MTLNOVEL Chapter 16
Clearing the 5th floor changed a lot.
The biggest change I felt was the Shop of All Things leveling up to Level 2.
The items, which were only selling the lowest grade before, have now upgraded to low-grade, and in sync with unlocking the blacksmith, equipment crafting materials have been added to the sales list.
In other words.
The growth to Rank 3, which was blocked until now, is now unlocked!
Wow! Ultimate skill! Skill cutscene! Wait, is there even a cutscene?
Plus, now I can comfortably pour low-grade Potions of Growth into my experience bar, which barely scratched with the lowest-grade ones.
But the lowest-grade ones still had their uses.
Of course, they’re needed as ingredients for making cocktails, and also.
“Hey, drink up. Keep drinking.”
“Hwaaaah!”
“No whining. It’s good for you, so drink up.”
Our party’s new 5-star.
The Nokkuves-nim who fills our lack of magic damage.
Tynia was drinking diligently.
Originally, it would’ve taken about 3 weeks?
I was planning to patiently grind and gather pieces to exchange for a complete one.
But luckily, a complete contract dropped at an extremely low probability.
The energy of the universe was gathering for me!
“Arurur…!”
“Hieeeek…!”
“Hey, Lumi. You can’t do that. We’re friends now.”
I patted the head of Lumi, the loyal dog who still hasn’t let her guard down around Tynia.
Ari ran away as soon as she saw Tynia’s potion absorption show, saying she had something urgent to do.
Yo-Hena hasn’t returned from the sanctuary yet.
It was a relaxed day.
“Haaam.”
Yawning, I started thinking about how to complete the final piece of our party.
The current lineup is.
If you rate it, 4555. Not bad.
Element-wise, it’s Wind-Earth-Holy-Dark. Just a random mess.
Position-wise, it’s DPS-Tank-Healer-Mage. Pretty standard.
If I could spend some money, I could unify the elements, but since I can’t buy package deals yet, I’ll let it go.
I’ll need to recruit a tank soon.
Ha-Rong is technically a tank, but they don’t want to fight, and honestly, their performance isn’t great.
People have their rightful places.
Ha-Rong will remain the head blacksmith.
“Woof! Drink up, woof! Lumi drank a lot, woof!”
“Hwaaah…! Master, the dog keeps bothering me…!”
“Only Lumi can call Master ‘Master,’ woof!”
Plus, after promoting Ari recently, I’m short on 3-star contracts, so I can’t upgrade 3-stars to 4-stars.
And the 4-star contracts I’ve gotten so far are all duds, duds!
A healer with no healing skills.
Not kidding. They literally have none.
The best healing is killing the enemy quickly, or so they say.
Then why even have a healer position?
A DPS with all single-target skills.
Unless it’s for boss raids.
In the tower meta focused on clearing mobs, it’s pretty meaningless.
And also, a backline melee DPS.
…Backline but melee.
They carry a gun but fight with bayonets. Squishy.
At this point, I want to dissect the developer’s brain.
Also, 3-stars can be grown to 5-stars with universal contracts.
But 4-stars need to be obtained three times to grow to 5-stars.
Maybe later when I’m more seasoned, but for now, it’s a bit much.
I’m about to hit the ceiling.
A tank.
A tank will come out, right…?
“Eeeek…! Just a big-chested female dog…!”
“That’s bad language, woof!”
“Kyaaah! Did you just hit me? You hit meeeee!”
“Both of you, quiet.”
“Hwaaah….”
“Sniff….”
This is really driving me crazy.
“Lumi, don’t be too harsh on Tynia. We talked about this earlier.”
“Woof! Tynia tried to target Master last night, woof!”
Huh?
Whatwhatwhat?
What happened while I was asleep?
“…Tell me in detail, Lumi.”
“Early in the morning, Tynia got up and went to Master’s bed, woof! And she stared at Master for a while, giggling, and fiddled with Master’s hand, woof! Suspicious, woof!”
“Eek, how did you…!”
“…?”
What really happened?
…I have an idea, but.
“Tynia?”
1. Pick up Tynia.
5. Put her down.
After my relentless interrogation, Tynia finally confessed.
“T-Tynia can give good dreams, sooo… I wanted Master to have a good dream, sniff….”
“Lumi, you heard that? It wasn’t bad intentions, so stop bothering her.”
“Woof! But Master, what kind of dream was it, woof?”
“….”
Can’t say.
I absolutely can’t say that I was swept away by a wave of 108 Lumi dogs in bikinis and had a happy time.
Even though it wasn’t a dirty dream, it’s not something to say in front of her.
Anyway.
“Tynia? Stop crying first. It was a good dream, but… don’t do that again. You should sleep when it’s time to sleep.”
If I keep having dreams like that every day, I might die from frustration.
It’s already tough with the guild house full of girls.
Especially that Yo-Hena (sleepwear) skin was something else…
“Kyaha! Tynia is a high-ranking demon! Unlike weak humans, I can live without sleeping!”
Tynia, who had stopped crying and was now full of energy, flapped her (fake) wings.
Originally, they were real wings, but after switching sides, they became decorative, and even one of her horns disappeared.
A classic “former enemy turned ally (weaker)” trope.
Still, she’s quite useful.
“Hmm, not sleeping, huh.”
So.
Does that mean I can work 24 hours a day?
Oops.
I had something to check before that.
“Tynia, how old are you, by the way?”
“Demons don’t count age! Hmm, if I were to calculate it in human time, maybe I’ve lived about a hundred years? But in the demon world, it’s just a blink of an eye!”
Legit.
I tightly held Tynia’s small hand.
“Tynia, I’m counting on you from now on.”
No violation of the Child Protection Act.
No issues with the labor standards law’s child labor provisions. A clean age.
From now on.
You’re our shop’s night shift part-timer.
I probably don’t even need to pay you a salary.
Hehehe…
Hehehehe…!
Not just a free 5-star character.
She’s a treasure.
A total jackpot.
—
A tower that suddenly rose in the center of the continent.
Created using the power of the Holy Grail, the last remaining divine artifact, to escape the gradually declining demon world and secure new territory.
But powerful forces always come with causality.
Though it was a path connecting the demon world and the human world, the projection of the demon world’s power was strictly restricted on each floor.
As if the will of the goddess who created the Holy Grail was strongly interfering.
So, for efficient management, the demon world appointed tower administrators to prevent the apostles and heroes from climbing.
And.
“…Tynia got defeated? No, not just defeated, but she betrayed and surrendered?”
The 10th-floor administrator, Ellis, felt her head go numb upon hearing the news.
Of course, she had hidden a so-called “conversion contract” in her panties just in case of the worst-case scenario.
Isn’t this too fast?
Why did she surrender so quickly?
Since the administrator could check the progress in countless “parallel dimensions.”
Not only was it an abnormally fast breakthrough.
But the fact that the arrogant brat was subdued in just three days filled Ellis with an inexplicable sense of dread.
Of course, it won’t be so easy from the 6th floor onward.
The greatest intellect of the demon race!
A master of traps and deceit!
The demon of deception, Ellis.
…Though she was stuck in the lower floors because her pure combat power was weak.
And she had almost no points to spend on setting traps…
Anyway.
It won’t be as easy as Tynia.
Bring it on, apostles and heroes!
You’ll just struggle and die without noticing my traps!
“Nyahahahaha!”
The 10th floor of the tower.
Ellis’s frivolous laughter echoed.
—
“Sniff sniff, there’s another trap over there! So lame! Such a lame idea!”
After finishing Tynia’s setup, I came to the 6th floor for a test run.
Since the rewards changed in this section, even if I didn’t clear it, I needed to farm the first area 10 times to drain my stamina.
But, Tynia.
This is really something.
She detects and reports every trap mechanism, even the ones I don’t remember clearly.
This month’s outstanding traitor.
Tynia.
Why don’t you act a bit more guilty?
It’s not like I’m the one who got betrayed.
“Good job, Tynia.”
“Aruru…!”
“I’ll pet Lumi too.”
Even though Lumi growled as if jealous because I was favoring Tynia.
She soon put her head under my hand and wagged her tail.
“Yawn.”
Not many monsters, and Tynia finds all the traps.
This is a total breeze.
“Let’s just farm the first area repeatedly today.”
Still, let’s not overdo it.
Even though we’ve broken through to rank 3 and the party’s overall firepower has increased.
We’re still in the middle of crafting equipment.
And we don’t have enough EXP potions to get everyone to level 40 yet.
Of course, kids grow through fighting.
But honestly.
I don’t want to see our heroes get hurt.
When they were just data fragments?
Even if someone fell, as long as one survived and barely cleared with one star, that was enough.
We could always go for 3 stars later.
But.
“Heal!”
“Stupid dog!”
The only melee DPS with taunt.
Most of the attacks were taken by Lumi.
Even if one heal fixes everything—
It’s a bit sad to see that soft skin get scratched.
What if it’s not just a scratch?
What if an arm gets cut off?
…What if they suffer a serious injury right in front of me?
Of course, according to Yo-Hena, if heroes suffer fatal injuries, they’re automatically ejected from the tower and fully healed at the sanctuary.
But still, it’s unsettling.
[Tower of Wishes 6th Floor – Ruined Village Area 1 Cleared!]
“Good job. Three more rounds to go? Let’s push a little harder.”
As safely as possible.
As cleanly as possible.
As perfectly as possible.
Let’s go like that.