Chapter 179: Untouched City (2)

Nobody around her paid much attention to the remark.

Ashmoor residents walked beneath the enormous projection as casually as commuters passing a billboard. Some glanced upward, checked the Floor number, and continued toward wherever they were going.

Apparently watching strangers risk violent death had become background entertainment, or public safety information. It was probably both.

Misha tugged her hood lower, shadowing as much of her masked face as possible. Apparently, that still was not enough.

Elyes had given her another mask to wear over the Stray Cat Mask, which sounded ridiculous until the moment she put it on. The second mask softened, melted into the first, and reshaped the entire design as though the two had always been one piece.

The result looked nothing like the mask people had already learned to associate with her. It was insane.

It was also, according to Elyes, the entire point. If anyone recognized her after that, then she had apparently offended fate on a personal level.

"Shana."

Carl’s voice came from several paces ahead.

Misha looked away from the projection.

The twelve-year-old stood beside one of the glowing markers running through the avenue, both hands tucked into the pockets of a jacket the Faust household had provided. He looked back at her with the patient suspicion of someone already convinced she had forgotten where they were supposed to be going.

Misha smiled faintly. "I know."

Carl’s eyes narrowed. "You said that ten minutes ago."

"And yet I continue to possess the information."

"You also keep stopping."

"That is a separate problem."

Carl stared at her for another second, then he turned around.

Misha quietly followed him.

Behind them, the Floor Twelve projection continued playing. If the group cleared the quest, the feed would rotate to another active Floor. If everyone died, it would do exactly the same thing.

===

"Shana."

Carl had stopped again.

Misha looked down and saw him pointing toward the intersection ahead.

"We’re turning there."

"I know."

"You were walking straight."

Misha glanced toward the road. She had, in fact, been walking straight.

"I’m just testing you."

Carl stared at her with the weary disapproval of a much older person trapped in a young boy’s body. "That’s a lie."

"Good. You passed."

He released a long sigh and turned down the correct street.

Misha followed him while a floating advertisement drifted overhead, promising enchanted skincare capable of restoring vitality after curse exposure.

She decided to ignore it. Her attention shifted toward a translucent blue window only she could see. She had been checking it too often lately.

Caleb had interfered with her rewards before, Misha knew that. She could not always prove exactly where his fingers had touched the System, but certain quest payouts had been too convenient, too generous, or too perfectly suited to whatever deficiency she had been complaining about an hour earlier.

Nothing screamed impartial cosmic progression system quite like having an Administrator for a brother who apparently treated loot tables as family benefits.

「 〔STATUS WINDOW〕

Tower Name: Misha Apocalypse

Name: Misha Reyes

Level: 32 (EXP: 760 | 19,860 )

Rank: ☆☆☆☆

Class: Soulbinder

Affiliation: Tower of Hellfire

—

<TITLE>

• The One Acknowledged By the Tower

• Siegebreaker

• The Unbound Stray

—

<ATTRIBUTES>

Strength .... 62 (B+)

Agility ... 74 (A)

Vitality ..... 49 (C+)

Endurance .... 53 (B-)

Perception .... 68 (A)

—

<TRAITS>

• Rulebreaker’s Insight (MAX)

• Calm Under Pressure (Lv. 8) [71%]

• Sleep Deprivation Resistance (Lv. 6) [12%]

• Steady Hands (Lv. 7) [23%]

—

<SKILLS>

• Weapon Mastery (R) Soul Inventory (SR)

└ Contractor Authority (Rank 3)

├ Soul Possession

├ Soul Communication

└ Soul Implantation

└ Soul Marionette

—

<STIGMA>

Forsaken’s Mark (SR)

Witness of the End (UR)

—

<EQUIPMENT>

• Hearthkeeper’s Cloak (UR)

└Synchronization: 100%

└Combat Form: Unlocked

• Twinfang (SR)

└Bloodbound: Activated

• Dreamweaver (R)

• Stray Cat (SSR)

└Displayed Tower Name: Gravekeeper

• Oathring of the Keeper (UR)

—

<INVENTORY>

Tower Coins: 18, 452

Starfall (SR) x1

Stormpiercer (SR) x1

Velvet Stiletto (SSR) x1

Labrys (SR) x1

Etsy (R) x1

Tracker’s Compass x1

Minor Healing Potion x41

Advanced Healing Potion x24

Advanced Stamina Potion x32

Mana Recovery Potion x16

Emergency Flare x4

Faust Provision Pouch x1

Teleportation Rune (I) x3

Teleportation Rune (II) x2

Teleportation Rune (III) x2 」

Her [Traits] had changed so much that [Analytical Thinking] no longer existed under its original name after it reached level 10 and evolved into [Rulebreaker’s Insight].

Four months ago, some of the things she could do now would have seemed ridiculous. Her reflexes were faster, her body recovered better, and weapons felt more natural in her hands.

The Status window recorded growth beautifully. Levels gained, attributes increased, and skills improved. What it had absolutely nothing to say about was the cost.

The items she had sold to keep enough tower coins on hand. The weapons she had bought, and commissioned specifically for the Constellation Souls in her inventory because not every soul could fight properly with whatever she happened to be carrying.

Misha dismissed it, and the transparent panel dissolved. Then, she and Carl reentered the central concourse from a lower avenue. The route to the Faust residence crossed beneath the projections again, and she caught herself toward Floor Twelve.

The projection chimed, which meant the quest had ended. Misha had heard it often during their stay in Ashmoor.

Static spread across the empty screen. It was not the grainy visual noise of an old television. Whatever constructing the projection broke apart in horizontal bands, blue symbols fragmenting and reassembling too quickly for her to read. Light bled into the neighboring displays, briefly corrupting a ranking board and a list of Variant monster warnings.

The projection flashed once, and a different Floor number began assembling. Before Misha could see which one—

"Miss!"

She turned.

A man was hurrying toward her through the crowd, weaving between pedestrians with the graceless enthusiasm of someone who had rehearsed this approach and was losing confidence in every step.

Misha’s hand slid beneath her cloak before she had consciously decided to move. Her fingers brushed the hilt of Twinfang while Rulebreaker’s Insight swept him clean.

「 Behavioral pattern detected. 」

The man approached them with an open posture, shoulders pitched forward rather than angled for confrontation, showing he was rather excited than aggressive. There was no weapon visible on his body, and his hands remained where she could see them.

He stopped several paces away, which earned him a small amount of credit.

"You’re Gravekeeper, right?"

Misha went completely still. For half a second, she genuinely wondered whether she had heard him wrong.

Her hood was low. The Stray Cat Mask beneath it did not even look like the Stray Cat Mask anymore. Elyes’ ridiculous second mask had fused with it and altered the design precisely so this would not happen.

And somehow, this man had looked at her for all of five seconds and immediately ruined the entire point of it.

"...What?" The word slipped out before she could stop it.

The man’s face brightened. "I knew it!"

Misha stared at him. ’How?’

The grin widened until his teeth showed. "Sorry, sorry. I know you’re probably trying not to draw attention."

’Astounding observation.’

Misha’s eyes narrowed behind the mask. "And what exactly makes you so sure?"

For the first time, some of his confidence faltered.

"Oh." He scratched his cheek. "Well... not the mask."

He gestured vaguely toward her cloak.

"I noticed the cloak first. The clasp is the same one you wore. Most people probably wouldn’t remember it, but the stitching around the shoulders is pretty distinctive."

Misha resisted the sudden urge to look down at herself.

Then his gaze flicked toward Carl. "And, uh... him."

Carl stiffened beside her.

The man immediately lifted both hands. "Not in a creepy way! He was with you in some of the projections. Then I saw the cloak, noticed the twin daggers, and the way you kept positioning yourself between him and everyone walking too close so it kind of added up."

Misha slowly turned her head toward the boy.

Carl looked up at her, then at the stranger, then back at her. She could almost watch the words take shape behind his eyes.

"He recognized you."

To his credit, the boy kept his mouth shut.

The stranger apparently interpreted her continued silence as confirmation because his entire face lit up once more.

"I’m a huge fan!" He clasped both hands together. "The way you handled Floor Seventeen was incredible! I never would’ve thought to find the infected that way."

Behind the mask, Misha’s face went still.

Floor Seventeen. Out of every possible thing he could have mentioned, he had gone straight to that one.

Her fingers loosened from Twinfang and dropped back to her side, though not because she had decided he was harmless. It was simply that she no longer had anywhere to put her attention.

The concourse remained bright around her. A transit platform passed silently overhead, scattering colored reflections across the streets.

Misha heard none of it for several seconds. The first thing her memory gave her was the smell of metallic blood underneath rot and medicinal herbs, all trapped inside rooms where nobody wanted to breathe too deeply because nobody knew which person had already stopped being human.

’Great.’ Her mouth tightened. ’Four months of near-death experiences and apparently this is the highlight reel.’