Chapter 460

“I kind of feel guilty killing them,” Rick said, the barrel of his revolver drifting lower.

His opponent, on the other hand, had no such compunction. The moment Rick’s attention drifted, it hauled back and threw the makeshift spear it had been holding at the other. Only a last minute twist of his body allowed Rick to avoid being pinned, and even so, the spear tore a line of fire along his body, only the man’s enhanced physique and the weapon’s blunt nature saving him.

Moments later, the bark of his weapons being fired showed that he had gotten over his initial hesitation. The rest of the team were much less hesitant, being mostly forced to do battle close-in with their opponents. And once you had been picked up by the appendage and swung around by your opponent like you weighed no more than a paper bag, you got over your hesitation to go for the kill.

Once more, Arthur was immensely grateful he had chosen the spear as his weapon of choice. Stabbing the weapon deep into his opponent, wrenching it out of the orange furred body and spinning it around his body to generate the force need to block the next attacking two-legged orang utan Tower creature, he was still on the backfoot a little.

They were strong – stronger than any human being – but they also had almost no stamina. If not for the fact that the team had to go into their makeshift village, the process of kiting these enemies was well established. Attack them quickly, run away and let them tire themselves out chasing you. Then, turn around and stab them while they were exhausted.

Not very sporting but highly effective.

Not as useful when they refused to leave their village, and you had to go in. They’d even learnt to build cover such that shooting into the village blindly was difficult, forcing the cultivators to go in. It also helped that they were quite squishy. No armour, just their fur and that was no tougher than, well, hair.

All strength, no defense.

Instinct twigged and before he knew it, Arthur had dropped into a squat and was rolling backwards, holding his spear parallel so that it wouldn’t catch as he went end-over-end. A body flew past him moments later, as Yao Jing won his own contest of strength. The air of the passing orange-furred body, the orang utan’s expressive face in an O of surprise, the splatter of a light warm drizzle twigged on his senses, as he came back to his feet moments later.

Truly, the first floor of a Beginner Tower was rather a cakewalk for the team. Which probably was a good thing, since they were all a little rusty. Arthur was keeping his attacks to pure melee forms, avoiding the use of his other more magical skills as he tried to reassess how far he had fallen in the months in the old world.

Others had different objectives in this fight, from Yao Jing having fun, utilizing his upgraded physique to test himself against the first floor creatures to Uswah, fading in and out of sight and striking a single blow before disappearing.

Those were frightening, as she seemed to blend right into the shadows each time; such that her victims could do little but paw endlessly and futilely at open air as poison crept through their systems. Mel and Casey were taking a more pedestrian method of cutting their way through the center of the village, killing with ruthless efficiency; soon followed by Rick as he got over his own hesitation.

Their goal, of course, was in the center of the village in the ‘chief’s hut. The Tower orang utans were a mix of the Earth creatures and a more humanoid body, such that it brought to mind what the orang utans might be in a few million years of evolution. Or maybe tens of thousands – he wasn’t exactly sure what the scale of evolution was.

Like, they said sharks had been around since the dinosaurs and they hadn’t changed much, but humans had evolved significantly since then. So what made it different? Chance? Or just need?

Need felt about right – when you were close to the apex predators, there was no point evolving further. Humans on the other hand had a lot of competition, so evolving was necessary. It probably also helped that humans welped at a ridiculous rate comparatively, such that it was possible for evolution to take more stabs at producing something useful.

The orang utan humanoids on this floor had a rudimentary village system, one that allowed them to stay together in small tribes. These tribes repopulated on the regular, either because the Tower wished it so or – as mentioned by others – coming from even deeper from the Tower lands itself.

No one had explored the entirety of this floor, because it was massive. Journeying literal weeks out still left Climbers with more space to go, with not much variation in danger – beyond the need for company and the chance of death. Also, not much benefit since acquiring the altar that they raided from the chief’s village was part of the quest to exit.

They only had to get three too – a minimal number, to portal a team of five up. Which meant, of course, for them; they’d have to either jump on with another group or raid a couple more villages. Arthur leaned towards the second option, mostly because they’d picked up a few new recruits.

In fact…

“Should we just pick up a few of these and leave them in the Tower?” Arthur said, looking around the surroundings. There was very little point in fighting on this floor, not for their team. The cores from the first floor of a Beginner Tower could be used to empower themselves, but it wasn’t particularly high value. Any of the newbies they recruited would have to go through properly, but for people like him and the rest of the team; sticking around on the first floor longer than necessary was worthless.

“Maybe a few, but there’s no point. They can get their own,” Mel said, gesturing. “Just depends if you think we can get enough people sorted out before we have to go the next floor.”

Arthur grunted in acknowledgement. Surprisingly, the few White Lotus candidates he interviewed here were significantly lacking, to the point that he was seriously considering just designating the Chin’s own person here the floor boss. It wasn’t like that distant cousin had much to do for the Chin’s either, and was surprisingly competent.

Even if he smiled a little too much. Still, it had taken only a little while and a tweaking of his own gaydar to realise why someone this competent was exiled in a place like Kuching. Malaysia still wasn’t particularly accepting of different lifestyles and the Tower – and having the run of it himself – was probably the best that he could hope for.

Him and his companion who, historians were sure to agree, were just very good friends. Who they would live together with to his death, if the way they looked at one another was any indication.

And maybe he hesitated because he was jealous a little. Because who wouldn’t want someone else to love? Especially since his own love life was rather dire. At least Arthur was honest enough with himself to admit that it was his fault just as much as anything else.

Still…

“Point. Let’s get this over with.” He looked at the team, realised everyone else had been hard at work collecting the cores and sighed. Boss or not, he still had to get his hands dirty cutting open the creatures, searching around for the cores and pocketing them.

What was the point of being the boss if he couldn’t get someone to do it for him?