Runebound Reverse Tower of The Dead-Chapter 79: A Deal With An Administrator

’Oh, that’s novel. Why is he panicking? Perhaps it’s something they didn’t know...’

He smiled wide enough that his molars showed. Not a friendly smile. A baring-of-teeth smile.

"Or," Kael said, letting the words hang just long enough to be heard, "is it about the legendary hammer?"

"What is he talking about... Rabbit?" Dragon asked, the calm voice dipping slightly into something colder.

"He’s delusional," Torrac snapped immediately, waving a paw as if he could swat the topic away. "Don’t mind him. We’re here to talk about the damned action you just committed!"

"No," the same feminine voice said, calm but edged like a blade. "I’d like to hear what the human has to say."

Kael turned slightly toward the sound. "Thank you, Lady Snake."

The rabbit’s eyes were about to bulge out of his skull.

"Seems like," Kael said, "I obtained a few treasures ahead of everyone else, and Torrac was adamant that I hand them over. Are those the rules of the tower?"

"That is not the case," Dragon replied. "All that you obtain is dutifully yours. Unless you can’t keep it. But what is this about handing them over? No administrator should interfere in what a climber has, especially a new one."

"But he isn’t even supposed to be here! He’s alive!" Torrac blurted, desperation bleeding into his voice.

"That is something we know," another gruffer voice said, heavy and blunt, "so what?"

"Lord Boar, it isn’t like that," Torrac rushed, "those items weren’t supposed to belong to the dead. If he were to exit, "

"What is wrong with him earning things by his own strength," Lady Snake replied, "and he can only exit at the tenth floor. How many survived until then?"

"That is something I’m also worried about," Kael added, and he didn’t even have to fake the bitterness. "After all, dear Torrac almost caused me to die on the first floor..."

The whole room turned dark.

Not from light, there was barely any to begin with, but from how everyone seemed to shift when they heard that statement. Attention tightened. The air seemed to narrow, like the room itself leaned in.

"Don’t you dare slander me!" Torrac howled.

"But is it not true," Kael said, refusing to blink first, "that you only handed me the title [Legend] when I was outside the Trials of Ulsal?"

"That..." Torrac hesitated, then scrambled. "I have done nothing wrong. There was an issue with delivering the title since no one expected it to appear in the first floor anyway!"

"What is the meaning of this?" Dragon asked.

"It’s just a foolish misunderstanding, don’t worry about it."

"No," Dragon replied, and for the first time his calm felt like a threat. "I must worry." There was a pause, small, but it rang. Then: "You expunged the happenings in the first floor..."

"It wasn’t the case," Torrac said quickly. "Like I said, his case is special. He comes with all sorts of bugs."

"Those bugs must be reported," Dragon said. "Or are you trying to avoid responsibility right now?"

"This isn’t what I called this meeting for!"

"Silence!" This time the voice came from a rather shrill seat, thin, sharp, and somehow more frightening because of how controlled it was. "You are supposed to manage the first floor, and when cases like that happen you report them, or are you going against our backs now? Do you think that what happened to Rat won’t happen to you if you keep going behind us?"

"N-no. Sir Monkey, I didn’t do any of such."

"Climber Kael Ardent," Sir Monkey continued, and Kael felt the attention land on him like a weight, "you seem to have been wronged. We shall make a full investigation regarding this matter and compensate you accordingly. As for Rabbit, seeing how the floors you’re managing are already in this state, you’ll have to answer to a few of our questions!"

"This is not the time!" Torrac tried to throw away the subject of the conversation, voice rising into a frantic pitch again. "HE KILLED A ZOMBIE!"

Everyone looked at the rabbit like he was crazy.

"So what?" Boar rumbled.

"It’s only been four days since the trial begun in his region. Four days, and the Ifrit is already enraged, a Trial of Ulsal has been cleared, he owns two legendary items. He killed the entire line of the basilisk but the mother, and killed a dormant Zombie. The whole floor will go up in flames now!"

"Ah..." Dragon said, and the sound wasn’t approval or anger. It was... acknowledgment. Like a chess player seeing a move that complicated the board.

Kael’s throat tightened. Hearing his feats said out loud like that did sound preposterous, like someone reading out a list of crimes he hadn’t realized were crimes. But he shouldn’t be blamed for trying to survive, right? The Tower didn’t give him a manual. It gave him teeth and timers.

"This is rather... intriguing," the calm Dragon replied. "Kael Ardent. You do realize that what you just did could compromise the success of this floor?"

"I don’t fully follow," Kael said, forcing his voice steady. "It was an enemy. I took it down."

"That is true," Dragon replied. "But, by enraging the Ifrit, I’m sure your time in the floor had reduced."

"Considerably," Kael admitted, jaw tight. That memory still burned: T-12 days. The map ringed in flames. The zone shrink. The panic he’d heard in other climbers’ voices.

"That is one of the issues," Dragon said, "but that can be managed. Many had done that before." A beat. "But none of them also killed a dormant zombie."

Kael’s brow furrowed. "What would happen if someone killed a dormant zombie?"

"Well," Dragon said, and the word carried the weight of inevitability, "its brothers will wake up."

"Ah..." Kael breathed, and the understanding hit like cold water. He’d walked into a storage room and killed one statue, and in doing so he might have tugged a thread attached to a thousand sleeping bodies.

"Now you finally see what I have to deal with!" Torrac said, triumphant as if he’d won an argument instead of lit a fire.

"But so what?" Kael asked, and the bluntness of it made the room go still again.

"Hoo..." Lady Snake’s voice sounded, faintly amused or faintly disturbed, hard to tell. "You’re not worried if the whole floor is overrun with zombies?"

"Not much," Kael said. "Not really..."

"You seem to be misunderstanding something," Dragon replied. "The tower functions in a way that awards... effort. And by releasing the zombies early, a lot of said... effort will be wasted. Many will die, and a lot of... tools required for survival won’t be available."

"I can see what you’re trying to hint at," Kael said, voice hardening, "but again, so what?"

"You’re being stubborn," Boar said.

"No," Kael replied. "I really am not." He turned toward the direction of the boar’s voice. "Is it against the rules?"

The Boar didn’t reply.

Kael exhaled slowly, the frustration finally bleeding into something rawer. "I only did what I had to, to survive. And I’ll do it again and again." His throat tightened, and for a second the Council Room felt less like an arena and more like a courtroom that didn’t care about innocence, only outcomes. "Killing a zombie would bring about the apocalypse? Fine. I’ll survive that too. So what?" He swallowed. "All I’m trying to do is get back to my family."

He sighed, and it wasn’t for drama. It was exhaustion. "Though I doubt that’s even possible now I’m stuck here..."

"You mother..." Dragon said.

Immediately, Kael’s face turned dark.

The calm snapped. The numbness left. Something hot rose in his chest so fast it felt like pain.

"What about her?" Kael’s voice came out sharp enough to cut.

"You wish to find the Elixir," Dragon said, "save her, right? From the mana poisoning."

"SO WHAT?!" Kael snapped. "Are you threatening me?"

"I do not need to," Dragon replied. "Nor am I." A pause, heavier now. "But you seem to be impatient. I’ll resolve this incident." The words landed like a verdict. Then: "Kael Ardent, I’ll tell you a couple of things, but I’ll need you to do me a favor..."

Kael’s eyes narrowed. "I don’t like where this is going, but sure..."

"The first thing," Dragon said, "once you leave the tower for the first time, I’ll personally hand over an Elixir to you."

Kael’s face twisted, disbelief and anger mixing. "You’re mocking me, aren’t you? Aren’t I supposed to only leave by the tenth floor?"

"Yes."

"Then do some math," Kael shot back, the words spilling fast now. "I’ve been here for four days already and haven’t even seen the end of this floor. If it takes at least ten days to clear it, which is already a stretch, then that’s half a month. So you think I can clear from the second to the tenth floor in less than half a month?"

"That won’t be happening," Dragon said evenly. "Each floor has its own ways. You could spend years before reaching the tenth floor."

"Then what the hell am I going to use the elixir for?" Kael’s voice cracked with something he hated showing. "My mother would be long dead by now. Stop giving me false hope. I’m not that pitiful, nor that stupid."

"I understand," Dragon said. "But that only works if the Tower works the same as your world. Only the normal tower is attuned to your world’s time... the Tower of the Dead isn’t."

Kael’s breath caught. "What does that mean?"

"The moment you came in here," Dragon said, "time in your world has already stopped."

It was as if Kael was struck by lightning. His mind went blank for half a beat, then tried to fill itself in all at once.

"That means..."

"Not a single second had gone by since you fell down the river," Dragon continued. "Time is frozen." A quiet finality. "So, would you hear my request after listening?"