TL: DDTL
[Person123: Seo Dong-woo]
I didn't send the Whisper with any real plan in mind.
The bastard who'd nearly killed my father was out there strutting around in plain sight, and it made my blood boil.
I'd sent it on impulse, and was just starting to think it had been pointless, when…
"…!"
A reply came back immediately.
[So-yeong: Are you really that person?]
[So-yeong: You're the first Nightmare clearer, right? I think you are?]
What should I do?
A thousand thoughts raced through my head.
I swallowed the torrent of curses I wanted to unleash and forced myself to stay calm.
[Person123: Yeah, that's me]
[So-yeong: Oh shit]
[Person123: And you're Seo Dong-woo?]
[So-yeong: Well duh, obviously]
[So-yeong: You wanna talk? Why'd you Whisper me?]
[Person123: You've got the whole country in an uproar. I'm interested in what you're up to.]
Showing hostility here and now would accomplish nothing.
I'd pretend to be interested in him. Maybe I could dig up some useful information.
[So-yeong: Hold on]
[So-yeong: Wait, don't tell me you're Korean?]
[Person123: Who knows]
[So-yeong: Whoa, no way, you were actually Korean? The first Nightmare clearer?]
[Person123: So what's the plan going forward? You just gonna keep running?]
[So-yeong: Hmm~ what should I do. Should I tell you?]
[So-yeong: You're not some government stooge, are you? Like, setting a trap to catch me or something?]
[Person123: I'm an Unregistered Climber, just like you]
[Person123: I'm hiding the fact that I'm a Climber too, so why would I]
[So-yeong: But why are you hiding the fact that you cleared Nightmare? That's a huge deal]
I thought it over briefly, then answered.
[Person123: The government could use it as leverage against me]
[Person123: I actually agree with what you've been saying. That Climbers should rule the world]
[So-yeong: For real? You're on that side too?]
[So-yeong: Hahaha man this is great to hear]
[So-yeong: Right? I knew someone like you would get it. We've got all this power and there's no reason we should just sit around playing nice]
[Person123: Exactly. That's why I'm interested in you. You're out there doing what nobody else had the guts to do]
[Person123: So what's next? You've gotta have more planned, right?]
[So-yeong: Oh hell yeah I do! Too many plans, that's the problem]
[So-yeong: What should I do for fun next? Maybe go wild somewhere packed with people?]
[So-yeong: Or maybe take over a building and do a hostage thing~ I've always kinda wanted to try that]
…Crazy son of a bitch.
What the hell am I supposed to do about this guy?
[So-yeong: Oh hey, why don't we meet up in person and talk? What do you say?]
[So-yeong: I'm dying to know what the first Nightmare clearer is like]
[So-yeong: I'm super interested in you too, you know. I've read all your posts. They were insane. How the hell did you clear it?]
Out of nowhere, Seo Dong-woo made an absurd proposal.
The guy breaks out of prison, goes on the run, and now he's asking to meet up?
He was definitely not right in the head.
[Person123: Sure, let's meet]
But I had no reason to refuse.
I stared at the Communication Channel with cold, sunken eyes as Seo Dong-woo gave me a location.
An abandoned school in Incheon.
[So-yeong: We're already friends, right? You're not gonna show up with a whole posse, are you?]
"Don't worry."
I'll be coming alone.
I pulled up a map on my phone and searched for the school's location.
[Person123: By the way, what Level are you? Seems pretty high]
[So-yeong: Curious?]
[Person123: If your Level's too high, meeting you gets a little nerve-wracking for me]
[So-yeong: Fair enough. All I'll say is it's somewhere in the twenties. The exact number's a secret~]
I closed the Communication Channel and headed straight out the door.
I knew I wasn't being rational.
What am I going to do when I get there? Fight him? What if he's even stronger than expected?
Father was badly hurt, but he was alive.
I could just chalk it up to getting mauled by some rabid animal and let it go.
I was letting the heat of the moment push me toward something I might not be able to handle.
…Fuck it. No, I can't let this go.
Not until I've shattered every last bone in that bastard's body.
Yeah, and it's not just personal, either.
There was no telling when he'd be caught, and if I left him alone, who knew what kind of rampage he'd go on next. More people could die or get hurt.
If nothing else, taking Seo Dong-woo down was a matter of preventing further damage.
I called a taxi in the predawn hours and headed for the meeting point.
*
Kang Ju-hyeok had gotten the call and was now racing toward the capital region.
Three days of searching had turned up nothing, and then Seo Dong-woo popped up in Seoul out of nowhere.
"How do you lose track of someone this badly…"
He muttered anxiously as he waited for the light to change.
The police were apparently tracing Seo Dong-woo's route, but Kang Ju-hyeok had a bad feeling about it. Unless a special forces unit surrounded him and opened fire all at once, catching the guy seemed next to impossible.
The rest of the Tower Monitoring Division was scrambling too, but Shin Su-jin was probably the only one in the division who could actually take Seo Dong-woo on.
"And why isn't Team Leader picking up? This is driving me insane."
But that very Shin Su-jin was unreachable. Not by phone, not through the Communication Channel.
They needed to move as fast as possible before they lost Seo Dong-woo again. There was no way she was just asleep and missing calls at a time like this.
The instant the light changed, Kang Ju-hyeok floored the accelerator.
*
[So-yeong: Bahahaha! You're that girl from back then? Seriously? This is, like, total destiny or something]
[So-yeong: Wanna know where I am? Should I tell you? Or nah?]
[So-yeong: Alright, alright. If you wanna see me that badly, come find me.]
[So-yeong: But keep it a secret from everyone else, yeah? If you don't come alone, I'm gone~]
The sky was just beginning to lighten with the first hints of dawn.
Shin Su-jin had ignored every attempt to reach her and arrived at her destination alone.
An abandoned school in Incheon. She scaled the wall and slipped inside.
She crossed the schoolyard and entered the decrepit gymnasium. There, lying in the center of the main hall with his legs crossed, was a man.
"Oh, you made it?"
Seo Dong-woo stretched and sat up.
Shin Su-jin stared at him, her eyes brimming with murderous intent.
"That name. What is it."
She asked, cutting straight to the point.
Seo Dong-woo cocked his head with feigned innocence.
"Hm? What?"
"Your Communication Channel nickname… what is it."
Seo Dong-woo let out a snort of laughter.
"Aah~ So-yeong? This?"
"…"
"What, not happy to see it? It's your mom's name, isn't it?"
Blood seeped from Shin Su-jin's clenched fists.
Ten years ago, when she was in middle school.
A burglar had broken into their home. The monster killed her father first, right in front of the mother and daughter, when he tried to resist. Then he went after her mother.
Her mother begged for her life, and Shin Su-jin was frozen beside her, unable to do a thing.
And the monster killed her mother too.
Even as she was being stabbed to death, her mother didn't make a single sound.
"You remember, don't you? Your mom. I told her if she made even the tiniest noise, I'd kill you first, and she really didn't let out a single sound. Pretty impressive~ That's the only reason you survived, you know? Pain like that isn't something you can just control through willpower."
Seo Dong-woo brushed a finger under his eye, as if moved to tears.
"That motherly love was enough to touch even a piece of shit like me. That's why I decided to remember that woman for the rest of my life. I never had a mother like that."
"Shut your fucking mouth, you piece of shit…!"
Shin Su-jin's voice came out shaking with rage.
Afterward, Seo Dong-woo had been arrested and sentenced to life in prison.
For Shin Su-jin, who had lost her entire family overnight, it was no consolation.
She lived as though she'd moved on, but the fury surged up without warning, impossible to contain. At least once a week, she relived that day in her nightmares.
Then one day, she became a Climber. Disgusted by her own weakness, she ascended the Tower.
Climbing the Tower, working, climbing again, just drifting through her days.
When she heard the news of Seo Dong-woo's escape, what she felt was surely not rage alone.
"…Thank you, Seo Dong-woo. For breaking out like this."
Shin Su-jin took one deep breath.
"Now I can finally kill you with my own hands."
Seo Dong-woo grinned smugly.
"Ooh, scary. Someone's confident. Did you bring backup? I figured you'd come alone, so I didn't bother checking."
"A maggot like you? I'm more than enough on my own."
With those words, Shin Su-jin used Leap. The floorboards cracked beneath her.
Seo Dong-woo dodged the incoming fist and bounded backward.
Shin Su-jin closed the distance and kept attacking. Seo Dong-woo retreated continuously, dodging or blocking each strike.
Shin Su-jin gauged her opponent.
'Our physical abilities are about the same.'
That likely put him around Level 20 as well. Hard difficulty leveled up in increments of four.
Having been pushed back, Seo Dong-woo threw a punch in counterattack.
Shin Su-jin slipped past the fist, grabbed his arm, and threw him.
"Whoa!"
Seo Dong-woo's body sailed into the gymnasium wall and embedded itself.
Shin Su-jin's fist lit up with a blue glow.
She rushed in to finish it, driving her fist forward, but Seo Dong-woo twisted aside by a hair's breadth.
BOOM!
A massive tremor shook the building, and dust cascaded from the gymnasium ceiling.
Seo Dong-woo scrambled back, a look of surprise on his face.
"That's that thing, right? The Aura Blade skill. Nice skill you've got there."
Aura Blade. A physical-type skill ranked first among rare-grade abilities.
Shin Su-jin said nothing and charged again. Her assault grew even fiercer.
With Aura Blade wreathing her fists, Seo Dong-woo could no longer block; he was reduced to barely evading each strike.
Shin Su-jin had been watching for Seo Dong-woo's skill the entire time. At Level 20 or so, he should have at least one rare-grade skill of his own.
But even cornered, he still showed no sign of using one.
Maybe it was a magic-type or a passive. If so, all she had to do was kill him like this.
"W-wait! Please, spare me!"
Seo Dong-woo cried out frantically, seeming to reach his limit in dodging.
Shin Su-jin ignored him and pressed harder.
"Spare me! I'm sorry! I'll really change, I swear!"
One clean hit and it would be over. She was just about to cave his skull in…?
She caught it. Laughter, woven into Seo Dong-woo's voice. Shin Su-jin looked at his face.
He was smirking. Not a trace of the desperation from moments ago.
"Spare me I'm sorry, okay pwease~"
In an instant, Seo Dong-woo moved at a speed far beyond anything he'd shown before.
"…!"
The blow caught Shin Su-jin in the ribs before she could react, sending her flying.
Seo Dong-woo strolled up to her where she'd crumpled to the floor.
"Got your hopes up, didn't I? What a tease~ You were so close to winning, just a little more."
Shin Su-jin scrambled to her feet and stumbled backward.
"You…!"
Only then did she realize. His Level was far, far higher than twenty.
She had been toyed with from the very beginning.
"See, I've cleared up to floor 7 on Hard. That makes me Level 28. Let's see, you're… what, low twenties?"
Shin Su-jin ground her molars until they creaked and charged again.
Seo Dong-woo moved with a fluidity worlds apart from before, easily evading her attack, then kicked her away.
She blocked with her arms, but her body still bounced away like a rubber ball.
"You came alone with just this? Where did you get the confidence? Honestly, kid."
"Ngh, hah…"
"Thank you, Seo Dong-woo Now I can finally kill you with my own hands Pfft! That was a killer line, really. I thought I was watching a movie."
Seo Dong-woo snickered.
"Thing is, I've got another special guest coming, so I'll play with you until then."
Shin Su-jin staggered to her feet.
The moment she stood, a fist buried itself in her stomach. Agony ripped through her as something inside ruptured.
Seo Dong-woo grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.
"Gkh…"
"Got anything else? If you've got more skills, go ahead and pull 'em out~ You can't go see Mommy like this, can you?"
Shin Su-jin glared at him with bloodshot eyes, murderous.
'God… damn… it…'
She was so much stronger than she'd been back then, and yet here she was, just as helpless.
The frustration was maddening. She wanted to tear the monster in front of her to shreds, but she didn't have the strength.
The grip around her throat tightened, and her consciousness began to fade, when…
"Seo Dong-woo."
A voice, unfamiliar, cut in.
At the gymnasium entrance. Somehow, a man in a pulled-up hoodie was standing there.
Seo Dong-woo spotted him and lit up, tossing Shin Su-jin aside like a rag.
"Oh, you're here! Person123!"
Person123…?
Shin Su-jin, coughing and sputtering, turned to look at the newcomer.
The man glanced between Seo Dong-woo and Shin Su-jin on the floor, then asked.
"Who's she?"
"Oh, this~? It's nothing. Just some Climber who came here to kill me. I was having a little fun with her while I waited for you."
Seo Dong-woo waved it off dismissively.
"Don't worry about it. Let's have ourselves a nice long chat. Just let me get rid of this bitch fir…"
The man cut him off.
"Chat, my ass."
"Huh?"
"I'm here to kill you too."
The man pulled his hands from his pockets and strode forward.
****
Chapter 26: The Escapee (3)TL: DDTL
The abandoned school Seo Dong-woo had mentioned was nestled in the mountains on the outskirts of Incheon.
When I arrived, I vaulted over the school wall and slipped inside.
Seo Dong-woo had said he'd be waiting in the gymnasium.
I spotted a building that looked like it and headed toward it.
That lunatic Seo Dong-woo genuinely seemed to want to meet up for a friendly chat.
But I couldn't rule out the possibility that he was planning something underhanded, so I kept my guard as high as it would go. Times like these were when the Sixth Sense skill really came through.
Even before I went in, though, I could sense a commotion inside.
'What the hell?'
Was someone else in there besides Seo Dong-woo? An accomplice?
…No, this sounded more like fighting.
I crept into the gymnasium, and a scene I hadn't expected unfolded before me.
Two people were inside.
A man had a woman by the throat, holding her up in the air.
The man had to be Seo Dong-woo… but who was the woman?
Unable to make sense of the situation, I called out his name.
"Seo Dong-woo."
He turned to look at me, broke into a wide grin, and tossed the woman aside.
"Oh, you made it! Person123!"
The woman couldn't keep her balance; she looked badly injured.
I asked the obvious question first.
"Who's she?"
"Oh, her~? Nobody special. Just some Climber who showed up to kill me. I was keeping myself entertained while I waited for you."
Who the hell is she, really?
Someone with a grudge against Seo Dong-woo, like me?
"Don't worry about it. Let's just have ourselves a good long chat. Let me deal with this bitch first and…"
"Chat, my ass."
"Huh?"
"I came here to kill you too."
Anyway, enough of that.
There didn't seem to be any traps, so it was time to get to work.
Seo Dong-woo had said he was in the level twenties.
That would make him lower level than me, though of course he could have been lying.
But right now, gauging him through Sixth Sense…
I didn't get any real sense of danger from Seo Dong-woo. The skill seemed to be telling me he was beneath me.
"Don't tell me you lied to me? And I trusted you."
Seo Dong-woo's face twisted into a scowl as he glared at me.
I was so dumbfounded I had to say something.
"Who the hell would want to sit around chatting with a psycho like you, dumbass? Are you that stupid?"
At that moment, Seo Dong-woo lunged at me.
He was fairly fast. I pivoted to dodge his body slam.
Seo Dong-woo skidded to a stop, spun around, and threw a punch right away.
We traded a few blocks and dodges before I landed a kick square in his gut.
Seo Dong-woo went flying but sprang right back to his feet.
"Whoa, you're tougher than I thought?"
"…"
"On Nightmare, it's supposed to be ten levels per floor, right…? Then shouldn't you be level twenty? Guess that was just a rumor."
I'd gotten a rough read on him by now too.
'Level twenty-eight, maybe?'
He wasn't stronger than me, but the gap wasn't massive either.
Seo Dong-woo let out a sly grin.
"Okay, fair. I'll go all out from here."
Then he shouted something that sounded like a cliché defeat flag, and his skin started changing.
Green patterns like a turtle's shell spread across his entire body.
'Skin Hardening?'
A rare-grade defensive skill.
I remembered seeing it on the skill tier list on the Babel site.
It was a defensive skill activated through continuous willpower drain. I'd thought it would be nice to have one myself.
Seo Dong-woo flicked his tongue out in a revolting way, then came at me again.
We exchanged blows once more, and I cracked him across the face.
Whether it was the Skin Hardening or not, the hit didn't feel satisfying at all.
Seo Dong-woo flinched for a moment, then threw a kick at me.
I blocked it with my arm and stepped back a few paces.
Seo Dong-woo closed the distance and pressed the attack enthusiastically.
"Hiyah! The Nightmare conqueror's nothing special!"
Sorry to interrupt the fun, but I was just starting to warm up myself.
I swatted away a punch aimed at my face and drove a hard blow into his solar plexus.
It felt heavier than before.
"Gkh…!"
Seo Dong-woo's face contorted.
When he threw another punch, I caught his arm and hurled him straight into the wall above the gymnasium stage.
CRASH!
Seo Dong-woo, embedded in the wooden wall, scrambles to pull himself free.
I used Leap to launch myself at him and drove my knee into his abdomen.
"Hurgh!"
Seo Dong-woo let out a strangled scream, swinging wild, desperate punches in every direction.
I dodged and delivered a one-two to both sides of his ribs.
As he gasped and staggered, I activated Swing and booted him in the head. He went sailing down from the stage.
Exaltation was active, and the gap in physical ability between Seo Dong-woo and me was widening by the second.
There was no need to use Teleportation or Flame Strike.
This was all the man amounted to.
Once Exaltation reached its maximum, Seo Dong-woo couldn't even put up a decent fight.
His Skin Hardening skill might as well not have existed; every hit I landed connected clean.
CRASH!
Seo Dong-woo tumbled pathetically across the floor and staggered back to his feet.
I walked toward him slowly.
That was when Sixth Sense suddenly rang an alarm.
Seo Dong-woo was pulling something from his back pocket.
"Diiiiie…!"
I froze time.
It was a dagger, its blade made of ice like an icicle.
'An item?'
It felt dangerous. I needed to dodge.
I finished my Mental Concentration and teleported behind Seo Dong-woo.
KWAAAAANG!
The moment he thrust the ice dagger forward, a blast of freezing cold erupted from it, encasing the spot where I'd been standing in ice.
I kicked the idiot in the back while he stood there stupidly, baffled by my sudden vanishing act.
"Gyakh!"
I picked up the dagger he'd dropped.
The ice blade was gone, leaving only the hilt.
[Item: Shelburn's Ice Shard Dagger]
A dagger imbued with the cold of the polar region of Shelburn. Consumes the dagger blade to emit a freezing blast. The consumed blade fully regenerates after 24 hours.
So that's what kind of item this is?
I slipped the hilt into my pocket.
Confiscated. Mine now.
"Look at all the nice toys you've got. If you have more, go ahead and pull them out."
Of course, it would actually be dangerous if he did, so I held back until Teleportation's cooldown reset.
But it seemed Seo Dong-woo had played his last card.
WHAM! WHAM! CRASH!
I worked him over like a punching bag, raining blows across his body, and finished with a strike to the chest.
I felt ribs shatter under the impact as Seo Dong-woo flew into the wall and crumpled.
"Ghrk… gkk…"
Seo Dong-woo twitched, barely clinging to life.
I walked up and stood over him.
Even with every tooth knocked out and his face a bloody mess, Seo Dong-woo was smiling.
"Shit… you're strong as fuck… how are you this strong… you only cleared two floors…"
"You can still smile?"
"Heh heh, what, should I be bawling my eyes out…?"
Seo Dong-woo wheezed and raised his head.
"Kill me, go ahead… I don't give a shit. I'm just bummed I couldn't have more fun before I go, heh heh…"
That mouth of his never quit.
I glared at him, then spoke.
"You're around floor seven or eight, aren't you? Why didn't you climb higher?"
"…What?"
"I mean, you're pathetic. This is all you've got, and you were spouting all that crap about Climbers ruling the world? If you were going to raise hell anyway, you should've leveled up more."
I sneered at him.
"You were actually scared, weren't you? You climbed that high and then got too scared you'd fail, so you couldn't even bring yourself to go further. Am I right? Acting all crazy, but underneath it you were a perfectly rational coward."
That must have hit a nerve. He lost it.
"Don't fuck with me, you piece of shit…!"
"Says the trash-tier coward."
Now that felt good.
The venting was over.
Now came the question of what to do with him.
I'd only thought as far as beating the hell out of him. Whether to kill him or spare him, I hadn't decided.
It wasn't like I had any moral objection to killing trash like this.
Hmm, and then there was the matter of cleaning up afterward.
'…I should at least report this, right?'
Having come this far, there was no avoiding it. Even if my identity got exposed.
That other person over there had seen everything, and it would've been a stretch for me to neatly wrap up this whole situation and vanish without a trace.
I turned to look at the woman.
At some point she'd gotten up and was stumbling toward us.
"…?"
She walked up to where Seo Dong-woo lay and raised her fist.
Then, with a fist flickering with blue light, she brought it down on Seo Dong-woo's head.
BOOM!
His skull burst apart. Just like that.
His head exploded, and he was dead.
I stared at the woman, completely stunned.
She was breathing hard, ragged, when she suddenly started crying.
What? Who is this person?
I stood there awkwardly, watching the woman's bizarre display.
"Haah…"
She lifted her head, wiped her tears, and turned to look at me.
"…If you'd given him time, he might have escaped into the Tower. I had to kill him before his Combat Status wore off."
Combat Status?
I'd heard of it. Something about how Climbers couldn't enter the Tower while in combat.
"So who are you?"
I finally asked.
Now that I looked, she was dressed in a business suit.
A bad feeling crept over me. Don't tell me…
The woman swept her disheveled hair back and introduced herself.
"Shin Su-jin, Section Chief, Tower Monitoring Division, Tower Climbing Special Agency."
"Ah."
"Thank you for assisting in the execution of official duties. Thanks to you, the escaped convict Seo Dong-woo has been neutralized."
It felt like I'd been caught red-handed.
No wonder she'd been fighting Seo Dong-woo.
Section Chief Shin Su-jin even pulled a business card from her inside pocket and handed it to me before asking cautiously,
"Are you, by any chance, Person123… the first Nightmare conqueror?"
"…"
"I overheard Seo Dong-woo call you that earlier."
Denying it would've been pointless, so I nodded.
If she was with the Tower Climbing Special Agency, that made her a government official.
I figured I might as well try asking.
"…Any chance you could keep my involvement quiet? Say you handled Seo Dong-woo on your own."
"Pardon?"
Section Chief Shin Su-jin studied me silently for a moment, then nodded.
"I'm not sure what your circumstances are, but… understood. I'll keep it to myself."
"…Really?"
"You saved my life. That much goes without saying."
Thank god. She turned out to be the reasonable type.
Just then, Section Chief Shin Su-jin clutched her stomach and let out a groan.
I grabbed her arm and steadied her as she swayed.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt badly?"
"…I'm fine."
Section Chief Shin Su-jin gently pushed my arm away, slid down to sit against the wall, and said,
"I'll take care of the scene. As far as the record goes, I engaged and neutralized Seo Dong-woo alone. You don't need to worry."
"…Then should I get going?"
"Yes. Thank you again."
I started to leave, but turned back to look at her.
"You're really sure you're okay? Shouldn't you call 119 at least?"
"Yes, I'll call them myself. The police might show up, so please, go."
Well, if she said so.
I left Section Chief Shin Su-jin behind and slipped out of the abandoned school.
But seriously, why did she cry like that earlier?
She was a strange person.
*
Left alone, Su-jin endured the waves of pain washing over her with measured breaths.
She turned to look at the corpse of Seo Dong-woo, his head burst open.
It felt far more cathartic than she had imagined it would.
All those years of telling herself to let it go, to forget, and in the end, it was never going to be over until Seo Dong-woo was dead.
'That man…'
Su-jin thought about the man who had just left.
Person123. The first Nightmare conqueror, and the highest-ranked Nightmare record holder.
She was surprised to learn that the man shrouded in mystery was Korean.
He looked younger than she'd expected, too. He'd been wearing a hood and a mask, so she couldn't see his face properly, but still.
Why he had suddenly appeared at this location was another mystery.
Judging from the conversation he'd had with Seo Dong-woo, it seemed he had tricked the convict into meeting here with the intention of eliminating him.
Above all, the way he had toyed with Seo Dong-woo, a level twenty-eight Climber, was nothing short of shocking.
Hadn't he only cleared two floors?
No matter how exceptional a Nightmare conqueror was, she never would have guessed the gap between Nightmare and Hard difficulty was that vast.
She owed him a great deal. Without him, she would have died at Seo Dong-woo's hands today. Thanks to him, she had been able to avenge what was done to her.
…She simply felt relieved. It finally felt like it was all over.
Su-jin took out her phone.
The screen was cracked to pieces, and missed calls had piled up. She dialed one of the numbers.
─ Team Leader! Why are you only picking up now?! Seo Dong-woo is…
"I got him."
─ What?
"I got Seo Dong-woo. Get over here. The location is…"
Su-jin finished the call and closed her eyes to rest.
Chapter 27: Before the 3rd Floor (1)TL: DDTL
Time passed after the Seo Dong-woo incident.
The news reported that Seo Dong-woo had ultimately been shot and killed by an agent from the Tower Climbing Special Agency's Tower Monitoring Division.
Nothing particular happened even as time went on, so it seemed my existence had fortunately gone undetected.
[Lotus: Thank you.]
A random thank-you message came through as a Whisper on the Communication Channel. It was from Section Chief Shin Su-jin.
We exchanged a few words asking after each other's health, and that was it. No further contact.
It wasn't like I was a criminal, but something about a Tower Climbing Special Agency official just made me uneasy.
…Well, actually, maybe not entirely innocent? Failing to register as a Climber and falsely reporting one's difficulty tier was technically illegal.
Not a criminal, though. Let's go with lawbreaker.
Anyway, she seemed like she'd keep the secret going forward, so there was probably nothing to worry about.
"Wouldn't it be better to stay hospitalized a bit longer, Dad?"
"Oh, enough. They said the bones have all healed, so what's the point? I'm going stir-crazy sitting around."
Thankfully, Dad recovered without any major complications and was discharged.
The more I thought about it, the luckier we'd been.
That psychopath had nearly taken my father from me for good.
– Isn't this Seo Dong-woo incident telling us something? Climbers are dangerous! They're nothing short of walking weapons!
– We need to refrain from that kind of generalization. Seo Dong-woo was a vicious murderer imprisoned for massacring his entire family. This incident was, at its core, what happens when an already deeply troubled individual gains power. It's not right to lump in and slander the vast majority of law-abiding Climbers.
– But you can't deny that Climbers are dangerous, can you? A single person's rampage turned the entire country upside down. They're no different from ticking time bombs that could go off at any…
– Isn't it the government's lax preparedness and response that led to this disaster? We need stronger restraints on Climbers!
– We especially need proper countermeasures for high-level Climbers. In just a few years, the average Climber level is going to skyrocket, and if a second Seo Dong-woo emerges, they'll be far more powerful than…
– And how exactly do you propose we prepare those countermeasures? Don't just talk. Give us a concrete plan.
– Who climbs the Tower if not Climbers? There's a misunderstanding here. Climbers are the future of this world! We should be thinking about preventing crime through friendlier policies. If you take a heavy-handed approach and Climbers start leaving for other countries, then what? Realistically…
Whenever I watched those kinds of news debates, that was all anyone talked about for a while.
I wasn't particularly interested, but the treatment of Climbers had always been a hot topic.
People's anxiety was perfectly understandable.
As for Climbers being walking weapons, well, the phrasing was harsh, but it wasn't exactly wrong.
If I hadn't been a Climber myself and my father had suffered something like this, I probably would have grown to resent Climbers quite a bit too.
But nutcases like that were the minority, in the end.
Since I was a Climber now, though, it did sting a little to watch public opinion sour so badly.
Then again, maybe I wouldn't mind if I were actually reaping some benefits.
I wished I could just coast through life doing Repeat Clearings on the 1st floor.
[Flyboy: Korean Joker dead?]
[GoldSilver: Dead. Heard some Korean Climbing Bureau agent went mano a mano and took him out]
[1rururu1: That guy hogging the Communication Channel and spouting all that nonsense was pretty entertaining though]
[Horororo: But he really was insane. Didn't he bust out after mowing through armed guards?]
[LastLeaf: I heard he was over level 20? High-level Climbers are seriously no joke]
In any case, the Seo Dong-woo incident had made waves not just domestically but worldwide, though public interest gradually faded with time.
As the clock of doom ticked on, people's concerns inevitably converged back to a single question.
Will the world survive another year?
I was curious too.
Whether I could clear the 3rd floor or not.
[Nightmare]
Personnel: 258,326
Time Limit: 185 days, 1 hour, 34 minutes, 59 seconds
Reached Floor: 3
About half a year had passed since I cleared the 2nd floor.
My daily life hadn't changed much in that time, aside from dropping out of college.
Technically I'd filed it as a leave of absence, but since it couldn't be extended indefinitely, it was as good as dropping out.
"Wow, even Seo-hyeon ended up becoming a Climber? Wild."
"Think there's something about our school that attracts it?"
"Come hang out sometime. Buy us a meal when you do."
I'd told my friends I became an Easy-tier Climber and was leaving school.
They were all good people, so it was a shame I wouldn't see them as often.
Oh, and my younger sister had also graduated high school and started college.
Said she bombed the CSAT, but ended up at a pretty decent school anyway. I bought her a laptop as a gift.
"Let's go, Diul."
I now had my parents' full blessing for my Climber activities.
With nothing but free time on my hands, I entered the Tower whenever I got the chance.
Part of the reason was to keep my body sharp, but the main goal was obviously bonding with Diul.
Still, I hadn't managed to unlock any new abilities yet.
The connection definitely felt like it was getting clearer, but…
When this little guy was actually going to show me a new ability, I had absolutely no idea.
"Diul, haven't we gotten way closer by now? I'm starting to feel hurt here."
No matter how I tried talking to him, all that came back was the same snooty, dismissive vibe, like a snort of contempt.
I wasn't asking for much. I just hoped something, anything, would change before I challenged the 3rd floor.
[Nightmare (8)]
The Nightmare headcount had changed too.
It had grown from five to eight, with three new additions.
Beyond the U.S., China, Russia, and India, apparently Australia had produced one as well.
Whether anyone had actually managed to clear the 2nd floor, though, was impossible to know.
A global announcement would pop up if someone set a new highest-floor record, but nothing was announced for anything else.
[Person123: Has anyone successfully cleared the 2nd floor?]
I was curious, so I'd asked Rhino about it once.
[Rhino: I'm embarrassed to say, not yet.]
That was the answer I got, but…
Still, it seemed like they were just preparing, not that anyone had died attempting it.
But no matter how I thought about it, the 2nd floor should have been easier than the 1st, given the right information…
Or was it? I honestly couldn't be sure.
I'd challenged it at level 15 thanks to the hidden reward, but for everyone else starting at level 10.
The Minotaur might have been a brutally tough boss at level 10.
At this point, I'd honestly stopped expecting much from the other Nightmare Climbers.
I'd already decided on my own that I'd take the vanguard role.
If someone actually caught up and managed to clear a new floor before me, good for them.
Nice if it happened, no loss if it didn't.
That was about the extent of how I felt.
[Chicken Sandwich: Mr. Kim, I'd like to deliver some Skill Stones to you.]
I also received word from Bilon, after quite a long gap, that he had Skill Stones ready for me.
He'd apparently been collecting them to deliver all at once, because this time there were three.
[Chicken Sandwich: …A Rare-grade Magic Type skill called 'Blade Storm,' and a Normal+ grade Magic Type skill called 'Fairy Light Bullet.' And one Normal+ grade Skill Enhancement Stone.]
Two Skill Stones and one Skill Enhancement Stone.
The important thing was that both Skill Stones were Magic Type. One of them was even Rare-grade.
It couldn't have been easy to acquire them, but Bilon gave nothing away as usual, offering only the skill descriptions.
[Chicken Sandwich: Going forward, I'll have Skill Stones delivered through the Magic Stone Courier as well. I'd love to meet you in person, Mr. Kim, but it seems best that we avoid direct contact as much as possible.]
According to Bilon, he'd tried to procure the Skill Stones discreetly, but couldn't entirely escape the Climbing Bureau's notice.
There was a chance they were under some surveillance, so from now on the Magic Stone Courier would handle Skill Stone deliveries too. I said I understood.
The man was busy enough as it was; there'd really been no need for Bilon to come and go in person to begin with.
[Person123: Then I'll pass the Supreme Magic Stones through that person as well. That works, right?]
On the scheduled day, I received the Skill Stones along with my usual Magic Stone pickup.
I handed the courier a hefty bundle of Supreme Magic Stones in return.
The foreign man, as always, gave a wordless bow and left without fuss.
I'd heard in passing from Bilon that he was using the Magic Stones to conduct various research projects…
Well, however he used them, I hoped he'd put them to good use.
I headed home and cracked open the Skill Stones.
[Skill: Blade Storm (Rare)]
Creates a razor-sharp gale within a 3-meter radius, dealing damage to and knocking back all targets in range. Requires 50 seconds of Mental Concentration to cast.
Classification: Magic Type
Willpower Cost: 150
Cooldown: 1 minute
[Skill: Fairy Light Bullet (Normal+)]
Fires small light projectiles imbued with the power of light. Up to three can be generated, with Willpower cost stacking by 5 for each additional projectile. Requires 10 seconds of Mental Concentration to cast.
Classification: Magic Type
Willpower Cost: 20, 45, 75
Cooldown: 5 seconds
Blade Storm. This one felt like an AoE skill, no question.
And Fairy Light Bullet,
The description on this one was a bit curious… but the cooldown was incredibly short?
I absorbed all the Skill Stones.
[Would you like to enter Nightmare difficulty, Floor 2?]
I entered the Tower right away to test them out firsthand.
If the Goblin Knight had been my skill test dummy on the 1st floor, on the 2nd floor it was the Minotaur.
Across the lava stepping stones, up the tower climb, all the way to where the Minotaur waited.
MOOOOOO-!
"Yeah, good to see you too."
The Minotaur seemed just as happy to see me, charging full force in my direction.
I stopped time.
First, I tried Fairy Light Bullet.
Vwiiing-
The moment I activated the skill, tiny lights like fireflies rose up around me.
I launched all three at the Minotaur.
The lights burst one after another, pop pop pop, striking the Minotaur on impact.
Hmm, so that's the kind of power we're looking at?
Visually, the explosive force wasn't all that great.
If Flame Strike was an artillery shell, this was more like a rifle round.
The Minotaur flinched for a moment, then bled and charged at me again.
I dodged easily and fired Fairy Light Bullet once more.
Pop pop pop!
The power didn't come close to Flame Strike.
But after actually using it, I noticed a distinct difference from Flame Strike.
Once fired, Flame Strike could only travel in a straight line.
With Fairy Light Bullet, I could control the trajectory to a degree.
If I wanted, I could send them on curved paths or even zigzagging routes.
"Not bad at all?"
A razor-short 5-second cooldown.
Up to three projectiles, with relatively free guided-attack capability.
Above all, that overwhelmingly short cooldown was what I liked most.
The Willpower cost did stack up with each additional projectile, but…
Cast time and Willpower cost meant nothing to me, so that wasn't even worth worrying about.
GRAAAAGH-!
And to be fair, it was only weak compared to Flame Strike. Fairy Light Bullet's power wasn't actually low.
The Minotaur, having already taken several hits from the light projectiles, was bleeding heavily.
Enraged, the Minotaur bellowed and charged once more.
Time for the main course.
I waited until the Minotaur closed in, then stopped time.
After completing Mental Concentration, I cast Blade Storm.
KABOOOOM!
A violent roar erupted as a whirlwind tore through the space around me.
The Minotaur, caught in the blast radius, was flung away as if launched from a catapult.
"Oh."
Even while mid-charge, it got knocked back that hard?
I walked up to the fallen Minotaur.
The destructive power was considerable, too.
That single Blade Storm had shredded the Minotaur's entire body to ribbons, reducing it to a mangled heap.
The accumulated damage from Fairy Light Bullet probably contributed, but the Minotaur was already dead on the spot.
An AoE skill striking everything within a 3-meter radius.
One-minute cooldown, with that kind of power.
Three meters wasn't exactly a generous range.
But the fact that it hit every enemy in a full 360 degrees around me was a clear and distinct advantage.
I grinned.
"Thanks, Bilon."
Considering the 3rd floor's theme, it seemed like I'd picked up some pretty excellent skills.
****
DDTL
─ The Nightmare difficulty Time Limit has fallen to under three months. Floor 3 remains uncleared…
Time passes so damn fast.
The season had come when the weight started pressing down on me again.
This was the third time now, but the pressure was never something I could get used to.
If I fail, the world ends. I die.
I was just an ordinary person at the end of the day, and honestly, the thing that frightened me more was my own death.
The sensation of dying on the first floor was still vivid, even years later.
In the end, all I could do was prepare as hard as I could.
I went in and out of the Tower, raising my proficiency with my newly acquired skills.
Blade Storm didn't really need much practice, but Fairy Light Bullet was a different story.
Freely controlling and firing multiple light orbs definitely required training.
[Skill: Fairy Light Bullet (Normal+)(+1)]
Fires small light bullets imbued with the power of light. Up to five orbs can be generated, with Willpower cost stacking by 5 for each additional orb. Requires 10 seconds of Mental Concentration to cast.
Classification: Magic Type
Willpower Cost: 20, 45, 75, 110, 150
Cooldown: 5 seconds
I used the Normal+ Skill Enhancement Stone Bilon gave me on Fairy Light Bullet.
I did have Minor Poison Resistance as another Normal+ skill, but obviously a Magic Type skill took priority.
After enhancing it, the maximum number of orbs increased to five.
And the Willpower cost went up accordingly.
Flame Strike's cost hadn't increased when I enhanced it, though.
The enhancement efficiency felt a bit lousy, but Willpower was never an issue for me anyway.
Bang bang bang!
I spent a good while sparring with the Minotaur and raised my Fairy Light Bullet proficiency considerably.
I could now control all five orbs fairly freely.
Moooooo…!
The Minotaur staggered after taking a barrage of light orbs.
I finished it off with Flame Strike.
BOOM!
For the record, Flame Strike had also grown more powerful compared to when I first obtained it.
Separate from skill enhancement, Magic Type skills seemed to scale with my Level to some degree, growing stronger as I leveled up. Not dramatically, though.
Physical Type skills mostly scaled proportionally with the Climber's physical abilities too, so it was fair when I thought about it.
[You have successfully cleared Nightmare difficulty Floor 2.]
I finished the Repeat Clearing and came back outside.
I opened the Communication Channel.
[Hondo: Is the world actually ending this time? Are we done for?]
[SunAndMoon: Person123! When are you going to clear Floor 3 already!]
[Dalikanwas: Calm down with the panic. Last year they cleared Floor 2 with like 20 days left on the Time Limit]
[FryingPan: I believe in Person123. They'll clear it again this time]
[PadThai: But what if they already failed and died…?]
[FatesBelief: Then we'd be screwed, that's what]
[Hera: That drop in Nightmare headcount last month, wasn't that India?]
[GreatWhite: Well, something would have to actually get posted in the Nightmare Channel for us to know. That place is a 365-day vow-of-silence room]
[SnailHorn: Yeah the world can end lol I'm gonna be in the surviving 1% lmao]
[Specter: This one's lost his mind]
The current Nightmare difficulty Time Limit had fallen to under three months.
Right around this point, an uneasy atmosphere always started spreading through the Communication Channel.
[Nightmare (11)]
For the record, the current number of Nightmare Climbers had grown to eleven.
It had actually reached twelve at one point, but someone died clearing Floor 2 last month, bringing it back down by one.
And two Climbers had cleared Floor 2 as well.
How did I know? Because the U.S. and China had announced their successes directly.
That meant three people now, including me.
Three people qualified to attempt Nightmare Floor 3.
The human heart is a fickle thing. Despite all my resolve, the moment I saw a glimmer of hope, a part of me couldn't help wondering, "What if…?"
No. Stop that. I wasn't going to rely on anyone else anymore.
I'd already decided I would be the one to go first.
My plan was to enter with exactly 20 days left on the Time Limit.
And now I was thinking it was time to make that clear to everyone.
What I mean is, I was considering making an announcement through the Communication Channel: "From now on, I'll attempt the next floor whenever the Time Limit reaches exactly 20 days."
There were two reasons I'd started thinking this way.
The first was for the other Nightmare Climbers.
I was going to challenge it anyway, so there was a risk of someone else jumping in before me and dying for nothing.
The idea was to kindly let them know they could wait until after I failed before making their own attempt.
The second was for the world.
I could see just from watching the news how things fell apart as the Nightmare Time Limit drew closer.
Crime rates were skyrocketing, the stock market was on a rollercoaster…
It was a wonder the world was still functioning at all.
But if I set a definite time for my attempt and announced it, wouldn't that reduce the chaos at least a little, at least until then?
After all, it was the uncertainty of the world possibly ending that made people anxious.
By establishing my challenge time as a fixed reference point, people could live with some measure of peace until 20 days remained on the Time Limit.
Of course, if I failed, the 20 days after that could become even worse.
But I was in a position where I could only afford to think about success. Planning for what came after my failure was a luxury I didn't have.
I asked Bilon for his opinion, and he replied that it seemed like a solid idea.
[Person123: From now on, I will attempt the next floor each time the Nightmare difficulty Time Limit reaches exactly 20 days. The same applies to Floor 3 this time.]
[Person123: If for unavoidable reasons I am unable to make the attempt at the 20-day mark, I will provide advance notice through the Communication Channel.]
That should do it.
I finished writing the brief post and closed the Communication Channel.
*
The U.S. Climbing Bureau had constructed a training facility that replicated the conditions of Floor 2 almost exactly, based on Person123's information posts, all for the sake of clearing Nightmare Floor 2.
Taylor trained and trained again there, ran through hundreds, thousands of simulations, received extensive support from the Climbing Bureau, and finally succeeded in clearing Nightmare Floor 2.
But that success also became the occasion for her to feel her limits once more.
Even knowing every piece of information about Floor 2 and preparing that thoroughly, she had only barely scraped through.
The final boss, the Minotaur. It had been nothing short of hopeless.
She'd used every skill she had until her Willpower bottomed out, yet the thing showed no signs of going down, its endurance utterly overwhelming.
If it had had the strength for even one more charge, she probably would have died and the attempt would have failed.
Taylor had admitted it to herself long ago. She could not stand at the vanguard of Nightmare difficulty.
"It sounds like the Bureau's policy is going to shift now, too. They won't be aiming for first clears anymore."
Drinking coffee with Max, Taylor nodded.
Even though she had successfully cleared Floor 2, the original objective of the Nightmare project had already grown dim.
The United States had originally set out to cultivate a Climber who would lead the very front of Nightmare, not chase after someone else's trail. Perhaps it had been an impossible goal from the start.
More than that, what concerned them now was China.
Shortly after Taylor cleared Nightmare Floor 2, China had announced its own Floor 2 clear, as if refusing to be outdone.
The competition between the two nations' Climbers was intensifying with each passing year.
China had already achieved the highest record in Hard difficulty. The U.S. government seemed unwilling to accept falling behind China in Nightmare as well.
Well, even that was ultimately a race for second place.
"Are you still in contact with Person123?"
At Taylor's question, Max nodded.
"We exchange messages from time to time. Last time, they actually reached out first to ask whether we'd produced a Floor 2 clearer."
"…Is that so?"
Was Person123 also hoping the other Nightmare Climbers would hurry up and climb to the higher floors?
Of course they would be. That was why they kept posting information guides on the Communication Channel without asking for anything in return.
Taylor herself had lost much of her confidence, so she felt ashamed, as if she were betraying those expectations.
She happened to check the Communication Channel and saw a new post in the Nightmare section.
Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Person123 posted something."
"What?"
[Person123: From now on, I will attempt the next floor each time the Nightmare difficulty Time Limit reaches exactly 20 days. The same applies to Floor 3 this time.]
With several months still remaining on the Nightmare Time Limit, Person123 had posted a new message.
The world erupted once again at the news.
[Kram: Phew, so they are going to make another attempt at least]
[OneInch: Hang in there Person123! You're humanity's hope!]
[MercuryMan: But they've been challenging without a word until now, and this time they're giving advance notice? What changed?]
[Humanist: Isn't it like saying "first clear is mine, so don't even try"?]
[Panda: It's the opposite, idiot. They're worried other Nightmare Climbers might jump in first and die for nothing. If that were the kind of person they are, why would they have been writing info guides this whole time?]
[PotatoPancake: "You're all useless so I'll just do it myself," official declaration damn]
Person123 officially announced their Nightmare challenge! That was how people took it.
─ This can also be interpreted as an effort to reduce societal unrest. If they set a definitive time for their attempt, it establishes a clear benchmark for the public. Until 20 days remain on the Time Limit, there is still hope, so to speak.
─ From now on, the fate of the world may be decided at each 20-day mark. If Person123 fails, then among the remaining Nightmare Climbers, is there truly anyone who could take their place…
Time continued to flow.
The eyes of the entire world focused solely on that one challenge.
*
The day of reckoning was drawing close.
Since last picking up Blade Storm and Fairy Light Bullet, I'd received one more Skill Stone and one more Skill Enhancement Stone from Bilon.
[Skill: Thrust (Normal)]
Momentarily amplifies the power of a thrusting attack.
Classification: Physical Type
Willpower Cost: 10
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Thrust, a Normal-grade skill. It felt like a matching set with Swing.
And the Skill Enhancement Stone was Normal-grade as well.
Not exactly a meaningful boost to my combat power, but more was always better.
I used the Normal Enhancement Stone to enhance Leap.
And then there was the Rare Skill Enhancement Stone I'd earned as a reward for clearing Floor 2 and still hadn't used.
This one had me torn.
Flame Strike or Blade Storm.
Enhancing Flame Strike would add another fireball, bringing it to three.
Enhancing Blade Storm would probably increase its range.
Information on enhancing Rare-grade skills, especially Magic Type skills, was practically nonexistent, so there was no way to know the exact outcome until I actually did it.
After mulling it over, I decided to enhance Flame Strike.
My reasoning was that Flame Strike, with its shorter cooldown, offered better efficiency.
[Skill: Flame Strike (Rare)(+2)]
Fires three concentrated flames that explode on impact. Requires 20 seconds of Mental Concentration to cast.
Classification: Magic Type
Willpower Cost: 100
Cooldown: 30 seconds
[Difficulty: Nightmare]
[Floor: 3]
[Level: 30]
[Willpower: 600]
[Skills: Teleportation (Rare+), Sixth Sense (Rare+), Flame Strike (Rare)(+2), Blade Storm (Rare), Exaltation (Rare), Fairy Light Bullet (Normal+)(+1), Minor Poison Resistance (Normal+), Leap (Normal)(+1), Swing (Normal), Thrust (Normal)]
With one day left until the 20-day mark on the Nightmare Time Limit, my stat upgrades were complete.
This was the third time I'd written a will.
Honestly, there wasn't much to change, so it was practically a copy-paste of the one I'd written before entering Floor 2.
"I'm heading out, then."
"Alright. Be careful, and come back safe."
I'd left on a solo trip the day before.
I felt like I wanted one last refresh before challenging Floor 3.
I went down to Busan, looked out at the ocean, ate a lot of good food.
Two days of having a blast, and then, the hotel room that evening.
I rummaged through my bag and pulled out the items I'd brought, equipping them one by one.
The bracelet housing Diul. In the end, I hadn't managed to unlock a new ability.
Maybe my approach to raising the affinity had been wrong from the start.
"Diul, if I die, no more nighttime walks. You know that, right?"
Diul seemed to scoff. Come on.
A shame, but nothing I could do about it.
Next, the ice dagger I'd taken from Seo Dong-woo.
With a 24-hour cooldown, its freezing range and power were fairly decent.
It would come in handy at least once in a pinch.
[Item: Plligas's Blood Necklace]
A necklace infused with the blood of Plligas, a predator of the demon realm. Summoning Plligas into the mortal world and defeating it will form a Master-Servant Contract. The necklace is destroyed upon failure. (Level 50+ recommended)
Lastly, the necklace.
I still hadn't been able to attempt the contract, but I packed it anyway.
Well, who knows, maybe I'd find some way to make use of it.
Finally, I set a scheduled text message for my parents telling them to find and read the will I'd hidden in my room.
If I failed to clear Floor 3, it would be sent.
[Nightmare]
Personnel: 250,161
Time Limit: 20 days, 1 hour, 1 minute, 25 seconds
Floor Reached: 3
With all preparations complete, I stood in the center of the spacious room.
[Would you like to enter Nightmare difficulty Floor 3?]
Alright… let's go.
I'll survive this one too, damn it.
"Enter."
The scenery around me shifted.
Nightmare Floor 3 (1)TL: DDTL
There was a game called Vampire Surrounded.
A simple game where the entire point was to run from enemies swarming in from every direction and take them down.
Its simple fun and controls made it such a massive hit that copycat games flooded the market, spawning an entire genre people called "Vampire Survivors-likes".
I'd played it too, of course.
The thing was insanely addictive. When I first tried it, I spent days completely glued to the screen.
The theme of the third floor felt remarkably similar to that game.
The Clear Condition for Floor 3 was survival.
In a wide-open plains field with no walls, staying alive against attacking undead until sunrise was all it took.
Naturally, the undead varied in strength depending on the difficulty.
On Hard, the undead were supposedly "fairly" strong and came in "fairly" dense waves.
To be more specific, their combat capability was around level 3 to 4.
They had no special abilities beyond attacking with their rotting bodies.
That was Hard, though. As for Nightmare, I was about to find out.
If it was Nightmare, survival alone might not be the Clear Condition.
The theme might be shared across difficulties, but Nightmare was the one that always pulled some fantastically deranged, batshit-crazy variation that existed on a completely different plane from the other tiers.
[You have entered Nightmare difficulty, Floor 3.]
As always, I stopped time the instant I entered and surveyed my surroundings.
An endless plain stretching in every direction, scattered trees and rocks here and there.
On the ground right in front of me, an assortment of weapons stood planted in the earth.
And out across the field, countless undead.
As expected, they were crawling everywhere.
But then again, it wasn't quite that overwhelming.
It wasn't the kind of sight that made me go, "Oh for fuck's sake, here we go again," the moment I laid eyes on it.
Something already felt off.
No way Nightmare was only this bad.
'Are these undead just crazy strong or something?'
Or there was definitely something else going on.
Well, whatever. Let's just do this. I'd find out soon enough.
The sky was dark, but a faint light was rising from below the horizon, like the edge of dawn.
I'd heard that on Easy, Normal, and Hard, sunrise came in about ten minutes.
Maybe on this difficulty, the sun would rise much later than the others.
I finished steeling myself and released Time Stop.
The moment time resumed, undead swarmed in from all sides.
I used Flame Strike immediately.
Three fireballs, each launched in a different direction to form a triangle, then detonated.
BOOM!
Dozens of undead blew apart, chunks of rotten flesh scattering through the air.
I chose a mace from the weapons and picked it up.
Then I moved quickly toward the area where the undead were less densely packed.
The undead's weak point was the head.
Less of a weak point and more that crushing the head was the only way to actually kill them. Otherwise they just kept moving.
I swung the mace at the undead clinging to me.
Thwack! Crack!
Their heads burst apart easily.
They weren't particularly sturdy.
After beating down a few, I got a rough estimate.
'Their combat power isn't all that high.'
From what I could gauge, the undead's physical capabilities were roughly around level 10.
And their durability was even lower, probably because their bodies were so decayed.
They weren't nearly enough to stop me. None of them posed a threat individually.
Graaaagh…
The problem was the sheer number swarming in.
If I stopped moving for even a moment, I'd be surrounded on all sides in no time.
I swung the mace, crushing undead skulls, while also firing off Fairy Light Bullets.
Ba-ba-ba-bang!
Five light projectiles traced arcs through the air and blew the heads off undead in their path.
I kept pushing toward areas where the undead were thinner, carving a path forward.
Smash them with the mace, fire off light bullets, blast Flame Strike into clusters of undead.
God, the stench, though.
Corpses in every direction meant the stink was absolutely unbearable.
The fact that I even had the mental bandwidth to think about that meant I still had room to breathe.
I ran out of Willpower and stopped time to recharge.
Having more magic skills definitely drained Willpower fast.
Still, I was clearing out undead that much more efficiently because of it.
My spells were blowing them apart far faster than they could swarm in.
On my end, if I wanted to, I could keep refilling Willpower and spam magic all day long.
And these undead were way dumber than I'd expected.
They'd come groaning after me, but the moment I ducked behind a rock and broke their line of sight, they just stopped dead in their tracks.
Seemed like they were operating on pure visual stimulus and nothing else.
Unfortunately, with undead closing in from every direction, hiding wasn't a viable strategy.
I topped off my Willpower to full and set off again.
Crash! Ka-boom!
I pushed forward without pause, blowing undead apart with magic and mace.
Before long, an efficient combat strategy took shape on its own.
Flame Strike into the densest clusters.
Move into the thinned-out area, using light bullets for a second wave of culling.
The last few stragglers that got close got their heads caved in with the mace.
Then refill Willpower when it ran dry.
I didn't even need Blade Storm.
Things were working fine as they were, so there was no reason to wait for the undead to pile up around me just to use it.
While I was plowing through undead and moving forward, I stepped over a patch of bare ground where not a single blade of grass grew, unlike the terrain around it.
"…?"
The sensation underfoot felt subtly wrong, and I tilted my head as I passed over it.
Anyway, was this really all there was?
Even with the large number of undead, it didn't feel particularly grueling.
'This is… pretty manageable?'
The instant that thought reflexively crossed my mind, I flinched.
No, you idiot. Never let your guard down.
On Nightmare, feeling "oh shit, I'm screwed" was supposed to be normal.
Feeling "this is pretty manageable" was simply not possible. If it felt that way, it was a vicious trap.
There had to be something more. Definitely.
With that thought, I kept quietly clearing out undead.
But no matter how carefully I scanned my surroundings, there were still no signs of anything unusual.
Was it really just about surviving until sunrise? That couldn't be right.
Paranoia crept in and my thoughts spiraled.
I crushed the head of an undead that had latched onto me and was about to move on.
That was when Sixth Sense rang every alarm bell it had.
"…!"
Don't hit it.
But the recognition came a beat too late. The mace had already caved in the undead's skull.
The headless body suddenly swelled, turning a violent, glowing red.
I stopped time immediately.
Mental Concentration. Teleportation, as far away as possible.
BOOOOOM!
A massive explosion tore through the air.
Even bigger than a Flame Strike.
Having barely dodged with Teleportation, I pressed a hand to my chest, exhaling hard.
"What the hell."
An undead that blows up when you touch it? What was this, a Creeper?
I knew it. I knew there had to be something else.
Now aware of the Explosion Undead, I sharpened my focus and honed my senses to a razor edge.
I'd only triggered it because my mind had been wandering, but if I concentrated, Sixth Sense would be able to filter them out.
I was about to crush another undead's head when Sixth Sense flagged it. I stopped.
'Ah, these ones have redder eyes.'
On closer look, I realized the Explosion Undead had a far more intense red glow in their eyes compared to the regular ones.
I put distance between myself and the Explosion Undead, then picked it off with a light bullet.
It had been chasing me but detonated spectacularly mid-stride, taking out the regular undead around it for the ride.
The Explosion Undead started appearing mixed in among the regular ones like landmines, but it wasn't a big deal.
The scary part was getting blindsided. Once I knew about them, what was the problem?
I systematically picked them off from a distance with light bullets, never letting a single one get close.
That was fine and all, but something else was bothering me…
'…They're increasing?'
The Explosion Undead weren't the only change.
The number of undead swarming in was growing at a rate I could tangibly feel.
I used magic more aggressively and refilled Willpower more frequently.
That was when I started using Blade Storm too.
KRAASH!
I jumped with Leap, then dropped into a packed cluster of undead with a Blade Storm.
Undead were shredded and flung away en masse, knocking back even the ones behind them.
The knockback power on this thing was no joke. If only the cooldown were shorter.
'Now this is starting to feel like Nightmare difficulty.'
Things were beginning to get intense.
Which was almost a relief, since until just now it had been so easy it was making me nervous.
I kept cutting through the ever-growing tide of undead, carving out an escape route.
Ruff! Ruff!
And what the hell were those.
Now beast-type undead were showing up too.
I crushed the skull of a Wolf Undead lunging at my face with Swing.
Then I picked off the nutria-looking undead trailing behind it with individual light bullets.
These things were far faster and more powerful than the standard humanoid undead.
The difficulty had just jumped another 1.2 times or so.
…Yeah, fuck. This was the kind of thing that made it Nightmare.
I'd anticipated this much.
But it wasn't going to get any harder than this, right?
Things were starting to push my limits.
Swing, kill, blast, push through.
Locked in a lonely war against the dead, I checked the sky.
'When is the sun coming up…'
…Huh?
Only then did I register something was wrong.
It had been nearly as dark as pre-dawn from the start.
But now that I looked, the sky wasn't getting brighter. It was getting darker.
Even the faint glow along the horizon had faded further than when I'd first arrived.
Ah… what the fuck? Hold on.
Was the sun not rising? Was it setting this whole time?
'Then what the hell does that mean.'
On the other difficulties, holding out until dawn was all it took. If it was the opposite, then this was…
Graaaagh…
There was no time for shock. The undead kept coming and I had to keep fighting.
Grimacing, I moved without rest, body and magic working nonstop.
In real time, barely five minutes had passed since I'd entered, but I'd already refilled Willpower over ten times. Subjectively, the battle felt like it had been going on forever.
Before long, the sky was swallowed by total darkness.
At the same moment, Sixth Sense screamed its warnings like it was losing its mind.
The source of danger was everywhere.
Nightmare. Right, Nightmare.
This much was… to be expected…
"…"
Nightmare, you absolute lunatic.
Black dots lined the horizon in every direction.
As they drew closer, they transformed into what looked like a black tidal wave.
Every single one of them was undead.
Without exaggeration, tens of thousands of undead were converging from every direction.
I stopped time.
No, no, wait, hold on…
This didn't make any sense.
They needed to give me something physically possible to survive. How was anyone supposed to live through this?
'Fuck, seriously.'
Right.
This was exactly what Nightmare was.
Now, finally, I felt well and truly screwed.
Even as the crushing weight of despair bore down on me, I racked my brain for a way to survive.
Was I… missing something?
There was no way the Clear Condition was just to survive against that locust swarm of undead bearing down on me. No matter how I looked at it.
The sun had even turned against me, doing the opposite of the other difficulties.
It was disorienting, but in a way, that reversal was proof that simply holding out wasn't how this floor was meant to be cleared.
The memory of the iron ball rolling toward me on Floor 1 flashed through my mind.
Back then, I'd been just as sure I was dead. But there had been a way out.
'…!'
What flashed through my mind in that instant was that patch of ground, conspicuously barren and out of place compared to the surrounding terrain.
The spot where the ground had felt strange underfoot when I'd stepped on it earlier.
It had resonated as if it were hollow underneath.
'Where was it?'
I released time and quickly scanned the area.
I was pretty sure it was over that way… Found it!
I sprinted toward the anomalous patch of ground.
Magic flew in every direction as I blasted apart the undead blocking my path.
The massive undead wave was closing in fast, and urgency clawed at me.
I reached the strange patch of ground.
The moment I saw it, I fired off a Flame Strike.
BOOM!
The surface shattered apart.
When the dust and flames cleared, a large opening opened in the earth. Just as I'd thought, it was a passage!
Without a moment's hesitation, I threw myself into the passage, leaving the swarming undead behind.
****