Somehow, they managed to slip away. It had been stressful, but Simon had to admit that experiencing the Tower of Time was strangely fascinating. He had witnessed the birth of the communication crystal, a pivotal moment in history, and for a moment, it felt like he had been part of it. He could only imagine the tears of joy an actual historian would shed in his place. The tower was filled with countless such ’anomalies’. He finally understood why people would risk facing a murderer like Gildon for a chance to come here.

"Merida. This way."

She was still dozing but followed him obediently. Apparently, she really could hear him even while asleep.

Not long after, he spotted it.

’There.’

One section of the tower wall shimmered like a patch of night sky, as if it had been painted with liquid darkness. From a distance, it looked like a gaping hole. Near the center of that void, a reddish mass of flesh pulsed like a living heart. This tumorous growth was called a ’core’. Destroying it was the only way to stop the flow of monsters from the dungeon. The Ivory Tower called this task ’cleaning’.

"Merida, you ready?" Simon summoned an axe from his subspace. It glowed with a faint blue light—an artifact provided by the Ivory Tower specifically for destroying cores.

"Yeah." Merida was wide awake now, her hands already crackling with Jet-Black.

They divided the roles: Simon would destroy the core with the axe, and Merida would hold off the inevitable wave of monsters. The moment he struck the core, every creature in the vicinity would descend upon them.

"Here I go." Simon swung the axe back, his body coiling, then lunged forward and brought it down with all his might.

’Crack!’

It was harder than he’d expected. The axe chipped the core’s outer shell but didn’t bite deep. As he raised it for another strike, a chorus of high-pitched screeches filled the air.

The monsters were coming. Simon glanced to the side, his expression twisting in disgust.

"...What is that?"

Monsters on the continent usually bore some resemblance to its flora and fauna, but these were different. They scuttled on six sharp legs, their bodies lacking any discernible face or features, save for a single purple sphere embedded in the center of their torsos. They looked less like monsters and more like alien creatures from another world.

’So these are the monsters of the Tower of Time.’

"Keep hitting it, Simon," Merida commanded, raising her arm. Magic circles bloomed above her head, unleashing a barrage of curses. The shower of multicolored energy was a spectacular sight, and the monsters caught in it staggered.

"Huh?" Merida blinked. The creatures faltered for only a moment before resuming their relentless advance.

"The curses aren’t working." She sounded flustered.

"Curse resistance?" Simon yelled, hammering at the core with the axe.

"No, they’re being affected. It just seems like they can move normally even while cursed."

Exhaust, Sickness, Blind, Paralyze—curses that were effective against nearly any other monster had no stopping power against these alien things.

A monster dropped from the ceiling, aiming for Simon. He dodged aside and slammed his shoulder into it, sending it flying.

"Then try curses that affect objects directly! Like the one you used against Gildon!"

"It’s not that simple." Curses were designed to fight living things. While some could affect inanimate objects, their efficiency plummeted. They were weaker, didn’t last as long, and consumed an enormous amount of Jet-Black. Merida managed to levitate a few monsters with a gravity curse, but it was a drop in the ocean. There were too many.

"Then let’s switch!" Simon drove a fist wreathed in Jet-Black into the purple sphere of a nearby monster. It burst with a wet thud, spewing blue blood that smelled like oil and vinegar.

"I’ll hold them off. You take the axe and destroy the core!"

"I’m not good at combat magic," she declared, hands on her hips.

"I dropped it after the first semester."

’Are you bragging?!’ For someone ranked fourth overall, she had a surprising number of weaknesses. Her brother, Phantastus, was a physical powerhouse who could demolish anything with his bare hands.

Now monsters were swarming them from the opposite direction as well. They had to thin the herd, and fast.

Even under pressure, Simon’s technique was flawless. He crushed a monster’s face with the top of his foot, then launched himself into the air to kick away two more that were about to pounce on Merida. They slammed into the wall and burst like water balloons filled with blue blood. Landing lightly, Simon immediately opened his subspace.

"Come on out! Skeleton Knight!"

The knight emerged and instantly began to spin.

"No, no! That’s not what we’re doing! Stop!" At Simon’s command, the knight ground to a halt. Standing still seemed unnatural for it, and it sent a creaking thought of dissatisfaction to its master.

"Pick up the axe on the floor!"

The Skeleton Knight obeyed.

"Destroy the red thing!"

The knight swung the axe in a powerful arc, but its waist spun around three times with the motion. At this point, it was less a battle tactic and more a full-blown addiction to spinning. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

’What is wrong with everyone today?’ Both his partner and his summon were acting strange. Simon felt like crying. Merida, facing an enemy immune to her curses, seemed to have lost all her confidence. Still, her rank wasn’t just for show. She switched to Jet-Black Dynamics, her next best skill, and began conjuring elemental magic.

"It doesn’t burn, and it doesn’t get wet," she said dejectedly, after using a wave of Jet-Black water to push the monsters back. But for every one she pushed away, more swarmed in to take its place.

"Merida! Have you tried Sleep?"

She scowled at his suggestion.

"Do you really think something that shrugs off a seven-curse combo and anti-gravity is going to fall asleep?" Despite her words, she pressed a palm glowing with the Sleep curse against a nearby monster.

To their astonishment, the creature froze solid, as if time had stopped or its power had been cut.

"Is it really... sleeping?"

"No, I don’t think so!" Simon shouted, kicking the frozen monster.

Normal Sleep used the ’Rune of Slumber’ to induce sleep, but the version used by Phantastus, Merida, and Simon employed the ’Rune of Tranquility’. These monsters had incredible resistance to external changes, but because this curse wasn’t inherently negative, their systems seemed to interpret it as a non-hostile command. It was likely putting them into a dormant state, like hibernation, or resetting them to a command-standby mode.

"Alright."

A spark of life returned to Merida’s eyes. She moved like a fish back in water, her hands darting out. Everywhere she passed, monsters froze in place, creating a logjam that stalled the advancing horde.

"You’re doing great!" So this was why she had been dispatched here. Simon guarded her flank, mixing his own combat magic with Sleep. With their backs to the wall of stars, the boy and girl danced across the battlefield, and with every move they made, time stopped for their enemies.

"Haap!"

Simon launched himself into the heart of the swarming monsters, his palm glowing with a gray light.

’Bahil Remake – Sleepers’

A gray mist billowed out, and every monster in the vicinity froze. Merida, still fighting, looked over in astonishment.

’What was that? A wide-area Sleep using the Rune of Tranquility? How did he do that?’

Not to be outdone, she raised both her arms. Her sleeves billowed, and a long blanket shot out from them, entangling a group of monsters and hoisting them into the air like laundry on a line. She immediately twisted her palms, activating her curse.

’Sleep Link’

The struggling monsters went limp, all caught in the spell’s effect.

This time, it was Simon’s turn to be impressed.

’So that’s another way to use it,’ he marveled.

’Curse majors really are on another level.’

Their synergy was brilliant. Even in the heat of battle, they were stealing glances at each other’s techniques, learning on the fly. Meanwhile, the Skeleton Knight, tasked with destroying the core...

It had finally found its rhythm. Gripping the axe with both hands, it spun like a top, striking the core with a series of rapid-fire thwacks. The axe blade bit into the core, spun around with the knight’s momentum, and came back to strike it again and again. The core was shredded in an instant.

"Hey, not bad!" Simon cheered.

The spinning was a bit excessive, but if it got the job done, he couldn’t complain. His partner and his summon had finally hit their stride.

A moment later, with a final, booming crack, the Skeleton Knight finished the job, reducing the core to pulp. The instant it shattered, the alien monsters crumbled like crackers, and the starry void on the wall receded, returning it to normal stone.

"We did it!" Simon grinned, panting with his hands on his knees.

Merida dusted off her hands and walked over, her expression as blank as ever.

"Good work."

"You too."

The moment their palms met in a high-five, Simon staggered, a wave of drowsiness washing over him. He whipped around.

"Merida!"

"Ah, sorry." She snapped her fingers.

"Force of habit."

---

The first ’cleaning’ had been a struggle, but they quickly found their rhythm. They swept through the fiftieth floor, successfully destroying their quota of two cores. The floor was now clear.

Exhausted, they returned to the safety of their lodging. The moment the door opened, Merida made a beeline for the bed and dived onto it, curling back into her cat loaf pose and immediately starting to doze.

"Merida, you should wash up before you sleep." Simon sighed, shrugging off his uniform jacket.

"I’m going first."

In a flash, her uniform was flying through the air. Simon flinched and quickly turned away, catching a glimpse of her stockings hitting the wall with a ’thwack’.

"You should be more care—"

She completely ignored him, dashed into the bathroom, and emerged a minute later, having changed into pajamas. She settled comfortably into bed, fully equipped with sleep socks, a sleep cap, and a hugging pillow. Her dedication to the art of sleep was almost palpable.

"Ah." She looked at Simon from her cocoon of blankets.

"I have a sleeping habit."

Simon nodded. It wasn’t her fault; sleeping habits were involuntary.

"Snoring? Teeth grinding?"

"No, something like sleep-talking."

’Is that all?’ Simon smiled and waved a dismissive hand.

"Alright, go to sleep." He was just desperate to change his clothes.

Merida nodded, pulled the blanket up to her chin, closed her eyes, and was asleep in an instant.

"She’s been sleeping all day, and now this," Simon muttered.

He would soon learn that he had gravely underestimated her ’sleeping habit’.

---

Simon had never seen Merida in a true ’deep sleep’. Her dozing on benches and in the banquet hall wasn’t real rest. Her default state was a light slumber. But at night, when she lay in bed and entered a proper, deep sleep...

Her sleeping habit wasn’t just a quirk; it was a weapon of mass destruction.

"Mmm, mmm. Brother Phantastus," she mumbled, hugging her pillow.

She rolled around on the bed, flailing her arms, and with every twitch, curses exploded from her, slamming into the floor and blasting the walls with a series of deafening booms. It was utter chaos.

’Aghhhh....’

Simon yanked the blanket over his head with a groan. So much for getting any sleep tonight.

’Like brother, like sister....’ Both of them were menaces when they slept. Of course, compared to Phantastus, who laid waste to his surroundings every night, her habit was almost cute. But for Simon, who was caught in the crossfire, it was hell.

’Well, I had to do the mission anyway.’

Three hours later, Simon dragged himself out of bed, scratching his messy hair. After her initial barrage, Merida had settled down, now sleeping soundly on her stomach. He gently pulled the disheveled blanket over her, checked several times to make sure she was truly asleep, and then slipped out of the room.

’Let’s hurry, before the sun rises.’

Simon’s real mission was just beginning.