Alice ordered the tower to replenish the monsters she summoned before, then, she checked on Izabel.

It seems that Izabel really was exhausted. When Alice saw her on the screen, she was fast asleep. She decided to leave her be for now, and greet the three visitors, opening a portal to a spot nearby.

“If you have time to rest, you should get whatever treasure this place has, dammit! You two are useless!”

Alice mentally sighed. The guy was still on his rant.

She focused on him for a moment, and his status was displayed in front of her.

[Elias Sioux]

[Class: Swindler]

[Strength: 10]

[Intelligence: 12]

[Endurance: 11]

[Fortitude: 8]

[Agility: 11]

What is with these low stats across the entire board?

“Alright, that should be enough,” Alice said as she emerged from the bushes, grabbing the three people’s attention. “My name is Alice, and you are in the tower territory.”

“Good. Now, can you give us the treasure?” Elias asked, his tone impatient. “I don’t have time to waste on this.”

“Oh, you will need time. Because, as you might be able to sense here, there are monsters guarding the path,” Alice answered, resisting the urge to smirk. “If you want the treasure, you are welcome to try and get it. The path is right through this forest, it’s not a long walk, I promise,” she added, pointing at the two paths branching behind her.

“How about you? Don’t you want the treasure as well?”

“Oh no, think of me as a guide, if you will. I don’t have any interest in the treasure, but I will still help you.”

“What do you gain from this?” The second man asked, his voice suspicious. Alice looked at him for a moment, and his stats was displayed in front of her.

[Nathaniel]

[Class: Shieldbearer]

[Strength: 19]

[Intelligence: 10]

[Endurance: 27]

[Fortitude: 20]

[Agility: 17]

“Let’s just say I have a deal with someone. If you manage to get the treasure, I get my rewards. But, I can only give you information and absolutely nothing else.”

“So, you can’t provide direct help?” The woman asked. Alice looked at her, and just like before, the latter’s stats was displayed in front of her eyes.

[Elizabeth Sioux]

[Class: Apprentice Void Mage]

[Strength: 10]

[Intelligence: 24]

[Endurance: 14]

[Fortitude: 20]

[Agility: 17]

Looks like this group has no one with supporting abilities.

“If I do, I will be… let’s say that I won’t get the things I’m promised,” Alice answered, “If you understand, I will get to it.”

“Why can’t you just retrieve them for me instead? That’d be more convenient,” Elias said.

Alice felt her anger bubble at the comment. Was this guy not listening?

“You are welcome to sit there and wait while your eager teammates go to work, but don’t expect your rewards, either,” Alice replied, unable to keep the bubbling sarcasm out of her voice. “So, what are you going to do, especially considering your own stats, Your Majesty?”

“Nathaniel, tell her—“

“We should go,” Elizabeth interrupted by grabbing his shoulder. “Time is scarce. We can’t waste too much time here.”

With that, Elias fell silent.

“With that out of the way, let’s talk about the important things. These two paths contain two different enemies. I’ll give you a hint, one is offensively stronger, and the other one, well, let’s say it’ll be less strong, but it offers another form of challenge,” Alice explained, “Which one are you taking?”

“Is there any difference in rewards?” Nathaniel asked.

“No such thing, it’s just a reflection of different situations. You can pick whichever one sounds more comfortable to you.”

“Second one, of course,” Elias said before Elizabeth could say anything. “Weaker means easier, right? There is nothing to discuss!”

Elias began to storm towards the second path, only for Alice to snap her fingers. Rocky spikes, taller than he was, grew out of the ground, forming a wall in front of both paths.

“I can’t let you do that. Teamwork is important, after all,” Alice smiled. “Now, Elizabeth, right? Tell me what you think.”

“Ah, for me—“

[Backdoor: Freeze]

Alice could feel the energy of a skill being used, and sure enough, she felt her body become just a little bit heavier and colder. as if her blood veins were just injected with ice. A grid-like pattern encompassed her skin, each line weighing her and chaining her to where she was standing.

With a little bit more effort, she glanced at Elias, the source of the skill.

He was smiling. His eyes were glowing in a cool shade of ice blue.

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do,” Elias warned.

“Oh, so this spoiled brat has a support ability,” Alice said. Then, she drew more of the tower’s energy. The sudden surge shattered the hold of the skill, the grids turning into glass-like pieces that disappeared the moment they touched the ground.

In an instant, she was in front of Elias, glaring at him. She waved her hand, and vines slithered out to restrain him.

From up close, Alice’s slitted green eyes were nothing short of terrifying.

“Let me tell you this since it seems you haven’t gotten this through your head yet. You are not here to play some sort of despot king terrorizing your subjects. You have to give the same amount of effort.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

As a warning, she ordered the vines to tighten their hold on his limbs for a moment.

“If I catch you doing this again, I won’t be as lenient. I won’t harm you, but I can.”

Elias opened his mouth, his expression suggesting a retort bubbling in his chest. However, he decided to swallow it in favor of a quick nod.

“I’m sorry for my brother, Miss Alice. He’s not used to this sort of thing,” Elizabeth said from behind. “I’m alright.”

“Elizabeth…” Nathaniel started.

“Nathaniel, we both has been with him for long. It’s nothing to get angry about.”

“Okay, if you say so,” Nathaniel conceded.

Alice snapped her fingers again, and the vines retreated, dropping Elias on his butt in an unceremonious heap on the ground. He rubbed his wrists, then stood up. For a brief moment, he glared at Alice on impulse, however, he then looked away, huffed and said, “Let’s go. We are wasting our time here.”

“For the earlier question, Miss Alice, I’ll take the same path, too,” Elizabeth said.

“Same here,” Nathaniel added.

Alice rubbed her forehead, almost scratching her skin in the process, then shook her head. “Just… drop the miss. I’m fine with you calling me with just my name.”

With a wave of her hand, the rocky spikes retreated back into the ground, leaving no trace. Alice decided to watch this time, as she was unable to do so when Valerie and Izabel fought the spider horde.

Taking the current group into consideration, she decided to make the group face a horde of six spiders. With a thought, the tower altered the number of enemies waiting, right as they emerged from the brief path into the clearing.

Alice stepped forward as they arrived, then turned around to face them. “Do you need the explanation, or do you want to discover the challenge yourself?”

“It might be good to listen first,” Nathaniel said in a hurry, cutting off Elias before the latter could say anything.

“Okay, after you walk past me, these spiders you see behind me will start attacking. Your task is to, of course, kill them. I will interfere if you three are in danger, but that will affect your rewards. One thing I will tell you though…”

Alice glanced at Elias, whose sour expression all but told her how impatient he felt at her brief pause.

“Don’t get bit.”

She then stepped aside, leaning on the bark of a tree.

“Anytime you all are ready.”

“Okay, what are you waiting for? Let’s go,” As expected, Elias spoke out first.

For a brief few seconds, Nathaniel’s expression was locked in a grimace. Then, he nodded. “I get it, Elias.”

He took a deep breath and walked back several steps and took out his weapon. It was a crude-looking slab of metal as tall as three-fourths of his height. Its edges were bent and stained, a clear indication of use.

Then, there was a surge of power, and blueish energy seeped out of his hands, forming light patterns on the crude shield. Alice stared at the shield for a few moments, noting that it looked familiar, similar to Amelia’s shield yet still tangible. With the aid of the senses granted by the tower, she could feel energy radiating from the shield. It seems that the energy was strong enough to form a spectral shield on its own, yet with the aid of the metal slab, it became a strengthening enchantment.

Nathaniel jumped upwards, and then he slammed his shield down the group of giant spiders.

[Bastion Enrage]

The skill was familiar, and as expected, the spiders began to quiver with unnatural anger. They swarmed onto Nathaniel with clear vitriol.

“Elizabeth?”

The woman answered with no trace of emotions in her voice.

“Understood.”

—

For a moment, a crack of thunder exposed the shadows of two, both hidden within a former habitation unit. Lights still remained, though they fizzled and sparked every so often, raining bits of ember onto the ground.

The air smelled of burnt metal and iron, while the cacophony of sounds from once pristine equipment and life supporting tools conceal the labored breaths of the two hidden people.

“Lucian, are you okay?”

Despite showing concern, Elliot was not in the best shape, either. Blood stained his clothes, while cold sweat dripped down his forehead when he attempted to use his healing light.

Meanwhile, Lucian was trembling, his eyes threatening to shut at any moment. He truly needed rest. Though his wounds were closed, scabs still remain, slashing wounds too deep to be properly healed by Elliot’s current strength marring his body.

“I’ll be fine, Elliot,” Lucian tried to give him a reassuring smile, though it came out more as a grimace. “Let’s rest here for a while.”

“But—”

“Then, let’s take turns watching, okay? This place should be safe. There was a carnage here, it should mask our presence for a while.”

“… Okay, then, I’ll take first watch, Lucian,”

He was right. In the area around them, corpses of mutated animals has been strewn around, all bearing wounds that seemed to bubble when exposed to the air. All the creatures looked thin and malnourished, their bones exposed as though something sucked the very lives out of them.

The pungent, bitter-smelling yellow smoke constantly coming out of the wounds was a clear indicator of how much poison the animals was pumped with.

“If I were them, I’d be wary of going here. Not to mention, we need to…”

Lucian took off the pair of gloves he wore. The gloves was made of leather, with metallic parts to cover each segment of his digits and the back of his hand. He then sighed, as if trying to expel his own exhaustion.

“I know, Lucian. It’s about what you heard, right?”

“Yeah, we were lucky. I know Miss Saville was kind enough to warn us of the dangers lurking just beyond her territory, but I didn’t expect Mr. Aseira’s name to come up…”

“Melissa Storen and Damian Aseira. Valerie needs to know, and we have promised to come back to Alice’s tower if anything came up.”

“Mhm, they will come back there eventually,”

“That aside, though, Lucian, you need to rest,” Elliot poked the other boy on his waist, earning a wince of pain from the latter. “After we take turns, I should be able to heal you better than this. Besides, if you keep on chattering, us hiding here will be a moot point.”

Elliot stared at the door leading outside for a moment. They were lucky this habitation unit was close to the ground, and the window could be an avenue for escape should the need comes up. Elliot stood up, closed the tattered curtain, and then returned back to Lucian’s side.

When he took a closer look, he saw that Lucian was already asleep.

—

Alice had to admit, the two were strong, though the same could barely be said for Elias.

She glanced at the spiders being rendered immobile by grids of light-blue, and she saw the skill information displayed in front of her eyes. The spiders were close to Elias, yet he did not even bother to move, as if even the very notion was offensive to him.

[Backdoor: Freeze]

[Uses target’s weaknesses to freeze the target in place. The strength of skill depends on the energy being used, however, a target stronger than the caster would be able to break free.]

“What are you waiting for, Elizabeth?! Kill these damned vermin!”

Hearing his order, Elizabeth sprung into action. Like a well-trained battle hound, she dashed towards the frozen spiders, void energy gathering on her hands into a pair of small, amorphous blobs.

Sweat was starting to drip down her brow when she tossed the two blobs towards the enemies. Upon contact, the dark energy exploded, turning into two holes just strong enough to suck the two creatures partway.

[Consuming Void]

[Creates a portal leading to the dimensional gap between the worlds. No known living creatures could survive the sheer cold and the slashing winds that always ravaged the place.]

When the creatures were half inside the ever-consuming void, the holes close, leaving a pair of twitching, half-consumed creatures spewing liquids whenever it struggled to move.

Within moments, both spiders stilled.

Nathaniel wasn’t idle, either. He dispatched all the spiders around him with quick swipes and well-timed bashes with his metal shield, using the gravity and weight of his weapon to enhance his already powerful strikes.

“Your teamwork is nonexistent,” Alice commented, her glare directed towards Elias. She decided to stay her tongue, however, and looked towards Elizabeth instead before speaking “Elizabeth, you are strong, however, you shouldn’t have needed to use such a powerful technique for this kind of enemy. Conserve your energy.”

For a moment, Alice had the thought to reprimand Elizabeth for her behavior, but she decided to remain silent.

Then, she looked at Nathaniel, who had just cleaned the blood and gore from his shield. “You lack awareness of your surroundings. Your skillset lends well to protect others and yourself. Use it.”

Afterwards, she looked at Elias.

“Your skill set lends well for support, that is, if you use it in the first damn place,” she was almost unable to hold back her anger, her hands trembling while resisting the urge to slap him. “I don’t know who you are, but get rid of that delusion that you’re some kind of VIP.”

“Shut up! You don’t—“

“No, I don’t know what you’re facing. I’m stuck here. But, if you want to survive now, I suggest you get used to pulling your own weight. No one will have the time to carry you in this world’s current state.”

Alice closed her eyes, sighed, then called out.

“Vuer, come here.”

The dragon appeared next to her. Then, she clapped her hands. Vines appeared from the underbrush, restraining both Nathaniel and Elizabeth.

“Adjust the kobold fight, he will face it alone. Then, keep watch of those two,”

Elias was about to protest, however, Alice’s glare was enough to silence him. As they walked into the tower’s door, she gave the order to adjust the amount of enemies, limiting it to just two of the creatures. As usual, she stopped right in front of the door, then turned back and leaned on the wall.

“As usual, the moment you cross the threshold, they will start attacking. Your task is to kill them, and I will give you 24 hours. Though, if I were you, I’d be careful of them. If you manage to do it, I’ll free your teammates, and you can finish the challenge as usual.”

“So I just have to kill these two monsters?”

“That’s what I said. Unless, you’re afraid of creatures half your size?”

“Don’t mock me, you bitch!”

Elias outstretched his hand, and energy started to gather under his command.

[Backdoor: Neuron Manipulation]

[Caster uses energy to attempt a hostile takeover into the enemy’s mind. The controlled state can be maintained as long as the caster has enough energy. While controlling a target, the caster gains access to the target’s skillset]

This time, Alice felt him try to reach for her mind. The feeling was similar to roots trying to take hold of land, spreading from one tiny point and branching into countless paths.

[Tower defense mode activated!]

Alice mentally gave the order to cancel the mode, and instead, she used her energy to defend against the onslaught. The effect was almost immediately visible, and Elias’ fingers trembled as the exertion took more energy out of him than he anticipated.

Within moments, the hold shattered, and Elias dropped to the ground. A sound like shattering glass echoed in his mind as his knees hit the ground.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t waste my energy,” Alice warned. “Remember, you have 24 hours. I will know if anything happens, including if you finish the challenge. So, good luck.”

Alice opened a portal away from the area, leaving the fallen man to his own devices.

—

“Elliot, it’s your turn to rest.”

The moment Lucian stirred awake, that was the first thing he said. Elliot was half-asleep at that point, exhaustion threatening to send him to a sleepless dream. With a quick shake of his shoulder, Elliot came back to the present.

From what they could see outside, the skies remained the same, still dark and gloomy. It seems that even the light of day itself has forsaken them.

The only thing they could use to gauge time was their own exhaustion.

“Lucian? I’m fine, you should rest.”

“You should look at yourself,” Lucian fired back. “I’ve gotten my rest, you should get yours too. When you’re done resting, we can go straight to that tower.”

—

The moment Alice opened the portal back to her room, Izabel too, started to stir from her slumber. She rubbed her eyes, then, a brief flash of panic crossed her gaze, before her senses returned back and she let out a tired sigh.

“Ah, Alice…”

“You’re awake. Good, I was waiting to give you your rewards,”

Alice placed a small pouch on the bed, then, she opened the tower’s dimensional storage, retrieving the armor.

[Pseon Metal Armor - Fire Aura]

[Armor made of similar metal as the protective shell of a Pseon Replicator.]

[+Strength 20% (Fusion effect)]

[+Endurance 10%]

“I might not be able to help you with Valerie, I’m sorry,” Alice shook her head. “But, I managed to make this while you’re asleep.”

Izabel looked at the armor set. It was glowing with orange aura, yet, it felt like how one would expect metal armor to feel. A quick tap from Izabel was enough to confirm the armor’s endurance capacity. She nodded in approval afterwards.

As if prompted, Izabel’s system flared to life, a notification appearing in front of her eyes.

[Equipping armor…]

The armor turned into a flash of light before reappearing on her body, covering everything except her head. She stood up afterwards, then she flexed her hands, arms, then tried to move both feet.

“It’s not exactly weightless, but it’s alright. Can I test it now?”

As if to emphasize her point, she grabbed the blade-stick, then did a practice swing. Misjudging her strength, she managed to create a crack on the floor she was standing on. Alice gave a silent order for the tower to fix the damage, then answered.

“You’ll have to wait for that. Would you rather watch the current challengers?”

“First of all, thanks for this,” Izabel flexed her fingers and gripped her weapon tight. “Second, you’re giving me equipment, power, and entertainment in return for food? Sign me up.”

Alice gave a wry smile at that answer.

“Let’s go, then.”