Chapter 118: Thirty-First Floor, Whale Hunt (1)
[Drive away the sky whales from the vicinity of Mount Tumay. Time remaining: 167 hours 59 minutes.]
The tower’s notification only mentioned one mountain, but what lay before me was closer to a mountain range—an immense one at that. Jagged peaks stretched endlessly from the farthest reaches of one side of my vision to the distant edge of the other, appearing like an elaborate carving chiseled by a god’s hand.
The tower translated things quite literally, which meant that the people of this world did refer to this expansive range as simply a "mountain."
Faint, mist-like clouds drifted swiftly between the peaks and weaved through the hills.
I replayed the tower’s message in my mind. As always, my individual challenge floors were different from other climbers. Nothing appeared similar to what Ha Hee-Jeong had described, and I knew for certain that she hadn’t mentioned airships or sky whales.
I wonder what they look like.
Trying to act unbothered, I brushed it off as just one of the tower’s quirks, but a hint of curiosity began to stir within me.
Well, I will find that out soon enough. However, why does there seem to be a disconnect between the floor’s title and the initial description?
Individually, both of them made sense, but something still gnawed at me. The floor’s title was “Whale Hunt”, and hunting, after all, implied capture and extermination. The more in-depth description didn’t use the word “hunt,” however. Instead, it instructed me to “drive away” the whales. That distinction suggested there were two paths before me.
Either kill the sky whales or spare them and help them relocate.
The hunting party would obviously favor the first option, but I suspected sparing the whales would lead to a hidden mission. Considering how obvious it was, though, every climber would make that distinction immediately, just as I had.