Chapter 58: House Faust (1)
"You must be Misha Apocalypse."
Misha blinked a few times upon seeing a man in a proper black butler’s suit, standing just beyond the gate, his posture straight enough to make the iron bars beside him look sloppy. His silver hair had been combed back neatly, and not a single strand had dared escape.
"Ah... yes."
"The young master is expecting you." He lifted a pocket watch, checked the time, then looked at her again. "You arrived later than expected."
That made her eye twitch a little.
Elyes had a butler... Why did that somehow suit him and annoy her at the same time?
A small portion of the gate opened with a low metallic sound.
"Please come in." The old man stepped aside and gestured inward with perfect courtesy.
Misha hesitated for half a minute before walking through.
The moment she crossed the gate, the city outside felt farther away than it should have. The noise of Genesis dulled behind the stone walls. Even the air changed, it smelled cleaner here. Fresh grass, faint flowers, a little water.
The estate grounds opened in front of her in neat, precise lines. A stone path cut across a trimmed garden so flawless it almost looked fake. Low hedges framed small beds of white and pale blue flowers. A fountain sat at the center, water falling in silver streams over layered stones. Everything felt expensive.
Misha glanced at the mansion again.
It was enormous. Pale stone walls rose high behind the gardens, framed by tall windows and dark trim. Ivy climbed across one side with elegance, like even the plants here knew how to behave properly.
Misha looked down at her own boots. She had cleaned herself up. She no longer looked like she had crawled straight out of a battlefield. Still, standing in front of a mansion like this made her feel as though she accidentally wandered into someone else’s genre.
The old butler began walking ahead at an easy pace and Misha simply followed him.
The man opened the front doors for her, and she stepped inside.
Then she nearly stopped walking. The entrance hall stretched wide and high, all polished floors and soft golden light. A chandelier hung overhead, not gaudy, only large enough to remind anyone entering that money lived here very comfortably.
Dark wooden stairs curved upward at both sides before meeting at a landing above. The floor beneath her boots gleamed faintly, reflecting the light.
Elyes had seriously lived here... while he acted exhausted like the world had never once done anything for him. That felt unfair.
The butler led her through the mansion. They passed a formal sitting room full of pale couches and expensive rugs, then a long corridor with tall windows opening onto an inner garden. Servants moved here and there with quiet, practiced steps. None of them stared at her. They only bowed slightly and continued on with their work.
That somehow made the place feel even more intimidating. She felt so out of place.
"Does Elyes really live here?" She couldn’t help but ask.
The old butler looked back at her once. "The young master prefer to spend his time here, at the vacation house in Genesis."
Misha made a face. That explained so much and somehow explained nothing at all.
Why did a rich noble heir even want to climb the Tower? If it was her, she would have spent her days shopping, buying every item that caught her attention.
Then again, wealth did not stop people from being strange. It only gave them bigger rooms to be strange in.
Then finally, the butler stopped before a large wooden door and gave two short knocks.
"Come in."
He opened the door for her.
Misha stepped inside and immediately realized Elyes had not merely pushed himself too far.
Inside the room, Elyes sat propped up on a large bed while three healers worked around him. One stood near his side muttering a recovery spell under her breath while green light moved over the worst of the damage. Another held a basin filled with water tinted faintly pink from diluted blood. The third looked ready to scold him to death the second the magic failed.
Elyes himself looked thoroughly unimpressed by the entire situation. He also looked terrible.
His hair fell loose around his face. His skin had gone pale enough to make the shadows under his eyes look worse. His left leg was wrapped in fresh bandages, and part of his shirt had been pulled aside to expose a healing wound near his ribs and chest.
He looked up when she entered, saw her, and sighed like her existence had added one more inconvenience to the pile. "You’re late."
Misha simply stared with a small pout. "You didn’t exactly tell me what time I should come."
He stared blankly at her for a second. Then he shut his eyes and rubbed lightly at his forehead like she had given him a headache he did not need. "Seriously... where’s your sense of urgency?"
"Buried under trauma, apparently."
"..."
One of the healers shot them both a tired look.
Misha crossed her arms and looked around the room properly this time.
It was probably bigger than the whole downstairs lobby at the inn. Shelves lined one wall, half-filled with books, bottles, and odd magical objects she did not want to touch without permission and perhaps not even with it.
A long couch sat near the window with a blanket thrown over one side. The desk in the corner had stacks of papers that looked one messy breeze away from becoming a tragedy.
"Sebastian." Elyes called.
Misha turned toward the butler.
... Sebastian...?
It really was the most butler-like name possible.
Sebastian bowed once and left the room without a word. Shortly after, the door opened again and he returned carrying a tray. On it lay two teleportation runes engraved with the numeral ’II’, each one shining faintly with stored mana.
Elyes gestured toward them as though presenting something completely ordinary. "We’re heading to Exodus after this."
"Huh?"
Sebastian held the tray steady, his face perfectly calm, as if discussing inter-floor travel in the middle of a healing session happened every day in this household.
Misha stared at the runes, then she turned to Elyes. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You had those the whole time?"
He looked at her like the question bored him. "Yes."
"Or," he went on, "Do you prefer climbing the trial floors again?"
Misha hesitated for a moment.
"I was planning on doing that," she admitted. "To level up."
Exodus sounded faster and smarter, probably. But the floor beyond it sounded dangerous in the sort of way she had not yet earned the right to dismiss.
She had planned on clearing the lower floors again at least a few times to grind levels and get stronger than to leap forward into some middle-floor death trap just because Elyes looked wealthy enough to teleport wherever he pleased.
"It would be training for me too," she added.
Elyes watched her for a long second. Then he glanced at Sebastian and made a small flick of his fingers. The butler took the runes off the tray and placed them into a bag without comment.
"I guess we can do that too," Elyes said.
Misha eyed the bag. "If you have a return stone to Exodus, why not use it?"
Elyes leaned back slightly against the pillows. One of the healers adjusted the bandage around his side while he continued speaking. "It was Yara’s idea to climb floor by floor. The others didn’t mind."
That made Misha go still for a moment. Even hearing her name spoken so casually made something cold pull tight inside her.
Still, Elyes continued. "I stayed because Nyxie wanted to..." his tone slightly changed at the mention of her name. "Gerbaut also wanted to clear the Tower properly from the start. Yara agreed since it was in favor of what she wanted so the group stayed together."
After getting their Ranker badges, they could have used teleportation runes to travel more freely on different settlement floors. Instead, they wanted to become Raiders.
Or rather, Yara suggested it, and the others followed for their own reasons.
That thought sat badly in Misha’s chest.
"What level are you now?"
Misha straightened slightly. "I’m..." She paused and called up the window. "Status."
「 〔STATUS WINDOW〕
Tower Name: Misha Apocalypse
Name: Misha Reyes
Level: 11 (EXP: 33 | 1860 )
Rank: ☆☆☆☆
Class: Soulbinder
Affiliation: Tower of Hellfire
—
<TITLE>
The One Acknowledged By the Tower
—
<ATTRIBUTES>
Strength .... 18 (E)
Agility ... 23 (D)
Vitality ..... 15 (E)
Endurance .... 11 (E)
Perception .... 21 (D)
—
<TRAITS>
Analytical Thinking (Lv. 6) [10%]
Calm Under Pressure (Lv. 6) [7%]
Sleep Deprivation Resistance (Lv. 3) [5%]
Steady Hands (Lv. 4) [28%]
—
<SKILLS>
Weapon Mastery (R)
Soul Inventory (SR)
—
<EQUIPMENT>
Hearthkeeper’s Cloak
Twinfang
Dreamweaver
Starfall
Stormpiercer
—
<INVENTORY>
Tower Coins: 3,352
Tracker’s Compass x1
Goblin King’s Core x1
Goblin King’s Bloodstone x1
Mana Shard x7
Cracked Enhancement Stone x4
Minor Healing Potion x10
Minor Stamina Potion x9
Teleportation Rune (I) x2
Teleportation Rune (II) x1 」
Misha stared at it. It had improved, that much was undeniable. Still, the moment she finished reading, the first thought that came to her was simple.
Low. It still felt low.
Not compared to where she started but compared to where she needed to go.
"I’m at 11..." she said quietly.
Elyes frowned at once. "That’s too low."
There it was. Blunt and slightly offensive.
She clenched her fists. "I know that."
"Then you should also know repeating lower floors won’t fix it fast enough." He shifted slightly and winced before pretending he had not. "Exodus is faster. The floors beyond it give a better experience, better materials, and better enemies."
"Better ways to die too," Misha added.
"That part was implied."
She stared at him and he stared back.
She broke her gaze first. She turned to her status window again.
Level 11... it was too low.
He was right. That was the worst part. He was right in the maddeningly practical way people like Elyes always were when they said things you did not want to hear.
But faster did not always mean survivable.
Misha had just watched an entire future collapse in one throne room. She was not eager to sprint toward the next disaster with too few levels.
"I don’t know how dangerous the next floors are," she said at last as she closed her eyes in defeat.
Elyes did not laugh at her for her honesty. "Everything above here is dangerous. That won’t change just because you grind goblins until you’re sick of looking at them."
She looked away. His words were true. Still, hesitation sat in her stomach like a stone because danger in theory and danger after losing her friends were not the same thing.
Stepping into upper floors now felt less like progress and more like walking into the mouth of something larger than she could yet bite back. She wanted to go climb the floors for her brothers but at the same time, she wanted to be prepared for the unknown.
She pressed her lips together. "I need to think."
"Think quickly."
That made her glare at him.