I Became a 6★ Gacha Character

381 - Mercenaries of the Tower 1

TL/Editor: raei

Schedule: 5/week

Illustrations: Posted in discord

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Being an adventurer meant constantly risking your life.

Monsters spawned to kill humans emerged from all directions. Even fellow adventurers might turn on you like monsters, aiming for your life. Letting your guard down in a safe zone where monsters didn't spawn could still leave you a corpse.

Not only that, but the Tower itself targeted adventurers' lives with cruel precision. A horned wolf suddenly attacking a low-rank adventurer hunting goblins was just one example. The named monsters on each floor, implemented as game mechanics, along with various traps - how terrifying were they?

Though not captured by Han Se-ah's camera, countless adventurers had fallen victim to orc hunter traps, been crushed by cave golems and worms, poisoned and devoured by undead, or plummeted off high mountain cliffs, their bodies never found.

"Roland? Hanna? The people fighting the ogre... they're surrounded. What should we do?"

"It looks like a horde of centaurs and goblins swarmed in while they were battling the ogre."

Such occurrences were commonplace in the Tower.

As we hurried forward, we saw a mercenary band on the brink of annihilation. The bodies strewn about resembled chunks of meat more than corpses, either mangled by the ogre or trampled under centaur hooves.

The centaurs must have charged in while they were fighting the ogre, with goblins spawning on the side. If the ogre had appeared later, it wouldn't have entered a frenzied state. And if the slow goblins had come running from afar, they would've fled before dying.

Watching a few people desperately trying to break through the goblins' shield wall and escape the ogre, I made that assessment as our grim-faced companions naturally prepared for battle.

"Their movements suggest they're quite skilled. And their equipment looks top-notch."

"Seems they encountered the worst possible situation."

"I sensed goblins suddenly earlier. Must have spawned mid-battle. Ogre in front, centaurs charging from the sides, goblins forming a blockade behind. The odds of this happening are incredibly low, but if it does, it's practically a killing move."

-You're saying mobs spawned behind while fighting an ogre? sh*t's getting real, that's terrifying

-Weren't the centaurs already charging? lol So they got sandwiched not just from two sides but three while fighting the ogre?

-Looks like the healer got trampled by centaurs while they were taking on the ogre, then goblins swarmed in as they tried to hold out

-There's a reason this game's rated 19+, it keeps reminding us

-One punch from that frenzied f*cker doesn't just send you flying, it tears you apart? f*ck, I can kinda see it even with the mosaic

Viewers were shaken by the horrific scene, but our gloomy-faced group silently drew swords and nocked arrows, looking to me and Han Se-ah.

At least she had the sense to give a small nod, signaling us to attack. With the party leader ordering combat, the tank could empty his mind of extraneous thoughts. I raised my shield, pulled down my helmet, and charged forward, mana swirling around my body.

"H-help me!"

My first target was an adventurer trapped among the goblins after twisting awkwardly while fleeing the ogre. Though his fundamentals seemed solid as he blocked shields pressing in from all sides and spears thrusting between them, his feet remained bound.

This left the goblins' backs exposed to me. Despite their armor and shields, these runts were showing their backs while being so small. No need to even pull out my mace.

Like a bowling ball smashing through pins, I plowed through with my shield, crudely pushing forward. The goblins toppled and were crushed. As their solid formation crumbled, the trapped adventurer leaped up, using goblin heads and corpses as stepping stones.

"Thanks! I'll be back after regrouping a bit!"

"...?"

Was there some phenomenon in the Empire where skill correlated with character? This guy was running to Irene even though most of his companions were dead and plenty of enemies remained. Did he think he'd die if he didn't help me? His words suggested he'd flee far away, but it seemed he genuinely intended to assist.

Not that it mattered to me. Ignoring him, I looked ahead to see Katie already slicing through the centaurs with her frost-imbued sword.

While I could crudely use brute force to dismantle the slow but organized goblin formations pressing in, Katie was the perfect counter to the centaurs with their mobility and detection abilities but low health. I'd seen what happened when you stacked all sorts of CC like freezing, slowing, and weakening on an agility-focused character over decades of gaming experience.

"I'll handle the centaurs!"

"I'm counting on you, Katie!"

The goblins, whose strength lay in tight formations with long spears, had their ranks broken and were crushed just as they did to others during sudden attacks. The centaurs, trying to use their speed to bypass the tank and target damage dealers, had already been wrecked by ice-attribute aura.

In this situation, as the main tank, my obvious opponent was the frenzied ogre. Seeing how it was so riled up that it smashed a passing centaur to death, it likely wouldn't suddenly charge our backline.

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Raei Translations

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I'd faced ogres often outside the Tower too.

As I'd explained to Han Se-ah, they were the most common among high-rank large monsters. Goblins, orcs, trolls, ogres - creatures you could loosely group as "greenskins" were highly adaptable, appearing in all directions.

But this frenzied ogre had one massive difference from normal ogres―

"Holy sh*t, those arms are f*cking long!"

Its sheer size.

A shockwave echoed with a thunderous boom. Though I didn't go flying thanks to my lowered stance and back foot planted firmly, I was still pushed back several meters with a grating sound of earth being plowed.

Thinking in game terms, this wasn't a loss but rather a gain. Even if my passive reflection damage didn't inflict meaningful wounds, it was definitely chipping away at its mana and health. Since the frenzied state activated at low HP, I just needed to defend and it would defeat itself.

But who enjoys getting beaten one-sidedly?

"Roland! Should I try binding its legs?"

"Wrists! Aim for the wrists when it swings down!"

Katie, who had bound the centaurs' legs with her ice aura, and Han Se-ah, who had buried the fallen goblins trampled underfoot. Add to that Grace's covering fire and the three high-rank warriors healed by Irene, and all monsters except the ogre had long since turned to mana stones.

But we all knew - me, the adventurers, and the viewers - that this ogre was the biggest problem.

A normal ogre stood 5-6 meters tall. Even at that size, its bulk rivaled an elephant's. More precisely, it was like an elephant standing on two legs.

Some that ate natural mana stones or elixirs outside the Tower grew to 8 meters, basically walking two-story houses... but this bastard was in the 10-meter range.

It was just shy of an 11-meter tower, the height humans found most terrifying. Bluntly put, if that thing raised its arms high, it wasn't just a mansion but a walking spire. When such a creature swung its long arms, even a close-range attack became practically long-range.

If I got hit, the ogre felt pain.

If I hit it, the ogre died.

The problem was those heavy fists kept pushing me back. If I could have one more divine consultation, I'd earnestly request some Isekai martial arts manual like Thousand Pound Force instead of swordsmanship.

"Wrists? Try to bi- what?!"

-Mr. Ogre's pissed, lmao

-But it's not doing damage, so it seems desperate to push him away

-Can't see well with the helmet, but teacher sounds pretty heated just from his voice

-Wouldn't you be pissed if you got knocked back over 10 times without taking damage? lol

-The best way to torment a slow tank is to turn them into a soccer ball with slows and knockbacks

Han Se-ah tried swallowing the ogre's enraged downward punch in mud created by Earth Control, but it tore up the ground before the earth could even solidify. Katie and the rescued adventurers couldn't even approach amidst the chaos.

We couldn't get close, and that thing couldn't break my defense. Seemingly frustrated by the situation, it suddenly exhibited strange behavior.

Grooooaaaarrr―!!!

After letting out another roar like before, it plunged both hands into the ground. Looks like it learned something when Han Se-ah tried grabbing its wrists with Earth Control. No matter how simple-minded ogres were, they'd have been killed off by knights, let alone hunters, without at least this much learning ability.

It stomped and pounded, even ripping up the ground Han Se-ah churned while burying goblins with Earth Control, flinging clumps of dirt like a child playing in mud.

"Gather round!"

"Whoa-!"

But what the creature didn't know was that Irene's barrier could completely negate the dirt shotgun thanks to its properties... and no matter how forcefully thrown, mere dirt couldn't push me back.

Eyes wide open despite the dust invading the gaps in my helmet, I finally managed to approach below the ogre's knees.

Crack―!