“Seo-hyeon, while you’re up, grab a plate of assorted sushi too.”
“Sure.”
I humd to myself as I picked out food and loaded my plate.
A weekend buffet, packed wall to wall with people.
It had been a while since the whole family had gone out to eat together.
“Eat sothing besides crab, Seo-a. You ca all the way to a buffet just to eat one thing?”
“Why? I’m only eating the most expensive thing.”
My sister had been stubbornly bringing back nothing but snow crab legs for a while now, piling them high and chewing through the stack.
“Is it really that good? Honestly, I can’t tell the difference between this and Krab S*icks.”
“That’s just because your taste buds are cheap.”
“Eat up, then. My refined little sister with her high-class tongue.”
Getting full, I started picking at a bit of dessert.
My father wiped his mouth and asked,
“By the way, Seo-hyeon, how’s work been lately?”
“…Work? Sa as always. I just keep running Repeat Clears on the first floor.”
“Right, right. Just be careful as always. Co to think of it, didn’t I hear sothing about health insurance benefits for Climbers starting this year? Are you looking into that?”
“Yes, I’m on top of it.”
My sister cut in.
“Oppa, get a phone for my birthday this year. It’s about ti I upgraded.”
“Pipe down and enjoy the crab.”
They used to seem a little worried about going into the Tower, but these days, not so much.
My parents were just the worrying type to begin with, and honestly, Repeat Clears on Easy floor one weren’t anything to lose sleep over.
In and out of the Tower, back to ordinary everyday life in reality.
My life was always the sa.
Hanging out with friends, taking trips, going out to eat with the family like this. That was how I lived.
In the end, wasn’t I climbing the Tower just so I could live happily?
This happiness wasn’t guaranteed year after year, so I had to soak up every bit of it.
Betting my life every single year just to stay alive. And not only my life, but all of humanity’s, hanging in the balance.
The kind of abnormality I could never have imagined before had beco my everyday.
As my mind drifted lazily, the sheer absurdity of it all struck again, and I let out a quiet laugh.
“Why are you laughing all of a sudden? Did you eat sothing bad?”
“Watching you eat reminded of a cow chewing its cud.”
Ignoring my sister’s glare, I sipped my drink.
At that point, six months remained before I had to tackle the fourth floor.
*
Starting with the incident with the Fallen, a whole procession of things ca and went…
And then early autumn arrived, with September still clinging to its heat.
Even when I felt like I’d been living every day to the fullest, ti slipped by in the blink of an eye.
Before I knew it, only about two months remained on the Nightmare Ti Limit.
Since I had to enter when 20 days were left, my actual entry was 20 days sooner than those two months.
[Nightmare (21)]
The number of Nightmare climbers had risen, dipped by one here and there, and fluctuated back and forth, now sitting at over twenty.
The roster of countries had grown more diverse too.
Still, the most aggressive players on Nightmare remained the US and China.
This ti around, both had cleared the third floor, and they were right on my heels.
– Sources indicate that the Nobel Committee is currently in discussions about naming Person123 as a candidate for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Surprisingly enough, news like that had started making the rounds.
Well, well. , up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
It was absurd enough to be funny, but I did think I deserved it.
Saying otherwise wouldn’t even qualify as humility.
But how did they plan on handing it over when they didn’t even know who I was?
So I figured it was all just talk that would fizzle out…
– This year’s Nobel Peace Prize… has been decided to go to our great hero who saved humanity. That hero is Person123.
The Committee is aware that this decision departs from traditional convention. The recipient’s real na, nationality, and specific identity, none of it has been confird.
Nevertheless, his achievents in preventing the end of the world on multiple occasions are known to every soul, deniable by none, and beyond a sliver of controversy, which is why we have arrived at this decision.
The Committee believes his extraordinary sacrifice and devotion, unprecedented in all of human history, justifies this unprecedented decision. Just as the Nobel Peace Prize Special Recomndation Resolution was unanimously adopted at the recent UN General Assembly, the nominator of this award is the entire world.
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize dal and monetary award will be held in special trust by the Nobel Foundation until the recipient cos forward in person. The ceremony will take place at Oslo City Hall in Norway, with the UN Secretary-General accepting on his behalf before a watching world…
They had actually awarded it to .
Woohoo! I won the Nobel Peace Prize! Not that I could brag about it to anyone… I just sort of went, huh, okay.
[Chicken Sandwich: Well, one couldn’t exactly call their motives pure. They’re anxious that Mr. Kim might change his mind at any mont. They’re trying to bind you a little tighter with the sense of responsibility that cos with being humanity’s hero.]
[Person123: I see.]
[Chicken Sandwich: Does it disappoint you?]
[Person123: No. It’s only natural they’d be anxious.]
At the end of the day, I was climbing the Tower for myself too.
If I didn’t climb, my family and I would die.
I wasn’t shouldering so grand cause, so I had no reason to care what people were thinking.
.
.
.
[Nightmare]
Participants: 184,386
Ti Limit: 25 days 23 hours 35 minutes 17 seconds
Floor Reached: 4F
Could I clear the fourth floor?
Would I really co out alive this ti too?
The flood of stray thoughts that rose as the Ti Limit drew near was familiar by now.
I steadied my mind and focused on training.
Though “training” mostly just ant grinding up my skill proficiency.
Whooosh!
A red dot appeared in the air just above the ground, and a spherical zone blood outward around it.
The Undead that wandered into the zone caught fire and crumpled.
[Skill: Scorching Zone (Rare )]
Creates a Scorching Zone with a 5-ter radius within a 10-ter range. Targets that enter the area suffer continuous burn damage. Requires 50 seconds of ntal Concentration to cast.
Classification: Magic Type
Willpower Consumption: 30 per second
Cooldown: 1 minute
A newly acquired Rare grade Magic Type skill.
A ground-zone skill that dealt continuous damage within its area.
The power was solid, and the range was impressively wide.
For the record, this wasn’t a skill I’d gotten from Bilon.
It was what I’d obtained after pushing Fla Strike from 2 all the way up to 5.
Turns out, when a skill is enhanced to 5, the final upgrade doesn’t actually boost the skill’s effect. Instead, a higher-tier skill, one grade above, is randomly acquired.
One Skill Enhancent Stone ca from my third-floor reward. The other two were graciously secured by Bilon. I dumped the whole lot into Fla Strike, and out popped Scorching Zone.
Who would’ve guessed there was a hidden piece like that tucked into the system.
The one thing I wondered about was why this hadn’t co to light until now.
Sure, Enhancent Stones were rarer than Skill Stones, but had no one ever pushed even a single Normal-grade skill all the way to 5?
Maybe not… Or maybe sobody out there knew and was sitting on the information for themselves.
[Person123: If you enhance a single skill to 5, you randomly acquire a skill one tier higher in a similar category.]
So I dropped it in the Communication Channel. No thanks necessary.
At any rate, deciding to pour everything into Fla Strike instead of spreading my enhancents thin had clearly been the right call.
Now Fla Strike launched five fireballs, and since 5 was the cap, there was no further enhancent to be had.
But more importantly, this Scorching Zone skill.
It was finally my very first sustained-type magic skill!
As long as my Willpower didn’t run dry, I could hold it up as long as I wanted.
Which ant, for , I could sustain it indefinitely.
Considering the the of the fourth floor, I’d say I’d drawn a pretty good hand.
[Skill: Skin Hardening (Rare)]
Hardens the skin to reinforce defense.
Classification: Physical Type
Willpower Consumption: 5 per second
Cooldown: 10 seconds
[Skill: Minor Burn Resistance (Normal )]
Grants slight resistance to burns.
Classification: Physical Type (Passive)
Willpower Consumption: None
Cooldown: None
[Skill: Frost Shot (Normal)]
Launches cold energy that freezes the area of impact. Requires 10 seconds of ntal Concentration to cast.
Classification: Magic Type
Willpower Consumption: 50
Cooldown: 10 seconds
[Item: Rupadupa’s Ring]
A ring imbued with the will of the clumsy shaman Rupadupa. Increases Willpower recovery speed by 10%.
Of course, there were also the things Bilon had passed along in the anti.
First up was Skin Hardening, sothing I’d been after for a while.
This one was another sustained-type with per-second Willpower drain, so the efficiency was excellent for .
The fourth floor probably wouldn’t place much weight on defense, so the timing of it was a bit of a letdown.
Next ca the Normal passive Minor Burn Resistance, and the Normal skill Frost Shot… nothing particularly striking about these.
And finally, I picked up an item too. A piece that boosted Willpower recovery rate.
Not really necessary for , of course, but still, better than nothing.
At the very least, refilling my Willpower during a ti freeze would go a little faster.
Three skills, two Enhancent Stones, and one item in total.
Bilon had rounded up quite a lot over the past year.
[Difficulty: Nightmare]
[Floor: 4F]
[Level: 45]
[Willpower: 1,250]
[Skills: Destruction Ray (Epic ), Teleportation (Rare ), Sixth Sense (Rare ), Rapid Regeneration (Rare ), Scorching Zone (Rare ), Fla Strike (Rare)( 5), Blade Storm (Rare), Exaltation (Rare), Skin Hardening (Rare), Fairy Light Bullet (Normal )( 1), Minor Poison Resistance (Normal ), Minor Burn Resistance (Normal ), Leap (Normal)( 1), Swing (Normal), Thrust (Normal), Frost Shot (Normal)]
“Diul, you’re gonna open up another ability when I’m in trouble this ti too, right? Right?”
I looked up at Diul and asked.
Diul responded with his usual indifference.
Diul’s third ability still hadn’t been unlocked.
And that was after I’d taken him on a nightly walk practically every single day for a whole year, not missing one. Stung a little, I must say.
Still, with continued use, the Concealnt ability’s duration had stretched to around 15 minutes.
I believed he’d open up another new ability when things turned dangerous.
After running a Repeat Clear of the third floor and taking down the Undead boss, I summoned Plli.
“Alright, sparring ti.”
I scrambled to move as Plli lunged at .
Beyond practicing skills, I also kept warming up without them against the fully enhanced third-floor boss and Plli. The body’s instincts mattered too.
Training wrapped up, and I stepped out of the Tower.
When I left my room for a glass of water, I found my family gathered in the living room watching TV.
– Massive crowds are expected along Gwanghwamun Plaza in Seoul on October 23rd. Similar gatherings are anticipated at New York’s Tis Square and St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, with people taking to the streets to pray for Person123’s successful clear…
My sister, watching the news, spoke up.
“Should we all go out too?”
Mom wouldn’t have it.
“Absolutely not. With that many people cramd together, it’s dangerous. Let’s just pray at ho.”
Fair enough. No telling what sort of chaos could erupt.
A crowd like that, all gathered, and then if I actually failed…
My sister turned to as I drank my water.
“Oppa, why don’t you just stay ho like everyone else? What’s with this trip again?”
“My business.”
“Just pray properly while you’re out there, okay? Honestly.”
Prayers for my own sake, I was doing those every single day.
O Lord, grant the strength to survive that wicked Tower, and so forth.
This ti too, I’d head off on my trip two days before the 20-day mark.
One final refresh to steady my nerves, and then I’d take on the fourth floor.
– The governnt will comnce procedures for Non-climbing Climbers beginning November 10th, and…
Another news story rolled in.
The topic: Non-climbing Climbers.
I had entered the first floor with about three hours left on the Ti Limit.
So their date of death wouldn’t fall exactly on a one-year mark this ti around, but three hours earlier than that. Not that it made much difference.
The governnt had issued substantial settlents to unregistered Climbers.
That settlent also served as compensation for their consent to either enter the Tower themselves or undergo euthanasia, with their bodies incinerated afterward so that not even a corpse remained.
Because there was no telling whether even those who died in advance might turn into the Fallen.
And even with all those asures in place, no one could say where the next monsters might co crawling out from.
There was nothing for it, I supposed.
Not that chewing on that sort of thing now would do any good.
I had my own clear to worry about.
“I’m heading out.”
A few days passed, and the day of the trip ca.
Following my annual ritual, I hid the will I’d written away in my room, shouldered my backpack, and stepped out the door.
*
October 22nd.
Another year had already slipped past, and now only a single day remained until the fateful mont when Person123 would take on the fourth floor.
It was the kind of stretch when no one could keep their hands on their work.
Because by tomorrow, it would be decided, once again, whether the world would fall or not.
“…Huh?”
“Hm?”
People walking the streets abruptly stopped and turned their eyes to the empty air.
Bewildered, they stared at the ssage hanging before them.
A ssage that had appeared not only before Climbers, but before every single person in the world.
*
I’d flown out to Jeju Island for my trip, spent the day having a blast, and co back to the hotel.
[Nightmare]
Participants: 183,160
Ti Limit: 21 days 1 minute 25 seconds
Floor Reached: 4F
Just one day remained now.
Tomorrow, I planned to climb to the summit of Hallasan during the day. That would be the final stop.
Then back to the hotel, and I’d start getting ready to enter.
I was sipping a beer and enjoying a slow, easy rest when it happened.
[The Tower is making a proposal to ‘Person123’.]
I froze mid-sip.
Slowly, I lowered the can and stared at the ssage hovering in front of .
“…What?”
What the hell is this?
[If ‘Person123’ selects one of the following penalties and enters Floor 4, the rule ‘Climbers who fail to enter the Tower within 3 years will die’ shall be nullified.]
[1. Physical abilities reduced by 50%]
[2. Skill cooldowns doubled]
[3. Three random skills prohibited from use]
[4. Highest-grade skill prohibited from use]
[5. Items prohibited from use]
[The penalty will remain in effect only during the first conquest of Floor 4.]
[‘Person123’, if you accept the proposal, select a penalty and enter.]
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