Conquering the Tower Even Regressors Couldn't-Chapter 383: Eighty-Seventh Floor, Mystical Beast Treatment (3)

Chapter 383: Eighty-Seventh Floor, Mystical Beast Treatment (3)

[Heal the mystical beast under the alchemist’s protection. Time remaining: 119 hours 37 minutes.]

I hadn’t placed much hope in my ideas, but after they ended in failure, one thing became unmistakably clear. Although it seemed obvious in hindsight, the core of this trial lay in finding something within the forest.

Still, contrary to how Cho-Yeon seemed to think it would go, it wasn’t going to be that simple.

Given what I had needed to accomplish on previous floors, it would be absurd to entertain the idea that healing the mystical beast could be resolved by tracking down a random weed.

Also, the floor’s description makes it clear who will heal the mystical beast in the end. Me.

That indicated I needed to locate something truly special.

From what I could tell, two major obstacles stood in my way for this trial.

As I had mentioned earlier, it was difficult to pinpoint what exactly would heal the mystical beast. Whether it was an herb or something else entirely, the answer remained unclear.

The second challenge lay in the fact that there could be enemies lurking in this sketchy forest—and they could be far stronger than either of us expected.

Maybe both issues will come into play.

In any case, I didn’t find the second issue as troublesome.

I had just defeated a god. Even if I acted cautiously, I doubted the enemies here could overwhelm me. They could prove to be a hassle, but nothing more.

Five days were unfortunately not a lot of time. Assuming Cho-Yeon needed a day or two for her research, taking a conservative estimate left me with three or four days to find the required item—whether it was an herb or something else.

I would need to move efficiently.

“Be careful out there! Don’t get hurt!”

More than ten minutes had passed since Cho-Yeon had seen me off with those well-meaning words, and I was now in the midst of the fog.

She wasn’t a bad person.

At first, I was hesitant around her. Despite that, she definitely had a certain quality, like an older-sister who would nag and argue, yet still look out for me.

Then again, perhaps I only thought that because I didn’t have an older sister.

Anyway, if I were to summarize my impressions of the forest in one word, it would be “unpleasant.”

The moment I left behind the life-filled ground, a gloomy feeling had settled in, accompanied by a chilling unease that crept beneath my skin. The clammy mist had wrapped itself around me, further distorting my already limited vision.

Even the mist itself feels unnatural.

Strangely, my sensory perception couldn’t extend very far. It was as if something within the fog was blocking it. The fog wasn’t composed solely of mana, as there was an eerie, foreign energy mixed within.

To make matters worse, the dead earth beneath my feet seemed to be slowly absorbing my vitality.

As soon as I had felt it drain my energy, I had shielded myself with divinity. However, it was still far from a comfortable experience.

Since mana proved ineffective, divinity was my only option. Thankfully, it worked.

Even so, neither my divine energy nor mana moved easily in this place. The ground beneath my feet felt thick and sticky, and every breath seemed to catch in my throat.

It felt like a space where everything—mana, divinity, and even life—was being slowly dulled and worn down. Eventually, everything would come to a complete halt.

Perhaps it was just a personal impression, but I could begin to understand why the tower had forbidden Cho-Yeon from venturing outside.

Something about this place is undeniably weird.

I couldn’t identify it exactly, but the atmosphere that clung to the forest felt closely tied to divinity. It didn’t resemble the aura of any specific god, though.

The sensation was familiar somehow, as if I had encountered it somewhere before, but I couldn’t quite recall where. Perhaps I was just imagining things.

I had assumed, since the tower had brought the elements of the trial to this location, there wouldn’t be any gods, but that could be a mistake.

Wait. Can it be?

A realization suddenly struck me. I remembered where I had felt this energy before: the seventy-fifth floor. This presence matched the dead lands that the shaman—and also god in disguise—Hyeon had overseen.

The monsters with corrupted divinity.

It wasn’t exactly the same, but close enough to stir a memory. If the differences stemmed from an entity from another world, that would explain it.

Oddly, the thought was somewhat reassuring. If I simply had to fight some corrupted beings bearing tainted divinity, then I had nothing to worry about.

The gulf between them and an actual god was immeasurable. For now, though, I would keep the possibility in mind.

Wait. That flower looks different.

Even as I meandered about, thinking idly, my eyes never stopped scanning my surroundings. At the base of a tree trunk, I had spotted a flower, and noticing it certainly hadn’t been difficult.

The entire foggy portion of the life severely lacked life. Withered trees stood over parched, cracked soil, and the flower sharply contrasted the sparse vegetation. It drooped slightly, its petals dark violet and wilted.

I stopped, knelt down, and retrieved a small spade from the mimic before beginning to dig carefully around it.

The task wasn’t difficult.

I have done this before.

Back on the sixty-fourth floor, while acting as a covert operative called Nameless, I had posed as a herbalist with Parein. Although I hadn’t been trained to distinguish medicinal herbs, I had managed to pick up the basics of harvesting.

Besides, I was hardly clumsy when it came to dextrous tasks.

I gently lifted the flower from the earth and placed it into the mimic. It was time to get moving again.

Hmm. No direction is really calling out to me.

Perhaps because of the mist, my instincts weren’t responding.

I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

What would it have been like if Doppy were here?

Of course, even with him, there was no guarantee we would have found the right path. The odds would have improved, though. Outside of combat, Doppy had a better sense for things than I did.

Of course, I missed Yoonie as well.

She was a spirit specifically designed for treasure hunting. Why hadn’t the tower summoned her this time?

The situation baffled me. I still couldn’t make sense of the criteria the tower used for deciding when my companions would join me. Sometimes they were summoned alongside me, but others, I was forced to go alone. There was a general pattern to it, but that didn’t mean they were absent on every difficult floor.

At times, I had been glad they hadn’t been summoned, but I keenly felt their absence much of the time.

Or maybe it is related to my assumption.

Perhaps they weren’t here because “I” needed to be the one to find something. If that were the case, then it made perfect sense.

Still, even though the tower hadn’t summoned them, that didn’t mean I couldn’t. With Two-Way Portal and my current level of mana, I could easily create a portal to the waiting room.

Even so, I had no intention of doing so. If the tower believed I could complete the trial on my own, I needed to overcome it on my own. That belief had guided me throughout my entire climb.

The tower had always been favorable toward me.

That was the conclusion I had come to after all my experiences. There was meaning in the fact that I was alone here.

I had to conquer this floor with my own strength, as I always had.

Of course, if it truly became impossible to proceed alone, then I would summon them later if I absolutely had to.

Ryun was an ent, after all. Navigating a forest devoid of life would probably be easier for him than it was for me. Regardless, I would see how far I could go on my own first.

My thoughts had wandered longer than I had intended. After refocusing, I resumed walking once more.

***

[Heal the mystical beast under the alchemist’s protection. Time remaining: 118 hours 53 minutes.]

I walked for another forty minutes.

Using the hut as a reference point, I had settled on heading west. In reality, I had simply continued along the path I had first taken.

Wandering aimlessly through unfamiliar terrain felt too reckless. On top of that, the strange mist would make it all too easy to get lost if I wandered too much.

Of course, even if I lost my way, returning to the hut wouldn’t be difficult. I always had Two-Way Portal.

Still, relying on that wasn’t exactly a sound approach.

It would only complicate the next stage of the search.

Rushing only increased the chance of missing something important. This kind of trial needed to be approached slowly and with care.

Assuming I had four days to search, I could divide the forest into quadrants with the hut at the center and dedicate one day to each. Setting a clear direction ahead of time made sense.

During this first jaunt, I had collected more than twenty flowers and plants. Given that Cho-Yeon had instructed me to bring back whatever, twenty wasn’t a lot for the time spent, but it reflected my best effort.

The land was devoid of life. There weren’t many plants to begin with, and the ones that had taken root were similar. When something looked unfamiliar or too similar to another, I pulled the others from the mimic and compared them before deciding to keep it.

While doing that, another thought came to me.

Maybe I should stop what I am doing and try going all the way to the edge.

I still didn’t know exactly what kind of world this was, but it probably wasn’t limitless.

It wouldn’t make sense for the strange energy blanketing this forest to stretch across an entire world.

On the thirteenth floor—the Forest of Insects—a hidden mission had been tucked away at the two farthest corners of the forest.

It was still the first day, and I had time to spare.

Going to the edge doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

Even if there was nothing there or the path was blocked, I could always turn back.

If I were to travel for an hour, I would still travel farther than a normal person running for several days. That meant the edge, whatever form it took, couldn’t be too far away.

Or maybe I can take it even further and circle around the entire perimeter of the forest.

That didn’t sound like a bad plan either.

If I could confirm the presence of a boundary, that would mean whatever we were meant to find was located inside it. While moving along the edges, I could even come across something valuable.

It was around then that I felt something strange, like someone was watching me.

The feeling came from my seven o’clock. I didn’t react, deciding to simply keep walking as if nothing had changed. I calmly breathed in and began tensing my leg muscles.

I continued walking with my gaze lowered toward the ground, maintaining the same rhythm as before.

The sensation of being watched would come and go, but it never fully disappeared. It felt like the observer was moving, or was momentarily obscured by trees.

Who—or what—can it be?

The gaze had appeared out of nowhere and wasn’t far. Even with my shortened sensory range, it was still well within range.

However, nothing showed up. Outside of their gaze, I couldn’t detect them at all.

That made it even stranger. If the individual had that level of skill, they should have been able to mask their gaze entirely. It didn’t feel like they wanted to be noticed either.

Is the mist interfering with my senses more than I thought?

No, I trusted my instincts. Perhaps it was a trait specific to the entity itself.

I continued walking in a state of quiet tension.

Still, the presence made no move. It didn’t display any hostility and simply observed me.

From the start, my instincts hadn’t issued any warning. If it had intended to attack, it would have done so already.

Even so, I couldn’t afford to do nothing.

In one smooth breath, I twisted at the waist and pushed off the ground powerfully. I leapt forward at a speed just shy of Flash Strike.

The moment I moved, the gaze disappeared.

W-wait, what?

Even with how fast I was, I couldn’t catch up. The very idea was ridiculous. All I saw was a vague silhouette slipping into the mist just as I turned my head.

I couldn’t be certain, but it resembled a small human figure. For a brief moment, I thought I glimpsed a long, furry tail behind it.

Still reeling from the shock, I came to a stop mid-stride.

What did I just see?

It wasn’t an illusion. I wasn’t the type to misinterpret something like that, nor did it make any sense to assume I had been struck by a psychic attack.

That presence was unmistakably real. It had simply vanished ahead of me, moving even faster than I could—without using Flash Strike.

A wave of tension swept through me.

If that thing turns out to be an enemy, this may prove more difficult than I expected.

At the very least, one thing became clear. It was only natural to assume that the unknown figure was somehow connected to the mystical beast.

Yet, one question continued to trouble me.

Why didn’t it seem hostile? Is it a secret ally, merely observing me?

That seemed far too optimistic.

At any rate, it doesn’t look like the herb is the issue here.

Uncovering the identity of that mysterious presence had become my top priority. It was almost certainly linked to the mystical beast.

There had to be a reason the tower had brought Cho-Yeon in for this. Whatever that reason was, however, it would only come to light after I had taken some action.

Snapping out of my daze, I headed toward the spot where the figure had vanished, but there was no sign of it. Not even a single footprint.

It isn’t like I was possessed or anything.

I had clearly seen it dissolve into the mist.

Can it meld with the fog?

Still, if that were the case, there would have been no need for it to reveal itself at all.

My thoughts grew increasingly tangled. There wasn’t a single lead to pursue.

A small humanoid figure, with some fur-like thing trailing behind it. What can it possibly be?

Even when I sifted through my memories of myths and legends from Earth, nothing came to mind.

Then again, that wasn’t all that unusual. Familiar things did show up on occasion, but that didn’t mean everything here had a counterpart back home.

I turned around.

For now, I had better check the edge of the forest.