Chapter 99: The Agreement

“Haah...”

As he listened to the report that Floor 7 had been cleared, Bilon sank back into his office chair and released a long sigh.

Mr. Kim had done it again.

By now, it was almost impossible to imagine him failing to clear a floor.

Bilon felt relieved.

At the same time, he felt ashamed.

He too had sworn to do everything within his power.

And yet the experiment he had conducted on Mars not long ago had ended in failure.

The Tower’s power had extended all the way to Mars without weakening in the slightest, crushing the faint thread of hope he had dared to cling to.

Was there truly no escaping the Tower’s grasp, no matter how far humanity fled from Earth?

Was humanity’s future really something that could only be entrusted to a single man—to Mr. Kim?

Bilon wanted to take even the smallest portion of that crushing burden from his shoulders.

Instead, he was once again forced to confront the weight of his own inadequacy.

The world called him a genius.

But beside a superhuman like Person123, Bilon was nothing more than an ordinary man.

“Are you all right, sir?”

His secretary, Ellen, stood beside him and watched as Bilon dragged both hands down his dry face.

He exhaled deeply once more before answering.

“We still have to keep going, don’t we?”

“Sir?”

“We have to find some way to screw over that damned Tower. Whether that means escaping Earth or something else entirely.”

Giving up was never an option.

Failure and despair did not wear Bilon down.

They had always been the very forces that drove him to try again.

For humanity.

And for Mr. Kim, who continued to fight his lonely battle entirely on his own.

Bilon had no choice but to keep struggling.

He could never allow himself to stop.

***

[Chicken Sandwich: Excellent work, Mr. Kim. I’m truly delighted that you returned safely from Floor 7 as well. Humanity has been granted another year to live. You really are an extraordinary man...]

I read Bilon’s message and sent him a reply.

Whenever I cleared a Nightmare floor, messages flooded in from all kinds of people.

But Bilon was the only one I ever bothered answering.

“Mmmrgh...”

I closed the Communication Channel, stretched, and yawned.

Floor 8 already, huh.

When I thought back to Floor 1, when everything had spiraled to the point that only a few hours remained before the end of the world...

It honestly felt like a miracle that I had managed to claw my way this far.

In any case, I had bought humanity another year.

I had taken a day off.

Now it was time to get back to work and grind through everything that needed doing.

I entered Floor 6 to test the skill I had just acquired.

Since I was going to test it, I wanted to see what it could do against a boss.

[Only the final Nexus remains!]

[The boss is being summoned!]

I destroyed every Nexus and summoned the boss, a colossal Ogre.

Grrraaahhh—!

[Skill: Hellfire Eruption (Epic)]

Erupts a powerful pillar of hellfire within a 20-meter radius. Requires 30 to 150 seconds of Mental Concentration before activation. The longer the Mental Concentration, the greater the skill’s power and range.

Type: Magic

Willpower Cost: 700

Cooldown: 2 minutes

I stopped time and completed the full 150 seconds of Mental Concentration.

Then I cast a fully charged Hellfire Eruption directly beneath the boss.

A crimson ring resembling a magic circle appeared beneath the Ogre’s feet.

A moment later—

Whoooosh!

A dazzling pillar of crimson flame erupted upward like molten lava.

“Whoa...!”

Even from where I stood, the heat washed over me in a suffocating wave.

When the flames finally vanished, the boss was gone.

Not even ash remained.

It had simply been annihilated.

The boss might not have been especially high-level, but the destructive power was still incredible.

‘Damn.’

It was an Epic-grade charge skill.

On top of that, the bracelet and Fire-Type Mastery increased its damage by a full eighty percent.

Perhaps this level of power was only natural.

Now that I had seen it in action, its effective strike radius was substantial as well.

Around two meters, perhaps?

The new skill’s performance was completely satisfactory.

I finished testing it and left Floor 6.

“Demon King.”

I called out to him.

– What?

“I think you and I need to have a serious conversation.”

I could sense the Demon King’s reaction, as though he were wondering what kind of nonsense I had suddenly decided to spout.

The power he had displayed while controlling my body on Floor 7 had exceeded anything I had imagined.

I needed to understand it in greater detail.

“Demon King, when you’re controlling my body, you can use powers other than the skills I possess, right?”

– And?

“The cold spreading everywhere, the ice blades you launched—those were all magic too, weren’t they? But how can you use magic without any cool... without a Cooldown?”

That was what had surprised me most.

The Demon King answered as though he found my ignorance pathetic.

– Are you under the delusion that the skills you possess are magic?

“...They aren’t?”

– They are nothing more than shells that imitate the form of magic. They are not even abilities that truly belong to you. The Tower imposed restrictions on them, which is why they have things such as Cooldowns.

I asked again.

“So the magic you use isn’t a skill granted by the Tower. It’s real magic?”

– Correct.

“And that’s why you can use it freely, without a Cooldown?”

– Do you require a waiting period every time you move an arm or a leg?

So that was how it worked.

The Demon King’s magic was not an ability bestowed by the Tower.

It was his own innate power.

That was why he could wield it freely, without restrictions such as cooldowns.

– Provided the mana is infinite, of course.

“You mean Willpower, right?”

The Demon King had been consuming my Willpower to cast his magic.

And for all practical purposes, my Willpower was infinite.

The greatest weaknesses of Magic-type skills were the need for Mental Concentration and their enormous Willpower consumption.

My Time Stop cheat allowed me to overcome both of those weaknesses.

That was how I had been using Magic-type skills all this time.

But there was one limitation that even Time Stop could not overcome.

Cooldowns.

The Demon King, however, could use magic without any Cooldown at all.

The one weakness I had never been able to overcome was now completely covered.

Of course, considering how my body had frozen and broken apart, it wasn’t as though his power could be used without limit.

– You wretch. Who said I intended to keep helping you?

The Demon King sounded exasperated.

He said that, but he had still helped me on Floor 7 when the situation became dangerous.

I asked him another question.

“Why do you keep coveting my body, anyway? What exactly are you trying to do with it?”

Was he about to say that he planned to conquer Earth using my body?

– And if I were?

“Then obviously, the answer is no.”

– I have already abandoned that idea, you damnable fool. The whole world could lie within your grasp, yet why do you insist on rejecting it?

The Demon King spoke with a shudder of disgust.

Then again, when he had first entered my body, he had been the sort to throw a fit every day, shouting at me to kill everyone and rule the world.

He had quieted down somewhat lately.

I spoke.

“Then how about this? If you agree to a few conditions, I’ll let you control my body for a couple of hours each day.”

– ...Conditions? What conditions?

The moment he heard the words “control my body,” the Demon King responded in startled haste.

Going forward, whenever I found myself in a genuine crisis, the Demon King would have no choice but to step in and help me anyway.

Even so, I had cleared Floor 7 safely because of him.

He had done me an enormous favor.

Simply taking the benefit and walking away without giving anything in return weighed on my conscience a little.

Besides, if I wanted to keep receiving his help in the future, maintaining a smooth relationship with him would be better.

“First, from now on, you have to cooperate actively with my Nightmare clears. Unless you want to die with me, you don’t really have a choice anyway.”

– Tch... Is that all?

Of course not.

There were more conditions.

“I’ll only hand over my body while we’re inside the Tower, never outside. More importantly, harming other people is absolutely forbidden. And the moment I tell you to return control, you return it immediately.”

As long as he obeyed those conditions, there was no real reason I couldn’t lend him my body.

And even if he tried something suspicious, all I had to do was stop time.

At the very least, I had that safeguard.

“If you accept those conditions, I’ll let you control my body for two hours a day.”

The Demon King responded with obvious displeasure.

– Are you mocking me? Under those conditions, there is nothing I can actually do.

“And without conditions like these, who knows what kind of chaos you’d cause? You seemed restless, so I thought I’d at least let you stretch your legs once in a while. But if you don’t want to, forget it.”

– What are you talking about? I never said I did not want to.

The Demon King answered hurriedly.

Good.

Then we had a deal.

“I’ll be counting on you from now on.”

– Hand it over immediately.

“Sure. Just wait a moment.”

Since I had the opportunity, there was something else I wanted to test.

[You have entered Floor 6 on Nightmare difficulty.]

I explained my plan to the Demon King and entered Floor 6 once again.

I destroyed the Nexuses and dealt with the boss.

Then, after reducing the final Nexus to one percent HP, I handed control of my body over to the Demon King.

“Tch. What a nuisance...”

Bang!

Still grumbling, the Demon °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° King launched himself into the air.

Whether it was some form of flight magic or something else, he could apparently move freely through the sky.

He rose high above the arena, reaching an altitude from which the entire battlefield could be seen at a glance.

What I intended to test was simple.

I wanted to determine how long my body could withstand the Demon King’s power.

As I had witnessed on Floor 7, his power could not be used indefinitely.

If he continued using it, my body would freeze and eventually collapse.

He had said that my body could not endure his power.

In that case, I needed to establish exactly how long it could hold out.

Only then would I be able to use the Demon King’s power strategically during future Nightmare clears.

‘Use your maximum output.’

The Demon King began casting magic as instructed.

Kraaaaaaaa—!

Just as on Floor 7, a deep-blue wave of cold exploded outward in every direction.

[Willpower: 0/5,000]

My Willpower emptied in an instant.

I immediately stopped time and restored it.

The Demon King continued using his power.

My Willpower ran dry.

I restored it again.

After repeating the process several times, frost slowly began creeping across my body.

My flesh started to freeze.

Once we passed ten repetitions—

Crack!

Fractures began spreading across my body.

So this was roughly where the strain began to manifest.

In terms of actual time, a little over a minute had passed.

On Floor 7, my body had been split in half after the Demon King unleashed magic continuously for around one hundred fifty seconds.

Even with a generous estimate, surviving beyond three minutes seemed impossible.

Would my endurance increase as my level rose?

Now for the next experiment.

The Demon King descended to the ground, and I reclaimed control of my body.

“Ugh...”

The cold was horrifying.

Brutal.

I could barely move at all.

I immediately activated Rapid Regeneration.

Fwoooo—

But the ice coating my body did not melt.

Nothing changed.

The Demon King sneered as he informed me,

– My cold cannot be undone by a regeneration ability that pathetic.

So it didn’t work.

Once my body reached this state, recovering by myself was impossible.

At least, not unless I cleared the floor and received the Tower’s restoration.

Boom!

I fired Flame Strike and destroyed the final one percent of the Nexus’s HP.

This was exactly why I had prepared everything in advance so that I could clear the floor immediately.

[You have successfully cleared Floor 6 on Nightmare difficulty.]

I completed the Repeat Clear and was transported to the Reward Room.

Only then did my body recover.

I moved my newly thawed limbs and thought.

‘I’ll have to use it carefully and keep the output under control.’

Using the Demon King’s power recklessly at the very end of a clear, as I had on Floor 7, was one thing.

But if I unleashed it in the middle of a floor and my body began freezing, I would be completely screwed.

Still...

Even with all those limitations taken into account, several minutes of unrestricted magic spam was an ability so absurdly powerful that it might as well have been another broken cheat.

It felt as though I had gained a reliable trump card to keep in reserve.

And if I could count on the Demon King’s cooperation as well, I found myself looking forward to seeing just how much easier my future Nightmare clears might become.