Luckily son, you are a naturally likable person.

Herbert Meadows - Father

“So Gregor, are your knights okay?” I asked as I rushed to harvest the mana gem from the bat boss.

“One of them is missing an arm; what do you think?”

“Well yeah, but besides the missing arm are they okay?”

Gregor just stared at me and didn't answer.

Wave 6 complete.

The next four waves were all versions of bats. Or should I say varieties of baties. There was the ice variety that shot little ice needles from their wings. Then the fire variety that fanned flames with their wings. There was a poison variety which would probably be bad if I ate them. I guess if I got bit they would be dangerous too, but how dumb would I have to be let them bite me. The final wave was a mix of all the previous waves. Really they weren't difficult at all, and only four more knights were injured. So overall not a bad wave.

“Please Sir Hero,'' called out one of the injured knights.

“What can I do for you? I don't know any healing magic and I don't have any sort of healing item on me." That might not be true. Did I use all my healing potions I received from the previous dungeon or not? I couldn't remember, but now was not the time to check. It's not like I was going to give one one my potions to an imaginary knight when I could save my life later.

“Please Sir Hero, stop singing. It's very distracting and causing us to not be able to defend properly,” said the knight weakly.

Now that's just rude. First off, I didn't even realize I was singing again. And didn’t the prince say I had a nice singing voice? I knew I tended to hum when I was busy doing tasks before the Tower, but I hadn't realized I had turned into a full-blown singing habit when fighting.

Instead of acknowledging the knight’s request, I just gave him a comforting pat on his remaining leg and left him to recover. Well to recover as much as a man with one leg could in this dungeon.

Wave 10 complete.

I turned to see the dungeon spawn the next wave, a horde of wolves. I had seen wolves back home, but they paled in comparison to these monsters. These wolves were more like the size of a small horse rather than a large dog. There were too many to count and they all rushed towards us. At once the remaining knights formed a line and began to defend their comrades recovering in the corner. I was tempted to join them but decided to go in front as I wasn't used to fighting in a line.

The wolves were much more durable than the bats. I mean, I still cut them in half but it took a little bit more effort. They were also coordinated. One would try to distract me while others moved to attack from a blind spot.

“Sir Hero, you're singing again,” said Sir Gregor.

“Sorry about that,” I said.

As I continued to fight the wolves I tried my hardest not to sing or hum. Three more wolves fell to my swings. I pushed their corpses aside to fight the next wave that came while dodging the ones trying to flank and hamstring me.

“Sir Miki, I don't think you are meaning to do it, but you are singing again,” said the prince.

That just didn't seem possible. I was only distracted by the wolves for a handful of seconds and they were already accusing me of singing. I held my lips tightly together and turned to fight the group of wolves coming towards us. Once more I dove into the attack and easily overwhelmed the wolves trying to attack me. Within a minute, 40 more wolves were down and I could see a number of new wolves appear.

“Sweet gods above please stop singing!” shouted of one of the knights who had a wolf attached to his arm.

I would think he would be more focused on the battle than my voice with a wolf attached to his arm. And then the wolf tore off his arm. See that's what I'm talking about. If Sir Gregor had better trained his knights they wouldn’t be distracted by me and become easy prey for the wolves. I mean, I could still defeat the knights regardless of training, but surely they could handle a beast that was already present in the world before the Tower appeared. They didn’t even have to face the boss, which was a monstrously large wolf that made the others seem small.

The next wave was unsurprisingly fire wolves. Even more knights were injured by these wolves but luckily the fire wolves seemed to cauterize the wounds they created. After being attacked the knights were able to just sit back and let their fellow knights protect them. I took out this wave as easily as the last.

In the next wave were ice wolves. Once more monsters rushed towards us freezing the floor as they ran. This actually caused the wolves behind them to start slipping and falling. If there had been less wolves they likely would be able to use their speed to avoid the frozen ground while limiting my ability to easily move across the area. Instead their large numbers caused most of the ground in the dungeon to freeze into a sheet of ice. As the wolves slipped and tripped I had plenty of time to kill them and let the knights relax for a wave.

“Do you think he is singing on purpose to taunt us?” asked one of the knights still remaining on his feet. “It’s as if he is showing us that he is so superior that he can sing and not take this fight seriously.”

I was taking this fight seriously. Yes, most of the knights were now injured but that is hardly my fault. Sure, I tricked them into entering this dungeon and increasing its difficulty, but they volunteered to join me and the prince.

Wave 13 complete

Next came lightning wolves. Interestingly they were easier to beat than the lightning slimes. Probably because I didn’t have to stick my arm inside them to beat them. If I stood still for a minute the wolves would shoot lightning at me but as long as I kept moving, they were as easy to beat as the first round of wolves. Even the huge boss was easy to defeat.

I turned to ask Gregor if he knew of an easier way to defeat the lightning slimes, but he was not where I had left him. In fact there was only one knight still standing. All the other knights were laying in the corner, still in a formation as if to defend the prince even though most were now unconscious. Looking closely, one of the bodies was clearly Sir Gregor who looked to have been electrocuted and was now unresponsive. The prince appeared to be unharmed and was hugging his knees while sobbing. I guess he was taking Sir Gregor's injury personally.

I quickly harvest the mana gem from the boss.

Wave 14 complete.

Level 25 Shadow Wolf

What the hell is a shadow wolf? They didn’t appear more dangerous than the initial wave of wolves even though all of them were higher level. As I prepared to fight them, the front row of wolves vanished. Looking down I could see shadows on the ground moving rapidly towards us. I guess these wolves can turn into shadows. That was actually really cool.

As the shadows came within reach I trusted my instinct and cut at one of the shadows. My sword literally cut the shadow in half and then a dead wolf appeared. Not thinking about it much further, I started attacking the shadows surrounding me and the knights. I held out for two minutes, quickly destroying most of the wolves and their reinforcements, before I noticed the screams.

I turned to the knights to find that several of the injured were now missing. Looking around I found a group of a dozen wolves had dragged the injured knights to the center of the room and were tearing them apart. Ensuing there were no more wolves around me and rushed over and killed the wolves eating the knights including the boss wolf.

Looking over what remained of the knights I could see that they were all clearly dead. Included in the number of dead was Sir Gregor. Man this guy can not catch a break. That is twice he has managed to die in my Tower climb. Talk about unlucky.

All the remaining knights were either crying in pain or had joined the prince in terrified sobbing.

Giving them some space I went around the room and harvested all of the mana gems.

Wave 15 complete. Return to the entrance of Beginner Dungeon for rewards.

I approached the prince and the remaining knights.

“I am sorry for your loss,” I said.

The prince stopped sobbing and looked up at me with pure hatred.

“This is all your fault,” he said practically spitting the words. “I would have been better off if my father never summoned you. I have no further use for you and request that you leave.”

Wow, that was a bit of an overreaction. I was hoping he would be a little more grateful seeing as how I had defeated almost all of the monsters and saved him from assassins. In the end he was still young and was just overwhelmed by the situation. I decided to leave him in his anger. It’s not like I was going to see the prince again. I broke my return token and found myself at the entrance to the dungeon.

Looking over the stone table I found it piled high with health potions, skill crystals, armor, gloves, and even a new sword. Jackpot! I reached forward when a prompt appeared.

A god has noticed you!

The goddess of music Serenity wishes to bestow a skill upon you. If accepted, future rewards from the Tower will be absorbed until the value of the skill is reached.

Accept skill: YES/NO

This was the first time the Tower directly asked for a response from me. Better yet, the offer did not seem like a part of the normal Tower climbing experience. While it would take away some of my rewards, it would likely give me something better. Besides, none of the rewards in front of me were things that couldn’t be replaced later in the Tower. I wondered how many of the rewards it would take as there were easily over 50 items on the table.

“I accept the skill,” I said out loud while thinking ‘yes’. The prompt vanished from my view.

And nothing happened. No new skill notification. None of the items from the stone table disappeared. I guess I would not get access to the skill until I earned rewards in the future.

As I reached forward to grab an item on the table all of the items seemed to be sucked toward my outstretched hand and disappeared.

Items absorbed. [??]% complete to unlock skill [??????]

It took everything and it still didn't unlock the skill. How valuable was this skill? I wasn’t even upset. Whatever the goddess granted skill would be, it clearly was more powerful than anything I could get this early in the Tower. Perhaps it would be more powerful than anything I could get in the Tower overall.

Since there was nothing left to do I headed to the portal and stepped through.

Floor 6 complete!

Rewards: — Items absorbed. [??]% complete to unlock skill [??????]