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Chapter 109: The Ruined Tower
🕑 Added 2025-08-21 08:52:39 +0000 UTCAfter 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.
âWhat kind of city has caves tunneling straight into it?â James sighed. âWell, not the strangest dungeon Iâve encountered.â
âBut this might be the first time Iâve 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 didnât get to see the village destroyed during the HUMA incident.â
James then headed toward the ruined tower. Infected creatures lurked and surrounded him, but he exterminated them all. They were small fry. Being infected didnât 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 couldnât hire knights or trade in the relics he might find on this floor. It was a disaster.
âWhat do you mean you canât send knights to guard us to the star tower!?â Andrew pressed the pitiful receptionist. Panic reeled inside him as he imagined having to face the third-floor boss alone.
Andrew didnât 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.
âAs I said before, with our grandmaster gone, we canât sign any papers. And without that, no orders can be issued either. That includes approving any request you may have.â
âHow? Why did he disappear? We need him to defeat the seven-handed Knight of Pestilence!â Andrew grabbed the receptionist, his voice desperate.
âAndrew, youâre losing it.â kouki stopped him. He hadnât gone too far yet, but a little further, they might view them as hostile.
âYes⊠Youâre right. Iâm sorry. Dammit! That James! I shouldâve locked him inside a box until we needed him.â Andrew cursed the certain monster that had accidentally killed the Knight Order leader.
âThis floor is relatively narrow. He mightâve bumped into a knight by chance during the evacuation,â Kouki said.
âI 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 hereâmy friends, comrades-in-arms!â
âAs long as we beat this floor, itâs all good, right?â
âHah⊠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. Letâs meet up with James and climb the Star Tower to the next floor.â Andrew sighed. âSorry. I just donât want any more deaths.â
âWeâre much stronger compared to back then. Donât worry,â Kouki said.
âYeah! Letâs go meet up with Boss James. Sorry, leaderâAndrewâbut I donât intend to let James hog all the glory. I ainât gonna let him babysit me again like in the previous dungeon,â Sanders said. Kouki chuckled beside him.
They bought jerky, water, and bread from a nearby store and marched toward the Star Tower.
âCareful 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, itâs over,â Andrew said. To James, infected creatures were small fry, but Andrew knew their dangers too well.
âOr you get a severe burn. As long as it doesnât hit the head, itâs fine. Thatâs why we have health potions.â Hain shrugged.
âThatâs right. Itâd be nice if burns were all we had to worry about, but we might lose our eyes or other important organs.â
âAndrew, come to think of it, James could swap his body, right? Canât you use Jamesâ organs to restore others? Weâre missing a hand and a leg right now, arenât we? Delilah seemed pitiful,â Kaina said.
ââŠIf he has a human hand and legs, then itâs possible,â Andrew replied as he recalled his ability. He couldnât transfer Hainâs cyborg arm to his comrades, but he could transfer Delilahâs hand to him. And when he saw Jamesâ body through his screen, the non-human parts were greyed out.
They marched cautiously, defeating every opponent with Sandersâ magic and Koukiâs 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.
âBoss! Did you wait long? Sorry, we got held up by the administration!â Sanders waved. James jumped to the side, his sword at the ready.
âFuck! I almost roasted you with my fire.â James spat out the fire he had prepared to the side. âI wasnât waiting for you in particular. Itâs just that this door wonât open. Itâs protected by the system, so I canât break it.â
âYou canât 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,â Andrew explained.
âFirsthand experience, huh?â
âIf nothing else goes wrong, thatâs how we did it last time,â Andrew hinted to James.
âHm?â
âJames, did you kill the Knight of Mystisâs grandmaster?â Andrew asked.
âWell⊠sorry. But they chased me all the way to the cave.â
âHah⊠it canât be helped. We just gotta roll with what we have. The boss on this floor is a seven-armed knight. Five of those arms canât use weapon skills, but they can retract and extend like tentacles. Theyâll stab you in the back.â
âOh, thatâs easy then.â James sighed in relief. If the enemy couldnât use weapon skills, then James was confident he could beat them. He only needed to watch the enemyâs main hands.
âThey 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 Mystisâ knights guarding us,â Andrew said. âAnyway, letâs 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.â
âShould?â
âThere are many things different here. Not just you and your antics, James, but I also remember the buildings being a little different,â Andrew said. He had recalled and noted all he could from the last time he was here, but there were some discrepancies.
âI see.â
âAh, thereâs the well.â 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 didnât 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 Jamesâ 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 werenât 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 expectedâthere 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.]
âOf course, you wonât tell us what kind of egg this is, will you?â James sighed. Sanders looked around him.
âI donât need it. I have my raptor back at home,â James said. While he was jealous of Koukiâs dragon and Andrewâs 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 himâbecause he forgot to feed it when he was in elementary school.
âI have Ralph.â
âI have my pegasus,â Andrew said. The creature wasnât 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.
âThanks! Iâll treasure it. This will be the guildâs new mascot!â 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 wasnât the one he was looking for.
âNo good. This isnât itâit just leads to another well inside the city,â Andrew said as he looked up the shaft. Through the wellâs opening, the cave ceiling was visible, like a view through a telescope.
âThis is the third timeâŠâ James frowned.
âAs 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,â Andrew said.
âI see. Sorry.â
âNah. It canât be helped. The knights were the ones who attacked us first.â Andrew sighed. He was unsatisfied, but he knew the fault didnât 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.
âAh. James, donât come out yet,â Andrew said as he noticed survivors inside the star towerâfour children and three adults huddled in the corner of a room.
âWhy?â
âThere are humans here. They donât seem infected. You arenât infected, right?â The group shook their heads.
Looks like he had a rescue mission to complete before conquering the dungeon floor.
