I got into school for nothing - Chapter 281
I got into school for nothing (281)
Lesson 55. The Heart of the Tower - 1
“Is it just me, or does it feel like ages since I’ve entered the Tower?”
“Well, Asha,”
“No, never mind. Don’t say it! I was wrong!”
On Friday morning, after heartily filling their stomachs with crab fried rice drizzled with exotic, citrus-based sauce and soup, the members of Rebellion entered the Tower of Babel faster than any other team.
Of course, as they entered, the first-year Special Class members glared at them with an air of superiority, but Rebellion neatly ignored them.
Especially Lusein Ortima, who stood at the center of their group, with a pale complexion as if he were sick.
“If he’s sick, he should just quietly stay in his room, why does he insist on being out here?”
Truthfully, Asha and Ortima had no direct relationship, but both of them had fought Ban Yuwon alongside Ulrike Prominence at the Union Foundation Festival, and having both lost and suffered similar humiliation, they felt a certain emotional connection.
The difference, perhaps, was that Asha gained an opportunity to restore her honor that day, while Ortima, despite his title as heir to one of the Ten Great Families, had his honor plummet into the gutter.
“Don’t you know, Asha? He just achieved his goal.”
“Huh? What?”
To Asha, who countered innocently, Rucell replied with a mischievous smile.
“Right now, you, Asha, showed interest in him.”
“Huh? Well, it’s strange for an heir of one of the Ten Great Families to be out here unable to manage his own condition, so... Did I do something wrong?”
“That itself was his goal. Right now, that man is trying to expose his pitiful and miserable state to us as much as possible to gain our sympathy.”
The space where they had last completed their exploration was precisely Room 200, no more, no less.
From here on, it was the heart of the Tower, a realm that could proudly be called the domain of returning students, not just freshmen. The Tower, which had previously consisted of simple mazes, caves, uncomplicated traps, and monsters that blindly charged without thought, had undergone diverse changes, becoming a space that felt like exploring a small world with each floor they advanced.
—Of course, for Rebellion, the Tower had already been such a place for a long time.
“Oh, come on, even so, a man who is an heir to one of the Ten Great Families is doing something like that to gain our attention?”
“If anything, not us, but Dokgo Yeon, or, to expand a little, perhaps Master Yuwon.”
However, even after arriving at Room 200, Asha and Rucell’s conversation didn’t end.
Even if Asha didn’t realize it, Rucell had been casting fleeting glances at Dokgo Yeon for a while now.
“Ah—so he likes Dokgo Yeon that much. Too bad, Dokgo Yeon is so dense that she didn’t even pay him any mind.”
Asha, who still considered Dokgo Yeon the densest person in the world, nodded innocently and spoke, causing Rucell to chuckle softly.
Truthfully, she had previously heard that Dokgo Yeon “disliked Ban Yuwon wasting his feelings, and thus pretended not to notice any other man at all,” and had been so deeply shocked by this revelation, that she desperately wanted to see Ban Yuwon realize and react to that fact himself.
“So, what do you think, Dokgo Yeon? You knew that man was there too, didn’t you?”
“Beast, and fool. You’ve entered the Tower, yet your mind is too lax.”
And of course, Dokgo Yeon knew Rucell’s intentions, so she hardened her expression and deliberately spoke in a cold voice.
“I don’t care if your head is usually in the clouds, but this place is already a battlefield. Wasn’t climbing the Tower everyone’s goal?”
“Heh... You’re right, I’m sorry.”
It was a golden opportunity to see Dokgo Yeon embarrassed, but when she got serious, there was nothing more to say.
Rucell, who reluctantly gave up on pressing her, gave Ban Yuwon a meaningful wink. Ban Yuwon, who vaguely understood the psychological battle that had transpired between the two, felt as if nine fox tails were wagging behind Rucell’s backside, and could only shake his head.
“Yeon is right for now. I understand that our combat level is higher than the rooms we’ve faced so far, so it’s easy to lose tension—but the saying that the Tower drastically changes from Room 200 onwards will probably apply to us too. Everyone, let’s stay sharp.”
In Room 200, before leaving Eden, they first collected all the flowing Blood Nectar into canteens.
The canteens, modified into artifacts to hold over 10,000 liters of liquid, were already more than half-filled with pure Blood Nectar. Though they didn’t know for sure, anyone aware of the Blood Nectar’s properties in Eden would undoubtedly covet these canteens.
“Everyone brought their candies, right?”
“No problem.”
Unlike the Blood Nectar, the candies were made from the Life of Eden, collected long ago, and completed by solidifying jam created from the concept of its fruits.
After confirming that each person possessed at least three Candy of Life, capable of fully healing even fatal wounds, only then did they leave Eden and head towards Room 201.
“You slipped away well, Dokgo Yeon.”
“Didn’t you hear what Won said earlier? He told us to stay sharp.”
“Lately, more often than you directly stepping forward to say something, it feels like you’re handing over the initiative to Master Yuwon... Do you know how happy I am these days, knowing that we share the same feelings?”
“You’d better prepare yourself for later.”
Ignoring the two who were whispering and continuing their endless psychological battle behind him, he waited for the shift to end. Asha, left out by them, puffed out her cheeks and approached, whispering to him.
“Yuwon, those two are acting strange lately. They’re glaring at each other, saying things with unclear motives. Could they be mentally interfered with by another entity, like I was before?”
“Those two are perfectly normal, Asha, so it’s fine.”
Suddenly recalling Dokgo Yeon accepting chocolate from his mouth last night, Ban Yuwon wondered if she might not be normal after all, but knowing he’d clearly be beaten up again if he said such a thing, he kept his mouth shut.
Fortunately, before he could make a mistake, the shift ended.
The party was falling from the sky to the ground, without parachutes.
Kwagwagwagwagwa, as the party plunged, drawn by gravity, winds crashing in from all directions sharpened their edge ferociously.
“See—I knew this would happen—.”
“Wow—it’s really high—!”
“The scale is no joke, look how vast the land is! This is definitely another Chain Room!”
“It’s like... they embedded a whole world.”
While veterans who had spent years rolling around the Tower, experiencing all sorts of environments, might be unfazed, first-year freshmen thrown out of the sky would naturally be flustered.
But Rebellion wasn’t called an overpowered team for nothing.
First off, this team had two members capable of independent flight.
Rucell, who had awakened her Divine Beast blood, and Asha, who, with the power of the True Dragon Sword, could not only fly but also burrow into the ground and walk freely underwater.
Though they didn’t know for sure, Dokgo Yeon also, if she unleashed her internal energy, could run across empty air as if stepping on solid ground. As for Ban Yuwon, he could fly like a bird by applying wind elemental magic.
—You know how important it is where you land when playing games like this, Master Yuwon?
“We’re not going down there to play battle royale, so just transform.”
—Are we not even farming?
“We might do some farming.”
But Ban Yuwon chose an even easier path.
Lilyth, who had gained the concepts of 'Demonic Machine' (Yogi) and 'Myriad Transformations' (Manbyeon), and could skillfully transform into any vehicle, transformed into a fighter jet and took Ban Yuwon aboard.
It was a two-seater fighter jet, and before he knew it, Dokgo Yeon had taken the back seat.
“Fast?!”
Rucell, who had unfurled her Divine Beast tails and begun flying, saw the sight and widened her eyes in shock.
“Riding another strange thing... They’re coming!”
Asha, who had drawn the True Dragon Sword and begun gliding, also was dumbfounded seeing Ban Yuwon on the state-of-the-art fighter jet, but immediately after, she unleashed her sword’s Or and shouted sharply.
After having her body taken over by an ancestor and then awakening as a true Dragonoid, she had become someone whose combat power, if nothing else, could be trusted.
As she freely flipped her body in the air and swung her sword, the blue Or that rose along its trajectory cleaved the air in a large X-shape.
There was no time to question why there were two trajectories when she had clearly swung only once; instead, masses of purple-winged somethings caught in them let out grotesque screams and vanished.
[Life (生) 300, Curse (咀呪) 150, Fusion (融合) 30 acquired.]
“It’s a curse! Be careful not to touch it directly!”
As soon as the enemies vanished, Ban Yuwon, manifesting his Authority and securing the Language Concept, identified the enemies’ true nature and relayed it to everyone in the party via telepathic communication.
However, the party, upon hearing his words, appeared confident instead.
“If it’s a curse of that level, it won’t be able to invade my body.”
Rucell, revealing her Divine Beast aura, crackled with purple sparks all over her body as she raced through the air.
As her sharp talons, which had suddenly emerged from her delicate fingertips, tore through the bodies of the winged, amorphous monsters, evil energy dissipated and black smoke rose.
“Same here... While Yuwon is stuck in that dull hunk of metal, let’s finish them off ourselves!”
If Rucell stood superior to curses with her inherent divinity (神聖) as a Divine Beast, Asha would crush all insignificant curses with her inherent lofty status as a Dragonoid.
Especially since she had recently overcome an ancestral curse that had taken over her body, her resistance to curses had become extremely high, so she would be safe even if thrown among those monsters without the True Dragon Sword.
Gripping her weapon, which had changed its form into a spear, she kicked off the air, grinding up all monsters in her charge path and burst out on the other side.
“So, what are we going to do?”
The moment Ban Yuwon created a fighter jet with Lilyth, Dokgo Yeon, who had climbed into his backseat with ghost-like movements, confirmed with him, wearing a prim expression as if she had forgotten such a past.
“The sky is my domain.”
Ban Yuwon declared confidently, and summoned his Familiar.
Its name was Abyss.
The ultimate drill, capable of grinding everything it faced, attached itself to the fighter jet’s nose, transforming its front into a drill.
“A true driller cleaves the sky. Yeon, let’s go!”
“Wait, you’re not actually going to charge like this—.”
The fighter jet accelerated, and plunged into the horde of monsters where Rucell and Asha were already wreaking havoc!
Long surpassing the speed of sound, the drill attached to the front of the fighter jet, which was charging at a speed that would have torn apart any non-superhuman in its wake, spun rapidly, and ultimately committed the atrocity of converting even the air currents caught in its wake into Or.
“Get out of the way on your own!”
“That’s also... Kyaaak!”
“We’re being sucked in!”
Caught in the whirlwind generated by the drill’s monstrous rotation, the flock of monster birds, unable to find an escape, were all sucked in and in the next moment, were ground into pieces.
Ban Yuwon stored all the Curse and Fusion concepts he’d acquired after a long time into his Code Core, and surveyed the landscape of Room 201, which was now clearly visible beneath the clouds.
As expected, due to the limited expanse of the room, the ground was broken off on all sides at certain boundaries, but more than half of its interior appeared stained black.
“If all that is curse, then this is quite something.”
It must be connected to a Constellation.
Not only freshmen, but even veteran students who had become utterly accustomed to the Tower, would scream at the extreme environment before them, yet Ban Yuwon merely smiled calmly.
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