CH 74

For some reason, whenever I start my dungeon exploration, the king of thieves Wake will come and play and my exploration will proceed smoothly.

I took Wake and climbed the stairs up to the 20th floor of the white tower. It seems to be the current front line and Lyle-sensei is leading it.

「Ah, Wake-dono. We are very grateful for your support.」

As soon as Lyle-sensei saw Wake’s face, he fixed his collar and bowed. Wake waved his hand as if saying “Don’t mention it.”.

Areh? What did Wake do?

「Takeru-dono, during the war, he led the thieves guild to attack the territory of the empire. Their cover attack was quite helpful.」

「Heh, is that so? Thank you very much.」

「Don’t do that! It’s just a misunderstanding, hero. The thieves guild doesn’t intervene in conflicts between countries. We did not help you during the war.」

「Fuhn」

「I’m telling the truth. There were many stupid lords who emptied their territory during the war so it was convenient to attack them.」

Wake waved his hands as if saying stop talking about it and went ahead to climb up the stairs.

Upon reaching the 21st floor, I saw Wake continuously shooting the head of a stone golem with his “magic bullet of rebellion”.

What a tsundere….

The thief guild aside, I’m thankful of him.

On the front line, Oracle-chan is controlling the eerie goddess statue of “Asama” (I feel like Asama will be offended by calling this statue of female deva her statue though) to smash three golems.

A sweaty Oracle-chan came to me saying “phew”.

I know you’re working hard but you’re only using a remote control.

「Takeru, are you done playing with that little knight girl?」

「It was a duel in form of training and not me playing.」

「You have come at the right time. Given our pace, we’ll be able to reach the 27th floor in an hour.」

「That’s fast.」

Speaking of which, when I was playing with the princess knight, they managed to conquer up to the 21st floor.

「Compared to Oracle’s Great Cave, the size of each floor is small. Also, after getting and drawing the map I pulled out from the console on the lower floor, we are taking the shortest route possible from floor to floor.」

「It is all thanks to Oracle.」

Is she being modest? Oracle shook her white twin tails.

「No, the power of five thousand adventurers is great. They are totally unstoppable once they know the correct room!」

They are divided into ten-person platoons. In short, there are 500 groups that will spearhead in turns. Compared to ordinary soldiers, adventurers are stronger individually.

Narrow places like a dungeon where small-scale battles are endless can be called the best battlefield for mercenaries.

My army is focused on logistics which made a large number of camps and relay points. They are well prepared and can deploy easily as backups so we can advance with little sacrifice.

「Even so, this dungeon has a lot of golems.」

「It is as you said.」

When Oracle-chan took the lead, an abnormal number of golem monsters had come out.

Flesh golem, bone golem, stone golem, iron golem….

「If you want to run a dungeon for a super long time, golem is the best choice. You can easily make flesh golem and bone golems from the fallen adventurers and even if stones and irons are smashed, it is possible to turn them in to golems as long as there’s magical power.」

「Ue, are you saying that those flesh golems are made of human flesh from adventurers?」

I even thought of eating it earlier. I made a mistake. It is a good thing that it looks like rotten meat so we did not eat it.

I find using the corpse of adventurers to create monsters disgusting.

「That’s normal. Even in my dungeon, my zombie carrier kills adventurers and turns them into zombies to make new monsters. It can be said that it’s the dungeon’s way to locally procure supply. However, I feel like the maker of this place is a golem maniac.」

「I guess the dungeon reflects the personality of the person who created it.」

This “white tower of trials”, though a trial, has no traps.

The creator might have been a golem lover and I find that a little scary.

「Rather than liking golem, I feel an intense hatred and dislike for living beings. Loving cleanliness too much that you’ll try to eliminate all dirty things. At a glance, such a person is easy to get along with, however, when he shows his fangs, that’s where the scary things begin so you should be careful.」

「Queen Liliella might not be the good-natured person everyone knows of.」

I’m only saying my usual bad words and I have nothing against the Asama Church officials.

The saints and saintesses of the Asama Church are sometimes selfish but they have free will and understanding. Their frankness is the embodiment of humans.

However, this “white tower of trials” is created by Queen Liliella, a saintess of Asama.

According to the Princess Knight Eleonora’s fairy tale-like story, this was created to give people trials. However, giving others a trial and giving you strength after overcoming it seems disgusting. Why? Because that means that you are being looked at from above.

If you are the goddess of creation, Asama, herself, that will be acceptable however, the one who created this “white tower of trial” is not a goddess but a person.

It is absolutely disgusting to think that this white tower dungeon was created by a human as if she’s an absolute existence like a goddess.

「Maa, let’s just take what we’re here for and leave immediately after.」

Swords can easily penetrate an iron golem so the adventurers are struggling so I had no choice but to cut them off with 1 slash with my sword of light.

Even if a little stronger golem would come out, we’ll surely be able to reach the 27th floor.

「It looks like a normal floor.」

Though it still looks very luxurious since there are beautiful marble sculptures and the floor is marble too but this 27th floor doesn’t look like it has anything special.

「The best place to hide a tree is in the forest.」

After saying that, Oracle-chan touched a very normal-looking wall. Her hand shines.

「What’s there, Oracle?」

「Behind this is one of the many control rooms of this white tower.」

When the concealed, thick marble door was open, there was a large room with glossy black walls.

It is very slippery when touched. The wall has a good design and it looks like it is made of obsidian.

In the center of the room stands a large stone pillar that shines with rainbow light.

「This is one of the central control room(Main Console).」

Oracle-chan explains it while she taps the stone pillar.

「Then, Oracle-chan, please.」

「If I do well, reward me later.」

Oracle-chan began investigating the stone pillar. She’s stroking it for some reason then say “Oh, I guess it was well protected as expected but it’s okay.” And “Okay, just stay like that.”.

I feel like this scene is familiar but, is she okay?

Those who usually use those lines will get caught by a trap or an alarm will go off.

I ordered my personal guard corps to prepare to make a move.

「clutter clutter clutter, it’s not that different….good, bingo!」

The stone pillar began glowing more which made me surprised.

After that, …..Oracle-chan found a keyboard and typed on it.

「I assume that you are doing well for now.」

「Yeah. This “White Tower of Trials” is already naked before me.」

On the surface of the rainbow stone pillar, an incomprehensible number of numerical characters are flowing.

There should have been no computer or advanced programming language this time so, what’s this?

Hey, Oracle, numbers aside, I can read ancient characters written. I know of them because of my language cheat.

「Oracle, is there anything significant on what’s displayed in this stone pillar?」

「Ah, ahh, yeah. Maa, that can also be called style….」

Just a little while ago, Oracle-chan is still saying “Yei” and now she looks grim.

Was she just bluffing earlier? She’s currently lost in thought.

Maa, is a dungeon master only someone who gives orders?

「So, Oracle, what happened?」

「I logged in to the main account so I can do anything. For example, this.」

When Oracle fiddled with the control panel, a large magic circle showed up in the central control room.

Given my experience with RPG, I can guess that this is a warp device that enables you to access each floor.

「Can that take me to the 100th floor?」

「It can but I’ll stop you. Even if I’ve logged in to the main account, there are things that are independent of the control room, for example, a powerful guardian of a warehouse. I think it is better for you to not touch the upper floors.」

That means we can’t clear this white tower.

「Takeru, think about it carefully. I feel bottomless eeriness from the queen that created this tower. According to the legend, the “white tower of trials” has been here for nearly a thousand years but it is suspicious that no one has ever cleared it. That’s simply impossible!」

「Maa, if you say so….」

「When I checked the other side of the system, I had a bad feeling. It is an implicit taboo for dungeon masters to create traps that are impossible to clear. If you do that, even the dungeon master won’t be able to do something about it. However, I feel like the dungeon master of this place is crazy and will not hesitate to do something like that.」

I see. The fact that there are fogs around the top floor of the tower is suspicious enough.

If you are a fanatic, you’ll say that it can’t be touched by mere humans since it is already the realm of gods.

Not having traps until now doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s no trap at all.

F*uck! Making a game that’s impossible to clear is simply the lowest thing one can do.

And then, someone actually created a dungeon like that as if saying “this is the harsh reality”.

「Then, for the time being, do you want to go to the 54th floor?」

「Eh? Isn’t that already cleared by the old emperor Conrad?」

「That’s the highest floor that was reached 50 years ago. Even if the treasure storage was cleared back then, there will be some items on it again. There might not be good treasures like orichalcum shield but there might still be other treasures.」

「I see. It can’t be helped. We can’t get anything without risking something.」

We decided to go to the 54th floor.

There’s no way we can send out 5000 mercenaries at once so we send them one by one.

This kind of teleportation movement is something I’ve already heard about before. It was the unique magic “Space-time gate” of the greater mage Jenny Walpurgis, one of Freed’s entourage.

Jenny might be somewhat related to ancient magic civilization.

「The enemy is a greater mage so she’s destined to be killed by sensei even if she has such a complicated background…. 」

「What did you say about me? 」

Sensei heard my muttering and asked me about it with a smile.

「No, I just thought that this teleportation magic is similar to that greater mage. 」

「Certainly but I’ll be watching behind you so you can rest assured. 」

What do you mean?

Well, since sensei said that I should rest assured, I guess it’s okay.

The grand gate of the 54th floor looks like it is made of gold.

Is it gold plated? Even if it is only gold plated, given its size, it is a valuable asset.

There is also “Treasure Vault” written in ancient language but whether it is true or not no longer matters.

I want to take this gold gate back with me!

「Oracle, can I cut it down? 」

「Well, upon checking the system, I found a scary self-destruct system of the whole tower. The queen who created this place is certainly crazy so it would be better to not upset her….」

Damn it! That’s a perfect anti-theft measure!

This gold gate, I can touch it but I can’t take it!

Let’s give up cutting it down. I still have to see the ability of the boss that’s guarding the treasure vault of the 54th floor.

I opened the golden gate and entered the treasure vault.