Chapter 165: Nightmare Floors 13, 14 (1)

Floor 13’s theme could be called mirrors.

For one thing, the combat field was unusually a space completely surrounded by mirrors on all sides.

And they said monsters came bursting out from inside the mirrors.

The clear condition for the other difficulties was to kill all the monsters that appeared during a set amount of time.

According to the Climbers who had cleared it, the mirrors messed with their sense of space, their figures were reflected all over the place, and it felt as though the monsters were suddenly ambushing them from nowhere, which made it difficult...

If only Nightmare had nothing more than a gimmick of that level.

Then I could even fight using only one arm as a self-imposed handicap.

[You have entered Nightmare Difficulty Floor 13.]

I entered Floor 13 while having that pointless thought.

I stopped time and checked the visual information.

‘For now, the location is the same.’

Mirrors irregularly and chaotically surrounded me on every side.

My figure was also reflected from countless different angles. Everywhere except the floor.

It certainly was the kind of place that could mess with your sense of space, but this much was nothing.

I released Time Stop.

I walked around and checked roughly how large the space was.

For one thing, it was a circular space.

And because of the optical illusion created by the mirrors, it looked spacious, but in reality it was much smaller.

It seemed to have a radius of roughly 10 meters.

Were the monsters going to come bursting out soon?

Or was there going to be some other kind of fucking bullshit?

Since this was Nightmare, trying to predict what would happen was pointless.

I sharpened my senses and stood still, waiting for a little while...

Nothing happened.

No monsters or anything else came bursting out.

That was within the range of what I had expected too.

Was I supposed to find an exit or something?

I examined my surroundings again.

As I turned my head this way and that, the countless versions of me inside the mirrors turned their heads this way and that as well.

I moved closer to one side.

I reached a hand toward the mirror.

I was about to touch the mirror once...

“...”

I stopped just before my fingertip touched the surface of the mirror.

...For some reason, I had a bad feeling.

Sixth Sense hadn’t reacted, but it was just my own intuition.

You could call it a kind of big-data intuition I had built up from clearing countless Nightmare floors.

I stood there, staring into the eyes of myself inside the mirror.

It was just as I began to feel an inexplicable sense of wrongness.

Grin-

The me inside the mirror raised the corners of his mouth and smiled.

...Even though I wasn’t smiling.

Without being particularly startled, I took a few steps back.

The me inside the mirror didn’t move along with me.

I looked around at the other mirrors.

The countless images of myself that should have been reflected from all directions and at all sorts of angles had, at some point, all become identical.

Countless versions of me, staring directly this way and smiling just like the one in the mirror in front of me.

“Fuck me~.”

What, are we filming a horror movie or something?

I calmly returned to the center of the space.

I moved my body this way and that.

The versions of me inside the mirrors didn’t follow along and just kept grinning.

‘Are these things the monsters?’

I activated Weakness Insight.

But no particular weakness was displayed.

I decided to try attacking them directly.

For now, I lightly fired a light projectile skill toward the me inside the mirror...

Ting-ting-ting-ting!

The mirror reflected the light projectiles exactly as they were.

The reflected light projectiles bounced off other mirrors and began flying all over the place.

I knocked a few away with my sword, while a few others finally exploded and stopped after striking the floor instead of another mirror.

‘It reflects attacks.’

Well, it was a mirror, so that was a pretty obvious gimmick.

On the other difficulties, they said there was no reflection function or anything like that, and the mirrors were simply indestructible objects.

There probably wouldn’t be any point in firing a stronger skill at them, right?

I was wondering how the hell I was supposed to clear this one too.

- Swi... tch...

Suddenly, the me inside the mirror made a grotesque voice.

...What the hell is this bastard?

It can talk too?

- Switch... with me...

Its clumsy pronunciation gradually became clear enough to understand.

For now, I answered.

“You want to switch? What?”

The bastard kept smiling as it spoke.

- Switch... You inside the mirror... Me outside...

What the hell was it talking about?

“You want to come out of the mirror? And I go inside?”

- Right... Right! Let’s switch with each other!

The bastard urged me excitedly.

I asked again.

“If we switch, can I clear Floor 13?”

- Floor 13...? What is that... I don’t know...

Hmm, so it wasn’t an entity that recognized the Tower.

Should I just consider it an intelligent monster?

“How are we supposed to switch?”

- Come close to the mirror and hold out your hand... We only need to touch...!

I rubbed my chin.

So this was why I had felt uneasy?

According to that bastard, if I touched the mirror and made contact with it, we could switch places.

It was a suspicious proposal that I had absolutely no reason to obediently accept.

And my intuition was telling me too.

If I switched with that bastard, the clear would end right there. In a bad way.

Judging by the fact that Sixth Sense hadn’t reacted, my life probably wasn’t in danger...

Could I end up trapped inside the mirror?

That bastard probably couldn’t come out on its own either, which was why it was making this proposal to me right now.

“...What do I get out of switching with you?”

- The world inside the mirror... You can do anything you want...! Whatever you want!

“Really? If it’s such a great place, why are you trying to come out?”

The bastard suddenly fell silent.

It stared fixedly at me, then shouted with a vicious expression.

- Switch...! Switch with me right now...! You bastard!

Switch, switch, switch...!

Their cries rang noisily from every direction.

I stopped time for a moment and thought.

‘Let’s say switching is the wrong answer for now.’

If I had unknowingly touched the mirror at the beginning, it might have been over immediately.

Anyway, then what was the actual clear route?

Killing that unpleasant monster?

But the bastard was inside the mirror.

And the mirror reflected all my attacks.

There was no way to touch it.

Or was I supposed to escape from this space?

I came up with all sorts of ideas, then released Time Stop again.

Nothing immediately came to mind.

The bastard, which had been raging and screaming for quite a while, spoke to me again as though trying to coax me.

- Listen... The world inside the mirror is fantastic! Anything you want, you can do whatever you like!

“If it’s that good, why are you trying to come out~? Just live in there.”

- °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° I said let’s switch! I said it’s better inside the mirror!

There was no logic or anything else to it. Conversation was impossible.

Judging by how it just kept insisting, its intelligence seemed a little low.

Then the scenery inside the mirror changed. Hm?

All kinds of delicious-looking food.

The bastard set out a lavish feast and began stuffing its face.

Then the scenery changed again.

This time, countless beautiful women appeared instead of food.

The bastard, surrounded by beautiful women acting cute and seductive, looked at me and grinned.

What, was it trying to tempt me right now?

It was so one-dimensional that I snorted in disbelief.

If I wanted to do something like that, I could just enter the Mental World and do as much of it as I wanted, you idiot.

- Come inside... Into the mirror... It is your own kingdom...!

Ignoring the bastard, I seriously began searching for the clear route.

I tried looking for any unusual mirrors, and I even tried digging into the floor, the only thing that wasn’t a mirror. The floor was also judged indestructible.

I spent quite a long time trying to come up with methods, but made absolutely no progress.

“Hey.”

I spoke to the bastard again.

It had been trying to tempt me nonstop, but apparently decided it wasn’t working and had returned to its original state.

“Can I ask you just one thing?”

- Hurry up and switch with me...!

“If you answer properly, I might switch with you.”

- What is it...! Ask!

“How do I get out of here?”

The bastard answered.

- You cannot leave until you die! Except by switching with me...!

“Really? Then is there a way to kill you?”

- Kill me? Me? You can never kill me...! Hehehe...!

Its mocking laughter echoed around me. Fucking annoying.

No matter how much I thought about it, doing anything physical in this place seemed impossible.

In that case, the only path left was talking to the bastard.

Was I supposed to somehow coax it into doing something?

I kept trying to talk to it.

- What are you talking about? Shut up and let’s switch...! Switch with me!

But this bastard was a brainless switch-parrot.

No matter what topic I tried to talk about, it always ended with it whining for me to switch with it.

I stopped time again.

I sank into thought for a long while.

But nothing came to mind after all.

Frustrated, I eventually used Radiant Incarnation.

I handed my body over to the Demon King, and at full power, he poured magic into the mirrors on every side.

Rooooooooar!!

The mirrors didn’t take even the slightest bit of damage.

Even the Demon King’s power had no effect at all. Everything was reflected.

...Naturally, this wasn’t a gimmick that could be solved with force.

Before Radiant Incarnation’s duration ended, he erased all the ice and cold that had covered the space.

After returning to my original body, I sighed.

- Stop doing useless things and switch...!

“Shut up for a second.”

What the fuck am I actually supposed to do?

Could switching really be the correct answer?

There was no way...

“...?”

I looked at the bastard.

At some point, the appearance of the bastard inside the mirror had changed slightly.

Specifically, it had grown a little facial hair.

It definitely hadn’t had any at first. My chin was clean-shaven.

After blankly thinking for a moment, I arrived at a conclusion.

‘Time flows differently inside the mirror and out here.’

The bastard’s time was flowing faster than mine.

A little over 20 minutes had passed since I entered Floor 13.

The bastard’s facial hair looked about as long as it would after not shaving for two or three days.

If that was the case... time inside the mirror had to be flowing at least 100 times faster than in reality.

Suddenly, one thought flashed through my mind.

‘No way.’

...Am I supposed to make it die of old age?

Was I supposed to just hold out until the bastard aged to death?

It was an absurd idea, but this was Nightmare Difficulty.

It was a disgusting enough clear method to suit Nightmare perfectly.

Let’s think about this for a moment...

If this really was the clear method.

Even if I assumed my lifespan was roughly 100 years, I would have to endure for about a year.

Of course, enduring itself was possible.

For an ordinary person, being trapped in a place like this for a year seemed like more than enough to drive them insane...

But I’d be fine. If I had to endure, I could just endure.

Or I could simply enter the Mental World.

Food wasn’t a problem either.

Naturally, I didn’t have a year’s worth of food stored in Subspace, but I was a body that wouldn’t die from starvation anyway. I could replenish water with the Demon King’s ice magic.

There was only one fatal problem.

I had less than a year left to live.

I didn’t have the time to leisurely wait until that bastard died of old age.

...But what if my remaining lifespan was applied to that bastard in exactly the same way?

It was worth checking.

- Switch! Switch! Switch...!

Ignoring the bastard that wouldn’t stop talking, I let time pass.

Just as I expected, its time seemed to be flowing much faster, and its facial hair grew in an instant.

A week passed.

The bastard’s beard had grown thick enough that it could be used as a broom.

Its face had also changed to look a little older than I was now.

But it still hadn’t died.

If it still wasn’t dead after this much time had passed...

Unfortunately, it seemed my expectation had been wrong.

The lifespan shown by the Broken Scale didn’t apply to that bastard.

I hadn’t found another method during that week either.

...Did that mean there really was no way other than waiting?

But I didn’t have time for that.

After thinking for a long time, I...

‘No choice.’

Eventually decided to try the final method I had thought of while letting time pass.

It was an all-or-nothing gamble, and I had no idea whether it would work.

If it didn’t, I would be finished right there...

“Hey.”

I called the bastard.

“Fine. Let’s switch.”

- ...Really!

The bastard jumped up and down excitedly.

- Come here! Let’s switch! Let’s switch right now...!

“Yeah, yeah.”

I moved closer to the mirror.

Then slowly held out my hand.

The bastard followed me and held out its hand too.

The instant the tips of our fingers touched through the surface of the mirror.

I immediately entered the Mental World and stopped the flow of time outside.

“...Bingo.”

I smiled as I looked at the monster in front of me that wore my appearance.

It worked.

It was possible to drag this bastard into the Mental World as well.

I had successfully made the first move before it could do anything.

“W-What the hell? Where is this?”

The bastard looked around in confusion.

“Demon King.”

“Very well.”

It was the Demon King’s turn to step in.

The Demon King was capable of striking the soul itself.

Just like when we fought Seri in the Mental World, the Demon King’s power began mercilessly pulverizing the bastard’s body.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaagh!!”

The bastard screamed in agony.

Seri had been completely fine no matter how many times she resurrected, but for this bastard, that was the end.

Once it died, it vanished without leaving even a trace behind.

“Is it dead?”

“Its soul is certainly dead.”

I returned to reality.

As soon as I returned, I quickly pulled my hand away from the mirror.

Regardless, the bastard inside the mirror collapsed with a thud like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

[You have successfully cleared Nightmare Difficulty Floor 13.]

A message appeared before my eyes.

“Whew.”

The clear was successful.

[Absorbing the power of the Floor.]

[Your level has increased.]

[Your level has increased.]

[Your level has increased.]

.

.

.

[Your level has increased.]

[You are the first to successfully clear Nightmare Difficulty Floor 13.]

[Moving to the Reward Room.]