Chapter: 08
How to Kill a Mad Go
“The final gate will proceed within the ‘Sanctuary’.”
Gugu’s voice sank heavily.
The playfulness was gone.
“The Sanctuary is originally a sacred place, but it is currently severely polluted by corrupted spirits.”
Corrupted spirits.
Polluted sanctuary.
Just hearing them made the words reek of decay.
“The mission is simple. Purify the sanctuary. The one who achieves the highest contribution will receive the best score.”
Gugu added a warning.
“However, be careful. That place is extremely dangerous. The corrupted spirits are ferocious, and the air of the sanctuary will gnaw at your minds and rot your flesh.”
There was no time limit.
But the longer you stay, the closer you get to death.
More than anything.
“Until the sanctuary is completely purified, you cannot stop midway. There is nowhere to run. If you want to give up, now is the only chance.”
A last stand.
Die, or get it done.
They were brutal conditions, but none of the Seeds gave up.
Those who would back out at this point wouldn’t have entered the tower in the first place.
“Alright then. Good luck.”
Clap!
Along with Gugu’s clap, the world flipped.
Wheee!
Even before the dizziness of spatial displacement passed.
A foul stench that stung the nose hit hard.
The smell of rotten eggs.
No, it was the smell of rotting, decaying corpses.
“…Hmm.”
I frowned and looked around.
The sky was bruised a sickly purple, and the ground was dead black.
A forest of withered trees standing like ghosts.
A labyrinthine terrain with no end in sight.
And in between.
Keeeek!
Krrrrr…
Monsters in the form of dark red mist were writhing.
Corrupted spirits.
At a glance, their numbers were staggering.
Thousands? No, it easily looked like tens of thousands.
‘They want me to purify all of this?’
It’s madness.
Even with conventional methods, it would be impossible even if it took years.
That was when.
“…Of all people.”
A sigh came from beside me.
I turned my head.
There was a person.
Just one.
‘Random teleportation, then.’
It seemed the over five thousand Seeds had been scattered in all directions.
The one who fell next to me was an elf woman.
She looked at me and openly frowned.
A contemptuous gaze.
Probably because I received zero points in the disaster aptitude evaluation.
She must think she’s been stuck with dead weight.
Instead of retorting, I scrutinized the woman’s face.
A cold impression.
Pale, almost white skin.
Her eyes were a piercing, icy blue, and her eyebrows were as white as snow.
On her back, she carried a giant bow as tall as she was.
Strange patterns engraved on the bow’s body.
‘Familiar.’
I’ve seen her somewhere before.
It’s not just because she’s an elf.
That unique aura.
Cold yet sharp killing intent.
I searched my memories.
The final human resistance force.
When we risked our lives to climb the tower.
In that hell where I cut, stabbed, and burned countless enemies to death.
‘Ah.’
I remembered.
If you add a few scars to that face.
If the eyes were a little more poisoned with malice.
It’s her.
“Frost Tribe?”
The elf woman flinched and glared at me.
“…How do you know of my tribe?”
A sharp reaction.
Just as I thought.
Ordinary elves love the forest and prefer warm places.
But the Frost Tribe is different.
They are born and raised in the frozen lands where blizzards rage.
That’s why they are much tougher, more brutal, and more exclusive than other elves.
More than anything.
‘She was the mid-boss of the 50th floor.’
I’m sure of it.
In the past, on the 50th floor of the tower.
In the snowfield where a blizzard raged, a sniper who drove us to the brink of annihilation.
Her elusive stealth abilities.
The nightmare of a sharpshooter who burst our allies’ heads like watermelons with her unerring arrows.
This woman was far more troublesome and tenacious than the floor master of the 50th floor.
‘Seria.’
Even her name came back to me.
The memory was just that horrible.
“Whoa, whoa. Don’t be on guard. I’ve just heard of your tribe because it’s so rare.”
I shrugged.
The elf didn’t drop her suspicious gaze, but soon lost interest and turned her head away.
“…Just don’t get in my way.”
She drew her bow.
Even without drawing the string, the surrounding air froze coldly.
She seemed determined to completely ignore me and walked ahead.
The corrupted spirits began to swarm, sensing her presence.
Keeeeek!
The masses of black mist bared their teeth and rushed in.
Seria’s eyes glinted coldly.
Pew! Pew-pew!
Her hands were a blur.
It seemed even the motion of drawing the string was omitted.
Three arrows flew simultaneously and embedded themselves in the spirits’ foreheads.
Thump!
The cold energy imbued in the arrows exploded.
The corrupted spirits froze and shattered without even a scream.
Neat skill.
She certainly had the makings of a 50th-floor nightmare.
But I couldn’t just stand around either.
My promise with Heimdall.
Overwhelming first place.
Simply passing isn’t enough.
Following behind that elf and picking up scraps won’t satisfy him.
I stopped walking and looked around.
‘Purify the sanctuary.’
Sounds good.
But they expect me to beat down tens of thousands of those spirits one by one?
That’s a poor strategy.
A waste of time and energy.
I need to grasp the examiner’s intention.
The real purpose of this test is not ‘hunting’ but ‘resolution’.
In other words, head to the center of the sanctuary and eliminate the cause.
Besides.
‘Are those spirits really corrupted?’
I narrowed my eyes.
My knowledge as a mage detected a sense of dissonance.
Spirits are masses of pure nature.
Unlike humans, they have a faint sense of self.
It’s extremely rare for them to become corrupted or harbor malice on their own.
In most cases, a spirit’s state follows its contractor’s ‘state’ or ‘intention’.
‘Then the answer is obvious.’
These tens of thousands of spirits.
Their magical energy pulses were connected like fine threads to a single point.
The subject of the contract is just one.
A colossal being deep within the sanctuary.
Because something went wrong with that entity’s mind, or perhaps it was intentional.
Even its subordinate spirits appear to be tainted.
‘Furthermore.’
I closely observed their movements.
Until Seria fired her arrows, they only circled around.
They weren’t aggressive.
Rather, they were defensive.
As if trying to scare them away.
-Do not come.
-This place is dangerous.
That’s what it seemed to say.
Only after Seria launched a preemptive strike did they respond with killing intent and counterattack.
‘Conversely, what if I don’t attack?’
Having formed a hypothesis, I needed to test it.
I put it into action immediately.
Swoosh.
I withdrew the mana wrapped around my body.
I erased my killing intent.
I removed my hostility and emptied my fighting spirit.
Complete disarmament.
In that state, I stepped toward the swarm of spirits.
“Are you crazy?!”
Seria exclaimed in shock.
To her eyes, I must have looked insane.
Walking voluntarily into that ferocious mist.
But.
Swoooosh.
The moment my body touched the dark red mist.
The spirits parted.
They didn’t attack.
They didn’t bite or curse.
They just brushed past me.
As if I were invisible.
The reason is simple.
‘I didn’t show hostility.’
They are guardians protecting the sanctuary.
If an intruder shows no intent to attack, there’s no reason to expend energy to eliminate them.
I looked back and waved my hand.
“Take care.”
“……!!”
She couldn’t follow me.
She had already shot her arrows.
She had drawn blood.
To the spirits, she was clearly recognized as an ‘enemy’.
Keeeeek!
“Damn it!”
The spirits surged toward Seria once more.
She cursed and had to start shooting her bow again.
I leisurely walked on, leaving the commotion behind.
The mist was clearing.
* * *
I walked for a while.
The sanctuary appeared to be an endless maze.
But finding the way was surprisingly simple.
‘Eyes.’
If the subject of the spirit contract is just one entity.
The contracted spirits instinctively have to face the direction of their master.
Like sunflowers turning toward the sun, their consciousness is always fixed on that place.
If I had acted hostile from the start, I would never have seen it.
Blinded by killing intent, I would have missed their subtle movements.
But I treated them like air.
Thanks to that, I could see it.
The end of the gaze that the spirits in the mist were subtly casting.
‘This way.’
I moved my steps without hesitation.
The mist cleared, and the rotten trees disappeared.
And finally.
Tap.
The feeling under my feet changed.
It was no longer a squelching swamp.
A well-polished marble floor.
I had arrived.
Just as expected, I’m in first place.
I raised my head and looked around.
Then I furrowed my brow.
‘It’s clean?’
Gugu clearly said it was a polluted sanctuary.
But the scenery before my eyes was the exact opposite.
A white temple without a speck of dust.
Filled with sacred energy.
Corruption? Pollution?
It was a clean zone without even a single ant in sight.
I went deeper into the temple.
Before long, I encountered an entity.
“……”
Enormous wings.
Dazzlingly white feathers.
A being floating in the air, like an ‘angel’ from myth.
She was floating in the air with her eyes closed.
As I approached, she slowly opened her eyes.
Golden eyes pierced through me.
[An unusual guest.]
The angel’s voice echoed in my head.
[You haven’t harmed a single one of my children.]
Children.
She must mean those mist spirits outside.
I breathed a sigh of relief internally.
What if I had killed even one spirit on the way?
A battle would have begun the moment I set foot here.
The problem is.
‘She’s strong.’
At a glance, she looks insanely strong.
Angragon on my shoulder had its fur standing on end.
Fighting someone like this alone would be certain defeat.
Without relaxing my tension, I asked.
“Why were you blocking the way?”
The reason for using the spirits to block access.
The angel’s expression darkened.
She looked behind her.
[This is a place you should not have come to.]
Behind her.
At the deepest part of the temple, a pitch-black sphere about three meters in diameter floated.
A mass emitting a terrible energy, the complete opposite of the surrounding sacred energy.
[This is a prison.]
The angel looked at the sphere with sad eyes.
[Long ago, it is where a god who lost its reason and went mad was sealed.]
A mad god.
Only then did the puzzle pieces fit together.
The Seeds break through the spirits.
They killed spirits, so the angel becomes enraged and attacks the Seeds.
After a fierce battle, if they kill the angel?
The guardian protecting the seal disappears.
‘The examiner’s intention was to eliminate the angel.’
If that wasn’t the case, they would have told us to help the angel and kill the mad god from the start.
But instead, they scared us into attacking the spirits.
Making the angel hostile toward the Seeds.
Why on earth?
‘Because to devour that sealed mad god, you have to kill the angel.’
Gugu’s objective is the sealed mad god itself.
Perhaps they want to retrieve it.
But.
‘There’s no need to go that way.’
Just following the intended path won’t get you a high score.
Also, I had no intention of killing the angel.
Why waste such excellent combat power?
Then the answer is simple.
I took a step toward the angel.
“Then we just need to get rid of that thing inside.”
[……What do you mean?]
I lowered my voice and spoke in a serious tone.
“Noble one.”
I looked straight into the angel’s eyes.
“Let’s kill that mad god inside together.”
[……!]
The angel’s eyes widened.
Not guarding the seal, but killing the sealed being.
A proposal that defied common sense.
“It must have been hard alone, but together, it’s possible.”
I pointed at the black sphere and smiled.
“Keeping something like that is just a burden. Let’s clean it up properly.”
I was also curious about what was inside.
Actually, the biggest reason was something else.
‘My right hand is itching.’
The golden rune embedded in my right hand.
Others probably can’t see it, but to my eyes, it was clear.
The golden thread protruding from the golden rune was frantically reaching toward that black sphere.
Inside there, there’s a disaster.
And a considerable one at that.
The angel’s eyes wavered.
But then, a faint smile spread across her lips.
[……Bold, aren’t you.]
She spread her wings wide.
Sacred light filled the entire temple.
It wasn’t a refusal.
[Very well. I will follow your will, as you respected my children.]
A party was formed.
