Chapter 57: Sub-Tower (3) |
After China cleared the first Sub-Tower and the second one appeared in Mongolia, the Communication Channel was in an uproar all day long.
[World Tree: China << have these guys completely lost their humanity?][Flying Squirrel: Millions of lives are on the line and they refuse to share information…]
[MeatMeat: Don’t they have any human decency?]
[Ballpoint: How can they be that selfish]
[No.39: I saw the news, apparently they’re demanding Mongolia hand over all their resources?]
[Lethe: Do they really want to act like that? They see Person123 and feel nothing?]
The vast majority were cursing China for refusing to share Sub-Tower information and pressuring Mongolia.
[Black Tiger: Wang Kai risked his life to be the first to clear it. What right do you guys have to tell him what to do?]
[Wildflower: Millions of lives my ass. They’ve got a whole week, just leave the city]
[Downstream: Why is everyone only blaming Wang Kai? Show me one top-tier climber right now who actually shares information.]
[Zhang Wei: Then go cry to Person123 and beg him to clear it for you lol]
And a portion of Chinese climbers defending him.
[Hwapung: Mongolia should be thanking us. Without Wang Kai, how would they ever solve this themselves?]
[DoDoDo: Look, if you don’t want to negotiate, deal with it yourselves Don’t like this, don’t like that, what the hell do you want]
[Shooting Star: Shut up before we crack open every one of you crazy Chinese bastards’ skulls]
[MeatMeat: Thick-skinned bastards yapping away in here]
[Hada: Whoa whoa, settle down, Mongolian friends. Have you all evacuated Ulaanbaatar?]
Everyone was busy cursing and fighting each other.
[Battery: Person123 won’t really go clear it for them, will he…?]
[Cyclone: All the way to Mongolia though]
[Radiwe: Hey, on the off chance Person123 is Mongolian]
[Tsetseg: I’m Mongolian, please help us, Person123… Mongolia is on the verge of collapse!]
[Takoyaki: But can Person123 even clear it? Isn’t he level 40 right now?]
[Tree: Wang Kai won’t open his mouth so we don’t really know. If it’s a difficulty that requires around level 50, even Person123 would struggle]
[Amazon: Don’t talk crazy. Why would Person123 ever clear a Sub-Tower]
[Salad: If something happens to him, humanity is finished]
The arguments went back and forth, and in the end, people could only watch and see what would become of Mongolia. The only ones whose blood was running cold were the Mongolians themselves.
[Time remaining for Second Sub-Tower: 5 days, 8 hours, 9 minutes, 17 seconds]
[The Second Sub-Tower has been cleared to the final floor.]
[Time until Third Sub-Tower appears: 5 days, 8 hours, 9 minutes, 16 seconds]
That was, until the message about Mongolia’s Sub-Tower being cleared suddenly appeared.
[Triangle: ?]
[Life’s Trials: Oh what]
[Lake: Did Wang Kai clear it?]
[Requiem: There hasn’t been any news about it though? Did Mongolia accept China’s demands?]
[Oliver: Doesn’t seem like it. Even Mongolia and China don’t seem to know what happened?]
The Mongolians, the very party involved, quickly made it clear that they themselves had no idea who had cleared the Sub-Tower.
If a climber from another country had cleared it, there should have been some kind of announcement, but everyone was hearing it for the first time.
The Tower had been cleared, yet nobody was claiming credit?
That left people with only one possible conclusion about who had cleared the Sub-Tower.
[Lion King: Ah… don’t tell me, it’s you again?]
[Cherry Pie: Yep lol who else would it be]
[Railroad: Person123! Person123! Person123! Person123! Person123!]
[Premium: If you cleared it, please at least let us know in the Communication Channel, Person123-nim…]
[Scales of Judgment: Truly the greatest pacifist in human history. GOAT]
[Iron Chain: A whole different league from someone like Wang Kai, seriously]
[Terrace: Compare him to something comparable;]
[Verryverry: Looks like the Chinese got left empty-handed lmaooo so satisfying]
[Litman: Greedy as hell and walked away with nothing, bahaha]
[Hero: Hey wait, you don’t think Person123 is actually Mongolian…?]
[Whistle: He probably just went to Mongolia directly. If he were Mongolian, wouldn’t he have cleared it faster?]
People praised him today as they always did, and China was left to be mocked.
Crash!
A lavish, luxurious mansion.
Wang Kai hurled the whiskey glass he had been drinking from. Shattered glass and liquor scattered across the marble floor.
Sitting across from him, Li Wei, a member of the Party’s Central Committee, flinched, then quickly composed his expression. He pressed the question quietly, with a hint of accusation.
“What is the meaning of this. Didn’t you say with certainty that this difficulty was beyond what Person123 could clear?”
“…You’re telling me. It’s absurd.”
Wang Kai muttered, his face thick with irritation and anger.
“That bastard’s level 40, isn’t he? You’d need to be at least level 50 to clear that difficulty.”
Either there was some difference in difficulty between Sub-Towers, or Person123 was far stronger than expected.
He had shut the channel off after watching the mockery flood it, his blood boiling, and now he commanded Li Wei.
“Look, the next Sub-Tower, I’m clearing it no matter what. The moment the third Sub-Tower appears, have everything ready so I can move to its location as fast as possible.”
“Ahem… I should run this by the higher-ups first.”
“What’s there to run by? Don’t you want the Mana Vein? I’ll spoon-feed you the whole thing, just do your damn job and assist me properly.”
Insolent little bastard. Li Wei cursed inwardly and nodded.
Person123 had cut in out of nowhere and they had idiotically let the Mongolian fish slip off the hook, but the next Sub-Towers had to all be secured by China, just as Wang Kai said.
That irritating troublemaker had started moving, so there was no longer any time to extract more through negotiations.
Given Person123’s nature, he would almost certainly try to clear the next Sub-Towers as well. Wang Kai had to clear them faster than he could.
The Activation Rights for the Mana Vein, awarded to the clearer. As long as he held those, no matter which country the Sub-Tower was in, China could negotiate the Mana Vein’s stake from a position of dominance.
“Fucking hell, playing some pathetic savior…”
Wang Kai resolved that he would clear the third Sub-Tower first and show Person123 the difference in caliber between them.
Five days passed as he waited for the third Sub-Tower to appear.
[The Third Sub-Tower has appeared.]
Surprisingly.
The country where the third Sub-Tower appeared was Japan.
After China and Mongolia, three consecutive Sub-Tower appearances confined to Northeast Asia. An astonishing coincidence.
In any case, it was a fortunate coincidence for China. The distance wasn’t that far, so they could quickly move into the Sub-Tower’s radius.
Wang Kai, who had been on standby at the airport, moved out under the guidance of his attendants the moment the message appeared.
Reservations? Customs? When the Party flexed its muscle, none of that was necessary.
He immediately secured a seat on the fastest flight to Sendai City, Japan, and boarded the plane.
Since there was no way to know which country the Sub-Tower would appear in, this was faster than a private jet that required prior authorization.
[The Third Sub-Tower has been cleared to the final floor.]
“…??”
It happened the moment he sat down in his first-class seat.
Wang Kai removed his sunglasses, staring at the inexplicable message that had appeared before his eyes.
“What the fuck.”
The third Sub-Tower had appeared just over twenty minutes ago.
And what? Cleared?
Unless someone had already been within the Sub-Tower’s radius the moment it appeared, this kind of speed was impossible.
Wang Kai, his mouth hanging open in sheer disbelief, muttered as if he couldn’t believe it.
“That bastard Person123…”
Don’t tell me he was Japanese the whole time?
*
The third Sub-Tower that appeared in Sendai City, Japan.
The Japanese government didn’t even have time to declare a state of emergency.
[The Third Sub-Tower has been cleared to the final floor.]
It had been cleared less than half an hour after the Tower appeared.
The Communication Channel exploded once again.
It was no surprise that Person123 had been the one to clear it this time too, but what fanned the controversy into a roaring flame was the speed of the clear.
[Reynold: He cleared it in under 30 minutes?]
[Sug: That’s an impossible speed unless he was already in Japan…?]
[Firefly: Wait a second, was Person123 actually Japanese?!]
People buzzed and chattered, wondering if Person123’s nationality was Japanese after all.
Because that was the only way the speed could possibly make sense.
Mongolia took two whole days to clear, but Japan took only twenty minutes.
Of course, it was possible he just happened to be on vacation in Japan and just happened to be within the Sub-Tower’s radius, but the probability of that had to be vanishingly small.
The Communication Channel was on fire, and in no time at all, the atmosphere shifted to treat Person123 being Japanese as a foregone conclusion.
The most excited of all were the Japanese.
[Beginning: Person123 is Japanese? Is this for real?]
[Takamura: Circumstantially the probability is extremely high…!]
[Monsoon: So this whole time, it was us Japanese saving humanity?]
[Ramen: Quite surprising (lol)]
[Sword Demon: I knew something was off… it didn’t make sense that Japan hadn’t produced a single Nightmare clearer until now]
[Human Pass: It wasn’t that we didn’t have one. He was one of us from the very start]
[Rhythm: I’m so proud! Person123!]
The highest record holder of Nightmare difficulty and savior of humanity, Person123, was actually Japanese?!
For the Japanese, who along with Korea hadn’t produced a single Nightmare clearer until now, this was a nationalistic high several times beyond a lethal dose.
News outlets across the world quickly reported the news as breaking headlines.
The world was thrown into an uproar over the controversy of Person123 being Japanese.
*
Time had passed since I cleared the second Sub-Tower and returned home.
Absurdly enough, the country where the third Sub-Tower appeared was Japan.
What is this?
Is there some kind of curse on Northeast Asia?
In any case, the moment the Tower appeared, I prepared to fly to Japan.
The distance to Sendai, Japan, was about 1,300km. Required Willpower: 130,000.
Charging time of about 6,000 minutes, 100 hours.
After clearing Mongolia’s Sub-Tower, over five days, charging here and there whenever I wasn’t sleeping, I had built up about 85 hours’ worth.
This time, I only needed another 15 hours’ worth to make the trip there.
The trip back, of course, would be starting from zero again.
I finished charging the Warp Device and immediately moved to Japan.
[You have successfully cleared Floor 1.]
[You have successfully cleared Floor 2.]
[You have successfully cleared Floor 3.]
.
.
.
The early-floor monsters were no different from before.
But once I climbed higher, things started to change from Floor 5.
The Minotaur turned into some kind of triceratops-looking monster.
And the swarm of bats had been replaced with a swarm of insects nearly the size of birds.
Only the monsters had changed; the difficulty itself was about the same.
I cleared straight through and reached the final tenth floor, where the boss waiting was a Dracula.
“Oh…?!”
When I attacked with Flame Strike, its body turned into blood and scattered, then reformed.
Damn… that actually looks pretty useful.
Its physical capabilities were lower than the Black Knight, the boss of the second Sub-Tower.
But that liquefaction ability made it a tricky monster to deal with.
Whoooosh…
In the face of Destruction Ray, of course, things were equal.
Hit dead-on, it was annihilated without leaving so much as a drop of blood behind.
[The Third Sub-Tower has been cleared to the final floor.]
[You have acquired ownership of the Third Sub-Tower.]
The third Sub-Tower, cleared with ease.
“Haa…”
The reason I was sighing was because.
Recharging the Warp Device to get back home was more torturous than clearing the Tower itself.
I exited the Tower.
Stopping time over and over in the middle of some Japanese forest I didn’t even know the location of, I recharged the Warp Device and went home.
When I got back, my younger sister was lying on the couch watching TV.
“…?”
I was about to head to my room when an absurd news report on the TV screen caught my eye.
– Japan’s Sub-Tower has been cleared in under thirty minutes. This too is presumed to have been cleared by Person123, and a controversy has erupted over whether Person123 may in fact be Japanese…
What on earth.
“Person123 is Japanese…?”
My sister, watching too, muttered in surprise.
“Did you see? They’re saying Person123 is Japanese!”
“Uh… yeah. Right.”
That’s pretty surprising.
I immediately understood why this ridiculous news was being reported.
Ah, it’s because I cleared it too quickly.
I’d hopped over to Japan almost the instant the Sub-Tower appeared. Hmm, now that I think about it, it’s a reasonable misunderstanding to make.
I checked the Communication Channel once and, as expected, it was chaos. I shut it right back off.
Ugh… charging the warp left me dead tired.
Without paying it much mind, I went into my room.
Either way, the misunderstanding would clear itself up the moment I cleared the next Sub-Tower.
I’d just let them enjoy themselves for now.