Chapter 43

— Hello everyone! I’m Perez from the Yellow Tower’s Belgium branch, your host for today’s Tower of Proof!
— And I’m Hans of the Blue Tower.
— Oh! Right from the start the leaders shot ahead! Most of them are swordsmen trained in martial arts, spearheaded by The Old Gods’ Wound!
— They’re moving too fast for the cameras. Reminds me of my wife.
— Haha, is your wife an Awakened with speed like the Spear of Thunder?
— No, that was the speed at which she cheated while I was away on a business trip.
— …
— …
— Now! While we were talking, the contestants reached their first obstacle! A hell pit belching lava! The ground is unstable—one misstep and you’ll go straight down!

While the commentators bantered, the first to move were, of course, the body-enhancement types.

Because of the three-legged race format those trained in martial arts and raw physical ability had the advantage.

There were White Magic spells like short-range teleportation or reflex boosts, but the chaos around us made concentration difficult.

With our legs tied and mana wavelengths clashing between partners, it put mages at a disadvantage in several ways.

But among the crowd, there existed a monster who did not care about such disadvantages at all.

— Huh? Someone just cleared the hell pit in an instant!
— The drones around them suddenly lost signal… watch out!

The entire cave—riddled with traps—shook as if an earthquake had struck.

A shockwave rolled in from ahead, and the frontrunners tumbled like dominos into the lava.

They were Awakened, so surely they hadn’t all died… right?

When I checked the broadcast on my smartwatch, the static resolved into a clean shot of the staircase to the second floor.

On the switched feed stood a flustered Tower official who hadn’t prepared for a winner’s interview—and a white-haired woman in a snow-white dress.

— White Immortal! You must not use such overwhelming power inside the tower!
— Why not?
— Because…

Baek-seon, the White Immortal.

Guild master—and only member—of the one-person guild Monologue in White.

And one of the Seven Immortals who had entered to claim the special Gate Ha Yeri warned me about.

Not much had been made public about her.

After the fall of the Black Tower, she was simply regarded as the lone mage who had preserved the lineage of Black Magic.

— This place was designed with difficulty comparable to a rank-1 Gate. To reduce accidents, we reinforced durability to the maximum—that’s why the tower only goes up to the third floor.
— Rank-1 means Upper Level? I’ll be careful going forward.
— Thank you. But where did you leave your partner?
— Right here.

In answer to the question tossed by a high-ranking Blue Tower mage who had come down to explain, she looked at her own leg.

A severed ankle dangled there.

— Eek! Camera—cut the camera!
— Th-that’s a rules violation! You’re disqualified!
— The band didn’t snap.
— Even so, the three-legged race obviously requires both members to cross together…
— Then I’ll go pick them up right now.
— No! If you move again, the tower truly won’t withstand it. This… we need to consult the organizers. Please wait a moment.

At the official’s shout, the broadcast abruptly cut to black.

A moment later, a notice went out to all contestants: from now on, you would only pass if both partners arrived alive.

We hadn’t even started, and it already felt brutal.

As I lowered my wrist, Yoo Se-byeol finished stretching and urged me on.

“Let’s go too. We’ll be late at this rate.”

“Just a moment.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It seems the conditions aren’t in our favor. I just had an idea.”

Without my tentacles, I was the kind of frail person who couldn’t even open a dusty jar of strawberry jam on a high shelf.

On top of that, Yoo Se-byeol and I had a pretty big height difference.

If we started running with our legs tied like this, it wouldn’t just throw off our rhythm—there was a good chance we’d “trip and die” before the finish line, like the poor soul whose ankle alone had crossed earlier.

But thanks to that broadcast, I’d spotted a loophole in the rules. I’d thought of a surefire way to win.

“We’ll do it piggyback.”

“What!?”

“Think about it. The rules don’t say we have to tie left leg to right leg. We just tie the same side, then one person hops on the other’s back. That way we’ll move like a single body.”

Fortunately, the band was sturdy enough that it wouldn’t break under ordinary strain.

At my words, Yoo Se-byeol suddenly lost her usual confidence. She couldn’t even meet my eyes and muttered in a tiny voice.

“Th-that won’t work!”

“Why not?”

“It might not be cheating, but it’s still a loophole… and it’s way too embarrassing…”

“What’s truly embarrassing is failing the very first mission while carrying the Special Unit’s name.”

And returning as losers, only to be scorned by my hundred tentacles. This, less than twenty minutes after I’d had a tearful farewell with Mala-nim.

“If you don’t want me close, we can just run normally—”

“Wait! L-let me think about it!”

I couldn’t exactly force my superior officer into my plan. But she clearly didn’t want to lose to her former subordinates either.

Her eyes lingered on my shoulders. She brushed her robe between her fingers, testing the feel. She mimed holding something close, bounced lightly on her feet, then slapped her cheeks with a sharp smack as if to steel herself.

“F-fine. Let’s do it!”

“Really?”

“Y-yes. You said not to be embarrassed. I—I’m ready.”

“Understood. Then pardon me.”

I nodded as she reached toward me, and stepped in close.
We tied our left legs together, then I carefully climbed onto her back.

From between her black hair and the flushed nape of her neck wafted a faint citrus scent.
Mixed in was the subtle trace of a Star Scar. Like lying down in a mandarin grove, I rested gently against her and murmured:

“Please start now.”

“…Huh?”

— The second obstacle is here! A winding, narrow passage riddled with traps—the “Labyrinth of Betrayers Who Gnaw at the Mind!”
— Once they pass this, only the ice wall stands between them and the finish line! Let’s see if there are any notable contestants…
— Oh! Right as we speak, Camera 113 has caught one pair dashing ahead at incredible speed! It’s… isn’t that one of the Special Unit’s Commanders!? And on their back—looks like a mage—ah.
— What’s happening, Hans!?
— The feed just cut!

A shattered drone tumbled into lava and melted. It had been struck down by Yoo Se-byeol’s blade.

From behind, her ears and crown blazed redder than the lava itself, like they might burst at any moment.

She cut cleanly through the lava zone, but as soon as we reached the labyrinth entrance, she dropped to her knees, burying her face in her hands.

“This is not what I expected at all…”

“You were amazing, Deputy Commander. We really are in perfect sync.”

“Why are you so calm! I was using Earth Pulse Step, and you clung to me like a barnacle without budging an inch!”

Well, I was used to riding piggyback on Alexei whenever we moved. And for all her small frame, Yoo Se-byeol had twice the stability of the Butcher of Bishkek.

The only problems were her hair getting into my mouth, and the fact that blowing it out threw off her balance for a split second. That part needed work.

As I shifted to climb onto her back again, she suddenly gripped the edge of her robe.

“Let’s rest a bit. There are still plenty of people behind us.”

“Already tired?”

“No! I’m sweating, okay? It’s scorching in here, and running with you on my back made it worse!”

Problem.

What’s the proper reaction when the girl who just carried me over five kilometers is sweating and flustered?

If Mala-nim had been here, the answer would’ve come instantly. But now I had to solve it myself.

After careful thought, I submitted my answer sheet:

“Please let me drink it since it’d be a waste—”

“…What?”

No, that’s zero points.

I erased it with a hasty mental correction pen and rewrote:

“Next time, I’ll carry you.”

“R-really?”

“Anytime you need, you can call me to be your personal rickshaw. Of course, my special internal sensors are recording today’s distance down to the meter, so if you go over that, a surcharge applies.”

“It’s a promise, got it? No backing out later!”

Was that the right answer? Her reaction wasn’t bad.

Then again, she probably wasn’t the type to fear a surcharge.

After promising I’d carry her whenever she needed, we prepared to head out again—when Seol Si-heon and members of The Old Gods’ Wound suddenly appeared before us.

“As expected, you arrived quickly, young lady. We’ve been looking for you.”

“Hm? Why’d you come back?”

“We cleared the traps ahead in preparation for your arrival. Follow us, and you’ll reach the second floor safely.”

“Th-there’s no need for that…!”

Yoo Se-byeol waved her hands, but she couldn’t fully dismiss them either. She simply wasn’t the type to refuse those who showed loyalty for her sake.

That was when I noticed it again: Seol Si-heon’s gaze drifting to her waist. Each time he lowered his head, his eyes lingered far too long on the scabbard of her sword.

“What do you think, Hayan? I can’t exactly carry you on my back in front of everyone.”

“We’ll just walk normally. Even if they cleared the path, we won’t be running full speed in the labyrinth anyway.”

“Will you be okay? With our legs tied, walking straight won’t be easy…”

“That’s no problem.”

I could control hundreds, even thousands of tentacles individually. Walking backwards, sideways—it was all the same to me. And if needed, I could always boost my reflexes with the Tentacle of Stimulation. No way would I fall flat like an idiot.

We followed Seol Si-heon and his group into the labyrinth, and the atmosphere shifted immediately.

“Finally, I can breathe. How long to the exit?”

“At this pace, about fifteen minutes. Thanks to White Immortal lowering the final ice wall, we’ll simply cross over it. Once we clear this, the mission will be done.”

“From the next floor on, don’t feel like you need to help. We’ve handled things just fine ourselves.”

“My apologies.”

The movement was smooth. Seol Si-heon guided us through the twisting maze without hesitation, retracing the route he’d already cleared. Any visible traps had been dismantled.

At last, I felt the cool breeze of the outside world through the narrow passage. That was when I noticed—the cameras embedded in the walls and ceiling, which had been recording throughout, were shattered here.

“Turn right and you’ll see the end of the labyrinth.”

“Thank you. Thanks to you, we made it—”

Click!

Pababababat!

The moment Yoo Se-byeol stepped where Seol Si-heon had walked, the walls and ceiling split open, and arrows poured from every direction.

She drew her blade in a flash, cutting down the ones coming from the front—but with her legs bound, she couldn’t pivot fast enough to cover our backs.

A storm of arrows was about to turn the two of us into pincushions.

“Hayan, move!”

From inside my sleeve, the tentacles shot out.