when his cat had died just three months after his parents gave it to him—because he forgot to feed it when he was in elementary school.

“I have Ralph.”

“I have my pegasus,” Andrew said. The creature wasn’t with them, however. The well was too narrow for both the horse and the dragon, so they waited outside the star tower. Andrew planned to bring them in when he raided the boss monster.

“Thanks! I’ll treasure it. This will be the guild’s new mascot!” Sanders said.

The group then resumed their adventure through the cave. Andrew had come prepared: he tied a hook to his rope and threw it upward. However, this well wasn’t the one he was looking for.

“No good. This isn’t it—it just leads to another well inside the city,” Andrew said as he looked up the shaft. Through the well’s opening, the cave ceiling was visible, like a view through a telescope.

“This is the third time…” James frowned.

“As I said, while the town looks similar, some details have changed. Last time I was here, the Mystis knight brought a map of the sewer,” Andrew said.

“I see. Sorry.”

“Nah. It can’t be helped. The knights were the ones who attacked us first.” Andrew sighed. He was unsatisfied, but he knew the fault didn’t lie with James. It was just the surprise element of the medium dungeon. James then cast a huge Ice Spear at the well, marking it as explored.

After four more attempts, Andrew finally found the well he had been looking for. A stone ceiling made of white marble could be seen from the bottom of the well.

“Ah. James, don’t come out yet,” Andrew said as he noticed survivors inside the star tower—four children and three adults huddled in the corner of a room.

“Why?”

“There are humans here. They don’t seem infected. You aren’t infected, right?” The group shook their heads.

Looks like he had a rescue mission to complete before conquering the dungeon floor.