[You have cleared the Enhanced Tower of Despair Floor 83!]
[You are entering the Enhanced Tower of Despair Floor 84, 'Barrier of the Sacred'.]
*Crack!*
A harsh roar echoed as the barrier fractured.
Floor 84, entered right after Floors 82 and 83.
It was a floor where a towering sacred barrier blocked the path.
And that barrier had just collapsed.
"Kraaaaaaah!!"
From the rubble, the monsters that had been guarding the barrier rose to their feet.
Perhaps because they were cloaked in holy power, they emerged without a single scratch despite the massive collapse.
If I didn't have the Inverse Cross, this would have been truly troublesome.
"Let's go."
Just like on the previous floor, Seira, Renya, and I prepared to advance.
*Twitch, twitch, twitch!!*
Beside me, Kancho, who had pulled out his assault rifle, was trembling all over.
"I wanna shoot!!"
He'd even had a mana circuit implanted at the Aeropolis Magic Engineering Lab.
But he hadn't been able to fire a single shot yet because the right situation hadn't come up.
I patted his twitching ears.
"Once we're outside, let's look into it. See if we can change the attribute on Kancho's assault rifle."
Kancho's weapons were the assault rifle and heavy machine gun he'd used during the Saintra siege, plus the gas minigun.
The first two were holy attribute, and the minigun was unaspected, so he couldn't deal damage to these monsters right now.
I could go in, use the Inverse Cross to strip away the holy power, and let him pour fire into them, but... I'd probably die doing that.
As always, our Yordle Ranger's firepower was extremely threatening.
"Kancho! If you've got nothing to do, get over here and move these scales!"
"What are you saying on a battlefield, you crazy bastard!"
Even as he said that, he must have been bored.
He slung the assault rifle over his back, walked over, and plopped down with a thud.
Just like during the Saintra siege, Kancho and Momo's cottage industry began.
Momo cut, and Kancho moved and organized them.
Their teamwork was seamless.
I smiled and pushed off the ground.
Seira and Renya followed, staying within the Inverse Cross's range, slaughtering monsters as they came.
I matched their rhythm and cut down the monsters I faced.
*Swish!*
I dodged an axe flying in from behind at an angle, then kicked upward.
*Clang!*
The monster's jaw shattered, and it collapsed.
Just as I was about to sever its neck with my sword—
"The Knight of Silence shall judge the heretics."
A mutter, almost like a prayer, reached my ears.
"Knight of... "
"Be silent."
"In the silence... "
It was the same elsewhere.
Every monster, as it died, muttered similar words before vanishing.
"Master."
I looked to where Seira was pointing.
In the air above where the barrier had originally stood.
Every time a monster died, light appeared there, growing larger.
It seemed their deaths and prayers were summoning some kind of being.
'The Knight of Silence.'
I had a guess about who it was.
Because Seyeon-nim and Hiyori had warned me about a named monster with a similar setup.
I kept sweeping through the monsters, paying it no mind, for a long while.
*Ding!*
[The Knight of Silence, Bartola, Guardian of the Barrier, reveals itself!]
[It is a being that has received a portion of a divine authority!]
[All enemies who stand before the knight will die in silence!]
From within the blinding light, a knight clad in golden armor and wielding a massive spear stepped forward.
As soon as it appeared, it drove the spear it was carrying into the ground.
*Clang!!*
The shockwave that erupted from it swept across the battlefield in an instant.
"So that's this floor's... "
Seira stopped mid-sentence.
She furrowed her brow as if realizing something.
Renya was the same.
He paused the fight and tapped his ear a few times.
*Ding!*
[Innate Trait 'All Status Effect Resistance SSS+' has activated! You are immune to the status effect 'Silence'!]
[Innate Trait 'All Status Effect Resistance SSS+' has activated! You are immune to the status effect 'Auditory Seal'!]
The kind of monster that magic-based classes requiring incantations would hate the most.
Hiyori and Seyeon had mentioned it too.
They said the silence wasn't a big problem, but the auditory seal was dangerous.
I gestured for Renya and Seira to fall back.
I didn't think sealing just their hearing would be enough to stop those two.
Still, it was better for me, who was unaffected, to move here.
"Foolish beings. Where do you think you're going, leading this procession of heretics?"
I guess this was what you'd call a named monster.
Unlike the other monsters, its vocabulary was fluent.
"You may not be able to hear my voice, but I shall offer a prayer of silence for you fools."
Bartola, not knowing I could hear it, was rambling on its own.
I took a step forward, holding Eonnyeonghancheol in one hand and the Soul Reaper in the other.
Bartola looked at me with interest.
"When one suddenly loses sound, their situational awareness, sense of direction, and instantaneous judgment are bound to blur. You adapt quickly. But that's as far as you go."
Bartola raised its spear and pushed off the ground.
It soared into the sky, looking down at me.
"How pitiful."
No matter how strong a being was, in the end, it was just a slave to its five senses.
Having lost sound, it would have to rely solely on sight for all information gathering.
If it stepped out of its field of vision, like now, it would be practically invisible to that human.
"Weakling. I shall end your pathetic life."
Bartola pointed its spear tip downward and fell rapidly.
*Boom!!*
The circular spear blade smashed into the ground, burying itself.
A question mark formed on Bartola's face.
It couldn't feel it.
The sensation of the spear tip tearing through flesh.
Sensing that something was wrong, Bartola quickly tried to pull the spear back.
Or rather, it tried to.
"!?"
For some reason, the spear wouldn't budge.
As the dust cloud obscuring its vision cleared, it saw a hand resting on the spear's shaft.
An absurdly immense physical strength that defied common sense.
No matter how hard it struggled, it was useless.
The spear embedded in the ground didn't budge a single centimeter.
And before this shock had even fully passed—
"For a Knight of Silence, you sure talk a lot."
The voice of the human who should have been silenced reached it.
"Didn't you know you're supposed to be quiet when you're attacking from outside someone's field of vision?"
I hadn't learned this from my masters, Seira, Renya, or Dark.
I had known this since I was a kid.
Every time I watched an anime or a movie, the protagonist or villain would scream 'Yaaaaah!' even in a surprise attack situation.
Every time I saw a scene like that, my chest would feel tight and stifled, and I'd firmly promise myself, over and over, that if I were in the same situation, I would never do that.
*Kuwahhhhh!!*
I guess this was what you'd call a knight guarding a fortress wall.
Bartola didn't accept this reality easily.
It drew holy power from the remnants of the barrier, adding to its strength.
The entire ground vibrated from the power struggle between the two beings, rubble shifting.
I watched it struggle for a moment.
*Snap!*
I flicked my finger.
The Noble Phantasm, the Inverse Cross of Judas Iscariot, activated again.
In an instant, all the holy power in the vicinity was erased, and Bartola's body was slammed into the ground.
I was about to step on its head, but I opened my mouth instead.
"I'm leading a pilgrimage of heretics to awaken the New Azrael. Do you know anything about Azrael?"
Posts like this occasionally appeared on the Tower site.
Posts about getting information on the next floor from monsters with language abilities.
I was about to just finish it off since I wasn't hearing anything, but then—
"Our Lord said: That sacred light is so brilliant that it devours even light itself. It was sealed using the power of an apostate, but it did not disappear completely, so we must always keep watch. Now that its sole adversary is gone, if it awakens again..."
Bartola raised its head, and a bright light scattered from its eyes.
"It will erase the entire world with an endlessly overflowing golden light."
As it finished speaking, it dissolved into light and vanished.
*Ding!*
[The Knight of Silence, Bartola, has been eliminated!]
[All status effects that had spread across the battlefield are lifted!]
[The Enhanced Tower of Despair Floor 84, 'Barrier of the Sacred', has been cleared!]
"Ah. I can hear now."
Renya tilted his head a couple of times and resumed his halted steps.
I walked over to Seira, who was frowning.
"You okay?"
Seira, wearing a very serious expression, spoke.
"That was the first time sound disappeared. If it had been in the middle of a fierce battle, it might have been dangerous."
"Right. Your spatial awareness and sense of direction do get dulled."
"I was surprised. I didn't realize I relied so heavily on my five senses."
Seira clenched her fist and looked at me with a determined expression.
"I think it would be good to train next time with my eyes covered and my ears and nose blocked."
I couldn't just casually say, 'Yeah, let's do that!'
I'd been happy lately because the frequency of getting beaten up had decreased a lot.
If I did that, I'd end up getting thrashed like I did in the beginning again.
But as a disciple, I couldn't go against my master's will to help me improve even further.
"What do you think, Master?"
"Uh, I think it's a great idea."
I had no choice but to give a thumbs up.
Then I offered some hollow consolation.
To my future self, who was about to get beaten up soundly.
*Ding!*
[Remaining tickets exist!]
[You are now entering the Enhanced Tower of Despair Floor 85!]
---
* * *
---
The living room of Jinhyuk's house in Seopangyo.
*Crunch, crunch!*
Elia, lying on the sofa, was shoving potato chips into her mouth.
"Mmm, is this it? Anyway, these necromancers, these gloomy bastards, they only pick weird letters for their texts, don't they?"
She grumbled as she turned the page.
Currently, the Star Workshop was being cleaned by the assistant she had summoned last time.
So she had temporarily moved her nest to the living room.
Normally, Little Satan and Momo would be running around causing chaos.
But right now, they were all climbing the Tower, so it was quiet.
"Oh, this is it! We're almost there now, for real."
Elia grinned as she transcribed the matched letters.
Bella, walking in from the kitchen, looked at Elia with an indifferent face.
Just by shifting her gaze slightly, the potato chip crumbs scattered everywhere caught her eye.
Shifting it a little more, she saw old books strewn about.
Shifting it a little more, she saw various chimeras and tools used to help decipher the ancient texts.
Just yesterday, the living room had been spotless, without a speck of dust.
But the moment the entity known as 'Elia' dropped in, it had turned into a warzone.
"Huh?"
Elia, who had belatedly noticed Bella, stuck out her thumb.
"Don't worry about the snack crumbs, okay?"
*Buzz buzz buzz buzz.*
"Boom-Booms 3 and 4 will take care of it."
Bella stared at the Boom-Booms, who were working hard.
She had thought she'd get some rest with the Kanmo Duo gone.
But a new, formidable enemy had appeared.
Whether she knew or cared about Bella and the Boom-Booms' feelings, Elia hummed a tune and continued deciphering the ancient text.
After a long while like that.
"Ooooh!!"
Elia shot up from her seat.
With the last sentence she had just matched, the deciphering of the ancient text was complete.
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T/N:
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