Chapter 37: Start Climbing The 15th Floor

“So, you spent all your gold.”

“Ugh.”

“And even touched the sacred stones.”

“But…”

“So now you’re completely broke.”

“Ughhh.”

The undeniable facts pierced my heart.

How did it come to this?

I had only intended to try a little, just a taste…

Let’s rewind time a bit.

At the moment I first tried the gacha.

“Just three spins.”

I was resolute.

30,000 gold wasn’t just some random number.

Considering that my store’s daily net profit was a little over 10,000 gold, it was worth three whole days of earnings!

Even the highest-level daily gold dungeon only yielded around 3,000 gold.

Could I possibly get a return on this?

Creak, creak.

Click.

A capsule lightly popped out and rolled forward with a rather unimpressive effect.

Thinking it looked a bit underwhelming, I turned the capsule slightly and opened it.

Poof!

“Ah! That startled me.”

Inside the capsule, a flashy effect burst out with a rather grand fanfare.

And then—

[Sacred Stone 300 Exchange Ticket]

“?”

What?

What is this?

I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

A duplication bug for sacred stones?

Was this the power of the special gacha?

With trembling hands, I picked up the exchange ticket and tore it.

Shrrrring—

A delightful sound rang out as sacred stones poured into the air.

At that moment, my rationality vanished.

Click.

[Sacred Stone 200 Exchange Ticket]

It’s multiplying!

It’s definitely a bug! I need to take advantage of this while I can!

Click.

[Stamina 100 Recovery Ticket]

Click.

[Free 10-Pull Gacha Ticket]

Click.

[Stamina 100 Recovery Ticket]

…I believed that back then.

“Huff.”

When I came to my senses, all my previously comfortable but not excessive resources had melted away.

“Well, at least I got a lot of useful stuff…”

“Master? We don’t even have gold for tomorrow…”

“Ugh.”

The cold, hard reality hit me.

***

After taking a brief moment of self-reflection, my party and I began discussing how to use the rewards from the trash gacha—no, the special gacha.

First:

[Stamina 100 Recovery Ticket x7]

“Considering physical and mental fatigue… we can use one per day for a week, right?”

“Woof!”

Wow! Double experience!

[Free 10-Pull Gacha Ticket x3]

“We need to use sacred stones for hero contracts anyway, so this isn’t a bad gain.”

“This was probably the luckiest part, Ark!”

Ari, please don’t smile at me while verbally stabbing me in the chest.

[Hero Enhancement Package (A TYPE) x2]

“Hmm… isn’t everything in here stuff Ark can easily get?”

“Yeah! Tina saw it too! It’s all common stuff!”

…This was the biggest trap card.

If I had been a regular player, I would have been struggling with a lack of growth materials and probably cheered.

But for me, these were just surplus materials…

Still—

“These two are definitely decent rewards…!”

If I had been completely empty-handed, my rationality wouldn’t have crumbled so quickly.

Like a proper special gacha, there were also exclusive items that couldn’t be obtained through normal means!

[Special Building: Hot Spring Construction Permit]

(Allows the construction of a hot spring within the city. Heroes who use the hot spring receive special buffs.)

“How is it?! Isn’t it cool?! Don’t you want to use it?!”

I declared proudly.

“Hmm…?”

“Woof?”

“Master, what’s a hot spring?”

My heroes showed little interest.

So, I passionately explained the benefits of hot springs.

“Just like food gives you strength, using a hot spring boosts your attack, defense, and all kinds of stats!”

But their reactions remained lukewarm.

It seemed they still couldn’t fully grasp what a hot spring was.

So I added—

“It’s great for your skin, makes your hair silky, and completely relieves fatigue.”

Then, at last, my heroes reacted.

“That sounds like a wonderful place!”

“Woof woof!”

You guys are like the grown-ups from The Little Prince, aren’t you?

The future of this hero party seems bleak… seriously…

Normally, this facility would only appear after clearing a side story quest, but now it seemed I could build it directly.

Of course, since the materials required were no joke, I kept the fact that I couldn’t build it immediately a secret from my heroes.

“And also!”

[Exclusive Equipment Random Summon Ticket]

(Summons a random exclusive equipment piece for a contracted hero.)

“Oh my, Ark. This one seems quite good.”

Hmm, good reaction.

Ten points to Gryffindor—I mean, to Johanna!

Normally, you would need to suffer through pick-up failures and collect three five-star hero soul stones or gather two unique soul stones to craft exclusive equipment.

But this ticket allowed me to skip that whole process!

With this alone, I could justify my sacred stone spending… or at least, that’s what I was trying to convince myself.

“Alright, let’s use it right away.”

Since the equipment would be drawn from the heroes I had already contracted, the more heroes I recruited, the harder it would be to get the right one.

Items like this shouldn’t be hoarded; they should be used immediately.

I tore the ticket in half.

A brilliant light shimmered in my hands—

“Oh? It’s me!”

“Woof!”

“Is it Tina?”

It is.

It’s Tina.

…Not bad.

At least it’s an attack-type exclusive equipment, so it passes.

Honestly, just looking at the design, calling it “exclusive equipment” doesn’t feel quite right—words like glorious or divine relic might be more fitting.

Anyway.

This extends Tina’s shelf life a bit longer.

Tina’s enhancement skill, Trash♡~, now applies to more targets, increasing its damage output, and her ultimate skill, Absolute♡ Super-Trash♡~, also has a reduced cool down.

It’s a well-timed exclusive piece of equipment that helps fill the AoE damage gap in our party.

…Of course, if it had been Johanna or Saha’s exclusive equipment instead, the performance would have improved dramatically.

But to be completely honest.

I’m just relieved it wasn’t Rumi’s exclusive gear.

***

Thanks to the stamina reset tickets.

We cleared the 14th floor in a single day.

And today, finally.

“The 15th floor.”

“Arachne! Let’s go teach it a lesson!”

It was time to escape from this cursed labyrinth and the nightmare of spider hell.

Running the same clear twice in a row was melting my brain.

At least the 13th and 14th floors had no real gimmicks, so we passed through without much trouble.

“Master? Please be careful. The 15th floor might be trickier.”

As our substitute card SD Ellis hovered around warning us, it was clear that the 15th floor was going to be a step up in difficulty.

The administrators of each floor in the Tower have the authority to control various elements like monsters, traps, and rewards.

That’s why the 12th floor had a relatively high difficulty level but also showered us with hefty rewards.

And since we breezed through the 13th and 14th floors without facing any major challenges—just earning decent rewards along the way—

We predicted that all the resources saved up would now be dumped into stopping us on the 15th floor.

[Tower of Wishes – 15th Floor: Arachne’s Domain – Sector 1]

[★☆☆ Escape the sector within 2 hours.]

[★★☆ Escape within 1 hour.]

[★★★ Defeat Arachne’s Clone.] 

And.

That prediction was spot on.

“Hmm… It looks like forcing our way through isn’t going to work.”

Even with Saha (in Hellfire-Flaming-Sawblade mode) boldly cutting a path forward, the dense spider webs refused to yield.

Unlike the previous cavernous floors, this one was a vast, intricate temple, deliberately designed to slow us down at all costs.

Plus, the clear condition wasn’t just about finding an exit—

We had to deal with the boss’s clone.

Downright nasty.

They were clearly trying to stall us.

“Tina?”

“Fufuya!”

Stop with the weird sound effects.

We have a 0% failure-rate, perfectly efficient tracking machine, don’t we?

“Alright, let’s find Arachne’s clone.”

“Right! And then up!”

And so, we advanced in our typical top-mid-bottom lane formation.

“Gruuaaaah—!”

“Oh, a Minotaur.”

The monster layout had definitely become more serious, nas level-50 Minotaur hybrids were now popping up along the way.

Clang!

Saha’s hammer clashed mid-air against the Minotaur’s own weapon.

The Minotaur staggered backward.

Whose cow works harder?

Of course, ours—Saha, not even a contest.

“Looks like it’s a beef party tonight. We were running low on supplies anyway.”

“…Is Minotaur meat the same as beef?”

That sounds like someone debating domestic vs. imported beef, Ari.

Meat is meat.

“Let’s thoroughly butcher— I mean, subjugate— them as we go.”

I also fired my Zero-Damage-Zero-Waste Revolver, contributing to the onslaught.

Following Tina’s guidance, we pressed forward.

And then.

“How… is that possible…?”

We finally came face-to-face with Arachne’s clone— her eyes filled with disbelief.