The One Waiting On The Top Floor.

Since it was a little past noon, we decided to take a break in the corridor overlooking the tower.

Lunch consisted of a mountain of dark rye bread and a pot full of crab soup. The temperature on this floor was quite chilly, so I took out a Red Magic Stone and gave the pot a slow, steady . When using the item menu commands, you can’t really do fine adjustments like this—it’s like an old microwave that you can’t stop until it dings.

“What’s wrong, Mia? Were you that hungry?”

I asked the girl who was staring intently at my hands, but she gave a quiet shake of her head.

“I just realized… I don’t really have to light the hearth anymore.”

“Now that you mention it, Ute-san used to scold you pretty harshly for that, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. So, I guess I’m feeling a little nostalgic?”

“…Are you lonely?”

“Hmm, I don’t know. I’m having a ton of fun right now, but sometimes I think being able to do things manually like you do, Sensei, is pretty nice too.”

“I’m actually jealous that you can just blow things up and burn them whenever you want.”

I was thinking specifically of when Paula was in trouble earlier. We caught each other’s eyes and smiled without saying a word. Everything has its pros and cons; the important thing is the right person in the right place.

“Alright, let’s eat.”

“Itadakimasu!”

“Feast—!”

“Koo!”

The bread was as chewy as ever, but the soup made from the crab shell stock was exquisite. As I dipped the bread and chewed, I observed the plaza from the shadows of the corridor.

The depth of this open area was about forty or fifty meters. It was surrounded by a cylindrical stone wall, and other than the massive tower in the center, nothing else was visible. The top of the tower was too dark to see, but it looked to be three or four stories high. There were several small windows on the sides, but I couldn’t see what was happening inside from here.

The distance from the corridor to the tower was roughly ten meters. I could see a large entrance, big enough for an Assault Bird to enter without ducking. And on either side of the large wooden doors, skeletal sentries stood motionless. They held rusted iron swords and battered wooden shields. Other than that, they wore nothing.

“It looks suspicious, but I don’t see anywhere else to go. Let’s check the inside for now. Shadows might show up, so Mia and Yo, please conserve your mana.”

I handed some transmuted Mana-Vitality Potions to the fairy and the girl as they relaxed. Since Labyrinth Garlic was added as an ingredient, the grade of these potions has increased, along with the amount of mana and vitality they restore. It’s a relief that I can get by making fewer of them than before.

“We’re dealing with skeletons, so let’s have Yoru and Kuu take the lead. …Wait, what are they doing?”

The two had already finished their meal and were huddled together playing some sort of game. I watched as Yoru picked up the reclining Kuu and started walking around. She was using the crab pincers extended from her elbows to carry him like a forklift.

Realizing I’d called her name, Yoru waddled over. She carefully lowered her younger brother onto the top of my foot and gave him a tight squeeze. Kuu wrapped his arms around his sister’s neck in a gesture of gratitude.

“…What is this?”

“My Lord, I believe they are playing by imitating us.”

“Eh?”

Now that she mentioned it, the situation did look a bit like when I carried Paula earlier…

It seemed it was Yoru’s turn to be carried next, as the beast-child flopped onto the ground. Kuu reached out and tried to lift her, but his arm span was desperately short. He tried several times, but each time he just ended up flipping Yoru over. Finally, the bird-child extended his talons and simply snatched his sister up with a grand grip before flying into the air. It was far from a “princess carry,” but both of them had huge smiles, so they were clearly enjoying themselves.

“Alright, go just like that, Kuu!”

At my word, Kuu flapped his wings and glided through the air, closing the distance to the tower in an instant. Then, just as he reached the skeletons, he heartlessly let go of Yoru.

With all her momentum, Yoru slammed headfirst into the sentry. The monster’s head, which had been faithfully performing its duty in silence, shattered into pieces upon impact with the furball. Kuu, for his part, banked sharply and delivered a fierce kick to the other skeleton. Its head, too, was pulverized in an instant.

“A one-hit kill… that’s impressive.”

The monsters on this floor are roughly Level 17. In contrast, these two are Level 23. While there’s a compatibility factor involved, a 6-level difference is apparently overwhelming.

When I pulled on the door, it opened easily. The inside of the tower smelled of mold, and the thick layers of dust on the floor suggested that there hadn’t been a hint of human presence for a long time. From the remains of the skeletons, I collected rusted swords, decayed shields, and Black Magic Stones. The swords and shields were barely usable, but they might serve as materials. The Black Magic Stones are currently a bit useless since I can only use them for .

“Okay, this seems easy enough. Let’s move fast.”

The interior of the tower consisted of a corridor running along the outer perimeter, with the center partitioned into small rooms. These rooms were equipped with furniture like desks, shelves, and beds that had almost entirely lost their original shapes. The shredded fabric remnants hanging from the walls were likely tapestries.

As for the inhabitants—the skeletons—they wandered the corridors and rooms, only to be systematically annihilated by Yoru and Kuu’s preemptive strikes. It was a total walkover.

In the fourth room, we found a staircase with several missing stones. However, the second floor was no different. All we found were unusable furniture remains and skeletons walking aimlessly. Eventually, we all joined the combat, silently grinding for experience.

“So this is the top floor…”

As expected, it was a four-story building, but the top room was not what I had imagined. The ceiling had collapsed, leaving it exposed to the elements. There were no monsters; only what looked like half-rotted, tilted bookshelves lined the walls.

“There’s nothing here~”

“Regret—”

“Koo!”

I touched around to see if there was anything to salvage, but nothing appeared in my item list. It seemed to be a total dud.

“My Lord, over there.”

Just as I thought that, Paula pointed down from the tower. I poked my head out cautiously from the collapsed section and looked down. The light from the fairy’s wings faintly illuminated a corridor entrance below. I quickly checked the other side, and there was the corridor we had come through. It seems there was another corridor on the far side that had simply been hidden from view by the tower.

“…………We didn’t even need to climb this.”

“Ehh, it was actually pretty fun!”

“It was a place where it’s hard to tell what it was for.”

Well, the familiars leveled up, so I guess I’ll settle for that. I let out a sigh and prepared to head back when I suddenly tripped over a piece of debris.

I picked it up. It was a small, rust-covered metal handbell.