Chapter 159: Forty-Fourth Floor, The Abandoned City (7)

The climber’s head, which had been rolling across the ground, finally came to a halt. Its slitted, reptilian-like pupils stared blankly into the void.

Disrupting the suffocating silence, I turned to face my party members. “Everyone, prepare to move.”

“What?”

“

Huh?

”

The others glanced at me with puzzled expressions. Only Ha Hee-Jeong seemed to sense the gravity of my tone, her face turning grave.

I hefted my hammer.

“Su-Hyeok, what’s going on all of a sudden?” Seo Ho-Su asked as he sheathed his sword.

“We need to return to base.”

“The arena?”

“Yes.”

Perhaps they wholeheartedly trusted my judgment or heard the urgency in my tone, but the others immediately began preparing to leave. Throughout the entire process, however, their curious gazes remained fixed on me.

Their confusion didn’t surprise me, given how abrupt my declaration had been, but an alarm of this magnitude didn’t give me time to spare.

“I’ll explain as we go. Let’s get going.”

I started running without waiting for a response. Though my party members remained perplexed, they followed without complaint.

Speeding up even more, I turned slightly and explained, “My Sixth Sense went off. Something’s wrong, and I think it is at our base.”

“At the base? What could have happened?”

“This suddenly?”

Amid the murmurs of surprise, Seo Ho-Su wore a worried expression and mentioned something that caused everyone to pause, “Do you think it’s Trozen?”

I understood his concern. Ever since Trozen’s escape, Seo Ho-Su had felt deeply uneasy about Seo Ha-Rin’s safety. That was always his top priority, especially now with everyone’s stats reset.

At the moment, the monsters on the floor weren’t our greatest threat. It was Trozen himself.

Unfortunately, it came down to a very simple reasoning. Once this floor ended and Trozen’s actions came to light, he would inevitably face retribution. Whether it was by our hands or another climber’s, his demise was almost guaranteed.

Trozen surely knows that too.

Eliminating anyone aware of his crimes would be his only guarantee of survival. Therefore, he would target us before the floor concluded.

Still, I couldn’t be certain that Trozen had activated my Sixth Sense.

“That’s possible, but it could also be monsters attracted by Kasaan.”

Seo Ho-Su paused for a brief moment before letting out a relieved, “Ah, you’re right.”

The monsters hadn’t attacked the last night, but today could be different. Although we had left a few climbers behind to guard the base, who knew what unforeseen events could occur?

One thing remained clear, however. We needed to reach the base as quickly as possible. Whether it was Trozen, Kasaan, or something else entirely, my Sixth Sense had never given me such a dire warning.

Still, I hoped that since I received the warning now rather than earlier, we still had some time left.

It takes roughly an hour to reach the base from the nest.

Even so, I didn’t relish the thought of running for an hour straight. If only the tower hadn’t reset our abilities, we could have used Two-Way Portal.

Lamenting wouldn’t bring back our skills, unfortunately.

“Let’s pick up the pace.”

***

[Survive. Time remaining: 141 hours 53 minutes.]

We ignored any monsters we encountered as we sprinted through the city, only pausing to deal with persistent ones who refused to back down.

By the time we neared the base, it became clear what had triggered my Sixth Sense. The sky near the base teemed with enormous hornets. It wasn’t Trozen after all—it was Kasaan.

After running for a bit more time, we arrived at the street that led to the base’s entrance. Everyone’s breathing was ragged from the prolonged sprint.

[Level 26 Giant Hornet]

Thud. Thud.

Even from this distance, the sound of the hornets pounding against the base's steel gates was unmistakable.

Hundreds of monsters surrounded the base, far more than we had faced the previous day. It reminded me of the catastrophic insect swarm from the thirteenth floor, though these creatures were larger and far more grotesque.

Some hornets that couldn’t approach the gates due to the dense crowd had latched onto nearby buildings. They crawled along the outer walls, gnawing at the makeshift barriers of steel and wood that had been erected to reinforce the damaged walls.

While the steel plates held firm, the wooden ones seemed unlikely to endure for much longer. Fortunately, the wooden barriers still appeared intact enough to provide cover. It seemed the attack hadn’t been going on for long.

I glanced back at my party members.

During our rushed return to base, we had divided the skill books and weapons. Seo Ho-Su and Hakin received the longsword and Air Cutter, while I took Sharpness and Mantis’s Allure. The chain scythe, which none of us could use effectively, had been entrusted to Ha Hee-Jeong.

Just then, the swarming hornets above noticed our approach.

“Prepare for battle!”

“Screech!”

With an ear-splitting shriek, the hornets dove toward us. The harsh drone of their wings grew louder as they closed the distance with terrifying speed.

Without lightning magic, there wasn’t much I could do, and the same held true for anyone who wasn’t a mage. At the moment, our most effective weapons were Ha Hee-Jeong and Hakin’s spells.

“Hee-Jeong! Hakin!”

When I turned to look, Ha Hee-Jeong had already begun chanting, her voice steady and commanding. Hakin, though slower to react, quickly followed suit.

“――――――!”

“―――!”

Ha Hee-Jeong’s flames erupted first. Erupting powerfully, a fiery tempest surged forward and enveloped the incoming hornets. Those caught in the inferno either plummeted to the ground or retreated in desperation.

[Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok has leveled up.]

The sheer magnitude of the flames dwarfed anything we had seen in the mantis den—powerful enough to make me momentarily reconsider our strategy. Perhaps summoning swarms like this for her to annihilate would be more efficient than chasing hidden missions.

As I marveled at the fiery display, Hakin’s explosive magic followed, further intensifying the destruction.

“Run to the base! I can’t keep this up for long!” Ha Hee-Jeong’s voice snapped me back to reality.

“Shit!”

“This is my limit! Go, now!”

Her frantic shout left no room for doubt. We immediately bolted toward the base’s entrance. Not a moment later, I understood why she had shouted so urgently.

The fiery tempest wasn’t meant to exterminate all the hornets; it had only cleared a path for us. Ha Hee-Jeong had poured everything into maximizing its size and intensity, but without the ability to maintain the spell, it couldn’t kill enough hornets for us to remain outside the base.

Of course, if she could regularly sustain such a feat, we wouldn’t have needed to venture into the mantis nest at all.

The fiery tempest flowed to the rhythm of our hurried strides, moving in unison as we approached the steel gate.

As soon as we entered the alley, Ha Hee-Jeong called out, “Hakin! I’ll go first!”

“Okay!”

Not a second later, she began another incantation, and the flames encircling us surged forward, streaking toward the narrow passage ahead. The blazing torrent consumed the hornets in its path, reducing them to shriveled, charred husks.

Yet, as Ha Hee-Jeong had warned, the storm’s diminished potency left survivors in its wake. Though their wings had been rendered useless, the remaining hornets charged forward on claw, snapping their jagged mandibles viciously.

I instinctively raised my hammer to strike, but before I could swing, Hakin activated Air Cutter, sending blades of air slicing toward the hornets.

Sssswhhk! Sssswhhk!

The sharp whistle of invisible blades tore through the alley, shredding the hornets into lifeless pieces that fell to the ground.

I turned toward the gate and shouted urgently, “We’re here! Open the gate now!”

Thankfully, the climbers inside responded instantly. With a heavy clank, the locks disengaged, and they pushed the steel gate open.

Ha Hee-Jeong sent progressively smaller waves of fire in every direction, keeping the remaining hornets at bay. Taking advantage of the brief respite, we rushed inside.

Once the last of my party members had entered, I secured the locks on the gate.

“

Hah

...

hah

...”

Panting heavily, my team leaned against the walls, their breaths ragged from exertion.

Thud! Thud!

Outside, the relentless pounding of the hornets against the steel barrier continued—a grim reminder of the precarious situation.

I turned my attention to the climbers who had stayed behind at the base. They stood at the ready, gripping their weapons tightly and tensing anxiously. However, I spotted a faint glimmer of relief pass across their faces at our return.

I turned to the remaining party leader. “What happened? Why did the hornets attack so suddenly?”

“We were following your suggestion, sending the remaining city inhabitants back to their original groups, but—”

“The hornets ambushed you?”

“Yes. Out of nowhere, the sky darkened, and they swarmed us.”

“I see... that explains the lull.”

I finally understood why the hornets hadn’t attacked us the previous night. It wasn’t that the hornets couldn’t locate us or were too unintelligent to attack. They had been preparing for a large-scale assault, one capable of breaking through the building’s defenses in one go.

I considered this, but there isn’t much more we could have done.

Keeping Kasaan with our party as we cleared the mantis nest would have been suicide. At the same time, our party couldn’t remain at the base indefinitely. Survival on this floor required growth. Furthermore, the looming threat of Trozen added another layer of urgency.

Given the situation, it could be necessary to abandon the hidden mission.

Still, I can understand why Ha Hee-Jeong didn’t expect today’s attack.

This was only the second day. If a swarm of level 26 hornets had attacked this early in her previous life, the climbers escorting Kasaan wouldn’t have survived. He would have been taken, and the hidden mission would have remained unresolved.

“Is Kasaan safe?”

“Yes, he’s secured in the inner chamber.”

“Good.”

I turned to my party, their expressions reflecting the gravity of the situation. Despite what we had just gone through, they seemed to have caught their breath during our exchange. Except for Ha Hee-Jeong, everyone seemed ready for another fight.

I approached her as she leaned heavily on Seo Ha-Rin’s shoulder.

“You alright?”

She was breathing steadily but appeared completely drained—a clear sign of mana depletion. Between the nearly hour-long sprint and the fiery storm she had unleashed, it was no surprise she had neared her limit.

She looked up at me with a pale, weary face. “I’m fine. I didn’t overexert my mana too much. Just give me a bit, and I’ll recover.

Thud! Thud!

The unrelenting battering of the gate continued. The repeated impacts were beginning to warp the thick steel.

Standing idle wouldn’t make the swarm retreat. There was only one viable option left.

We need to open the gate and face the swarm in the corridor.

Though our arrival had bought some time, the gate would break eventually. Plus, the hornets outside were already hammering at the wooden barriers along the outer walls. Opening the gate, luring them into the narrow corridor, and fighting them there was our best strategy at the moment.

The passage was just wide enough for two hornets to enter at a time, and the confined space would prevent them from taking flight. We would need to make full use of the terrain, just like we had done when first taking the arena.

Having made my decision, I looked at Ha Hee-Jeong again. “Rest for now.”

“You’re planning to open the gate and fight them, aren’t you?”

As expected, she had already discerned my intentions.

I gave her a small, crooked smile. “Yeah, it’s the best course of action. Don’t worry. We’ll handle this quickly.”

“Rest? No chance. I’ll be ready again soon. Just hold out a little longer.”

The climbers who were eavesdropping on our conversation looked at me in alarm, their expressions a mixture of shock and disbelief.

I turned to address them directly, my tone resolute. “Prepare for battle. We’re going to open the gate and face the swarm head-on.”

Their eyes widened, panic threatening to overtake them.

“What?!”

“Are you serious?”

I continued firmly, “If we wait, they’ll breach the walls elsewhere. This is the most effective strategy. Besides, leveling up will heal your wounds and restore your stamina.”

“Alright, let’s do this,” Seo Ho-Su said with a booming laugh, his confidence unwavering.

While the other climbers hesitated, my party began readying for combat with practiced efficiency.

“Move deeper into the corridor and form a line in front of the arena. I’ll open the gate and draw them in.”

Seo Ho-Su piped up, concerned, “Wouldn’t it be better to fight here? The corridor’s even narrower.”

“We need to lure as many of them inside as possible. If we fight here, the ones outside will keep attacking the walls.”

Seo Ho-Su nodded in understanding. I handed him my war hammer, exchanging it for a spare sword. The hammer would be too unwieldy in the tight confines of the corridor.

The other climbers were still stunned, and they stared at me as if unsure of what to do.

“Our party will hold the front line. Everyone else will act as reserves. Priests, focus on buffing anyone who is fighting.”

“Y-yes? Understood.”

“Why are you just standing there? Move, now!”

My sharp command jolted the climbers into action. They ran hurriedly down the corridor, with my party following close behind.

I, however, approached the gate, counting silently in my head.

Ten seconds.

That wasn’t enough time for everyone to reach their positions, but we couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

Better to face the swarm head-on than risk a breach.

As the countdown ended, I unlatched the lock decisively.

Clank—