Antagonist Protection Service-Chapter 183 - The Augury Tower (10)

183: The Augury Tower (10)

183: The Augury Tower (10)

[New Objective: Escape the ancient temple]

[Time Limit: 5 Minutes]

“…What?”

Before I had time to process what was going on, the world shook.

RUMBLE…!!

“Woah…!”

Momentarily losing my footing due to the abruptness, I quickly braced myself, moving my head to dodge the dust and small stones falling from the ceiling tremors.

At the same time, I noticed the walls of the chamber shift and move.

“…Of course…”

The eerie statues embedded there were reanimating, rising from their spots like soldiers and standing on two feet.

Clicking my tongue, I muttered and summoned not just the Holy Sword, but also the leather buckler granted as a reward for one of the earlier Floors, equipping it in my left hand.

‘Five minutes…

The temple is big, but it doesn’t take too long to get out if I’m quick with it.’

Just as the statues were beginning to turn their heads and walk towards me, I made my decision and rushed forward.

Before they had the chance to block the only entrance, I slipped past, avoiding their touch and making a break for it up the stairs.

I made it out without an issue, but that was just the start.

Up the first set of stairs was a corridor, and now that the sides were filled with zombie-like stone soldiers, it felt a lot narrower than earlier.

I was lucky enough that the statues were not armed, but being made out of stone would probably make getting hit painful enough, even if it was cracked and veiled part way in green moss.

Not letting myself get distracted, I lowered my posture and sprinted forward, holding the leather bracer just in front of me to perform an action similar to a shield charge as they closed in.

Slamming into one of the statues near the end of the corridor, my body experiencing the brief shock of recoil even through the buckler, my eyes narrowed seeing the statue still standing before me.

‘Fucking hell…’

Cursing internally, I clicked my tongue, rueing the fact I still didn’t have any mana to enhance my physical strength.

I was sure that ordinary Challengers would have the raw power to smash through these weakened statues at this point, but of course, because I was unique, the story wasn’t the same.

As it appeared, being different came with both positive and negative consequences.

Needless to say, there was no time to get caught up in my own weakness―gritting my teeth, I shoved the statue to the side, barely being able to slide its heavy body a few inches, but that was enough for me to slide under its arms and dash through the next doorway, ascending more stairs and arriving at some branching paths.

Of course, I already knew the way to get out of the temple, and even if there was some quicker way I hadn’t discovered, now was no time to go exploring.

Proceeding through the rest of the temple quickly as I had done, avoiding all the statues I could and slipping past the rest that were too close, battering away each of their attempts to grab and crush me with the buckler and Holy Sword, which fortunately turned out to be enough to smash them, I was able to make rapid progress.

Still, there wasn’t the time to lay waste to every statue that obstructed my path, so I saved it for only the ones I truly couldn’t avoid, the numbers of which only increased the further I climbed.

Eventually, however, I saw the light of the temple’s entrance, giving me the boost of motivation necessary to break past the final room of statues blocking my way.

Finally, the instant I jumped, diving through the narrow doorway that was the temple’s entrance, a notification appeared before me, alongside Leinth’s voice.

[Floor Cleared]

Hitting the ground just outside the entrance, I rolled a couple metres or so before coming to a stop, hurriedly jumping to my feet to ensure the statues wouldn’t chase me outside.

Fortunately, they didn’t, and upon reading the notifications properly, I confirmed it.

[Obtained Standard Health Potion (x1)]

――The Tower’s ever-so-infamous Fifth Floor had been cleared.

❖─────★★★★☆─────❖

“Standard Health Potion!”

My eyes widened in pleasant surprise at the Fifth Floor clear reward.

Rather than a Lesser-quality, or even two Lesser-quality potions, a Standard Health Potion was easily worth the value of five times in terms of World Stability cost, and undeniably even in healing efficacy.

I had already been saving one for emergencies, but now that I had two, I could call that a massive gain.

‘That saves me 250 World Stability by itself.

If I keep getting rewards like that, I’ll be set for a while.’

In fact, I already had enough potions in Storage to be compared to a potion seller or alchemical merchant even though that’s not necessarily what I was going for.

Either way, I was just glad to finally be done with this nuisance of a Floor, and when I thought about it, I could plainly understand why it took so damn long for it to be cleared for the first time.

In my case, I was lucky enough to have a whole Storage ability containing food and water already, but for Challengers who didn’t possess such a thing, they would have needed to bring enough supplies into this Floor with them to last them up to a week and a half.

As well as that, they also needed to deal with the pesky Gremlins, the toxic darts they shot ceaselessly and the poison smoke grenades they liked to throw.

The previous Floor gives one free elixir to serve as an antidote, but after that, the best solution was definitely to buy or make some armour on Earth or on the First Floor to shrug them off like I had done.

And none of that was even to mention completing the Objective itself, which involved stealing the relic from a camp of over a hundred Gremlins…

although, I suppose if you invested in good enough armour like me, or if you had a decent stealth ability, also like me, then that part wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

Either way, it definitely earned its reputation as the ‘Most Difficult Floor’, at least out of all the ones I’ve heard of so far.

John Pierce had cleared all the way past the Tenth Floor, but if I recall correctly, no one else had even made it to the Ninth.

‘Well, that’s probably not true.

That’s just what the media says.’

Everyone knew there were a number of Frontliners who cleared the Tower without making any public appearances like John Pierce did, so although he was undoubtedly the furthest as the Protagonist, it was definitely possible that there were others on the same level as him.

In any case, no matter who it was clearing the Tower, if they were part of the group making the most amount of progress, they would inevitably run into me.

When that time came, there was nothing for me to do except my job.