Chương 98: “The Shepherd With A Debt”

Celestia had brought Sir Ozy to the fifteenth floor for one reason: to test a hypothesis. From what she remembered of the original novel, the Floor 15 Boss had been an elemental spirit assigned to guard the ruins of a forgotten ice kingdom. In the actual story, this had amounted to a paragraph of atmospheric description and a fight scene. The lore behind the spirit, what it was and why it guarded anything, had been flavor text.

Background decoration for a battle that existed solely to give the hero something to swing at. So when Celestia arrived at Floor 15 and stood face-to-face with the spirit, she did what any reasonable researcher would do when confronted with an unexplored variable. She threw Sir Ozy at it. The result had been immediate, and in hindsight, too effective. The Floor 15 Boss vanished the instant Sir Ozy was in its direct vicinity, as if a gust of wind had hit a pile of ash.

The Tower's administration had not been pleased. When Celestia entered the treasure room to check it out, the man with the spectacles and dark circles had already been waiting for her. What followed was a scolding, delivered with the restrained irritation of a bureaucrat pulled from his desk to deal with someone else's mess. The spirit, she was told, had been a functioning component of the floor's purpose.

Its removal would require a replacement, and the entity responsible for the disruption had apparently erased a portion of the floor's structural memory in the process. The entity responsible, of course, was Sir Ozy. Who had opinions. Specifically, he had opinions about being thrown. A being of his stature, he insisted, ought not to be hurled at anything, let alone a common elemental spirit that was beneath him in every conceivable way. He delivered this complaint at considerable length.

Celestia had already turned his complaints into background noise. Then, the administrator requested something of her. The man had asked whether Celestia would consider parting with her bonded elemental. Sir Ozy, he suggested, would be well suited to the Tower's service. Celestia had of course rejected. It was immediate without thought; Sir Ozy was hers, though his commentary was insufferable and his demands absurd. And yet, when someone else wanted to take him, she had an instinctive repulsion to the idea. No.

He was hers. She would not allow anyone to take what belonged to her, regardless of who they were. She was beginning to see the larger picture of the administrator's purpose now, which seemed to be more than a simple management role. What the administrators were, exactly, and what the floors represented in the Tower's larger design, she did not yet know. But as long as she climbed the Tower, she would get her answer. She also had a question she wanted to ask the administrator.

However, thankfully, he was more proper than the one she previously met, and had informed her that she can hold off her question until she increased her authority, since as of current, her current standing was less than middling, and would accomplish nothing.

Next was the discussion on Celestia taking accountability for the loss of the guardian on Floor 15, and the rewards for doing so, being provided with a set of passive and active skills such as Cold Resistance, Weapon Retreival, to name a few; while also being provided a decent buff to her stats. Of course, this all happened a few hours before Arthur and his party arrived. Sipping on cup of tea again, she boredly sat on the throne, looking at one of her skills.

Knighthood (S-Rank) Slot Limit: 1 Sir Ozymandias Effect Cooldown: 1 Year Description: A princess bestows the peerage of knighthood as the highest honor. Once sworn, the bond can be invoked as a royal decree made manifest. Effect: For a brief period, your anointed knight returns to the peak of their prowess; body and spirit restored to their finest state. When the grace ends, the borrowed perfection is reclaimed, leaving the knight heavily spent. There it was.

One of the skills she, upon after briefly receiving, considered abandoning the pug in the forest. A lifesaving skill with a one-year cooldown and a dependency on the single most irritating creature she had ever encountered. She closed the status window. How strong was Sir Ozy? That was the question that mattered now. The skill was too valuable to waste on a test, and one use per year meant that when she used it, the situation had to warrant it. Well, there was no use mulling over it. It was time to move on.

Floors 16 through 19 were flame-based terrain. Volcanic ground and magma channels, with heat that would be oppressive for anyone without fire resistance or the necessary protective equipment. There were no magic stone veins on those floors. But the volcanic floors had something else. Herbs; plants that grew along the edges of lava flows and around the bases of active vents, surviving in soil that would kill anything else.

Adventurers who had passed through those floors had walked right past them without a second look for a good reason. Every attempt by every alchemist who had tried had only only ended in failure. They were unable to brew anything useful from these plants, and have only considered them to be common weeds. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Nobody knew what those herbs were for. Nobody but Celestia. The operation would be small.

She did not need a full brigade for this—one party, maybe two, assigned to collect what grew on these floors while the rest of her workforce continued mining on the ice floors. The impact on her current operations would be negligible at most. It was time to leave. Celestia stood from the throne and stretched her back. Floor 15 was done.

"It's time to leave," she said. Paimon bowed.

"Yes, my lady." She moved to the small table first, clearing the teacups and saucer with practiced efficiency. The teapot went into the bag, followed by the cups, each wrapped in cloth before being stowed. Then she turned to Sir Ozy, who was still sprawled on the frozen floor with his legs stretched out and his flat face pressed against the ice, and picked him up.

He responded with a sound that was half growl, half indignant wheeze, but Paimon was already placing him into the cage-carrier and latching the door shut. The pug pressed his face against the bars and stared out at Celestia with an expression of profound betrayal. The Tower had sent the skill selection for Floor 15. A list of options appeared: passive resistances and stat adjustments, plus several active skills. She skimmed past most of them. But one held her attention. Weapon Retrieval.

A thrown weapon bound to the user could be recalled to the hand at will. The description listed no distance limit and no conditions beyond the weapon binding itself. For someone who had used this in the fight just recently, it was extremely useful. Hence, she selected the skill without hesitation. She closed the Tower's notification window. They already knew where the black door was. It stood at the back of the castle, behind a passage they had mapped.

Celestia walked through the frozen halls with Paimon just behind her, the cage-carrier swinging gently from Paimon's hand. Sir Ozy had gone quiet inside it, either sulking or sleeping. When they reached the door, Celestia placed her hand flat against the cold surface and relayed her intention to the Tower. The transition was instant. One step she was standing on polished ice. The next, the ground beneath her was powdery; gritty, the color of ash. Heat struck her full in the face.

The air was thick and scalding, pressing against her skin. The terrain stretched, mounds and hills in every direction, with small vents, holes in the ground, some narrow, some wide enough to stand in, all of them pushing columns of hot air upward. The heat shimmered above each hole and visibly warped the air from a distance away. The only sound was a low, constant hiss of air escaping from somewhere beneath them. Celestia was still wearing her winter coat.

She became aware of this about two seconds after arriving, when sweat broke across her forehead and soaked into the fur-lined collar. The coat and the thick sweater beneath it, which had been necessary on Floor 15, now clung to her body. Paimon, standing beside her, was in a similar state, her own winter layers darkening at the collar and sleeves, though her expression remained as composed as ever. Only the drops of sweat running down her temples gave her away.

Celestia pulled off her coat in one motion, balled it up, and dropped it into the nearest vent. The sweater followed a second later. The coat caught a brief updraft on the way down, the hem flaring once before both garments were swallowed into the dark. As Paimon watched this happen, without a word, she removed her own coat. She folded it in thirds with a cloth cover between the layers and placed it into her bag. Celestia tugged at her collar to let what little air there was seep through.

The heat was not going to be pleasant.

"Take out the map," she said.

"Let's start." * The chapel was empty save for Noah. He sat in the front pew with his hands clasped between his knees, head bowed. Candles burned along the altar in their iron brackets, their light reaching the first two rows and leaving the rest of the room in dark. The stone floor was cold beneath his cassock. It was one of the few nights he had to himself; just the chapel and the quiet. He closed his eyes and began the work of remembering.

His mother's hands, cracked and dry from washing clothes all day, the way they looked when she held a piece of bread out to him across the kitchen table. He could still remember the dryness of the bread, he could remember the chip in the corner of the table where he had struck it with a spoon as a boy. He could still hear his father's voice, rough and authoritative. Noah opened his eyes briefly and looked at the altar. The candlelight was steady. The door behind him opened. Noah did not move.

Footsteps crossed the stone floor, slow and careful, and stopped beside his pew.

"Reverend, please excuse this lowly sister for interrupting your evening." He kept his eyes closed. His hands stayed clasped.

"We have recently received disturbing news from one of our sisters stationed at the Imperial Princess's quarters." The sister paused.

"It is pertaining to the anointed." Noah opened his eyes and looked at her. She was young. She stood with her hands folded in front of her, her posture rigid. When his gaze met hers, she flinched, a tightening of the shoulders, a quick swallow.

"E-excuse me, once more." She steadied her voice.

"To put it bluntly, it seems that they have made plans to claim her life within the Tower."

"When?"

"They've already stationed several people on multiple floors past Floor 15." She swallowed again.

"For the past few days, from what our sister has been able to gather." Noah stood. The pew creaked beneath him. He was taller than the sister by a full head, and when he rose beside her, he then placed his hand on the top of her head.

"Thank you for this news." The gesture was light, his palm barely resting on her hair. After a moment, the tension in the sister's shoulders eased. Her breathing slowed. He withdrew his hand and started walking toward the door.

"R-Reverend, do you require me to call for the apostles?" Noah waved his hand without turning.

"There's no need." He stopped before reaching the door. His back was to her, and the candlelight threw his shadow long down the aisle.

"Inform our apostles instead to investigate further into this matter." The sister bowed behind him.

"Y-yes, Reverend!" Noah continued walking. When he reached the door, he pushed it open with one hand. The night air was cool against his face after the chapel's warmth, and the stars above the courtyard felt like they were closer today than ever. He stepped through and paused on the doorway for a moment.

"I can't have you dying," he murmured, "when my debts haven't been paid yet." The door closed behind him.