Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Transmigrator. Tower. Villains. (3)

Ativan.

Despite being a talentless hack. He was the villain who had managed to rise in the dark side of the tower. As such, even his dog-like personality didn't hide the level of competence he held when it came to being vile.

And that vile man knew. He knew it as well as the transmigrator did.

'Lutein is planning to kill me in here.'

With that knowledge resounding in his head, Ativan followed behind his blue-eyed companion.

Lights of green and blue glimmered inside the cave as bioluminescent moss and algae covered the walls of the dungeon. Every other turn, a few small monsters would pop up. 

In the vanguard, Lutein swiftly struck away an approaching hound before blocking the claws of another.

He wasn't particularly troubled, but calling him relaxed would be wrong.

'He's still weak,' Ativan thought. He stood comfortably in the rear, away from all danger, as he busied himself with his thoughts.

Acting like the original Ativan didn't would have only brought him trouble.

"[Open Skill Window]" he muttered in a low voice, lifting the collars of his cloak to hide further.

As Ativan followed Lutein, a window popped up in front of his eyes.

[Ativan von Carley

Skills:

 >Shadow Manipulation (D) (Growth)

 >Blind Spot Attack (C)

 >Sweet talk (D) (Growth)

]

Three.

Only three skills.

'No fireball?'

Ativan gulped inaudibly. The turns in the cave grew narrower as they neared the end of the dungeon. The boss room, and the room of judgment.

'Calm down, he worked with this too... He must have made a plan...'

Slowly, Ativan tapped his clothes. There was a plan, a trump card that the previous Ativan would have prepared. 

After all, he had defeated the main character in the story as well. Unfortunately, the only thing mentioned in the novel was that Lutein had fallen.

'Why the hell can't those authors write more?'

Ativan was confused. But even more than that, his survival instincts were ringing. He remembered well the rage in Lutein's heart, and he knew that whether all this was a dream or whether it was just his imagination, he would die if he didn't move first. In front of his survival, his acceptance of the situation didn't hold a single thought.

A sheet of paper touched the back of his hands. Ativan's eyes widened as he realized that he held a scroll on him.

'So that's how... perfect.'

In no time at all, they were in front of a large iron gate inside the dungeon.

"Should we go in?" Lutein posed as he placed his hands on top of the door. Without waiting for an answer, he pushed the door open while Ativan scoffed at his behavior.

A dark room greeted them. Unlike the rest of the dungeon, no blue or green glows emerged from within the boss room of the dungeon. With bated breaths, Lutein and Ativan stepped inside.

Lutein reached into his bag and brought out a torch with practiced movements. Light fell on the damp stony ground of the room and the wide space stretched in all directions.

"There's not a sign of life..." Lutein muttered.

"How strange..." Ativan said, his hands peering at the scroll in his pockets.

Lutein stepped ahead and the light of the torch fell on a steep fall on the ground.

"This?" he spoke, his steps urgent as he walked closer to the edge of the ground. 

Slow and deep growls rang out in the air. The sounds of many beasts, their hungry screams.

"Fuck..." Lutein said, gazing down the steep fall. Over twenty meters below the surface, as far as the eye could see, the cave continued. Filled with monsters of a level that the previous couldn't compare to, from white-furred wolves to green-skinned orcs. "This is crazy..."

"A dungeon inside a dungeon?" Lutein spoke, excitement barely contained in his voice. "God, how many people would have died without a trace in such a place?"

It was now.

This exact moment.

Everything had played out the same way as in the novel. Acting the part of Ativan the best he could had helped. 

Ativan pulled out the magic scroll from his pockets, making as little noise as possible.

The magic circle engraved on it glimmered as Ativan pointed it toward Lutein's back.

Slowly, steadily, his fingers clasped the top of the scroll.

Before a rip could sound out, Lutein turned.

"HAH!" The blue-eyed man screamed and launched his sword ahead.

Ativan's eyes widened. He moved to his side on his own as the sword grazed his cheek, leaving behind a shallow cut.

"Fucker—"

Before Lutein could charge at him, Ativan's shadow surged ahead. The torch pointed at him gave him a pronounced shadow that merged with the darkness and covered the grounds. Like a tidal wave hitting the shore, the dimness crashed into Lutein's silhouette and wrapped itself around his limbs.

"Gah..." Lutein was left unmoving. Ativan's shadow had captured him perfectly and held him tight in a spot. Unable to move, a chuckle left Lutein as he saw Ativan gasping for breath while touching his wound, even during such actions his face managed to remain cold.

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"Bastard... so you knew..." Lutein muttered. 

'I should be the one saying that!?' Ativan's head was a mess, but he didn't let it show. Working in a black company, one of the most important skills was to keep your emotions hidden.

"You were acting strange the whole day, it was to kill me, huh?"

It wasn't like this in the novel. Lutein had no idea that Ativan knew of his plans. Lutein should have taken the hit and fallen down the cliff into the den of monsters.

That should have been his stage to awaken his SSS-Class ability.

But that wasn't the case anymore.

It was different, but Ativan had to move. 

For the life that he held right now, pushing Lutein down was necessary. Killing him would only bring a worse result, though. Who would be the SSS-Class hunter if not for Lutein? To clear the tower, to avoid turning this place into a hellhole, and to keep his life right now lest Lutein killed him, Ativan had to push that bastard down.

No, he had to leave him on the brink of death.

His hands steadily clasped the scroll again.

"Tsk. Bastard," Lutein spat on the ground. No matter how he tried, though, he couldn't hide the series of calculations he performed from Ativan. It was clear to the transmigrator that he was scrambling to find a way to live.

"I have to do this, or I would be the one dying..." Ativan muttered.

Lutein's eyes widened, as if he had just graced his ears with the biggest wad of ox crap in the world, but Ativan didn't care.

Steadying his breath, the cold Ativan started tearing the length of the scroll.

Lutein thought and thought as the sound of the scroll tearing apart echoed in the dungeon. 

He realized. There was nothing he could do anymore.

If only he was stronger. If only he was faster. If only he had lived the right way from the beginning.

Regret flooded through the Lutein's head.

'No.' Lutein thought. Just how many people had looked down on him? Just how many people had ignored his cries? It wasn't him who was at fault, it was this cold, indifferent world.

Anger burned through Lutein's eyes, his teeth clenched down as spirit coursed through his body.

And a fireball crashed into him.

In a single go, Lutein was knocked off his feet and dropped into the cliff.

The tale of the Tower's SSS-Class Hunter had entered its prologue.

***

Ativan grasped his chest and fell to his knees.

A long exhale spilled from his lips as his widened eyes trembled.

In a rush, he raised his fingers to the wound on his cheeks and pressed down.

A stabbing sense of pain coursed through his head.

"Fuck..."

It was real.

All of it was real.

Even if he wanted to, he couldn't deny it. He couldn't deny it for a long time now.

A simple office worker tired of life had turned into the starter villain of a webnovel.

"I survived..." he said. "I survived. I survived. I survived..."

He kept uttering the same words as if he were a chicken about to be slaughtered. It wasn't much different in his eyes.

This place, was one where death loomed on top of everyone's heads. And even amongst them, he just had to become the one with the highest and closest chance of death.

Three months.

That was the time it would take Lutein to come out of the cave with his SSS-Class Ability, [Digest]

It was a power that let him steal one skill and 10% stats of everything he ate. Inside a double dungeon, he would eat and eat until he became a powerhouse. And if that was not enough, he would set his eyes on creating a new world and eat some more.

"Do all protagonists have to be fucking psychopaths?!" Ativan screamed. "Couldn't people like a fucking goody-two-shoes for once?!"

He was forgetting that he was someone with multiple first comments on the very novel he was cursing out.

Ativan lowered his head until his forehead came in contact with the cold stones of the dungeon floor.

What should you do when you transmigrate into a hit tower-fantasy novel?

Stick to the main character? You underestimate the extent of chaotic good protagonists.

Become a side character? And what side character never has a chance of being turned into a corpse to fuel the main character's growth?

A bystander, a minor character, or the Main Character's party, none of those were the correct answers.

Instead, there was another character that these stories generally held. You had to find them.

That's right, you should find and bite on the skin of the overpowered character who will keep you alive even if you die.

That very one you're thinking of. The cold-hearted, aloof, overpowered character called a regressor.

"But..." Ativan scowled as his fists clenched. He slowly raised them, and with all the rage in his heart, he screamed as he banged on the ground.

"The Tower's Regressor is a Fucking Coward!!"

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