Roland, the tactical weapon, was deployed to the 55th floor.
After weeks of intense grinding, jokes flooded the chat, but Han Se-ah, the stream's host, didn't react. She was too exhausted to respond to the trivial jokes floating around in the chat.
And the reason she was exhausted was because I had pushed her,
'Such memes shouldn't exist in this world, but now that I know they do, no one else should be spared from knowing.'
'Sob... those fucking bastards brought such fucked up memes. But I can't be the only one to see them'
The reason I pushed her to the point of exhaustion was because I kept recalling sayings I'd seen on the internet.
Some evil Yankee bastards on Reddit spread a bizarre meme of a muscular alien warrior choking someone with their firm ass, and of course, the bastard was blonde and muscular. With keywords like blonde, muscular, white skin, and ass overlapping, I don't even want to explain what followed.
Sure, comments about a sexy ass can be laughed off... but it's hard to laugh when you become the subject of an image that makes you wonder why the hell it exists and who drew it for what purpose.
"Whew, I think centaurs are approaching from the front," Grace said.
"It's true... Maybe it's because there are so many of those monster encampments?" Katie replied. "It seems like monsters appear much more frequently than on the 54th floor.""At this point, it feels like we're eating mana stones like bread," Irene added.
Unlike Han Se-ah, who seemed dazed – whether genuinely or for the stream – the others were still lively.
Maybe they felt guilty about adventuring comfortably while people were going missing, but despite the grueling pace that left no room for complaints, everyone's faces remained serene. Using a real safe zone we'd found by circling around the gate as our base, we spread out in all directions, slaughtering every monster in sight without hesitation.
Just as people might say about game addicts, "Did they do nothing but eat, shit, and play?" our group was also exploring at a level where we did nothing but eat, sleep, shit, and hunt.
"Still, it's fortunate we've found more encampments than expected," Grace muttered. "Whatever they're planning... we've definitely interfered with it."
"Interfered? Wouldn't 'annihilated' be more fitting?" Katie joked with a smirk.
No wonder – we'd been hunting non-stop for almost a month and had destroyed eleven of their bases. Adding the first dark purple crystal, that made twelve research materials sent to the Magic Tower.
Mages who could finish their research in no time with just one or two samples had been analyzing twelve crystals for a month. I wondered if the difficulty of this aspect had also increased with Season 2. ṟАƝΟ฿Ë𝙨
If we'd leisurely traveled back and forth to the 55th floor after sending one crystal, it might have taken half a year to uncover the secret of the monster encampments. Irene had looked so apologetic when she asked this of us, but ironically, it seemed Han Se-ah ended up owing her instead.
"Ugh, did the game really have to get this hardcore just because it's Season 2?" Han Se-ah grumbled. "It's like they're threatening people not to clear it. Still, I'm glad we've made such good progress."
-But you collected all the ogre enhancement stones, so let's drink to that~
-No wonder the channel's recent videos are all combat footage. You've really settled on the 55th floor lol
-It was nice seeing mama stick close, but I guess it's awkward to edit and upload those clips?
-Why not just have Han Se-ah guard the tent and send the three girls and mama to town?
-So, any results yet? It's frustrating not knowing the research progress when we're just getting flour
Of course, Irene, oblivious to the game, quest, and stream, was busy caring for her struggling companions like a mother doting on her children, but the results were clear.
"Um, heroes. A letter from the Magic Tower," a merchant said.
"...It says the research is complete. We can go down now."
At the entrance to the 55th floor gate, where we'd stopped to resupply, a merchant who'd become our supply manager held out a small piece of paper.
------
For the past month, I had pushed Han Se-ah hard.
Of course, there was a bit of petty revenge for the bizarre memes I'd witnessed online, starting with my butt memes, but it wasn't just out of spite.
Han Se-ah had become a hero, high-rank mage, and top-tier adventurer. Thanks to her workouts for the stream, her physical abilities were slightly above average, and her mana control was at genius level. With top-tier mana control and enough physical ability to take care of herself, she had the perfect talents for a mage.
The problem was that she'd been playing too comfortably.
"Is it just my imagination, or do I sense some strange emotions in Roland's special training...?"
-lol What are you complaining about when you've been coasting all this time? Other users all live like this
-Do you think the mercenary-born teacher looks like a push-over?
-How much did you coast to make the holy sword's owner instinctively sense something from another dimension?
-Tsk tsk, number one owl doesn't grumble
-This bastard gets a 5x quest progress event and whines about it being hard. Coasting is your daily life
This wasn't some "back in my day" talk from a grumpy old-timer.
Han Se-ah's gameplay had been progressing too quickly due to my born 6★ status. If a normal gamer would earn 100 gold in a month, spend 80 on living expenses, and save 20, Han Se-ah would earn 100 gold, spend 30, and then complete the quest reward and move on to the next quest.
On top of that, with a 6★ tank and 5★ priest forming a solid, hefty shield for the party, hadn't she been enjoying the game with equipment, wallet, and health so overflowing it was like using cheat keys?
...Thinking about it again, it was a bit much. How much gold must she have had left over to fill her inventory with bombs using her personal funds, not even party funds?
It's common sense in fantasy that anything related to magic and alchemy is expensive.
"Still, we can finally rest properly after a month."
"From what Roland's said, they used to wander for half a year at a time. I'm not sure if a month is long or short in comparison."
"Well, we have more help from our Magic Tower brothers now."
Anyway, Han Se-ah had been playing with such a silver spoon that even the viewers were getting sick of it. So it was my role as a senior adventurer who joined the party to give her a taste of harsh reality.
Thinking this, we chatted as we descended from the 55th floor gate to the 54th, 53rd... The main topic for my companions, who'd suffered alongside Han Se-ah, was the sweets they could eat at Zedeau's.
Hmm... I didn't mind the homeless life on the prairie, wiping ourselves with rags dampened by Han Se-ah's water magic, but I guess even they, as young women in their prime, wanted to relieve stress with something sweet.
"By the way, are we resting for a day on the 50th floor, or heading straight outside the tower?" I asked.
"Mmm, I'd like to visit a restaurant in the underground city," Grace replied. "There weren't any dessert shops I liked in the harpy city."
"We'll probably arrive in the late afternoon," Katie added. "How about heading straight to the Magic Tower and then grabbing a drink in the evening?"
Their conversation bounced between topics: how to distribute strength and mana during consecutive battles, macarons, how to break solid formations with minimal movement, syrup-drenched pancakes, the supplies we'd received without markup and our consequently full wallets, crispy fried chicken and cold draft beer.
They might not have complained during the month-long march, but desires had clearly built up. As the talk shifted from sweet desserts to alcohol, Grace's eyes narrowed mischievously, and she jabbed my side with her elbow.
After a month of pitching tents, unrolling sleeping bags, and standing watch, desires had built up in various ways. It couldn't be helped. I didn't care if the viewers caught on with their uncanny perception and started typing acronyms, or if Han Se-ah looked between me and the others with some kind of lewd expectation.
------
While the tactical Roland deployed to the 55th floor repeatedly drove Han Se-ah like a dog and turned monsters into mana stones, the Magic Tower mages dedicated their lives to analyzing the dark purple crystals our party had retrieved.
Well, mages are madmen sensitive to gold coins, and it's not the common folk but the nobles of the kingdom and empire who buy research results and magitech items...
Didn't they say the Magic Tower's strange spatial magic could even kidnap nobles?
Their patrons who fund the research might disappear!
For various reasons – to satisfy their personal intellectual thirst, pressured by the nobles funding their labs, or out of devout faith despite being mages – they threw themselves at the dark purple crystals.
Thanks to the rapidly increasing number of lunatics who would research for 72 straight hours, making "overtime" sound like a silly joke, then return the crystal and check into the temple for recovery, the Magic Tower had completely unraveled the gimmicks of both the 55th and 60th floors in just a month.
"So, there's no mid-boss on the 55th floor?" I asked.
"More precisely, it's been coming down from the 60th floor all along."
The fact that the Demon King's army, like the Orc Chieftain on the 20th floor, had been mass-producing troops and sending them downwards.
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