Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 131

Chapter 131: Nightmare, 10th Floor (4)

TL: DDTL

Inside the Ark.

A stretch of land ten kilometers in radius, spacious or cramped depending on how you looked at it, the place the people outside sometimes called paradise.

Only the tiny handful chosen by Person123 got to live here.

They were, plainly, the center of this now-collapsed world.

“What? Getting his ass kicked?”

Park Dong-hyeon, who had just come back to the Ark after living it up at a party with a gaggle of women, frowned the moment he returned and heard his subordinate’s report.

The news had come in as an emergency from Lee Dae-seong’s group, the crew that managed the Gangseo District under his jurisdiction.

Some climber had shown up out of nowhere and was tearing the place apart.

“Where the hell did this bastard crawl out of? How strong is he?”

“They say he grabbed a sword wrapped in an Aura Blade skill with his bare hand and crushed it.”

“…Shit, so he’s got some game. I’m asking where a guy like that came from.”

“Well, their side got jumped all of a sudden, so…”

Park Dong-hyeon scratched at his head in irritation, then said,

“Shin Su-jin?”

“They said it was a man.”

“Figures. And that bitch isn’t at a level where she could pull off that kind of performance anyway.”

“From what he was saying, something about beating down things that aren’t even human, it sounded like he was pissed off about how the Non-Climbers get treated.”

“Yeah?”

So had some high-level climber who’d been keeping his head down finally crawled out into the open?

The climbers who’d resisted Seoul’s current order had been purged long ago, but that didn’t mean none were left. Still, why now?

“Get on the horn and tell all the other groups to gather up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fuck, why does it have to be my turf…”

Park Dong-hyeon hurriedly threw on his clothes and got ready to move.

Nothing like this had happened before, but a problem was a problem, and it needed handling.

Outside the Ark, people liked to spin ridiculous fantasies about how they enjoyed Person123’s favor, how they were the chosen Ark Residents, and so on.

But Park Dong-hyeon knew perfectly well that he’d been chosen by nothing more than luck.

There was a hierarchy among the Ark’s climbers, sure, but in the end every one of them was in the same boat.

The great and mighty Person123 left the climbers to manage the Non-Climbers however they saw fit, almost as if he’d washed his hands of the whole thing.

Yet everyone could at least guess this much, that he did not wish the Non-Climbers well.

And so the current order had taken shape.

Person123 had never once handed down anything like a direct command, but the Ark’s climbers carried an unspoken sense of duty that this order had to be kept running smoothly.

Otherwise, just as Person123 had chosen them on a whim, they might just as easily be cast aside on a whim.

And of course, there wasn’t a single climber who’d hate living like a king this way.

So they had to manage things well on their own, well enough never to rub him the wrong way. Well.

So they could go on living as Ark Residents, for as long as it lasted.

*

How strong was Person123?

It wasn’t as though I couldn’t take a guess at all.

This world’s Person123 had cleared the Tower up to Floor 8.

And apparently he hadn’t climbed any higher since.

I’d cleared up to Floor 9, so my level was probably a bit ahead.

Whether we had the same skills and items, I couldn’t be sure.

This world’s Person123 was a version of me who’d made different choices, so there might well be other differences too.

‘What about the Demon King?’

Whether this side’s Person123 was living in symbiosis with the Demon King, that was unclear too…

The Demon King was the sort of existence that worked like a bug in the system.

And above all.

The me on this side had the Time Stop Ability too, right?

If not, he’d never have made it to Floor 8 as Person123 in the first place.

Even so, I had a certain margin of comfort.

The fact that this world’s Person123 hadn’t been able to use the Scales on Floor 8 meant he didn’t have the Radiant Incarnation skill.

Honestly, I didn’t think there was any way he could be stronger than me.

Of course, that didn’t mean I let my guard down even slightly.

The atmosphere here was completely different from the other floors, but I was in the middle of clearing Floor 10…

and Nightmare would never, ever grant me an easy run.

Psychological reluctance about having to kill myself?

In Nightmare, that didn’t even rate as an obstacle.

There had to be something more… hiding somewhere…

I’d been lost in thought when I lifted my head.

‘Here they come.’

I could feel presences approaching.

Before long, a few climbers came into the club.

The strongest one among them met my eyes and spoke.

“I’m Park Dong-hyeon. Heard you were looking for me?”

I stopped paying any attention to the man sitting beside me, the one who kept nervously reading the room, and stood up.

Park Dong-hyeon and the climbers with him stared at me warily.

I could sense that a fair number of climbers had gathered outside, too, not just this bunch.

But they were all small fry anyway.

“A high-level fellow like you, throwing a fit in this peaceful Seoul. Sure you didn’t come to the wrong address?”

I asked.

“You’re the Ark’s climber?”

“So what?”

“Go bring Person123 here.”

Park Dong-hyeon’s face hardened.

“…Yeah, a real lunatic’s crawled out. You that desperate to die, or what?”

Rather than bother going back and forth with him.

I went straight to a far better means of conversation.

In an instant I closed the distance and grabbed Park Dong-hyeon by the throat.

“…!”

The other climbers, startled, came at me.

Bang! Crash!

With my one free hand I swatted every last one of the charging climbers away.

Park Dong-hyeon, caught in my grip, tried to wrench my arm off, but not a chance.

For all his supposedly high level, this guy was somewhere around level 50 too.

Park Dong-hyeon’s will to resist soon buckled, and he stared at me with deeply bewildered eyes.

“Go pass my message to Person123. Tell him I want to see him.”

When I let go of his throat, Park Dong-hyeon gasped for breath, then asked,

“Why… why are you looking for him?”

“None of your business. Go bring him.”

“You’re actually going to die. You got a death wish or something? Haven’t you heard what Person123 did to every climber who raised a flag against him…?”

“You’d rather just die?”

The guy sure ran his mouth.

When I raised my hand, Park Dong-hyeon scrambled to his feet, nervously watching me, then bolted out of the club.

If he was a climber inside the Ark, he’d be able to get word to Person123.

Or he might come back dragging stronger climbers along.

In which case I’d just keep beating them down and sending them home until there was no one left to send.

I sat back down and waited.

The Ark’s climbers, both the man who’d made a fuss earlier about how their levels were on another plane and the rest of them, held their breath and didn’t breathe a word.

How long had I waited this time?

Feeling presences approaching once again, I got to my feet.

This time there were more of them, and they were stronger.

Had every last one of the Ark’s so-called climbers turned out?

They seemed to be surrounding the club rather than coming inside.

So I just made the first move.

Craaash!

I punched up through the club’s ceiling and out to the surface.

The startled climbers all looked up at me at once.

I dove first at the one nearest to me.

He tried desperately to dodge, but there was no way he was faster than me.

The climber took the blow to his gut and went flying into the outer wall of a building, where he lodged.

The other climbers attacked right away.

I subdued them one by one, easy as blowing my nose.

I didn’t use any skills.

This world’s Person123 would be able to cast magic-type skills with zero delay too, so I had no particular intention of showing off any magic use…

but before all that, there was simply no need to use skills.

The Ark’s climbers were, at most, all somewhere around level 50 or 60, and I was well over level 100.

This didn’t even qualify as a fight.

Unless they had something like a Destruction Ray skill, the level gap made it all but impossible for them to land a meaningful hit on me.

Fwip!

The faint alarm bell of my Sixth Sense.

I twisted my body in midair and dodged a streak of light.

What was that? That one had some real power behind it.

It was a skill from a climber who’d been watching for an opening and struck by surprise… huh?

I finally got a good look at that climber’s face and was a little surprised.

‘Ye Tianwei?’

It was Ye Tianwei, China’s flagship Nightmare climber.

I still remembered his face from when I’d overseen the boss for Zone 3.

Ye Tianwei, having caught my eye, tried to back away.

I chased him down all the same.

Ye Tianwei tried to resist, throwing out several more rather unusual skills, but it was hopeless.

He too went down in short order, taking a fist to the face.

Bzzzzzzt!

Someone used an item that poured out lightning like the Lightning Strike skill.

I dodged that with Teleportation, then closed in and cracked his jaw sideways.

A few of them ran. And so did the rest of the small-fry climbers.

I didn’t bother chasing.

I captured a total of five of the Ark’s climbers and herded them together.

I asked them,

“Any of you got more buddies left?”

“…”

“If not, then go on and bring Person123 already. Keep this up and you’ll all be dead.”

The climbers wore the look of men who’d taken no small shock.

I fixed my eyes on one of them and said,

“Don’t really need many of you to carry the message back, do I? Should I thin the numbers a bit?”

He answered in a rush.

“P-Person123 won’t be in the Ark right now…!”

“The hell does that mean?”

“He’s usually out roaming beyond the Ark, clearing out the Fallen. He’s out right now, too.”

“Then where is he now?”

“Th-that, I don’t know. You think he checks in with every one of us before he goes?”

Then the man answering glanced over at Ye Tianwei.

I looked at Ye Tianwei too.

By the feel of it, Ye Tianwei seemed to be the highest-ranking among them. He was also the strongest.

He was gazing up at me with a strange look in his eyes.

He tilted his head, looking a bit confused, then opened his mouth.

“You…”

Oh, don’t tell me he recognized me?

I cut him off.

“Do you know? Where Person123 is right now.”

“…”

Ye Tianwei stayed silent.

Something told me this one did know, so I pressed him for an answer.

But threats about killing him weren’t going to make Ye Tianwei talk.

‘Demon King.’

In that case, let’s go with that.

The Demon King’s torture, which froze the soul and stirred up primal terror.

Back when I’d used it in North Korea, the answers had come pouring out just fine.

The Demon King, taking over my body, pressed a finger to Ye Tianwei’s forehead.

“Kh-hhhh…!”

Ye Tianwei’s teeth chattered violently as his eyes rolled back.

“Talk. Where’s Person123?”

But even under the torture, Ye Tianwei refused to open his mouth to the end.

The Demon King marveled.

– A stubborn little creature, this one. Though I have on rare occasion seen faith run deep enough to defy the terror of instinct.

…So was that his way of saying the man’s loyalty ran that deep?

What great bond did Ye Tianwei and I even share? I found myself wondering.

At any rate, it didn’t look like I’d get an answer out of Ye Tianwei, so I turned back to the others.

“…It’s probably somewhere in Gyeongsang Province!”

One of them answered in a hurry.

“Person123 is going around cleaning out the Fallen across the whole country in turn. I heard he’d just been pushing his way down through Gyeongsang Province until recently, so maybe he’s somewhere around Busan…!”

I let out a sigh and asked,

“Then when’s he coming back?”

“Th-that, I really don’t… There’ve been plenty of times he stayed out for days and days before returning…”

Days, huh.

Taking too long was a problem too.

But the area he’d named was so wide, I wasn’t sure I could just go find him myself.

After some deliberation, I decided to head that way for now.

Better to go and look than to sit around waiting.

At my speed, it wouldn’t take all that long anyway.

I froze the bodies of every one of the Ark’s climbers, then shot up into the sky.

I set my course for Gyeongsang Province and flew.

*

Back when the Nightmare difficulty’s Time Limit ran out and the world collapsed.

Outside the Ark had become hell, but inside the Ark was every bit as much of a hell.

The only escape hatch on Earth from certain death.

If the government of South Korea had sealed off its airspace and territorial waters to save nothing but its own, the will of the whole world was that it would not shrink from nuking the Korean Peninsula, and the government could not have stopped it.

And so people from every corner of the world poured in in desperation, until the Ark was packed to bursting, its ten-kilometer radius made to look like nothing at all.

The place became a theater of utter chaos, order and humanity alike collapsed. And it stayed that way for a good long while even after the Tower’s Curse activated.

Shin Su-jin had been lucky enough to escape the curse inside the Ark.

The world had all but ended, but even then, she hadn’t lost hope.

There was the Ark, and there were the climbers.

She believed that this chaos too would be set right someday, and that it could become a world where at least the small number of survivors could go on living.

But then something horrific and unbelievable happened.

Person123, emerging after clearing Floor 8, drove every one of the Ark’s people out. And he pushed ordinary people to the edge of a cliff.

Person123, the savior who had cared for humanity more than anyone.

Shin Su-jin had tried to resist him, but she’d failed.

After barely escaping with her life, chased out of Seoul in all but name.

Wandering a world crawling with the Fallen, she stumbled by chance upon a group of several dozen survivors in a bunker near Busan.

They were all ordinary people, and Shin Su-jin gladly joined and took it upon herself to protect them.

She hadn’t been able to protect the people of Seoul. So this time, she wanted to properly protect at least these people.

“Give me just a little more. Please?”

“No. Other people need to eat too.”

People lining up to receive their rations.

The man who served as the group’s second-in-command spoke to Shin Su-jin with a dark expression.

“I’m sorry, Su-jin. Even stretching it, I don’t know if we’ll last another three days…”

The bunker’s own food stores had run dry long ago.

Now, procuring food fell entirely to Shin Su-jin.

She was the only one who could go out into a world teeming with the Fallen.

Shin Su-jin nodded.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get as much as I can.”

But the food she could scrounge up around here was nearly gone now.

If she could at least hunt on Floor 5, securing food would have been no trouble…

but even that was off-limits, since the Ark’s climbers controlled Floor 5, and she couldn’t easily set foot there.

The man, thinking it over, offered a suggestion.

“How about we take this chance to move our base to the bunker over in Geumjeong District, the one I mentioned before? There’s no telling when this bunker’s ceiling might cave in, so sooner or later, dangerous as it is, it’s something we’ll have to do.”

To make matters worse, the bunker they were staying in now was badly damaged.

At some point a powerful member of the Fallen must have rampaged through on the surface right above them, wrecking the protective walls so severely that there was no knowing how long they’d hold before collapsing.

In the end, Shin Su-jin had no choice but to make the call.

She decided to lead the people to another bunker as soon as possible.

For long-term survival, it wasn’t the wrong choice.

They’d simply had no luck.

“…Everyone, run!”

Because a Stage 6 member of the Fallen, the likes of which she’d never encountered before, had suddenly appeared.

The Fallen that emerged after the world’s end didn’t only go up to Stage 5.

Their numbers were extremely few, but there were also Fallen with six or more horns.

It was a monster Shin Su-jin’s level could never hope to handle.

Struck by its attack and sent flying, Shin Su-jin groaned and vomited blood.

The Stage 6 Fallen, its head swiveling this way and that like an insect’s, lost interest in Shin Su-jin and fixed its gaze on the fleeing people.

‘No…’

Gravely wounded, Shin Su-jin struggled to force herself up.

That was when it happened.

Craaash!

With a thunderous roar, the ground split open.

The Fallen was pinned beneath the feet of a figure who had appeared out of nowhere, flailing its arms and legs.

Shin Su-jin stared blankly at the man who had subdued the Fallen so effortlessly.

He was Person123.

“So this is where you’ve been, Section Chief Shin.”

Kim Seo-hyeon looked at her with indifferent eyes.

While Shin Su-jin, at a loss for words, stayed silent,

Kim Seo-hyeon stepped off the back of the Fallen he’d been pinning down.

Freed, the Fallen tore off after the fleeing people, its eyes rolled back like something possessed.

“W-wait…!”

Shin Su-jin, gone pale as death, cried out to Kim Seo-hyeon.

“Don’t! Please!”

They’ll all die. The people.

Shin Su-jin tried to rise, only to vomit blood again and collapse.

“Aaaaaargh!”

“S-somebody help me…!”

Kim Seo-hyeon watched, unmoving, as the Fallen ran wild and slaughtered the people.

Even as the horrific screams reached him, even as Shin Su-jin begged, he didn’t so much as blink.

“Don’t do what, exactly? What have I done?”

“Ah, aah…”

“That’s a pretty funny thing to say, isn’t it. Is it just a given that I’m the one who has to save them?”

Kim Seo-hyeon let out a deflating little laugh.

“If they want to live, they should struggle for it themselves. After they’ve spent all this time gulping down the sacrifices I made without giving a thing in return, they could start now, at least.”

The Fallen had killed nearly half the people.

That was when it happened.

Into the eyes of the despairing Shin Su-jin, and of Kim Seo-hyeon, a strange sight appeared.

…Whooom!

A figure that suddenly dropped from the sky stomped the Fallen flat.

Exactly the way Kim Seo-hyeon had, moments before.

The Stage 6 Fallen’s head burst and it died instantly.

“…!”

Shin Su-jin’s eyes went wide with shock.

The newly appeared man picked up the Fallen’s corpse and hurled it right back in Kim Seo-hyeon’s direction.

Boom!

Kim Seo-hyeon knocked it aside and looked at the man striding steadily toward him.

“Wow, found you right away. Good to see you.”

The man, wearing a cap and a mask, spoke to him.

“But how’d your character get this rotten, huh?”

****

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