Leonardo, grasping the situation, swiftly swam toward the hole while carrying Ero.
The moment they reached near the hole leading into the stamen interior, the two were suddenly swept by the current and sucked inside. The water pressure was so strong they couldn't even swing an arm. Since it seemed they would lose consciousness if they resisted, Leonardo relaxed his whole body and instead held Ero tightly.
Riding the rapids, they were pushed up through what stretched like a pipe toward the upper part of the tower. Since they couldn't see outside, they couldn't gauge how high they had climbed. Fortunately, just before they ran out of breath, they finally reached the air pocket accumulated inside the tower.
Leonardo, who first got his upper body onto land, grabbed Ero by the scruff and pulled him above the surface.
"Puwaak—, gasp, huff—."
Ero, who expelled breath in an unsightly manner, crawled up the sloped stairs on his belly. He buried his head low and spent some time spitting water from his nose and mouth. He lay sprawled on his back against the uneven floor. The bag strap he had barely managed to protect hung from his arm.
Leonardo, who was similarly gasping for breath while coughing, glanced to check Ero's condition. Perhaps due to the sudden brawl, his breathing was more labored than when they were outside. The air was much heavier and denser. The atmospheric pressure itself seemed higher than outside, making his ears stuffy and causing dizziness.
Leonardo, whose shoulders were heaving, stepped on the stairs where lake water was lapping and barely managed to stand up. Squinting his reddened golden eyes, he slowly looked up following the continuing stairs.
"What is... this place."
The ceiling wasn't very high. More precisely, the next floor wasn't very far. After surveying the surroundings with hazy vision for a few seconds, he instantly dried his wet clothes.
Fumbling his face as hazy steam scattered, he also checked if his mask was properly attached. He forcibly made Ero, who was lying beside him, stand up.
"Hey, hey. Get up."
"Ugh, gasp—."
Ero, who had been making groaning sounds, stretched his neck like a turtle and vomited water. The sound of dry heaving echoed through the cylindrical interior.
"Is this really inside the tower?"
"Cough—. Yes, yes...?"
Even while wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, Ero barely stood on his two feet. Swaying, he looked in the direction Leonardo's hand was pointing.
Then he also looked down at the floor he was standing on. The inner walls and stairs made of pale yellow fibrous material certainly suggested this was the inner space of the stamen tower.
"...Ah, yes yes! It seems right!"
"Did you know this and suggest coming here?"
"Not exactly, but I couldn't find an entrance no matter how much I searched at the top. So I thought the only way to enter the tower would be from below..."
"There was nothing at the top?"
Leonardo asked back as if puzzled. However, that was brief, as the ground and walls they were standing on began to shake with a rumbling sound. Leonardo, who noticed the strange signs, immediately pulled Ero and ran up the spiral stairs.
"Let's go for now."
Ero, who hastily gathered his bag, quickly followed behind. Having some skill in running, his speed was similar to the person ahead despite his wet clothes. Rather, perhaps because it was more bearable than before, even while breathing roughly, he was already babbling again.
"Big brother, thank you so much for saving me! I didn't know you'd come so quickly! And to deal with all those creatures at once... wow, did you see the hole in the sky? As expected, I do have an eye for people—"
"Be quiet, and what about the entrance?"
"Ah! I went around the tower's perimeter following the protrusions, but I couldn't see any passage leading inside. There was something like a split groove right in the center of the top, but it wasn't open, and it was covered with transparent mucus making it hard to approach—"
According to the information Ero had gathered, this place currently seemed to have no open holes for air to pass through to the outside. So the density inside would continue to increase, and the pressure difference between inside and outside was understandable. This tower was the interior of a living plant after all.
Then this place they had accidentally entered was indeed the only passage to reach the pistil.
"So did other guys enter like us?"
"Wouldn't they? No, but is it okay for the difficulty to be like this from just a test match? Damn, how are you supposed to find an entrance hidden in a place like this?"
Ero complained while wringing out his damp clothes with his hands.
"Maybe the guy making a fuss outside still can't find the entrance either?"
"Well, that guy didn't seem to have any intention of passing through."
"Huh? Then why is he stealing other participants' crystals? He's really a sadist."
"How would I know."
'Why did that guy charge straight at me...'
"Ah, but about the mucus that was clumped near the tower. I've been thinking about it, and I think it was made from melted crystals."
Leonardo, who had been walking ahead, looked back at Ero.
"Crystals?"
"Did you see those things flying around up there? I don't know where they got them from, but they were collecting crystals in swarms..."
Ero's explanation of the monsters' behavior on the top floor was strange. They dropped small Plarinerus crystals clutched in their claws onto the mountain of mucus. Then they poured water they had brought in their pelican-like beaks over it. When they did this, the surface of the crystals that touched water would melt and gradually become soft.
"Later, bubbles started forming there, and it turned into mucus, didn't it? When it touched my skin, it felt kind of warm and unpleasant... I think it might be one of the devices to interfere with participants' passage."
"...."
Leonardo, who had been climbing the stairs clockwise, stopped abruptly in place. Ero, who hadn't expected this, bumped his head hard into his back. With additional impact to his already smashed nose bridge, a cry of pain naturally escaped.
"Big brother! Ugh... at least say something before stopping!"
"Give me the bag."
Leonardo, who immediately snatched the bag, opened the entrance and checked inside. He had suddenly become anxious upon hearing about "crystals touching water."
Sure enough, some of the crystals that had been stacked on top had absorbed moisture and their forms were crushed. Ero, who had been letting out pained groans, also seemed to grasp the situation instantly, as he looked into the bag and his face went pale.
"Huff, gasp! Big brother, I-I definitely took good care of them..."
"Be quiet and take them out quickly. The ones inside still seem fine."
Following Leonardo's instructions, the flustered Ero hurriedly removed the crystals from the top. Then they could see that the ones underneath still remained intact in form. Fortunately, luckily one of each color was safe.
Perhaps thinking they would have been dead if the crystals hadn't been properly preserved, Ero let out a sigh of relief seeing Leonardo's relaxed expression rather than worrying about his own chances of passing. Even so, his eyes lit up as he spoke triumphantly.
"Wow, they said this was waterproof and it really works! Before the match started, the staff took away my bullets and gave me this as a special item. At first I wondered what to use it for, but this was a divine move, wasn't it? Other teams must have been in chaos after entering here, right?"
Certainly. During the rule explanation, they had said Plarinerus crystals were made of 'salt.' If Ero hadn't had the bag he received, the crystals might have all dissolved in water the moment they fell into the lake, losing all the keys to open the portal.
'Maybe some of the mucus floating in the lake too...'
While some would have flowed out when the tower's protrusions were destroyed, some might be mucus formed when crystals that participants had collected dissolved in water. Thinking this way, he couldn't really gauge how many opportunities had turned to powder in there. Leonardo continued running up the stairs while rubbing the back of his neck.
'Joker, was it.'
He mulled over Ero's league alias, which he had thought didn't suit him at all. The way he became a decisive trump card at unexpected moments really was like the joker in a deck of cards. Come to think of it, the guy falling into the lake had also become the opportunity to find this entrance.
'Whether he's helpful or not.'
Suddenly, he realized there was one more matter to discuss with the guy.
"Hey, right. You heard the announcement broadcast, right? 4 hours passed, 22 people passed through."
"Ah, yes! That—!"
It was when Ero was about to say something. A sharp sound cutting through the wind struck the outer wall, clearly audible even from inside the stamen tower. The following whip strike sounds caught up with the speed of the two people climbing the stairs at a frightening pace.
Boom—!
Leonardo, who sensed something amiss, stopped walking. He immediately stretched out his arm to stop Ero as well.
"Whoa!"
Due to the momentum from running, Ero staggered on the stairs without railings, but there was no mishap of falling thanks to Leonardo grabbing his collar and pulling him.
A whip that had penetrated the tower's outer wall in front of the two sliced through the fibrous material like a blade. The stairs 1m ahead were miserably torn away. Along with it, cool outside air entered the interior. Through that gap, the whip undulating like a snake leisurely withdrew.
Leonardo, whose pupils had contracted, looked to the side. Through the gap where moonlight streamed in, he could see a fluttering black cloak.