episode_0041

A path is visible.

A line emerging on the desert.

Although the exact principle was unknown, it couldn’t be denied that this was Han Yeram’s help.

‘What is she thinking.’

Actually, when I first met her, I thought everything, from this desert to the events on the 4th floor, was something she had orchestrated.

But if, as she said, the strange phenomenon I experienced after entering the 4th floor was a trial given to me by the Ariel Cult and the Black Mage working together.

It’s somewhat understandable.

Didn’t they do something strange even in the last personal request?

What in the world do they want, doing this to me?

What Han Yeram said.

She said the Evil God was after her body.

If so, it’s highly likely that I am targeted for the same reason.

The Main God is after my body… huh.

Ding!

『Please check your Card Reward.』

I casually dismissed the status window that appeared without any sense of timing.

I can’t fully trust her words yet. She might just be lying to me.

As a servant of the Evil God, she killed countless explorers on the 2nd floor.

But perhaps because of the internal familiarity of being fellow Koreans.

I couldn’t easily dismiss her advice.

“……”

One thing is certain.

That this world is not kind to me.

Whether she is good or evil, whether she is a fellow possessor or anything else, I’ll think about it later.

Because the path was starting to blur.

“Follow me.”

“Yes? Do you know something? What on earth happened inside?”

“……That, let’s discuss later for now.”

I escaped Grace’s barrage of questions and kept moving along the path.

First, let’s get out of this desert.

I run along the line.

There is only one reason for such haste.

Because it’s getting difficult to endure in the desert.

Even I am starting to feel symptoms similar to heatstroke, little by little.

And I haven’t slept properly during that time, so I’m not in a normal state.

Shwaaaaaaa!

“It’s a sandstorm!!!”

A sandstorm we encountered while moving forward.

We deal with it with the same kind of storm.

[Ice Storm]

The sound of rupture was heard as the two storms met.

But we, inside the Ice Storm, felt cool and waited for the sandstorm to pass.

But the sandstorm still didn’t end.

Just as the casting duration of the Ice Storm was about to end.

Hans rushed out and drove his massive shield into the ground.

We endured the sandstorm behind it.

“It’s over!!”

The storm passed, and we walked again.

The faded line.

“Grace!”

“Yes!!”

Grace, immediately understanding my intention, held me.

It was a princess carry position, but she didn’t complain and kept concentrating.

Thanks to the slight chill radiating from Grace, it was a little cool.

“That way!!!”

Grace running, guided by me.

She kept moving forward, matching the speed of the party members following behind.

Doing so, we eventually arrived at a wide sand dune.

The line was stuck right in the center of that sand dune.

This meant only one thing.

“It’s inside this!!”

“Understood!!”

The party members immediately started digging up the sand.

I also shuffled my deck and found a suitable card.

[Whirlwind]

Shwaaaaaaa!!!

A strong wind began to cut through the entire sand dune.

The wind that carved away the sand soon became a sandstorm carrying sand.

As the sandstorm passed, a space hidden within the sand dune was revealed.

A small ruin.

Entering it, I was able to comfortably avoid the sunlight for the first time in a while.

“…There was something like this. I had no idea.”

“How on earth did you know?!”

There was no proper answer I could give the party members.

Because I couldn’t tell them about Han Yeram.

At that moment, Grace seemed annoyed and hit the ruin hard, speaking.

“How on earth were we supposed to find something in the sand?”

“……Perhaps it was something that would reveal itself naturally after a certain amount of time.”

Since sandstorms occasionally blew, it might have appeared from within the carved-away sand eventually.

“Then it was a place where we just had to wait? The goal was to deplete our supplies?”

“Should we call this cunning.”

A method of drying us out as much as possible with minimal effort.

That’s truly the kind of method Black Mages would devise.

“It looks like this is the way out!!”

At that moment, Kairek found stairs hidden in the floor.

We go down the stairs.

It felt like a cool cave.

My hot body slowly cooled down.

Before long, we found a door deep underground.

The Tower’s door.

A monster pattern was drawn on it.

“Let’s hurry inside!!!”

Opening the door and entering, a familiar sight appeared.

“We’re back at the Tower!!”

We were back at the Tower.

But it was too early to share our joy.

『Battle Start. Draw 3 cards.』

『Energy 4/4』

[Fireball (1)] [Blink (0)] [Electrocute (2)]

Simultaneously with three cards being drawn, a monster charged at us.

It was dangerous, as it suddenly attacked us while we were already disoriented, but.

Hans, who had rushed out without me realizing, took the monster’s attack head-on.

“I blocked it!!!”

As Hans blocked, the monster’s face was clearly visible.

A monster in the shape of a giant wolf.

“It’s a Blue Wolf!!”

Grace shouted and threw her dagger.

Kairek’s arrow flew towards the Blue Wolf’s head.

However, the attack cut through empty air due to the Blue Wolf’s rapid movement.

Immediately, the creature moved quickly past Hans.

“What?!!”

Hans is sturdy, but his speed is still slow.

Seeing this, Luca rushed out and shouted.

“Uwaaaaah!!!”

The Blue Wolf’s body paused for a moment.

The monster’s gaze was fixed on Luca.

Luca immediately attacked the wolf with his axe.

The wolf moved its body with smooth, flowing movements like water, dodging the attack, and then swung its powerful front claws at Luca.

“Ugh!!”

Luca was hit by the Blue Wolf and sent flying far away.

Now there was no front-liner.

But we hadn’t been standing still during that time.

[Electrocute]

Fizzzzzt!!!

Electricity bloomed on my body.

I immediately aimed to hit its head, but.

“Krrrlk?!!”

The surprised wolf flinched and then leaped back significantly, running away.

Eventually, it just circled around, testing the waters without approaching.

“It probably ran away after seeing the electric magic, right?”

“Yeah.”

I recalled the Electrocute I was about to cast and held it in my right hand.

It wouldn’t hit anyway if I threw it here, as it was too fast.

But the creature was unable to approach after seeing this magic.

Then, it was Kairek’s time.

Shwaaaaaaa!!!!

A powerful arrow flew towards the wolf.

Of course, the wolf saw it and dodged all of them.

But it wasn’t that Kairek hadn’t grown.

If accuracy is low, just shoot more!

With that strange mindset, Kairek kept shooting his bow.

Shwaaaa!!

Although the arrows missed.

Still, they were gradually reaching the wolf.

Flick!!

An arrow grazed the wolf’s tail.

Seeing that, the wolf seemed to realize that running away wasn’t the only answer.

It changed its stance and leaped forward.

Hans responded immediately, but the creature smoothly went past Hans.

Its target was me.

“…I’ll step forward.”

“I’ll go too!”

Grace and Luca rushed out simultaneously.

Seeing that, Kairek stopped his attack to avoid friendly fire.

Seeing Kairek lower his bow, the wolf’s lips curved up.

Finally, its gaze was fixed on Kairek.

As if it had forgotten about me without realizing.

[Blink]

My vision changed instantly.

Without realizing, I had arrived next to the wolf.

Our eyes met.

It seemed startled by the situation it couldn’t understand, with my location suddenly changing.

Blame yourself for your lack of imagination.

Fizzzzzzzzzzzt!!!

I directly hit the wolf at point-blank range with the strengthened [Electrocute] held in my hand.

The wolf’s body trembled.

It was frozen in place, unable to do anything.

And our party members would naturally not miss such a perfect target.

“Uwaaaaah!!!”

“Die!!”

Because Grace’s sword and Luca’s axe tore through its body.

*

After defeating the wolf, we took a short break.

Naturally.

We had accumulated too much fatigue in the desert.

After sleeping soundly for a change, my slightly throbbing headache got better.

I looked around, but most were asleep.

Except for Kairek, of course.

He was even doing light exercises in this situation.

“Are you awake?!!”

Kairek laughed heartily while doing push-ups.

It was a bit amazing to see him so full of energy even though he was intentionally eating little because he was worried about running out of supplies.

“Ivan, I’ve thought it over carefully!”

“…About what?”

“The Blue Wolf we met this time is just like its old form!”

“Really?”

“It seems we got out of the Black Mage’s area of influence because we left the desert! Think about it! Didn’t that fox and cat die in one hit when we hit them with the axe? If they were under the Black Mage’s influence, they would never have died from just that!”

“No, aren’t you looking down on Grace and Luca too much?”

“Anyway, that’s my opinion!!”

Kairek finished his exercise and seemed about to sit down, but then he started doing sit-ups.

“Then the difficulty has returned to the original 4th floor?”

“That’s right!”

“Let’s break through to the 30th floor today.”

“Hmph, naturally! We’ll quickly break through this measly 4th floor!!!”

As I noisily chatted with Kairek, Grace and Luca also woke up without realizing.

“Let us hear it properly. What were you talking about?”

“Ah! This time……”

Leaving the two who were talking, I woke up Hans, who was still sleeping soundly.

Afterward, while having a light meal, Kairek shared his hypothesis.

“…Certainly, the Blue Wolf we fought yesterday was much weaker compared to the armadillo or the goblin groups.”

With Luca’s statement added, who possessed animalistic instincts, Grace also nodded.

“Since that’s the case, what are you going to do? Ivan.”

“This time, we’ll only go up through the monster paths. There’s no reason to go to ‘?’ and enter a place like the desert.”

“I think so too. Do you all agree?”

Unanimous agreement.

Immediately after finishing the meal and cleaning up the spot.

All preparations were completed.

What we had to do from now on was a speedrun.

A battle of whether our food runs out or we climb to the top of the Tower.

Ding!

Standing in front of the door to the next floor, I checked the status window.

『Please check your Card Reward.』

『Please check your Card Reward.』

Two rewards I hadn’t chosen yet.

The 5 cards I was holding.

These were the core elements that would help with this speedrun.

“Listen carefully. This time……”

I immediately told them how I would act in this battle.

The party members had expressions of uncertainty, but I trusted they would mostly follow along.

“Opening it!!”

Hans opened the door.

A monster was visible up ahead.

The status window hadn’t appeared yet, as we hadn’t entered a combat situation.

At this moment, I launched a preemptive attack.

Using the cards I had drawn beforehand.

[Fireball]

[Strike]

[Ice Arrow]

Three spells were created.

A Fireball forming on the left.

An Ice Arrow created on the right.

And a powerful Strike hit the creature’s head.

Boom!!

Simultaneously with the monster’s head moving slightly, the Fireball and Ice Arrow flew towards it.

“Kyaaaaaaak!!!”

As soon as the monster’s roar was heard, the status window appeared.

Ding!

『Battle Start. Draw 3 cards.』

『Energy 4/4』

The cards I was holding and the cards I used immediately returned to the deck.

Because we had entered a combat situation.

Immediately, 3 new cards were drawn.

[Darkness] [Water Splash] [Temporal Stop]

I didn’t like it.

They were all support cards.

Normally, I wouldn’t be able to do anything for 1 minute like this, but.

Not now.

First, I use a usable card among the ones I have.

[Temporal Stop]

Temporal Stop empowered by the Cat’s Paw.

A bird that was about to fly up, spreading its wings wide, stopped.

Thanks to this, the Fireball and Ice Arrow I was trying to dodge hit its body accurately.

Simultaneously, a Harpoon Arrow grazed its body.

“Kwaaaaak!!!”

The huge bird flew up, bleeding.

Immediately, Kairek, who used [Arrow Return], tried to shoot the Harpoon Arrow again, but it was already moving quickly.

Since it was flying, attacks from Grace and Luca were also difficult.

Ultimately, it was unfortunately impossible to suppress it with the first move.

I immediately shouted.

“Self-Destruct!!!”

A Golem that popped out from subspace charged at the creature and caused a powerful explosion.

But the creature emerged unharmed from the explosion.

Now I had used everything I could use.

So, what should I do now?

Ding!

I brought up the status window.

『Please check your Card Reward.』

A reward I hadn’t chosen yet.

I’ll choose it now.

Click!

[Descent (4) – Power] – Enter Descent state.

[Ragnarok (4)] – Emits a powerful shockwave.

[Reversal (3)] – Reverse gravity for a certain time, raising targets to the sky.

I had already chosen what to select.

I chose [Descent (4) – Power].

The card quickly went into the deck.

Since I got the reward, it was judged that the battle had ended.

And once again, a bird visible in front of me.

Immediately, the status window appeared.

Ding!

『Battle Start. Draw 3 cards.』

『Energy 4/4』

[Chain Hell (3)] [Strike (1)] [Terrain Manipulation (3)]

Got it.

Golem first.

“Self-Destruct!!!”

Once again, a Golem popped out from subspace and charged at the bird.

Boom!!!

Hit by the second explosion, the bird took some damage.

I immediately cast a card.

[Chain Hell]

Countless chains surged from the ground, flying towards the bird.

“……?!”

The startled creature tried to fly away and dodge, but the chains were much faster.

Stab!!

The bird was pierced by countless chains.

It was pulled down to the ground just like that.

KABOOOM!!!

The bird was one with the floor.

No matter how much it twisted its whole body to move, nothing changed.

And the highest attack power of our party went towards that location.

“Got it!!!”

Kairek’s Harpoon Arrow pierced the bird’s belly.

Seeing the monster disappear, the status window appeared.

『Please check your Card Reward.』

I won’t check the reward.

Because I have to use this trick again later.

“…It’s working properly.”

I was worried, but it worked exactly as intended.

The method was to force the battle to end by choosing a card reward, then re-entering combat to get a new draw and the power of relics.

This was my strategy for this run.

“You can keep using that card like that?”

At that moment, Kairek approached me, looking surprised.

Grace also came closer, tilting her head.

“Didn’t you say the Golem could originally only be used once? You’re not overdoing it, are you?”

“…I’ll probably only be able to use it this time.”

This is a kind of trick that only works in situations where I have to add a card to the deck because simply giving up the reward doesn’t trigger it.

I can’t use it indiscriminately because the deck gets thicker and thicker, making it unusable.

It works like this only in the early stages of the 4th floor, where useful cards keep appearing.

Still, it might be okay to leave at least one reward unchecked sometimes.

“Let’s keep climbing for now!!”

“Yes!!”

“Understood!!”

“…Okay.”

“Understood.”

The party members climbed the stairs. I followed them and drew 3 cards.

From now on, it’s a race against time.

A battle of whether our food runs out or we clear the Tower up to the 30th floor.

Let’s see who wins.