Worthy had to pay respect to all the informants out in the world. Collecting information, at least from strangers, was much harder than he anticipated. Professionals in the field of information gathering needed to build trust and find the right sources, but they also had the charisma and knowledge to make it easier. Whereas Worthy… Worthy was an uneducated child that most of the denizens of the sanctuary assumed was far out of his depth attempting to climb the tower.
The first few people he asked were amused by his inquiries about how long they expected to remain in the inn. As it turned out, the majority of the residents were too afraid to go out into the wasteland and search for a gateway, knowing that their struggles might be in vain.
After that, his questioning started to go downhill.
Getting answers from the others was hard enough, but trying to avoid encounters with Haul and her group was even more impossible than that. In the middle of asking about monsters in the wasteland, Haul would often interject and tease the child. Now that she had no intention of murdering him, she simply saw him as a new toy to mess with.
'Annoying hag,' He was careful to never say these words out loud.
His caution aside, the constant interference of the old kingpin made his endeavor more tedious than he'd expected.
That isn't to say his work was fruitless. The pieces of information that Worthy gathered were still invaluable. From an understanding that there is a remote device used to open the door to the hideout without using the lever, to the knowledge that one of the inhabitants possesses a Reward called [Million Meter Drift], allowing him to effectively teleport across the wasteland without much difficulty.
It is with that ability that War Reaver's group, Worthy included, was going to reach a Prime Settlement once the veteran woke up from his hibernation.
Wrestling details together was difficult, but eventually, Worthy had a good foundation. He already knew that escaping the First Floor was a nearly impossible task, as well as why. Prime Settlements were something he didn't need to know much about: they're massive settlements housing the most climbers, sort of like a town square. To travel more safely, the usage of a teleportation Reward is necessary, lest you have a powerful climbing party — something that was hard to come by these days.
What Worthy needed to understand next was the nature of the monsters on top of the Floor itself.
That brought him to Esme, who was in the inn's hospital.
She was unharmed, but there were so many injured people who could be tended to with limited resources that the healer was quickly called to aid the wounded shortly after her arrival. Saving everyone wasn't possible; there were a few whose injuries suffered from infections and grievous injuries that existed for too long for her to reverse.
'Still, it's because of that more people are walking around. The gambler has found some value in helping others, at least. That beats rolling her life away in rigged games of dice.' He still hadn't told her that he got his equipment from Freight. He also suspected she was oblivious that the man's mother was in the same building as her.
Better to save that for when they're closer to leaving the floor. There's no telling what the woman, who is normally level-headed, may do when faced with unpredictable danger.
"Hey, Ms. Esme!" Opening the door to the hospital, Worthy shouted to the older, olive-skinned woman he saw standing across the room.
It earned him several groans from many of the injured. Someone outright screamed: "Be damned, brat!"
Sheepishly smiling, the child lifts his hand defensively. "Sorry. Sorry." Carefully walking through the long room, Worthy is once again amazed by the architecture of this underground facility. Although they had finite resources, the fact that a building like this could be made and withstand the test of time in such unfair conditions after a hundred years was spectacular.
Esme, in the midst of healing the arm of a wounded female, didn't turn to look at the boy. "Do you usually yell in every hospital you visit, Worthy?"
He scratches the back of his head, looking away despite there being no chance of eye contact. That wasn't one of his finest moments. "It's easy to slip my mind that this is a hospital. This place is a blend of a hotel and a bunch of other stuff. Cut me some slack."
Esme softly snorts. Worthy sees the upward curve of her lip from behind, earning a smile from the gambler-turned-nurse.
"Yeah, I'll cut you some slack this time. I hope you didn't just come in here to shout my name, though. What do you need?"
Caught in the stupor of his own shouting, Worthy nearly forgot the importance of why he came in here. "Right, sorry! I wanted to talk to you about a theory I have. Between you and Cross, I assumed you'd be the better of the two to discuss intel with."
The boy had more to say, but stopped himself completely when he saw Esme's face.
He shivers, feeling like he'd just initiated a chain of events that went well beyond his own existence. Something that'd follow him into the afterlife…
The wide, pompous, self-satisfied smile on Esme's face when she looked at the child was almost satanic. He swore he saw all the light in the room get sapped into her eyes and mouth, leaving nothing but blackness in the room save for those places.
"Sweetheart… Are you saying you think I'm the smartest?" Her voice came out like a soft, chilling velvet. Smooth, to the extent that his ears tingled. Surely the healer wasn't a demon or some kind, right?!
'Wait, I didn't say that at all!'
His survival instincts told him not to say this out loud either. Just like walking a thin, glass trail around Haul, he now needed to do the same thing with his conversation with Esme.
Answering any more questions would dig him into a deeper hole of fueling her ego.
"...B—Besides that! I wanted to talk to you about the gateways and the monsters. I have a theory I want to run by you."
Worthy hadn't chosen to talk to Cross for two reasons. The first is that he didn't show the same level of general knowledge as Esme. He was a good fighter and undoubtedly intelligent, but not on the same level as Esme or War. The second reason was far simpler… finding the man in this inn was very difficult.
Turning back around, Esme finishes healing the man's injuries. Free from her duties, as he was the last man who needed tending, she turned and looked at the boy. "Alright, let me hear it."
Esme didn't doubt the authenticity of Worthy's words. He was just a boy, but she didn't think he'd lie to her. Anything he said, at least in seriousness, must've had some kind of reasoning behind it.
"I… I think that the monsters are eating the gateways. M—More specifically, I think they're assimilating them."
The woman lifts her brow, urging Worthy to continue with his explanation. He was off to a rocky beginning.
"Think about it… We know that people who are killed by the monsters are assimilated with them. Assuming War's 'template' theory is right, that means that the Floor can learn, adapt, and project things… right?"
Moving a finger to her chin, the woman has a thoughtful look, then nods.
"We've already heard that over the years, it's gotten harder to find gateways. What doesn't make sense is how the number of dangerous monsters hasn't gone down, but instead is continuously rising. Those hounds are a newer discovery, in the grand scheme of what you can call 'new' in a place with no night or day."
Esme mumbles something in agreement, but lets the child continue. She doesn't want to throw off his train of logic.
"We know that the more monsters absorb people, the more powerful they become. Sometimes, they'll absorb clothes and armor. They don't have to absorb organic things."
His next point, however, was his strongest. It'd also be the most troubling if his hypothesis is true.
War believed the monsters were evolving and coming from somewhere humans hadn't seen or reached. Worthy, a newcomer, hadn't the slightest idea where that place was. If he weaved his intentions with his Reward enough, it's possible he might end up going in the right direction. However, the child had no intention of boldly charging into the direction of the unknown and meeting an untimely demise.
"War thought that the monsters were coming from somewhere… What if they're all coming from one big monster itself? To be more specific, what if this entire floor is one massive monster?"
Esme almost laughed. Until she didn't.
The woman's face paled as she considered it. It was a real possibility… One she quickly dismissed.
She lets out a sigh of relief. "Phew. I was almost worried for a second, but no. That isn't the case. Fundamentally, all the monsters on this floor have the same function. They pull things into their mass and assimilate them. If we were inside a monster, we'd have been killed the second we arrived here."
Admittedly, Worthy knew she was right. The idea that they were in the belly of a gargantuan beast was far-fetched.
He wasn't finished, though: Worthy went into great detail.
The main premise still relied on a source, just like War suggested. Monsters were capable of growing the more they ate; that much is clear. Their diet wasn't restricted to just people, either. The flesh monsters of Floor 1 could eat fabric, steel, and anything else a person had around themselves.
This held the foundation of Worthy's suggestion to Esme:
"Instead of the difficulty of the tower just adjusting—something that's never happened before—it's probably a monster responsible for the lack of gateways. Going all the way back to the first day of the tower… What if something consumed all the gateways leading out of the tower first, which is why there have not been any ways to forfeit on the First Floor? Then, once it ran out of exits, it started to slowly go around and consume the monsters that'd trigger gateways to spawn."
In Worthy's mind, as well as everyone else's, there had to be an explanation behind why the number of gateways was dwindling. No one had thought of anything concrete, as far as these newcomers knew.
"That…" Esme is speechless, placing and scrambling pieces in her brain. It is true, the monsters play a very crucial role in this tower. On the First Floor, it is especially imperative to fight them. Whereas on the upper floors it's possible to avoid enemies and eventually stumble upon a gateway either out of the tower or to the next floor, on Floor 1, the option to escape was nonexistent, and the option to move up a floor was scarce. "That might be possible."
The woman thought for a long time, and eventually concluded that the theory was feasible.
She was older than the child, so she heard her fair share of stories about the tower growing up. None of them remarked about how hard it was to find a gateway on the First Floor, not to this degree. The details that were shared always related to how dangerous the monsters of the floor were. Never that it was an unrewarding endeavor.
But now, they find themselves suffering from just that.
Many of the people who'd been here long before this drought of gateways simply waited too long. The idled, afraid of facing their deaths in the outside world, or were waiting to find a good group. Whatever the reason may be, the reports that there are fewer gateways are true.
Even the Holy Knight War, who'd been in this tower for more than five decades, admitted he saw the differences. That man could've left many times, but did not because he was aimlessly wandering the wasteland, with no one ever sharing the details that his relic he was searching for had been found long ago.
In fact, Worthy suspected this lack of information was intentional. Perhaps not a collective effort, but a shared agreement by those knowledgeable about the happenings of the capital to some extent. Knowing that Priestess Rosaria was dead was one thing, but knowing the story behind the [Vine of Radiance] required direct ties or luck in hearing someone else talk about it.
Worthy was the latter, of course.
'That sniveling noble had to have known too.' Robert, a noble from the capital, had to have known about it in more detail than any of them. More than the child; more than the wise gambler; more than the mercenary.
War was being kept trapped on this floor by a lack of information, because the inhabitants realized that he was their best way to escape. Somehow, someday, they'd go out on a hunt with him and a gateway would appear… that's what they hoped for, at least.
Yet their lazing was unrewarded. So, the population of the floor grew, and grew more, until eventually people became more akin to sacrifices, fueling the monsters' strength.
'War hasn't shared his intentions to clear the tower yet. Before he does that, I need to be ready. That declaration… It's going to shake things. For better or for worse, the entire floor will feel the impact of their great protector moving onward.'
Growing up in the slums, the child had to admit that he'd likely do the same. It was selfish, but he'd want someone powerful to protect him for as long as possible, even if it meant abstaining from details. But he gained nothing from a protector who only remained on a single floor.
He didn't come here to help solve the mystery of the First Floor, or become Haul's choreboy, or slack off in an inn, either. His father and sister are waiting for him on the outside of this tower, hoping that he does not end up lost to it like Evangelica once was.
The child would help War Reaver reach Floor 10, even if it means leaving those unwilling to climb behind. The entire First Floor could drown in a sea of blood or be forced to fend for themselves. Whatever happened didn't matter, so long as he continued climbing higher.
He was the tower's Designated Guide.