Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 82

Chapter 82: The Masked Auction (4)

TL: DDTL

…One person?

I furrowed my brow.

He’s offering me this if I kill just one person? A legendary-grade skill stone?

“If you wish to accept the offer, simply use the skill stone. One unit will be deducted.”

“…”

I stayed silent.

A flood of thoughts crossed my mind.

The first thought that came to me the instant I heard the price was one human life…

‘…That’s it?’

Honestly, yes.

I’m not as noble and selfless a person as everyone thinks I am.

People kept calling me the savior, but I wasn’t actually some kind of saint.

Not ten thousand, not even a thousand… just one.

Someone might say, how can you dare put a price on a human life?

True. A human life is precious.

But by my own standards, that value wasn’t absolute.

If it had to be, it was something I could compare and weigh against other things.

And this wasn’t just anything. This was a legendary-grade skill.

A whole tier above epic. Legendary.

Even the epic+ grade Destruction Ray was already that incredible.

…So how amazing would a legendary-grade skill be?

How much of an advantage would it give me in tackling Nightmare difficulty going forward?

Sacrifice just one out of eight billion people, and I could gain that kind of overwhelming power.

It was just one person, somewhere on this Earth, dying. Just one more name added to the hundreds of thousands who died every day across the world.

…I couldn’t help thinking that it was actually a fair trade.

I remembered the person from earlier in the auction shouting at me to take the skill stone for myself.

Honestly, ninety-nine out of a hundred people in the world would probably tell me to take the legendary skill.

It was tempting. A sweet, sweet temptation.

But on the other hand…

My mind remained calm and settled.

Because the one making this offer was none other than the Tower.

‘What are you trying to do.’

What was the Tower’s intent in making me this offer? What was its goal?

To break my conscience?

To toy with me, daring me to see if I could refuse even after all this?

…None of it quite fit.

The Tower wanted me to fail my climb. The Tower wanted me dead. And it was going to massively boost my combat power for some reason like that?

This felt different from the penalty on the fourth floor, or the Ark offered on the sixth.

This was, no matter how I looked at it, overwhelmingly in my favor. All I had to do was bend my conscience a little.

“Why are you offering this?”

I asked the Auctioneer directly.

“This reeks of something shady. You really think I’d just gobble it up?”

The Auctioneer didn’t open his mouth.

He seemed to have no intention of answering.

I stopped time.

After thinking long and hard, I came to a conclusion.

I let time resume.

“I have two conditions of my own.”

“…”

“Accept them and I’ll take the deal. Otherwise we’re done.”

“What are they?”

I half-expected to be ignored again, but surprisingly, the Auctioneer responded.

I stated my first condition.

“I want to choose which Non-Climber dies, not have it be random.”

I had no idea what the Tower’s intent was.

But I trusted in the Tower’s malice.

What if it wasn’t random at all? What if it was rigged, and the Tower was targeting one of my family members?

That suspicion had already pushed me almost entirely toward refusing the offer.

I tossed out an absurd condition with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude.

But, of course I’d expected it would be refused…

The Auctioneer paused for a moment before replying.

“The Master says he will accept the condition you have stated.”

“…”

He’s accepting this?

So he wasn’t after my family?

The Tower’s willingness to agree so readily… only made my unease grow stronger.

[Legendary-Grade Skill Stone]

When used, allows acquisition of one legendary-grade skill.

“Please state your second condition.”

I stared down at the legendary-grade skill stone for a moment, then gave my second condition.

“Instead of this one, give me a legendary skill stone with the skill’s name and description visible. Like the skill stones you get for clearing floors.”

“…”

“Whether I use this to acquire a skill or you just hand me one yourself, either way it’s random from my end, right? So give me one where I can see the description.”

Compared to the first condition, it wasn’t even particularly unreasonable.

But the Auctioneer didn’t answer.

“…No response, huh.”

I kept my eyes on the Auctioneer.

It was a long while before the answer came.

“He says that condition cannot be accepted.”

“…Why not? Is that really such a difficult ask?”

“He says that condition cannot be accepted.”

The Auctioneer repeated himself.

Ha…

This son of a bitch, really.

I looked between the Auctioneer and the skill stone, and let out a laugh.

“It’s not random, is it?”

“…”

“What skill were you trying to give me?”

There’s a rare-grade skill called Heavyweight.

It’s a skill that greatly increases the body’s durability at the cost of reducing movement speed.

The problem is that it’s a passive skill, meaning the effect is always on whether you want it or not. And once you’ve acquired a skill, you can’t delete it.

That had popped into my head while I was deliberating earlier.

What if the legendary skill I’d get from this skill stone wasn’t random at all, but predetermined by the Tower?

And what if it was a passive skill like Heavyweight, one that came with both a benefit and a drawback?

…What if that drawback was something fatal to me?

I was half certain now.

He’d accepted the outrageous condition of letting me choose who dies, but refused the condition of letting me see the skill description?

It stank to high heaven.

It stank of someone who’d rigged the skill stone.

I closed the lid of the box.

“If you can’t accept the condition, take it back. I don’t want it even if you give it to me.”

The Auctioneer still stood there silently.

He just stared at me.

I glared right back at him.

Then suddenly, the skill stone box vanished.

A moment later, the Auctioneer collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

“…”

I looked down at the fallen Auctioneer.

He’d gone completely still, like a machine that had run out of power, and then dissolved into smoke and dispersed.

I stood there blankly and then muttered into the air.

“…Hello?”

So what now.

If we’re done here, you’ve got to send me back, don’t…

“Oh.”

The view in front of me shifted to my room.

I was back.

The mask on my face was gone too.

I let out a sigh.

“Phew…”

I sat down in my chair and thought back carefully on what had just happened.

Had it really been a strange skill?

The odds were overwhelmingly high that it was.

He’d even accepted the condition that let me pick who died. No matter how I looked at it, it was off.

…Come to think of it, maybe even setting the price at a single person had been part of the trap from the start.

If the Tower had offered a legendary skill for free, I’d have been suspicious without question.

Maybe it had deliberately set the price at one life specifically to focus my attention there.

To make me think the Tower’s only goal was to break my conscience. While hiding the real trap elsewhere.

…If that was really the case, the Tower was one filthy bastard.

This incident had made me realize something even more clearly.

The moment the Tower tries to offer me anything, I can’t let my guard down even a little.

Anyway…

This rule had ended without anyone dying. Except for number 41.

I was exhausted in every sense.

I threw myself onto the bed and shut my eyes for a while.

*

After the climbers who had been invited to the Masked Auction returned safely.

The first place to erupt was the Communication Channel.

[Receipt: You guys have no idea what went down over there. It was insane]

[Hecty: What? Spill it. What happened]

[Receipt: So when we got moved to the auction hall, everyone was wearing masks…]

Mouths itching to talk, they began enthusiastically spilling the tale.

That the auction had used Non-Climbers’ lives as currency, that every item on auction had been a rare+ grade skill or higher, that even the epic grade, the tier above rare, had shown up…

And most of all, the parts about Person123.

What had happened at the auction, how the horrific event with countless civilian lives on the line had finally ended.

The people hearing it were utterly stunned.

[Watchdog: For real? Person123 got invited too…]

[Viper: Person123 killed a bidder to nullify the auction? Seriously?]

[Davin: Wait, what’s this about shaking hands with Person123?! Tell us properly already!]

While all sorts of stories spread and the Communication Channel burned hot all day long.

The real world was buzzing just as busily.

Eyewitness accounts of seeing Person123 in person.

There wasn’t a more sensational topic to be found anywhere in the world, at least not in the twenty-first century.

During the Wang Kai incident, the Security Corps members and Black Star Society members directly involved had only issued official statements and refused to talk loosely about what had happened.

But this time was different.

Broadcasters and media outlets were all desperately trying to book the climbers who’d been dragged to the Masked Auction…

And one of those broadcasts went on the air soon enough.

“There are all sorts of stories circulating about the Masked Auction right now. Isn’t that right, Brooks?”

“That’s right. That’s why I’m here, to set the record straight.”

The famous podcast show, The Jude Noise.

Brooks, an Easy difficulty seventh floor climber and number 27 at the Masked Auction, had come on as a guest.

After some brief small talk, they got into the main topic. The host, Jude, asked,

“Shall we get into it then? What on earth happened at the Masked Auction?”

Brooks began his story with a serious expression, as if recalling the scene.

“First of all, when the time came and we were transported, the location was a dark auction hall. There was an audience section and a stage. All hundred of us invited, myself included, were wearing masks and number tags on our chests. And then on the stage…”

The hundred invitees. The non-human, mysterious Auctioneer. The skill stone that appeared as the first auction item.

After briefly explaining the situation at the start, he continued.

“…When I heard what the Auctioneer said, I couldn’t believe my ears. The million figure given to each of us hundred invitees was the number of Non-Climbers’ lives! It was given to us as currency to bid on the auction items.”

“My God, that’s horrifying. Isn’t that a total of one hundred million lives?”

“Anyway, the auction started, and someone immediately stood up and shouted. A Korean climber named Shin Su-jin. She’s a pretty well-known figure on floor five, an officer in the Security Corps.”

How Shin Su-jin had even removed her mask and called for everyone not to bid.

And then the problem child who showed up after: number 41.

“…Number 41 was completely out of his mind. He went on about how if civilians had to die, then so be it, we needed to claim the auction items to strengthen the climbers and help the world more, how tens of millions die every year anyway so this much was fine. He kept saying things like that to stir people up.”

“My god…”

“…And that’s when it happened! Person123 appeared!”

Brooks’s tone rose with excitement.

“Sir Person123 spoke up. He said we mustn’t play into the Tower’s hand. He asked that no one place a bid. He said he trusted us.”

Jude asked,

“So Person123 revealing himself like that was because he was worried people would be swayed by number 41’s words? Because once one person bid, everyone else would too?”

“Exactly. But despite that, number 41 didn’t stop his trolling. And he ended up bidding a thousand people.”

“Oh dear…!”

“And then that lunatic kept spouting nonsense. Was no one going to do this fun thing? He’d just sweep up all the auction items himself.

In the end, a few others started bidding. The bid that started at a thousand quickly climbed to five thousand. There’s no telling how high it would have gone. But then…”

Jude tensed up slightly. He already had a rough idea of what was coming next.

Brooks raised his hand.

“In the middle of that chaos, Sir Person123 slowly raised his hand.”

“…”

“It wasn’t a bid. He just calmly asked the Auctioneer a question. What would happen if the last bidder died?

The Auctioneer answered. The bid would be nullified and the auction would start over. And the moment he heard that answer…”

Pew…

Brooks formed his raised hand into a finger gun and mimed firing into the air.

“Number 41 just evaporated. It was exactly the power we’d only heard rumors of.”

“…The Pitch-Black Ray.”

“Really… there wasn’t a single sound, to a chilling degree. Number 41 just disappeared, as if he’d never been there to begin with. It wasn’t until the Auctioneer announced that the last bidder had died that we even realized he was dead.”

Brooks let out a small sigh and continued.

“And then Sir Person123 came forward to the front of the stage. With no one daring to breathe a word, he made his declaration. No one was to bid. Anyone who bid would die.”

Jude swallowed hard without meaning to.

“He’d told everyone not to bid that many times, but they wouldn’t listen. So he made his decision. If he’d let it continue, at least five thousand civilians would have died.

After that, of course, no one bid. Who would dare bid after number 41 died like that?”

“No one could.”

“So the auction items kept passing without a single bid, and then the last item came up. The epic grade, the tier above rare.”

After briefly explaining the Lion’s Roar skill that had appeared as the epic-grade item, Brooks recounted the final moments of the auction.

“We were all waiting for the last item to pass without a bid like the others, and then suddenly someone stood up and shouted. That this one item, at least, Person123 should take. That even if ten thousand people had to be sacrificed, the one who had to save humanity should take it.”

“I see. Since it was epic grade…”

“But Sir Person123 firmly shook his head. To him, it wasn’t worth even a moment’s consideration. And so the final epic-grade skill stone went unsold too… and the auction ended.”

Only when Brooks’s long story finished did Jude breathe a sigh of relief.

It had already been a certainty before they even started, but Jude was even more convinced now. This episode was going to shatter every viewership record the podcast show had ever set.

“…And after that, there’s been a lot of talk that the participants actually shook hands with Person123 himself. What’s the truth of that?”

Brooks grinned proudly and said,

“Ah, that… is true. Sir Person123 shook my hand too. I held Sir Person123’s hand myself. With this very right hand.”

“…! Could you tell us more about that?”

“Haha, of course. I’ll tell you everything.”

The brief reception after the auction ended. And how Person123 had shaken hands with everyone.

That was where the Masked Auction incident came to its end.

After Brooks’s podcast episode aired, news outlets, media, and communities all over the world, the Communication Channel included, exploded.

– Person123 saves 100 million Non-Climbers at Masked Auction…

– Person123’s resolute decision to save the people…

– 100 million lives could have been lost? How Person123 saved them all once again…

[Chris: Again, again, again, again, AGAIN! It’s you again?!]

[Cheese: Great Person123, just how far will you keep protecting humanity…]

[Trimidibi: Wow but killing the bidder to void the auction is genuinely insane]

[Sobo: “I’ll kill you if you bid” yikes, if I’d seen it in person I’d have shat myself]

[Fighter: Anyone got an ID on that piece of shit number 41?]

[Goblin: Dude. He’s already dead. Who cares]

[Spin: Oh fuck, I prayed not to get picked and they finally listen NOW]

[Vodka: I didn’t even pray and I still didn’t get picked, the hell!]

[Jumprope: Honestly so fucking jealous of the people who got to see it live]

[Yus: Getting to shake his hand is the real envy. When the hell would you ever get another chance to shake hands with humanity’s savior]

[Snowfall: When he killed 41 it was so brutal you could barely breathe, but after the auction he was gentle to everyone else. He really was like a savior]

Not long after clearing the sixth floor, the world was once again wildly singing the praises of the name Person123.