July 21 — Tuesday
Deaths: 38
Second day since awakening the Hunter’s Mark.
Noah looked at the rock the centipede had left behind when it died: an elongated gem, deep violet and almost translucent in the silvery moonlight, about the size of his clenched fist.
“Use it well,” Belle said, approaching from behind. “Take care of yourself and your sister.”
“I will,” Noah replied with a determination he didn’t have to fake. “I definitely will.”
They stood for a moment atop the monster’s lifeless body, and Noah took the opportunity to survey the landscape from that vantage point.
The centipede, now completely motionless, was even more impressive up close: its body stretched for dozens of yards, each segment the size of a bus, its chitinous plates gleaming with a dark luster beneath the artificial moon.
Beyond it, the entire maze spread out like a gigantic game board, hedge walls intertwined with one another, stretching away until they disappeared into the distant mist.
‘How long would it have taken me to cross this alone?’ he thought, shivering, though not from the nighttime cold. ‘How many times would I have had to die?’
“We have a clear path to the Dark Tower now,” Belle remarked, approaching him from behind. “Once you kill the guardian, the swarm hides until it’s reborn.”
“Reborn?” Noah asked, turning toward her.
“The monsters and demons you kill inside the castle reappear after a while,” Belle explained patiently. “That’s why there are always bosses alive on the floors, even when other Hunters have already made it past them.”
Noah raised his eyebrows, and before he could ask, Belle interrupted him, as if anticipating his question.
“No. You can’t farm bosses,” she said with a brief smile. “Let me explain: bosses always reappear for new Hunters, but unlike guardians, elite demons, or regular monsters, once you’ve killed a floor boss, it will never reappear specifically for you. That’s why we didn’t see the first-floor boss when we went in.”
“What about the boss on Floor 2?” Noah asked, processing the information. “If you’ve already killed it, will I still be able to see it, or is it no longer available to either of us?”
“Even though I’ve already killed it, I’ll be able to see it because I’m exploring with someone who hasn’t defeated it yet. That is, you.” She paused, as if remembering something. “That’s also why some Hunters make a living by selling access to bosses on the higher floors. It’s a fairly common service: someone at a high level accompanies someone who hasn’t defeated a certain boss yet, allowing the second person to kill it while the first simply watches. I’ve paid a fortune myself to fight a boss again and level up faster. It’s expensive, but it works.”
“Wow,” Noah murmured, taking in the logic of the whole system.
“Okay,” Belle said, suddenly sounding cheerful. “Express service to the tower.”
Without another word, she picked him up again, carrying him on her back as naturally as before, and jumped.
This time, however, the journey was different: instead of making their way through the city and dodging people, they traveled directly over the maze walls, leaping from hedge to hedge without a single obstacle.
“See?” Belle said, laughing between jumps. “It’s much more satisfying with the guardian dead.”
“It feels completely different,” Noah admitted, his voice jolting with the movement.
“Yeah,” she replied, a smile audible in her voice. “It’s a new experience for me, too.”
Noah heard her laugh, that light, genuine sound so at odds with the coldness of his first impression, and felt warmth rise to his cheeks.
Without thinking it through, he pressed a little closer against her back, moving nearer than he strictly needed to.
Belle didn’t say anything about it, but Noah could have sworn that, for a fraction of a second, the rhythm of her jumps faltered slightly.
◇◆◇
The Dark Tower loomed before them when they finally landed in front of it: weathered stone, narrow windows carved into the walls like vertical scars, and a flag at the top waving despite the lack of wind.
The doors opened with a metallic creak as they approached, revealing a circular staircase that spiraled upward, barely lit by scattered torches whose flames burned an unusual shade of blue.
They began to climb.
“Do you want me to kill it right away and help you reach Floor 3?” Belle asked as they ascended. “You’re still low-level, but I can protect you until you reach the level you need to be safe up there.”
Noah was silent for a moment, an uneasy thought taking shape in his mind.
‘If I ask her to kill it, I’ll miss out on the boss’s skill by letting it kill me. If I say no, I’ll have to go through the maze again and face that giant thing. If I let myself die now, I’ll get the skill, but that would mean… I’d never have spent the day with Belle. It’d be like I’d never sent her that first message. I could repeat it all again, and listening to her talk is very comforting, but… I seriously doubt I’d have a chance to die if she’s here.’
He wondered, with brutal honesty, whether he wanted that unknown skill badly enough to risk whatever it was he was building with her.
“Did you hear me?” Belle asked, noticing his prolonged silence.
“Sorry,” Noah said, shaking his head. “Yeah, I heard you. But… don’t you think it’s a bother to do all this for me? I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness. You’ve already done so much today.”
Belle glanced at him, her expression gentle.
“It’s no trouble. If you ask me, I’ll help.” She smiled. “Though, of course, I’ll let you land the final blow. That way, you’ll still get the experience. I’m not in a hurry,” she added when she saw that Noah was still hesitating. “You can think about it until we reach the top.”
They kept climbing, occasionally facing small demons that appeared in the stairwell’s recesses. They were similar to the ones from the beginning of Floor 2, but considerably stronger and faster, with a visible malice in their movements.
Noah fought them with determination, while the same question continued to circle through his mind.
‘Is an unknown skill worth giving up this whole day with her?’
When the answer finally came, it was surprisingly simple.
They reached the top and stopped in front of a rusted iron door so tall that Noah had to tilt his head back to see where it ended.
“Okay,” Belle said, stopping in front of it. “We’re here. What’s your final answer?”
Noah looked at her.
He would rather get to know her. He would rather have all the help she had given him that day, all the trust built through conversations shared amid laughter and companionable silences, than an ability whose true value he didn’t even know.
“I’ll accept your help,” he said with a calm smile.
Belle seemed pleased with his answer, though she didn’t comment on it. She simply pushed the doors open, and they both went inside.
◇◆◇
The Floor 2 boss room opened before them: a circular space of weathered stone, lit by blue torches identical to those on the staircase. In the center, a creature awaited them, and it took Noah a moment to fully process what he was seeing.
A gargoyle.
Five meters tall, with a living stone body covered in well-defined muscles that seemed carved directly from granite, a pair of membranous wings folded against its back, and a stone spear held in its right hand.
“So,” Noah said, swallowing, “this is what was waiting for me after I killed a giant centipede.”
‘How long would it have taken me to defeat that centipede, only to have to fight this gargoyle right afterward?’
He drew his dagger anyway, his hands trembling slightly.
The gargoyle roared and charged at them with surprising speed for its massive size.
Belle moved in a flash.
In a fraction of a second, she was on top of the creature, pinning its wings to the ground with a strength that completely belied her slender figure.
The monster roared and thrashed, struggling to break free with all the strength in its stone muscles, but Belle—barely a meter sixty tall, slender and seemingly almost fragile—held it completely immobilized without the slightest visible effort.
“Come on,” she said, not even out of breath. “It’s ready for you.”
Noah blinked, looking at the scene with a mixture of relief and complete disbelief.
“This looks ridiculous,” he admitted, cautiously approaching. “A five-meter gargoyle pinned down by someone your size.”
Belle laughed, pressing down harder on the creature’s wing and drawing another roar of pain from it.
“Ridiculous?” she said, her mocking tone directed more at the monster than at Noah. “Listen to that. It’s screaming like a princess in distress.”
The gargoyle roared even louder, as if it had somehow understood the insult.
Noah laughed, and some of the tension eased.
“Okay,” he said, raising his dagger. “I’m going to kill it.”
He approached and, with a firm motion, made the first of the many strikes it would take to kill it.
◇◆◇
When it was all over, Noah looked at the message that appeared floating in front of him.
[Level increased: 10.]
“I’m making progress really quickly this way,” he remarked with a satisfied smile.
“When you’re in a thousand-floor castle,” Belle replied with a laugh, “you’ll soon realice this is nothing.”
She held out a rock the size of his hand, taken from the gargoyle’s disintegrated body, her gaze warm.
“More money.”
Noah took the stone with an equally warm smile.
“Thanks again. Really, thank you for all your help today.”
Belle smiled, showing her teeth this time.
“It’s a pleasure to help you.”
She looked toward the stairs at the far end of the room, the entrance to Floor 3, and took out her phone to check the time.
“It’s one in the morning,” she announced. “The curse is still active. We can stay inside the castle longer.”
The boss room began to groan around them. The floor trembled slightly as water started seeping through cracks in the stone, slowly flooding the space.
“It’s time to go,” Belle said, already walking calmly toward the stairs. “We’ll set up camp farther ahead.”
◇◆◇
Floor 3 greeted them with darkness so absolute that, at first, Noah thought he had gone completely blind.
A forest of twisted, completely leafless trees stretched around them, their black branches barely outlined against a starless night sky. There was no moon and no visible source of natural light.
He literally couldn’t see his own hands in front of his face.
“You’re going to need a lot of light sources here,” Belle said, her voice floating through the darkness as if it were the only real thing in the universe. “I recommend buying something called Energy Lamps. You can manually focus the light on a specific spot, and they’re pretty powerful.”
“I’ll make a note of that,” Noah replied, still trying to orient himself in the absolute darkness.
“You’ll level up to Level 15 here,” Belle added. “And when we’re done for the day, we’ll set up camp and rest. This should be the last part of our adventure together.”
Over the past few days since I started publishing, Because of that, I decided to upload the next 8 chapters of the novel there. (≧▽≦)
I’ll upload up to 2 chapters per day so I can build up a larger buffer of chapters ahead.
Thank you so much to anyone who decides to check it out!
After all, I won’t be skipping any floors of the castle! The adventure will go from Floor 1 all the way to Floor 1,000!