Chapter 48: Nightmare, 4th Floor (4)

What kind of freakish hybrid was that thing?

There was no mistaking what those five colors represented.

The boss clearly possessed every ability of every golem that had appeared before it.

– Our workshop’s greatest masterpiece, the “Titan,” possesses 99% resistance to physical damage, 99% resistance to magic damage, complete immunity to all damage below a certain threshold, a single revival function, and, finally, an unstoppable movement mechanism... Once again, all staff are advised to exercise extreme caution when responding...

What was this, a home-shopping channel?

After listening to the ever-so-helpful announcement, I opened the shop window.

[Special Gacha! (5,000P)]

Initiates a Special Gacha draw. The available prizes are listed below. All prizes have an equal probability of being drawn.

– Skill Effect 300% Scroll

– Ability Nullification Part

– Grand Incineration Switch

[Ability Nullification Part]

Nullifies all abilities possessed by a single golem. Must be brought into physical contact with the target golem to activate.

That was the first thing that had come to mind the moment I saw the boss.

Ability nullification.

So this was what the item existed for.

It was meant to be used against that thing.

Points held: 21,500P

With the points I had, I could attempt the gacha four times.

Since every prize had an equal probability, the odds of drawing the Ability Nullification Part were one in three.

I stopped time and calculated the odds.

‘The probability of failing to draw it even once in four attempts...’

Sixteen out of eighty-one.

Less than twenty percent.

In other words, my chances of obtaining the Ability Nullification Part were above eighty percent.

High.

Yes, the odds were high.

But...

If I failed to draw it, I had absolutely no way to defeat the boss.

Ninety-nine percent resistance to both physical and magic damage effectively meant ninety-nine percent resistance to every form of damage.

On top of that, it ignored all attacks below a certain threshold and could revive once after being destroyed.

It was, for all practical purposes, invincible.

There was no conceivable way to kill it.

‘Eighty percent...’

When my life and the fate of the world were hanging in the balance, that number no longer seemed especially reassuring.

But this was ridiculous.

Was my final hope really going to come down to pure luck?

Nothing but a roll of the dice?

‘There’s no way I won’t get it at least once.’

If it failed to appear, then the Tower was blatantly rigging the game.

[You have purchased ‘Special Gacha! (5,000P).’]

I allowed time to resume and activated the gacha immediately.

Beep-beep-beep—

A roulette wheel appeared in front of me and began to spin.

The animation was pointlessly long.

The boss was still advancing.

They could have simply displayed the result at once, but the wheel continued spinning and spinning.

I tried freezing time.

Naturally, the roulette froze along with everything else.

Muttering curses at the Tower, I resumed time again.

Seriously.

Every last detail of this place was deliberately designed to be infuriating.

[You won ‘Skill Effect 300% Scroll’!]

“...!”

That was the result I received after wasting an entire ten seconds.

A rolled-up scroll dropped out of thin air.

There was no time to hesitate.

I activated the gacha again.

It was fine.

I still had three attempts left.

[You have purchased ‘Special Gacha! (5,000P).’]

Beep-beep-beep—

[You won ‘Skill Effect 300% Scroll’!]

Another scroll fell out of empty space.

...It was fine.

I still had two attempts left.

Two.

[You have purchased ‘Special Gacha! (5,000P).’]

Beep-beep-beep—

[You won ‘Grand Incineration Switch’!]

“Motherf—”

The curse nearly exploded out of my mouth.

A switch with a large red button dropped out of thin air.

I stopped time.

No.

Seriously.

What the fuck?

Don’t screw with me.

My head began to spin, and it took everything I had to calm myself down.

‘Haaaah...’

Only one chance remained.

If I failed this time, it was over.

Everything now depended on a one-in-three probability.

My life.

The fate of the entire world.

‘Here goes.’

I steeled myself and allowed time to resume.

[You have purchased ‘Special Gacha! (5,000P).’]

Beep-beep-beep—

The roulette began spinning.

‘Please.’

Please.

God, please.

Four attempts.

There was no way it wouldn’t appear even once in four attempts.

It had to appear.

I stared desperately at the spinning wheel.

And then—

[You won ‘Skill Effect 300% Scroll’!]

“...”

I froze time on the spot.

My thoughts ground to a complete halt.

No matter how long I stared at the result window, the words refused to change.

...No.

No, seriously.

Could this actually happen?

The odds had been eighty percent.

A full eighty percent.

How could I possibly have failed?

It was a reality I simply could not accept.

‘It’s rigged.’

It had to be rigged.

Tower.

You rigged it, didn’t you?

You son of a bitch.

I felt as though I were about to lose my mind completely.

A furious sense of injustice surged through me.

Before long, however, even that anger gave way to despair and emptiness.

...I had failed.

I had failed to clear the floor.

The outcome was already decided.

There was no way to defeat that boss without the Ability Nullification Part.

I had failed to overcome a mere twenty-percent chance, and now it had come to this.

A tiny stroke of bad luck was going to kill me.

And once I died, the world would end.

To think everything would finish in such a stupid way.

Not even because of the penalty.

‘Motherfucker...’

Within the stillness of frozen time, I simply stood there in a daze.

If my odds had only been twenty percent, perhaps I wouldn’t have felt so bitter.

But this...

Haaah...

After standing there blankly for what felt like an eternity, a thought occurred to me.

‘...Is there another way?’

There wasn’t.

How was I supposed to destroy an invincible boss?

Even so, I couldn’t give up.

I desperately turned the problem over and over in my mind.

The items I had just drawn came back to me.

[Skill Effect 300% Scroll]

Select any one skill, regardless of type, and increase its effect to 300%. Tear the scroll to activate it. Effects may be stacked.

[Grand Incineration Switch]

Press the button to initiate Grand Incineration. A tremendous conflagration will annihilate every golem.

Including you, of course!

Three Skill Effect 300% Scrolls.

And one Grand Incineration Switch.

Every last one of them was useless.

What good was tripling the power of a skill?

The boss possessed ninety-nine percent damage resistance.

...Wait.

What if I used all three scrolls on Destruction Ray?

Since the effects stacked, applying all three would multiply its power twenty-sevenfold.

And with my existing fifty-percent magic-damage increase—

No.

If I spent my remaining points to raise it by another twenty percent, that would make seventy percent.

That meant a total multiplier of 45.9 times.

Even after the boss reduced the damage by ninety-nine percent...

It would still receive 45.9 percent of Destruction Ray’s original damage.

With a skill as powerful as Destruction Ray, that might actually be enough to destroy it.

Right?

The moment my thoughts reached that conclusion, they crashed straight into another obstacle.

Shit.

What good would destroying it once do?

That bastard could revive.

By the time Destruction Ray came off cooldown for a second shot, the boss would already have crossed the exit.

And since it could not be impeded, there was no way to delay it.

Or...

Could I?

Maybe?

[You have purchased ‘Slow (50P).’]

[You have purchased ‘Stop (100P).’]

I released Time Stop and purchased Slow and Stop with the points I had left.

I had never actually verified whether those effects were negated by its unstoppable movement ability.

It was a desperate gamble.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The boss continued marching without the slightest interruption.

Fuck.

Kaboooom!

In sheer frustration, I hurled Flame Strike at it.

Plli leapt onto the boss and sank his teeth into its head, but he failed to leave so much as a scratch.

I froze time again.

[Grand Incineration Switch]

Press the button to initiate Grand Incineration. A tremendous conflagration will annihilate every golem.

Including you, of course!

The other item I had drawn.

...Could this kill the boss?

The description said it would eliminate all golems.

Perhaps that judgment applied to the boss as well, regardless of its abilities.

But even if it worked, what then?

I would die too.

‘...’

And then, without warning—

An utterly absurd idea flashed through my mind.

[Skill: Rapid Regeneration (Rare+)]

Consumes all remaining Willpower to instantaneously amplify the body’s regenerative ability beyond its natural limits. The effect scales with the amount of Willpower consumed.

Classification: Physical-type

Willpower Cost: All remaining Willpower

Cooldown: 24 hours

Rapid Regeneration.

The skill I had received as a reward on the third floor.

I didn’t know exactly what Grand Incineration would do.

But in simple terms, it would engulf both me and every golem in fire.

Right?

What if I applied all three 300% scrolls to Rapid Regeneration?

Its effect would become twenty-seven times stronger.

I had never used Rapid Regeneration before.

I had no idea how powerful it was.

But it was a Rare+ recovery skill that consumed every last drop of Willpower.

Its effect had to be extraordinary.

And I would be multiplying that effect twenty-sevenfold.

With that much regeneration...

Maybe I wouldn’t die instantly in the Grand Incineration.

Maybe I could endure it for at least a short while.

If the boss died to the Grand Incineration...

And if killing the boss counted as clearing the floor...

And if I could survive even slightly longer than the boss—

Having followed the idea that far, I let out a dry laugh inside my own head.

‘You crazy bastard.’

Was this real?

Could it actually work?

But whether it could work was no longer the question.

I had nothing else.

Nothing except this deranged idea.

Even if the possibility was vanishingly small, I had no choice but to try.

Still, the plan was so insane that I spent a long time searching for another answer.

Any other answer.

There was none.

Of course there wasn’t.

...Fine.

Let’s try it.

Sitting here with time frozen wasn’t going to solve anything.

I resumed time.

I gathered the scrolls from the floor and tore them open one after another.

[You used ‘Skill Effect 300% Scroll’ on ‘Rapid Regeneration (Rare+).’]

[You used ‘Skill Effect 300% Scroll’ on ‘Rapid Regeneration (Rare+).’]

[You used ‘Skill Effect 300% Scroll’ on ‘Rapid Regeneration (Rare+).’]

The boss had already reached the midpoint of the second corridor.

I stared at it while turning the switch over in my hand.

“...”

They said burns caused the worst pain a human being could experience.

This was probably going to hurt like a motherfuuuuucker.

I placed my slightly trembling thumb over the button.

Just before pressing it, I sighed and summoned Diul instead.

“Hey, Diul. Do you have anything...? Anything that could deal with this boss?”

Diul looked at me with something disturbingly close to pity.

Yeah.

Never mind.

I dismissed Diul and returned my thumb to the button.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

I faced the boss head-on as it marched steadily toward me.

A laugh escaped my throat, wild and unhinged.

Screw it.

If I failed to endure it and died, at least it would be one hell of a way to go.

“...Let’s both kick the bucket together.”

I pressed the button.

Whiiiiirrrr.

A mechanical whine echoed through the workshop as the ceiling split open.

A vast and intricate apparatus unfolded from above, filling the entire ceiling before descending into position.

One fact was immediately obvious.

Countless cannon-like devices, each designed to spew fire, were aimed directly downward.

My Sixth Sense went berserk.

Every instinct I possessed screamed that death was only an instant away.

The moment I felt it, I activated Rapid Regeneration, amplified twenty-sevenfold.

Immediately afterward, I froze time, restored my Willpower to full, and activated Skin Hardening.

‘Plli!’

I ordered Plli to wrap himself around my body.

Then I used the Ice Dagger I had been saving on myself.

At the same instant, my vision turned blood-red.

KAAABOOOOOOOM!

Plli and the ice encasing my body evaporated instantly.

Everything became flame.

‘Aaaaghhh...!’

It hurt.

It hurt.

It hurt.

It hurt.

It hurt.

I writhed as an indescribable agony tore through every part of me.

Then I froze time.

The instant I escaped the pain, I could finally think again.

...I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t believe such pain could exist in this world.

Broken bones.

An arrow through the stomach.

Compared to what I had just experienced, those things were nothing.

For a long while, I remained stunned by the sheer horror of it.

Eventually, however, I managed to gather myself.

Just endure it.

All at once.

Pausing time repeatedly would only drag the torture out.

It would be like choosing to receive the same lash one strike at a time.

I released time again.

“...!”

The agony seared through my mind, frying every coherent thought.

Crimson fire filled the world.

Within those flames, my body regenerated endlessly.

My flesh was reduced to ash in an instant.

Then new flesh erupted in its place just as quickly.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Through my fading, distorted consciousness, I saw the boss golem.

Its body had already melted away.

It was using its single revival.

But while I continued regenerating without end, the boss had only that one extra life.

It could not endure the flames for even another moment.

Its restored body melted all over again.

Perhaps the pain had finally short-circuited my brain.

Because when the message appeared before my eyes, I began to laugh.

I...

won...

[You have successfully cleared Nightmare Difficulty Floor 4.]

[Absorbing the power of the floor.]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

.

.

.

[Level up!]

[You are the first to successfully clear Nightmare Difficulty Floor 4.]

[Floor 4 Hidden Route has been opened.]

[Moving to the Reward Room.]