章節 60: Above The Transcendent

"She always returned with missing limbs. Sometimes it was her hands, other times it was her legs, there's time where she returned with a gaping hole on her stomach or one of her eyes plucked out. The Emperor needed to personally asked the elven kingdom for their help to heal her injuries while her life was desperately maintained until they come."

Selianna continued her story on the cafe they went in after they left the guild. Because they could not take too much time with Rayne since there's also other people lining up, they decided to ask the more detail to Selianna who claimed to know quite a lot from Luminette's story.

"...."

Even Haruto shuddered when he imagined the state every time Luminette came back from Tartarus.

He still remembered his injuries during the fight with Ifrit and it was not something he sincerely wish to happen again if he could.

"Why didn't he stop Lumina from going there? ....Actually, never mind. I can guess what happened." Haruto was very confused with Zelrigth but then he remembered what Luminette's character is.

"Yes, he naturally tried to but she wouldn't listen, even Damian-sama could not stop her and somehow or another she would find her way to escape and go there."

"....She's really not afraid of dying is it?" Even Rikka was amazed hearing about the imperial princess antics.

"Well, she's the typical insane type of a character...."

Haruto could recall a few characters he knew of with similar personality. He always thought such character was extremely troublesome and very often found in people with extraordinary power.

"Still, if even Lumina was helpless against such place why the guild allowed adventurers who obviously much weaker to enter that place?"

Haruto asked doubtfully because isn't that just basically a suicide for them? Why bother allowing them to enter if it's like that?

"...I never entered the place myself because only adventurers or Transcendents were allowed to. But I heard Tartarus was divided into several sections or blocks."

"Hm? How did it divided?"

"So far there's five blocks from the lowest section to the higher section totalling more than 200 floors. Most blue ranks or red ranks were stopped on the peak first block without being able to reach the second block. No perhaps they DID reach the second block but I think those adventurers died instantly after entering the area."

"....Is the difference between each block that great?"

"Yes, the higher rank adventurers claimed so. They said that the first block consist of lower Medium rank to lower High rank. And starting from the 2nd block it was all at least a General rank monsters." Selianna nodded.

"...I see, no wonder red rank adventurers died instantly when they entered the 2nd block." He remembered Ifrit was considered to be a General rank monster in terms of strength alone.

"But what most horrifying about Tartarus was not only the strength of the monsters there. It was the instability of the labyrinth."

"Rayne-san said that too but by instability, just what did the dungeon do?"

Rikka asked while Selianna's face darken a bit before she answered her questions.

"A lot various kind of accidents may happened frequently. There's someone who said when you moved between floors you will be separated by your other companions.

There's also case where the entire surroundings became extremely dark and hindered your vision greatly.

Other cases are like the air became poisonous, monsters being insanely produced and attacked your party in a collosal numbers, an extremely powerful monsters not belong to the section may suddenly appeared, the monsters became invisible, there's no teleport point to return back to the entrance on that floor so you're forced to continue upstairs to find the way out, etc."

"....That's really unfair isn't it?"

Now Haruto finally learnt the horror of the tower and let out some sweat on his temples. Even Rikka too was creeped out.

There's really no telling what might happened there. Even if you're strong enough it was highly possible you would get handicapped and slain there.

"But not all the abnormalities are harmful, some of them are also giving you benefits. Like there's fewer monsters spawned or a lot of treasure chests, even to healing your injuries when you entered the floor."

"At least that made it sounds better." Both of them heaved out a relieved breath hearing that.

"There's a rumor that said the frequency of the abnormality was based on the moon phase. It said the closer the moon to a complete full moon, the lower the frequency of abnormality became."

"So, it was best to strike the tower on a full moon huh?" Haruto touched his chin but Selianna shook her head.

"It's not really that true, even if the labyrinth became more stable the monsters instead were stronger on full moon so it's kind of a double-edge sword."

"But I heard from Rayne-san a lot of adventurers still did not giving up and entered the place often despite all of that, why is that?" Rikka asked Selianna.

"That's because of the special boons of exploring the Tartarus."

"Boons?" Rikka tilted her head.

"Yes, first is that those people were aiming for the treasures found there, they spawned more often there. Although they very rarely giving out artifacts compared to other dungeons but the money amount was tremendous so they wanted to take a chance to become rich. The other one, the most important one is that, you could [Growth] far more quickly there."

"! I see, no wonder no one stopped going there, it's too tempting just by the latter boon." Haruto gasped and realized how amazing that dungeon was and that it was a very effective training place.

"Exactly milord, even Luminette-sama were developing quickly by exploring Tartarus in the past."

"....High risk, high return, right?"

Rikka drew a conclusion and they were all nodded. Haruto too now was thinking the risk and benefits of going there and started to considering whether he will go or not. But there's another thing he's curious about so he opened his mouth to ask Selianna.

"Hey Selianna, you said Lumina is still going inside right? How is her progress in there?"

"If I'm not wrong she's currently on the upper 5th block, the highest block currently known..... at least publicly."

"...What do you mean by that?" He had ominous feeling about this.

"She once told me before in the past as a secret that there's actually another block above the 5th block, the sixth one. But she always failed to break through because the block guardian monster there was out of her class....."

"Beyond her class? But she's a Transcendent right? How could there be anything outclassed her?" Haruto was puzzled.

"You're wrong milord. A Transcendent is not the peak of power there's a realm even above that who only a very select few people in this world known of...."

Selianna narrowed her eyes and finished her sentences.

"Those who reach that realm, a realm beyond even the gods were called as a... [Supreme Transcendent]."