Chapter 72 The first floor (4) (1/2)

The players looked at each other for a moment.

A team of a hundred players.

It seemed like a lot of people, but in reality, it wasn’t.

If someone were to come forward right now, he or she would have to play a leading role for the rest of this floor’s trial.

Most players had already become acquaintanced with each other during their stay in the waiting zone, and quite a few of them were in the same team during the previous round. Among them, there was already someone that had taken the leading role.

“I’ll take them.”

A man in red leather armor stepped forward under everyone’s attention.

But when Aaron was about to hand over the crystals,

“Hold on.”

Phante stood between the two of them.

“What is it?”

The man asked Phante with a slightly irritated face.

“I don’t remember agreeing to this.”

The man felt a sudden surge of anger.

“Does it matter who takes them? We’ll decide where to hide after I….”

“Actually, it does. Because I’m going to take all five of them with me.”

The man’s face crumpled like a sheet of paper.

“That’s nonsense!’

“You think it’s better to hide them than to have me protect them? Or is there any among you who thinks they can protect the crystals better than me?”

Phante let out a furious laugh and cast a glance around him.

The players flinched and turned their heads in order to avoid his eyes.

Phante then looked back at the man. He raised one of his eyebrows as if he was saying there was no one denying his argument.

But the man burst out in anger and argued back.

“Don’t you even feel ashamed of yourself? It was because of you that our crystals were shattered last round. It was because of your goddamn ego!”

Some of the players nodded along as if to support him.

Yeon-woo clicked his tongue as he watched their quarrel from the back.

‘So that’s what happened.’

He had an idea of what had happened in the previous round.

Leaving important items to someone else? Phante didn’t have that kind of personality.

Such an important role could only be taken by himself. He had to be in control of things.

Even though he was such a difficult person to get along with, it shouldn’t have been a problem to him.

Because he was that strong.

In the world of The Tower, ‘power’ was a priceless treasure that would make up for all the shortcomings one might have.

Might is right. That sentence had always been true in The Tower.

And Edora shared the same opinion.

Unlike the simple and selfish Phante, she certainly was a rational and reasonable person. And that was exactly why she didn’t stop Phante despite his violence.

Because, even by her judgment, him taking the crystals was the safest option.

No matter how difficult the trial was, they were still dealing with players of average level. Their fists wouldn’t be able to brush past Phante’s collar even if they flocked in all at once.

Therefore, it was the correct judgment to leave all the crystals with Phante.

But if there was any problem,

“If you hadn’t been so greedy and gone on a rampage last time, you wouldn’t have broken all the crystals by yourself. Then we would have… at least had a chance. So I can’t let you take the crystals this time!”

It was that Phante was a little bit too careless.

Yeon-woo almost burst out laughing when he heard the man.

He couldn’t believe it was none other than Phante who had led his team to defeat.

Even though he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he felt like the scene of the previous round was playing in his head like a video.

He imagined Phante running over to the other side, and knocking the players down one by one with his overwhelming power.

The players on the other team must have thought it to be a lost battle.

But the moment they gave up hope, they must have received the message notifying them of their victory.

‘They must have been frightened.’

Yeon-woo presumed that the man couldn’t trust Phante because of that incident.

But Phante was not a person who would listen to someone weaker than him. He was probably thinking he just had to avoid repeating the same mistake.

“So? Do you want to sort it out my way?”

Phante rolled up his sleeves and posed as if he were going to fight them.

The players’ face turned pale as they felt Phante’s ferocious aura.

The players standing behind the man pulled him by his clothes and shook their heads.

In the end, the man gritted his teeth. Veins popped out from his clenched fists trembling in anger.

Even then, Edora stood a step away from the two of them without intervening.

She only watched the situation while holding her sword in her arms, just like how she had been when Yeon-woo first saw her in Section G.

Phante then put on a smile of victory and reached out his hand to Aaron.

“Seems like it’s all set. I wish all of you good luck.”

Aaron handed all five blue crystals over to Phante. Then, he stepped into the portal on the floor and melted away.

“Huhu. It’s gonna be different this time.”

It seemed like Phante hadn’t come up with any particular plan to protect the crystals. He was just busy fidgeting with the five crystals like a child playing with toys.

‘What an asshole.’

The players’ face stiffened at his actions.

But the moment Phante was about to put the crystals in his pocket, Yeon-woo, who had been watching the situation, stepped forward.

Phante noticed Yeon-woo walking up to him and stared at Yeon-woo with a puzzled expression.

And when Yeon-woo arrived in front of him, he suddenly shot his hand out.

“Hand them over. All of them.”

*   *   *

Aaron teleported to a different area through the portal.

A place where all the Guardians of the 99 floors congregated. It was the Guardians’ chambers.

In that place, there were a number of Guardians running around the room busily. Hundreds of screens were floating against the walls displaying the situations of each floor in real-time.

“Ohyohyo. Are you back already?”

Then, someone spoke to Aaron from behind his back.

When he looked back, there stood a Goblin that only reached around Aaron’s waistline in height.

It was Yvlke.

Aaron silently nodded.

His attitude toward Yvlke was very polite.

It was because they weren’t in the same position.

As a matter of fact, not all Guardians were the same. There were several Guardians appointed to different jobs even within a single floor.

Those who monitored and managed the trials, those who were in charge of the rewards, those who took care of other miscellaneous tasks and so on.

Each of these guardians had positions according to their job just like in a corporation on Earth.

And the Guardians who possessed the highest position in each floor were the directors of the trials.

As far as what the system allowed, they could exert their power over the players on the floor they managed.

They could even dominate players on the level of Lords if necessary. But of course, the system would penalize the Guardians if they made direct intervention.

So, it could be said that Aaron, as the director of the second floor, was also in one of the top positions.

But Yvlke was in a position where even Aaron had to be careful around.