Chapter 117: Nightmare, 8th Floor (5) |
[Floor 8 has been cleared on all Difficulties.]
[The Tower summons new participants.]
[A new rule is added.]
[In 24 hours, the ‘Proof of Qualification’ will begin.]
[The top-floor Climbers of each Difficulty are to prove their qualification as the Vanguard of Humanity.]
[If a Difficulty has more than one top-floor Climber, one will be chosen at random.]
[Time Remaining: 23 hours 59 minutes 49 seconds]
I’d been moved to the Reward Room.
I looked at the messages scrolling up one after another.
I’d cleared an even-numbered floor, so something new had popped out again.
Was the Tower planning to do something to the top-floor Climbers?
If so, then that included me too.
I didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on it.
Thinking about it now wouldn’t tell me anything anyway.
I could figure it out once it actually started.
More to the point, I checked the remaining lifespan displayed on the broken Scales again.
Remaining Lifespan: 305 days 23 hours 16 minutes 25 seconds
Haa…
All I can do is sigh.
I’d boldly gone and burned through the full 99 percent.
And as a result, I now had less than a year left to live.
Not that I hadn’t seen it coming.
‘…Nothing to be done about it.’
I don’t regret it.
If I’d offered up some half-measure, there was no telling what might’ve come out instead.
Maybe even at 98 percent it still would’ve cleared, or maybe it wouldn’t have. There was no way to know.
Since I couldn’t predict anything, offering up the maximum really had been the best play.
Right, so there’s nothing to regret there…
What I needed to think about was what came next.
I’m the only one who can clear Nightmare.
And now I, of all people, had become a man with just a year left to live.
I’d managed to put out the immediate fire that was Floor 8, somehow.
But the price was that I’d sold off the future.
My future, and the world’s future too.
…With things the way they were, there was only one answer.
Climbing the Tower once a year was no longer an option.
For whatever lifespan I had left, I’d have to climb Nightmare as fast as I possibly could.
[Skill: Radiant Incarnation (Legendary+)]
Borrows the power of holy radiance to transform the body into light. While the skill is maintained, the user takes no damage of any kind and can move omnidirectionally at the speed of light. Casting requires 1 hour of Mental Concentration. The skill can be maintained for up to 10 minutes.
Type: Magic
Willpower Cost: 5,000 per second
Cooldown: 72 hours
Still, well…
At least I’d scored a Legendary+ grade skill out of it.
I’d offered up basically my whole life, so something this grade had better come out.
I read the skill description over again.
Radiant Incarnation.
Not only could I move at the speed of light.
While the skill was active, apparently, I took no damage at all.
In other words, it was a ten-minute lightspeed mobility skill that doubled as an invincibility skill.
That eerie sensation of my body turning into light is still vivid in my mind.
Could I use other skills while keeping Radiant Incarnation active, I wondered?
The description didn’t say I couldn’t, so it would probably work.
I wanted to test out more ways to use it, but with a 72-hour cooldown, that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
I let out a sigh and checked the other rewards.
An Epic-grade Skill Enhancement Stone and an item.
[Item: Revillus’s Ring]
A ring containing the power of Revillus, the Demon Grand Duke who subjugated all demons. Every Familiar the user subjugates grows stronger in proportion to the master’s power.
I read the description.
So… it seemed the effect made whatever Familiars I commanded grow stronger in proportion to my own power.
I slipped on the ring and summoned Plli.
Hssssss.
Black smoke gathered and condensed, and Plli was summoned.
His body and claws had grown a little larger.
“Run over to that wall and back, Plli.”
Wham!
Plli launched off, shot to the Reward Room’s far wall like an arrow, tagged it, and came back.
He was definitely a whole lot faster now.
I patted Plli on the head.
As it was, no matter how many floors I climbed, Plli’s abilities had stayed the same, so he’d had no choice but to keep falling behind.
With this ring, Plli would grow right along with my Level.
Looked like a decent item had dropped as a reward.
As for the Epic-grade Skill Enhancement Stone, I could use it to upgrade Hellfire Eruption or something…
Still, I didn’t use it right away.
‘Come to think of it, the Hidden Route didn’t open.’
Normally a message saying the Hidden Route had opened should pop up as the first-clear reward.
This time, no message appeared.
Back with the Sage, it had told me the route would stay closed until the error was fixed.
But if that’s the case, shouldn’t it at least give some other reward instead…? Where’s the conscience?
Sure, the Sage probably had handed over something important, important enough to cause a bug, even.
If it had been any real help on this Floor 8, I wouldn’t have felt so cheated.
But far from helping, I still didn’t even know what the hell it was, so I couldn’t help feeling fucking cheated.
Grumbling, I finished sorting through the rewards.
[Difficulty: Nightmare]
[Floor: 9]
[Level: 105]
[Willpower: 6,050/6,050]
[Skills: Destruction Ray (Epic+), Subspace (Epic), Hellfire Eruption (Epic)(+1), Sixth Sense (Rare+)(+4), Teleportation (Rare+), Rapid Regeneration (Rare+)…]
[Nightmare]
Population: 476,805
Time Limit: 1 year 7 days 6 hours 10 minutes 11 seconds
Floor Reached: 9
[Do you wish to exit the Tower?]
I checked the status window and the Time Limit, then stepped outside.
Coming back to the hotel room felt strange.
Thirteen days in the desert.
It had felt like something far, far longer than that.
The first thing I did was check my phone.
“…”
Missed calls and texts from my family had piled up, a whole heap of them.
Going through the texts, I sigh yet again.
Bzzzt.
Just then the phone rang.
It was my mother.
I went back and forth over whether to pick up, and in the end I couldn’t.
…I wasn’t ready, didn’t know what I’d even say. My head was too tangled up.
– I’m okay. I’ll head straight home tomorrow.
I just sent the text and threw myself onto the bed.
I was exhausted. I hadn’t gotten a proper wink of sleep on Floor 8.
I closed my eyes and surrendered to the wave of drowsiness pouring over me.
*
Day thirteen since Person123 had entered Floor 8.
The world grew more and more chaotic.
[Baffled: It’s all over. The world’s really going to end after all]
[Haruku: Quit talking shit. Can’t you see Person123 is still in there clearing it?]
[Chicken Leg: It’s day thirteen. This isn’t even supposed to be possible]
[Cloud: Let’s all hold onto hope. There’s still 7 days left on the Time Limit]
[Thomas1: You mean there’s only 7 days left]
[Sun Bear: It’s over, you morons. Hope, my ass]
People lamenting that this was the end.
People trying to cling to hope, since the Nightmare Communication Channel’s numbers hadn’t dropped yet.
Either way, both sides were sunk in the same despair.
Now that things had come this far, it was clear something had gone wrong with the clear…
And now, whether Person123 lived or died, whether Floor 8 would actually be cleared within the seven days left was anyone’s guess.
It was much like the days of Floor 1.
Crime surged across every corner of the globe, and governments went on emergency footing.
– Person123 is still in the midst of clearing Floor 8. Fellow citizens, please, do not lose hope…
Presidents of various nations gave addresses, too.
But the mood, hurtling toward the end of days, refused to settle and only went from bad to worse.
“…I’d best prepare.”
Bilon, who had been scanning the news in his office, closed his eyes.
His secretary, Ellen, stood beside him, his own face just as grim.
An unprecedented crisis: thirteen whole days, and Nightmare still uncleared.
Even as Bilon went on believing in Person123’s success, he couldn’t help bracing himself.
Bracing himself, that is, to accept the end of the world.
Person123. Kim Seo-hyeon.
He knew that even making it this far had been a miracle.
Even if the world were to end, it was thanks to his sacrifice that humanity had been granted a few more years of life.
If only he could leave one last farewell, to say: I was grateful for your devotion…
“Ellen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think Mister Kim would actually want this?”
If Floor 8 went uncleared until the Time Limit dropped below a single day.
Bilon intended to reveal Person123’s identity to the entire world.
The greatest hero history would ever know, a man who had saved humanity time and again.
Even if, once the Time Limit ran out, that very history would scatter away like a handful of dust…
“No, I’ll do it all the same.”
Because for a hero like that, he thought, it was the last thing he could do.
Bilon simply prayed, with everything in him.
That it would never come to that. That Kim Seo-hyeon would work one more miracle.
US Climbing Bureau Headquarters.
“All right, I’m entering now.”
Taylor was preparing to enter Floor 7.
The Bureau staff, Max and Director Liam among them, watched her with grim faces.
Originally, the plan had been to take on Floor 7 only after a long interval, if at all…
But now, that kind of plan meant nothing.
Because Floor 8 still hadn’t been cleared, with Nightmare’s Time Limit nearly up.
The Bureau’s position was to wait just a little longer.
But Taylor judged that there was no more time to hesitate.
She had to clear Floor 7, get herself fully ready again, and then challenge Floor 8.
Of course, her odds of clearing Floor 7 were vanishingly slim, too, but she meant to fulfill her duty as a Nightmare clearer to the very end.
[Squirrel: This is Taylor Miller, America’s Nightmare Climber. I was grateful for your devotion, Person123. And I respected you.
Before I enter Floor 7, I’m leaving you my first and last Whisper. I truly hope you’ll have cleared Floor 8 and come out to read this message.]
She left a Whisper for Person123 through the Communication Channel as well.
Because there was still a chance he’d clear it and come out within the seven days left on the Time Limit.
“We wish you good fortune, Taylor.”
Her final checks complete, Taylor took a deep breath.
And just as she was about to enter Floor 7.
A message rose up before her eyes.
“…!”
Startled, Taylor stared at the message.
*
The streets of Gwanghwamun, Seoul.
Countless people are packed in shoulder to shoulder, with no room to take a step, all of them praying.
A gathering, led at its core by the faithful of the Person123 Church, that has carried on for thirteen days straight.
Even as they chewed on despair and dread, every last one of them was still praying for Floor 8 to be cleared.
“Savior, please, save humanity…!”
They cried out until their throats went raw, calling his name.
And it wasn’t only Korea; the whole world was the same.
A moment in which all of mankind came to feel, all over again, that none of the clears up to now had been a given, that humanity was no better off than a candle flame in the wind.
They simply, desperately wished for one more miracle to happen.
And then.
[Floor 8 has been cleared on all Difficulties.]
A miracle truly happened.
With 7 days, 6 hours, and 16 minutes 50 seconds left on Nightmare’s Time Limit.
The message appeared.
A cheer greater than any before rang out through the streets across the world.
Wraaaaaaaahh-!
A hair’s-breadth escape from doom if there ever was one.
– They’ve done it! Person123 has done it! After thirteen days of struggle, Nightmare Floor 8 has been cleared, and…
Feeling as though they’d been hauled back up out of hell, people went wild, and wild again.
Family, friends, lovers, even total strangers threw their arms around one another, sobbing and rejoicing.
[Bear Trap: We’re alive! We’re alive, I tell you!]
[Fighter Jet: holy fuck I really thought we were dead this time lmaooooo KYAAAAH asdfgh]
[ToYou: Person123 is a god! Person123 is a god! Person123 is a god! Person123 is a god! Person123 is a god! Person123 is a god!]
[Chameleon: I told you so! I said we’d pull it off in the end!]
[Fløvig: my heart is beating way too fast right now. i think im gonna die]
[Kim Cheol-su: how horrific must it have been to take a full 13 days for real…]
[Knight of the Skies: Person123 really is Person123 after all]
[Cheonma: I was a fool for ever doubting. I can only worship him]
Person123! Person123! Person123…!
All of humanity rejoiced, chanting the name of the great, triumphant hero.
The world had been gifted another precious year of time.
*
I stood in front of the door.
Tense, I keyed in the lock and stepped inside.
The first thing my eyes landed on was my family’s startled faces.
All three of them were standing in the entryway.
“…I’m back.”
I started to say something more, then faltered.
I couldn’t get my mouth to open; I had no idea what to say first.
Then my mother came toward me.
Without a word, she pulled me into her arms.
My father came over too and rubbed my back.
“You’ve been through so much, son…”
My younger sister, on the verge of tears, came over and hugged me from the side.
There was no need for idle words.
To the family welcoming me home, I just smiled.
“I’m home.”