A handsome man appeared as Otto walked in to the dilapidated building.
Before he could even introduce himself, Otto felt the floors shake heavily beneath his feet.
'The meteor fragments are here.'
The square where he had initially arrived was at the center of the disaster. Otto couldn't guarantee that no fragments would hit this place, either, but with how far away they were, it was extremely unlikely.
He indifferently glanced at the two people who looked alarmed in front of him.'They still don't know.'
Otto smirked slightly.
'Leverage came walking in on its own.'
But he had to act fast to make the trade he desired.
"You don't know what's happening?"
Otto put on a face of 'surprise.'
The man glanced at him, slightly startled.This was an outpost of the Thieves Guild, much prided for their information gathering specialties.
The man was this outpost's manager, so naturally his own information would not be lagging behind.
But information was information; they couldn't outright predict the future. In fact, the Guild's capabilities here were rather stunted at the moment, too.
It was because they read the direction of the wind and understood that this city would soon fall. Most of their agents had already escaped, and even these two were planning to flee the city tomorrow.
The manager's mind was clouded with doubt.
How could this random boy who seemed to know their code immediately have such news?
'Is he lying?'
The boy didn't look like he was lying.
Otherwise…
'Could he have known in advance?'
The floor continued to shake ever more strongly.
The old lady looked like she would fall at any minute, but every time it happened, she would immediately shift her stance and steady herself.
Otto noticed this and exclaimed inwardly,
'Decent moves.'
At this point, the man looked at him, unbothered by the chaos outside and the shaking of the floor and walls.
Despite looking dilapidated, the building was very sturdy. It wouldn't collapse just from this.
The man thought for a second before offering,
"I'm Seneschal. Are you willing to trade for your information?"
Otto smiled. He had heard exactly what he was looking for.
***************************************************************************************************
On a hillside half a mile away from the city, a dashing figure sighed as he watched the carnage at the Bront City Southeast Square.
The city wouldn't fall from this, but the disaster combined with the siege of the monsters left the city in a precarious state, as just under a tenth of the city was already devastated before the attack had even begun.
'The Rainbow Corinth, huh.'
As Otto expected, it was a jewel.
And not just any jewel. Even for him, this thing would be hard to obtain.
He felt like he suddenly understood why no one had ever completed the [Tutorial] on the [Extreme] difficulty.
It was sheer madness to try to complete this task. Worse, he was on a timer, for once the city was completely destroyed in a week, that thing would probably fall into the hands of the Wolf King.
Needless to say, Otto was prepared to avoid confrontation with the Wolf King at all costs.
Since he would be mercilessly slaughtered if he tried.
It wasn't a matter of skill when the gap in absolute power was too great.
And despite his many advantages, he had indeed just been summoned to the [Tower]. His basic attributes reflected it.
It wasn't like there was no chance to get the jewel.
The Rainbow Corinth was the heirloom jewel to a certain noble house located in the city's Northern District.
It would be nice if the jewel belonged to an ailing noble family, but the [Tower] would never make things so easy.
In fact, the Brenner family who owned the Corinth was at the height of their influence. Their patriarch was likely the strongest man in the city, with the possible exception of the Royal Army Commander stationed here.
Otto knew it wasn't something he could obtain by simply barging in to their house.
But Otto wasn't adept at things like barging in, anyway.
He had risen to the top not because of his sheer might. Rather, he was adept at the use of force with precision at critical moments, and using his enemy's might against them.
Otto was particularly good at making schemes.
'It's time to play some politics, I suppose.'
Maybe he had been inwardly looking down on the [Tutorial] difficulty, perhaps because he had passed through it even at his weakest.
Of course, he had only dared to pass the 'Medium' difficulty mission then, and that was already an excellent result compared to others.
Now, Otto felt his blood boiling at the thought of challenging himself once more. Wasn't this exactly the reason he had chosen to come back in time?
In the past, he had hit the limit of his potential on the 69th floor and could go no further. With a fresh start now, he was determined to break through his own limits.
And here was where it would all begin.
He laughed happily despite the difficulties.
'Time to get moving.'
Otto carefully calculated his remaining time. Before finishing his mission, he still had three items to get, after all.
First, the [Talent Enhancement] potion of the highest grade.
This potion was not actually that hard to obtain if you knew what you were doing. It was one of the rare cases in the [Tower] where luck played a greater role than 'effort.'
It was considered a one-time-only hidden piece in the [Tutorial].
In his past life, it was taken by a middle-aged man named Dallas who rose rapidly through the floors with sheer luck that he was able to rapidly turn into great strength.
Otto had met him on the 23rd floor, and they were similar in their views and fighting styles, so they had ended up forming a team to take on the [Tower] together.
Otto had heard the story of him obtaining this potion in the [Tutorial] more times than he could count.
It was to the point where he would immediately distance himself as soon as the word 'Tutorial' came out of Dallas's lips.
But that annoyance would now become his great strength.
Otto sprinted west of the city of Bront directly into the forest.
If this were any other floor, Otto would certainly be forced to fight monsters every step of the way.
Here, in the [Tutorial], where new summoned made up the majority of the numbers, the monsters were easily evaded, and Otto had yet to cast a single spell as he dodged and weaved through his enemies.
He passed by a few groups of climbers fighting the monsters as he sprinted by.
They all made dumbfounded looks as they watched him run away.
'Fighting can also be avoided like this?'
It wasn't their fault they didn't know. Perhaps, subconsciously, many thought this was a game, where they should kill as many monsters as possible to get the best rewards.
Ordinarily, they weren't wrong; the better your performance in the [Tutorial], the better the tabulated rewards.
But small monsters that could be evaded like Otto was doing would not be worth very much.
After a few minutes of sprinting, Otto slowed to a jog, unwilling to let his stamina completely run out before having to potentially do some fighting.
A quick check confirmed that he had '4/10' stamina left.
It only took him twenty more minutes of alternately jogging and walking directly into the center of the forest before Otto caught sight of what he was looking for.
Three trees, which were bigger and taller than the others, formed a triangle in the middle of a clearing.
To a layman, they may look randomly placed.
Otto knew it was meticulous, though he didn't know who placed them or why they were placed there.
To his surprise, when he walked up, another person was already standing there.
It was a woman, a beautiful one, too. She looked to be no older than 25, but her face betrayed a serene type of inner maturity.
She stood there, scrutinizing the three trees with her hands on her hips, brows furrowed, seeming to be looking for something.
Otto's voice startled her.
"What are you looking for?"
His voice carried little inflection, but those familiar with him would have heard a hint of steel under his tone.
His eyes were calm as he looked at her.
Stella turned around and shook herself out of her trance. She looked at Otto with some surprise in her eyes.
At a glance, she determined he was a new summoned.
'A baby challenger made it all the way here?'
Stella decided to be merciful, on account of his decent skills traversing the forest.
"Hatchling, leave. This is no place for a new summoned."
When she spoke, she consciously let out a bit of her killing intent. It was something accumulated after participating in who knew how many tutorial rounds which had nothing to do with her basic attributes.
Otto's eyebrows rose with interest as he felt her slight killing intent.
'She must be a [Leech].'
There were rules to climbing the [Tower].
If one passed their mission on any given floor, they would receive rewards, including but not limited to AP, potions, items, equipment, etc.
These folks would be able to ascend to the next floor and complete the mission there.
Henceforth, they were unable to return to lower floors.
The story was different if one failed their floor. Instead of a reward, there was a punishment, which was greater in proportion to the difficulty of the chosen mission.
Punishments could be any number of things, taking away AP, a debuff on certain attributes, losing equipment or weapons, sickness, etc. Some of the harshest even required the challenger to directly lose a life.
Additionally, these people would have to 're-challenge' the mission they had failed, usually at higher difficulty if they wished to proceed.
They were called the [Repeaters].
In time, as society started to flourish in the tower, organizations were built and thrived on resources found inside the tower floors.
They found out that once someone had already passed a floor and received their rewards, before ascending to the next, they could re-enter the floor to take various missions and harvest resources from that floor.
Because they often hindered legitimate climbers on the floor, whether unintentionally or otherwise, they were quickly dubbed [Leeches] by serious challengers.
It wasn't all good for [Leeches], either.
After they entered the floor once more, they were still forced to take on a mission from the [Tower], but were unable to receive any rewards from it, and would likewise still be punished on failure.
Well, [Leeches] on account of their higher attributes and usually broader combat experience were generally slightly stronger than the legitimate climbers of any given floor.
The woman in front of Otto was a good example of this.
To her, there was no way any newly summoned could possibly pose a significant threat to her after she had been through the [Tutorial] over six times, and been rewarded with various items increasing her attributes by her organization.
Only if they came in numbers of dozens or hundreds would they stand a chance to take her down.
And even then, she could still probably escape.
Otto's eyes glowed coldly as he stared at her.
He was already not a fan of [Leeches]. They had hindered him too many times in the past for him to have any good feelings.
Actually, many weren't exactly bad people at first. It was just that, simply by following the orders of the guilds and organizations above them created a lot of problems for the serious climbers.
Furthermore, this woman was standing in his way.
He smirked.
"Ne, missy, I actually think it's a little girl like you that's out of her league."
While Stella bristled and prepared to reply angrily, a large prepared mana bolt shot out of Otto's hand at just under the speed of a bullet.
There was no suspense.
The bolt struck her in the middle of the forehead before she could even try to react, instantly draining her of one of her lives.
Otto could make out her stunned features as her corpse disappeared into particles of light.
There was nothing like guilt in his mind. First, she hadn't actually died yet. Second, even if she had, he would have killed her all the same.
He could make it sound noble or just, that he was killing off leeches for the good of everyone.
In reality, though he didn't like leeches, the reason he took action was even simpler.
She stood in his way.
Otto didn't need another reason.
He checked his status screen.
[Toto]
New Summoned
Health: 10/10 (0.01/minute)
Stamina: 4/10 (0.1/minute)
Mana: 75/80 (0.02/minute)
He could only rejoice that the woman had only a single additional attribute in 'Sturdiness' so spending five points of mana was enough to empty her health in a single hit.
Otto was still deeply unwilling to waste his mana. Even the five mana he had expended would only recover after four hours or so.
Looking at the three trees above him, he couldn't help but let out an unconscious grin.
***************************************************************************************************
Otto hummed a light tune as he got to work climbing up the copse of trees.
Time to search!
'The potion should be inside a brown box set on a branch lying at the intersection of the three trees, carefully hidden from prying eyes.'
Otto scrambled up the first tree, carefully supporting himself with only his hands and feet on the tiny little nubs that protruded from its trunk.
He clicked his tongue.
'This body is so weak.'
Though it was the easiest one to get among the three things he needed to find, the [Tower] would definitely not make it easy if it could make it hard.
He laughed to himself as he remembered Dallas's retelling of his great escape.
A voice appeared in his mind.
"Damn, Otto, I was running and running from that goddamn wolf pack in the forest as fast as I could dodging and whooshing by, looking for the tallest tree in the forest, then BOOM I found it! And there were three of them, so I climbed up the trees almost to the top and decided to sit the rest of the floor out to escape the wolves, and then…"
In his memory, Dallas blabbered on and on, but the gist was that while he was escaping, he found a small brown box tied into the branches and inside was a potion, which he promptly drank.
The truly irritating thing about it was that this was merely one of twenty-some similar encounters where Dallas was escaping, or chasing, or fighting, and he just 'happened' to stumble upon something truly unbelievable.
Otto hadn't believed in luck until he watched the same thing happen to Dallas numerous times in person.
'He was such a bastard.'
Contrary to his thoughts, a fond smile hung on Otto's lips.
He sincerely hoped that all of his old compatriots would still be able to climb up.
But Otto would never feel bad for stealing these kind of lucky opportunities.
He had a feeling that Dallas's luck wouldn't fail him in this round, either.
Shaking off his thoughts, he scrambled up so high that he could see halfway across the forest from his height.
Exactly as he expected, a small brown box hung inside three knotted branches. Otto reached out to touch it, fingers trembling ever so slightly.
Immediately, a notification appeared.
Congratulations.
You have found 1x [Talent Enhancement Potion].
[Talent Enhancement Potion]
Transcendent Grade
Effects: Raises your magical talent by ???
Restriction: may only be consumed once.
Otto shivered slightly as the notifications hit.
!!!
Transcendent Grade!!!??
That bastard Dallas totally wasted it last time! This thing could only show its true potential in the hands of a pure caster…
A small glass bottle filled with purple colored liquid appeared in his shaking hands.
Quickly, as if unwilling to wait another second, he chugged the potion down.
