* * *

Garuel would not go down easily. He knew his abilities better than anyone.

With that belief, Cadel trudged up the stairs and towered over the protruding system window.

“……What’s the matter, Leader?”

[You have reached the upper level of the tower. From now on, each knight’s remaining health will be displayed.]

[Van Herdos: 74%]

[Lydon: 69%]

[Garuel Monzasi: 20%]

While it was surprising to realize that Van and Lydon had lost more health than he had anticipated, Garuel’s condition was even more shocking.

Not even two minutes had passed since they parted ways with Garuel. Was that the result of withstanding the attack despite having scale armor?

His low health would recover quickly over time, quickly reaching 100%, but Cadel was not at all relieved. His heart was racing and he felt like he was going to vomit.

“Leader. Wake up.”

It was Lumen who roused Cadel from his stupor. At the sight of his hard gaze, Cadel’s legs began to move again.

As he was led up the stairs by Lumen’s hand, Cadel tried to remember Garuel’s words.

He didn’t abandon them, he entrusted them. If he couldn’t move forward because he was worried about them, he was putting his subordinates at a disadvantage.

‘One more floor and we can save them all.’

If he left the fourth floor to Lumen, the rest was up to him. He would destroy Elvie’s heart as soon as possible.

Cadel tore his gaze away from his men’s dwindling health and stared at the doorway to the fourth floor.

* * *

Ting. Ting. Ting.

Three beeps, two seconds apart, and the floor of the hall glowed. And as soon as it faded.

“Leader, left!”

An indiscriminate trap without any regularity was triggered.

Cadel created a barrier of fire to his left, and as if waiting for it, dozens of arrows flew and pierced it. Cadel released the arrow-studded barrier as if shaking it off and took a breath.

‘I’m gonna die of heartburn…….’

Cadel was barely able to keep all the traps at bay, relying on Lumen’s sense of movement. If he was one beat slower to react, he was done. He didn’t want to think about the end result.

‘Is this why knights with high speed had an advantage?.’

But. Even if the presence was detected, if you could not immediately escape the range of the trap, you had no choice but to suffer. No sooner had Cadel come to that conclusion than the notification beeped again.

Ting. Ting. Ting.

“Get out of the way to the southeast!”

After telling him to get out, Lumen grabbed Cadel’s waist and flew towards the southeastern part of the hall, almost as if he were flying. Then, two ax blades fell from the ceiling and split the floor of the hall in a cross direction.

Cadel covered his ears against the grisly friction of ice and metal.

“What kind of traps are these?! We won’t be able to move!”

Dodging the traps was one thing, but they were constantly moving away from the doorway. Unexpected obstacles were taking up too much time.

Cadel’s brow furrowed, and he glanced at the health gauges of the subordinates occupying one side of his vision.

[Van Herdos: 62%]

[Lydon: 55%]

[Garuel Monzasi: 100%]

Unlike Garuel, whose health almost dropped to zero and then quickly returned to 100, Van and Lydon’s health just kept dropping. He tried to stay calm, but he couldn’t.

This quest was no different from a time attack. Only instead of time, the lives of his comrades were dwindling. Watching the gauge in real-time made his breath catch in his throat.

And it was the same for Lumen, who couldn’t see the health gauge. His stomach was more sensitive than usual, and his sharp eyes proved it.

“I thought if I held on, there would be a gap…….”

Lumen’s gaze took in the two opposite exits. The first change he noticed upon entering the fourth floor. Unlike the other floors, which had only one exit, the fourth floor had two doors.

The only way to know which one to go through was to investigate.

“He’s not taking it easy on us.”

The floor glowed and Lumen, carrying Cadel, moved to the center of the hall. In his arms, Cadel surveyed the outskirts of where they had been just moments before. The icy spikes that had risen to murderous heights were slowly sinking, as if disappointed that they couldn’t pierce them.

“The traps are coming from all sorts of directions, and it’s impossible to avoid them all. Therefore, we’ll just have to get through them as fast as we can, since I’ll be able to hold them off with a few orderly barriers.”

At his own pace, he wouldn’t make it in a dozen, let alone a few. Having gotten his bearings, Cadel tightens his arm around Lumen’s neck.

With Cadel firmly in his arms, Lumen raced forward.

Ting. Ting. Ting.

“Be careful not to get hurt.”

Lumen said, but he was the one who should be worried. Cadel raised the strength of his barrier, wincing as the heavy ice shells continued to fire from all directions.

Thanks to this, the head-on collision was prevented, but the impact could not be alleviated. The dull sound that reached Cadel in his arms was so strong that it felt like Lumen’s bones would break just from the shock wave alone.

It was impossible to hold on to everything. With that judgment, Lumen cradled Cadel in one arm, his free hand resting on the scabbard. His icy blue eyes quickly swept over the shells digging into his surroundings.

‘Is he really the same human being as me?’

Cadel fell into the absurd illusion that he had become a cannonball.

The body in Lumen’s arms shot out in all directions, shaking wildly from the recoil. The scene before Cadel changed so quickly that he couldn’t tell what was happening. A shell must have landed right in front of him, but the next thing he knew, it was coming from a completely different direction.

To Cadel, it was like magic, but to Lumen, it was a skillful maneuver, each move carefully calculated.

He twisted to dodge the attack just before it hit the barrier, and slashed at the shells that proved unavoidable with his sword-drawing technique. Having to carry Cadel’s weight made his movements blunter than usual, but he was still able to keep the damage to a minimum.

Soon enough, having broken through the barrage of shells, Lumen slowed his maxed-out speed and glided to the exit.

“It’s over.

“Haah, haah…….”

It was like being on an insane amusement ride. Cadel slid out of Lumen’s arms, pressing against his throbbing chest.

“We must hurry before the next trap is triggered…….”

While Cadel braced himself against the wall to steady his dizzying vision, Lumen examined the two exits. After carefully comparing the two doors, he frowned slightly.

“They both have the same number carved into them.”

The two doors were separated by some distance, but they were identical in size and appearance. The number ‘1’ was also the same on each door.

“Does this mean we should each stand in front of one of the doors? Where do you think the real exit is……?”

If one side was the exit, where did the other side lead? If the other side was a trap, what would happen to the person standing in the trap?

Beside Lumen, who stared at the door with a determined face, Cadel’s eyes shone with seriousness.

‘The real exit is the door on the left. We can go out that way.’

He clearly remembered the location of the door to the last floor. Beyond that would be Elvie’s heart.

According to the strategy, the final, top floor should be taken by a knight with a high deal of damage and moderate defense. Considering that, Lumen was the most suitable, but Cadel was unwilling to send him to the top floor.

‘The knight on the top floor, no matter how much he used his skills, was only able to destroy the heart when he was almost dead, and that was after he had used all his good equipment and potions.’

As such, Cadel scoured his memories for the best possible arrangement for his battle with Elvie. It was inevitable.

The ‘Tower of the Demon Realm’ created by Elvie was a stage that could be cleared only after selecting knights with advantageous abilities for each floor and sufficiently raising each knight’s stats. If you take undertrained knights, they will all be annihilated, or the best thing to do is for the knight on the top floor to survive. It was even more difficult if you did not have excellent equipment.

And the current state of the Knight Order’s training was far from satisfactory.

‘Two A-grade and two S-grade. As he has yet to awaken, if I send Lumen to the top floor, there’s a high chance he’ll die.’

Cadel couldn’t let that happen. He could use [Soul Explosion] if he had to, and he could try begging Kunra. So it was right for Lumen to stay here. Cadel had to be the one to deal with Elvie’s heart.

“For now, let’s stand one by one.”

“……The trap could be triggered as soon as the door opens.”

“Even if we think about it here, the trap is still triggered.”

Cadel positioned himself in front of the left door as casually as he could, and Lumen, who was about to move to the right door, stopped and looked back at him.

His gaze was casual, but Cadel sensed something foreign in it. After a short silence, it was Lumen who spoke first.

“I think Leader knows where the real exit is.”

“……What?”

“You know.”

There was clear suspicion in his eyes. Cadel, who had not expected his intentions to be discovered so quickly, was belatedly trying to think of an excuse.