Re: Devil - Volume 1 Chapter 27

[Tower of Babel Floor 3 Area 5]

Alive: 96 Dead: 4

“And there goes another one potential ally or meat shield dead.”

After surviving my first Abyssal Beast, the [Abyssal Dog], I didn’t immediately continue to explore instead resting for a bit while seeing the current status of the floor.

It wasn’t long enough before I laid down and one being was already killed.

Not long after, another one was killed and I started to question the quality of the recruits.

‘At this rate, surviving this floor will be very difficult. Worst case scenario the more recruits are killed by the Abyssal Beasts, the more they lean towards completing the minimum survival condition killing each other and the unlucky rest only to be killed by the Abyssal Beasts at the end.’

I clicked my tongue in annoyance and calmed myself down.

‘Well no point thinking about that. Even though this is not my first time complaining the Tower, it still leave a bad taste in my mouth and irritate me greatly being dragged into a war forcefully, surviving with a sliver of life left, and aside from the rewards that I work hard for, the rest are given to the Count automatically.

Only for the cycle to repeat again and again indefinitely until I am strong enough to at least escaping the Count’s clutches and surviving outside a territory. I mean, what’s the worse that could possibly happen than I have experienced until now?’

While I was resting and after complaining about my life, I also analyzed the battle that I had with the [Abyssal Dog].

Physical attack was not very effective and efficient against it. The only moves that hurt the dog real bad was my [Fire Ball] but it came with a cost of draining me quickly.

Moreover, the broken skill that it had [Abyssal Aura]. That broken skill doubled all of the attributes significantly so than all of the skills that I had encountered and had.

‘Actually, now that I think about it, this skill [Abyssal Aura] is the real problem. Take the skill out of the equation and it should be a breeze for me surviving this floor provided I keep my guard up all times. But how?’

I recalled that the skill was passive which made it even more broken because I didn’t know whether or not it was possible to turn off passive skills.

I knew that I had [Lesser Flame Body] and I knew that it was active all time and it felt like it was natural.

Truthfully speaking, I didn’t bother to try to find how to ‘turn off’ the passive skills because it didn’t cost me anything.

Assuming that passive skills are natural, only external means like buff or debuff that I usually used until now were the current way to kill the Abyssal Beasts but additional costs would tire me out fast.

There was a very small chance maybe the Tower had something to deal with them but I was more inclined that the Tower would not give an easy way to kill the Abyssal Beasts considering the blood and offerings of the recruits that the Tower got.

“Or I could try to find myself a meat shield to at least increase my chance of survival.” I muttered silently.

After I rested up, I started to walk straightforward like always until I came across a split path.

This was new to me as for the first time in this Tower I got to choose which way I wanted to go.

‘Left or right?’

I carefully scrutinized the path but I saw no difference between both of them.

Furthermore I didn’t know whether or not different paths would give different results so I assumed it should be the same, right?

I decided to choose the right path and hopefully I would not come across something that was excessive to handle for me.

What I didn’t know was that after I went in the right path, the entrance was sealed making anyone unable to enter.

…

A stern looking man dressed in a chainmail armor with a sword hanging around his waist was walking alongside another man with a leather armor with multiple knives equipped.

If I was here, I would notice that the path they took was exactly the same path that I had explored until I found myself at the split path.

“It really was surprising to see a familiar person in this goddamn Tower, right John?” spoke the man equipped with a leather armor with both of his hand were put behind his head.

“Keep your guard up, Haven’t you seen the mission objectives? There are real Abyssal Beasts here in this floor.”

“I know but isn’t this weird? Abyssal Beasts only start to appear from the fourth or the fifth floor depending on the area. This is still the third floor.”

“You know the Tower is unpredictable. Even until now no one has cleared this tower or even survived until the last floor. Even the strongest of humans or the Pioneers are still stuck at the 60th floor trying to breakthrough Section 5.”

“I come here to try my luck finding opportunities in this tower not to be killed early on.”

“Regardless of your reason coming in this Tower with that kind of mentality you will not survive for long. This isn’t even the beginning of the tower yet. The real beginning start at the 11th floor.”

“I know I know … After the first appearance of the Tower 33 years ago, the empire has made a compulsory basic course about the Tower.

Even the laziest one know that first get to 11th floor then you will start making riches and fame. That is why sometimes you can see a high level adventurers in Section 0 because they are busy training themselves to quickly complete the first ten floors like you.”

“Good! Although you are right that it is very weird Abyssal Beasts appear in this floor.” replied John as the both of them took the left path.

…

[Tower of Babel Floor 3 Area 5]

Alive: 88 Dead: 12

The dead counter increased faster than the previous floor. Well, when you put beasts with twice the power of a normal recruits in an enclosed environment without escape it was acceptable.

I stopped and quickly prepared myself to engage in a combat if needed and stealthily followed the growl of the Abyssal Beast.

Luckily there was a sharp turn ahead of me and it made me possible to peek what was going on instead of being dragged into the fight unexpectedly.

5 goblins were circling a mad [Abyssal Dog]. I managed to use [Insight] on one of the nearest goblins from me and managed to see that it was level 90, quite a high level goblin.

I assumed the other 4 were also roughly in the 90s level. Judging by their wounds and situation of the battle, they barely managed to handle the [Abyssal Dog].

At this rate most likely casualties would appear from the goblins’ side and the balance of the battle would tip in the dog’s favour.

‘Should I or should I not help?’