Forest. Abundance. Hunt (2)

[Nope. I believe I am what you would call an overseer. A manager of the floor. A constellation, even, if you will.]

"The manager… of the floor?"

[That's right. Unfortunately, your tower is far too weak to be able to have me show up. As you have guessed, though.]

The people here were far too surprised. That there were behind the tower, that there were other towers, that each floor had these god-like beings as managers, there was too much information for them to digest and it was natural to miss.

But I already knew all of this.

As the words went on, I focused my attention on everyone around me.

You could break mountains with a punch or crash lightning with your wrists, but in front of Adaptability, all those strengths were useless.

I was going to filter the adaptable from the unadaptable.

The wizard's eyes remained trembling while Mignon and Olivia's careless smiles were wiped away.

The blade of Darkness and the Regressor both took it as it came.

I was slightly lost about the Regressor now. This was the problem with his breed. He could grow and grow and I would never know. Before things went out of hand, I had to bring him back under my thumb.

[Now then, since you already know its different. All you need to do is to find a key and go to the next floor! Easy as that.]

"A key…?"

"So there's no need to battle? We just need to find the key and open the next floor like this one?"

Of course, this tower was never so kind.

[The key, though, can be anywhere on the floor! From below some rocks to deep within some grass. It's just a standard sized key after all. And the floor is as large as the ones below.]

Color drained from everyone's face.

The floors below were housing every single person in the tower, and even then most of it was littered with dungeons.

With something of that scale.

[Since I told you everything, I'll leave. May your actions bend the will of fate.]

Was impossible to be handled alone.

The group crossed their arms and watched in slight surprise.

There was too much to talk about, but the worst was the place itself.

"We should descend."

At the wizard's proposal, everyone immediately nodded. Conversations could be had later. What mattered now was to secure our way out.

And for that, we needed to find the elevator.

The Blade of Darkness then spoke up. "We'll split up and look for the elevator. Meet here in six hours. Since I am the strongest, I'll go alone."

"I agree," said the Colonel.

In no time at all, we divided ourselves in obvious groups. The wizard with the colonel, Mignon with Olivia, and the Regressor with me. The Blade of Darkness was covered in his cloak as always and honestly, was probably as good as any two groups together here.

We made some marks on the trees around us as an identifier and decided to gather at the same spot.

With that, we all split up first to look for the elevator down.

This was also a great chance to scout the place for everyone.

The group started separating when I pulled out a dagger, making marks on my way through the forest. Though it felt like the regressor knew the direction at every moment.

As the regressor and I moved slightly far away, I spoke up.

"Regressor."

"Yes, sir?" He seemed nervous once more, though he kept a straight face, I could easily notice his legs trembling. "The key on this floor, is not going to be randomly on the ground."

"You… know?"

"Yeah. It is with groups here, people."

The Regressor stopped in his tracks.

"People? There are others… living in the tower?"

I stopped too and turned to face him.

"Yeah. There are… strong tribes of elves on this floor."

The Regressor took a step back.

"Elves? Y-y-you mean the elves I know, sir?"

I nodded once more.

"One of the have the key that will take us to the next floor."

"Wait… there are other people in the tower? What are we gonna do!?"

The Regressor seemed to be panicking again.

But I could only find his words laughable.

I turned my back on him and started walking ahead once more.

"What do we do? What kind of question is that?"

There was no need to ask something like this. None at all.

My course of action was naturally unchanging. We weren't going to do anything different from what we usually did.

"I told you, didn't I, regressor?"

The Regressor flinched.

Strong elf tribes.

"Strength that isn't under me… has no reason to exist."

They would either bow.

Or they would die.