Antagonist Protection Service

As I started walking towards the exit of the boss room, I heard the girl calling for some help behind me, upon which the two other frontline fighters rushed over to offer their assistance.

Standing on either side of the injured guy and wrapping each of their arms around his back, they had his arms over each of their shoulders, supporting him to his feet and walking alongside the rest of the group.

As for the mage and the archer, they were both remaining quite quiet, but they too seemed to follow along without a word.

At the end of the boss room, the huge door seemed to have a hole where one could insert something like a key. Momentarily searching around the corpse of what I presumed to be the original boss, it didn't take long to find it, and that's because I realised it was actually the giant scepter beside its fat, grubby hands.

Picking it up surprisingly effortlessly, I found it to be incredibly light. Although, I suppose if its function was indeed that of a key, it would need to be.

Bringing it over to the door, I didn't hesitate in inserting the end of the scepter into the keyhole, pushing it all the way in until it was stopped by the flare of the torch-shaped head.

Seeing as nothing happened, I then twisted it, causing a loud sound to reverberate like that of a lock opening.

'Ah, there we go.'

Thereafter, I was able to push the tremendous door open without a sweat, revealing a large, flat platform on the other side, with a single pressure plate in the middle.

'Well. That doesn't look ominous at all.'

Despite the blatant suspicious appearance of the thing, I thought there was no way this wasn't the right way to go, so I walked through and onto the platform, which seemed to be made out of an evidently different, lighter kind of stone compared to that which the rest of the dungeon consisted of.

That, and there also appeared to be intricate carvings on its surface, although the platform was much too vast for me to be able to get a good look at it as a whole from a standing position.

Looking up, there seemed to be an endless void of nothing, no matter how far I craned my neck.

In any case, walking over to the middle, I waited for everyone else to catch up and gather onto the platform themselves before stepping on the central pressure plate.

Click-!

Thud! Vrhhhhm~

'Oh, woah...'

At that moment, following a strange mechanical noise, something began to whir, and the entire platform began to rise up at once.

'...It's a lift.'

It was interesting, and actually kind of reminded me of something I had seen in a videogame before, and as I absentmindedly looked around, I noticed an infrequent hole or two in one of the walls, swiftly covered up and lost as we zoomed past.

'There's definitely loot in there, huh... Well, it's probably useless for me, though.'

Glancing back towards the others, they also appeared startled at first at the abrupt displacement of the floor beneath them, but quickly grew used to it.

I also thought we were going quite fast, but considering how far underground we must have been, and how far we continued to go down when 'climbing' the Floors eleven through thirteen, I wasn't exactly shocked.

Either way, it's not like we had a choice but to wait, and it was a good opportunity for everyone to rest even besides that.

Time passed with not much happening, and after what could only have been about thirty minutes later, the ever-rising platform slowly began to grind to a halt.

Ultimately.

[Floors Cleared]

[Obtained Token of Proven Worth (x3)]

We had escaped the dungeon.

...However.

[Floor 14]

[Objective: Find your way to the surface]

We still weren't finished yet.

The platform had reached its destination, but that wasn't the surface.

'We're still underground...'

Still underground, but no longer trapped in a dingy dungeon.

Rather, a damp and smelly cave that was, of course, just as dark as before.

However, it was a different Objective―we had officially cleared the first three Floors following those of the tutorial section, so it should be possible to return to the First Floor now.

Speaking of which.

"Thank you again for the help! I really appreciate it... Um, we're going to go to the Hub now, so if you follow us we'll make sure to pay you back..."

Still tense, the mage girl approached and said as much.

Naturally, my thoughts were the same―I didn't think there was anything she or the other guy could do for me that I would actually want... And although I was dressed like I am, I certainly wasn't going to request something obscene like a real villain might.

'I don't need anything other than to clear the Floors quickly.'

What was most important for me at the moment was to catch up as soon as possible to John Pierce. Even now, he still would have been making pace on Floor 31 or 32―I was barely over a third of the way there, I couldn't relent already.

"Don't mind it."

So, I simply said that.

"Oh...! Well then, um, if you do want something, just come down and find us! We'll help you out anytime!"

Giving a simple nod, I watched her return a smile before dashing back over to her companion, who seemed to have decently recovered during the trip up to this cave.

I didn't plan on wasting time by making a detour to the First Floor for nothing, and besides, if I ever really needed something that badly, I could just go down there at any point and ask for help.

Regardless, perhaps the two Challengers supporting her companion also had a reason to return to the First Floor, or perhaps they simply wished to help them out, but the four of them promptly vanished, leaving just the archer and the white-haired mage.

Sparing the two a glance, who both wordlessly stared at me in turn, I could only assume they wished to continue following me through this Floor too.

I wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed since I returned to the Tower, but going through the previous three Floors must have taken the better part of a day at least.

'...I probably have enough divine energy to last another twelve hours or so. If I actually hurry this time, it should be enough.'

Assuming I didn't use too much of it to enhance myself or use the Moonlight Thule ability, maintaining just enough enhancement to ward off the pain of the demonic energy, I could make it work.

Again, there was nothing really to lose from letting them follow me.

The only time I needed to be more careful of that was when I started getting a bit closer to the Floors where John Pierce was currently at.

"Do what you will."

Turning away from them at that moment and beginning my walk deeper into the cave in which we found ourselves, abruptly, one of them called out.

"I-I have a map!"

Immediately halting, I glanced back over my shoulder to see the mage fumbling around with a bag I hadn't previously noticed was hidden under his cloak.

"Uhh, sorry, just give me a moment..."

Saying that awkwardly, there was some rustling of paper as I and the archer watched him take out a small stack of crinkled paper.

"Here... Maps for all of the Floors, Eleven through Twenty-Four..."

"..."

Behind the Villain's Vizard, my eyebrows rose, staring at all the paper in his hand before flicking up to his face, which bore a patently sheepish smile.

The one to break the silence was not me nor him, but the archer to the side.

"...You have all that, but not a weapon?"

Asking that was a fair question, at least I thought so. Regardless, the mage's reply was swift.

"That... I-I already have magic, and I thought information would be more valuable than a cheap sword or dagger I wouldn't even be able to use properly, so..."

"Oh... Well, I guess that makes sense. Still, isn't it reckless? How much did all of that cost anyway?"

That was also a good question.

"N-not much. I don't have a lot of money, so I couldn't buy them from a vendor in the Hub. I just looked for all the information available online and printed it off..."

"Print...?"

'You can do that?'

Thinking about it, I guess the amount of free information and knowledge available online these days is far, far more than it was in the past, even including the Tower.

I had to keep in mind that John Pierce wasn't the only one climbing fast.

There were tons of other Frontliners high up in the Tower just like he was, and out of those people, there were bound to be at least some who gathered all the information about every Floor they could and distributed it for a profit.

I hadn't bothered to dig too deep into it because I was in a hurry, but...

'This might be more useful than I thought...'

Rather than aimlessly wandering about by myself and getting lost, I could just let this guy tag along and use him as a guide.

That way, couldn't we help each other out symbiotically?

Approaching him, the guy seemed to flinch. Dismissing that, I had only one thing to say.

"Lead the way."

Letting the frankly sinister, mask-modulated voice flow freely, I told him to take the lead.

"Ah, y-yes! Right away!"

Of course, that didn't mean I would let him go at his own pace.