– …And now, please give him a warm round of applause. The groom is now entering.
Clap, clap, clap, clap…
I attended my older cousin’s wedding.
After the ceremony, the family and cousins all gathered at the restaurant for the al.
“Seo-hyeon, how have you been lately? Isn’t your work dangerous?”
“What? Seo-hyeon beca a Climber? What about dical school?”
So of my cousins knew I’d beco a Climber, and so didn’t.
So I had to endure a barrage of questions from the adults while I ate.
I also managed a brief chat with the man of the hour, my cousin, even though he was busy greeting all the guests.
“You’re absolutely glowing.”
“Haha, isn’t it the happiest day of anyone’s life? Course I am.”
He really did look happy.
I’d heard that as November drew closer, wedding halls were getting completely packed.
The reason, of course, was the Nightmare Ti Limit.
Since this might be the world’s last year, everyone was rushing to tie the knot while they still could.
He said he’d barely managed to book a big wedding hall himself.
“Seo-hyeon, you’ll be twenty-six next year, right? You’d better hurry up and get married too.”
“You should ask whether I even have a girlfriend first.”
“My bad.”
After it was all over, on the drive ho in Dad’s car.
“Maybe I’ll just go for the civil service exam after I graduate?”
My sister blurted out of nowhere.
She was also set to graduate from college at the end of this year.
Sohow she’d managed to grind through all her credits without ever taking a leave of absence.
“Where’s that coming from all of a sudden?”
“I an, Su-yeon passed the civil service exam, so it just, like, popped into my head.”
Mom let out a dry laugh, and Dad spoke up.
“Don’t rush into thinking about jobs. Do what you actually want to do, Seo-a. Your mother and I don’t mind whatever you choose.”
I wasn’t really inclined to recomnd it either.
I an, with the world possibly ending at any ti, spending all that ti cramming for civil service exams seed… like a bit of a waste, didn’t it?
If she was just saying it because she had nothing better to do, she’d be better off enjoying herself. It wasn’t like the family was hurting for money.
My sister said,
“I’m saying this because it actually IS what I want to do, okay? What do you think about working at the Tower Climbing Special Agency?”
“…The Tower Climbing Special Agency, of all places?”
“I don’t know, I’m just drawn to it.”
I said,
“I hear they’re so swamped with work people call them the Hell Departnt. You know that, right?”
“I know that, okay?”
But why on earth was she drawn sowhere like that?
Well, whatever, that was her problem…
I looked out the window and watched the scenery roll past.
The Nightmare Ti Limit was now less than two months away.
*
Ti passed.
[Nightmare]
Population: 475,126
Ti Limit: 30d 1h 5m 52s
Reached Floor: 7
Once again, the next challenge was right around the corner.
KABOOOOOM!
A Mist Ghost that ambushed from within the fog took a Fla Strike head-on and was blown apart along with all its doubles.
Continuing my hunt in Zone 5, I checked the gauge.
[Zone 5 (38%)]
Loooong way to go yet.
Maybe even after clearing Floor 7 I wouldn’t have it fully filled?
The pace was way slower than Zone 4 had been, but that was only natural.
Zone 5 was a fog-shrouded field, so actively tracking monsters down was difficult.
And there weren’t any other Climbers hunting there besides .
Well, it wasn’t like there were absolutely zero, I supposed.
And at my current Level 80, I had no confidence in taking down the Zone 5 boss, who’d be Level 100 at minimum.
The Zone 4 boss had been immune to a simple Destruction Ray one-shot thanks to that head-destruction gimmick, and beyond the level gap, the Zone 5 boss probably had sothing similar in store…
[Difficulty: Nightmare]
[Floor: 7]
[Level: 85]
[Willpower: 4,050]
[Skills: Destruction Ray (Epic ), Subspace (Epic), Sixth Sense (Rare )( 3), Teleportation (Rare ), Rapid Regeneration (Rare ), Scorching Zone (Rare ), Fire-Type Low-Tier Mastery (Rare ), Sword of Light (Rare ), Cavalry Charge (Rare ), Fla Strike (Rare)( 5), Lightning Strike (Rare)( 2), Blade Storm (Rare), Exaltation (Rare), Skin Hardening (Rare), Aura Blade (Rare)…]
[Skill: Aura Blade (Rare)]
Forms an aura blade to enhance attack power. Aura blade can be channeled around the body or a weapon in the user’s grip.
Category: Physical Type
Willpower Cost: 10 per second
Cooldown: 10 seconds
The skills I’d gotten from Bilon.
I’d managed to obtain Aura Blade, often called the tier-one rare-grade Physical Type skill.
That said, since I had Sword of Light now, it wasn’t a skill I desperately needed… but it certainly didn’t hurt to have it.
He’d also tracked down a Rare grade Skill Enhancent Stone for , which let push Sixth Sense up to 3.
The rest were Normal or Normal grade odds-and-ends Skill Stones and Skill Enhancent Stones.
For reference, the standard reward I’d received from the Zone 2 boss was a Rare grade Skill Enhancent Stone, which I’d used to enhance Lightning Strike.
I wrapped up the hunt and returned to my room.
[Sorrow: The day of reckoning’s coming around again…]
[Hansho: at this rate I’m legit gonna die of a heart attack one of these years lol]
[Dracula: gotta admit tho when the clear notification pops the dopamine is insane]
[Sellira]: He’ll clear Floor 7 too, right? Please!]
[Lemur: Just have faith and wait in reverence. Person123 is a god]
Out of habit, I browsed the Communication Channel for a bit, then closed it.
Still, how should I put it.
Compared to back in the early floors, even with the Ti Limit looming, the atmosphere wasn’t nearly as panicked.
I rembered seeing statistics that cri rates and financial market turmoil had dropped significantly ever since I’d locked in the 20-day mark as my clear date.
I’d cleared all the way through Floor 6 by now, so I supposed trust had built up to match.
It wasn’t that all that public faith felt like a burden to at this point…
But the outco was still anyone’s guess.
Even with how far I’d co, Nightmare’s brutal difficulty doesn’t allow a single sliver of arrogance or overconfidence. It had always been a tightrope walk.
Would Floor 7 be the end, or would I get to live another year?
– The Nightmare difficulty Ti Limit’s 20-day mark is now just one day away. Person123’s Floor 7 challenge is about to…
The Nightmare Ti Limit had reached just one day before the 20-day mark.
This year too, I skipped traveling and just got so air around the house.
When I went to Gwanghwamun, I saw people already out there praying.
[Nightmare]
Population: 475,093
Ti Limit: 21d 1m 6s
Reached Floor: 7
Evening.
I sat perched on the edge of my bed, waiting for the Ti Limit to hit 21 days.
Back at Floor 4 and Floor 6, the Tower had made its proposal precisely when the clock struck 21 days.
I had to see whether it would do the sa this ti.
– Did the Tower make a proposal to you?
The Demon King suddenly spoke up.
“Yes.”
– …What sort of proposal was it? Did you accept?
I told him about every offer the Tower had made.
The Floor 4 penalty, the Floor 6 ark, even what had happened at the masked auction.
“It could pull the sa thing again this ti. That’s why I’m waiting now.”
The Demon King let out a hollow laugh tinged with what almost felt like regret.
– The Tower is not to be dealt with. Accept nothing it offers, no matter what.
…What’s gotten into him, giving actual advice?
– Though it is pointless to say so. You will fail soon enough either way.
And the mont I thought that, the curse ca right on cue.
Of course, I was well aware the Tower was a petty, cowardly son of a bitch.
I wasn’t going to accept anything from it short of extre circumstances.
“Did the Tower scam you out of sothing once, or what?”
The Demon King didn’t answer.
At that mont, the Nightmare Ti Limit hit exactly 21 days.
“…”
Nothing happened.
No proposal this ti?
A small wave of relief and an equally unwelco flicker of unease hit at the sa ti.
When a bastard who’d always been pulling crap suddenly went quiet, that was its own kind of unsettling.
I lay down early and went to sleep.
Either way, all that was left was to challenge Floor 7 in peak condition.
Early the next morning.
While my family was still asleep, I finished a quick al of energy bars and ward up.
“Let’s get going.”
There was still a good amount of ti before the 20-day mark hit exactly.
But I was planning to start right now.
[Will you enter Floor 7 of Nightmare difficulty?]
“Whew…”
After a deep breath to steel myself one final ti, I entered Floor 7.
*
Floor 7’s the.
Simple. Dodging.
Dodge the arrows pouring in from every direction and survive for the set duration, and the clear was yours.
Of course, any Climber who’d made it to Floor 7 was a superhuman far beyond ordinary levels.
Which naturally ant the arrows coming at them weren’t ordinary arrows either.
Size, speed, power, count, and duration of the arrows all varied by difficulty.
On Hard, the climber had to dodge 300 iron arrows over roughly five minutes, averaging about one per second.
[You have entered Floor 7 of Nightmare difficulty.]
The mont I entered, I stopped ti and surveyed my surroundings.
A chamber similar to Floor 1, but considerably larger.
Torches lit the space.
And what else I saw… countless holes drilled into every wall around .
That’s where the arrows would fire from.
On the other difficulties, arrows were said to launch only from straight ahead.
Nightmare had the holes covering a full 360 degrees, enough to set off trypophobia. Even the ceiling.
Arrows flying in from every direction, then?
This much was well within my expectations.
There was one more thing that was different, though.
‘A door?’
There was a single door directly ahead.
Why a door?
Don’t tell this wasn’t the end, and there was another stage after?
…First, I had to check.
I released ti.
The trial was supposed to start exactly ten seconds after entry.
And the walls that fired the arrows were said to be indestructible, just like the terrain on Floor 4, so attacking them would be pointless.
In short, I had to focus on dodging and nothing else.
Honestly, I had the tiniest fraction more confidence here than on the other floors…
Because if dodging was the the, I had plenty of cards to play.
Sixth Sense. Teleportation.
I’d even drunk the Frozen Hydra’s blood, so unless my head got destroyed, I wouldn’t die.
Of course, this was Nightmare, so what kind of insane bullshit it might pull was anyone’s guess.
‘Well then, let’s see…’
BANG!
The alarm bell of Sixth Sense rang out.
I twisted my body to one side and dodged.
A shockwave roared through, and the boom rang out a beat later than the arrow itself had already shot past.
Couldn’t even call that… an arrow.
I glanced back at the shattered ground.
Only the shape was vaguely arrow-like.
People don’t generally call a chunk of iron twice as long as a person and as thick as a tree trunk an “arrow.”
‘That’s a goddamn missile.’
Speed maybe a touch faster than the speed of sound?
Even past Level 80, if one of those connected, my body was getting blown apart for sure.
But as long as it didn’t connect, no problem.
A chill ran across the back of my head as Sixth Sense rang its alarm again.
I twisted aside and dodged the second arrow coming in from behind.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
I darted around the chamber, dodging the cascade of arrows.
There was the option of knocking arrows aside with magic skills, but dodging was simpler, so I didn’t bother.
The speed and reflexes of a Level 85 body had plenty of margin to dodge with. Exaltation was kicking in steadily, too.
I could already dodge them just by sight alone, and on top of that I had Sixth Sense.
The more I enhanced Sixth Sense, the more refined its danger warnings beca.
Honestly, at 3, I could roughly sense the incoming direction of arrows even with my eyes closed.
In short, even with arrows flying in from every angle, I have no blind spots.
The intervals between shots grew shorter and shorter, and I kept dodging.
A few minutes of this, maybe?
“…!”
Sixth Sense rang alarms from every direction except above.
I sprang straight up.
The arrows incoming from all directions collided with one another and shattered.
I landed on the debris.
The chamber floor had been torn apart by the arrow barrage.
No more arrows ca flying.
‘Is it over?’
Felt like about five minutes had passed, give or take.
Naturally, no clear notification appeared.
I walked up to the door.
I was looking over the firmly shut stone door, wondering whether I’d need to break it down, when,
Rrrrrumble…
With a thunderous roar, the stone door slowly began to open.
I stepped to one side.
BANG!
Before the door had even fully opened, an arrow shot out through the gap.
Sixth Sense had warned , so I was already out of the way.
Cheap tricks like that aren’t going to fly on anymore.
“Whew.”
I took a brief breather, then stepped through the door.
The appetizer was over. From here on, the real thing.
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