I got into school for nothing - 337
I got into school for nothing (337)
Lesson 66. Irregular - 3
Room 562, which they reached after the next shift occurred, exuded an atmosphere very alien to the space they had just left.
To put it simply, it wasn't a very large space—and it was strangely full of the signs of life.
Ban Yuwon instinctively knew that another irregular phenomenon had occurred.
It seemed that the floors above 560 had remained uncleared for a long time, directly leading to the Tower's stability issues and bug-like phenomena currently shaking it.
It was enough to make him sigh involuntarily.
Room 561 had already been difficult to upload to the Rebellion channel, and if Room 562 was like this too, they might not be able to salvage any footage from the Tower for this week's upload.
If it really came to that, Ban Yuwon resolved to quickly bring the Ortima cousin siblings and make them do a Nuclear Buldak Ramen mukbang. Next to him, Rucell suddenly lifted her head.
The triangular ears atop her head twitched.
“It wasn't an empty space after all.”
Rucell cast her gaze towards the ceiling, which was surprisingly low for a room, barely three meters high.
Something was plastered tightly against that ceiling, perfectly concealing its body.
No, someone was there.
Ban Yuwon had already perceived the presence itself with his Giwon Sword, but he hadn't yet deciphered exactly what it was, so he was feigning nonchalance to buy time.
However, Rucell seemed to have already completely grasped the situation.
“Will you come down? Or shall I bring you down?”
Though its presence was fully revealed, its form remained invisible, as if it were using some kind of magic. But Rucell seemed to see it nonetheless, as she sharpened the edge of the gauntlet covering her translucent hand and met the opponent’s gaze.
“I'll come down.”
At the man's deep voice, Ban Yuwon narrowed his eyes.
He had intelligence, could communicate, and most importantly, he wasn't an NPC.
What suddenly came to mind was the day Team Rebellion first entered the Tower.
“—Death’s Pupil says that person is clearly an intruder in the Tower.”
“Yes, I think so too.”
The man revealed himself.
His beard and hair had grown so shaggy it was hard to make out his face, but the awkwardly trimmed ends clearly showed he had cut his own hair.
Brown hair was strewn about the not-so-large space... Cancel that, about the "signs of life."
This place was just a junkyard.
“Seeing a person... it's really been a long, long time.”
“How long have you been trapped in the Tower?”
Ban Yuwon asked directly.
The intruder scratched his head and replied.
“Well. Fifty years, no, perhaps a hundred? I only wanted to climb the Tower, but I've been unjustly imprisoned for such a long time.”
Listening to his words, which were nothing but lies, Ban Yuwon scoffed.
Just by looking at the length of the hair strewn across the room, unless the man was a sorcerer capable of instantly growing hair, a hundred years wouldn't even be close.
And above all, "unjustly imprisoned"?
“For an intruder to be recognized as a climber, they must kill an existing climber. It's laughable for you to claim injustice.”
While Ban Yuwon sympathized with Exodus's goals and even considered stealing their methods against the Tower, that didn't mean he condoned all their actions.
Goals that could only be achieved through the sacrifice of unrelated individuals had to be denied.
Then, *fizzle*, sparks flew.
Not from Rucell emitting psionic energy, but from the bodies of everyone in their party.
As Ban Yuwon, discerning this to be the Tower's will attempting to initiate a shift, widened his eyes slightly, the man began to act.
—*Crunch*
The countless strands of hair strewn throughout the space simultaneously changed their form.
Growing longer, growing thicker.
Hundreds, tens of millions of—snakes—writhed, having gained false life.
“Medusa?”
He knew the man intended to do something with his hair, but he hadn't expected him to use the very hair discarded in this space.
Feeling the activated concept of 'Change' emanating from the man, Ban Yuwon was once again struck by the sheer diversity of unique Authorities.
“Giving me time while you leisurely deliberated was your fatal mistake!”
A scoff escaped him involuntarily.
He had said 'diverse,' not 'frightening.'
“There are too many reasons to list them all, but if I had to pinpoint your fatal mistake, it would be your Authority itself.”
The man, surrounded by snakes filling the space, launched venomous serpents he had created by transforming his own hair and beard.
Ban Yuwon did nothing against him.
Even at this moment, he was merely counteracting the Tower's Authority, which was forcibly trying to initiate a shift for his party, by erasing it one by one.
Just as he had done many times in the past—
Of course, it was Eve who blocked the man in his stead.
“Hissit.”
Having returned to her serpent form at some point, Eve lightly floated into the air, and the moment she let out a small hiss, the tide of snakes that had been surging towards them, ready to bite, instantly reverted to scattered strands of hair.
“What...?”
A dumbfounded expression appeared on the man’s face as he saw his Authority completely dismantled.
As Eve devoured all the concepts of 'Change' contained within the scattered hairs and hissed again, this time, the man's own hair, transformed into snakes, began to coil around his body.
“W-what is this? Listen to me! Listen to my words!”
The man cried out desperately, like Doctor Octopus trying to control his rampaging mechanical arms with his own will, but he could not defy Eve's will, which was already superior to his Authority in every aspect.
It was an easy fact to forget given Eve's versatility, but when she gained the concept of 'Beast,' she had chosen to be a snake herself.
And now that she had become a Divine Beast, it was only natural for her to exert absolute influence over snakes.
How could beings moving based on 'Change,' a subordinate concept to ultimate transformation, possibly defy her?
“My Authority cannot be nullified so easily...! This is an Authority I've trained for hundreds of years!”
“Yes, we’ll have our staff enjoy that later... Ugh, seriously.”
Ban Yuwon erased the continuous sparks one by one, growing annoyed.
Just what was this man's identity that the Tower was so desperately trying to separate them from him?
And even sacrificing the chance to kill this irregular, who had been consuming the Tower's resources for at least hundreds of years!
“You, [Tell me your identity].”
A Codeword was activated.
It wasn't a Codeword that held absolute superiority merely by being declared, like a Golden Rule, but all the concepts Ban Yuwon had diligently cultivated over the past two years—Myriad Words (萬言脣), Domination (支配), Covenant (盟約), and even Sorcery (呪術), Charm (魅力), and Honor (名譽)—supported the power contained within his words.
If even someone with a strong psyche couldn't withstand it, how could a weak individual, trapped in the Tower and having lost their normal judgment, possibly resist it?
“I-I am Quinodon...!”
“Fang?”
“Yes, I am the fang that replaces those who have lost their power and fallen asleep...! I am a Dragon's Fang!”
“Wait.”
Aire reached out her hand, stopping his words.
Peering closer at him, she spoke in a threatening voice.
“Are you a Dragon Fang Soldier?”
“H-how did you know...!”
Quinodon, seemingly too shocked, even hiccuped as he recoiled.
As Aire reached out and touched the man's forehead, tears streamed from his eyes without him even realizing it.
“Surely, you are... a True Dragon?”
Instead of answering his question, Aire frowned and called Ban Yuwon's name.
“...Yuwon, this has become very troublesome.”
“I have a rough idea, but tell me directly.”
Aire removed her finger from the man's forehead and stepped back.
The man collapsed at Aire's feet, and she, recoiling even further in shock, clutched Ban Yuwon's hand tightly, as if from a misplaced sense of compensation, and murmured.
“I think there's a dragon.”
“...Go on.”
“Inside the Tower.”
“Alive?”
“I don't know for sure, but probably.”
It was a shocking revelation that would make one hit their head at this point, but Ban Yuwon tried to remain calm.
Right, whether it was to complete the Tower or to create a single world centered around it, his ancestor, who would even grind up entire dimensions for that purpose, wouldn't have left the dragons he fought against alone.
To have not realized such an obvious thought until now—he was truly disqualified as a descendant!
“And?”
“There's an organization trying to awaken them. Perhaps... that Dragon Fang Soldier truly was just a low-ranking grunt.”
Aire looked down at the man and continued quickly.
“I've heard that 'Quinodon' is a term referring to Dragon Fang Soldiers created without injecting too much power. Above that, they are granted unique codes. Among them, the most famous is...”
“Could it be Echion?”
“That's right, a Dragon Fang Soldier so exceptional, despite being born from a part of a dragon, that one might doubt his bloodline, earning him the praise 'Son of the Dragon'... How did you know?”
“We have a similar story on Earth.”
Truth be told, Echion was merely the only Dragon Fang Soldier whose name was widely known.
“Oh, True Dragon, to think you preserved your esteemed body through that terrible war and even succeeded in infiltrating the enemy's lair. Though I am born from the tooth of another dragon, I—”
An ice spike plunged into the forehead of the man who had been rambling while prostrating himself.
Aire scoffed, looking down at the corpse of the Dragon Fang Soldier who had lost his life without even a scream.
“Dragon Fang Soldiers don't serve other dragons.”
“That was good information.”
Ban Yuwon gestured, pulling the frozen corpse towards him.
He extracted every useful concept from within it, particularly striving to sift through the man's memories.
“It seems to be locked, so I don't think I'll be able to salvage much.”
“Just discovering that an organization exists is a gain. And a secret organization that hasn't revealed its identity for all that time, at that.”
Ban Yuwon nodded, deeply agreeing with Aire's words.
An organization that had secretly operated for thousands, possibly tens of thousands of years, without revealing its identity, and even possessed the initiative to infiltrate the Tower itself!
And its goal was to inherit the will of the True Dragons...?
Though he couldn't show it with Aire right beside him, Ban Yuwon was recalling the names of the Ten Great Families he was intimately familiar with.
“Aren't their goals the same?”
Then Asha tilted her head and spoke.
“If their goal is to bring down the Tower too, wouldn't it be better to bring them to our side?”
“No, it wouldn't be good. Asha, after being tormented so much by your ancestor, do you still not understand dragons?”
Aire immediately retorted.
He saw her pupils narrow vertically.
“True Dragons are all individualistic and selfish. They fought the Tower's architect not for the entire universe, but for themselves. What makes you think they'll simply stay put once the Tower that imprisoned them is destroyed and they regain their freedom?”
“Then what?”
“They'll target Yuwon. It's clear, I can guarantee it.”
Because in the eyes of the True Dragons, Ban Yuwon, who had inherited the ancestor's power in its entirety, would appear as the most glittering jewel in the universe—
As she said that, Aire was clutching Ban Yuwon's hand so tightly it hurt.
For now, he thought he understood the basis of her words.
“Then what should we do?”
Rucell murmured quietly.
“Even if we succeed in bringing down the Tower, the True Dragons might burst out, right? We've gained incredibly important information, but according to it, we'll have to scrap all our plans so far...”
“First.”
Aire muttered, her eyes fixed on the vanishing traces of the Dragon Fang Soldier, whose concepts had all been extracted by Ban Yuwon, turning it to scattered ash.
“There's no choice but to find their organization and strip it bare.”
A shift occurred.
Fortunately, this time it wasn't a vision of someone connected to him from a past world, nor did an unexpected irregular appear.
During the remaining exploration period, they completed their investigation up to Room 565 and exited. The Academy was overwhelmingly excited by the appearance of a new highest Tower climbing record—
—yet the protagonists themselves couldn't partake in that excitement, only chewing over the information they had gained from the Tower.
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