Chapter 106: Warning |
At the message saying the hidden clear had been voided due to an error.
I checked my status window.
[Difficulty: Nightmare]
[Floor: 7F]
[Level: 95]
[Willpower: 5,000/5,000]
[Skills: Destruction Ray (Epic+), Subspace (Epic), Hellfire Eruption (Epic), Sixth Sense (Rare+)(+2), Teleportation (Rare+), Rapid Regeneration (Rare+), Scorching Zone (Rare+), Fire-Type Low-Tier Mastery (Rare+)…]
My level hadn’t gone up.
And I hadn’t gotten any other reward.
“Oh, come on…”
I’d never seen such garbage in my life.
Was the error my fault?
Voiding the reward on top of it all, what kind of crap was that.
[Due to an error, the Hidden Route for Nightmare difficulty is being closed.]
[The Hidden Route cannot be undertaken until all errors have been corrected.]
On top of everything, the Hidden Route had been shut down.
So this meant… it wasn’t just 7F that was blocked?
If the Hidden Route for Nightmare difficulty was closed, that seemed to mean every other floor was included too.
Did that mean no more hidden clears going forward? Not until the error got fixed?
Dumbfounded, I glared at the message.
…Right, the other reward, then.
Separate from the Tower’s reward, there was the thing the Sage had given me.
I stared hard at my right palm.
‘…What the hell did he even give me?’
He’d called it the one thing I needed most.
But I couldn’t tell what had changed.
Something like a white jewel had melted into my hand.
And yet nothing in particular showed up in my status window.
“Demon King.”
I called out to him.
“What did the Sage do to me? Do you know?”
– I do not know.
For some reason, the Demon King sounded sullen.
– Did I not tell you to choose the book? And now you’ve gained no reward at all. A fine sight you make.
Was he sulking because I hadn’t picked the Book of Omniscience?
I protested.
“…I already told you. The Sage failed too, so picking the Book of Omniscience wouldn’t have made any difference for me either…”
That’s what I said, anyway.
Honestly, though, I was starting to regret it a little.
Should I have chosen the Book of Omniscience after all?
There was no taking back a choice already made.
“Hyah!”
I thrust my palm out into empty air, just trying anything.
Naturally, nothing came out.
– Tsk, tsk.
Sheepishly, I lowered my hand.
Ugh, I don’t even know anymore…
I flopped down onto the bed and let my head cool off.
My thoughts were a tangled mess.
More than anything, what on earth had the Sage been?
‘…He said it was the fate of failed worlds.’
Did that mean a world destroyed by the Tower became one of its floors?
If I failed, would Earth end up the same way?
Not just humanity wiped out by the Tower’s Curse, people turned into monsters, and that being the end of it.
“…Demon King.”
– What is it.
“How did your world come to an end?”
I’d asked once before but never gotten an answer.
I felt like I was starting to understand, a little, why the Demon King had been buried on 5F.
Maybe he too had been swallowed by the Tower, left in a state much like the Sage’s.
“We’re partners now, aren’t we? Share some information with me.”
After a brief silence.
– Once, I held dominion over lands far more vast than this planet you call Earth.
The Demon King began to speak.
– All things in the world enjoyed a long peace beneath my reign. Until the Tower appeared.
…A Demon King, and peace?
It made me tilt my head, but I let him go on.
– My world was no different from this one. There were four difficulties, and it foretold that the world would meet its end once the time limit ran out. And the Nightmare difficulty, none but I could clear it.
– Yet that was no trouble at all. Not even the Nightmare difficulty dared to bar my path. I climbed past the twentieth floor without any real hardship.
“…So then what happened?”
How had a Demon King so powerful ended up failing?
The Demon King fell silent for a long while, then spoke.
– I do not know.
“What?”
– For some reason, no memory of the final moments remains to me. Of what end my world came to.
No memory of it.
– I am certain the Tower made some manner of offer, and yet…
Something dawned on me, and I asked.
“Is that why you wanted to get the Book of Omniscience?”
The Demon King had been strangely, suspiciously eager about it.
Had he wanted to use the Book of Omniscience to recover his lost memories?
– That, among other things. But did you not go and make a fool’s choice?
“…So either way, even you don’t actually know what the Tower really is.”
I’d wanted to know exactly how the Tower brought a world to its end.
But since the Demon King had no memory of it, getting an answer seemed hopeless.
Well, not that knowing would change anything.
I looked at my palm one more time and got to my feet.
The Hidden Route was closed, and I had no clue what the Sage had even given me.
My head was still a mess, but…
One way or another, I had to do what needed doing.
I left the motel and headed home.
[You have entered Floor 7 of Nightmare difficulty.]
And then I re-entered Floor 7 right away.
The entry went through normally.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The hidden clear was done, so now I had to write up the 7F info post too…
This one looked like it was going to take a good while.
Because I’d have to check every single one of the hundreds of arrows in each gate.
‘Can anyone even clear this?’
What kept nagging at me.
Was the question of whether the other Nightmare clearers could beat 7F at all.
The second gate, the darkness one.
For that, all it took was some kind of skill that secured vision in the dark.
Or relighting the torches by flinging a fire-type spell would work too. I’d confirmed that was possible.
The fourth gate, the colored arrows.
That one would be seriously brutal, but I didn’t think it was outright impossible.
Memorize every arrow pattern perfectly, and it would work out somehow.
The fifth gate, the statues, was just a matter of practicing archery enough to hit the marks and get through.
But even granting all the rest, the third gate, the left-right body inversion, that one was just too brutal.
Just knowing how it worked wasn’t going to make it happen…
I breezed through the gates and reached the boss room.
FWOOOOOOOSH!
After cutting the boss down with a casual Hellfire Eruption.
[You have successfully cleared Floor 7 of Nightmare difficulty.]
[Moving to the Reward Room.]
Along with the normal messages, I was moved to the Reward Room.
I looked around it.
I wondered if maybe there’d be some kind of 7F hidden reward after all… there wasn’t.
So it really had been voided completely.
“So stingy, seriously.”
Might as well put the info post together.
I exited back out.
I figured I’d run Repeat Clearing and jot down the arrow patterns gate by gate.
“…Shit.”
God, that startled me.
When I got back to my room, my little sister was sitting at my desk, using the computer.
“What’re you doing?”
“Got something I need to print out.”
“What about your laptop?”
“It died. I’ve gotta take it in for repairs anyway.”
She glanced back at me and asked.
“You took a while, though?”
“…Huh?”
“I mean it took you forever to clear and come back out. I’ve been on this thing over thirty minutes now. Thought you weren’t even home.”
I was at a loss for a second, then answered.
“That’s ’cause I was doing Repeat Clearing.”
There was no reason killing a single goblin on Easy difficulty, Floor 1, should take several minutes.
But it was also possible to re-clear straight from the Reward Room without ever leaving the Tower.
So there was nothing especially strange about me being inside the Tower for a long stretch.
“Huh, okay. But what about the Magic Stones?”
“They’re in the Reward Room, obviously. Why do you keep asking?”
“Just curious. Can’t I even ask?”
My sister grumbled and turned her eyes back to the screen.
I cocked my head.
Why was the kid, who’d never shown the slightest interest before, suddenly asking?
‘…Does she suspect something?’
Hmm, no way.
My sister finished with the computer and left.
I put it out of my mind and entered Floor 7 again.
Anyway, this 7F really had me worried for the other Nightmare clearers…
I thought back to the two people I’d seen during the Zone 3 boss fight.
The US and China would go for it, of course, wouldn’t they?
The truth was, at this point, nations no longer had any real reason to aggressively challenge the Nightmare difficulty.
I was already holding off humanity’s end, and apart from that reason, it was a challenge whose risk far outweighed the return.
And yet both the US and China kept challenging the Nightmare difficulty, which was… well, probably just a rivalry between the two of them. The kind where neither could afford to fall behind the other.
The US’s representative Nightmare clearer.
I’d picked up a few things about her secondhand from Bilon and Rhino.
The nations were no doubt investing in their Nightmare clearers for their own gain.
But she, I’d heard, was definitely someone who challenged the Nightmare difficulty for the greater good.
Especially the identity of the people, besides me, who were filling the Zone 5 gauge.
That too I’d heard hinted at by Rhino.
That, separate from the US Climbing Bureau, she was acting on her own initiative to help our side.
I didn’t really know what kind of person China’s representative Nightmare clearer was.
But I’d heard from Bilon that he was the one who’d staged China’s coup, and that he was likely the power behind the throne in the current Communist Party.
I had no idea why a man like that would challenge the Nightmare difficulty, but…
if he was taking it on himself rather than just grooming some other Nightmare clearer, maybe it was because he, too, had some cause to save humanity?
Anyway, if those two, who were following me more earnestly than anyone, were to fail and die.
I had a feeling it would weigh on me badly.
And this 7F was especially hard. Far, far too hard.
Honestly, I wished no one would attempt it.
But I had no right to stop the other Climbers from trying.
So instead, I decided to leave a clear warning in this info post.
If they chose to try anyway, there was nothing I could do, but with the hope that, if at all possible, they wouldn’t.
*
After the Nightmare 7F clear, the Zone 3 boss fight wrapped up right on its heels too.
Now people were waiting for Person123 to post the 7F info.
[Person123: Here’s the clear info for Nightmare 7F.]
And then the post went up in the Communication Channel.
[Person123: …Floor 7 consists of six gates in total. In the first gate, you have to dodge a total of 305 arrows flying in from every direction. Taking the entrance to the next gate as twelve o’clock: the first arrow comes from the one o’clock ceiling, the second from straight ahead at six o’clock, the third arrow…]
A clear post far longer than the ones for any other floor.
That was because the trajectory of every single arrow had been laid out, one by one.
But above all, there was one thing about this clear post that stood out.
[Person123: …This Floor 7 is genuinely dangerous. I would rather the two Nightmare clearers from the US and China not attempt it, but if you intend to try anyway, please, I urge you to take the utmost care.]
Person123 had added a personal note at the very end.
The Communication Channel was abuzz.
[Pony: An arrow over 3 meters long is basically just a missile, isn’t it?]
[Orchestra: It’s Nightmare, that much isn’t even surprising. Looks like the arrow size isn’t the real problem though]
[Flame Sword: The gate themes really are ridiculously hard though…]
[Shushu: what even is the left-right body inversion thing… how did Person123 clear that?]
[Watson: That’s literally what they’re saying. That it’s seriously dangerous.]
[Eye of the Storm: whoa, isn’t this the first time Person123’s ever warned people like that?]
[Destructive Power: the US and China Nightmare clearers straight up got a shoutout from Person123 lol]
The US Climbing Bureau was in an uproar too.
For Person123 to leave a special warning like this was without precedent.
Experts pored over the info post Person123 had put up, and an emergency meeting was convened.
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