Chapter 10 · 14 min
Chapter 10
Bus Slug
{Anon: Fuck, I think this is it
You know that team that set the old record and then abandoned the country?
They got 7 seconds on Floor 0, right?
Our Summoner got pissed off because those bastards cleared it and then ran off to another country
So starting from Floor 1, they deliberately matched 7 seconds to show them
Look! I’m here in the country you abandoned
That record where you barely managed 7 seconds on Floor 0?
I can do it even after Floor 0!
That’s what this is!
Hopium circuits at full power!!!!!}
GiggleOneShot: Fuckhead, who calls that “clear-and-run”
└Anon: Sorry, I thought using abbreviations would make me look younger
Anon:???: Seniors~ I matched 7 seconds just like you seniors~ Can I follow in your footsteps too?
└Anon: Kyaaaaagh!!! Get lost!!!!!
‘I’m not going anywhere, though.’
{Anon: You’re right, the bastards who abandoned the country were in first place all this time
The rankings suddenly changed and just automatically popped up in front of my eyes, so I saw them
Normally you don’t really look at these, right?
Feels like the first time I’ve looked at the Unranked Floor rankings in almost a year?}
Anon: Nah, I look at them often
└Anon: For what?
└Anon: Your rank is low, isn’t it?
└Anon: Nope;;
└Anon: Maybe you don’t if your rank is low like yours, but when you’re in the top 10 like me, you end up checking often
└Anon: Fucking humblebragging bastard
└Anon: lololololol
Now!?
{WheelchairHunter: Seven, huh. For me, seven is
The meat for one meal I had to buy yesterday cost 70,000 won, I guess?
Last time I offered my favorite marinated pork ribs to my summoned creature
They said there’d be no forgiveness if I served something like that one more time
Still, they let it slide the first time, so our beastfolk summon is kind, right?}
Anon: Marinated lololol Giving marinated meat to a beastfolk lol
Anon: lololololol Fuck, beastfolk summons throw a fit saying not to treat them like animals, then make a huge deal about how eating seasoned meat is terrible
SwordMageF: How are you affording 70,000 won per meal? Was your family rich?
└WheelchairHunter: Working two part-time jobs. They said they’ll allow pork and chicken for the other two meals, so I can somehow keep daily food expenses around 100,000 won?
SwordMageF: Did you climb Floor 1? If you’re Bronze, you should be able to run it every day, so clear it in around 10 minutes and you’ll have some extra money
└WheelchairHunter: I can’t, that’s why I’m working two part-time jobs
└SwordMageF: Ah fuck, this makes me swear. Not at you, I mean your summon. Other than buying them a house or letting them cut your head off, they won’t climb?
└WheelchairHunter: They said they would if all three meals were beef, but that’d be 210,000 won, so maybe I can afford it starting next month?
└SwordMageF: Fucking beastfolk bastard
‘Imaginary beastfolk, I’m sorry.’
I felt like I was getting better at this the more I did it.
“What are you writing so intently?”
“Ah, well, for now I need to be the only one who knows about Clara.”
“I know what this is!”
Clara’s eyes sparkled as though she had realized something.
‘This déjà vu... It’s just like when I first summoned her and told her to put on clothes.’
“You want to monopolize me! You want to hide your wife away and keep her all to yourself!”
As expected, she was completely off the mark. Before, I’d said I would go out alone to buy Clara’s knight uniform. Was that why she had agreed so readily while looking strangely pleased at the time!
“...Y-yeah?”
“I love you too!”
Squeeze.
Clara hugged me with a bright smile. I didn’t want to pour cold water on that happy-looking expression.
Thinking about it, it wasn’t completely wrong either.
“So, about the Floor 5 strategy...”
___________
[NewbieLover: Floor 5 Bus Slug Guide Even an Iron Can Do
You worked hard getting this far
Everyone came here to make a wish, right?
Because it’s a golden opportunity for even an Iron aptitude to make their skill aptitude Bronze-grade!
But I don’t really recommend it
Just make an ordinary wish and reduce what you have to sacrifice
I really hope you don’t give up everything you have
Honestly, isn’t something like a tower passport basically equivalent to second prize in the lottery? Be satisfied with that. You can get one for a year of your lifespan
Well, there are people with disabilities and things like that who sacrifice lifespan to cure themselves...
I’m not going to say anything about that
But please, I’m begging you, stop sacrificing things just to strengthen a skill
Well, you probably won’t listen even if I say it, right?
Anyway, before entering Floor 5, Mage classes should go running
There are a lot of marathon events these days too
Join those and enjoy real life a little instead of being completely consumed by the tower
There’s not much else to explain about the Floor 5 strategy, right?
As long as you don’t try to fight the Bus Slug, anyone can clear it without losing their life
But the mouths on its feelers have pretty long range, around 5 meters?
Measure the distance carefully
If you enter its range, you just die
As long as you’re careful about that and can jog nonstop for 50 minutes, anyone can clear it
Run circles around the lake
Though annoyingly, it says “You escaped” because you didn’t kill anything on this floor
Seriously, how are you supposed to kill the Bus Slug within 50 minutes at level 5?
Anyway, a clear is a clear
Keep that in mind, newbies]
_________
“Did you sleep well?”
I woke up to another heart-pounding morning, thanks to Clara’s blissful wake-up call as she slept beside me.
Saw Dad off to work.
Ate breakfast. Clara drank barley tea beside me.
Then I briefed Clara on Floor 5 one more time while looking over the Gallery guide.
“I understand well. Let’s go in right now.”
“Yes. System window.”
Ding~!
“Enter the tower.”
[Select]
[Floor 0][Floor 1][Floor 2][Floor 3][Floor 4]
[Floor 5]
Looking at the list of selectable floors that had grown quite a bit before I knew it, I tapped Floor 5.
We were instantly transferred into the tower’s preparation room. Beyond the transparent wall was a field 50 meters wide and long to match Floor 5.
Once again, Clara personally carried me princess-style to one wall of the preparation room and carefully set me down.
‘If I clear Floor 5 and make my wish, does that mean I graduate from being carried like a princess too? Why does that feel a little disappointing?’
“Do I just have to kill that?”
Beyond the transparent wall of the preparation room.
This time, it wasn’t another member of the sunfish series that I was starting to get tired of.
It was commonly called the Bus Slug.
It got that name because it was a brown slug the size of a bus.
‘Aside from its size, I guess its appearance is actually better than the Hand Sunfish on Floor 4?’
After all, only the positions of its eyes and mouth were switched.
It had one huge eye where its mouth should have been, and each of the ends of its two long feelers where its eyes should have been had a mouth on it.
Compared to its enormous body, the feelers were thin and the mouths were small. The feelers were about as thick as a forearm, with mouths about the size of a fist.
The only problem was their hardness.
They were as hard as lumps of iron.
Even the front-door-sized sunfish series looked bigger in person, so when something the size of a bus suddenly appeared, you might wonder how you were supposed to kill it...
But floors ending in 5 had a special system.
The most important part was, of course, the wish.
On floors ending in 5, such as Floors 15, 25, and 35, you could make a wish.
And these floors could be cleared without killing the monster.
The system window even displayed something different.
[Survive]
[Yes][No]
[50:00]
On this floor, you could clear it simply by running away for those 50 minutes.
In the first place, killing it was practically impossible at an Unranked level.
Another major feature was that monsters from these floors appeared again later on higher floors.
At that point, you had to kill them to clear the floor.
It was almost as though the tower was making climbing easier by letting you prepare in advance.
That was why the usual wish made on Floor 5 was skill enhancement.
Iron aptitude gave you an Iron-grade skill, but this could raise it to Bronze-grade.
If you were a Summoner, you would ask for something your summoned creature would like.
But what I wanted this time was...
“Clara, are you really okay? It feels ridiculous for me to say this while being carried by you, but we can clear it just by running away like this.”
“Just leave it to me!”
“Then I’ll trust you, Clara. I’ll start right away, okay?”
“Anytime!”
“Here we go!”
—Dash.
The moment the transparent wall disappeared, Clara ran forward.
___________
[49:59]
[O Fire]
A fist-sized flame appeared in front of the Bus Slug’s one huge eye, then flared up just like before.
But unlike the sunfish series, the Bus Slug didn’t immediately catch fire.
A pale purple, translucent liquid poured from all over the Bus Slug’s body.
Because of that, the flames couldn’t properly take hold.
Tap.
Clara moved closer to the Bus Slug.
The long feelers shot toward her like spears, aiming for Clara’s head and lower body as she entered their range.
Clang! Clang!
They sounded as though her sword had struck chunks of iron.
A heavy force traveled through the sword. Even with Clara’s Strength of 43, she could only barely knock them away.
Their hardness was clearly on a completely different level from the sunfish series, which she had cut cleanly apart.
Even so, they weren’t so hard that Clara couldn’t deflect them with her sword.
She moved even closer toward the Bus Slug’s eye.
To stab the one large, grotesque eye where its mouth should have been.
The Bus Slug was desperate too.
It wildly swung both feelers like whips.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Tap.
Clara briefly put some distance between them.
Because the eyes and mouths were positioned close together by design, the closer she got to the eye, the faster the mouths on the feelers attacked.
Even Clara would have difficulty continuously deflecting feeler mouths attacking at that speed.
It didn’t look easy to stab that eye.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
She manifested three Wishes of Fire at once.
Including the fire already in front of the large eye, there were now four flames, with new ones appearing on the Bus Slug’s back and both sides.
The thick purple slime continued pouring out endlessly and protecting the Bus Slug, but there was no way it could keep producing it forever.
As the number of flames suddenly increased, even darker purple liquid gushed out, but the Bus Slug seemed to sense danger and tried to move away.
At that moment, Clara circled around to the side and ran toward the Bus Slug’s rear.
To attack the tail end, where she hadn’t manifested O Fire.
In the end, unable to move away, the Bus Slug spun in place to follow Clara.
The mouths on its feelers couldn’t reach all the way to its tail.
Clang! Clang!
Clara darted around from place to place.
As long as she wasn’t directly in front of it, the mouths on the feelers didn’t attack quite as quickly even within their range, making them manageable.
But...
Clang! Clang—! Crack!
With a sharp breaking sound, half of Clara’s sword spun into the air.
“Clara!!!”
The Bus Slug’s purple eye rolled wildly.
“There is no problem!”
Only half a sword remained in her hand.
Clara quickened her side-to-side footwork even more.
She knocked away a feeler mouth aimed at her face and stepped left.
Then she knocked away a feeler mouth aimed at her right leg and stepped right again.
She was still deflecting them perfectly with only half a sword remaining.
Little by little, it was disappearing.
The purple liquid the Bus Slug produced kept evaporating in the flames.
But the Bus Slug continued attacking only Clara.
It instinctively pursued only the nearest target in its line of sight.
[48:50]
⦗Kiiiiieeeeeek!!!⦘
The Bus Slug let out a sound that was unmistakably a scream of pain.
At last, the Wish of Fire had evaporated all the slime coating the Bus Slug and started burning its body.
The Bus Slug’s purple eye swept around in every direction.
And...
In the end, the Bus Slug entered the lake beside it.
“Stop right there!”
“It’s okay! Clara! Just leave it alone!”
Soon, after completely submerging itself in the lake, the Bus Slug began shrieking.
⦗Kiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeek!!!⦘
The deafening roar shook this enclosed space.
Bubbles churned up from the lake where the Bus Slug’s entire body had submerged.
[48:43]
Ding~!
Amid the continuing battle, the sound I had been desperately waiting for finally rang out.
____________
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
“What?”
Did the system window break again?
The system window appeared, but there were no letters on it.
Ah, now they’re showing up.
[You have cleared Floor 5]
[Clear time: 77 seconds]
[You have entered the Floor 5 clear rankings]
[You have become Rank 1 on the Floor 5 clear rankings]
[Would you like to register your name]
[Yes][No]
[You have leveled up]
[Level 5 → Level 6]
[Your class is Summoner. Magic Power increases]
[Magic Power 20 → Magic Power 26]
[This is Floor 5. You have obtained an UN-grade reward]
[Lowest-grade Magic Stone Fragment]
[Youth Potion 1 Second]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
[Clear rewards will be increased]
[Iron Sword That Does Not Break Easily]
[Clear rewards will be increased]
[The sacrifice required will be reduced]
[Would you like to state your wish]
[Yes][No]
“Wow!”
“Why did it count as a clear? Ah! The lake water was salty, so did that kill it?”
“That’s right! You said the lake water tasted salty on Floor 4. That’s because the lake is seawater. The Bus Slug is a slug, so it couldn’t withstand salt water. You did really, really well, Clara!”
“I love you too!”
Hop hop.
Clara happily ran over and threw herself into my arms.
“Oh! It’s an Iron Sword That Does Not Break Easily!”
As though the reward item had somehow seen this exact situation, something perfectly suited to what had just happened came out.
“You know what else? This time it was 77 seconds. Did you somehow aim for the number 7?”
“It was a coincidence!”
The Gallery was going to come up with another weird theory.
It wasn’t particularly important, so I let it go.
There was something far more surprising.
It said the level of sacrifice required when making a wish had been greatly reduced.
Come to think of it, only on Floor 5, the completion message had normally been ‘You escaped successfully,’ not ‘You have cleared the floor.’
It seemed the price of a wish had decreased because I was the first person in the world to actually clear Floor 5.
[The sacrifice required has been reduced]
[Would you like to state your wish]
[Yes][No]
How much would it reduce what I had to sacrifice?
I tapped ‘Yes’ and said the first thing I had been thinking about.
“Cure my lower-body paralysis. Since I’m the first to clear it, how much do I have to sacrifice?”
[You must sacrifice]
[Select]
[10 Years of Lifespan][All Teeth][Hearing]
[Cancel]
Tch... Still seems a little excessive.
Still, it was fair to say the required sacrifice had definitely decreased.
There had been a Hunter overseas who cured lower-body paralysis with a wish.
What he sacrificed was half of his remaining lifespan.
Thinking about that, this was definitely cheap.
But I’m not giving up even a little of my lifespan.
I’m going to live a long life.
More importantly...
A tower suddenly rose right where I was and left me paralyzed from the waist down in the first place.
I had seen something on the Gallery.
A way for someone with a disability like mine to benefit from the tower’s wish.
By deceiving the system window.
“Just cure my right leg. What I’ll sacrifice is the sensation in my left leg. The required sacrifice was discounted, so that should be possible, right?”
It was sensation I didn’t have anyway.
I would sacrifice that to fix the other side.
If even one leg were healed, I should at least be able to stand.
With my heart pounding, I waited for the system window’s response.
[Your wish has been granted]