Chapter 123: Nightmare, 9th Floor (1)

The punishment of Sisyphus.

A famous tale from Greek and Roman mythology.

Sisyphus, the man condemned to eternal torment for deceiving the gods, was forced to push a massive boulder to the top of a mountain for all eternity.

The theme of Floor 9 immediately brought that story to mind.

It was simple.

To clear Floor 9, you had to move the assigned boulder all the way to the summit of the mountain.

Of course, the size of the boulder, as well as the mountain’s slope and height, varied depending on the difficulty.

As for Nightmare difficulty...

[You have entered Nightmare Difficulty Floor 9.]

The instant I entered, I stopped time.

Then I examined the scene before me.

The weather was gloomy, and a thin mist hung in the air.

Before me rose a rocky mountain of dizzying height.

And spread across the flatland surrounding it were countless boulders.

‘...?’

For a moment, I thought there was no way.

Why wasn’t there just one boulder?

Don’t tell me I’m supposed to move all of these to the summit...

No. It couldn’t possibly be that, right?

I released Time Stop.

For the moment, I wandered around and inspected the area more closely.

The boulders were enormous, round masses of stone that looked to be four or five meters across.

No matter which direction I walked across the plain, the boulders continued without end.

And that wasn’t an exaggeration.

They really did seem endless.

What the hell was this?

Back at the foot of the mountain, I paused to think.

...Well, I guess there was only one thing to do.

Try it.

I picked one of the nearby boulders.

Then I put some strength into it and tried moving it.

The boulder was enormous, but with my current strength, moving it wasn’t particularly difficult.

The problem was that I wasn’t moving it across flat ground.

I had to take it all the way to the summit...

I lifted my head and looked up at the mountain.

The slope was fairly steep.

Close to thirty degrees, maybe.

And the summit was absurdly far away.

The other difficulties supposedly had little more than a hill you might find behind a residential neighborhood, but this was a genuine mountain.

A thought occurred to me, so I asked the Demon King.

“Demon King, you could freeze this thing and move it to the summit too, right?”

With the Demon King’s power, it would be simple enough.

It wasn’t as if the Demon King could use something like telekinesis.

But if he covered the boulder in ice and then controlled the ice itself, it was practically the same thing.

– It’s possible.

“Hmm...”

Still, I should probably move it myself for now.

I needed to conserve the Demon King’s power whenever possible.

Besides, with countless boulders scattered around, something told me moving just one wasn’t going to be enough...

Whoom!

I began rolling the boulder up the mountain.

Every step I took crushed and gouged the rocky ground beneath my feet.

It was easier than I had expected.

Well, the boulder itself was probably something the other Nightmare Climbers could move without too much difficulty.

And given that I was at a higher level than they were, naturally I wasn’t going to have much trouble with it.

And so I rolled the boulder up the slope, just like Sisyphus from the myth...

‘Ah.’

Wait.

Come to think of it...

Couldn’t I just have Plli do this?

I summoned Plli.

Thanks to Revillus’s Ring, Plli had grown even stronger than before.

“Push this for me, Plli. Yeah, just like that.”

Plli began shoving the boulder forward with his head without the slightest trouble.

And since this guy had practically endless stamina, there was no chance of him tiring out.

‘Nice.’

I left the boulder to Plli and walked beside him.

With my hands free, I could pay much closer attention to our surroundings.

After all, nothing had even started yet.

In the other difficulties, monsters supposedly appeared somewhere along the climb.

And since this was Nightmare, even if monsters didn’t show up, something else probably would.

There were flat stretches here and there along the slope, but I didn’t bother stopping to rest.

We just kept rolling the boulder upward.

We had already climbed a considerable distance.

“...”

But why wasn’t anything happening?

By the time we reached the halfway point, not a single thing had appeared.

Not even a monster.

Of course, I didn’t lower my guard in the slightest.

What was this nasty Floor planning, staying this quiet...?

Was I doing something wrong?

That was possible too.

But I had already come this far, so for now I might as well get the boulder all the way to the summit.

There wasn’t anything else to try anyway.

In the end, nothing happened even by the time I reached the top.

No.

Actually, something else caught my attention.

‘What is that now?’

The terrain at the summit was strange.

The flat area at the mountain’s peak was so narrow that barely a single foot could fit on it.

“Hold on, Plli.”

For now, I stopped the boulder just short of the summit.

On the other difficulties, bringing the boulder to the top was supposed to trigger the clear.

I kept the boulder in place and waited.

Quite a while passed.

Nothing happened.

I frowned at the pointed summit.

...Don’t tell me I actually have to balance this gigantic boulder on top of that?

Apparently, I was going to have to try.

“Go around to the other side and brace it, Plli.”

I sent Plli around to the far side and took over moving the boulder myself.

Little by little, I carefully eased it onto the narrow ledge at the peak.

“...!”

The boulder tipped toward Plli’s side.

Plli braced it with his body as instructed, preventing it from rolling away, but...

“...Push it just a little, Plli. Just a little! No, stop! Don’t push anymore!”

Getting the balance right was a nightmare.

Shit.

Was this even possible?

I wrestled with it for what felt like forever, but I still couldn’t find the balance point.

...Should I break off part of the bottom and flatten it before standing it up?

But there was no way to know whether damaging the boulder was allowed.

I stopped time and thought it over.

Then I settled on another method.

‘Demon King, help.’

If he froze the bottom of the boulder solid and fixed it in place, that would solve everything.

Let’s just use a little of his power.

At my request, the Demon King froze the point where the boulder met the summit.

Once I regained control of my body, I let go and stepped back.

The boulder no longer wobbled.

It sat perfectly fixed in place.

Was that it?

Of course, there was no chance Nightmare difficulty would end that easily.

I waited for something to happen.

Craaack!

All at once, the boulder split apart.

I dodged the flying fragments and stepped farther back.

Something burst out from inside the shattered stone.

‘...A monkey?’

It was a monster shaped like a monkey, as enormous as the boulder itself and covered in silver fur.

Kee-kee-keek-

The monkey looked around before fixing its gaze on me.

Then it charged straight at me in a savage fury.

I responded in kind.

Krrzzt!

The moment Lightning Strike hit it, the creature’s torso exploded apart.

It died instantly.

I stared at the corpse, then looked back at the shattered boulder.

“...”

So...

What was I supposed to do now?

There was no way that thing had been the boss.

I waited for quite a while again.

Nothing happened.

I searched around the summit for anything else unusual.

But there was nothing particularly noteworthy.

In the end, I headed back down to the foot of the mountain.

“Hmm...”

What the hell was I actually supposed to do here?

So far, the information I had was simple.

Take a boulder to the summit, and a monster comes out.

That was it.

I looked around at the nearby boulders.

Was I seriously expected to move every single one of these?

And then kill every monster inside them?

Was that the idea?

‘That makes no sense.’

That was nothing but mindless manual labor.

It didn’t feel particularly Nightmare-like.

For one thing, the boulders visible from here alone seemed endless.

There had to be some other gimmick.

For now, I moved another boulder to the summit.

Craaack!

Just like before, an identical monkey monster burst out from inside.

This time, instead of killing it immediately, I observed it.

The monkey was fairly fast and strong.

Around level sixty, maybe, judging by the feel of it.

Of course, it still wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle easily.

I dodged its attacks and circled around the summit, searching for anything unusual.

Nothing.

I hit the monkey with Flame Strike, killed it, then headed back down the mountain.

I repeated the process about three more times.

Every attempt ended the same way.

So this time, instead of bringing a boulder to the summit, I tried destroying one at the base of the mountain.

Kee-eek! Keek!

Apparently, I didn’t even need to bring them to the top.

The moment the boulder shattered, another monkey burst out.

What the hell...

Seriously?

After killing that monkey, I started firing magic in every direction.

Boom! Ka-booom!

Boulders exploded one after another, and the monkeys inside them blew apart right along with them.

I only stopped after killing several dozen.

Even this didn’t seem to trigger anything.

“Phew...”

No idea.

Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be Nightmare difficulty if the answer were obvious.

I stopped time and sank into thought.

‘Demon King, anything come to mind?’

– No.

The Demon King’s tone made it clear he found the whole thing bothersome and thought I should figure it out myself.

...This guy seemed to hate thinking almost as much as anything else.

How the hell had he cleared past Floor 20?

– So the lowly creature’s mind turns to insolence.

Either way, I needed some sort of idea.

It was obvious that mindlessly rolling and smashing boulders wasn’t the answer.

‘...Is there some special boulder hidden somewhere?’

I released Time Stop and examined the boulders again.

They all looked exactly the same.

Same size.

Same shape.

Maybe I should take a look from above.

Boom!

I activated Leap and launched myself high into the air.

Then I used my newly acquired Air Walk to continue climbing higher and higher.

I rose far above the mountain’s summit.

After ascending a considerable distance, I looked down at the dizzying drop below.

I had to be more than a kilometer up.

Even from this height, the countless boulders scattered across the ground still stretched endlessly into the distance.

There were far too many to take in all at once.

I walked through the air, surveying the entire area, when...

“...?”

Something °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° caught my eye.

The boulders were arranged at roughly regular intervals.

But there was one section where the gaps between them became slightly narrower.

I narrowed my eyes and focused.

Then I saw it.

Along that section, a massive shape was faintly outlined by the arrangement of the stones.

‘...A manji (卍)?’

The instant I recognized it, a thought flashed through my mind.

Boulders.

Monkeys.

A mountain.

Flower-Fruit Mountain?

Journey to the West?

Wasn’t Journey to the West also deeply connected to Buddhism?

Once I started thinking along those lines, the shape really did look like a Buddhist manji symbol.

At the exact center of the manji, where the spacing between the boulders tightened...

There was a single boulder standing apart from all the others.

“...”

I descended toward it.

Nothing about its outward appearance distinguished it from the rest.

But somehow, I knew.

This was the one.

I had Plli begin moving the boulder toward the mountain.

Rolling it along, we started climbing toward the summit once again.

We had made it about a third of the way up when...

Rrrrumble-

The ground suddenly shook.

I looked up.

A torrent of dirt and rocks came rushing down the mountainside.

A landslide.

...Nothing had happened during all the previous attempts, and now this?

‘So this really is it.’

Good.

If the Floor was finally throwing bullshit at me, that meant I had chosen correctly.

“Keep pushing, Plli.”

I ordered Plli to continue rolling the boulder without stopping.

Then I moved out in front of him.

I launched magic at the rocks crashing down toward us.

Ka-booom!

I alternated between Flame Strike, Lightning Strike, and Blade Storm, cutting off anything that threatened to reach the boulder.

The smaller chunks of debris, I simply took head-on with Skin Hardening active.

It was nothing.

If I had been pushing the boulder myself, dealing with all of this would have been a pain.

But thanks to Plli, my hands were completely free.

I dealt with the interference without much trouble while the boulder continued rolling steadily upward.

The landslide went on and on, refusing to let up.

It only stopped once we were almost at the summit.

Would it finally be over once we placed this one at the top?

With that thought in mind, I approached the peak.

Twang!

In an instant, the ground beneath us surged upward.

Plli and the boulder were both launched into the sky with tremendous force.

I stared blankly at them for a moment.

Then I clapped and muttered,

“Wow. Home run.”

This son of a bitch.

Pulling this shit right at the very end.

The trap reminded me of Floor 2.

But when I had passed over this spot earlier, my Sixth Sense hadn’t reacted.

Was it the kind of trap that only activated when triggered by a boulder?

“Demon King.”

I recalled Plli and, having no other choice, handed control of my body over to the Demon King.

If the boulder fell from that height and shattered, there was no telling what would happen.

Shwoooo!

The Demon King shot into the sky, froze the surface of the boulder in midair, and caught it.

The boulder stopped dead.

If it was going to come to this, I had gone through all that trouble pushing it up the mountain for nothing.

The Demon King brought the boulder straight back to the summit.

Then he froze it directly onto the peak, fixing it firmly in place.

I took back control of my body.

There.

Done.

Now what?

I backed away slightly to put some distance between myself and the boulder, then watched.

Before long, cracks spread across its surface.

Craaack!

The boulder split apart.

Flash!

A brilliant golden light burst from within.