Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 94
Chapter 94: Nightmare, 7th Floor (1)
TL: DDTL
– …And now, please give him a warm round of applause. The groom is now entering.
Clap, clap, clap, clap…
I attended my older cousin’s wedding.
After the ceremony, the family and cousins all gathered at the restaurant for the meal.
“Seo-hyeon, how have you been lately? Isn’t your work dangerous?”
“What? Seo-hyeon became a Climber? What about medical school?”
Some of my cousins knew I’d become a Climber, and some didn’t.
So I had to endure a barrage of questions from the adults while I ate.
I also managed a brief chat with the man of the hour, my cousin, even though he was busy greeting all the guests.
“You’re absolutely glowing.”
“Haha, isn’t it the happiest day of anyone’s life? Course I am.”
He really did look happy.
I’d heard that as November drew closer, wedding halls were getting completely packed.
The reason, of course, was the Nightmare Time Limit.
Since this might be the world’s last year, everyone was rushing to tie the knot while they still could.
He said he’d barely managed to book a big wedding hall himself.
“Seo-hyeon, you’ll be twenty-six next year, right? You’d better hurry up and get married too.”
“You should ask whether I even have a girlfriend first.”
“My bad.”
After it was all over, on the drive home in Dad’s car.
“Maybe I’ll just go for the civil service exam after I graduate?”
My sister blurted out of nowhere.
She was also set to graduate from college at the end of this year.
Somehow she’d managed to grind through all her credits without ever taking a leave of absence.
“Where’s that coming from all of a sudden?”
“I mean, Su-yeon passed the civil service exam, so it just, like, popped into my head.”
Mom let out a dry laugh, and Dad spoke up.
“Don’t rush into thinking about jobs. Do what you actually want to do, Seo-a. Your mother and I don’t mind whatever you choose.”
I wasn’t really inclined to recommend it either.
I mean, with the world possibly ending at any time, spending all that time cramming for civil service exams seemed… like a bit of a waste, didn’t it?
If she was just saying it because she had nothing better to do, she’d be better off enjoying herself. It wasn’t like the family was hurting for money.
My sister said,
“I’m saying this because it actually IS what I want to do, okay? What do you think about working at the Tower Climbing Special Agency?”
“…The Tower Climbing Special Agency, of all places?”
“I don’t know, I’m just drawn to it.”
I said,
“I hear they’re so swamped with work people call them the Hell Department. You know that, right?”
“I know that, okay?”
But why on earth was she drawn somewhere like that?
Well, whatever, that was her problem…
I looked out the window and watched the scenery roll past.
The Nightmare Time Limit was now less than two months away.
*
Time passed.
[Nightmare]
Population: 475,126
Time Limit: 30d 1h 5m 52s
Reached Floor: 7
Once again, the next challenge was right around the corner.
KABOOOOOM!
A Mist Ghost that ambushed me from within the fog took a Flame Strike head-on and was blown apart along with all its doubles.
Continuing my hunt in Zone 5, I checked the gauge.
[Zone 5 (38%)]
Loooong way to go yet.
Maybe even after clearing Floor 7 I wouldn’t have it fully filled?
The pace was way slower than Zone 4 had been, but that was only natural.
Zone 5 was a fog-shrouded field, so actively tracking monsters down was difficult.
And there weren’t any other Climbers hunting there besides me.
Well, it wasn’t like there were absolutely zero, I supposed.
And at my current Level 80, I had no confidence in taking down the Zone 5 boss, who’d be Level 100 at minimum.
The Zone 4 boss had been immune to a simple Destruction Ray one-shot thanks to that head-destruction gimmick, and beyond the level gap, the Zone 5 boss probably had something similar in store…
[Difficulty: Nightmare]
[Floor: 7]
[Level: 85]
[Willpower: 4,050]
[Skills: Destruction Ray (Epic+), Subspace (Epic), Sixth Sense (Rare+)(+3), Teleportation (Rare+), Rapid Regeneration (Rare+), Scorching Zone (Rare+), Fire-Type Low-Tier Mastery (Rare+), Sword of Light (Rare+), Cavalry Charge (Rare+), Flame Strike (Rare)(+5), Lightning Strike (Rare)(+2), Blade Storm (Rare), Exaltation (Rare), Skin Hardening (Rare), Aura Blade (Rare)…]
[Skill: Aura Blade (Rare)]
Forms an aura blade to enhance attack power. Aura blade can be channeled around the body or a weapon in the user’s grip.
Category: Physical Type
Willpower Cost: 10 per second
Cooldown: 10 seconds
The skills I’d gotten from Bilon.
I’d managed to obtain Aura Blade, often called the tier-one rare-grade Physical Type skill.
That said, since I had Sword of Light now, it wasn’t a skill I desperately needed… but it certainly didn’t hurt to have it.
He’d also tracked down a Rare+ grade Skill Enhancement Stone for me, which let me push Sixth Sense up to +3.
The rest were Normal+ or Normal grade odds-and-ends Skill Stones and Skill Enhancement Stones.
For reference, the standard reward I’d received from the Zone 2 boss was a Rare grade Skill Enhancement Stone, which I’d used to enhance Lightning Strike.
I wrapped up the hunt and returned to my room.
[Sorrow: The day of reckoning’s coming around again…]
[Hansho: at this rate I’m legit gonna die of a heart attack one of these years lol]
[Dracula: gotta admit tho when the clear notification pops the dopamine is insane]
[Sellira]: He’ll clear Floor 7 too, right? Please!]
[Lemur: Just have faith and wait in reverence. Person123 is a god]
Out of habit, I browsed the Communication Channel for a bit, then closed it.
Still, how should I put it.
Compared to back in the early floors, even with the Time Limit looming, the atmosphere wasn’t nearly as panicked.
I remembered seeing statistics that crime rates and financial market turmoil had dropped significantly ever since I’d locked in the 20-day mark as my clear date.
I’d cleared all the way through Floor 6 by now, so I supposed trust had built up to match.
It wasn’t that all that public faith felt like a burden to me at this point…
But the outcome was still anyone’s guess.
Even with how far I’d come, Nightmare’s brutal difficulty doesn’t allow me a single sliver of arrogance or overconfidence. It had always been a tightrope walk.
Would Floor 7 be the end, or would I get to live another year?
– The Nightmare difficulty Time Limit’s 20-day mark is now just one day away. Person123’s Floor 7 challenge is about to…
The Nightmare Time Limit had reached just one day before the 20-day mark.
This year too, I skipped traveling and just got some air around the house.
When I went to Gwanghwamun, I saw people already out there praying.
[Nightmare]
Population: 475,093
Time Limit: 21d 1m 6s
Reached Floor: 7
Evening.
I sat perched on the edge of my bed, waiting for the Time Limit to hit 21 days.
Back at Floor 4 and Floor 6, the Tower had made its proposal precisely when the clock struck 21 days.
I had to see whether it would do the same this time.
– Did the Tower make a proposal to you?
The Demon King suddenly spoke up.
“Yes.”
– …What sort of proposal was it? Did you accept?
I told him about every offer the Tower had made.
The Floor 4 penalty, the Floor 6 ark, even what had happened at the masked auction.
“It could pull the same thing again this time. That’s why I’m waiting now.”
The Demon King let out a hollow laugh tinged with what almost felt like regret.
– The Tower is not to be dealt with. Accept nothing it offers, no matter what.
…What’s gotten into him, giving me actual advice?
– Though it is pointless to say so. You will fail soon enough either way.
And the moment I thought that, the curse came right on cue.
Of course, I was well aware the Tower was a petty, cowardly son of a bitch.
I wasn’t going to accept anything from it short of extreme circumstances.
“Did the Tower scam you out of something once, or what?”
The Demon King didn’t answer.
At that moment, the Nightmare Time Limit hit exactly 21 days.
“…”
Nothing happened.
No proposal this time?
A small wave of relief and an equally unwelcome flicker of unease hit me at the same time.
When a bastard who’d always been pulling crap suddenly went quiet, that was its own kind of unsettling.
I lay down early and went to sleep.
Either way, all that was left was to challenge Floor 7 in peak condition.
Early the next morning.
While my family was still asleep, I finished a quick meal of energy bars and warmed up.
“Let’s get going.”
There was still a good amount of time before the 20-day mark hit exactly.
But I was planning to start right now.
[Will you enter Floor 7 of Nightmare difficulty?]
“Whew…”
After a deep breath to steel myself one final time, I entered Floor 7.
*
Floor 7’s theme.
Simple. Dodging.
Dodge the arrows pouring in from every direction and survive for the set duration, and the clear was yours.
Of course, any Climber who’d made it to Floor 7 was a superhuman far beyond ordinary levels.
Which naturally meant the arrows coming at them weren’t ordinary arrows either.
Size, speed, power, count, and duration of the arrows all varied by difficulty.
On Hard, the climber had to dodge 300 iron arrows over roughly five minutes, averaging about one per second.
[You have entered Floor 7 of Nightmare difficulty.]
The moment I entered, I stopped time and surveyed my surroundings.
A chamber similar to Floor 1, but considerably larger.
Torches lit the space.
And what else I saw… countless holes drilled into every wall around me.
That’s where the arrows would fire from.
On the other difficulties, arrows were said to launch only from straight ahead.
Nightmare had the holes covering a full 360 degrees, enough to set off trypophobia. Even the ceiling.
Arrows flying in from every direction, then?
This much was well within my expectations.
There was one more thing that was different, though.
‘A door?’
There was a single door directly ahead.
Why a door?
Don’t tell me this wasn’t the end, and there was another stage after?
…First, I had to check.
I released time.
The trial was supposed to start exactly ten seconds after entry.
And the walls that fired the arrows were said to be indestructible, just like the terrain on Floor 4, so attacking them would be pointless.
In short, I had to focus on dodging and nothing else.
Honestly, I had the tiniest fraction more confidence here than on the other floors…
Because if dodging was the theme, I had plenty of cards to play.
Sixth Sense. Teleportation.
I’d even drunk the Frozen Hydra’s blood, so unless my head got destroyed, I wouldn’t die.
Of course, this was Nightmare, so what kind of insane bullshit it might pull was anyone’s guess.
‘Well then, let’s see…’
BANG!
The alarm bell of Sixth Sense rang out.
I twisted my body to one side and dodged.
A shockwave roared through, and the boom rang out a beat later than the arrow itself had already shot past.
Couldn’t even call that… an arrow.
I glanced back at the shattered ground.
Only the shape was vaguely arrow-like.
People don’t generally call a chunk of iron twice as long as a person and as thick as a tree trunk an “arrow.”
‘That’s a goddamn missile.’
Speed maybe a touch faster than the speed of sound?
Even past Level 80, if one of those connected, my body was getting blown apart for sure.
But as long as it didn’t connect, no problem.
A chill ran across the back of my head as Sixth Sense rang its alarm again.
I twisted aside and dodged the second arrow coming in from behind.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
I darted around the chamber, dodging the cascade of arrows.
There was the option of knocking arrows aside with magic skills, but dodging was simpler, so I didn’t bother.
The speed and reflexes of a Level 85 body had plenty of margin to dodge with. Exaltation was kicking in steadily, too.
I could already dodge them just by sight alone, and on top of that I had Sixth Sense.
The more I enhanced Sixth Sense, the more refined its danger warnings became.
Honestly, at +3, I could roughly sense the incoming direction of arrows even with my eyes closed.
In short, even with arrows flying in from every angle, I have no blind spots.
The intervals between shots grew shorter and shorter, and I kept dodging.
A few minutes of this, maybe?
“…!”
Sixth Sense rang alarms from every direction except above.
I sprang straight up.
The arrows incoming from all directions collided with one another and shattered.
I landed on the debris.
The chamber floor had been torn apart by the arrow barrage.
No more arrows came flying.
‘Is it over?’
Felt like about five minutes had passed, give or take.
Naturally, no clear notification appeared.
I walked up to the door.
I was looking over the firmly shut stone door, wondering whether I’d need to break it down, when,
Rrrrrumble…
With a thunderous roar, the stone door slowly began to open.
I stepped to one side.
BANG!
Before the door had even fully opened, an arrow shot out through the gap.
Sixth Sense had warned me, so I was already out of the way.
Cheap tricks like that aren’t going to fly on me anymore.
“Whew.”
I took a brief breather, then stepped through the door.
The appetizer was over. From here on, the real thing.
****
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Saddicht
As usual, it’s crazy.
Thanks for the chapter! The new DC server is good
ExBlazE
Thank you for the chapter! As usual, nightmare difficulty is BS. It just didn’t seem as crazy as usual because sixth sense is still hard carrying him at this point. But there’s definitely more BS to come.