567 A Talk With The Academy's Director
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At the end, we quickly moved back to the academy, where we were treated by many healers. Although we were mostly fine, so their help only relieved muscle pain and exhaustion, but nothing too threatening. Once we were treated, Evelyn brought us all to the director’s office, the big, muscular, and black bearded director of this academy, Hasan, a powerful war veteran, greeted us with a worried expression.
I quickly gave him a brief explanation of how it happened, while skipping on the details such as knowing what they were talking about, or revealing the Archdemon Core Shard, which was going to stay with me. I am sure they’re treasures of this world as well. If I were to ever reveal it to anybody, they would had surely wanted it for themselves.
“I see, so these demons were insect-like…” Sighed Hasan. “They’re really Insectoids then, Beelzebub’s minions.” It seems they knew about Archdemons.
“The nearest Demon Tower is the Demon Tower of Gluttony, governed by Beelzebub. A powerful Archdemon that originates from within the Demon’s Realm, Hell.” Hasan said. “Usually, demons that come from Gates are random, but lately we’ve had reports of Insectoids the most. Even more, swarms of them had been gathering in the nearby Wild Lands outside of Stronghold city.”
“Really? So there are more of these disgusting things…” Said Erika while sighing. “Uegh…”
“Beelzebub…” Elizabeth said. “I do remember them saying a word similar to this, they were probably sent by this evil archdemon!”
“More or less.” Hasan sighed. “I am impressed by how you were able to handle them all by yourself though! Even if you’re a big group of eight talented students possessing powerful spirits, it was still an incredible feat! You’ll get perfect scores in this exam for sure! Also, I’ll give you all a reward for having slain demons. Students or not, you drove off a menace to this city, based in how many you slain, you are rewarded in this city, so I’ll bring the sacks of gold coins right away!”
Hasan quickly brought tons of money, distributing it to all eight of us. The gold coins had roughly a hundred gold coins, that’s several thousand Telis, which were going straight to my capital.
“Uwaah! So much money!” Said Erika.
“I’ll send this to my family back home!” Chris said.
“I think I’ll invest them into materials for more advanced alchemy…” Eric said.
“Ooh, my own earned money…” Alberta seemed happy.
“Tch, this is just cheap charge compared to what we went through…” Sighed Elfriedden.
pαndα`noνɐ1–сoМ
“I’ll make sure to report this to the other figures of the city. Hero Dylan must also know about this. We’ve been trying to cut down the numbers of near the Wild Lands but like cockroaches, these insectoids keep appearing like swarms. The Demon Tower’s seal has been weakening these last years as well…” Sighed Hasan. “Things are looking grim…”
Hasan became silent for a bit, looking into the floor while feeling a slight amount of despair. Even such a strong man as him was afraid? I guess the demons had been pushing humanity to the corner for longer than I had expected…
“Director Hasan…” Evelyn interrupted his silence.
“A-Ah, right! Forget what I said… We’ll handle things, don’t worry about it, students. You must only concern yourselves with studying and growing stronger.” Hasan smiled back at us. “I don’t want to pressure you… But your talents might be one of he few hopes we’ll have in the near future. Evelyn, make sure they get enough rest too.”
“Yes Director Hasan.” Evelyn nodded, as we quickly left the room.
…Except that I didn’t. I looked back at Hasan and asked him something.
“Have you raided the Demon Tower before?” I asked him.
“Eh?” Hasan looked back at me in surprise. “Well… yes.”
“How is it?” I asked.
“It’s… the first thirty floors are easy, but once we reach the floor thirty-one, things become harder and harder, stronger and more cunning demons appear… We’ve tried many times to reach the Demon Tower Core, but it is something we have yet to completely accomplish.” He said.
“Even with your strength and Hero Dylan’s power?!” I asked. Both of them were already incredibly strong, this didn’t add up.
“No, I am quite sure that with the party I entered last time, we would be able to reach even farther… However, our greatest weakness is our own bodies. We get tired, we need to sleep and eat, the demon tower’s environment and everything else… it is too tiring to walk through those lands, and the more we fight, the more energy we lose. Even with all our resources, we cannot stay inside for longer.” Said Hasan. “Of course, that might change if we had more items brought from the dwarves and elves, but even them need those items, so they only sell a small quantity to our city.”
“I see…”
So it is a lack of restorative items and convenient magic artifacts… I am fairly sure that Hero Dylan and Hasan could potentially be able to reach as far as floor 100 of the Demon Tower if they had their full strength… But right now, they can’t without proper preparations and materials, even less, they seem to lack a better way to carry them all, their dimensional bags must be limiting what they can bring.
And most of those problems can be resolved with my own Abilities… If I keep developing them more and more, it could actually be realistic to get into the Floor 100 of the Tower, and reach the Demon Tower Core, where the seal is located.
Their original plan must be to reinforce the seal once more.
Although I have different plans… such as shattering it.
They had never done it because its material seems indestructible to them, even the heroes of old were unable to shatter them.
But I do have a way…
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