Chapter 114: Nightmare, 8th Floor (2) |
‘…Hold on, is that it?’
It seemed like a stretch, but.
In this endlessly stretching desert, the only thing that could be called a different space.
Was the pits the sandworms burst out of.
Those things all crawl around underground before bursting up to the surface, after all…
So doesn’t that mean there’s an underground space down there?
Nothing else came to mind anyway.
It was well worth trying.
I should go down into one of the pits.
am I supposed to get in.
The sandworm had died with its body only partway out, plugging up the pit.
To get in, I’d have to do something about the corpse first.
Should I just wait until another sandworm popped out and go down a different pit?
…No. That’s a waste of time.
I had no idea what the compass number doubling every two minutes meant, but it seemed like I should keep it from climbing as much as possible.
I mulled it over for a moment, then released time.
KABOOOM!
First I let loose a Flame Strike.
Concentrating the fireball on a single spot, I completely blew apart the torso of the sandworm blocking the pit’s mouth.
The ground caved in and the pit’s entrance opened wider.
Now the problem was the rest of the corpse left inside.
I jumped, then froze time.
Finishing my Mental Concentration, I fired a fully charged Destruction Ray into the pit.
Pssssss…
Once I’d erased as much of the sandworm corpse clogging the pit as I could.
I tried to enter.
I went forward with Skin Hardening active.
The darkness was no problem thanks to Dark Vision.
‘Ugh, gross.’
A revolting stench stabbed at my nose.
Soon I came face to face with the remaining chunk of corpse.
Deciding this wouldn’t do, I called the Demon King.
‘Demon King, put up a barrier and push straight through, please.’
Sandworm bodily fluids were toxic.
Skin Hardening was a skill that blocked physical blows, not chemical ones.
Still, my Sixth Sense wasn’t giving me much of a danger reading, so it seemed like I could probably just tough it out bare-skinned and push through…
But my clothes would all melt too, so it was better to leave it to the Demon King.
‘Keep the power expenditure to a minimum, please.’
– I know, so quit yammering on about every little thing.
The Demon King, having taken over my body.
Frost Barrier wrapped around my whole body like armor.
CRA-KRA-KRA-KRASH!
With the barrier up, the Demon King bored straight through the sandworm’s corpse and flew on down the pit’s passage.
But seriously, how long is this thing’s body?
Only after pushing even farther than I’d expected did we finally clear the whole corpse.
“Phew.”
I took my body back and pressed on down the now wide-open underground passage.
The passage, steep at first, gradually leveled out.
…Is this the right route, I wonder?
It’d better be.
Carrying no small amount of unease, I kept pushing forward, and then…
A fork appeared.
I froze time and thought about which way to go.
On the surface, both passages looked identical.
Then I had no choice but to take a guess.
I went right.
As I went down the passage, before long a hollow, chamber-like space appeared.
It was a dead end, nowhere left to go.
Hmm… Did I pick wrong?
The instant I went to turn around.
My Sixth Sense suddenly sounded the alarm.
I quickly hurled myself toward the chamber’s entrance.
SPLAAASH!
Green liquid poured down from the chamber ceiling.
The floor where I’d been standing just a second ago melted away.
Some kind of poison, like sandworm fluid?
Judging by how strongly my Sixth Sense had reacted, the toxicity seemed far greater.
‘A trap…’
To me, it felt like a bit of good news.
A trap, of all things?
It looked like proof that there really was something down in this underground passage. So the underground really was the answer.
I went back to the fork.
This time, down the left passage.
Going straight on, another fork popped up.
…What.
Don’t tell me it want me to run a maze?
[2,048]
I went down the right path.
Not far along, another dead end appeared.
I clicked my tongue. Without setting foot in the chamber, I went back to the fork.
Took the left.
Going on, a third fork appeared.
Thinking surely it’d be right this time, I picked right again, but…
When I got there it was yet another dead end.
…Anyway, it really doesn’t seem like luck has been on my side even once while clearing the Nightmare tier.
I went back and took the left at the third fork too.
But seriously, is it just going to keep being forks?
The traps were dull, hardly Nightmare-worthy, and I started to wonder whether anything was actually progressing at all.
Right around when that thought hit me.
“Oh.”
This time, instead of a fork, a wide space appeared.
And there was something there.
‘…A puzzle?’
In the middle of the chamber floor.
Inside a large square frame sat puzzle-shaped grooves, and scattered beside them were stones that looked like puzzle pieces.
And besides the passage I’d come through, countless other passages were bored into the chamber on every side.
I drew closer.
The stone pieces had pictures on them too, so it really was a puzzle, but…
‘It want me to solve this?’
The puzzle coming out of nowhere was absurd.
…Then again, back on Floor 3 it had been a cube, so I guess there’s nothing absurd about it.
Anyway, no point dawdling.
I got ready to solve the puzzle right away.
I froze time and counted; it was a 100-piece puzzle in total.
I released time again and started examining the pieces, each one nearly as big as my body.
Rrrumble…!
A tremor ran through.
A sandworm suddenly burst out of one of the chamber’s passages.
…Now what?
KABOOOM!
I blew apart the sandworm’s head before it could pull any more of its body out.
Once I’d dealt with it quickly, I turned my attention back to the puzzle.
Let’s see.
First I moved the pieces one by one.
I started by laying them out on the floor so I could take them all in at a glance.
Doing it this way would be way faster than going at it haphazardly.
‘Corners first.’
Then I froze time again and picked out the corner pieces.
As I fit them into the grooves one by one.
Rrrumble…
Along with a tremor, a sandworm burst out of another passage. Again?
I blew that one’s head apart too and went back to assembling the puzzle.
But a moment later, another tremor.
After short pauses, sandworms kept bursting out, one after another.
‘Goddammit…’
What’s the deal with this.
Are they going to keep popping out to get in my way?
Like this, it was hard to focus on the puzzle properly.
In that case, time to pull the Demon King card again.
‘Demon King, freeze all the passages shut for me, please. As solid as you can.’
Shhhhhhh-!
Demon-emon froze over every passage, exactly as I’d asked. (TL: Punning on Doraemon)
With no more sandworms to worry about, I focused on putting the puzzle together.
Thunk.
I move the big pieces one by one and slot them into the grooves.
It wasn’t hard, but with so many pieces, it inevitably took time.
There wasn’t really a time limit like there’d been on Floor 3, though.
Still, I felt rushed.
Because…
[131,072]
The compass number was steadily ballooning, exponentially.
By freezing and releasing time, I shaved off every bit of time I possibly could.
Once I’d fitted enough of the puzzle together to make out the picture…
An antlion?
The thing in the picture was a monster shaped like an antlion.
Whatever it was, I kept fitting the pieces.
And only after quite a long while…
‘…Done!’
I’d finally finished the whole puzzle.
The moment I slotted in the last piece.
Flash!
The puzzle gave off a faint light for a moment, then it faded away.
I looked at the completed puzzle.
An antlion.
And those maze-like lines drawn over the antlion’s body?
I wondered what this was.
[33,554,432]
The compass number had passed thirty million.
I’d put it together as fast as I could, but it had still taken over twenty minutes.
With it doubling each round, it had happened in the blink of an eye.
What on earth is this…
Unable to figure out the meaning, my unease only grew.
I looked around.
…But what am I supposed to do now?
Even after completing it, there was no change beyond the puzzle lighting up.
The only thing that stood out was the maze drawn over the antlion, but…
Was this something important?
The maze started at the antlion’s mouth, and at the end point was a drawing shaped like a heart.
I couldn’t tell what it meant.
For now I froze time and traced a path through the maze.
Just in case, I went ahead and memorized the entire route. It felt like it took several hours.
I released time, and right as I was thinking I should head back outside.
Rrrumble-rumble-rumble-
A tremor began to shake.
A massive one, nothing compared to when the sandworms had been moving earlier.
“…!”
The toll of my Sixth Sense.
It was below.
‘Demon King!’
I swapped with the Demon King at once.
The Demon King covered my whole body in a barrier, like before.
And right after that.
…Rrrumble-rumble-rumble!
The ground heaved upward and my body was slammed up high.
I took no damage thanks to the barrier, but my body kept getting shoved back.
Something enormous is rising up from underground.
That was all I could tell.
“Tch.”
KABOOOM!
The Demon King wrapped a small blizzard of cold around my body and tore upward.
It punched all the way up to the surface.
Soaring high into the sky, I looked down below…
‘…Insane.’
What is that?
The desert is churning.
All the sand was being sucked toward a single point.
Just like an antlion’s pit.
GROOOOOAR-
The shape that soon emerged from the sand was… a giant antlion.
No, “giant” fell far short; it was an ultra-ultra-ultra-colossal beast.
I could see the sandworm corpses all being sucked down into the antlion’s maw.
Even the sandworms, big as buildings, were no different from ants next to it.
I knew at once.
That thing was the Floor 8 boss.
‘No, but what the…’
Isn’t this a bit much?
The biggest monster I’d seen so far was the Frozen Hydra in Zone 4.
This thing was at least ten times that.
It was a ridiculous size.
‘Demon King, my body, please.’
I took my body back from the Demon King, then.
Froze time and cast a fully charged Destruction Ray straight down.
I aimed for the antlion’s head, but…
…GROOOOOAR!
The antlion let out an eardrum-splitting shriek.
Bodily fluid gushed like a waterfall from where the Destruction Ray had bored in.
The attack works.
It works, but…
The thing was so enormous that even a Destruction Ray felt like nothing more than a pinprick.
Killing it looked like it would take ages.
I froze time again.
‘This makes no sense…?’
A monster this absurdly huge came out as a boss? On Floor 8?
It’s only because it’s me that I can even consider spending ages killing it.
For any other Nightmare-tier challenger, fighting it would be flat-out impossible.
No, they’d never even make it up to the surface; they’d just get eaten… huh?
Just then a thought flashed through my mind.
‘The maze.’
…Don’t tell me that maze drawing was?
The interior map of the antlion’s body?
And the heart at the end point was its weak spot?
If so, it made sense.
That it wasn’t a matter of taking it down the orthodox way, but of going inside its body, finding the weak spot, and striking it.
‘So I was meant to get eaten all along.’
In that case, I could just go straight into the antlion’s mouth right now, but…
how long would that take this time?
The compass number weighed heavily on my mind.
I’d memorized the whole maze, but there was no telling how long it would take to reach the weak spot.
‘…Demon King.’
I asked the Demon King.
‘How long do you think it’ll take to bring that thing down?’
The boss showing up meant we were near the very end…
Wouldn’t it be better to take it down as fast as possible with the Demon King’s power instead?
If it was even possible, that is.
– Does it matter if I overdo it a little?
‘As long as it doesn’t cause Overload…’
– Then hand it over.
I handed my body over to the Demon King right away.
The Demon King looked down at the antlion and brought both hands together.
And then…
Shhhhhhhhhh-!
The energy of bitter cold began to gather.
It compressed without end.
So compressed it looked like a single droplet of water.
My Willpower bottomed out in an instant.
“Recharge.”
At the Demon King’s word, I froze time and recharged my Willpower.
Each time I refilled it, the Demon King kept compressing the energy further.
An energy so vast that merely watching it sent chills down my spine was packed entirely into something no bigger than a water droplet.
After refilling my Willpower several times.
He stopped right before the strain hit.
The Demon King swept his hand downward.
As the droplet of bitter cold fell toward the antlion…
Crack.
From the point where the droplet touched.
The antlion began to freeze over. At a tremendous speed.
It took less than ten seconds for that entire colossal body to freeze solid.
Rrrumble-rumble.
The frozen antlion soon crumbled to pieces.
‘Wow…’
A total instant kill.
Having finished off the antlion boss like that.
I came down and took my body back.
Hahhhh…
Breathing out white puffs of breath, I looked at the boss’s corpse.
One corner of the desert, completely caved in.
I’d even taken down the boss, yet no clear-completion message had appeared.
I checked the compass.
[134,217,728]
A number past a hundred million.
Then a change happened.
[0/134,217,728km]
“…?”
Beside the compass number.
The unit “km” had appeared.
…What does this mean?
Unable to make sense of it, I kept staring at the compass.
But there was no further change.
Even after two minutes passed, the number didn’t go up.
I lifted my head, brow furrowed.
“…”
The direction the compass pointed.
The oasis was still there.
So in the end, I had to actually reach all the way there for it to count as cleared?
Wondering if something might have changed now, I started moving toward the oasis.
After going a little ways.
[1/134,217,728km]
The compass number changed.
I stopped in my tracks again and glared at the compass.
“…Hold on.”
Don’t tell me, right now.
A hundred million kilometers is the distance left to the oasis…?
I moved toward the oasis again.
[2/134,217,728km]
After going a bit farther, the numerator ticked up to 2.
It really did seem like what I was thinking.
‘This is insane…’
It want me to travel a distance of over a hundred million kilometers?
Bewildered, I tried to do the math.
Okay, but at least I have the Warp Device…
If I keep warping every ten minutes?
I can cover 60,000 km an hour.
On top of that there’s the distance I cover myself, so it’d be a little more than that.
So if I figure roughly 1.5 million km a day…
it would take about 90 days to reach the oasis.
“…”
Ninety days?
Ninety days, for real?
…And only 20 days left on the Nightmare Time Limit?
[Nightmare]
Population: 476,805
Time Limit: 19 days 22 hours 52 minutes 1 second
Reached Floor: Floor 8
Cold sweat ran down my back.
Only one thought circled through my head.
Yeah, I’m screwed.
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