W-What? People are coming out.
Inadvertently, Song paused his steps and blinked.
Espers moved in and out of the Tower with relative freedom, so seeing someone exit wasn't inherently unusual. But he had never witnessed awakened humans leaving the Tower before.
Just a few days ago, his knowledge of the Awakened World was nearly nonexistent. Everything he thought he knew had come from unreliable sources online and those posts were made by others who were just as clueless as he was.
As for the figures who had just stepped out of the Tower's entrance, there were four in total.
Three women and one male.
They were equipped with solid armor and carried well-crafted weapons, their appearance alone making it clear they were no mere Squires. At the very least, they were Knights.
...Or so he assumed.
Whatever the case, their mood told another story. Rather than triumphant, they looked as if they had barely survived a brutal skirmish, or perhaps it was more accurate to say they had been thoroughly beaten.
The female spearman wore black chest armor reinforced with shoulder pauldrons, long gloves with arm guards along with a sleeveless tunic, and fitted black trousers with knee guards. A gold collar gleamed faintly at her neck. But… her face was slightly pale and the way she grip tightened on the shaft of his spear betrayed both exhaustion and fear.
Beside her was a young man who appeared to be an archer, carrying both a bow and a quiver slung over his back. His presence radiating a gentle aura. Even then, his leather armor was torn and battered with streaks of blood seeping through, and his expression twisted with pain.
Following him, someone else trailed behind at a steady pace. Song glanced her way. The quiet girl resembled a priestess, dressed in a robe reminiscent of a church habit. Unlike the traditional black, however, hers was pure white, adorned with golden trim. With a porcelain-like beauty, she looked almost like a delicate doll.
She was quite breathtaking.
But what truly caught his attention was the last figure walking at her side. The young woman was the final member of the group and her appearance was... strange, to say the least.
For one, her skin had a texture unlike anything he had ever seen before, almost too smooth and pale, as though sculpted from marble rather than flesh. Her crimson hair was long and lustrous, framing her face in a way that accentuated her strange femininity, while her clear pristine eyes shone with an almost luminous clarity. Her beauty was breathtaking, so much so that even words like stunning or otherworldly felt inadequate.
Graceful and statuesque, she resembled a beautiful angel. Yet it wasn't her beauty that drew Nightingale's focus, but rather the condition of her body.
Among the four, she appeared the most battered if that was the right word. In fact, it was a wonder she was still on her feet at all, let alone moving.
Unlike the standard Western armor that shielded most of the body, hers was different and a masterpiece of glacial beauty. Shard-like plates of translucent frost-white armor overlapped across a black bodysuit consisting of: greaves and vambraces, articulated pauldrons with rerebraces, cuisses with sabatons, and finally a breastplate.
However, the armor that should have protected her instead told the story of a desperate struggle. The icy-plates were now cracked and dented, deep gashes carved into their surface as though by the claws of a monstrous demon. The white enamel was smeared with dried blood and grime, streaks of crimson running down to stain the black fabric beneath. Even the breastplate, meant to guard her most vital point, bore a jagged fracture across the front, barely holding itself together.
But more than the damage to her armor, it was the wounds on her body that unsettled him.
Her body was married with gruesome injuries, blood trickled steadily down to her sabaton, and her left arm wriggled uselessly as she moved, likely paralyzed due to the wound that had torn through her shoulder. The flesh there was ripped open in ruptured layers, exposing muscle and sinew beneath, with darkened blood crusting around the wound.
Even then, despite everything, her expression was eerily calm. Her pristine eyes showed neither pain nor fear.
It was as if she could feel no pain at all.
W-What… what the hell? Song's thoughts stuttered, frozen in place as a chill shot down his spine.
How could a human move with such gruesome injuries?!
Disregarding his presence, the group simply moved past him. Perhaps he was too insignificant for them to consider or it was the fact that they were exhausted and battered beyond what words could possibly describe.
Maybe it was both.
'Goddamn it! Just ignore them. They're not important!'
Nightingale did his best to ignore them, but it was already too late. The pitiful sight of that battered and unfortunate group had soured his mood.
Letting out a quiet sigh, he steeled himself and stepped into the Tower.
† †
Upon stepping inside the Tower, Nightingale found himself surrounded by darkness. The place resembled a stairwell, yet instead of leading upward as he had expected, the staircase wound only downward into the gloom.
'Strange. This isn't what I imagined… though the atmosphere is certainly grim.'
With that thought, Song pulled out the flashlight he had bought from the convenience store along with his other supplies. He clicked it on, the beam cutting through the black, and began his cautious descent.
Step! Step! Step!
The sound of his footsteps echoed unnaturally, ringing louder than it should have, as if the stairwell itself were amplifying the noise. The narrow walls pressed in on him, painted in shadow despite the beam of light. The further he went, the colder it became. It wasn't like the dry chill of concrete underground, but a clammy, bone-chilling cold.
As if that wasn't enough, the descent seemed endless. Minutes passed, then more, but the staircase never curved or leveled out. The monotony nagged at him, until he realized something strange. He hadn't seen a single landing, nor any doors or branches. It was just the same downward spiral, over and over.
'How long do I have to keep walking?'
'Come to think of it, how did Espers even move between the Tower's floors? Surely they didn't have to climb all the way down only to climb back up again?'
Song's brow furrowed at the thought. If his guess was right, then he was in for a painfully long journey.
Fortunately, he didn't have to walk far before the first floor came into view.
The staircase eventually came to an end much to his relief. A flat platform spread out before him, and in the distance, a faint shimmer of light revealed the threshold to the First Floor.
The change was abrupt. The suffocating darkness peeled away to reveal an open expanse beyond the arching stone gate. Lu Song's breath caught in his throat at the sight that unfolded.
It was a forest, yet not a forest that belonged to any sane reality.
The trees stretched impossibly tall, their trunks so wide that entire buildings could have been carved within them. Their bark was gray and warped, twisted into grotesque patterns that seemed to writhe in the light. Black vines crawled across their surfaces like veins and pulsed faintly as if living. Overhead, their tangled canopy blotted out most of the sky, leaving only streaks of pale silver light filtering down.
The air was thick with damp mist, carrying a stench somewhere between rotten wood and dried blood. The ground beneath his boots squelched unpleasantly, soft, moist and wet, almost like he was stepping on sponges soaked in something that wasn't water.
Lu Song swallowed hard.
"This is… the Tower's first floor?"
He hadn't known what to expect. A dungeon-like maze, perhaps, or ruined stone corridors filled with wandering monsters. But this was something he couldn't have foreseen.
The stories hadn't prepared him for it. The unreliable forum posts spoke of "wild zones" and "hunting fields," but those descriptions felt laughably inadequate compared to what stood before him.
After all, how could people claim to know what lay inside when none of them had ever set foot in the Tower?
It wasn't truth they spoke of, but something closer to a 'conjured reality.'
How curious indeed!
...As Song speculated about the mysteries of the Black Mire, something shifted beneath the soil, sending tremors through the soles of his boots.
A deafening roar tore across the vast emptiness of the colossal forest, so fierce it made him shudder.
Fearing the worst case scenario, Nightingale quickly leapt back without a second thought. He drew the Glock 19 from its holster, flashlight in the other hand, sweeping the beam across the mire as he braced himself for the emergence of some hideous abomination.
But nothing stirred in the mud. No monstrous beast rose to tear him apart, no grotesque horror stretched its limbs to drag him into a waiting maw.
Then… what had unleashed that terrible roar?
'Huh?'
Just as Nightingale tried to make sense of what had happened, a peculiar sensation tugged at his foot.
Frowning, he lowered his gaze. And then he froze.
'What the hell...?'
... A rock was biting down on his boot!