Chapter 61: Gray Window
Misha stared at the gray window hanging in front of her. It did not blink away, did not fade like ordinary notices. It simply remained there, wrong in a way that made her skin prickle.
Her eyes darted from the screen to Elyes and Sebastian. Both of them were looking at her now, not at any system window, but at her.
"Can’t you see this?" She asked, her voice rising before she could stop it. "It says the Tower has been breached..."
Elyes frowned from the bed. "What breached?"
Sebastian’s brow pulled together for the first time. "That should be impossible."
Impossible?
Misha looked back at the window, and her pulse began to climb.
Before anyone could say anything else, a deep horn split through the mansion.
BWOOOOM–!
The sound rolled across Genesis like something enormous had taken a breath inside the city walls.
BWOOOOM–!
It came again, one after another, old enough in tone to sound less like warning and more like disaster being formally announced.
All of them went still.
Misha felt the sound in her bones.
Outside the window, somewhere beyond the pale walls and trimmed gardens of House Faust’s Genesis residence, the city had already begun to change. She could hear it even from here. Distant shouting, and somewhere far off, another horn answered the first.
A voice rang out next, magically amplified until it rolled across the district.
"Citizens of Genesis, this is not a drill. All non-combatants are ordered to evacuate immediately. I repeat, all non-combatants are ordered to evacuate immediately."
Ding!
Another gray window appeared before her eyes.
「 Settlement floors are no longer secure. 」
「 Prepare for unforeseen events. 」
「 Survive. 」
「 Shasha. 」
Her stomach dropped upon seeing the last words on the window.
Shasha.
Only one person had ever called her that.
Misha’s breath caught in her throat. Why was the system calling her that way?
How did the Administrator know that nickname?
The thought struck her harder the second time. Her chest tightened until breathing felt shallow. Her eyes stayed locked on the final line of the gray window as memory began to rush up all at once, old scenes dragging themselves into the present with brutal clarity.
*
Ding!
「 You are invited to climb the Tower.
Accept | Decline 」
Misha wanted to rub her eyes but couldn’t do so. She stared at the gray window in shock. She never thought she would be seeing it once again.
「 If left unselected, it will result in automatic acceptance. 」
「 Countdown: 10 seconds 」
「 Countdown: 9 seconds 」
"I-I accept! I accept the invitation!" She hurriedly shouted.
「 Thank you for accepting the Tower’s invitation! 」
「 Initializing Summoning Protocol... 」
「 〔!ERROR!〕
SUMMONING DENIED!!! 」
The window turned red.
Misha’s heart almost stopped when she saw the words on the window.
Summoning denied? What does that even mean?
「 Reinitializing Summoning Protocol... 」
「 〔!ERROR!〕
SUMMONING DENIED!!! 」
The window started glitching between red and gray. Misha could only watch in confusion as the monster bat flew inside the tower.
「 〔!ERROR!〕
THE TOWER DOES NOT CONSENT!!! 」
「 〔!ERROR!〕
SUMMONING DENIED!!! 」
「 Overwriting Protocol... 」
「 System Overwrite Successful! 」
「 Summoning begins... 」
*
Right... that window had never been normal. It was not like the first invitation.
She saw it before her eyes. It had fought something... or something had fought it.
If that second invitation never appeared before her, would she have made it this far? Would she have survived at all?
It also appeared when she asked for a skill trade.
*
"Is there seriously no skill trading system here?" She muttered under her breath.
Ding!
A gray window appeared before her.
「 〔 SYSTEM NOTICE 〕
A valid request has been detected. 」
「 Available Skill for Trade: Microscopic Examination (R)
Would you like to exchange a Skill?
Yes | No 」
*
Another gray window again. It was always the gray ones, not the ordinary blue notices everyone saw.
From the beginning, something had been there, watching her, guiding her whenever it could, correcting the system when the Tower itself refused.
Misha’s fingers trembled, her fists slowly clenched.
Shasha.
That name sat there like a hand reaching through the screen.
A thought rose, and once it did, she could not force it back down.
No wonder the help always felt strange whenever she was at death’s door. No wonder the timing never looked like chance.
Something hot stung suddenly behind her eyes. Misha swallowed hard.
And in the middle of the mansion, in the middle of the alarms, in the middle of the city beginning to panic outside, she had the awful urge to laugh and cry at the same time.
That idiot... that absolute idiot.
Was King his doing too? No wonder that cat-like guide had a difficult personality like him.
He had been close enough to watch her struggle, to watch her nearly die, to call her by that name, and he still stayed somewhere beyond her reach?
Her chest tightened harder. Because it hurt. Because it relieved her. Because the truth felt too close and too far all at once. And because some small, quiet part of her that had long since stopped asking for kindness had just realized it had been receiving it the whole time in the only way he could manage.
But how? How did he ended up with that much authority?
"Misha."
Elyes’ voice snapped through her spiraling thoughts.
She blinked a few times. The room came back in pieces. The bed, the windows, and the trembling line of her own breath.
"Misha," Elyes said again, sharper now. "What else does it say?"
Shasha.
Her fists tightened. Then she swallowed once and forced air back into her lungs.
"I-It says..." Her voice almost cracked. She hated that so she started again. "It says the settlement floors are no longer secure..."
Sebastian moved first. He raised one gloved hand, mana gathering in a pale silver ring above his fingers. The air in front of him rippled once, twice, then spread into a translucent viewing screen like water suspended in midair.
As the image sharpened, Misha stared at it in a daze.
Genesis outside had become chaos. People flooded the streets in moving clusters, some clutching children, some carrying bags, and some too stunned to carry anything at all. Guards shouted instructions while trying to force order into panic. Members of guilds moved fast through the roads in armor and half-fastened equipment, directing civilians toward stone stairways cut into the lower city districts. Other Rankers sprinted toward the walls or the central command towers, weapons already drawn.
The great gates of Genesis had been shut. Massive stone barriers had descended over the main entrances, reinforced by glowing magic circles layered over the iron and rock. Defensive runes that had likely not been used in years flared back to life one after another along the outer walls, forming bands of light that ran across the city perimeter like veins waking beneath skin.
Then the screen shifted. Sebastian had turned the spell toward the outside.
Misha’s stomach clenched when she caught sight of it.
Beyond the walls, a dark mass crawled over the ground.
At first, her mind refused to understand the shape of it, then it sharpened. Goblins spread in snarling ranks across the broken land outside Genesis, their numbers thick enough to make the ground itself look diseased. Behind them moved larger shapes– Goblin Chieftains, Hobgoblins, Hobgoblin Commanders. It looked like Floor 9, only worse.
The monsters advanced in waves, not like a random swarm but like an army with direction. There were banners too, primitive and ugly. And standing behind them–
Misha went cold.
A Goblin King.
Why was a Goblin King here? Why was any of them here?
"This..." Misha whispered. "This wasn’t here before."
Of course it wasn’t. When she first entered Genesis, there had been guards at the gate, merchants, rankers, raiders, and most importantly, order. The city had felt like something lifted straight from the fantasy comics she used to read. The Capital of Genesis. A place where people walked freely through the streets and even outside the walls without expecting death to come marching toward them.
Elyes’ expression darkened as he stared at the projection. "If the system is being compromised..."
Ding!
Another system window appeared. This time it was not gray but the normal blue ones.
「 〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕
Original state of Floor 1 is being requested. 」
Misha’s fingers curled into her sleeve.
The city was not suddenly being invaded, it was being reversed...
The original state of Floor 1... Not the Capital of Genesis, but it was before all that, Genesis when it was only a floor, when it was nothing but danger and the people on it were too new to know better.
Sebastian’s expression sharpened at once. "So that is what this is."
Misha already understood what he meant.
Before Genesis was a settlement, it was a battlefield.
The thought sank deep like fangs.
Outside, the army pressed closer.
The first ranks of goblins were already testing the range of the city’s outer defenses, flinching back whenever defensive arrows or magical bolts rained down from the walls. Hobgoblins behind them shoved the smaller monsters forward without care. The Goblin King did not move. It watched the city, patient in the way only something ugly and confident could afford to be.
Ding!
「 〔FLOOR QUEST〕
The Siege of Genesis
Objective:
Eliminate the invading forces.
—
Participants: 11,742
—
Invasion Progress:
Common Goblins: 0 / 12,000
Goblin Chieftain: 0/300
Hobgoblins: 0/150
Hobgoblin Commanders: 0/25
Goblin King: 0/1
—
Failure Conditions:
Death of all participants. 」
「 〔WARNING〕
Retreat is prohibited.
The use of Teleportation Runes has been temporarily restricted until Floor Quest is cleared.
The portal to the next Floor will remain open. 」
Misha stared, her jaw tightened.
A floor quest had never appeared when she first entered Genesis. That had always made sense to her since it was supposed to be a settlement floor. It was supposed to be a place where people rested.
"If the portal to the next floor remains open, that means we can escape by climbing." Elyes said while he stared at the quest warning.