Chapter 75: Tower of Druaga, Also Known As, the Nest-Switching Tower
Tower of Druaga, also called Dragon's Tower, was originally an arcade platform action RPG released by Namco in 1984. The gameplay involved exploring an overhead-view maze and working your way to the top floor one level at a time. A fantasy version of Pac-Man. It was later ported to the Famicom.
In old-school fan circles, though, it carried a rather more colorful informal title.
The Nest-Switching Tower. You know the one.
The nickname traced directly to the two anime adaptations of the game: Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk and Tower of Druaga: The Sword of Uruk.
Saying "a fantasy version of Pac-Man" basically captured all of Tower of Druaga's essential elements. The game itself wasn't particularly hard; what wore players down was the sheer volume of hidden mechanics buried throughout it.
Which meant that once you had the game figured out, a single coin could carry you through twenty or thirty minutes of play, or even a straight forty-to-fifty-minute run to the credits.
Fine for the player. Not fine for the arcade owner. Half an hour to an hour on one coin, when you could have a King of Fighters cabinet, a Street Fighter machine, or a Metal Slug unit sitting in the same space and chewing through coins at a respectable rate?
So Tower of Druaga arcade cabinets flared up and vanished from the domestic market almost immediately, a genuine flash in the pan. Even after the Famicom port, it couldn't make much of an impression in a market saturated with pirated copies.
After looking at the cartridge in his hand, Ross finally understood why the Navigation Arrow had been pointing at the entire Sky Arena all along. The arena itself was a towering structure, and competing inside it was tower-climbing in every meaningful sense. When he reached the two-hundredth floor, the precondition for the cartridge triggered, the same way it had worked with Trick Tower's 5v5.
He pocketed the cartridge with appropriate reverence, then glanced up at the Navigation Arrow, which had floated back into position overhead.
His eyes went wide.
The arrow was still pointing upward.
...There's more?
He thought for a moment, dismissed the arrow, loaded the Prominent Chin keyword, and summoned it again.
Still pointing up.
Ross went into full brainstorming mode. Connected to tower-climbing, and with a character who had a notably prominent chin...
Something clicked. He thought he had a lead.
From the look of it, getting the second tower-climbing cartridge was probably strongly tied to going even higher. Specifically, to becoming a Floor Master.
Which meant becoming a Floor Master needed to be treated as a genuine objective, not an afterthought.
Find a master. Urgently. No more delays.
Ross had made up his mind. If nothing went sideways, Yusuke's first floor-two-hundred fight should be tomorrow or the day after. Win or lose, the moment that match was done, he was leaving to go find his master. He already had the gift carefully picked out.
Sure enough: the instant Yusuke submitted his "Available to fight immediately" form, all three hyenas scrambled over and each wrote down their own challenge applications for the same time slots Yusuke had listed.
One of them, pale white mask, left sleeve hanging completely empty, looked over at Ross's group with an encouraging expression.
"Aren't any of you going to get in on this? At least find out how floor two-hundred feels different from down below?"
Nobody paid him any attention.
Though a thief by background, Kurama had never been particularly motivated by money. Only unusual and exceptional things held any real interest for him. He had already wired half of his prize earnings home. His family wasn't struggling, but they weren't wealthy either, and two hundred million Jenny was more than enough to ensure his mother would never need to work again and could live comfortably for the rest of her life, while also freeing his stepfather from working overtime so he could spend more time at home and give his mother the care she needed.
If Ross hadn't mentioned in advance that floor-two-hundred fighters had a ninety-day preparation period, and that there was a loophole, submit a fight application on day ninety, no-show for an automatic forfeit, and reset the clock for up to three additional cycles, Kurama probably wouldn't have bothered registering at all and would have gone straight home today.
As for Kuwabara: over the past few days, his grasp of money had been thoroughly dismantled. Going from pockets containing just over ten thousand Jenny to accumulating four hundred million in under two weeks had left him genuinely at a loss. What he was at a loss about specifically was whether he even needed to continue his education.
For all the delinquent reputation, Kuwabara's actual delinquency ran far shallower than Yusuke's. He studied when he had reason to, and his grades were decent when he applied himself. But when you stripped away the friendships and the experience of those years, the whole point of going to school was to earn money, support a family, and live without too much trouble.
Kuwabara had already accumulated more money than most families could earn across several lifetimes. So did the original path still make sense?
Or... his hand moved to the inside pocket where his Hunter license sat.
Open up an entirely new path, as a Nen user and a professional Hunter?
For all that he looked older than his age and had always been independent, Kuwabara was only two or three years older than Gon and Killua, still seriously short on life experience. And unlike Yusuke, who had grown up completely wild and largely operated without thinking, Kuwabara was planning to head home in the next day or two and have a proper conversation with his family about his future.
Just as the armless hyena was starting to say something further, Ross cut him off.
"Don't try anything underhanded, Sadaso."
He said the name directly. Sadaso and his two companions each went briefly still.
"You've been in the Republic of Batopia long enough to know the Zoldyck family. I have a small connection to that family, and I happen to have a bit of spending money on me. Not a lot, but enough to bring them in."
The Zoldyck family was famous enough in the underground world to have become a genuine local tourist attraction in its own right. Hearing that name come out of Ross's mouth with such casual ease, the smiles on all three faces faded.
"Armless Sadaso. Legless Gido. And Riehlvelt, with his backside nailed to a rocking horse."
With each name Ross called, the corresponding hyena made a small adjustment to his spine.
"In the ring, you three can do whatever you want. Win on ability, that's fine. Lose, no hard feelings. But if any of you tries something outside the ring..."
"The moment any one of us has a problem outside the arena, I don't care whether you caused it or not. I will initiate an assassination protocol immediately. I think the Zoldyck family would be very happy to earn a little side money while they're out on a job."
Ross, who genuinely had a contact saved in his phone under the label "Kukuroo Mountain," smiled pleasantly.