Chapter 106: Warning

The message said that the Hidden clear had been invalidated 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 increased.

I hadn’t received any other reward either.

In other words, I had walked away from the 7F Hidden route with absolutely nothing.

“Oh, come on...”

I had never seen such complete garbage in my life.

Was the error somehow my fault?

And now they were invalidating my reward on top of everything else?

What kind of bullshit was that?

[Due to an error, the Hidden Route for Nightmare difficulty is being closed.]

[The Hidden Route cannot be attempted until all errors have been corrected.]

To make matters worse, the entire Hidden Route had been shut down.

So this meant...

It wasn’t only the seventh floor that had been blocked?

If the Hidden Route for Nightmare difficulty was closed, then every other floor was probably included as well.

Did that mean there would be no more Hidden clears from now on?

At least until the error was corrected?

I stared at the message in disbelief.

...Right.

There was still the other reward.

Separate from the Tower’s reward, there was whatever the Sage had given me.

I stared intently at my right palm.

‘...What the hell did he even give me?’

He had called it the one thing I needed most.

But I couldn’t tell that anything had changed.

Something resembling a white gemstone had melted into my hand.

And yet nothing new had appeared in my status window.

“Demon King.”

I called out to him.

“What did the Sage do to me? Do you know?”

– I do not.

For some reason, the Demon King sounded sullen.

– Did I not tell you to choose the book? And now you have received no reward at all. What a magnificent sight.

Was he sulking because I hadn’t chosen the Book of Omniscience?

I protested.

“...I already told you. The Sage failed too, so choosing the Book of Omniscience wouldn’t necessarily have changed anything for me...”

That was what I said, at least.

To be honest, I was beginning to regret my decision a little.

Should I have chosen the Book of Omniscience after all?

But there was no undoing a choice that had already been made.

“Hyah!”

I thrust my palm into the empty air, trying anything that came to mind.

Naturally, nothing happened.

– Tsk, tsk.

Feeling foolish, I lowered my hand.

Ugh.

I didn’t even know anymore.

I collapsed onto the bed and tried to clear my head.

My thoughts were a tangled mess.

More than anything else, what exactly had the Sage been?

‘...He said this 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 suffer the same fate?

Would humanity not merely be wiped out by the Tower’s Curse, with people turning into monsters before everything ended?

“...Demon King.”

– What is it?

“How did your world end?”

I had asked him once before, but he had never answered.

Now I felt as though I was beginning to understand why the Demon King had been buried on the fifth floor.

Perhaps he too had been swallowed by the Tower and left in a state similar to the Sage’s.

“We’re partners now, aren’t we? Share some information with me.”

After a brief silence, the Demon King began to speak.

– Once, I ruled over lands far greater than this planet you call Earth.

– All things in that world enjoyed a long peace beneath my reign. Until the Tower appeared.

...A Demon King ruling over an age of peace?

The idea made me tilt my head, but I let him continue.

– My world was no different from yours. There were four difficulty levels, and the Tower declared that the world would end when the time limit expired. As for Nightmare difficulty, none but I could clear it.

– Yet that presented no difficulty whatsoever. Not even Nightmare could obstruct my path. I climbed beyond the twentieth floor without facing any meaningful hardship.

“...Then what happened?”

How had a Demon King that powerful managed to fail?

The Demon King remained silent for a long time.

Then he answered.

– I do not know.

“What?”

– For some reason, I have no memory of my world’s final moments. I do not remember what kind of end it met.

No memory of it.

– I am certain the Tower made some sort of offer, and yet...

A thought occurred to me.

“Is that why you wanted the Book of Omniscience?”

The Demon King had been strangely eager for me to choose it.

Had he wanted to use the Book of Omniscience to recover his lost memories?

– That was one reason. But then you went and made a fool’s choice.

“...So even you don’t know what the Tower really is.”

I had wanted to know exactly how the Tower destroyed a world.

But if the Demon King had no memory of it, then getting an answer seemed impossible.

Not that knowing would necessarily change anything.

I looked at my palm one last time and stood up.

The Hidden Route was closed, and I still had no idea what the Sage had given me.

My head remained a mess, but...

One way or another, I had work to do.

I left the motel and headed home.

[You have entered Floor 7 of Nightmare difficulty.]

Then I immediately re-entered the seventh floor.

The entry proceeded normally.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Now that the Hidden clear was over, I also had to write an information post about 7F.

This one looked as though it would take quite a while.

I would have to examine every single one of the hundreds of arrows in each Gate.

‘Can anyone else even clear this?’

The question continued to bother me.

Could the other Nightmare clearers survive the seventh floor at all?

The second Gate was the one shrouded in darkness.

That could be handled with any skill that allowed someone to see in the dark.

Alternatively, relighting the torches with a fire-type spell also worked. I had already confirmed that.

The fourth Gate was the one with the colored arrows.

That one would be brutally difficult, but I didn’t think it was completely impossible.

If someone perfectly memorized every arrow pattern, they could somehow make it through.

The fifth Gate, involving the statues, was simply a matter of practicing archery until one could hit the targets.

But even if all the others were manageable, the third Gate—the one that reversed the left and right sides of the body—was simply too cruel.

Merely understanding how it worked would not be enough to overcome it.

I passed through the Gates with ease and reached the boss room.

FWOOOOOOOSH!

I cut 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 usual messages, I was transferred to the Reward Room.

I looked around.

For a moment, I wondered whether there might still be some kind of reward for clearing the seventh-floor Hidden route.

There wasn’t.

It truly had been invalidated completely.

“Seriously, how stingy can you get?”

I might as well start putting the information post together.

I exited the Tower.

My plan was to use Repeat Clearing and record the arrow patterns Gate by Gate.

“...Shit!”

That scared the hell out of me.

When I returned to my room, my little sister was sitting at my desk using the computer.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to print something.”

“What about your laptop?”

“It died. I have to take it in for repairs anyway.”

She glanced back at me.

“You took a while.”

“...Huh?”

“I mean, it took you forever to clear the floor and come back. I’ve already been using this computer for more than thirty minutes. I thought you weren’t even home.”

For a moment, I didn’t know how to answer.

Then I said,

“That’s because I was using Repeat Clearing.”

There was no reason defeating a single goblin on Easy difficulty’s first floor should take several minutes.

But it was possible to repeat a clear directly from the Reward Room without leaving the Tower.

So there was nothing particularly strange about me remaining inside for an extended period.

“Oh, okay. What about the Magic Stones?”

“They’re in the Reward Room, obviously. Why do you keep asking?”

“I was just curious. Am I not even allowed to ask?”

My sister grumbled and turned back to the monitor.

I tilted my head.

Why was she suddenly asking about something she had never shown the slightest interest in before?

‘...Does she suspect something?’

No.

There was no way.

My sister finished using the computer and left the room.

I put the thought aside and entered the seventh floor again.

In any case, I was seriously worried about the other Nightmare clearers.

I recalled the two people I had seen during the Zone 3 boss battle.

The United States and China would attempt the floor, wouldn’t they?

The truth was that nations no longer had much reason to challenge Nightmare difficulty so aggressively.

I was already holding back humanity’s destruction.

Apart from that, Nightmare was a challenge whose risks far outweighed its rewards.

And yet both the United States and China continued attempting it.

That was probably due to their rivalry.

Neither side could afford to fall behind the other.

The United States had its representative Nightmare clearer.

I had learned a few things about her secondhand from Bilon and Rhino.

Naturally, each country was investing in its Nightmare clearer for its own interests.

But from what I had heard, she was genuinely challenging Nightmare difficulty for the greater good.

Especially when it came to the identity of the people, aside from me, who had been filling the Zone 5 gauge.

Rhino had hinted at that as well.

Apparently, independently of the US Climbing Bureau, she had taken it upon herself to help our side.

I knew far less about China’s representative Nightmare clearer.

But Bilon had told me that he was the man who had orchestrated China’s coup and was likely the real power behind the current Communist Party.

I had no idea why someone like that would personally challenge Nightmare difficulty.

Still...

If he had chosen to take it on himself rather than simply raising another Nightmare clearer, perhaps he too had some reason for wanting to save humanity.

In any case, if those two—the Climbers following behind me more earnestly than anyone else—were to fail and die...

I had a feeling it would weigh heavily on me.

And the seventh floor was exceptionally difficult.

Far, far too difficult.

Honestly, I wished neither of them would attempt it.

But I had no right to stop other Climbers from trying.

So instead, I decided to include a clear warning in the information post.

If they chose to challenge the floor anyway, there was nothing I could do.

But at the very least, I hoped they would reconsider.

***

Shortly after I cleared Nightmare difficulty’s seventh floor, the Zone 3 boss battle also came to an end.

Now everyone was waiting for Person123 to publish the 7F information.

[Person123: Here is the clear information for Nightmare 7F.]

At last, the post appeared in the Communication Channel.

[Person123: ...Floor 7 consists of six Gates in total. In the first Gate, you must avoid 305 arrows fired from every direction. Taking the entrance to the next Gate as twelve o’clock, the first arrow comes from the ceiling at one o’clock, the second comes from directly ahead at six o’clock, the third arrow...]

The clear guide was far longer than the posts for any previous floor.

That was because the trajectory of every single arrow had been documented individually.

But there was one detail that stood out above everything else.

[Person123: ...Floor 7 is genuinely dangerous. I would prefer that the two Nightmare clearers from the United States and China not attempt it. However, if you still intend to try, I urge you to exercise the utmost caution.]

For the first time, Person123 had added a personal warning at the end of the post.

The Communication Channel erupted.

[Pony: An arrow more than three meters long is basically a missile, isn’t it?]

[Orchestra: It’s Nightmare difficulty, so that part isn’t even surprising. Looks like the size of the arrows isn’t the real problem anyway.]

[Flame Sword: The themes of those Gates are completely insane...]

[Shushu: What even is left-right body inversion...? How did Person123 clear that?]

[Watson: That’s exactly the point. They’re saying the floor is seriously dangerous.]

[Eye of the Storm: Whoa. Isn’t this the first time Person123 has ever warned people like this?]

[Destructive Power: The Nightmare clearers from the US and China got personally called out by Person123 lol]

The US Climbing Bureau was thrown into turmoil as well.

There was no precedent for Person123 issuing such a specific warning.

Experts carefully analyzed the information post, and an emergency meeting was convened.