Chapter 42: The Hidden Piece of the 10th Floor

The smell of stale sweat and tobacco hit Arthur like a physical blow. He was back on the wooden bench, the rough grain of the wood pressing into his thin thighs. His heart was hammering against his ribs, a frantic rhythm that felt too large for this weak, F-Rank body.

Ten minutes,Arthur thought, his eyes fixed on the cracked stone floor. *I have ten minutes before the floor gate opens, and exactly eleven minutes before Kael and the others are wiped from the server.

"Hey, trash! Are you deaf?"

The sound of Kael’s boot slamming into the bench was identical to the last time. The vibration traveled up Arthur’s spine, but this time, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t look up with the eyes of a terrified porter. He looked up with the eyes of the man who had designed the very laws of mana that governed this Tower.

"I’m not deaf, Kael," Arthur said, his voice calm, almost bored. "I was just thinking about the funeral costs for a Gold-Rank party. It’s quite expensive to bury people when the Tower leaves nothing behind but broken gear and empty souls."

Kael froze, his foot still resting on the bench. The other four adventurers—a mage named Sarah, a scout named Jax, and two twin warriors—stopped their laughing. The air in the preparation hall suddenly felt ten degrees colder.

"What did you just say?" Kael’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. He reached down, grabbing Arthur by the collar of his rough tunic and lifting him off the bench.

Arthur didn’t struggle. He let his body hang limp, his gaze steady. "The 10th Floor isn’t a Green Zone today. It’s a Floor Anomaly. In exactly nine minutes, the mana density will reach a critical threshold, triggering a ’Blood-Moon’ resonance. The moment you step through that portal, the Tower will initiate a defensive purge. You’ll be dead before you can even draw your sword."

"You’re lying," Sarah, the mage, said, stepping forward. Her staff flickered with a faint blue light as she scanned the area. "My mana-sense shows the floor gate is perfectly stable. You’re just trying to scare us so you don’t have to carry the gear into a high-danger zone."

"Your mana-sense is calibrated for standard floor logic," Arthur replied, his eyes shifting to her. "It isn’t calibrated for ’Hidden Anomaly’ frequencies. Check the third mana-circuit in the portal’s foundation. It’s vibrating at a frequency of 440 hertz. That shouldn’t be possible in a Green Zone."

Sarah frowned, her eyes widening as she actually looked at the portal’s base. She began to chant a low detection spell, her fingers tracing the air. A second later, her face went pale, her staff nearly slipping from her hand.

"He’s... he’s right," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The foundation is leaking raw mana. Kael, if we go in there now, the floor gate will collapse behind us. It’s a trap."

Kael dropped Arthur back onto the bench, his expression a mix of confusion and growing fear. He looked at the glowing blue gate, then back at the small, weak porter who shouldn’t know anything about mana circuits or floor anomalies.

"Who are you?" Kael demanded. "No F-Rank porter knows how to read a floor gate’s foundation."

"I’m the guy who’s going to keep you alive," Arthur said, standing up and brushing the dust off his tunic. He picked up the heavy rucksack, the weight feeling slightly lighter now that he had a plan. "But if we’re going to survive the 10th Floor, we aren’t going through the main gate. We’re going to take the ’Hidden Path’ through Sub-Floor Zero."

"Sub-Floor Zero?" Jax, the scout, snorted. "That’s a myth. Everyone knows there’s nothing beneath the first floor but void and garbage mobs."

"Exactly," Arthur said, a sharp, dangerous smile crossing his face. "The Tower ignores the garbage. And right now, being ’trash’ is the only way to find the ’Hidden Piece’ that leads to the top without triggering the purge."

Kael looked at his team, then at the ticking clock on the wall. The main floor gate was starting to hum, the blue light turning a sickly, violent purple.

"Fine," Kael growled, drawing his sword. "Lead the way, Porter. But if this is a trap, I’ll kill you myself before the monsters get a chance."

"Deal," Arthur said.

He turned and headed toward the dark stairs leading to the lower archives. He didn’t need a map. He had built the Tower’s sub-layers. And he knew exactly which ’Hidden Path’ would allow them to bypass the anomaly and reach the 11th floor while every other party was being erased.

As they walked into the darkness, Arthur felt a strange sensation in his chest. For the first time since he had been exiled, he wasn’t just surviving. He was playing the game. And he was going to win.