“Hold on!”
“Kueeek!”
The soldiers deftly absorbed the Orc’s brute-force charges with tightly interlocked shields.
Meanwhile, the soldiers behind them thrust their spears through the gaps in the shields to subdue the Orc.
‘They fight better than I expected.’
I quietly revised my assessment of the soldiers.
Individually, they might be weak, but as a group, they were excellent.
‘Then again, an army is a collective, not a few individuals, so this makes sense.’
The tide of the battle changed when a single Orc burst out of the dungeon entrance.
Thud!
Its massive foot landed on the corpse of its kin.
Though its entire body was festering with burns, its ferocity was very much alive as it glared at the soldiers with murderous eyes.
There was no doubt. It was a Boss entity.
“Ra! Kraksa!”
The Boss Orc roared and swung its axe.
The axe, heated red by fire, slammed into the front Shield Wall.
KWAANG-!
The sound of iron plates crumpling rang out as the soldiers’ formation shook as one.
Several soldiers in the front row couldn’t withstand the impact and were shoved backward.
‘By Awakener standards, that’s about D-rank.’
To soldiers who were at best F-rank, it was an insurmountable opponent.
There was a limit to how much they could compensate for their lack of physical power through formation.
“It’s about time I stepped in.”
Charlotte, who had been watching over the soldiers, finally drew her sword and stepped forward.
She must have judged that the soldiers couldn’t handle it either.
‘I’ll get to see just how skilled this Knight is.’
“Open the wall!”
At her command, the soldiers, who had been barely holding on, moved as if they’d been waiting for it.
The moment the Shield Wall parted, Charlotte kicked off the ground and leaped in.
With the shield wall now shaped like an arena, only the Orc and Charlotte remained inside, staring each other down like gladiators.
The Orc moved first.
It swung its axe with a hand dripping with pus.
CLANG-!
A heavy clash echoed through the forest.
To the ear, it sounded like a collision of raw strength, but the reality was different.
She tilted her sword at an angle from above to deflect the axe, then followed the opening to slice at the Orc’s flank.
It was a form of Swordsmanship I recognized.
‘Was it called Longsword Swordsmanship?’
Since close-range Awakeners tended to learn martial arts or swordsmanship as they climbed higher, identifying it wasn’t difficult.
‘So that’s what attack-and-defense-as-one meant.’
The principle my colleague had once bragged about finally made sense to me now.
The sword path I thought was merely blocking became an attack, and the sword path I thought was an attack cut off the enemy’s offense—the transition between offense and defense flowed like water.
The Orc’s axe work, in contrast to Charlotte’s, was crude beyond words.
Strike down, or swing wide.
That was all it could do.
But if skill alone determined victory, no one would bother with weight classes in fighting sports.
Though the Orc lacked technique, it pushed Charlotte hard with raw muscle born from its overwhelming physique.
‘Still, Charlotte will win.’
Charlotte’s level was around D-rank, just like the Boss Orc.
If they were the same Rank, the Orc—covered in burns and having inhaled smoke—was at a clear disadvantage.
My prediction held true. As time passed, the Orc’s movements grew noticeably slower.
Charlotte, aware of this, seized the opening and carved a deep cut into the Orc’s neck.
“Kuraaaah…!”
Blood sprayed from the Orc’s neck like a fountain.
Drenched in its own blood, the Orc staggered and dropped to its knees.
“..?”
It was around then that I noticed something was off.
‘How is the blood already dry?’
Just moments ago, its body had been soaked in its own blood, but now it seemed dried, leaving only a red glow.
The change became pronounced at that moment.
The red energy gathered, thread by thread, onto the Orc’s axe, as if the blood was pooling into it.
And as it rose from its knelt position, raising its axe high, a faint red light flickered along the blade.
‘Weapon Reinforcement?’
The red light gathering on the axe was unmistakably Weapon Reinforcement—the exclusive ability of C-rank close-range Awakeners.
Seeing a mere D-rank Orc use Weapon Reinforcement, my brow furrowed on its own.
It was a technique it shouldn’t be able to handle, but it seemed to be forcibly using its life as fuel.
“Aura!”
Meanwhile, Charlotte’s voice finally carried a note of panic.
It seemed that in this world, Weapon Reinforcement was called Aura.
‘If that’s truly Weapon Reinforcement, this is dangerous.’
Against an Orc that had temporarily transcended its Rank, Charlotte was no longer a match.
Indeed, the axe tinged with red light pressed Charlotte hard.
SKKRRRAAAGH-!
The axe blade and sword clashed, producing a grating screech.
The reinforced axe was slowly biting into the sword.
If Charlotte had been holding a higher-ranked sword, she might have withstood the reinforced axe, but unfortunately, the sword she held was an ordinary iron blade.
Eventually, a fine crack appeared in the sword she was blocking with.
“Kh!”
Seeing the crack in her blade, Charlotte’s face twisted in frustration.
‘You can’t just think of a Healer as only a medic.’
Before she could really screw up, I reached out.
‘Weapon Aura.’
In the next moment, from the sword that was cracking and crumbling, a brilliant light bloomed forth, as if defying the Orc’s axe.
…
At some point, the scent of flowers began to mask the smell of blood.
As if drawn in, I traced the source to find a radiant light blooming from the sword.
Charlotte’s eyes flew open as if in full bloom.
At the same time, she clenched her teeth and took a step forward.
It was to put all her weight into the sword.
The next moment—white Aura and red Aura collided.
It was then that confusion rose on the Boss Orc’s face.
“Ku, kraak…!”
Had it been a contest of pure strength, the sword should have been pushed back.
But Charlotte’s sword, now glowing with light, split the thick axe blade in a single stroke.
The ensuing flash of sword light grazed the Orc’s neck.
Swoosh-
‘The Buff was a bit much.’
It wasn’t unreasonable to think that.
Soon, as the split axe blade and the Orc’s head tumbled to the ground in turn, cheers erupted from the battlefield, which had been holding its breath.
“Uwaaaah-!”
“Hail Lady Charlotte!”
Thud, thud-
Charlotte approached through the cheers and bowed her head.
“Thanks to you, we made it safely.”
“I just did my job.”
It wasn’t a wrong statement, since applying Heals and Buffs at the right timing was my duty.
I accepted Charlotte’s thanks with a nod and walked over to the Boss Orc’s corpse.
“It must be rough for a Priest to look at that.”
“I need to check something real quick.”
If this was like a floor Boss in the Tower, then that thing should definitely be in the corpse.
As I placed my hand near its chest, a familiar energy pulsed back.
I pulled out a knife, cut the flesh open, and looked inside.
Sure enough, there it was. A red crystal, slightly smaller than a fist, sat within.
‘..There’s a Key.’
The Key to the door leading to the next floor.
At the same time, it was also the Key to the reward room.
Of course, it wasn’t shaped like an actual key, but Awakeners climbing the Tower called it a Key for convenience.
As I pulled out the Key, Charlotte showed interest.
“That’s a special Mana Stone.”
“A special Mana Stone, you say?”
“Unlike regular Mana Stones, it’s one occasionally found only on monsters in Dungeons. I believe the Magic Tower buys them at a high price.”
“..I see.”
So it might be something different.
Her explanation of a different purpose than what I knew made me wonder if this had any connection to the Tower at all.
But I soon shook my head.
‘..She might just not know.’
Unlike Earth, information didn’t flow here—it stagnated.
That made sense, as this place had neither the internet nor anything resembling a press.
It was possible the Tower existed but no one knew about it.
Clutching the Mana Stone, I looked at the dungeon entrance.
“Let’s go inside.”
“It should still be burning. Even if it’s just the edge, the heat will be dangerous.”
“If what I know is correct, we’ll be fine.”
When a floor Boss died, the environment of that floor reset.
Monsters wouldn’t respawn immediately, but destroyed terrain and environmental factors would quickly restore.
So if the Orc I just killed was truly the Boss, then by now the flames inside the dungeon should have gone out.
I stepped into the Portal.
“See, the fire is..”
WHOOOOSH-!
A wave of scorching heat hit my face.
The flames hadn’t diminished in the slightest, devouring the entire forest.
“…”
Charlotte, who had followed me in, looked back and forth between the blazing forest and my face.
“It’s still burning, isn’t it?”
“..That can’t be right.”
“Regardless, the heat is too intense. Let’s head back out.”
Without much argument, I turned around.
But my steps soon halted again.
The Mana Stone in my hand was glowing faintly, as if responding.
The blazing flames all trembled at once.
Then, as if being sucked into something invisible, they rapidly shrank.
The smoke that had covered the forest flowed backward and vanished.
‘The Boss must have died outside the dungeon, so the clear went through late.’
In the Tower, Bosses never left their floor, so this was something I hadn’t suspected.
“The fire is dying out. No, the heat itself is disappearing.”
Charlotte looked around in wonder.
“I’ve heard that when you take down the Boss of a Dungeon, it disappears. Then after some time, it reappears in a completely different place… Could this be related to that phenomenon?”
“..I’m not sure. But it’s an interesting hypothesis.”
I responded appropriately while walking deeper into the forest, now free of heat.
‘Still, this is definitely suspicious.’
The Towers were rooted in each country.
Identical Towers in content, not even separate ones.
And then, a cleared Dungeon somehow replicates and appears elsewhere—could that really be coincidence?
Of course, this was a wild guess with no solid evidence.
‘If I get the reward, I might learn something.’
The Key vibrated harder the closer I got to its destination.
Following the reaction, I soon arrived at what appeared to be the Orcs’ village.
Shoddy leather tents and wooden fences came into view first, and inside stood a grotesque Totem woven from the bones and branches of various animals.
‘This seems to be the place.’
The Key reacted more strongly the closer it got to the Totem.
I brought the Mana Stone up to the Totem and slowly let the energy flow into it.
The crystal rose from my hand.
‘Everything’s going according to what I know.’
Then, as the energy drained out and the empty Mana Stone rolled across the ground, a familiar font message filled my vision.
-Original Piece of the 7th Floor recovered.
-Floor 7 of the Tower will be restored.
‘Original Piece?’
Unlike the familiar font, the words were entirely unfamiliar.
The message didn’t end there.
-Rewards will be distributed to all participants based on Contribution Level.
-Experience Points (Large), proportional to your level, will be awarded based on Contribution Level.
-You have earned 1 Contribution Level point.
-The Contribution Level shop’s product list has been provided.
Swoosh-
“..!”
It was a short list.
But given how few items there were, it was only natural that a certain one caught my eye immediately.
[Tower Entry Ticket]
Price: 20 Contribution.
Allows entry into the Tower of your choice.
My heart raced.
I wanted to cheer out loud. But with Charlotte beside me, I forced myself to stay calm and swallowed my excitement.
‘I found a way back—no, a clue to one.’