Chapter 76: Nightmare, 6th Floor (2)

The instant I saw the message, I stopped time and gathered my thoughts.

[A Penalty is being imposed!]

[The number of summoned enemy monsters has doubled!]

[Enemy monsters gain Tier 1 Resistance!]

The enemy had three Nexuses in total.

Apparently, I could not simply destroy them in whatever order I pleased. There was a correct sequence, and choosing incorrectly imposed a penalty.

‘Doubled...’

So six Ogres would now spawn at a time?

That was not catastrophic yet. But if their numbers doubled every time I made a mistake...

‘A few more wrong guesses and I’m screwed.’

Once dozens of Ogres began flooding each lane, there would be no way for me to hold them back.

And what exactly was Tier 1 Resistance?

Presumably, it increased their defense.

Whatever the precise effect, the enemy had received some kind of enhancement, which was bad news.

Think.

Lane 1 had been wrong, which left Lane 2 and Lane 3.

A fifty-fifty chance.

If I chose incorrectly again, the final option would be confirmed by elimination. I could simply destroy that one afterward.

But if the second guess was also wrong...

Including the mistake I had already made, I could potentially fail three times in total.

That would increase the number of Ogres to twenty-four per lane.

And all of this assumed the correct order remained fixed.

What if the sequence changed every time I made a mistake?

Hmm.

That would be nearly impossible.

Please, anything but that.

‘So I’m relying on luck again?’

Unless there was some hidden clue that revealed the correct order.

For now, I released time.

Pop.

Six freshly summoned Ogres appeared.

I divided Flame Strike among them and wiped them out, then sprinted back toward my own base.

On the way, I noticed that the destroyed Turrets had not regenerated.

A small mercy.

I headed toward Lane 2 to check the situation.

The number of Ogres had doubled to six, but Plli was still handling them effortlessly.

This side was fine.

I checked Lane 3 immediately afterward.

Scorching Zone was burning through the Ogres beautifully, preventing them from getting anywhere near the Turret.

Good.

Six at a time was still manageable.

I stopped time again and considered my options.

‘Which lane should I push?’

I had to choose between Lane 2 and Lane 3.

I could not afford to be careless.

Another mistake would double the number of monsters again, and their Resistance would rise by another Tier.

Rather than leaving everything to a coin toss, I decided to search the battlefield more thoroughly first.

Perhaps there was a clue hidden somewhere that would reveal the correct sequence.

‘It would be better to destroy all the Turrets first.’

Choosing the wrong order had restored the Nexus, but the Turrets had remained destroyed.

So before committing to another guess, I would eliminate every Turret on the battlefield.

I returned to Lane 1.

I pushed all the way into the enemy base and cast a new Scorching Zone directly over the Portal from which the Ogres emerged.

Whoosh!

The newly summoned Ogres erupted in flames and collapsed.

That took care of spawn-killing on Lane 1.

I raced back toward Lane 3, where the previous Scorching Zone would have expired by now.

There was no time to rest.

After mowing down the Ogres approaching our First Turret, I destroyed the enemy’s First Turret.

[Lane 3 First Turret destroyed!]

[Lane 3 Second Turret destroyed!]

The First Turret fell, and I pushed straight through to the Second Turrets.

Lane 3 was now completely cleared of Turrets.

I dashed over to Lane 2.

“Go cover that bridge now, Plli.”

I sent Plli, who had been defending Lane 2, over to Lane 3.

[Lane 2 First Turret destroyed!]

[Lane 2 Second Turret destroyed!]

The First and Second Turrets on Lane 2 fell as well.

By alternating Plli and Scorching Zone between the two unattended lanes, I finished destroying every enemy Turret on the battlefield.

After entering the enemy base on Lane 2, I carefully examined the Nexus.

Hmm.

Naturally, there was nothing convenient like a number written on it.

I killed the Ogres as they appeared and searched the base.

There was no visible difference between it and our own.

Aside from the obvious fact that ours was tinged blue, while theirs was bathed in red.

Once again alternating Plli and Scorching Zone, I inspected the bases on Lanes 1 and 3, then searched our own base in the same manner.

I explored every corner of the battlefield and observed it for a long time.

But I found nothing.

I stopped time again and sank into thought.

Was guessing really the only answer?

Hah.

I hated this.

My experience on Floor 4 had left me genuinely allergic to anything that depended on luck.

But if no other method existed, what choice did I have?

Without dwelling on it for too long, I decided to destroy Nexus 3—

Actually, wait.

Let me reconsider.

No.

Let me try to understand the Tower’s intentions.

The fact that I had chosen Lane 1 first might itself have been part of the design.

When presented with the numbers 1, 2, and 3, most people would instinctively choose 1 first without giving it much thought.

So what would they choose next?

Given human psychology, after choosing 1 and discovering that it was wrong, most people would probably skip 2 and choose 3 next.

But what if that line of reasoning was exactly what the Tower expected?

Forget it.

This was only making my head spin.

It was not rock-paper-scissors. Overthinking it would accomplish nothing.

There was no point trying to play mind games with the Tower.

If I changed my decision and turned out to be wrong, I would only be more annoyed.

So I decided to stick with my original choice.

Nexus 3.

Before destroying Nexus 3, however, I went to Nexus 2 first.

If I reduced its HP beforehand, I could save a great deal of time later.

I lowered Nexus 2’s HP until barely one percent remained.

Then I charged the Warp Device and designated the location as my warp point.

With this arrangement, if Nexus 3 proved to be incorrect, I could warp directly back here and finish off Nexus 2.

[9:59]

I activated the Warp Device.

Scorching Zone held Lane 2, Plli defended Lane 1, and I headed toward Nexus 3.

Before warping back to Nexus 2, I would need to cast another Scorching Zone on Lane 3.

Taking into account the time required to destroy the Nexus and the cooldown of Scorching Zone, I began attacking Nexus 3 when approximately one hundred and sixty seconds remained on the Warp Device’s timer.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I was not asking for much.

It was a fifty-fifty chance.

Surely I could catch a break this once.

I dealt with the Ogres as they spawned and soon destroyed Nexus 3.

[Wrong order!]

[A Penalty is being imposed!]

[The number of summoned enemy monsters has doubled!]

[Enemy monsters gain Tier 2 Resistance!]

“Fuck.”

The curse escaped my lips the instant I saw the message.

Nothing was ever going to be easy, was it?

The shattered Nexus 3 regenerated.

I immediately deactivated Scorching Zone on Lane 2, waited for the cooldown, and deployed a new one on Lane 3.

[0:01]

Right on schedule, the timer expired, and I warped back to Nexus 2.

“...?”

But when I arrived—

The HP I had painstakingly reduced to one percent had returned to full.

Oh, come on.

Don’t tell me...

When the order was incorrect, did the HP of all the other Nexuses regenerate as well?

I clicked my tongue and began battering the Nexus with my mace.

Whatever.

This was my final chance.

If the order had not reset, then Nexus 2 had to be correct.

Ogres emerged from the Portal.

Their numbers had doubled again.

There were now twelve of them.

They charged at me while I continued hammering the Nexus.

I retaliated with my skills.

But—

‘They’re tougher.’

I could feel that the Ogres were taking slightly longer to kill.

So Resistance really did increase their defense?

Even so, I eliminated them without too much difficulty and resumed attacking the Nexus.

What worried me now were the unattended lanes.

At this rate, Plli might soon begin to struggle.

Was she already being overwhelmed?

I could not leave to check.

All I could do was destroy the Nexus as quickly as possible.

‘This has to be the right one, doesn’t it?’

The sequence could not truly be resetting every time I failed.

Could it?

That would be an entirely new level of bullshit.

Suppressing my unease, I continued striking Nexus 2 until it shattered.

And then—

[Wrong order!]

[A Penalty is being imposed!]

[The number of summoned enemy monsters has doubled!]

[Enemy monsters gain Tier 3 Resistance!]

“...”

Bad feelings always had a habit of being correct.

I stopped time immediately.

I was seriously going to lose my mind.

So the order really did reset whenever I made a mistake?

There were now twenty-four Ogres per wave.

Tier 3 Resistance.

The situation was rapidly entering territory I could no longer handle.

Even more frightening was the fact that I had not successfully destroyed a single Nexus.

As always, Nightmare had found a way to make my skin crawl.

I steadied myself and forced my thoughts to remain calm.

It was fine.

When the gacha had failed me on Floor 4, the situation had been even more hopeless than this.

Yet I had still found a way through.

‘Think.’

Think.

Think it through.

Did the order truly reset every time?

If so, then three consecutive wrong answers meant I was already effectively finished.

One more mistake would end everything.

Unless I guessed every remaining Nexus correctly from this point onward, there was no way I could clear the Floor.

I would rather believe that I had overlooked something.

But despite all the time I had spent searching the battlefield, I had found no clue whatsoever about the sequence.

‘Destroy all three Nexuses simultaneously?’

What if I used Plli and Scorching Zone to destroy all three at precisely the same moment?

No.

There was no way that would work.

How was I supposed to synchronize three destructions with absolutely no margin for error?

And even if I somehow succeeded, there was no guarantee the system would recognize it as the correct answer.

A single mistake could result in three incorrect destructions in rapid succession.

I continued thinking inside frozen time.

I desperately needed a flash of inspiration.

Come on.

Brain cells, neurons—anything.

Give me something.

If I could not find an answer, I was genuinely going to die.

Subjectively, it felt as though half a day had passed while I stood motionless in frozen time, thinking.

Still, nothing came to me.

Just as I was beginning to accept that I might have to leave everything to chance—

‘...?’

Something in the distance suddenly caught my eye.

Far [N O V E L I G H T] across the bridge, inside our allied base, floated the Nexus.

A red Nexus.

Now that I thought about it—

Why was our Nexus red?

Every other color on our side was the opposite of the enemy’s.

Our base was blue.

Our Portal was blue.

Our Turrets were blue.

Everything belonging to the enemy was red.

And yet our Nexus alone was red, exactly like theirs.

I had noticed it earlier in passing, but had simply accepted it without giving the matter any thought.

‘Could it be?’

The possibility entered my mind.

Surely not.

But what if that was not our Nexus at all?

What if it was one of the enemy’s?

The idea was absurd.

But Nightmare difficulty had never been normal in the first place.

The object positioned at the very center of our base—the one I had naturally assumed was our Nexus—might actually be an enemy Nexus.

A trick that malicious was not something I could dismiss outright.

In fact, the longer I considered it, the more plausible it seemed.

It was strange.

Everything else on our side was blue.

Why, of all things, was the Nexus red?

‘Then where is our real Nexus?’

I had no idea.

Either way, I had to decide.

Would I attempt to destroy it or not?

The choice was not easy.

What if this was merely my imagination?

What if it truly was our Nexus?

Then I would destroy my own base like an idiot, and the attempt would end immediately.

I agonized over the decision for a long time.

Then I made up my mind.

There was no real path forward anyway.

Rather than pray that I could correctly guess all three resetting Nexuses without making another mistake, I would pray that this was the answer.

I released time and sprinted toward our base.

I crossed the distance in moments and began striking the Nexus with my mace.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Its HP gradually fell.

Ah...

Wait.

Am I wrong?

Is this really the correct choice?

Even as I continued swinging, my conviction wavered.

The longer I thought about it, the more it felt as though I were doing something completely insane.

Then again, Nightmare was never something one cleared while remaining entirely sane.

Whatever.

Fuck it.

If I’m wrong, humanity, you have my apologies.

[Lane 2 First Turret has been destroyed!]

A message appeared while I was still attacking.

‘Already?’

One of our Turrets had fallen.

Apparently, the undefended First Turret on Lane 2 had already been overwhelmed.

With twenty-four Ogres pouring into the lane, of course it could not hold.

I did not stop.

I continued striking the Nexus.

One percent HP remained.

My hand hesitated for a fraction of a second.

Then I closed my eyes and brought the final blow down.

CRACK!

The red Nexus shattered and collapsed.

From within its broken shell emerged a smaller Nexus glowing blue.

[Enemy Nexus destroyed!]

[Nexuses destroyed: 1/4]

“...Hah.”

A dry laugh escaped me as I read the message.

What a complete lunatic Nightmare was.