Conquering the Tower Even Regressors Couldn't-Chapter 385: Eighty-Seventh Floor, Mystical Beast Treatment (5)

Chapter 385: Eighty-Seventh Floor, Mystical Beast Treatment (5)

[Heal the mystical beast under the alchemist’s protection. Time remaining: 116 hours 21 minutes.]

“A half horse, half human?”

Cho-Yeon looked at me with mild surprise in her eyes. “Yes. Why? Do you know them or something? Are you acquaintances?”

I nodded with a reluctant expression. “Umm, Seems that way.”

As soon as she had mentioned a climber with the lower body of a horse, I knew she was talking about the Kosharks. Just like us Earthlings, they had been dragged into the Tower of Ordeal.

We had fought together during the battle at Fort Pogoren on the sixteenth floor, and I had even ridden on Turen’s back. Moreover, we had gotten closer after the match on the fiftieth floor, and we had even moved as a group again on the fifty-first.

Since Cho-Yeon had mentioned they were also climbers, that probably meant it was them.

A wasn’t exactly common.

“They were probably Kosharks. I’ve worked with them before.”

“Ah! Yes, that sounds right.”

“Do you happen to remember the guy’s name?”

“Hmm.” Cho-Yeon furrowed her brow, clearly trying to recall, but soon clicked her tongue and shook her head. “It’s all a bit fuzzy. It’s been a while, and there were quite a few people.”

There was something about that that didn’t sit right with me.

“A lot of people?”

“Pardon? Oh, there were six of them.”

Six Kosharks. That meant they had entered the floor as a party. However, something still felt off.

If a party was intended to clear the floor, every Koshark climber should have been sent here. Despite that, Cho-Yeon had only met six.

Not a single floor had sent parties to separate worlds. Moreover, it wasn’t like the Kosharks had a large pool of challengers to begin with.

Ah.

If it were a hidden mission, that would explain everything. Whether it was a regular or party floor, the single party seemed to have triggered it.

And they must have failed.

“Were you close to them? It’s hard to tell them apart by face since they all look kind of similar.”

“No, we just knew each other a little. That’s all.”

“I see. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s ruining the ambiance. Sorry.”

“No, it’s alright. They may not be who I am thinking of.”

With so many species in the universe, I found myself hoping they weren’t the Kosharks I remembered. Death was inseparable from climbing the tower, but still, these were comrades I had once fought alongside.

That said, if I were to be honest, the odds weren’t in my favor. All I could really do now was hope that Turen wasn’t among the dead. Of course, every life was valuable, but I had a particularly close connection with him.

Focusing back on the mission, however, I felt like I was starting to get a clearer picture.

The tower had hired Cho-Yeon for the sake of the trials. It could have other reasons, but that was likely the main one.

Right now, though, that wasn’t something worth digging into.

I looked toward Cho-Yeon and shifted the topic. “Also, I saw something weird in the forest earlier. It was a creature I didn’t recognize, but I thought maybe you’d know.”

“What did it look like?”

“It was small and bipedal, like us. But it had fur sticking out from its back.”

“Hmm. Small and upright with fur on its back.” Cho-Yeon looked down, lips twitching slightly as she pondered.

After a moment, she raised her head. “I’m not sure. You didn’t manage to catch it?”

“No, unfortunately not. I moved as quickly as I could, but the moment I caught sight of it, it vanished into the mist.”

She looked surprised. “Seriously? If even you couldn’t catch it, doesn’t that mean it’s really strong?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t have a proper confrontation. It could just have a special ability.”

“Hmm. From what you’re saying, I don’t think I’d recognize it either, even if I saw it for myself.”

Trying to end the conversation, I added, “Other than that, so far, no solid leads. I’ll keep looking for it.”

Cho-Yeon nodded energetically. “Alright. I’ll dive into the samples you brought and study them thoroughly.”

“Well then, I’ll get going again.”

“Take care! Don’t get hurt!”

After exchanging farewells, I stepped through the portal again. It was time to get moving. The westward journey resumed after a short pause, and it stretched from evening until the break of dawn.

I never did reach the edge of the forest. The mountain range continued on and on, connecting to peak after peak as if it were endless.

Only at daybreak did I realize the truth: heading for the edge was a meaningless effort.

Just a little farther.

That thought crossed my mind, but I didn’t have the luxury of time. The forest was far more vast than I had expected.

Part of why I wanted to stop was instinct. The fact that I had come this far and still felt the same meant it probably was endless.

Still, it wasn’t a complete loss.

Just before dawn, I managed to find another creature. It resembled the furball I had seen before, but was slightly different. Though it had the same black fur, it was bird-shaped.

It didn’t feel like a mystical beast either, but Cho-Yeon had declared the furball as one. If this one looked similar, then it had to have undergone a similar transformation.

With that in mind, I reopened a portal to the cabin.

***

[Heal the mystical beast under the alchemist’s protection. Time remaining: 100 hours 36 minutes.]

As I stepped inside the life-filled area, I felt a familiar shift. The atmosphere of the land had changed again.

To be precise, the way the safe zone regarded me had changed. It was still welcoming me, much like before. This time, however, I sensed something unusual—the energy lingering in the ground somehow resembled my own divinity.

Standing there, lost in thought with my brow furrowed, I sensed movement inside the cabin.

Did I wake her?

The neatly crafted wooden door suddenly burst open.

“Jeez, what the heck. You scared me.”

Cho-Yeon stumbled out, clearly having been startled awake. Her long hair was a messy tangle, and a crust had formed at the corners of her half-lidded eyes.

It could be considered stereotyping, but she finally looked the part of an alchemist.

“You have a dimensional gate, so why’d you come back so late? After talking about that strange creature and just leaving, I got so worried that something happened. Seriously, I couldn’t sleep at all,” she grumbled, voice tinged with frustration.

She was scolding me, but I couldn’t help but smile. I could tell she was genuinely concerned.

Given that the tower had hired her, I had assumed she would be used to death and indifferent to others.

Turns out I was wrong.

Thinking back to her grumbling earlier, I couldn’t help but wonder if having an older sister was like this.

“Sorry. I’ll make sure to check in from now on. I was busy catching this little guy,” I answered with a smile.

In truth, I had only found it at the very end, but a harmless white lie like this didn’t feel wrong.

“Well, what matters is that you made it back alive. And you brought another mystical creature, too.”

“By the way, did you find anything useful?”

“Oh, with the samples? I’ve already finished analyzing the herbs and flowers. I filtered out the toxins and extracted only the medicinal components. Now I just need to see whether they actually work on the mystical creature. Yaaawn—” Cho-Yeon let out a loud yawn and stretched her arms high. “Hold on. I’ll go grab another cage.”

“Wait. Before that, let’s check something. Let’s see if it behaves similarly to the furball from earlier.”

“Oh, right! I completely forgot. I’m so tired.”

She nodded, and I released the black bird from my hand. I wasn’t concerned about it flying off.

Just like the furball, it didn’t seem particularly dangerous. Perhaps because something had converted it to its current state, it no longer possessed any special abilities. Even if it flew, I could easily catch it again.

Then, the bird mimicked the furball’s behavior exactly. It rubbed its body gently against the face of the caged mystical creature, then turned toward the forest.

Like it is trying to escape.

I reached out and caught it as it feebly fluttered away.

Cho-Yeon’s eyes sparkled as the last traces of drowsiness disappeared from her face. “Wow. That’s incredible.”

I nodded briefly. “There’s definitely something going on between this one and the others. Hmm. That dragon-like mystical creature could have been something akin to a king among them.”

“Yeah. It did look like the others were showing it reverence. Plus, it’s bigger than the rest.”

I found the idea that the creatures considered the imoogi as their king because of its size amusing, but I nodded anyway.

However, her next sentence was surprisingly perceptive.

“Maybe that mysterious entity you spotted earlier is responsible for all of this.”

“Seems likely.”

After placing the bird in the cage, Cho-Yeon turned to face me. “You’ve had a long day. You’re heading to bed now, right? I’m absolutely exhausted, you know. Someone kept me up all night waiting.” 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

“Ah, I also brought a few more herbs and flowers.”

She rubbed her tired eyes as she muttered, “Give them to me tomorrow. Your bag preserves things permanently anyway, doesn’t it?”

“Fair enough.”

That was something I couldn’t argue against.

I only needed a couple of hours of rest to feel fully recharged, but that wasn’t the case for everyone. If she had stayed up late waiting for me and continued to work, she would be completely worn out in the morning.

As I considered where to rest for the night, Cho-Yeon, already walking toward the cabin, looked back over her shoulder. “What are you doing just standing there? Planning to sleep outside? Come on, don’t be like that. I’m not some overly rigid person.”

She gave me a sly look. “You don’t exactly seem like the type to jump me just because we’re under the same roof.”

“Excuse me?”

I stared at her, startled, but she only shrugged as if it was nothing and gestured toward the cabin with her chin.

“Don’t overthink it. Come inside. There are two beds.”

“Uh...” I trailed off.

Still, no matter how casual it seemed, we were a man and a woman. My inner Confucian self began to stir.

Or not. Just kidding. That isn’t the issue.

I simply didn’t feel like sleeping near Cho-Yeon, even if it was in a separate room. The cabin was certainly large enough to have multiple rooms.

Naturally so, since she would need a space to work. I hadn’t stepped inside yet, but it was bound to be spacious.

Even so, is it really necessary?

My disinterest didn’t stem from some deep reason. It was purely a matter of where I preferred to sleep. The portable tent I carried was much better. I even had a top-tier luxury bed worth thousands of achievement points stored inside.

Given how little I usually slept, I had become rather obsessive about creating the most optimal sleeping environment.

Cho-Yeon probably wouldn’t take it well, but I reached into my bag and pulled out a mimic that could transform into a tent.

“I have something I carry with me. I’ll sleep out here.”

“Wait, seriously? You carry that around? Still, wouldn’t the cabin be more comfortable than a tent? There’s a proper bed inside.”

“I’m good. I’m more comfortable with this,” I declared firmly

Cho-Yeon nodded halfhearted, clearly unsure what to make of it. “Alright then. Somehow, I feel like I’ve turned into the bad guy. Like I was trying to seduce you or something. Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

“Haha,” I laughed sheepishly and politely remarked, “Sleep well.”

“Yeah. You too.”

***

[Heal the mystical beast under the alchemist’s protection. Time remaining: 96 hours 23 minutes.]

The next day—or rather, later that same morning—I woke to the sound of Cho-Yeon moving about. She seemed to be working on something.

Raising my head slightly, I glanced at the notification window. Around four hours had passed. As expected, I didn’t feel the slightest bit tired.

For me, four hours of sleep was more than enough. What caught me off guard, however, was that Cho-Yeon was already up and back to work. She had seemed utterly exhausted before, but clearly, she followed through on her responsibilities.

Well, that has to be why the tower hired her in the first place.

As I sat up in bed, I felt a peculiar sensation ripple through me.

At that moment, I finally understood why this land felt so strangely familiar. It was because of the source of this life-filled earth. It was my own divinity.

Wait, what?

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. The realization was unsettling enough to send chills down my spine.

I had never bestowed divinity upon this land. It wasn’t something that happened naturally while I slept, nor had I unconsciously done it in some trance-like state.

The divine energy had been present since the very moment I arrived. I didn’t know why. Only with the passage of time had I finally come to recognize it for what it was.

What can this mean?

A memory surfaced. It was still vivid, since it had happened not long ago.

The only instance I could recall giving my divinity to something was on the eighty-sixth floor, at the Shrine of the Forgotten Gods. Other than the shrine, the bracelet of the ancient fairy Seorden—created by the First God—had absorbed my divinity after it shattered.

In exchange for resurrecting me, I had paid the bracelet a heavy price. Not only had it taken much of Endless Furnace’s remnant divinity, but it had also taken most of mine.

Other than that moment, I couldn’t recall giving divinity to anything else. At least not directly, aside from Gehennah or Hyang, as they were my apostles.

That hypothesis made a surprising amount of sense.

Perhaps I hadn’t immediately recognized the divine energy here as my own because it had merged with Endless Furnace’s. Moreover, at the time, I had been absorbing other remnant divinities.

Is this world connected to that bracelet?

Perhaps the Primordial God had once ruled over this planet, and the mystical beasts had ended up like this because they had vanished.

Then again, it is only the bracelet of a fairy. Is it really that significant?

I continued to ponder, but no clear answer came to mind.

Former mystical beasts, the current mystical beasts, the divinity within this land, and the mysterious figure I had seen. All of these were pieces of a puzzle.

Although the clues were piling up, they remained scattered and incomplete.

Still, it wasn’t disheartening. If anything, I felt encouraged.

At least I am making progress.

Of course, it was entirely possible that this wouldn’t help me heal the mystical beast. After all, if the bracelet hadn’t existed, my divinity wouldn’t have taken root in the land.

Although perhaps it was precisely because I used the bracelet that this trial had been assigned to me.

Either way, it made little difference.

Even if the divine energy saturating the land had nothing to do with healing the mystical beasts, it was clear that it would lead me to the hidden mission on the eighty-seventh floor.

During that process, I could very well stumble upon the key to restoring the mystical creatures as well.

With that thought, I rose to my feet and stepped outside.

***

「Invisible message: All divine energies lingering in the final land of life have assimilated into Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok’s divinity.」

「Invisible message: The hidden mission ‘Seorden’s Forest’ has now commenced. From this point forward, the weakened fairies will assist Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok.」