Otherworld TRPG Game Master

132 – Trial Tower Floor 0_Log

I had made the following announcement regarding the Trial Tower:

Until my return to the academy, I will grant a wish to any student who clears the 10th floor!

And the results were as follows:

1. Alexon / 10th cleared floor / Clear time 1 day 15 hours 2 minutes

Professor Alexon, who had been having fun breaking everything in the playground that the kids had built in surprise, came in first place. However, since he was not a student, his clear reward was not recognized.

“Record deleted.”

The following are the records of the students:

1. Venet Party (Venet, Tara, Niole, Selvier) / 9th floor reached / Clear time 21 hours 37 minutes

Venet’s party was a very well-rounded party. Looking at their battle records, they showed an overall smooth clear time.

When it was just the trio of Venet, Tara, and Niole, they were strong in one-on-one battles but weak in battles against a large number of enemies, so their clear time would increase or they would fail to break through in certain sections.

For example, the Sleeping Princess in the Forest on the 7th floor. She had a pattern of summoning plant monsters whenever her cooldown was up, and the plants would cast a bind that reduced stats by a percentage.

So if you ignored the trash mobs and just kept fighting, you would eventually be tied up by the overwhelming number of plants and go straight to the defeat ending.

After Selvier joined, their weakness in battles against a large number of enemies was resolved, and their clear record improved significantly. Their strategy was as follows:

On floors with a large number of enemies, Selvier would use all of her magic power to attack.

The trio would take care of the boss on one-on-one floors. While they were beating up the boss, Selvier would recover her magic power. Once her magic power was fully charged, she would attack with fire power on the next floor with a large number of enemies─ and so on.

This tactic had the problem that it took time for Selvier to charge her magic power, so there were sections where time would stagnate.

The detailed clear record is as follows. (Seconds omitted)

1st floor Orc // 1 minute (MVP: Venet)

2nd floor Ogre // 3 minutes (MVP: Tara)

3rd floor Jenny of the Chain Sickle // 3 minutes (MVP: Venet)

4th floor Whip Witch // 1 hour 40 minutes (MVP: Selvier)

5th floor Jay of the Sword Dance // 7 minutes (MVP: Venet)

6th floor James, the Gunslinger of the Wilderness // 11 minutes (MVP: Tara)

7th floor Sleeping Princess in the Forest // 3 hours 20 minutes (MVP: Selvier)

8th floor Open Ark // 4 hours 40 minutes (MVP: Venet)

9th floor Battle City De1-ETe // 11 hours 32 minutes (Clear failed)

What was the 9th floor that they couldn’t break through?

It was just a hostile futuristic city with some gimmicks. The structure was to find a key card, board the orbital elevator, and destroy the artificial intelligence that controlled the city from the space station.

As I felt in Cthulhu, they are not very good at catching subtle hints. For example, when the city gimmick was activated, a light would flash in the sky, or the existence of the orbital elevator that stretched up to the end of the sky .

If they had been observant, they would have noticed the landmarks that said, “Oh, that’s where we have to go,” but they didn’t even look at them.

The boss mob was floating up there, but they were just wandering around the vast futuristic city, burning down buildings.

One could say that it was strange to expect such an ability from people in a fantasy world. However, even so, Alexon had caught on as soon as he entered and ran to the center!

I should have known from the beginning when he didn’t protect Abraham, who he was supposed to protect, and went off on his own.

Still, their overall specs were so good, and they had literally slaughtered their way through the lower floors, so they were the top students. If only they had gotten on that damn orbital elevator, they might have been able to clear it⋯⋯.

Below they were the two factions of the Golden Faction and the Rose Banner Faction.

2. Golden Party (Gordius and 23 others) / 8th floor cleared / Clear time 2 days 3 hours 37 minutes

3. Rose Banner Party (White Lotus Princess and 17 others) / 8th floor reached / Clear time 1 day 12 hours 11 minutes

The Golden Party, who had cleared the 8th floor, had significantly longer clear time, while the Rose Banner Party, who had a shorter clear time, had failed to break through the 8th floor.

The difference between the two factions was the difference in the personalities of their leaders.”Build barricades and stall for time! Use explosives to blow yourself up and buy time! Even in a space where you can’t die, death is a bargaining chip !”

“Uwaaah──!!”

“She’s not even considering her own life and just blowing herself up, oh my!”

Some tried to somehow break through the 8th floor.

“Let’s stop challenging ourselves here. Any further fighting seems pointless… Our unity is already strong enough.”

“Uhuhu, as expected of a princess!!”

“Our abilities are lacking, we couldn’t bring you to the 10th floor, our apologies!! We must apologize with our naked bodies!!”

Others didn’t see the need to go to such extremes.

The groups had similar combat power, but their results were so different. Also, if you look at the clear records in more detail, you can see interesting differences.

The Rose Banner party had a better clear record in battles of attrition, while the Gold party had a better clear record in one-on-one battles.

The Rose Banner party, led by the nobles, maintained a solid formation centered around the White Lotus Princess and did not waver. When the trash mobs swarmed in, they calmly maintained their formation and pushed forward. However, they seemed to be too focused on protecting the princess

In addition, the party had a good mix of knights and mages, which gave them a high level of stability. They showed a textbook-like fighting style, with the melee fighters blocking and the ranged fighters providing firepower.

On the other hand, the Gold party, which had a high proportion of commoners, often fell apart in battles of attrition, but they were really good at ganging up on a single enemy. They would deal damage like a knife while the aggro was on someone else.

The party had a mix of all kinds of professions, from archers to swordsmen to wizards, and they supplemented their specs by wrapping themselves in artifacts provided by the Golden Tower’s disciples. Rather than maintaining a formation, they each seemed to be fighting for themselves.

The feeling was that if they got aggro, they would run away, if it wasn’t their aggro, they would lose, and the rest would figure it out.

Other than that.

There was one student worth noting.

7. Luna Sterry / 4th floor breakthrough / Clear record 36 minutes

If you ask what’s so special about the 4th floor, it’s the number of challenges and the overwhelming time reduction. Even after I returned to the academy, this girl spent all her free time grinding in the Tower of Trials.

She even repeated the floors she had cleared, honing her tactics to the limit. And there was no reward for it!

It was this girl who discovered the bug that if you sit down halfway through Jenny’s second pattern and then take three steps backward in a duck walk, the pattern would be skipped.

1st floor Orc // 0 minutes (MVP: Luna)

2nd floor Ogre // 2 minutes (MVP: Luna)

3rd floor Jenny of the Chain Sickle // 2 minutes (MVP: Luna)

4th floor Whip Witch // 32 minutes (MVP: Luna)

It was a record that was much shorter than even the Bennett party’s.

Of course, the Bennett party was aiming to climb to the higher floors, so they proceeded while adjusting their pace. When they could handle it alone, they took their time and proceeded while conserving their condition.

Even so, it’s impossible not to applaud the fact that she’s cut her time down this much with a body that’s not even a fairy tale.

If she had the ability to rewind time, she would be a very useful asset.

“…”

My mouth is watering. And something, some kind of sinister urge, began to gnaw at my soul. A very evil four-letter word kept running through my head.

Graduate student.

If I could use that girl as my… teaching assistant…?

If I could test out the gimmicks I’m going to use in the session thoroughly in advance⋯⋯?

No, it’s too early. I don’t know anything about that girl.

Let’s try fishing with the Tower of Trials hidden ending as bait. If she takes the bait⋯⋯ If she tempts me like this again⋯⋯.

I’ll invite her to my lab.

From Noble mtl dot com

—- —-

Even after the crazy wizard returned to the academy, he did not close the entrance to the Tower of Trials, and Envers was fortunately able to continue his studies.

Since the deadline for the ‘wish’ promised by the wizard had passed, most of the students stopped going to the Tower of Trials. Even when they used it to improve their combat skills, they didn’t have the same enthusiasm as before.So , after quite some time had passed, the number of different species climbing the Tower of Trials could be counted on one hand.

For example, this girl, Luna Steri, who was staring at Envers with her lips pursed. She was a fearsome human who spent all day in the Tower of Trials when there were no people around.

Envers responded to the girl’s gaze.

“Do you mean to tell me to come out early? I understand. I’ll finish quickly this time and come out.”

“…”

Luna pointed her index finger at her vocal cords, then at her lips, and then twirled her finger around her temple. She was saying that her speech was strange and that she might be crazy.

Envers smiled awkwardly.

“It’s stuck to my mouth.”

Luna commented bluntly.

“Moron.”

“Ahem, ahem…”

Envers Redburn had always studied under the beggar.

Perhaps because he had spent so much time with him and had been deeply impressed by his martial arts, his speech had long since become corrupted by martial arts.

However, since there were also swordsmen and wilderness gunmen among the students, the degree of martial arts corruption was not so noticeable.

“I’ll go in now.”

Luna tapped her wrist with her index finger and made a gesture of cutting her throat. It meant that she would be late if she came out late.

Envers laughed and entered the Tower of Trials.

He went straight up to the 8th floor through the back door and saw a small hut built on the mountain. He followed the path up to it and saw the beggar chopping wood.

“Master.”

“You’ve come at a good time. Chop some wood for me instead.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Envers silent without asking any questions. He took the ax from the beggar and began to make firewood.

He held the ax upright and swung it. With this, he could split the wood with little effort.

Thud-!

The wood split in half and fell to the left and right. Envers picked up the split wood, stood it up again, and swung the ax. He repeated this.

It was not boring. Envers was rather filled with anticipation.

When he finished his chores, the beggar called Envers into the hut. He then listened briefly to the beggar’s stories about the martial arts world and began to practice martial arts in earnest.

Envers enjoyed all of this. He could even enjoy the waiting.

Thud-!

The log split with the time.

Envers Redburn sat cross-legged and learned about the martial arts world, and suddenly asked the beggar this.

“Master, if you chased the Heavenly Demon and crossed the dimensional rift, is he here?”

“…Yes.”

“You said that you rushed to the last floor of the tower, but that there was a demon on the 10th floor. You said that it was an evil witch with white hair. Is she the Heavenly Demon?”

“No. The Heavenly Demon I chased is a man, a muscular giant with a thick beard and hair. He is not hidden in the crevices of the tower. All those who were exiled to the tower joined forces to isolate him.”

Isolation.

Envers became curious and asked again.

“Can’t I see him?”

“I don’t want to recommend it. Why are you so greedy?”

“I want to see his martial arts. You said that just watching the performance of a master is a great benefit, so wouldn’t it be an even greater benefit if I could see the Heavenly Demon’s martial arts?”

The beggar was also a truly great warrior. Envers still had trouble keeping up with his deep studies. So, it was natural that he would be curious.

The Heavenly Demon, whom the beggar and many other faction leaders had fought and risked their lives to expel beyond the dimensional rift. How strong would he be?

Also, how beautiful would his martial arts be?

The beggar looked intently into Envers’ eyes, which were filled with anticipation, and said with concern.

“Since this place is a kind of purgatory where you can come back to life even if you die, there is no threat to your life, but the Heavenly Demon is said to be an existence that can destroy all human martial arts just by facing him .”

“…Destroy?”The beggar nodded. The seriousness didn’t seem like he was joking. He continued speaking.

“So, to even look at him from afar, you need to have the basic skills. I will give you a task, and if you achieve all of them… I will give you my chance.”

“What is the task…? This disciple will prove his ability to the master!”

“It is──”

—- —-

[Orc of the Moonlight: Clear the 1st floor with a clear time of over 12 hours]

[Blood for Blood, Eye for Eye: Encounter the Dwarf hidden in the forest, and clear the 2nd floor with only a ballista]

[Walking in the Rain Without Getting Your Hem Wet: Endure Jenny’s 2nd phase opening pattern for over 10 minutes and clear the 3rd floor]

[The Whip Comes Around: Kill the Whip Witch with the Whip Witch’s attack and clear the 4th floor]

[Light’s Sealed Sword: Clear the 5th floor without letting Jay draw his sword]