I Became a 6★ Gacha Character-408 - Tear-Stained Graduation Thesis 3
TL/Editor: raei
Status: 5/Week Mon-fri
Illustrations: Posted in discord.
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For mages, desire was the ultimate fuel.
From the start, the term 'mage' was synonymous with 'lunatic'. This was a truth as undeniable as fire being hot or water flowing downhill.
In a place without human rights, the concept of research ethics simply couldn't exist.
The Goddess had said that monsters and humans were equal in life, and this was the irrefutable first verse of the prophecy. When the Goddess of Life who created this land spoke about life, denying it would naturally lead to a meeting with Temple Knights, followed by a full-course tour of the temple basement, personally guided by the heresy inquisitor.
Starting with villagers throwing stones, progressing to steel flicks from gauntleted hands and beatings with iron rods, and ending with a talent show (displaying one's innards) - this wasn't what shy nobles wanted. So instead of denying the Goddess's words, they carefully added detailed conditions to that sentence.
Monsters and humans are equal life forms, yet they fight to the death. Carnivores eat herbivores - isn't this the essence of life?
It's natural for the capable to rule over the incapable!
No matter how much equality is preached, it's logical for intelligent beings to want to be a bit more 'equal' than others. The 'special' royalty chosen by the Goddess, the 'special' nobles who supported them, and the 'special' mana-users who guarded them quickly adopted a slightly twisted version of the survival of the fittest logic.
Of course, even powerless commoners had no intention of saying "We're all equal humans, let's be friends" to the sword-wielders who protected their villages and slaughtered monsters in one strike. So it was a logic everyone could understand.
Moreover, if you argued that all life was truly equal, it would mean that goblins - who dug holes, ate animal carcasses, and tried to rape any woman they saw - were the same as those who lived difficult lives but still believed in the Goddess and lived with a clear conscience. This made it even more acceptable.
So most mages had no qualms about human experimentation. Just as humans ate livestock, it was natural for mages to experiment on people.
"You've already figured this out?"
"Yes. With the hefty research grant, we hired lots of mercenaries."
"...Isn't this just saying you did human experiments?"
-They need people for experiments, and with the Empire appearing, there's an overflow of test subjects
-Are you saying the results of magic experiments are already out in less than two days?
-Why the hell isn't she 5★ if she's this competent? lolololololololol
-Are natural-born 5★ or 6★ mages like Einstein or von Neumann level? I don't get it
-Seeing how Teacher Roland cleared the 50th floor with no equipment, 6★ mages must be at the level of creating a whole new theory, right?
And for mercenaries, the ultimate fuel was gold coins. What a perfect synergy!
The Magic Tower madmen who saw mercenaries as smart test subjects willing to do anything for money, and the moth-like mercenaries who thought their lives were as valuable as gold coins but saw the Magic Tower as a sucker handing out bags of gold.
When these two groups came together, experiments progressed at an incredible speed, like chemical fuel catching fire.
Of course, this wasn't the kind of human experimentation where they cut open living people's bellies and pickle them in drugs. Not because they felt sorry for the test subjects, but because it didn't seem elegant enough for nobles. Though if it was monsters instead of people, they'd dissect them thoroughly.
"How did you conduct the experiments?"
"We just gave mercenaries mana stones and sent them to fake safe zones. We told them to report if anything happened, and if the mana stones disappeared, we'd give them gold coins. If the stones didn't disappear, they could keep them. Everyone volunteered."
The experimental method was quite simple.
They just had to cram mercenaries into all the fake safe zones from the 51st to 55th floors. They gave them mana stones, magic scrolls, magical devices, gold coins, bread, soup, rubber ducks and cheese sandwiches, rusty farm tools, seeds about to sprout, and rotten firewood. They carried such a variety of items that you'd wonder why they needed all that stuff.
Should we call this a population and sample? Anyway, mages were a group that had been doing research continuously, just unaware of the word 'human rights'.
So the mages who handed out gold coins and stuffed low to mid-rank mercenaries into fake safe zones quickly found commonalities, organized theories, and conducted additional experiments. There were unfortunate farmers summoned to the tower in the process, but that was the Demon King's fault, not the Magic Tower's.
The farmers became urban poor begging for mercy at the temple, while nobles received compensation from the Magic Tower with bewildered expressions. It took exactly three days for this minor incident to be resolved.
"So, what's the result?"
"Safe zones are like a game of territory."
"...?"
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Raei Translations
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Patrolling monster armies, gradually increasing special monster types, mid-bosses that seemed to be stationed troops, and safe zones scattered among them.
"In other words, safe zones are like supply depots."
"Supply depots?"
"If humans occupy them, they become base camps for exploring the tower and warehouses for moving supplies. If monsters take them over... wouldn't they become logistics bases where food springs up?"
Everyone's expressions darkened at Maelis's brutal words, delivered so casually. After all, the strongest people summoned so far were intermediate-level knights, and most were low-rank or below.
From another perspective, they were easy prey for the monsters on the 55th floor. For the monster army that couldn't even cannibalize their own kind since tower creatures turned into mana stones, occupying these zones would be like vending machines that produced free, tender human flesh.
Of course, there had been no reports of fake safe zones occupied by monsters, so this was all speculation. Since monster mana stones could turn fake safe zones real, the mages hypothesized that if monster armies moved and polluted them somehow, fake safe zones might turn into something like the Demon King's contaminated areas.
But these hypotheses usually turned out to be right.
"It's certainly a plausible hypothesis. What else would monsters do with kidnapped people? It's common for goblins or orcs to kidnap humans for breeding or food."
"Kidnapping for food - that's a reasonable hypothesis."
The creatures that appeared in the tower were goblins, orcs, and ogres. Except for centaurs, which were rare outside the tower, these were quite familiar to people.
So the idea of kidnapping humans for cannibalism and breeding was also quite familiar. Whether the Demon King-like pseudo-life form monsters inside the tower could reproduce or not was unknown, but the notion of monsters eating people was too obvious. So everyone accepted it without objection.
And to Han Se-ah, a gamer, it would seem like a very reasonable hypothesis.
Purifying safe zones expands human territory. If safe zones are contaminated, human territory shrinks. And the boss's strength is proportional to the size of that territory.
"This seems like that kind of gimmick, right? Like in that game I played briefly before, where the boss monster gets stronger if players take too long to kill minions or die."
-That's pretty common lol Bosses changing difficulty based on gimmick performance is so common it's cliché
-More importantly, can we actually check if real safe zones get contaminated?
-Who knows, the 55th floor mid-boss might already be occupying a big safe zone
-Actually, isn't this overlapping? One layer is supposed to be purified at the 55th floor, but teacher already pushed through to the 45th floor with the holy sword
-There's a possibility lol The safe zone gimmick purifies an entire layer, but teacher already did it lolololol
This was a gimmick that anyone who had played RPGs would have heard of or experienced somewhere. Well, except for the safe zone gimmick, it was a very common story.
So common that it could be used not just in RPG games but even in mobile games.
Therefore, when Hanna - genius mage, hero, holy sword owner, and leader of the hero party - nodded at the mages' hypothesis, it became not just a hypothesis but a half-confirmed truth.
Let me say it again, all of this happened in just three days while we were resting and regrouping.
"So, are we heading back to the 55th floor now?"
"That's right. But it looks like it'll be just us this time." frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
After finishing our rest and regrouping, the party gathered. It might be disappointing news for Han Se-ah and some viewers, but this time, the trio hired as mercenaries would not be joining the party.
McDonagh, who got stuck with the dirty work as the youngest in the knights, returned to report the secret of the fake safe zones that he had uncovered with the hero party. Manaashi, having enjoyed his test of strength against the ogre, returned to the temple without regrets to await the Magic Tower's research.
And Lukius, the lucky totem that Han Se-ah had been considering whether to drag along with the party, once again felt some kind of intuition and left the party, accepting a request from the Magic Tower and disappearing without even resting.
"Ah... I could understand the other two, but I was planning to use Lukius to find the mid-boss on the 55th floor. Maybe I should have offered him an employment contract earlier."
-Didn't he run away immediately because he knew he'd be screwed if he stayed with you?
-As expected, the lucky totem sensed he might get a straw stuck in his spine and escaped like a ghost lololol
-So now you're going to search for the mid-boss? Without the lucky totem?
-Why does it sound so scary when you say you're going to search for something without the lucky totem? lol I can already see the future wailing
-you're not going to spend like three months on the 55th floor and find it next year, are you?
Well, we couldn't keep temporary NPC companions as mercenaries forever. After all, it would be weird if the hero party, which isn't a group of porters, went around with a bunch of mercenaries hanging off them.
And so, as the mages went wild and Maelis's neck stiffened from the aftermath, Han Se-ah, who had been promised considerable benefits from her, suggested starting the exploration of the 55th floor again with mixed feelings of joy and fear.
The goal was, of course, the mid-boss that should be - had to be - on the 55th floor.
