The abandoned school Seo Dong-woo had ntioned was nestled in the mountains on the outskirts of Incheon.
When I arrived, I vaulted over the school wall and slipped inside.
Seo Dong-woo had said he’d be waiting in the gymnasium.
I spotted a building that looked like it and headed toward it.
That lunatic Seo Dong-woo genuinely seed to want to et up for a friendly chat.
But I couldn’t rule out the possibility that he was planning sothing underhanded, so I kept my guard as high as it would go. Tis like these were when the Sixth Sense skill really ca through.
Even before I went in, though, I could sense a commotion inside.
‘What the hell?’
Was soone else in there besides Seo Dong-woo? An accomplice?
…No, this sounded more like fighting.
I crept into the gymnasium, and a scene I hadn’t expected unfolded before .
Two people were inside.
A man had a woman by the throat, holding her up in the air.
The man had to be Seo Dong-woo… but who was the woman?
Unable to make sense of the situation, I called out his na.
“Seo Dong-woo.”
He turned to look at , broke into a wide grin, and tossed the woman aside.
“Oh, you made it! Person123!”
The woman couldn’t keep her balance; she looked badly injured.
I asked the obvious question first.
“Who’s she?”
“Oh, her~? Nobody special. Just so Climber who showed up to kill . I was keeping myself entertained while I waited for you.”
Who the hell is she, really?
Soone with a grudge against Seo Dong-woo, like ?
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just have ourselves a good long chat. Let deal with this bitch first and…”
“Chat, my ass.”
“Huh?”
“I ca here to kill you too.”
Anyway, enough of that.
There didn’t seem to be any traps, so it was ti to get to work.
Seo Dong-woo had said he was in the level twenties.
That would make him lower level than , though of course he could have been lying.
But right now, gauging him through Sixth Sense…
I didn’t get any real sense of danger from Seo Dong-woo. The skill seed to be telling he was beneath .
“Don’t tell you lied to ? And I trusted you.”
Seo Dong-woo’s face twisted into a scowl as he glared at .
I was so dumbfounded I had to say sothing.
“Who the hell would want to sit around chatting with a psycho like you, dumbass? Are you that stupid?”
At that mont, Seo Dong-woo lunged at .
He was fairly fast. I pivoted to dodge his body slam.
Seo Dong-woo skidded to a stop, spun around, and threw a punch right away.
We traded a few blocks and dodges before I landed a kick square in his gut.
Seo Dong-woo went flying but sprang right back to his feet.
“Whoa, you’re tougher than I thought?”
“…”
“On Nightmare, it’s supposed to be ten levels per floor, right…? Then shouldn’t you be level twenty? Guess that was just a rumor.”
I’d gotten a rough read on him by now too.
‘Level twenty-eight, maybe?’
He wasn’t stronger than , but the gap wasn’t massive either.
Seo Dong-woo let out a sly grin.
“Okay, fair. I’ll go all out from here.”
Then he shouted sothing that sounded like a cliché defeat flag, and his skin started changing.
Green patterns like a turtle’s shell spread across his entire body.
‘Skin Hardening?’
A rare-grade defensive skill.
I rembered seeing it on the skill tier list on the Babel site.
It was a defensive skill activated through continuous willpower drain. I’d thought it would be nice to have one myself.
Seo Dong-woo flicked his tongue out in a revolting way, then ca at again.
We exchanged blows once more, and I cracked him across the face.
Whether it was the Skin Hardening or not, the hit didn’t feel satisfying at all.
Seo Dong-woo flinched for a mont, then threw a kick at .
I blocked it with my arm and stepped back a few paces.
Seo Dong-woo closed the distance and pressed the attack enthusiastically.
“Hiyah! The Nightmare conqueror’s nothing special!”
Sorry to interrupt the fun, but I was just starting to warm up myself.
I swatted away a punch aid at my face and drove a hard blow into his solar plexus.
It felt heavier than before.
“Gkh…!”
Seo Dong-woo’s face contorted.
When he threw another punch, I caught his arm and hurled him straight into the wall above the gymnasium stage.
CRASH!
Seo Dong-woo, embedded in the wooden wall, scrambles to pull himself free.
I used Leap to launch myself at him and drove my knee into his abdon.
“Hurgh!”
Seo Dong-woo let out a strangled scream, swinging wild, desperate punches in every direction.
I dodged and delivered a one-two to both sides of his ribs.
As he gasped and staggered, I activated Swing and booted him in the head. He went sailing down from the stage.
Exaltation was active, and the gap in physical ability between Seo Dong-woo and was widening by the second.
There was no need to use Teleportation or Fla Strike.
This was all the man amounted to.
Once Exaltation reached its maximum, Seo Dong-woo couldn’t even put up a decent fight.
His Skin Hardening skill might as well not have existed; every hit I landed connected clean.
CRASH!
Seo Dong-woo tumbled pathetically across the floor and staggered back to his feet.
I walked toward him slowly.
That was when Sixth Sense suddenly rang an alarm.
Seo Dong-woo was pulling sothing from his back pocket.
“Diiiiie…!”
I froze ti.
It was a dagger, its blade made of ice like an icicle.
‘An item?’
It felt dangerous. I needed to dodge.
I finished my ntal Concentration and teleported behind Seo Dong-woo.
KWAAAAANG!
The mont he thrust the ice dagger forward, a blast of freezing cold erupted from it, encasing the spot where I’d been standing in ice.
I kicked the idiot in the back while he stood there stupidly, baffled by my sudden vanishing act.
“Gyakh!”
I picked up the dagger he’d dropped.
The ice blade was gone, leaving only the hilt.
[Item: Shelburn’s Ice Shard Dagger]
A dagger imbued with the cold of the polar region of Shelburn. Consus the dagger blade to emit a freezing blast. The consud blade fully regenerates after 24 hours.
So that’s what kind of item this is?
I slipped the hilt into my pocket.
Confiscated. Mine now.
“Look at all the nice toys you’ve got. If you have more, go ahead and pull them out.”
Of course, it would actually be dangerous if he did, so I held back until Teleportation’s cooldown reset.
But it seed Seo Dong-woo had played his last card.
WHAM! WHAM! CRASH!
I worked him over like a punching bag, raining blows across his body, and finished with a strike to the chest.
I felt ribs shatter under the impact as Seo Dong-woo flew into the wall and crumpled.
“Ghrk… gkk…”
Seo Dong-woo twitched, barely clinging to life.
I walked up and stood over him.
Even with every tooth knocked out and his face a bloody ss, Seo Dong-woo was smiling.
“Shit… you’re strong as fuck… how are you this strong… you only cleared two floors…”
“You can still smile?”
“Heh heh, what, should I be bawling my eyes out…?”
Seo Dong-woo wheezed and raised his head.
“Kill , go ahead… I don’t give a shit. I’m just bumd I couldn’t have more fun before I go, heh heh…”
That mouth of his never quit.
I glared at him, then spoke.
“You’re around floor seven or eight, aren’t you? Why didn’t you climb higher?”
“…What?”
“I an, you’re pathetic. This is all you’ve got, and you were spouting all that crap about Climbers ruling the world? If you were going to raise hell anyway, you should’ve leveled up more.”
I sneered at him.
“You were actually scared, weren’t you? You climbed that high and then got too scared you’d fail, so you couldn’t even bring yourself to go further. Am I right? Acting all crazy, but underneath it you were a perfectly rational coward.”
That must have hit a nerve. He lost it.
“Don’t fuck with , you piece of shit…!”
“Says the trash-tier coward.”
Now that felt good.
The venting was over.
Now ca the question of what to do with him.
I’d only thought as far as beating the hell out of him. Whether to kill him or spare him, I hadn’t decided.
It wasn’t like I had any moral objection to killing trash like this.
Hmm, and then there was the matter of cleaning up afterward.
‘…I should at least report this, right?’
Having co this far, there was no avoiding it. Even if my identity got exposed.
That other person over there had seen everything, and it would’ve been a stretch for to neatly wrap up this whole situation and vanish without a trace.
I turned to look at the woman.
At so point she’d gotten up and was stumbling toward us.
“…?”
She walked up to where Seo Dong-woo lay and raised her fist.
Then, with a fist flickering with blue light, she brought it down on Seo Dong-woo’s head.
BOOM!
His skull burst apart. Just like that.
His head exploded, and he was dead.
I stared at the woman, completely stunned.
She was breathing hard, ragged, when she suddenly started crying.
What? Who is this person?
I stood there awkwardly, watching the woman’s bizarre display.
“Haah…”
She lifted her head, wiped her tears, and turned to look at .
“…If you’d given him ti, he might have escaped into the Tower. I had to kill him before his Combat Status wore off.”
Combat Status?
I’d heard of it. Sothing about how Climbers couldn’t enter the Tower while in combat.
“So who are you?”
I finally asked.
Now that I looked, she was dressed in a business suit.
A bad feeling crept over . Don’t tell …
The woman swept her disheveled hair back and introduced herself.
“Shin Su-jin, Section Chief, Tower Monitoring Division, Tower Climbing Special Agency.”
“Ah.”
“Thank you for assisting in the execution of official duties. Thanks to you, the escaped convict Seo Dong-woo has been neutralized.”
It felt like I’d been caught red-handed.
No wonder she’d been fighting Seo Dong-woo.
Section Chief Shin Su-jin even pulled a business card from her inside pocket and handed it to before asking cautiously,
“Are you, by any chance, Person123… the first Nightmare conqueror?”
“…”
“I overheard Seo Dong-woo call you that earlier.”
Denying it would’ve been pointless, so I nodded.
If she was with the Tower Climbing Special Agency, that made her a governnt official.
I figured I might as well try asking.
“…Any chance you could keep my involvent quiet? Say you handled Seo Dong-woo on your own.”
“Pardon?”
Section Chief Shin Su-jin studied silently for a mont, then nodded.
“I’m not sure what your circumstances are, but… understood. I’ll keep it to myself.”
“…Really?”
“You saved my life. That much goes without saying.”
Thank god. She turned out to be the reasonable type.
Just then, Section Chief Shin Su-jin clutched her stomach and let out a groan.
I grabbed her arm and steadied her as she swayed.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt badly?”
“…I’m fine.”
Section Chief Shin Su-jin gently pushed my arm away, slid down to sit against the wall, and said,
“I’ll take care of the scene. As far as the record goes, I engaged and neutralized Seo Dong-woo alone. You don’t need to worry.”
“…Then should I get going?”
“Yes. Thank you again.”
I started to leave, but turned back to look at her.
“You’re really sure you’re okay? Shouldn’t you call 119 at least?”
“Yes, I’ll call them myself. The police might show up, so please, go.”
Well, if she said so.
I left Section Chief Shin Su-jin behind and slipped out of the abandoned school.
But seriously, why did she cry like that earlier?
She was a strange person.
*
Left alone, Su-jin endured the waves of pain washing over her with asured breaths.
She turned to look at the corpse of Seo Dong-woo, his head burst open.
It felt far more cathartic than she had imagined it would.
All those years of telling herself to let it go, to forget, and in the end, it was never going to be over until Seo Dong-woo was dead.
‘That man…’
Su-jin thought about the man who had just left.
Person123. The first Nightmare conqueror, and the highest-ranked Nightmare record holder.
She was surprised to learn that the man shrouded in mystery was Korean.
He looked younger than she’d expected, too. He’d been wearing a hood and a mask, so she couldn’t see his face properly, but still.
Why he had suddenly appeared at this location was another mystery.
Judging from the conversation he’d had with Seo Dong-woo, it seed he had tricked the convict into eting here with the intention of eliminating him.
Above all, the way he had toyed with Seo Dong-woo, a level twenty-eight Climber, was nothing short of shocking.
Hadn’t he only cleared two floors?
No matter how exceptional a Nightmare conqueror was, she never would have guessed the gap between Nightmare and Hard difficulty was that vast.
She owed him a great deal. Without him, she would have died at Seo Dong-woo’s hands today. Thanks to him, she had been able to avenge what was done to her.
…She simply felt relieved. It finally felt like it was all over.
Su-jin took out her phone.
The screen was cracked to pieces, and missed calls had piled up. She dialed one of the numbers.
─ Team Leader! Why are you only picking up now?! Seo Dong-woo is…
“I got him.”
─ What?
“I got Seo Dong-woo. Get over here. The location is…”
Su-jin finished the call and closed her eyes to rest.
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