Rosalina grinned as she tossed the glowing key up and down in her hand.
"What do you an?" Julius walked over from behind, curious. The mont his eyes landed on the small square box in her palm, they shot wide open like windows.
"K-key..." he mumbled.
His voice shook with excitent as he stared at it. The key pulsed with a soft, steady light.
Rosalina looked at his stunned face and laughed. "The world isn’t that biased after all, huh?"
She kept tossing the key lightly as she stepped closer. "We tried our best to kill him. We did everything we could. But our luck was deep in the negatives."
With a playful flick, she tossed the key straight to Julius.
He scrambled forward and caught it with both hands, eyes shining bright.
"But that son of a bitch!" Rosalina spat.
Her face twisted in frustration. The anger sat heavy in her chest, burning with nowhere to go.
It felt like carrying days of rage with no place to release it.
They had gone all out, even sacrificed ten years of their lives, just to scratch an ant.
And they still failed. Only the two of them knew how maddening that felt.
"I think all our bad luck finally ran out," she said, sliding her arms around his neck, "and so did his good luck. That’s why we got the key... and he lost it."
She looked straight into his eyes, a teasing spark in hers. "So, should we head to the eleventh floor?"
Julius stared back at her. She stood so close that every sharp, beautiful line of her new face stood out clearly.
He grinned right back. "Well... we’re already here, and the eleventh floor was our main goal anyway."
Rosalina pulled her hands back but let out a loud snort.
"What about that old fart? He’s already entered the tower. He passed the fourth heavenly trial. If he sees us, we’re finished." She gritted her teeth.
"Are you sure we should go?"
Julius rubbed his chin and thought for a mont. She had a point.
If the dean caught them, things could get ugly.
The old man might not dare kill them outright, especially Julius, whose mother had once gone on a rampage in the Holy Empire, but he could still try to quietly get rid of them in this hidden place.
"Haa," Julius breathed out.
"Still... it’ll take the dean so ti to reach the seventh floor. And according to the novel, Crypian ca back pretty fast once he got inside."
He shot her a confident, slightly sarcastic smirk. "We’ve got this. Our luck just turned around, rember?"
Rosalina raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth curling up in a matching smirk.
The frustration still simred, but now it mixed with fresh excitent.
"Hope the eleventh floor is worth all the trouble we’ve gone through." She said before walking towards the corner, where a nice sll was coming from.
Little Elizabeth had left them sothing nice.
A cooking pot sat there, and the sll of at floated out, warm and inviting.
Earlier, when the ssage echoed through the ring, Rosalina had heard how Elizabeth cared for her son.
It made her think of her own mother, bright, cheerful, and full of love. Her mom had loved her more than anything.
But the mory quickly soured. Rosalina’s face darkened.
"I’m sorry, Mom," she whispered to herself.
"I couldn’t kill their descendant today... But I promise, one day I will massacre their whole family."
She pulled the pot closer. The at was neatly chopped and cooked, plenty for both of them.
She grabbed a piece with the bone still in it and tossed it to Julius.
Julius caught it, but his face twisted into a grimace right away.
’Would it taste the sa...?’ Sweat beaded on his forehead as he stared at the at.
Rosalina didn’t notice. She picked up her own piece, eyes sparkling. "Looks delicious..." she muttered.
The juicy at could make anyone hungry.
She gulped, took a big bite, and let the taste spread across her tongue.
"Blehhhh!!"
The second she actually tasted it, she couldn’t swallow.
She spat everything out and rushed over to Julius.
Without thinking, she rubbed her tongue hard against his clothes to clean the horrible flavor off.
Julius, who had already decided not to eat, threw his piece far away.
’She still hasn’t learned how to cook in this life either...’ In his previous life, their house had many servants and professional chefs, but Elizabeth always cooked herself.
She believed her motherly love would make it taste better.
He and his father had spent years gently trying to stop her to avoid this punishnt. Looks like she carried that "talent" into this life too.
"Haa..." Julius let out a soft sigh. A warm smile slowly spread across his face. ’At least she’s still happy.’
He gently patted Rosalina’s back while she kept wiping her tongue on his shirt, grumbling the whole ti.
Rosalina finally pulled her tongue back after rubbing it on Julius’s clothes for a while.
"Damn, your mom really sucks at cooking," she said, her face still twisted in disgust. She stuck her tongue out again, letting it catch so fresh air.
Julius had been staring at her the whole ti. He gave a small nod. "Now that you’re done suffering... shall we go?"
He took a step toward the giant gate that led to the eleventh floor.
This tenth and eleventh floor felt completely different from the rest of the tower.
The earlier floors had all kinds of trials, so for one person, so for two, so that needed teamwork.
Once a group cleared them, anyone could walk through afterward.
Floors two to seven worked that way. The first floor was solo, and the eighth was for pairs.
Normally, you just finished the floor and willed yourself to the next one.
But the tenth and eleventh floors were special. They were connected to each other.
To step onto the eleventh, you needed the Love Guardian’s approval... or a key, like Crypian had.
The other people who ca with Crypian got sent back after they failed the love trial.
Julius and Rosalina had also failed the test, but they weren’t thrown out because they attacked and killed the Guardian instead.
Still, without the key they couldn’t go further.
They had been ready to leave empty-handed when the key suddenly dropped into their laps.
Now they had their chance.
Julius and Rosalina stopped right in front of the massive gate and pulled out the glowing key.
"Let’s see..." Julius thought. He lifted the key high, just like Crypian did in the book.
Before he could finish the thought, the key floated out of his hand by itself.
It flew straight to the gate and sank smoothly into the center of the door.
A bright white light burst out from the gate. Julius and Rosalina stared at it, eyes wide.
’Here it cos,’ Julius thought. His heart beat faster.
The only thing he knew about this place from the book was the ti-path inheritance.
Everything else had been kept hidden on purpose, pure suspense. He could barely wait to find out what waited inside.
The huge gate slowly creaked open.
As it did, a loud, clear voice echoed all around them:
"Welco to the last floor....the eleventh floor!"
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