Chapter 158: Nightmare Floor 12 (5)

[All difficulties of Floor 12 have been cleared.]

[The Tower is calling new participants.]

[A new rule has been added.]

[‘Treasure Hunt’ will begin in 24 hours.]

[When the time comes, 300 Climbers will be randomly invited to the ‘Treasure Hunt’.]

[Time Remaining: 23 hours 59 minutes 50 seconds]

I moved to the Reward Room.

I checked the new rule message.

After what I had seen in Seri’s world, I had been a little nervous about what kind of ridiculous rule might suddenly pop up...

Fortunately, it wasn’t something like gaining levels by killing Non-Climbers.

‘Another forced-participation type.’

Still, the Tower was calling Climbers again.

Just like during the Masked Auction and the Joint Battle.

There was a high chance it would try some kind of scheme again by tempting the Climbers.

Even the name was Treasure Hunt. Fucking suspicious.

“Phew.”

I let out a sigh and sat down.

Putting that aside... that was dangerous. Seriously.

Floor 12 didn’t have complicated gimmicks like the other floors. If anything, the strategy itself was fairly simple.

But honestly, it was the creepiest floor I had encountered so far.

It wasn’t physically exhausting. It messed directly with your mind, so...

I remembered the moment when I had fallen into extreme Sloth and tried to kill myself.

Now that my mind was normal again, I couldn’t even understand what the hell had happened to me.

We thought We were going to die of frustration, you damned bastard.The Demon King’s voice rang out.

Do you have any idea how long you were completely out of your mind while keeping time stopped?“...How long was I like that?”

Judging from how intensely I could feel the Demon King shuddering with disgust, I could roughly guess.

Anyway, if it really hadn’t been for the Demon King and Diul, I would probably be a corpse by now.

“Thank you, Demon King. For keeping on talking to me.”

I summoned Diul from the bracelet.

I thanked the creature too, who seemed to be sulking.

“Thank you too, Diul. You’re always saving me.”

During the Floor 3 and Floor 6 clears, and when I defeated the final boss of the Branch Tower too.

I had already lost count of how many times Diul had saved my life.

‘Hmph!’

As if to show just how angry it was, Diul went straight back into the bracelet.

...Come to think of it, I had been neglecting my nighttime walks with Diul lately too.

If I wanted to make it up to the little guy, I should play with it more often from now on.

I checked the rewards.

There were two Epic Skill Stones.

[Skill: Decisive Strike (Epic)]

Fires condensed Aura Blade. The greater the amount of Willpower consumed, the greater the power.

Classification: Physical-type

Willpower Cost: 100 ~ 500

Cooldown: 30 seconds

[Skill: Phantom Shift (Epic)]

Instantly moves at extreme speed within a distance of 10 meters. An afterimage remains in your previous position for a short time.

Classification: Physical-type

Willpower Cost: 300

Cooldown: 10 seconds

Both were Physical-type skills.

Decisive Strike... did this feel like a higher-level branch of Aura Blade?

Reading the description, it seemed to be a skill that allowed me to fire Aura Blade as a ranged attack.

This seemed pretty damn good.

Especially for me, since I used Heavenly Aura Blade instead of ordinary Aura Blade.

On top of that, it was a charging-type skill. I wondered how powerful it would be if I fired Heavenly Aura Blade at full charge.

And next was Phantom Shift.

As expected, Physical-type skills had a lot of martial-arts-like abilities.

Its effect was exactly what the name implied. Moving extremely quickly. It was an evasion skill.

[You have learned ‘Skill: Decisive Strike (Epic)’.]

[You have learned ‘Skill: Phantom Shift (Epic)’.]

I learned both immediately.

Decisive Strike wasn’t something I wanted to test inside the Reward Room, so I decided to try only Phantom Shift right away.

Pop!

I activated the skill and moved the maximum distance.

My body accelerated to an absurd speed in an instant and moved to the target point as if I had teleported.

“Oh.”

I turned around.

An afterimage remained for a moment where I had been standing just before, then quickly dispersed.

So that was roughly how it worked.

Its maximum movement distance was also 10 meters, exactly the same as Teleportation.

But I had only moved extremely quickly. It wasn’t actual teleportation.

It was a pretty good skill. The cooldown was incredibly short too, only 10 seconds.

Basically, I had gained another good evasion skill.

[Difficulty: Nightmare]

[Floor: 13]

[Level: 147]

[Willpower: 11,550/11,550]

[Skills: Radiant Incarnation (Legendary+), Elemental Arrow Barrage (Epic+)(+2) Destruction Ray (Epic+), Weakness Insight (Epic)(+4), Hellfire Eruption (Epic)(+1), Subspace (Epic), Air Walk (Epic), Finger Flick (Epic), Life Devour (Epic), Decisive Strike (Epic), Phantom Shift (Epic)...]

[Nightmare]

Participants: 1,073,617

Time Limit: 4 years 346 days 1 hour 58 minutes 29 seconds

Highest Floor Reached: Floor 13

When I checked the time, more than a full day had passed since I entered Floor 12.

More time had passed than I expected.

I should have had time stopped while Sloth was controlling me, so why... Hmm.

Come to think of it, had I not stopped time while I was rampaging under Wrath and Lust? I had been too out of my mind to think straight.

Every single day was precious right now, yet I had pointlessly lost an entire day.

Well, maybe I should consider myself lucky that it only cost me that much.

[Would you like to exit the Tower?]

Anyway, Floor 12 had been truly horrible.

I finally exited.

***

There was a strong perception among people that Nightmare Climbers existed in an entirely different realm from ordinary Climbers. Even excluding Person123.

And naturally so.

The clear conditions were absurdly difficult, and precisely because of that, it was the difficulty most directly connected to humanity’s survival, while there were only a few dozen people in the entire world attempting it.

Even if clearing it was only possible by relying on Person123’s information, that alone still made them monstrous individuals.

However, from Floor 7 onward, the gap between Person123 and every other Climber had widened to an utterly unreachable degree.

Even the two latecomers from America and China, the only ones who had been closely chasing Person123, had become stuck in their progression.

People had come to believe that it was no longer possible for another Nightmare Climber to reach Floor 8 or higher.

They said Floor 7 was simply the limit permitted to every Nightmare Climber other than Person123.

Then one day, America suddenly made an announcement out of nowhere.

America’s representative Nightmare Climber had successfully cleared all the way through Floor 9.

People had no choice but to be shocked.

[LemonJuice: What’s this news about America clearing Floor 9? Fake news?]

[Arctic: It’s an official government announcement though?]

[Pancake: She was struggling like hell because she couldn’t even clear Floor 7, and suddenly she clears three floors in a row all the way through Floor 9? What the hell happenedㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[Kane: Isn’t it a bluff?]

[Noble: Why the hell would America bluff about something like that?]

[BlueDragonArmy: If they were gonna lie, they’d at least make it believable. Saying Floor 9 instead of just Floor 7 is so ridiculous that it somehow sounds more real. But seriously, how the hell did she do it?]

Of course, when Taylor first informed them that she had successfully cleared through Floor 9, the U.S. government and the U.S. Climber Bureau had been just as bewildered.

Putting aside the fact that she had attempted the clears on her own authority, how had she even succeeded?

At first, the government couldn’t believe Taylor’s claim and requested verification, and through physical ability testing, they were able to confirm that her level had indeed risen dramatically from her previous Level 60.

In the end, Taylor’s Floor 9 clear was officially confirmed.

She was now a Nightmare Floor 10 Climber.

“Was it Person123?”

At Max’s question, Taylor calmly asked back.

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Common sense says this makes no sense. Not only clearing three floors in a row out of nowhere, but Taylor, you attempting such a reckless and irresponsible challenge in the first place.”

Max looked at Taylor suspiciously.

“You only did it because you were certain you would succeed at all of them, didn’t you?”

And the person who instinctively came to Max’s mind was Person123.

There was no causal connection at all, but he simply had that feeling.

Whenever something beyond common sense happened, Person123 was the only person who came to mind.

“No.”

“Taylor...”

“Please don’t ask me anything more about this, Max. I’m asking you.”

Max already seemed fairly convinced.

Even so, Taylor had absolutely no intention of revealing the truth herself.

That had been the promise.

Max nodded.

“...Understood. More importantly, you aren’t planning to challenge Floor 10 immediately too, are you?”

“No. I’m going to give myself more time before challenging Floor 10.”

“That’s a relief.”

This Nightmare run had been entirely Taylor’s unilateral decision and was also a violation of her contract with the Climber Bureau, but the only action the Bureau took was a formal warning.

After all, what could they possibly dare to do to America’s highest-ranking Nightmare Climber, especially now that Taylor had unquestionably become the strongest Climber in the world aside from Person123?

If anything, it was a tremendous cause for celebration.

The government and the Climber Bureau did seem concerned that Taylor might become uncontrollable, but looking only at the result, she had produced an absurd achievement.

America now possessed a Climber who was no less than Level 92.

Max studied Taylor’s face before asking.

“More importantly, you seem to be in a much better mood lately.”

“Do I? Maybe I just feel refreshed because I finally broke through the floor that had me stuck.”

Taylor smiled.

Part of it really was because she had overcome the obstacle blocking her progress, but an even greater reason was what Person123 had told her.

To do her best to prevent chaos in the world.

Of course, Taylor had already been striving to do exactly that.

But simply hearing those words directly from Person123 made her feel as though her heart would no longer wander.

Just as he had said, the world could easily be destroyed by nothing more than the every-other-floor rules.

He said he would challenge Floor 12 soon.

Taylor believed without a doubt that he would succeed.

She wondered what would appear this time once Floor 12 was cleared...

[All difficulties of Floor 12 have been cleared.]

[The Tower is calling new participants.]

[A new rule has been added.]

[‘Treasure Hunt’ will begin in 24 hours.]

[When the time comes, 300 Climbers will be randomly invited to the ‘Treasure Hunt’.]

[Time Remaining: 23 hours 59 minutes 50 seconds]

“...!”

At that moment, the message appeared before her eyes.

Max also looked startled.

“Ah...! Floor 12 has been cleared!”

Person123 had cleared Floor 12.

His terrifying climbing speed was truly like a train with broken brakes.

Taylor stared at the message with hardened eyes.

Not at the message saying Floor 12 had been cleared, but at the message announcing the addition of a new rule.

...The Tower was trying to call Climbers again.

***

When I came out after clearing the floor, my family greeted me with relief as always.

I was pretty hungry too, so we all ate together right away.

“Eat plenty, Seo-hyeon. Want me to heat up the soup again?”

“No, I’m fine.”

While happily eating the feast in front of me, I asked my family.

“You haven’t become Climbers, right?”

It was something I always asked whenever I came out after a clear.

Mom and Dad shook their heads.

When I looked at my younger sibling, they shook their head from side to side too.

Feeling disappointed, I continued eating.

Originally, I had never wanted my family to become Climbers.

Because just like with the Floor 2 rule, it wouldn’t have been strange for another rule threatening the lives of people who didn’t climb the Tower to appear at any time.

But now Climbers had Curse Immunity.

So even though I still felt uneasy about it, deep down, I had started hoping that my family would be chosen as Climbers.

That way, even if I died, there would at least be a slightly better chance that my family could live longer...

“Thanks for the meal.”

After finishing, I rested in my room.

There were still more than 20 hours left before this thing called Treasure Hunt began.

I could just take care of some things while waiting.

I really hoped nothing happened this time.

After rolling around on my bed for a while, I went out to the kitchen.

I opened the refrigerator and was drinking some water when...

“...Seo-hyeon.”

My younger sibling, who was passing by, called out to me.

I turned my head.

They were looking at me with a hesitant expression.

“What?”

“Well, you know...”

They fidgeted with their fingers, then suddenly pointed at the freezer door.

“I-I bought some ice cream, so you can have some if you want.”

“...Really? Oh, it’s HaXgen-Dazs.”

I took the tub of ice cream out of the freezer.

Guess I should get some sugar in me.

My sibling opened the door and went into their room.

I tilted my head as I stared at the closed door for a moment, then returned to my own room.