[POV: KiRA.]

-Gulp.

I somehow avoided those reporters back at the inn and somehow came back after I promised them to have a meeting once I return, but that was hectic.

I was already in news yesterday, and association has been contacting the people at home as well as trying to get anything out of Ziggy and Izzy.

They want then to answer when they don't even know what I had been though.

'They have their predictions, things like since I was at the field for so long, I must have gone pretty deep.'

No one had crossed past the fourth sector of the desert fields, and even I did not go past the fifth sector.

But, just the fact that I was out there for so long meant I had some way to survive in that death zone for that long.

'The people wanted answers, and I ended up promising I would give them what they wanted.'

But not under their pressure. There will come a time when I answer those questions and that time was not today, just like how it wasn't yesterday.

'I want to rest a little with my family first.'

So, as soon as I came back, after organising a few things, I asked the association to arrange for an aircraft.

They understood my reasoning and also got orders from above so they moved quickly. The jet was prepared soon and I am now back home… taking a taxi home.

"You were on the news, sir." The taxi driver had been quiet for a while now, but since he understood I was feeling uneasy, he asked that question in an attempt to help me calm down.

"They said you vanished into the northern desert field? It must have been difficult in that place, right?" He was asking me if I was alright now, something none of those reporters or association people had bothered with.

"It is hell, sir. The heat, the sand, the monsters… if not for human greed and my own misery, I would never have ventured into that place."

The driver wasn't a player, but he was old enough to have much more life experience than I will ever have anytime soon.

He understood what I wanted to say without needing the context, and nodded with understanding.

"Since this world turned into a hell, everyone has been doing inhuman things just to survive, just to keep their loved ones safe.

Players like you who look at the bigger picture are no exception, sir.

We common people will not understand what you go through, and why you do what you do.

There is a great need for resources nowadays, and if we don't face the hell head on, our kind might have to give up everything we have, everything we have lived for."

He didn't know what kind of things players go through, but he most certainly knew humans.

"We won't let that happen, sir. Humanity will not fall to the will of the tower." My eyes got a little cold when I said that, and the old driver who looked at my reflection in the mirror nodded with a soft smile.

"We should be thankful to have individuals like you instead of questioning your actions on the news." We had reached the destination, my neighbourhood, so he slowed down the car and I got out carefully, looking at him with a bitter smile.

"Humans also need some form of entertainment, good sir. People will not have anything to look forward to if the reporters and heroes like you stop doing their work."

There were very limited taxi drivers in each of the cities throughout the world.

Being one of them was a flex in itself.

"Thank you for your great work." Handing him the fare as well as a small tip which he accepted gladly, I bid him farewell.

He did not say much, just a small smile, and went on his way, leaving me right before Izzy's shop, the gate to the underground base.

'They already knew I was going to arrive when I landed in the city earlier.'

Aunt Su and Izzy's mom, aunt Lia were both waiting for me right at the gate with a smile on their face.

Aunt Su seemed especially happy to finally see me back.

The happiness on her face was very unnatural, so, when it turned into a look of anger, and then an utter look of rage, I wasn't much surprised.

Instead, I just stood there, knowing my fate and prepared for any kind of beating I was going to get.

"You said three months," Aunt Su whispered as she walked up to me, her steps slow.

She seemed emotional. Uncle and Izzy were looking at us from behind, their expression showed how they were expecting some brushes as well.

"You're late."

But what happened surprised them both.

"You're late, you ungrateful child." She embraced me first, and then a few tears slid down her eyes.

Aunt Lia walked up to me as well, and hugged the two of them, a smile present on her face.

"Had you not kept in touch, she was going to lock you up in a special room we made." Aunt Lia had a sweet voice but those words were anything but sweet.

I was surprised as well so as I hugged them back, there was a bitter expression on my face.

If it wasn't for Uni, I wouldn't have been able to access the Forums either.

Thankfully I had her. She was the biggest blessing I had.

"Do you know how worried I was? Do you have any idea how many times I didn't eat when you weren't around?" Aunt Su reluctantly let go of me and looked at me with her sweets but angry face.

"Do you know how many times Izzy had to leave all her work and sit with me just to show all the pictures you sent? Just to reassure you were, in fact, out there doing something important?"

Aunt Su was really worried, and… yes. I knew all the times she had not eaten, all the times she was worried, how she couldn't sleep for thirty nine nights when I wasn't around.

'She was not as worried about her own son who was fighting on the frontlines as she was about me.'

How could I not call her my own mother if she does things like these?

If anything, she was more than just a mom for me.

"Do you know what things we had to go through thanks to you? What Isah went through?"

Aunt Lia was nothing less than a mother to both Izzy and me, which sounds strange but it is what it is.

We haven't been together for that long but she is more than a mother-in-law for me.

'I was prepared for a good scolding and beating, but this much is better.'

But I don't think this would be the end. That room they were going to lock me into? It wasn't going to go to waste… I knew my fate so I embraced this situation as long as it was going to last.

"I am late… I apologise." A simple apology wasn't going to work here, but it was needed.

So, after I gave my apology, and talked with them, told them I wasn't going anywhere for the time being, and asked them to go and meet the others, they let me go after another long hug.

Izzy was there… so I nodded at my uncle with a bitter smile and hugged her first.

"Dummy…" She kissed me before I could hug her though, not minding the family members around us.

It was only a few months but, for her who had spent most of that time inside the tower clearing the floor and training the guild members or gathering resources, these few months had been much longer than the people at home.

She was handling her well thanks to everyone else present, but once we are alone, I know what will happen to me there as well.

'I didn't want to be late, but the unexpected dungeon and that damned ruin were not easy to deal with.'

Going there, crossing the desert, finding the ruins while dealing with threats like the sandwyrms and that vestige wasn't easy.

But, in the end, the two of us made it back.

"Wanna see all the fun things I brought back?" Hugging her warm body, I whispered in her ear. She was not crying… or at least trying not to.

The way she nodded without saying anything, her face buried in my shoulder, felt so peaceful I didn't ever want to go away by myself.

'But it might not be possible every time.'

We were still on the lower floors. There were upper floors, the middle floors, the higher floors, the transcended realms, and then there's the top of the tower.

It was only me the last time, not even Unity could enter the final floor with me.

But that was her choice the last time…

'Will I be alone in the final battle this time as well?'

I do not know.

There's no certainty we will make it to the last floor either.

'If we want to reach that place, however, we all will have to go our own way on different floors.'

Without gaining new powers, without finding ourselves, without the new help we need for the new higher floors, we won't make it to the higher floors.

And I don't want that…

"Shall we go in now, everyone?"

It won't be easy, obviously. I've said it countless times but the tower is as cunning and as it is dangerous and fair.

It will do everything to slow us down while still being within the limits.

It will be up to us to deal with the challenges… be it alone, or together.

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