The next day, they were back on the fifth floor.
There was a reason they'd waited a whole day.
Sally simply could not handle anything remotely scary, and merely walking around
this floor would be too much for her—if they were going to have any chance of getting
through it, they needed Atrocity's protection.
They didn't yet know what this floor would have in store for them, so in the interest
of safety, they made their preparations on the island below, then took the transport
circle back up.
An ominous gloom with bobbing blue wisps in the distance waited for them. Maple
figured it would be like the sixth stratum: full of ghosts and skeletons.
"Okay! Let's just charge on through!"
"Make it quick…"
In monster form—yet still sporting angel wings—Maple hefted a wooden box on her
back, secured with rope. In the box, Sally was all curled up, unable to see a thing.
Maple took a step forward—and the graves let off a blue light. A pale ghost appeared
before her.
"Yikes, one already!"
"I-I don't wanna know!"
Maple sped up to escape the ghost, racing across the wasteland.
Rotting and/or bony arms rose from the ground to impede her progress, but Maple
just kicked them to pieces mid-stride.
"Uh-oh, more ghosts— Burn!"
She breathed fire, doing damage, but not enough to defeat them. The ghosts attacked
back, spewing a black mist.
Caught off guard, Maple soaked it head-on!
"Did that do damage? Nope! Then I'm outta here!"
If they weren't a threat, then she could just ignore them and keep running.
But she felt rather sluggish, and they were closing in.
"...? Oh! My stats!"
Maple's STR and AGI were usually 0, so she didn't have to worry about penalties to
them. But since her Atrocity form did have those stats, the debuffs suddenly mattered.
Her VIT was so apocryphally absurd no matter how bad the reduction got, so it didn't
actually change anything, but now she was slow enough that she couldn't outrun the
ghosts.
And then one of them passed through the walls of the wooden box.
"Eek! No… Why?!"
"Sorry! I'm getting us outta here!"
As more ghost attacks hit, she breathed fire and ran.
Her stats might be dropping, but she still wasn't taking damage.
But the ropes holding the box were just ordinary items.
"Augh…!"
She felt a weight lift off her back and heard a clatter as the box containing Sally rolled
away.
"No, don't— Aiiieee!"
When she tried to pick up the box, hands reached out of the ground and grabbed
Maple. She tried to shake them off, but her STR was now too low to manage it.
"Augh… they won't let go!"
The hands started dragging Maple into the dirt. There was a cave underground, and
that's where Maple landed.
Only the box was left up above.
"M-Maple… are you there?"
Sally was nervous enough without all this silence. The box was on its side, and she
cracked the lid open—and found herself staring into a pair of empty eye sockets.
"Hnyaaaa!"
Her body jerked involuntarily, knocking the lid off and sending her rolling out.
She had no choice but to look at what was waiting for her—countless hands reaching
from the ground, ghosts floating in from all directions.
"Urgh! Why? How?!" she wailed.
Sally broke into a run, for the simple reason that she couldn't deal.
"I fled the sixth stratum to be here! It's not fair!"
Completely forgetting to use her skills, she simply ran, hoping only to get away from
all these monsters and log out. She could do that anytime—if she wasn't engaged in
combat.
"Log out! Log out!"
She'd never run this fast in all her life. Not even remembering that Maple was still out
there, she raced across the wasteland.
Maple saw Sally log out and didn't even bother dropping Atrocity. She just used her
monster limbs to open her menus and eject herself from the tower. Outside, she waited
for Sally.
A while later, Sally logged back in, looking guilty.
"Let's try again without me dropping you," Maple said.
"Yeah…"
While the fifth floor was impeding the two of them, the rest of Maple Tree's members
were also tackling the area—also on the highest difficulty.
Mai's and Yui's bonkers DPS had proven to be a valuable weapon, and the others had
spent the first four floors keeping the twins safe. When the enemy stopped moving,
they'd buffed them like mad and pointed them toward it. They'd made steady
progress.
But the fifth floor had enemies the twins couldn't beat.
"More! Hit 'em with elemental attacks! Kasumi, Kanade!"
Translucent ghosts darted toward them, ignoring all ordinary damage.
Mai and Yui still weren't exactly practiced hands at combat, and hitting foes this fast
at all was a real challenge for them. Thus, the others were taking point.
"On it! Armored Arms!"
One of the skills from the blighted blade Kasumi had found on the fourth stratum, this
summoned giant arms on either side of her, each covered in armor and holding a
massive katana.
The one on the right was wreathed in purple fire and moved in sync with Kasumi's
own blade, dealing fire damage with every hit.
The price for this was a temporary 20-percent drop to all stats, but the benefits more
than made up for that, and she was making short work of the ghosts.
"That's so good! I guess I'll throw out some spells…," Kanade said, focusing on distant
opponents.
While they kept the elemental attacks going, Chrome aggressively threw himself in
front of anything that came at Mai and Yui.
Unlike Maple, he did take damage—but he wasn't letting anything reach the twins.
"I can heal with the best of them!"
Iz was using items to heal him up, and his HP kept dropping and refilling like crazy.
"Hmm, any minute now. Kasumi! Watch your feet!"
"Yes, I know. I'm on it."
The same ghouls that had dragged Maple underground came after them, but they
knew how to keep themselves free.
Chrome and Kasumi had the raw STR to rip the arms out of the ground. Iz and Kanade
were nimbly dodging. And nothing could ever bind Mai and Yui.
The threat was easily thwarted.
"The underground route's a pain in the butt. I've got a much easier job tanking up here,
so make sure we don't get caught."
"Yes, sir! Um… but you'll have to handle the fights on the way."
"Regular attacks work on the boss, so you just keep yourselves safe till then."
"We'll beat the boss for you!" the twins said, flourishing their hammers.
"We know you will. I'll get some spells ready that should pave the road for you."
Kanade glanced over his shelves of grimoires, thinking.
They fended off several more waves of enemies that tried to drag them underground
but made steady progress.
"Wonder how Maple and Sally are doing?"
"This is a bad floor for them."
"Depends on how Sally's handling it. If they figure out a way around her hang-up…"
But they all knew what a disaster the sixth stratum had been for her.
As they talked, the terrain began to shift.
"Mm, eyes up—the fog's thickening. We're in the next zone," Kasumi called.
Thick white mist coated the area, and before they knew it, they could barely see a few
yards in front of them.
"In actuality, even less visibility than I expected."
"We'll have to be really careful. There's still not much info on this sector."
Kasumi led the way through the misty hush, followed by Kanade, Iz, Chrome, and the
twins.
"This silence is extra ominous. Right, Chrome? Chrome?"
Hearing no reply, Iz turned to look—and saw no one behind her.
"Kanade! Kasumi!… Uh-oh."
When she turned back around, the other two were gone.
"I knew it. It was a trap."
Iz wasn't much good on her own. She opened up her map to be sure, but the position
markers for the rest of her party weren't showing up. No way to tell where they were.
Iz sent a message to see how they were faring.
Once everyone checked in, they decided to keep exploring like this—at least until
someone went down.
"But I'd much rather avoid actually fighting…"
She could attack, but this deep into the game's latest event, there were lots of enemies
who weren't gonna be fazed by a tiny little hammer.
Yet they seemed disinclined to let her get away. A whole swarm of zombies was
emerging from the ground around her.
"So many… Argh, I'm not even gonna get enough mats to justify it."
But Iz resigned herself to the losses, opened up her Magic Workshop, and started
mass-producing bombs.
"Output boost crystals… and flamethrowers…"
She could convert money into materials and craft anywhere, so Iz did not often run
out of attack items.
"My poor stockpile… and my cash reserve…"
Eyes glazed over, Iz threw bomb after bomb. Flames and explosions lit up the fog.
While Iz was starting her solo fight, Mai and Yui found themselves together but
isolated from the others in the mist.
"Wh-what now, Mai?! Chrome's disappeared!"
The mist had closed behind them, and just like that—he'd vanished. They'd lunged
forward but found nothing ahead but fog.
"We've… just gotta survive. I'm sure we'll meet up again before too long!"
They looked around anxiously—and Iz's message arrived.
"It's from Iz! Um… Yui! Keep an eye out!"
"Mm, will do!"
Mai typed up a response, and a few quick back-and-forths later, they were on the same
page.
"Yui, um, Kanade and Kasumi are paired up, but Chrome and Iz both ended up solo.
Seems like this is some sort of trap."
"What do we do?"
"Keep going until someone gets taken out. We've gotta look for… maybe an exit? Some
way to get back together."
Without Chrome around to protect them, they would have to look after themselves.
Iz had given them some items that would temporarily apply the fire element to their
weapons, so they used those and then a Doping Seed that boosted STR, enabling them
to take out any monsters in a single blow.
Then they put their backs together, hammers at the ready.
"I've got your back, Mai!"
"Mm! Let's do this!"
Hammers wreathed in flames, ready to pound away, they began inching through the
fog.
"Keep an eye on your feet, Yui."
"Mm, I know, but… if they pop out at us, there's not much I can do."
Their survival required that they got in the first hit. If anything dodged their initial
salvo, they'd immediately be in big trouble.
"Hmm… Oh! Mai, I just had a great idea!"
"...Wh-what is it?"
Yui looked very confident, and that just made Mai nervous.
As anxious as the twins were, Kanade and Kasumi weren't. They were mowing down
the monsters around them.
"With this many coming at us, the left arm gets a workout, too!"
As Kasumi finished her swing, the bulky arms flanking her began theirs.
The left arm might not have an element on it, but it could easily slice and dice any
regular monster.
"I'll focus on defending us," Kanade said. "You seem to have DPS covered."
He was assigning priorities to the approaching mobs and firing targeted delay spells,
giving Kasumi breathing room to recover and defend.
Kanade was the most versatile member of Maple Tree, while Kasumi was the most
stable performer. Her offensive output wasn't just good in short bursts—she could
consistently put out a withering amount of damage for a long time.
And together, they could roflstomp zombies and ghosts no matter how outnumbered
they were.
"If their numbers increase any more, you might wanna lay down an AOE."
"Got it. Hmm, which one, though…?"
Kanade glanced over the spines of the books on the floating shelves around him.
"One that won't hit me, too."
"Obviously! I'm not using that here," he said, his eyes glancing at an inky-black spine
in the corner.
"Good. No way to tell which way is which, so I guess we just wander until the others
get in touch again."
"Sounds right to me. Hope they stay safe."
"I feel like Chrome's gonna have a rough go of it solo. Let's hope it doesn't kill him."
Even as Kasumi spoke, her blade sliced through another undead.
As she predicted, Chrome was feeling a little overwhelmed.
"Argh, so many zombies! They won't stop spawning!"
All he could do was block attacks with his great shield and cut them down one at a
time with his cleaver. He kept finding himself surrounded and barely managing to
break out.
"At least they aren't exactly nimble…"
But while he was definitely struggling, he wasn't really anywhere close to dying. Life
Eater, Soul Syphon, and Battle Healing all helped restore his health as fast as it
dropped.
"They can't keep up, huh? But what next?"
They'd chip away at him, and he'd heal himself back up, steadily thinning their
numbers.
He was arguably more archetypically undead than the zombies around him.
"Definitely wanna find someone soon… and I'm worried about the twins."
Were Mai and Yui holding up on their own?
Chrome's blade decapitated a monster, and his HP topped itself back up.
He also had skills that nulled all damage or revived him if he did die—it would take
one heck of a trash mob to down him.
"...I'm pretty tough, huh?"
This fight was really driving that home. And reminding him that Maple's approach
wasn't exactly typical Great Shielder stuff.
And so, all four groups used their strengths and weathered the zombie hordes.
All parties foraged on through the fog.
The first to emerge were Kasumi and Kanade.
"At last."
"I never did use that AOE spell!"
Kasumi had mowed down their foes with such ease that all he'd cast was healing and
support spells.
They'd never needed his area attack magic.
"These are a huge boost to offense. The stat penalty is significant… but it triples my
hits and is easy enough to plan around."
And increased offensive capabilities were vital in Maple Tree.
Largely because no players or monsters could get through Maple's ironclad defense
and actually kill a guild member.
"Even without that, the way you fought, you oughtta be just fine. But what next?
Nobody's died yet."
"Guess we wait here? They might all join us soon."
"True. Doesn't seem like there're any monsters spawning."
They waited awhile and then began hearing a series of enormous booms.
A moment later, Iz came tumbling out of the fog, chugging a potion, a pile of bombs
under one arm.
"Huff… huff… I'm free?"
"You're safe! Amazing."
"Really did a number on my materials and money. I'm not gonna be able to make new
items for a while here…"
Iz plunked herself down on the ground, glaring balefully at the fog behind her.
She'd made herself a pile of bombs and attack items, scattering them in her wake as
she ran, and traded gold for any materials she lacked. The flurry of items had literally
blown the horde away.
"Survival is paramount. I can help you stock back up. Your items also help me out, after
all."
"I would definitely appreciate it."
"Hey, Kasumi, someone else's coming."
Kanade's ears had caught the whoosh of something swinging, and he peered into the
mist.
Not long after, he caught sight of four red glows, swinging wildly, tearing the fog
asunder.
"Mai! Yui!"
"Oh, at last! We're out, Mai! Whoa!"
"Uh-oh, Yui! Augh!"
They'd had their backs to each other, spinning like a top, and the moment they saw the
others, they both fell flat on their faces.
With the flame attribute applied to their hammers, their whirling-blender-of-death
strategy had annihilated anything that got near them.
If you couldn't react to an attack reliably, then the best approach was to ensure that
you were always delivering a fatal blow.
"You girls okay?"
"Ugh… kinda dizzy…"
"Iz, I… I may have overdone it a bit…"
But since their deathnado had left no monsters standing, they'd come to no harm.
"Only Chrome left. I'm sure he's fine."
"Yeah. His resilience is certified."
By the time the twins' heads stopped spinning, Chrome finally emerged from the mist.
"Whew… I'm last?"
"See, he's totally fine."
"Not even a sliver of health missing."
"Yeah, well, I was surrounded the entire time but somehow stayed alive. Got stuck
carving my way out so many times, I leveled up."
Chrome insisted Maple Tree members were a bit too good at fighting crowds.
Iz wasn't even a combat-oriented build, but she'd still made it through, so he certainly
had a point.
That had been pretty obvious since they'd gone toe to toe with much larger guilds in
the fourth event.
"You're plenty out there yourself, Chrome—just in a very different direction."
"Yeah, most people can't break out once they're surrounded."
They'd incurred no casualties from the party-split trap and were back together again.
Once more, they ventured forth.
"Ahead of us, there're monsters with instant-death spells, so best hold on to these," Iz
said, giving everyone a ring with a red jewel embedded in it. "They're Surrogate Rings.
They'll tank an instant-death effect for you three times."
"…Never heard of 'em," Chrome said, frowning at it.
"They're brand-new. Made 'em with the mats those zombies dropped. Heh-heh. And
they helped pay for more bombs."
Between Magic Workshop and New Frontier, Iz could make items nobody else could
from wherever she was, so drops she found along the way might suddenly turn into
high-spec gear or items.
"This should help a lot."
"Yeah, I can save the resistance-spell grimoire for later."
"Let's move out. Looks like splitting up won't hurt us much, but the traps from below
are still bad news, so keep an eye out for those."
Wary of more traps they didn't know about, Kasumi and Kanade took the lead again,
handling any monster attacks.
Mai and Yui huddled up with Iz behind Chrome.
"Kasumi's getting good with those arms. The fog proved to be good training," Chrome
said.
Since no monsters were getting back to him, he had time to watch her fight, even as
he kept the twins covered.
"We're almost to the boss. Everyone ready?"
"We're good! O-oh, Iz, those fire-attribute items you gave us were really helpful."
"I noticed when you came spinning out. That strategy was… uh, eye-opening."
That seemed like a bit of an understatement, given they'd been holding hammers at
arm's length and spinning in tandem, but maybe it just showed Iz was getting used to
crazy.
As they talked, they pushed deeper into the fifth floor.
The monsters along the way proved no threat to Maple Tree, even without Maple and
Sally around.
It wasn't much longer before the six of them found themselves outside the boss's
territory.
"I'm told no monsters spawn here."
"Then let's get ready. Kasumi and I will keep watch just in case."
"Good plan."
While Chrome and Kasumi eyed their surroundings, Kanade and Iz began buffing the
twins.
"This and this, then drink this."
"Munch. Gulp…"
"Pfahhh! Okay!"
A variety of edibles and potions went down the hatch, and Kanade cast some extra
buffs on them—at this point, this was just how they started boss fights.
Once they were done, their bodies were aglow with all sorts of colorful auras.
""Ready when you are!""
"Okay, then let's do this. I'll take the lead."
When the twins raised their iridescent hammers, they charged into the boss zone.
Like the trap territory, the zone they entered was a wasteland blanketed in thick fog.
No obstructions or cover, just an open area for the boss fight.
Detecting their approach, a headless horseman reared up, emerging from the fog.
Blue flames burned where the head should be. It wore old armor, carried a huge
sword, and rode a zombie horse.
The horse let out a whinny and charged.
"Come on, Mai!"
"Mm…!"
"I'll force an opening! Hah!"
Chrome thrust out his shield, parrying the boss's blade and making it flinch.
And as it did, four hammers glowing every bit as bright as the boss's flames pounded
home.
""Double Strike!""
Their hammers struck against the armor, and its HP dropped like a stone. The boss
raised the sword one more time, but Chrome batted it aside.
"Now for my new item—"
Iz darted forward and planted an item in the dirt near the horse. An instant later, there
was a crack—and lightning raced across the ground.
For a few scant seconds, the boss was unable to move—and that was all Maple Tree
required.
"Yui! One more!"
"You got it!"
Kasumi's role was to step in if Chrome couldn't make it in time—but she never even
got a chance. The twins crumpled the boss, and it burst into a shower of light.
"Whew… they sure change this game. Like Maple, but in their own way."
Kasumi may not have had a chance to do anything, but the twins were thrilled to have
their chance to shine and were busy celebrating.
"Totally get that," Chrome said. All he'd done was parry the boss's strikes twice. "Still,
they definitely need a good tank guarding them. If we won easily, it's 'cause I did my
job right."
Chrome and Kasumi could not easily be downed with numbers, so they had shone on
the path leading here. Mai and Yui were arguably specced for boss fights alone.
"I'm gonna restock the items we used," Iz said, opening her workshop. She started
crafting buff items, MP potions, and bombs.
Since she could convert gold into items and deploy her workshop anywhere, they
never ran out of anything.
Pre-battle, in battle, and post-battle, their guild was always unique.
They headed up to the next floor, ready to pulverize another boss.
"Let's hope Maple's still making good progress."
"She'll figure something out. I can't see anything stopping her for long."
"True dat."
Not long after the other guild members tore through the boss like tissue paper, Maple
found herself fighting the same boss.
She'd activated Atrocity and was in full monster mode, tearing the zombie horse apart
with her hideous limbs.
The room was dotted with pale blue flames, zombie adds, and dual-wielding mounted
knights.
It was like a scene fresh outta hell—and there was no sign of Sally.
Maple was all on her own, kicking zombies out of the way, tackling them, trampling
them, clearing a path for herself.
This boss had no piercing attacks or other tricky skills, and it had no way of denting
Maple's health, so it was gradually inching closer to its own demise.
"Okay! This oughtta end it!"
It never changed up its attack patterns, so she just waded in head-on and racked up
another victory.
"Um… how do we get to the sixth floor…? Here!"
Maple lumbered over to the transport circle.
The view before her eyes transformed. The blighted wastelands of the fifth floor were
replaced with rocky cave walls dotted with sparkling crystals.
"Okay! It's safe now! You can come out, Sally."
Maple opened her gaping maw as wide as it would go, and Sally came tumbling out
with an audible squelch.
"Urp… major motion sickness…"
Her eyes were spinning, and she wasn't getting up.
Sally had been inside Maple's mouth the whole time—as she stampeded across the
fifth floor.
Maple herself reverted to human form, came over, and knelt down beside Sally, looking
proud of herself.
"But we got through it without you seeing anything!"
"Ugh… running this tower was my idea; I'm so sorry it ended up like this."
"Don't be! Like you always say, the right girl for the right job. We all have stuff we can't
handle."
"Mm…"
"But those late-night phone calls are a bit rough."
"R-right…! I won't do that anymore."
"Eh-heh-heh. You'll have to keep me safe next time!"
"As long as it isn't horror-themed…"
This bit of banter helped Sally settle down enough to right herself.
With Sally immobilized, they'd needed a plan that let Maple protect her. If keeping her
in range wasn't good enough, they needed her closer—inside.
It was like a monster version of her wool-ball tactic.
"The experience was pretty gnarly… Is that what it feels like to get eaten?"
"Oh, actually, I did get eaten once! That was a shocker!"
"Um… anyway, now I'm back in action. Right? This sixth floor is n-normal?"
Sally's eyes darted furtively around the cave.
And a golem lumbered into view, its body glittering like a diamond.
"Whew… just a monster."
"Heh-heh! You'll just have to make up for downstairs!"
"You betcha. I'll fight so hard, you can kick back and relax!"
With Sally feeling better, she and Maple started their conquest of the sixth floor.
The devs were busy monitoring event progress and making sure there were no bugs
with the floor mechanics or unique items. Everyone was relieved that no problems
had cropped up yet.
"Who's furthest along?"
"The Order of the Holy Sword just started floor nine."
"Everyone else is still between five and seven. No problems anywhere yet."
This was in line with expectations, so everyone nodded.
There were fewer players tackling the highest-difficulty version, but they were also
the best players in the game. The tower needed to provide them a challenge, but not
be too hard.
"Well, good. Were ten floors a bit much? We ended up using a scrapped sixth-stratum
boss for the fifth floor…"
"Arguably, yeah… but the fifth floor is slowing people down like we wanted. I'd say the
redundant motif is a bigger regret."
Making ten new bosses and the maps to house them was a lot of work.
"The fifth floor is filled with monsters that can only be beat with elemental damage.
Not something you get through easily."
"Wanna check the feed?"
"Sure. Give us someone who seems like they'd plow right through it."
A recorded playthrough went up on-screen, showing the leader of Flame Empire, Mii.
Their guild had seen fit to put Mii, Misery, Marx, and Shin in a party together.
"Their top four, huh?"
"The Order's taking the same approach."
Two guilds that boasted strength high above NWO's average and had no shortage of
members—so they must have good reason to be running things this way.
But even with only four, Mii's and Misery's spells were a good match for the fifth-floor
foes, and if anything got past them, Marx's traps would stop them in their tracks, and
Shin's Splinter Sword—Misery had applied an elemental buff to it—would cut them
down.
With no tank, they were extremely dodge-reliant, but Misery's spells made healing
and resurrection possible, so they were mowing down the trash mobs.
"Misery's got a skill to transfer MP, which lets them keep throwing out the big spells."
The feed was on the boss fight now, and it kept casting big blue fires, and Mii's flames
were erupting all over, so the entire screen was covered in an inferno.
When the boss flinched, a trap bound it, and more flames consumed it. Shin was taking
out the adds the moment they spawned, not giving them a chance to make a move.
And whatever damage the boss was doing was quickly countered by Misery's continual
heal spell.
"That DPS is nuts."
"If she can keep her MP pool topped up, few players can match Mii. And it meshes well
with Misery's and Marx's support skills, plus Shin's sheer quantity of hits."
Even as they watched, the boss was swallowed by a massive fireball and burst into
light.
They gathered up their drop items and headed to the next floor—unlike Maple, their
builds weren't based around skills with a daily use limit.
"At least the boss got some hits in. Basically what I expected."
"They are the group that spent the least time on floor five at the highest difficulty."
This boss concept might have been pulled from the rejection bin, but it had done its
job.
It just never stood a chance against these players.
They checked a few more recordings, but there weren't many players who had made
it through the fifth floor on their first try.
"Wanna look at Maple? She's made it through."
"Yeah… well, we've seen everyone else."
Bracing themselves for anything, they pulled up the vid and watched Maple stomp
around in Atrocity form. The boss's attacks were all hitting home, but since they
weren't piercing, they bounced off harmlessly. But the video showed no signs of her
teammate.
"Where's Sally?"
"Um. Good question."
They checked over the feed and soon located her.
"…Inside her mouth?"
"…Apparently. Technically doable!"
But hiding a friend in your monstrous maw was not a typical tactic.
And they weren't sure why she wasn't just using Martyr's Devotion.
"I will never understand Maple."
"She's just being her."
They agreed they'd never really understood any of her choices.
"Oh, is this why? Sally has spent basically zero playtime on the sixth stratum."
"That might explain it. Still…"
It was easy enough to assume someone just couldn't handle horror zones. But the gulf
between that and hiding in your friend's oral cavity was insurmountable.
They watched the fight end and Maple spit Sally out, then decided it was time to stop
watching videos and go back to work.
"I wonder what it's like in there…"
"Wanna try?"
"Let's not."
Everyone watching shuffled off, shaking their heads.