CHAPTER 39: TO START THE CLIMB

He continues to stare at me for a few moments longer before finally speaking. "A new arrival, how lucky we are." He says with a bit of a muffled voice.

"Yes. We both plan to climb the tower." Veria responds before I can say something.

It might be best to let her speak for us anyway since she seems to be the most familiar with this place. That’s what I’ve gathered about her so far.

I don’t know what to expect in here so I have to rely on her for the time being. I’m still feeling bad about leaving Ghost and Lilly back outside the tower.

I’m sure that they can take care of themselves but I wasn’t planning on leaving them behind any time soon. This was sudden for me.... I just couldn’t miss an opportunity like this no matter what.

"The gate forward is open for you both, best of luck on your climb." He says with a strange tone to his voice.

I couldn’t tell with the mask but something was off with how he spoke there.

"Time to see what awaits us." Veria says while dragging me forward.

She dragged me through the gate ahead of us and I watched as everything changed around me once more. It wasn’t anything like the room before, we were in a completely different environment.

A strange forest with blue leaves, white grass, and some path leading deeper into the woods.

[1] The Forest of Madness.

"Best not to waste any time. This floor isn’t that bad, it just can be taxing on your mind." Veria warns while continuing to walk.

"Why is it taxing on the mind?" I ask curiously.

"Hallucinations and thoughts you never expected to have will happen here." Veria answers.

Sounds a lot like how the whisperspawns work with the small twist of it being a whole damn place instead of some monster. This tower is definitely going to take quite the toll on me.

I can feel it now with the way the floor feels already, barren but full of malicious energy. I don’t understand how I can tell but it just radiates in here.

Regardless I didn’t say much else and followed behind Veria as we traveled throughout the forest. It felt like we were getting deeper along the path but yet everything felt the same.

The trees remain the same, the grass hasn’t changed, and I haven’t seen a single change in scenery.

Veria doesn’t seem to be reacting to anything around us so should I assume that this is all normal? It doesn’t make any sense to me, not that it should anyway.

"Feeling okay?" She asks with a bit of caution in her voice.

"I’m feeling fine, just not sure if we are getting anywhere." I respond while continuing to observe everything.

She stops in front of me out of nowhere and turns to face me. "You have to ignore that mindset. We’ll never get anywhere if you keep thinking like that." Veria says while crossing her arms.

I hear footsteps in the distance after she speaks, it definitely wasn’t some animal. It was getting closer and closer with each passing second.

Without thinking I turned to my right to see that there was nothing there, just trees.

"Rokuro come here." Ghosts voice echoes in the distance.

Shortly after I notice a silhouette similar to ghost in the distance, but there was no way that she came in here. I stepped towards it without thinking but Veria’s arm stopped me.

"I told you, things in here aren’t real. Ignore it and follow me." Veria says while standing before me.

I stood there staring at the distant silhouette for another minute or so before looking back towards the path. Veria didn’t want me to stray from the path so she grabbed my hand to pull me along.

The warmth from holding someone’s hand is quite a comforting feeling, something that really takes your mind off of the world around you. I didn’t understand why she did it at first but it was starting to make sense to me after we walked for a bit.

It was a distraction from the scenery so that I wouldn’t focus on the repetitive nature of the floor.

"I had a hard time at first too. This place gets more intense if you are by yourself, which is why it’s good that I came with you." Veria says while we continue to walk.

This girl who’s shorter than me is pulling me along and even seems to know a lot about how to make it through this. Her fighting skills back outside the tower were also pretty remarkable to see.

There’s something special about her, something that I can’t seem to understand no matter how much I think about it. Is she really from our world?

It wouldn’t be crazy to rule her out as someone from another world with the way the collapse changed everything we knew. Magic, powers, talents, monsters, and dungeons.

The trees start to fade away as we begin to approach another door in the distance. "Anyway we made it through quite easily, you’re welcome." Veria says as we reach the door.

"Thank you." I reply genuinely.

Upon opening the door to the next floor I could already see all the different changes in front of us. This time it was an open field with nothing in sight but beautiful grass fields.

"A lot like the rankings the guilds established, the tower has them too. We aren’t even on a rank D floor yet." Veria says as we start walking once again.

I have a feeling that this is going to be a lot of boring floors for quite some time until we reach the higher ranking floors.

[2] The Fields.

I would assume that depending on how many floors exist within the tower that every ten would be a rank increase. That would be the most logical answer I could come up with.