Conquering the Tower Even Regressors Couldn’t

During Ha Hee-Jeong’s current life, on the sixth floor.

Community of the Dead

[Huh, what’s this? I thought I died?]

[This dude pissed himself so hard when he died that he missed the message. Seriously. I saw it lmao.]

[Wow, how is Kwon Su-Hyeok so strong???]

[Look at these clueless noobs. You don’t know about the shining beacon of hope, Su-Hyeok?]

[How would I know who he is?]

[I’ve been watching him since the first floor, and trust me, he’s on a whole different level from you guys.]

[The first floor? Is dying early something to brag about? You’re an idiot, aren’t you?]

[Shh, quiet. Su-Hyeok’s hunting the Queen.]

...

[Gosh, is he insane? He actually dodged that?]

[Two-hit KO on the Queen 😂]

[Looks like that lightning ability is ridiculously overpowered. If I had that, I’d be in first place too, and I’d have taken down the Queen. Ugh, life’s so unfair.]

[Haha, shut the fuck up.]

***

[Welcome to the seventh floor of the Tower of Ordeal: The Eerie Forest.]

[This forest is home to the mad weretigers. Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok’s party must kill at least three of them. If they kill more than five, the Weretiger King will appear.]

[If the Weretiger King is summoned, it must either be defeated or appeased with sacrifices. Time remaining: 5 hours 59 minutes.]

The message in the notification window was unusually detailed. I hadn’t seen such a thorough description of a floor or challenge up to this point.

Is there something else hidden in this message?

Having experienced the tower’s tricks a few times, I couldn’t help but be suspicious of the overly helpful message.

I glanced at Ha Hee-Jeong out of habit, but she shook her head, signaling for me to figure it out on my own.

“Ugh, this place gives me the creeps.”

“Yeah, it’s seriously unsettling.”

The forest was eerily silent, void of the usual chatter of insects and birds, and it was filled with a faint mist that clouded our vision. The trees stood densely packed together, every one of their branches drooping toward the ground as if weighed down by some invisible force.

“Whoa, Doppy! Good to see you. You’ve grown a bit, haven’t you?”

“Kriee! Baldy! Twinkle twinkle! Good to see you!”

“... Haha, our Doppy doesn’t seem to know what ‘baldy’ means to humans.”

“Kriee! Goblin! Never had hair! Humans! Had hair once!”

Seo Ho-Su’s jaw dropped, clearly taken aback by Doppy’s words. He stood stock-still, almost like someone had cast a time-freeze spell on him.

Laughter began to bubble up inside me, and I struggled to keep it from spilling out. If I laughed now, that would be a huge insult to Seo Ho-Su.

“Pfft!”

Of course, not everyone was subject to the same restriction. His daughter, Seo Ha-Rin, was the only person who could laugh freely in this situation. I felt a pang of envy as I watched her laughing her heart out, and I had to bite my lip to hold back my own laughter.

“Ahem. Doppy, you’re bald too, you know.”

“Kriee! Goblin! No hair by nature! Human! Had hair once!”

“...”

Seo Ho-Su turned toward us, a forced smile spread across his face.

Was it my imagination, or did I glimpse resentment in his eyes when he glanced at me?

... I should probably have a serious talk with Doppy in the next waiting room. He needed to understand that calling someone bald could be a sensitive issue.

“...”

Ugh, this is awkward. What should I do?

I wanted to say something to lighten the mood, but someone beat me to the punch. Seemingly sharing my sentiment, Cole asked Ha Hee-Jeong a question.

Whew, Cole’s quick thinking saved us. Let’s give him a round of applause.

“Ha Hee-Jeong, any idea about what we should do on this floor?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t just use my foresight whenever I want.”

“... I see.”

Cole looked a bit disappointed, which only reinforced the idea that Ha Hee-Jeong had been right. It wasn’t just me, our whole party was starting to rely on her. We needed to think for ourselves if we wanted to grow to our full potential.

We couldn’t be sure that Ha Hee-Jeong would be with us for every challenge the tower threw our way, so it was important to develop the strength to solve problems ourselves, even on the lower floors of the tower. I decided to take the lead, pulling some of the attention away from Ha Hee-Jeong.

“Well, since we need to kill at least three weretigers... finding them should be our first priority, right?”

Cole responded to my question.

“Yeah, finding three in six hours... I guess it must be tough to track them down in the forest.”

It was true that given the time we had, the number of weretigers we needed to hunt seemed low.

Seo Ho-Su patted Cole’s shoulder with a warm smile, seeming to have gotten closer to him at some point.

“Well then, Cole. It looks like it’s your turn to shine. You’re an archer, so your senses should be sharp, right?”

Cole chuckled awkwardly and looked over at me.

“Haha, true. But don’t you think Su-Hyeok has got a better sense for this?”

It didn’t feel like he was trying to dump the responsibility of finding the weretigers onto me, but more like he was just being humble. Or maybe he felt embarrassed that Seo Ho-Su had praised him in front of me.

I couldn’t just stand there looking serious, so I smiled at him.

“But what happens if we end up killing six of them and the King appears?”

Seo Ha-Rin’s voice focused us, breaking the lighthearted moment.

Maybe the warning is related to achievement points?

I remembered some people in the Community saying they regretted not finishing off more zombies on the sixth floor.

“Maybe it’s telling us we would be putting ourselves in serious danger if we get too greedy for points.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Killing the king or offering a sacrifice... the sacrifice would probably be one of us, right?”

“Most likely. And for this to happen right after we formed a party... it feels like the tower is trying to mess with us.”

Cole trailed off, and his words hung in the air, drawing everyone’s attention.

“It’s like the tower is trying to create tension within our group. The strongest person usually becomes the party leader, so it might be tempting them to weigh achievement points against their teammates’ lives.”

“Hmm, that sounds plausible. The party leader’s been given a lot of power, after all. If there’s already tension in a group, they could easily sacrifice anyone who disagreed with them for points.”

Seo Ho-Su nodded, his expression growing more concerned. Cole’s theory made a lot of sense. If there were already cracks in a party, this kind of situation could easily tear them apart.

By the time people reach the seventh floor, their parties could be in complete chaos.

As I pondered this, I noticed Seo Ho-Su looking at me curiously.

Is it because I am the party leader?

“Su-Hyeok, you....”

“Ho-Su, you’re not seriously thinking I’d do something like that, are you?”

“Heh, just joking. Ow!”

He let out a satisfied chuckle, only to yelp when Seo Ha-Rin pinched his side. She was clearly unimpressed by his attempt at humor.

... Thanks, Ha-Rin. We are depending on you to keep him in check.

As I silently thanked Seo Ha-rin, she raised a question.

“Do we really need to worry?”

“What do you mean, Ha-Rin?”

“I’m talking about the Weretiger King. Wouldn’t Su-Hyeok oppa be able to take him down easily? He handled Seraphim Queen on the sixth floor without any trouble.”

“... Now that you mention it, Su-Hyeok did take down Seraphim Queen in two swings.”

Suddenly, all eyes were on me. It was true that my strength had reached a decently high level. Facing the Seraphim Queen had been intimidating at first, but the actual fight had been easier than I expected.

But even so, isn’t everyone being a little too optimistic? I think they are putting too much faith in my abilities because of how easily I dealt with the Queen.

I appreciated their confidence in me, but as the party leader, I couldn’t accept the team making decisions without putting more thought into the risks first.

If the Weretiger King turned out to be stronger than me, we would be forced to offer one of our party members as a sacrifice. That was a situation I was determined to avoid.

“But what if the Weretiger King is stronger than me?”

“Would the strength of a floor’s boss increase that much after one floor? You handled the Queen alone on the sixth floor, and we’ll be here to support you this time...”

“We need to prepare for the worst. I’m not willing to sacrifice any of our party members.”

Even though it seemed obvious to me, the group looked at me with a touch of admiration. Feeling a bit embarrassed, I looked away, only to catch Ha Hee-Jeong watching us with a satisfied smile. Her expression annoyed me slightly, but I knew she was right.

It was important to help the party develop their problem-solving skills and judgment, even in situations as small as this one.

“Let’s focus on finding the weretigers first.”

Trying to shift the attention away from myself, I quickly redirected the conversation. After all, these concerns would only become relevant after we had taken down three weretigers.

“Right!”

“Heh, let’s get to it.”

“First, we should decide on a direction. Let’s start looking for—”

The sound of leaves crunching interrupted Cole mid-sentence. I turned my head toward the noise first, closely followed by Cole a split second later. The mist made it hard to see very far, but we heard the rustling of branches grow louder.

Crack.

Withered branches snapped and fell to the ground.

“—the weretigers, but it seems we won’t have to look far.”

Through the foggy sight, the weretigers began to emerge. They were humanoid figures with sharp, tiger-like claws.

… Fuck, we can’t just stand here doing nothing.

“Prepare for battle!”

Prompted by my shout, Seo Ho-Su quickly moved to my side and raised his shield.

We could see six weretigers, but the rustling branches behind them suggested more were coming.

How many are we up against…

Damn it, I should have known there was a reason the notification window from earlier was so detailed.

As the weretigers closed in, I realized that all our earlier worries were pointless. We had completely misunderstood this floor’s mission.

The real challenge of the seventh floor wasn’t to hunt down weretigers. It was to survive being hunted by the weretigers.

And we still don’t know how strong the king is.

We couldn’t afford to be reckless and immediately kill the weretigers chasing us without knowing how strong the Weretiger King was first. That meant we had to keep on the run, survive for six hours, and avoid going all out for fear of killing too many weretigers.

… Could we really pull this off?

I glanced briefly at Ha Hee-Jeong, but she was just watching the weretigers indifferently. Her indifference frustrated me momentarily, but I quickly shook off the feeling.

Ha Hee-Jeong wants me to succeed more than anyone.

I couldn’t only rely on her. She had called me Earth’s last hope, saying that I was the only one who could conquer the tower. In the end, this was something I—no, we—had to accomplish.

I couldn’t afford to be a sheltered flower in a greenhouse. Ha Hee-Jeong knew that too, which was why she had kept silent. I needed to grow and push forward on my own. She could only be a safety net, nothing more.

We would try our best, and if that didn’t work out, then we would just have to take down all the weretigers.

The Weretiger King?

I would kill it just like I had the Seraphim Queen on the sixth floor if it came to that.

“Do your best to avoid killing them. I’ll clear a path.”

With that in mind, I charged in the direction I sensed the least movement. The weretigers, who had been hesitating, rushed to meet me head-on.

Come on. It’s time to fight.

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