Chapter 43

Tower Conquerors (III)

On their way through the ravine, the small party had slowly dispatched over thirty Spikers and, against Cain’s expectations, met nobody except the other small party on the entrance. Their overall haul was decent in quantity, though not-quite-there in terms of quality as most of the items were just like the dagger-like spike from the entrance.

“That is a good place,” Diya said suddenly, pointing at the small protrusion midway up the cliff with a clear dent to use as a shelter. “How can we climb...”

Cain charged Wind within his hands rapidly and swung them forward, tossing Diya, Emma, and Jamal into the air as the three cried out in panic. He followed after them, slowly ascending and meeting the pale-faced trio who was angrily staring at him.

“At least warn us, dude!!” Jamal cried out.

"Seemed more fun this way," Cain chuckled as he sat down, whipping his legs over the edge, staring at the winding path through the ravine. Graystones, ever so often, would bend out of the mass and turn into spiked protrusions, giving the whole place a ghastly look. Furthermore, due to the lack of 'sunlight', it was consistently dark. However, just like with every other 'interior' in the Tower, there was always some light -- almost like ambient light in the games, where even if it was ‘pitch black’, it really wasn’t.

“Here are the sandwiches and the water,” Diya pulled out a spread on top of a fairly colorful blanket, sitting cross-legged afterward. Cain, instead of joining them, lit up a cigarette. “E-eh? Mr. Cain... you won’t eat?”

“Hm? Ah, I will, don’t worry,” Cain glanced back, smiling. “By the way, can you stop calling me ‘Mr. Cain’? It makes me sound like I’m sixty or something. I’m still young, you know? And full of life!”

“With how much you’ve been smoking,” Emma chimed in. “You won’t be for long.”

“... yeah, I really need to curb it,” he assented. “This is on you, you know?”

“Huh? How’s it on me?!”

“You should have been more relenting in stopping me back then.”

"Oh, suck a dick 'I'll stash cigs inside every nook of the fucking house and then sneak out three times a night, waking up my wife every time in the process, and pretend she don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about when she calls you out on it’.”

“...”

“... that was... wildly specific.” Jamal commented, taking a bite of the ham sandwich. “Many respects man, but the more I hear about you... the more I’m starting to think you were a bad husband.”

“Oh, I was godawful,” Cain nodded, pulling his legs back and joining the circle. “One of the worst.”

“At least,” Emma said, sighing. “You never blamed me for any of it.”

“Hey, look,” Cain smiled faintly. “She’s doing that thing she did for years while we were married -- hey, at least he’s not a total piece of shit! That’s good enough of a reason to stick around!”

"..." she glared at him for a moment before her expression mellowed out into a smile. Shaking her head, she also began eating as Cain tossed the half-smoked cigarette over the edge, joining them. "How far away are we?" Emma asked.

“Hmm,” Cain mulled over as even he was uncertain. After all, his memories of the first floor were quite vague, especially these not-often-ventured paths. “About two days, maybe? At our current pace. Was another one of your Mana traps triggered, Diya?”

“Yeah,” the young woman nodded. “They’re uh... three kilometers behind us. I can’t tell how many...”

“... why are they even following us?” Emma groaned. “Shouldn’t they be off doing their thing?”

“I think it’s ‘cause everyone’s confused as all fuck,” Jamal said. “And nobody knows what they’re doing. And then you went and said ‘we’ve a location in mind’, so they think there are some treasures or shit there.”

“...” Emma’s cheeks flushed red in embarrassment for a moment as she lowered her head, causing Jamal to panic slightly and for Cain to chuckle.

“Let her eat herself for it,” he said. “On the rare occasion that she does make a mistake, we need to let her learn from it.”

“Mr--I-I mean, Cain...” Diya mumbled suddenly, drawing attention to herself. “Can... can I ask how you two... meet?”

“... she moved in two houses down when I was, what, four? Five maybe?” Cain replied, thinking deep and hard on the distant memories that were largely beginning to blur. “I was curious about who the new guys were, so, the next day, I snuck out and went over, spying. Then I saw a girl playing around with her dolls, so I just left.”

“...”

“...”

“... what?” he glared at Jamal and Diya who gave him dirty looks. “Like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“... still,” Jamal said. “Damn, dude.”

“Oi, I was like four years old, dude! All I wanted to do was play ball! Not dress up dolls or whatever!”

“Don’t be hard on him, guys,” Emma chuckled. “He came back tomorrow again and we played ball. I kicked his ass.”

“...”

“...” the dirty looks didn’t go to Cain, however, but Emma, startling her.

“W-what?”

“No wonder the poor guy ended up being insecure for so long...” Jamal mumbled.

“Oh, miss me with that garbage,” Emma growled.

“She was better than most boys throughout,” Cain shrugged. “That’s what made me insecure.”

“Oh? It wasn’t the fact that she was the babe of your school and that you were the invisible creep people kind of knew about?”

“I bet you were a virgin until your twenties.”

“Hey!! It was hard!!”

“... oh, wow.”

“Shut up...”

As they slowly began finishing their meals, Cain stood up and charged Body into his eyes, enhancing his sight nearly four times, scouting the extra three diverging paths in the distance. Not only did they not run into other people, but even the number of monsters was much lower than he thought. Furthermore, though there were signs of battle, there were no corpses -- human or monster. It’s likely another party, it was fairly obvious to him, but he said nothing to others as he didn’t want to startle them or, even worse, make them expectant. But... the efficiency is scary, especially in the clean-up...

He continued to mull in silence as the other three cleaned up and joined him, inspecting the bottom and waiting for him to gently lay them down as none quite dared jump as they had no idea just how resilient their bodies were.

"You two will be fine," Cain said to Emma and Jamal. "Heck, even if you jumped twice the height, you'd break a leg at most. Hmm... you two go down and continue through the right path at the next junction. Diya and I will follow you from above."

“... what’s wrong?” realizing that something was off, Emma asked with a frown.

“Might just be my paranoia,” Cain shrugged. “But let’s not take any chances.”

“...” shortly after, Jamal and Emma heaved themselves off and landed squarely, kicking up dust but not much else, appearing completely fine if not slightly startled as their minds were yet to get accustomed to the sheer resilience their bodies possessed.

Cain charged Wind around his and Diya’s bodies and lifted them up in the air, hovering forward gently. Diya quickly grew pale-faced, holding onto her staff tightly and staring wide-eyed at the distant ground, a drop, she was certain, that would kill her.

“Mind showing me your status window, Diya?” Cain asked suddenly, mostly to distract her, but also to see her progress.

“A-ah? Of-of course!” she nodded, rapidly summoning her status screen for him to see.

///Name: Diya Badami Age: 22 Race: Human

Class: Illumity Level: 20

Strength: 9 Vitality: 25 Agility: 16 Stamina: 17

Intelligence: 201 Wisdom: 183 Health: 250 Mana: 2866

Traits: Paranoid(D-), Intelligent(SS-), Timid(B+), Stubborn(C+)

Skills: Grand Illumination(B+), Salvation (B), Soul Recovery (A-), Rebirth(B+), Undying(C-), Enarmor(D+), Shield of Light(C-), Mana Eruption(E+)

Items: Staff of Illumination(B-), Tome of Light(D+), Edified Bracelet(D+)

Titles: The First Illumity, Void Slayer, Slayer of the Nightmares, Renowned Illumity, Grand Maester of Light, Untouched, Endless

Achievements: 9 (+1 to Main Stats for each achievement)///

Though he’d expected it... he still nearly let out an audible groan. She already cracked 200 int... of course... Diya, luckily, didn’t notice the change in his eyes as hers were still glued to the distant ground, staring at it in terror. God, no wonder she became superstar-level support even with her timid personality... she doesn't even need to know anything, just spam her spells and every party in the world would kneel to have her...

It didn’t hurt that Illumity was a group-centered support class, similar to a Bard. However, unlike the latter, it didn’t necessarily focus on buffs, but rather on outright healing, shields, debuffing, and damage prevention. As far as he knew, after their Second Awakening, the base skill, Shield of Light, would evolve into Reawakening, the only SSS- ranked skill that was publicized, whereupon she would shield up to 2000 people with a shield that blocked damage equal to fifteen full HP bars of whoever received it. Shame she never got to show it off to its full potential...

Gathering 2000 people was virtually -- no, it was outright impossible. Rather, the largest raid ever gathered had around 400 people and it was a complete mess as the chain of command collapsed within the first few minutes. Besides, unless it was for the field bosses, it really wasn't necessary for any of the floor bosses, and even less so for dungeon bosses.

“--e-eh? Is... are those people... there?” Diya interrupted his thoughts, dragging his attention toward the distance where she was pointing her finger.

“Yup.” he nodded. Indeed, it was a party -- a party of six, to be more precise, and even just a quick glance at them told him they had some basic Tower experience. They were by no means even ‘decent’, but, for the current stage, they were likely near the top. They coordinated well, using a Paladin and a Bulwark at the front to corral three Spikers against the cliff’s wall, while a Blademaster and an Assassin flanked, and an Elementalist bombarded from the back. Their Bard remained at the far end, repeatedly singing.

“Well,” Cain shrugged and stretched, speeding up and ahead of Emma and Jamal, spotting another small protrusion on the cliff’s wall where he landed with Diya. “Let’s see how our two friends handle it...” he smiled strangely, startling Diya.

“H-huh? We... we’re not joining them?”

“Why?” Cain shrugged. “If shit breaks out, those two can handle it. You want some beer?”

“H-huh?”

“I managed to sneak a few cans when Emma wasn’t watching,” he said, pulling one out of the inventory. “Can’t enjoy a show without alcohol, right?”

“U-uh... I... I guess?”

“Here,” he handed the can to Diya who absentmindedly accepted it, staring at it for a good while. T-this... it is a rite of passage! Yes! If I drink with him... Mr. Cain will acknowledge me!

Cain was entirely ignorant of the girl's dreamy thoughts as his focus was wholly at the bottom where the party of six was finishing up the three Spikers, just in time for Emma and Jamal to burst onto the scene and startle them. Ah, this ought to be fun...