Chapter 146: Before Floor 11

“Yes, Person123 has now announced that he intends to personally punish Climbers who cause social unrest. What do you think his intentions are?”

“With the incident where more than half chose Round 6 during the Joint Battle coinciding with Climbers gaining Curse Immunity, I suspect Person123 may have felt a sense of crisis. That Climbers are becoming increasingly uncontrollable, that is.”

“Then could we say that Person123 has drawn his sword for the sake of Non-Climbers?”

The news, the internet, the Communication Channel.

All day long, everywhere was filled with talk about Person123’s warning.

The overwhelming majority of ordinary people unconditionally supported and praised Person123.

It was only natural, since he was condemning Climbers who treated ordinary people’s lives lightly.

[Smash: Seems like the guys who picked Round 6 seriously pissed him the fuck off. Gotta admit, him straight-up declaring he’ll kill them all is pretty shocking]

[Plasma: That’s brutal]

[Wink: Considering he used that teleportation thing across the entire planet during the Tower Split, it honestly feels like Person123 really could track every single one of them down and kill them...]

[BlackTower: Isn’t it basically confirmed that Person123 has some kind of ultra-long-range movement skill? Just look at how he instantly deleted the Zone 7, 8, and 9 bosses one after another this time]

[Pepper: The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it gets. I can’t even imagine how strong he is anymore]

[Srarang: I knew this shit was gonna happen someday. This is why you’re supposed to fucking listen when someone asks nicely]

[Crossbow: He clears Nightmare for us, releases information for us, takes penalties on himself to solve the rules on the even-numbered floors, does literally everything, and those fuckers calling themselves Climbers still get blinded by rewards and go lol who gives a shit about 100 million livesㅋㅋ fuck]

[Ladder: fr, putting up with this much already makes him a saint. If it were me I would’ve killed every last one of them ages ago]

[Peace: Since Person123 handles everything for everyone, people really have gotten way too relaxed lately. They’ve lost all sense of danger]

[NuclearExplosion: That last part kind of gave me chills... Him saying that he’d still be perfectly fine in a destroyed world, what exactly does that mean?]

[Prometheus: What else would it mean? If the world gets destroyed because Climbers keep trolling, he’ll kill every last one of them, won’t he?]

[Pullanggyal: ㄷㄷㄷ...]

[Hwangdo: Nightmare Floor 10 might actually get recreated in the real world]

[Guan Yu: Someone needed to crack down on them like this at least once. Now that they’ve got Curse Immunity too, Climbers are only going to get harder to control]

[Hedgehog: I support Lord Person123 no matter what]

[GreatOne: Worship Him. Praise Him. Glorify Him. Then you shall be saved]

The overall atmosphere among the Climbers on the Communication Channel was also one of support and defense of Person123.

And really, what else were they supposed to do?

Humanity’s savior, a Climber standing above all other Climbers, was telling them not to do anything stupid.

His words might have been somewhat extreme, but Person123 had more than enough justification for his anger, so no Climber dared openly complain.

Even if some did, they couldn’t show it.

“It feels like one storm after another has been hitting us lately.”

A training facility belonging to the U.S. Climber Bureau.

Max handed a drink to Taylor, who was taking a break.

“I never expected Person123 to take such a hard line. Did you?”

“It was necessary.”

Taylor answered while looking through the Communication Channel.

“This whole Joint Battle incident was embarrassing enough to make even me ashamed. I can’t believe there were that many idiotic Climbers.”

When the Tower had once again presented an offer aimed at Person123, how violently had her heart pounded at the thought that something might happen to him?

Of course, Person123 had ultimately overcome that absurd Contract yet again.

At this point, being surprised every single time was starting to feel pointless.

“I hear the Security Corps will also be taking action against those who have been identified as having chosen Round 6.”

Max nodded as though he agreed, then continued.

“More importantly, there’s a rumor I heard recently. Climbers affiliated with the Black Star Society have been disappearing one by one. The ones who chose Round 6.”

“...Black Star Society Climbers?”

“We have no way of knowing for certain, but perhaps Person123 really has begun carrying out his executions...”

Max carefully let his words trail off.

At that moment, Ye Cheon-wi suddenly crossed Taylor’s mind.

China’s highest-ranked Nightmare Climber.

A man who seemed to harbor an even stranger admiration for Person123 than she did.

Surely not...

But even if it really was him, it wasn’t something she needed to concern herself with.

Something else was bothering Taylor far more.

[Person123: Humanity is standing far closer to the edge of the cliff than you realize. I do not have the luxury of worrying about things other than clearing Nightmare.]

One passage from Person123’s post.

Humanity was closer to the edge than people realized, and he had no room to spare.

It could simply have been something he said to instill a greater sense of urgency in people, yet for some reason it bothered her.

Did Person123 know something more?

Or had some major problem perhaps arisen with his progress through Nightmare?

There was no way to know.

Taylor drained her drink and stood up.

“Thanks.”

There was no point in her worrying about something like that when it wouldn’t help Person123 in the slightest.

If she wanted to be of even the tiniest bit of use to him, she needed to act.

But by now, Person123 should have obtained every reward from all the Zone Bosses as well.

Other than contributing to filling the Zone Gauge, what else could she possibly do to make herself useful to him...?

Taylor returned to training as she pondered the question.

***

After posting my warning to the Climbers,

I ignored all the noise in the outside world and took care of what I needed to do.

I hunted the monsters in Zones 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 while organizing the information I planned to post on the Communication Channel.

Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!

The Fallen in Zone 10 were swept away by the barrage of magical arrows raining down on them.

Elemental Arrow Barrage.

Just as I’d expected, it was a pretty damn good skill.

Exactly as the skill description said, I could assign each arrow one of four attributes: fire, ice, electricity, or wind...

Fire caused explosions, ice froze targets, electricity shocked them, and wind made the arrows fly faster than the others.

Since I could boost the power of fire-element attacks, it was obviously more efficient for me to just fire all ten as fire arrows whenever possible.

Compared to the fireball from Flame Strike, each flaming arrow was slightly weaker...

But I could spam ten of these arrows with only a ten-second cooldown.

And every time I enhanced the skill, the number of arrows would probably increase by another ten.

“Nice.”

Using an Epic+ Skill Enhancement Stone on this instead of Destruction Ray might not be a bad idea.

Well, I’d think about it some more.

I continued moving outward across Zone 10.

“Hmm...”

The outermost edge of Zone 10.

I stared past the transparent barrier sealing off everything beyond the Zone.

A pitch-black expanse like outer space without a single star.

Apparently Zone 10 really was the final Zone of Floor 5, because there was no next Zone beyond it...

It almost looked like I was staring beyond the edge of a game map where nothing had been rendered.

‘I guess I should think of Floor 5 as completely finished.’

Maybe that was a relief in its own way.

There was nothing left on Floor 5 that required any more of my time.

I no longer needed to hunt monsters to fill the Zone Gauge either.

Now I could devote myself entirely to clearing Nightmare.

After leaving the Tower, I checked the Communication Channel.

[ChickenSandwich: The United States is preparing an agenda item concerning laws for punishing Climbers to submit to the United Nations. It seems governments believe this is the perfect opportunity, now that Mr. Kim’s statement has left the Association and other Climbers unable to push back. It will take quite some time, but an international treaty will likely be established.]

Bilon gave me a rough idea of how things were developing.

Truthfully, I hated having to post something that threatened people like that.

But there was no helping it.

A way to suppress Climbers who crossed the line.

There simply wasn’t any other proper method.

Even this was only the bare minimum.

And of course, it wasn’t an empty warning.

If, even after all this, some Climber still refused to get their shit together...

Then I would do exactly what I had warned them I would do.

All I could do was hope the Climbers would finally behave themselves from now on.

If they couldn’t help, then the least they could fucking do was stop trolling.

“Seo-hyeon, are you in there?”

“Yes.”

“Come out quickly. Lunch is ready.”

I closed the Communication Channel and left my room.

I ate lunch with my family in the living room.

I was happily eating the braised ribs when Father suddenly spoke.

“Seo-hyeon, are you all right?”

Father was looking at me with concern.

Mother and my younger sibling wore the same expression.

I swallowed what I had been eating and answered.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Truthfully, I felt a little uncomfortable facing my family.

They weren’t saying anything, but of course they knew everything I had been doing.

Even if it had been unavoidable, I had killed someone, and now I had gone so far as to threaten that I would kill every Climber who refused to listen.

Well, I already had a history of killing people during the Wang Kai incident and the Mask Auction too...

But this had happened only recently.

I had long since grown numb to that sort of thing, but I didn’t know what my family thought about it.

Then Father spoke.

“No matter what happens, your father is on your side.”

“What?”

“I would never think that you were wrong, Seo-hyeon. I just wanted you to know that.”

Father let out a sigh.

“More than anything, I’m worried that your heart might be growing weary.”

I stared at Father for a moment, then shook my head.

“...Don’t worry. I really am fine.”

That part was genuinely true.

I had realized a long time ago that being disappointed in people would only play into the Tower’s hands.

My younger sibling, who had been watching us cautiously, jumped into the conversation.

“...Honestly, I think you did the right thing killing that bastard.”

“Hey.”

“Oh, come on~ How many people would’ve died if Oppa hadn’t been there? Those assholes who picked Round 6 were basically all mass murderers. Am I wrong?”

My younger sibling looked at me as if asking for agreement.

I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

I was simply grateful.

Grateful to have a family who would understand me and stand by my side no matter what happened.

***

Until it was time to attempt Floor 11,

I continued training inside the Mental World as well.

Ka-ka-ka-ka-kang—!

I swung my sword, knocking aside the icicles rushing toward me.

I redirected their trajectories at the last instant and deflected the entire barrage...

And then the number of icicles doubled once again.

I knocked aside and dodged every last one of those as well.

In the past, something like this would have been absolutely impossible using pure martial skill alone.

“What do you think, Demon King?”

I asked the Demon King during a brief pause in the attacks.

The Demon King snorted and summoned a whole mass of glaciers the size of meteors.

“Ah.”

They hit me, and my body exploded into pieces.

After resurrecting, I dismissed my sword.

“Why do You keep being so damn spiteful? The training was going well.”

“Should you not be capable of blocking that as well?”

“That’s not a technique issue. That’s a pure physical ability issue.”

The Demon King was the one helping me train inside the Mental World.

Compared to repeatedly clearing floors, training here with the Demon King’s help was incomparably more efficient.

If I wanted to, I could effectively train forever.

Whoooooosh—

The scenery changed, and a blizzard began to howl.

I followed the Demon King to the top of the ice palace as naturally as ever.

I already knew why the Demon King always recreated the same scenery inside the Mental World.

“You still don’t remember anything?”

“No.”

The Demon King’s lost memories.

He had no memory of how his world had been destroyed.

I had wondered whether he might recover his memories here just as Seri had, but there still seemed to be no progress.

The only thing he could vaguely remember was what he had mentioned before—that the Tower might have made him some kind of offer.

I stood beside the Demon King and looked down at the snow-covered city.

Then something suddenly occurred to me, and I murmured,

“Why didn’t the Tower ever make offers like that to Seri?”

Unlike with me.

The Tower had never made Seri any particular offers.

It had simply broken her down little by little.

I could have dismissed it as something that differed from world to world, but it had always struck me as slightly strange.

Then the Demon King spoke.

“You are the unusual case.”

“What?”

“During Our own climb through Nightmare, We likewise have no memory of the Tower making Us any such offers, save for the very ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) last moment.”

I tilted my head.

Then why the hell did the Tower keep making offers to me every chance it got?

The Demon King stared at me for a moment before continuing.

“A thought has just occurred to Us. Perhaps even the Tower fears that which lies beyond its own understanding.”