How to get on the protagonist’s flower path

I shot at the monster again and asked,

“So what are these monsters? They seem a bit different from the usual ones. They don’t have cores.”

“That’s right. They are mutated hybrids of different races.”

“What?”

I was taken aback and twisted my wrist. The tiger kid calmly burned the monster I had missed and said,

“First, let’s find a safe place.”

“No, are you crazy? You just said something outrageous, and now you’re saying that?”

I protested to him, but he ignored me and continued to search for a hideout.

“Come this way.”

“Sigh…”

Interestingly, when I tapped on some bricks in a certain spot, a secret passage appeared.

What the hell are these guys? Are they from Harry Potter?

Anyway, I decided to follow him for now.

“To clear my trial, I need to kill the Nayu-han in this place.”

“You seem to have a pretty deep grudge against him.”

“That’s because he destroyed the tower.”

…Wasn’t that a good thing?

I recalled the tower, which was a headache for many. If Park Si-woo wanted to go on an adventure, he might regret it, but…

Well, yeah. Since the Wild Hunters are an evil organization, it makes sense that a tower filled with monsters would be appealing. I concluded that in a rather haphazard way.

“Right… that aside, the current Nayu-han is protected by his companions in multiple layers, so it won’t be easy to kill him, right?”

I recalled the descriptions from the novel.

The conman, wanting to collect six keys to create the correct ending, gathered comrades who shared his goals during the process.

I had quit reading halfway through, so I didn’t know what happened later, but given the nature of the story, the protagonist probably wouldn’t suddenly be abandoned by his companions, right? If anything, their friendship would deepen.

At my words, the tiger kid fell silent for a moment before responding.

“Well, some of the sane ones might.”

What now? I felt a chilling premonition wrapping around me.

Did some kind of drift occur…? A bad ending drift? Did the members finally realize the true nature of the conman and abandon him?

No, let’s think about that later.

“So? Is there a chance to win?”

At my question, he held up a weapon shaped like a lightning bolt.

“Yes.”

“Then that’s good. Let’s find Nayu-han first.”

The tiger kid took out a map and marked several areas. We fought off monsters while searching for the conman, centered around those marked areas.

After a while of looking around, the tiger gestured and pointed to one end.

“A person with black hair and red eyes. And someone waving a flag to command people…”

“Can you see him with your clairvoyance?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

Should I say more mature than his current appearance?

Nayu-han, looking thinner and with a sinister gleam in his eyes, was surrounded by people. They seemed to be having some kind of meeting.

But,

“There are no companions…”

I muttered unconsciously.

His team members, who must have gathered while collecting the orbs, were nowhere to be found.

At my words, the tiger kid replied,

“This will make things easier. It’s better to snipe than to charge in head-on.”

“Yeah, I think that’s for the best.”

I suppressed the heaviness in my heart for some reason and took out a long rifle, getting into position. Then I aimed at the conman.

After all, this is just an illusion.

The other people, following the conman’s orders, scattered in perfect unison. Now, he was left alone in the empty plaza.

In that moment, I pulled the trigger.

Bang—!

Was it my imagination, or did I feel like I made eye contact with him the moment I pulled the trigger?

I heard a click of the tongue next to me.

“Failure.”

As the tiger kid grabbed my waist and pulled me away, a light arrow flew into the spot I had just occupied.

“Who are you to be targeting us?”

A familiar voice rang out. I saw disheveled pink hair and sprout-green eyes. It was Shin Baran.

At the same time, a light strike shot from behind us.

“What…!”

The tiger kid quickly stepped back, jumping onto the roof to avoid the strike.

The one who launched that strike was a man with black hair and sapphire-like blue eyes—Park Si-woo.

“More importantly, he looks like a hybrid of different races, but he hasn’t mutated into a monster. How is that possible?”

Park Si-woo scanned us with his blue eyes as if he were observing us.

I quickly purchased two teleportation tickets and shouted,

“Torrito! Can they teleport too?”

“No, they probably ran here purely on speed.”

Crazy. Regardless of my pale complexion, Torrito continued speaking as he leaped between rooftops.

“The attack they’re launching now is probably just to subdue us.”

I whispered to Torrito,

“Can you kill Nayu-han as soon as you get close to him?”

“Yeah.”

I showed him the ticket and said,

“It’s a teleportation item. Just think of where you want to go and tear it.”

In an instant, blood splattered from his cheek. It seemed that the arrow shot by Shin Baran had grazed his face.

“I recommend you surrender willingly!”

At the same time, he took one of my tickets.

“Go ahead.”

Woosh! He tore the teleportation ticket. His figure disappeared.

Hey!

I tried to quickly tear a ticket as I fell through the air.

“Sorry, but that won’t work.”

However, it was Park Si-woo’s hand that caught my wrist first.

The ticket slipped from my grasp. Just as I had feared, Shin Baran shot an arrow to burn the ticket. I shut my eyes tightly in anticipation of the impact from the fall.

Boom—!

I heard the sound of hitting the ground, but there was no pain. When I opened my eyes, I met Park Si-woo’s gaze, who was holding me.

He opened his mouth as he looked at me.

“I have a lot I want to ask you.”

Shin Baran approached and collected my gun.

Damn it. I need to find an opportunity to use a story twist or buy a suitable item. I gritted my teeth quietly.

“You just used spiritual power, right? Are you also a being from another realm?”

But soon I widened my eyes. What did he just say?

“Or—”

Just as Park Si-woo was about to say something more, the whole world was engulfed in light.

In that moment, the sensation of the hand holding me and his voice disappeared.

“Are you safe?”

I heard the tiger kid’s voice.

The lightning-shaped weapon of his gradually began to crumble into dust. It seemed that his weapon had reached the end of its lifespan.

“Yeah.”

At my response, he turned his back.

“Then let’s go.”

I picked up my fallen guns from the ground and silently followed behind him.

Eventually, we arrived at a newly formed door.

There were ten symbols on the door, but only two of them glowed with light.

The tiger kid looked at it and said,

“When others clear their trials, the glowing symbols will light up, and the door will open.”

Then he plopped down on the ground. I took a seat on the right side, opposite to where he sat.

A silence fell between us for a while.

As I organized the events from earlier in my mind, I posed a question to him.

“Why do you want to kill Nayu-han?”

He answered my question.

“Because what he’s doing is trying to destroy the tower.”

“…Isn’t that a good thing? If the tower disappears, monsters won’t come out anymore—”

“No, the tower is an indispensable existence for us. It must not be destroyed.”

“Hmm… well, I suppose that’s true.”

I felt that his thoughts were unlikely to change, so I shifted the topic.

“Do you know anything about the ‘Six Races’ keys?”

“Yeah. Did a player tell you?”

“Yeah.”

As I pondered, I recalled the things the Wild Hunters did in the novel.

“Are you going to collect the keys?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“To save everyone.”

I racked my brain.

Considering the ‘future’ I just saw, I could guess the reason the Oracle instructed the conman to collect the keys. It was probably to collapse the tower.

Collect the keys.

Collapse the tower.

Achieve the correct ending.

It seemed that this was the intended sequence.

But did something go wrong along the way?

What exactly?

Or perhaps that was just part of the process leading to the correct ending…

My head was getting complicated.

“What are you going to do after collecting the keys?”

“I will unlock the six seals of the tower.”

“…What?”

I found his words even harder to understand.

According to the novel, the Wild Hunters would unlock the seals of the tower, which would lead to a ‘catastrophe’ caused by monsters that burst forth from it. Overcoming that catastrophe and sealing the tower again was the main story.

However, no user had cleared the ‘catastrophe.’

I asked him with a subtle expression,

“When you say you want to save everyone, do you mean… killing all those people and sending them to heaven or something?”

“Do you think that’s possible?”

He looked at me as if I were foolish. No, you were the one who said something nonsensical first. I shot him a cold glance in return.

He sighed heavily and said,

“I guess I need to explain how the Tower of Desire is structured first.”

At that moment, I heard a grinding sound as the door began to open slightly.

Only then did I realize that light was coming from all the symbols.

At the same time, a system alert appeared.

[Story fragment has been added.]

Why is this happening all of a sudden?

The door began to open rapidly as I was momentarily distracted by the system window. The scenery inside the dungeon came into view.

As I looked into the air, Torrito spoke to me again.

“Why do you…?”