Tower (4)

Vicente munched on rations from his jar while deep in thought.

'I wonder how it looks....'

<A well-imitated Philosopher's Stone.>

All the artifacts that are currently equipped on him are colorless ones.

But his runes will become red during the Final Dungeon.

And of course he could only fight the enemy if he prepares red gear.

'But that's impossible.'

It was quite obvious actually.

How would he gain red gear in the colorless stage?

To do that he needed to gain a growing artifact like Nurmaha's ring and then feed it with a lot of runes to make it red.

It would impossible to cover his body with such artifacts.

But the thing that made it possible was the weaker version of the Philosopher's Stone.

If you turn it into powder and then apply it, the quality of the energy a weapon could absorb increases by one level.

Though it's not like a new skill is unlocked like with the growing artifacts, the simple fact of it being able to absorb the red energy and not the colorless energy was still a huge improvement.

'Though there's a time limit…  it only had this notable use to me.'

If you take into account of the size of that Philosopher's stone then he could probably turn all his gear into red artifacts while he is inside the Final Dungeon.

'The room of the Treasure Hunt.'

This was a hidden piece which could be obtained in the 50 Man Room of the 2nd floor, at the <Treasure Hunt>.

If you go to the 2nd floor from the 1st then another circular plaza appears and one would get into a group there again.

This was where he should be going right now but spidey sense was tingling come hither in yee direction so his feet made a turn.

'Sigh what a drag, but you da boss instinct.'

This was where he came upon the group of 15 with Shinichi as the lead, he was surprised at first by their co ordination and slight leisure but he soon found out the reason behind this.

'Library hm, what a catch, I could use someone like him, first I have check his mental state of crazy to see if it's within leashable range but he looks promising.'

Obviously he couldn't look at him and go, oh, this guy has library, nor could he tell by behaviour within the short two hours he was tailing them, he heard them say the trait name out loud. Hansoo could probably do better but he only used Hansoo as a whip for when he had subpar results.

For something like this get didn't care who was better.

"Oi didn't I tell you to stand your ground why did you jump backwards!"

Shinichi was in the middle of a break and reprimanding one of his men. All he got from his scolding was an- oh, i won't do it again- even a five year old could tell he didn't mean it.

'Urgh its so hard to deal with them, but I have to deal with them to become a capable leader.'

That was his goal, to become a great leader and tactician in this world. That was always his passion.

"Hit the centre of their foreheads where the jewel like protrusion is!!"

All manner of snakes crawled out to sink their fangs into them with so many varieties it was hard to keep up.

Daisuke stabbed furiously at the centre of the forehead of a fat monstrosity infront of him, a snake he called fat but in fact had a great width with tough skin that took a full force strike just to scrape its skin.

'We really can't thank him, that guy'

With Shinichi giving them such prized information their hunting speed was quite fast, almost reaching the centre of the island in only three hours.

Black Stone Python, a snake 6 metres long with a 6 metre circumference, it took five of them to beat it even while knowing it's weakness, the stone on its forehead. The origin of its name along with its scales.

Naturally they didn't know its name as they were mere beginners nor did Vicente who was following in the trees. No beginner would, unless they happened to have,hm, the library trait. Although the name wasn't of any use.

"Gah!- What the Hell are you doing you F*cker"

Hiki, cursed like a malevolent spirit as he collapsed to the ground his right leg was missing from the knee down. It was cut off.

Shinichi coldly looked at him.

"I've warned you time and time again, I've no use for someone who is not only disrespectful but disobedient."

"I've given you one too many chances."

Hiki furiously scowled, "You fucker, think you're hot shit huh!!! Just because your stupid trait! You can suck my-"

Gussshh

With the fast movement of his sword, Shinichi cut off his head. As he cleaned his weapon he spoke

"Collect his runes and distribute his artifacts, let this serve as an example to the rest of you, I won't tolerate disobedience and disrespect. Let's go."

His novice commander spirit was shed as he evolved to a true leader who commanded respect. The rest looked at themselves before three people went up to carry out his orders With slight fear in their movements.

Daisuke smirked seeing their behaviour and crossed his arms looking at the cold Shinichi,' Good , he's shaping up quite nicely, I don't mind following him.'

Vicente nodded from the canopy as well. Parasites needed to be removed, it was a double win as well since he exerted his dominance. In the Otherworld, stuttering merciful leaders had their heads cut off early.

Only a cold commanding ruler with sufficient ability could lead.

The snake forest had a variety of vines and trees and even rocks with snake like textures, the thick canopy almost blocked out all light, however beneath the canopy was still bright as the trees had strange glowing mushrooms on them.

The atmosphere was cold and gloomy with the occasional snake hiss in the distance. The closer and closer they got to the centre the more sparse the tree density, it was getting harder and harder to see a group of trees. The jungle was all but over.

As the sunlight peered down from above, their bodies felt the heat once more in a clearing of land, without much land- A huge cave live pit extended like the a dark maw of a huge beast.

"We go down. The treasure is down there."

Shinichi leaped down his men following him.

Once inside the darkness they fell for a minute or so before landing.

"On guard, take out the mushrooms and put them at your nose like I told you."

This place had no monsters only vicious plants and sleep inducing insects with a few toxic ones mixed in, with his trait, Shinichi had found out about the use of Drylight mushroom which could guard against this places environment.

They hurriedly brought out their mushrooms and put it over their nostrils.

Vicente also had went back for a mushroom upon seeing Shinichi clutching his right before jumping in, his Sixth Sense was spurred by this to go get one

Shinichi lead them to a room marked, Hidden treasure of the Greedy Dwarf.

With a few chests within it.

Vicente returned and descended, following their trail with his Sixth Sense. He found himself outside the door, he waited a while but his initial suspicions stayed true, no sound.

'Perhaps it's sound proof.'

He opened the door deciding to explain himself If necessary.

But what greeted him were 14 corpses with shallow guts.

******************

Kududududu

The giant room which was filled by 50 people started to move with a small noise.

These were all people who had accomplished the room on the 1st floor.

It had taken a whole extra day to collect 50 people.

These people were mostly not part of any clans thankfully, Vicente sighed in relief as it was sort of a time oriented goal for himself .

It was actually a quite reasonable result since most clans had gone up to the 2nd floor right away from the start.

Since most people here were people who had come up after clearing the mission on the 1st floor.

Hideki laughed inwardly as he looked around, he had good feelings about this place.

While they were thinking about this and that, the fairy's voice resonated throughout the room clearly:

"The thing you guys will do this time is the Treasure Hunt!"

"…"

"The rule is very simple. You just need to search through all of the limited space here and find the treasure!"

Everyone frowned as they looked at the map and the view they could see outside of the room.

'… It's too wide.'

Though it was of limited space, the size of the Treasure Hunting area was almost 1.5 km².

A bit too big for 50 people to roam around in.

"You just need to find this."

While they were having numerous thoughts, a small spherical marble appeared in front of their eyes.

A pretty normal marble, though it did shine.

As everyone made strange expressions the fairy laughed as it spoke:

"The treasure itself isn't an artifact but rather an exchange ticket. If you bring this to the center then I'll exchange it for you. Since there's a lot of different articles it'll be fun pondering over it too. I'll show it to you in advance."

Artifacts were shown row by rows in front of their eyes.

It seemed like they varied from number 1 to 50.

1 artifact on number 1.

And 50 of the same artifact on the 50th number.

It was an obvious thought but it seemed like that the lesser the number the more precious it was.

Everyone looked at the 50th one.

<Kurutan's Golden Bludgeon>

The artifact which you could gain 50 of was just a bit better than the weapons they were holding.

A useful artifact but not really at the level of being eye-catching.

"As you see it the 50th one is… well, still useful. Though it's not as good as the 1st one. Which artifact you would exchange for is up to you."

Everyone's gaze had already been focused on the 1st item even without the words of the Fairy.

<Inkaron's Golden Cape>

An item which boosted Charisma, Charm, Luck by 15 and the 8 base stats by 5% too.

The other options were amazing too.

If you take into account that runes would be very hard to gain from now on, the price of this item was not even comparable to the other ones.

Even if it wasn't the 1st item, items up to number 10 were pretty amazing and items up to 30 were items that were a bit hard to gain by hunting.

"Only when you bring the Treasure and exchange for the price in the center the door to the next room will open. No one can leave before that."

Not being able to leave was something they had already heard.

They had come in here after taking that into account.

The situation wouldn't be different in other rooms as well so it was just better to start as soon as possible when 50 people had gathered.

And who knows?

They might find the treasure if they're lucky.

"Then let's start! Heehee."

With those final words the room clunked and stopped.

And a giant jungle had appeared in front of them.

'Hmm…'

The people glanced at each other and then separated into the giant jungle.

Being in a team was not always the best option in such a place.

Actually it might be harder to find if you are grouped.

But just before everyone was apart to separate, the fairy's voice resonated throughout the air.

<You didn't think that you'll just need to have some luck and find it first right? Heehee. The treasure is guarded by protectors. Which means that you'll be able to find the treasure if you kill the protectors one at a time right? This is my small gift to you. Since it'll be too hard to find without this information. One of the 128 would be protecting it.>

And then the images of the protectors appeared in air.

All 128 of them.

Everyone saw this and then frowned their faces.

'Fuck. It's not something I can kill alone…'

They realized instantly.

Though they had gotten quite a bit of skills and runes, it was not something they could solve with just that much.

It was at the level where they at least needed about 5 people to hunt it down safely.

The people who were dispersing flinched.

Since they did not have any confidence in fighting those things alone.

But there was no need for all 50 of them to group up.

One person shouted loudly in the center.

"Is there anybody who would go with me?"

Everyone started to size each other up as they started to group up in tens or so.

The good thing about this treasure hunt was that multiple people could share the result.

Since they couldn't do anything alone, it was better to group up and act together.

There were actually a few people who weren't interested in the treasure among the crowd.

Since it seemed like it was better to hunt for runes in the time where they would fight to earn some crappy thing.

'And as I heard the explanation earlier, it seems like normal beasts gave artifacts too.'

It seemed like that the beasts were pretty good in giving out runes and artifacts in this place.

Which means the artifacts around the level of those in 40 to 50th spot were faster to earn through hunting.

At that moment a voice was heard in the air.

<Oh Yeah. There's one more thing, I promise this is really the last thing. It's because it'll be a bit boring if there is no tension, and I feel like there's some people here ignoring the prize.>

"…"

<It doesn't matter who finds the treasure but everyone without a prize in their hands will die before they leave. Remember this. There's only one treasure but if the person who finds it exchanges it for Inkaron's Gold Cape before anyone can stop it then everyone else but that person would die right? Ok be strong! The time limit is 2 weeks!>

It meant that no matter how strong they were they would all get massacred if one crazy guy exchanged the treasure for only one artifact and left this place.

Everyone's expressions turned hard.

*****************

Small animals could be heard chirping and churning within the jungle, not all animals present in the Otherworld were vicious monsters, there were quite a few unique monsters that weren't attacked because they benefits the environment.

Sunlight slowly spread through the leaves of the jungle full of unknown mysteries, monsters seemed to peer through the greenry and gaze at the adventurers.

Meanwhile the mood of the adventurers was quite strained.

While everyone was being cautious of each other and mumbling about, Hideki cursed out loud.

"Damnable bitch of a fairy…"

2 weeks.

If they don't find the treasure within 2 weeks then they would all die.

Since no one will have the prize they needed to exchange the treasure for in their hands.

And 2 weeks, or 14 days, was definitely not a lot of time in order to kill all 128 of them.

If they're unlucky then the last protector might give the treasure too.

Since the fairy would do things even worse than that.

It seems like around 10 people were needed for them to get through the protector and gain the treasure without any casualties.

Which means they needed to at least hunt 2 protectors a day with 5 teams of 10 people.

If you take into account the time needed to rest after a hunt, 50 people had to hunt non-stop in order to kill all the protectors.

Since the dungeon with the protector they saw from the images the fairy projected did not seem easy at all.

At that moment a person in the very corner of the 50 shouted out loud.

"Let's hunt by dividing into 5 teams of 10. One team can account for 2 protectors a day."

Everyone turned towards him at these words.

'Those guys are…'

All 50 of them weren't that simple.

But these guys were eye- catching even with just a glance.

They weren't clansmen as they were warily glancing at each other subtly every second but it was obvious from their short distance apart that they were used to working together.

What stood out was their equipment, it was highly likely they were the ten survivors of a 50 man room, they were definitely top tier amongst this rag tag group struggling to stay a live. It was good to assume their teamwork was good as well.

Thankfully they weren't clansmen.

There was a huge difference in the actions between clansmen and non-clansmen.

Because non-clansmen would constantly be stealing glances at each other while clansmen are only looking out.

'They're the most dangerous.'

Since there is a clear difference between clansmen artifact levels in the rooms, just one number above or below could be the end of you. Situations like theirs with 50 non clansmen in a 50 man room were scarce.

Clansmen usually dominated these rooms and all stayed alive with the lowest number. The truly strong 'individuals' would come from situations like theirs with the survivors getting better artifacts.

Though they'd still be in a disadvantage against unified clans.

At that moment another voice was heard from the corner.

"I agree. 10 people will take care of 2 a day. This seems like the right choice. If you aren't able to follow then compensate for it."

One of the other three teams that caught the eyes.

They didn't look like a clan either but similarly something else caught the eyes.

They were all holding a precious-looking artifact.

'…Did they kill off the rest in a 30 man room and come up.'

Their aura alone was mighty.

Whatever happened, as the 20 people who looked like the strongest of the 50 agreed, the others fussed around as they nodded their heads.

They didn't like following those people's orders but the fact that they would all die if they did not find the Treasure was right.

They needed to think about it after they find it.

Since the fight will be from that point on.

If they conflict with each other and don't find the treasure then it'll just simply be a massacre.

About 10 people got into teams and then disappeared in multiple directions.

And Vicente also watched the people dispersing and then followed the weakest looking group.

'I will kill everyone here before completing the hidden piece .'