Chapter 102: 7F Hidden (1) |
The Zone 3 boss lay defeated.
Of course, since I’d already claimed both the first-clear reward and the standard reward, no reward message popped up for me.
Watching everyone celebrate, I thought to myself.
‘Did I hit it too hard?’
There’d been someone in real danger, so I’d ended up stepping in.
But I think I might have botched the power control a little.
I probably siphoned off a good chunk of the boss Contribution.
Well, nobody died, so that’s what matters.
‘Anyway…’
It wasn’t like I’d ever seen their faces before, but watching them fight, I could tell on instinct.
Those two were the representative Nightmare clearers of America and China.
I’d figured a flying boss might be a pain to deal with.
But that Chinese Nightmare clearer stepped up first, punched through its wings, and dragged the boss down to the ground.
By cutting off its flight ability right away, the whole fight went a lot smoother, I think.
The American Nightmare clearer put on quite a show too.
The ones who racked up the highest Contribution were probably those two.
Well, either way, it ended with nobody dead, so all’s well.
I moved to Zone 0.
*
“Are you all right?”
Li Zeyan approached Ye Tianwei, who stood there motionless, and asked.
Still gazing at the boss’s corpse, Ye Tianwei muttered with a trace of regret.
“I should have shown him more of a performance…”
“Sorry?”
Because one idiot had to go and make a scene, hadn’t the man himself ended up having to step in?
“Don’t worry about me. Go tend to the wounded first.”
“Ah, yes. Understood.”
Turning back toward the Security Corps, Ye Tianwei suddenly caught Taylor’s eye.
When he smiled and gave a small nod of greeting, she nodded back, looking a little awkward.
“Hahh…”
Taylor exhaled and looked around as well.
She tried to spot Person123, but he was nowhere to be seen. Had he already left?
Security Corps chief Alex was making his rounds, checking on his members to see if anyone was hurt.
Deputy commander Justin was busy reaming out Vince, who sat slumped on the ground.
“You out of your goddamn mind? You know you almost died, right?”
After all that warning, the kid had gone and caused trouble again.
If Person123 hadn’t stepped in and saved him, he’d have taken the breath head-on and been reduced to ash.
“…I’m sorry. I thought I could do it too.”
Staring blankly at the boss’s corpse, Vince’s eyes were somehow shining.
“But, Deputy Commander.”
“What?”
“That was insane. You saw it, right? He knocked that monster flat with a single punch…!”
Vince said, clearly worked up.
Justin clicked his tongue. This kid nearly died and still hadn’t learned a thing.
“Good work. How many wounded are there?”
Taylor walked over to Alex and struck up a conversation.
Alex answered.
“Two, but it’s minor.”
“That’s a relief. That it ended without incident.”
“Did you get a reward?”
“Yes. What about the others?”
“More people came up empty than I expected, it seems.”
It was likely partly because Person123 had stepped in and pulled so much of the Contribution his way.
Taylor and Alex looked at the boss’s corpse.
The boss’s body bore countless scars, but the one that stood out most was its caved-in snout.
The mark left by Person123’s fist.
Alex muttered, as if in awe.
“At this point I’m getting tired of being surprised.”
Taylor felt the same.
Of course, Person123 already had a track record of one-shotting the Zone 3 boss.
But that had been a skill.
As the top Nightmare record holder, it was at least possible to reason that he’d earned an equally incredible skill as a reward.
But this was just…
A head that hadn’t so much as flinched even when all the best climbers piled on and focused their attacks, he’d smashed half to pieces with a single punch. And he hadn’t seemed to use any special skill.
Even his physical ability was on a whole different level.
Soon the boss’s corpse vanished.
Alex felt it anew.
That Person123 was, all on his own, becoming an entirely different kind of being.
*
[Kaibeu: is it true person123 killed the boss with one punch?]
[Rudeness: not killed exactly, just knocked it out for a sec apparently. someone almost died so he stepped in.]
[Sparrow: how strong is this guy even, geez]
The Zone 3 boss fight had wrapped up without a hitch.
It was about time to head in and tackle the 7F Hidden.
How to put it about the 7th floor.
Compared to the other floors, it was a brutal test of pure ability.
Especially the Left-Right Reversal of the body.
I could handle it with my Time Stop Ability, but other people had to deal with it purely on their own merits.
And this wasn’t something a person could pull off just by knowing it in their head.
It was a gimmick that was all but impossible to adapt to on the fly.
It wasn’t as if there was any way to practice it outside, either… should I at least do some mental rehearsal or something?
I had my doubts about whether other Nightmare clearers could manage it even with the information.
But I figured I should post the info anyway.
I left the house, booked a motel room, and entered the 7th floor.
[You have entered Nightmare difficulty Floor 7.]
A cavern riddled with holes greeted me.
Bang! Bang!
I dodged this way and that as arrows came flying in like missiles.
’32, 33, 34…’
This time I counted the arrows for certain.
I remembered every single question the final statue had posed.
305 in total.
I dodged every last arrow and moved on to the next gate.
The second gate’s question was the number of arrows that had flown in at the end.
I’d guessed 25 on that one and gotten it right.
Just in case, I froze time and counted again. 25 it was.
Next, the third gate.
Fwooosh.
The pattern glowed, and the goddamn Left-Right Reversal kicked in.
I dropped back into my four-legged-beast posture and dodged the arrows, freezing time as I went.
Hmm… yeah, there’s just no doing this one.
For other Nightmare clearers to clear here, they’d have to at least memorize every arrow pattern perfectly to even have a shot.
Kaboom!
The number of the final arrows.
When I counted, it came to 26.
Next, the fourth gate. Colored arrows.
The color of the tenth colored arrow had been the question.
I knocked the colored arrows aside with my swords and checked the color of the tenth one.
It was green.
– See. Did I not tell thee it was green.
The Demon King said.
I was a little dumbfounded.
This guy still remembered that.
Anyway, I passed and reached the fifth gate.
A red dot appeared on the statue.
I gave up on hitting it with an arrow and just fired them all off into empty air.
Once I’d burned through every chance, the statue leveled its bow my way.
Following the method I’d used before, I timed it to the moment the arrows touched my body and teleported, letting them all slip past.
The statue crumbled, and I moved on to the final boss room.
[How many arrows total were fired at the first gate?]
The stele’s question.
Of course, it was unchanged from before.
“305.”
[O]
I answered each one correctly in turn.
Circle marks appeared one after another, and the number atop the stele never showed up.
Crack!
The questions ended.
The stele crumbled apart, and the boss revealed itself.
Maybe because I’d gotten every answer right, no arrows came flying in at all.
I fired a Destruction Ray straight at the boss.
Taking the hit dead on, the boss split clean into upper and lower halves and collapsed.
Since the stele’s timer hadn’t extended, there was no invincibility buff either.
The boss, too, was down.
I looked around.
Now it was time to find the Hidden Route, but…
‘Where am I supposed to go.’
Aside from the path back to the previous gate, the cavern was sealed off on all sides.
There was no door leading on to a next gate anymore.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
Just then, a tremor rang out again.
One section of the cavern wall collapsed, and an entrance appeared.
…That must be it.
I waited until the Destruction Ray’s cooldown came back around.
Then I moved to the newly appeared entrance.
A long, straight corridor.
Still a little on edge, I trudged forward step by step.
“…?”
And once again, a wide cavern opened up.
And there were people. Three of them.
Their gazes converged on me as well.
“Another one’s joined.”
A middle-aged man in ornate golden armor said, arms folded.
“Welcome. You came all this way after passing the Sage’s Gate too, didn’t you?”
A woman who looked like a mage, draped in a red robe and holding a staff, said. And then,
“Ha, why do the numbers keep climbing? Three’s already too many.”
A man dressed like a free-spirited wanderer, a slew of dagger-like weapons strapped at his waist.
The three of them each tossed out a remark as they looked at me.
So… this seems to be a medieval setting.
‘The Sage’s Gate?’
Looking around the cavern, including the entrance I’d just come from, there was one entrance in each of the four directions: north, south, east, and west.
Had these people passed through the gate and made it here, just like me?
And…
‘They’re strong.’
By my sixth sense, all three were no ordinary fighters.
Whether ally or enemy, I couldn’t tell, but…
For now, at least, there was only a faint wariness, no hostility.
First things first: grasp the setting.
I walked over to the three of them to talk.
“Hello. Did all of you pass the arrow traps too?”
The mage woman, whose tone was the friendliest of the three, answered.
“That’s right. We all passed the gates and ended up running into each other here.”
From the mood of it, the three of them all seemed to be strangers to one another.
It wasn’t just me; they were eyeing each other warily too.
The woman looked around and said.
“Four corridors, four people… could it be that everyone’s gathered now? How about we at least introduce ourselves?”
Introductions sound good.
But the wanderer shot back curtly.
“Introductions, my ass. Aren’t we all rivals here? You lot came all this way coveting the Sage’s Treasure, same as me.”
The woman snorted and said.
“I’m not particularly interested in the treasure. I just came to investigate, because the dungeon the Sage is said to have built is what fascinates me.”
“Is that so? Even so, wouldn’t your eyes pop if the legend turned out to be true?”
The wanderer clenched his fist and shouted.
“Whoever gets their hands on the Sage’s Treasure can know all the truths of the world!”
…Listening to them, I tried to piece together the background setting.
For one, the keyword “Sage” kept cropping up over and over.
This place was a dungeon the Sage built.
And then there was the Sage’s Treasure, which could reveal all the truths of the world.
Was finding the Sage’s Treasure here the clear condition?
“Especially you mage types, you’re the ones obsessed with truth, aren’t you? So drop the laughable act.”
At the wanderer’s words, the woman frowned in displeasure, then fired back with a jab.
“On the contrary, the Sage’s Treasure doesn’t look all that useful to you, does it? You seem like the sort who’s a far cry from pursuing the world’s knowledge.”
The man grinned, as if it hadn’t landed at all.
“How’d you guess? Right, I’ve got no interest in that stuff. I get the Sage’s Treasure, sell it dear to some emperor or whatever rich bastard, and I’m set.”
The woman clicked her tongue as if she found it pathetic, while the knight kept his arms folded and stayed out of the conversation.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
Just then a violent tremor shook the cavern.
The four entrances, north, south, east, and west.
In an instant the walls filled in, and the entrances vanished without a trace.
Kabooom!
The knight immediately drew his sword and swung.
A massive Sword Aura flew out and struck the sealed wall, but left no mark. He clicked his tongue.
“…How curious. It’s been filled in completely, without a trace. What kind of magic is this?”
The woman gazed at the sealed entrance, intrigued.
“Is now the time to be wondering about that? Every exit’s sealed. We’re trapped.”
The wanderer went up to a blocked entrance and ran his hands over the wall.
In that moment.
The gazes of all four of us, mine included, turned toward the empty air.
Letters appeared in the air.
[Find the Sage concealing their identity among the four.]
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