Chapter 147: Nightmare Floor 11 (1)

“...Me?”

I pointed at myself with a finger.

“That ability of yours. What do you think its origin is?”

“I don’t know either. I’ve told you that several times already.”

If anyone knew, I wished they’d tell me too.

Well, honestly, I’d never been particularly curious about it or thought too deeply about it.

The Demon King spoke.

“The Tower is an incomprehensible existence. It is precisely because it cannot be understood that it becomes an object of fear.”

“Right.”

“Then conversely, perhaps you are such an existence to the Tower as well.”

I scratched my chin.

So...

The reason the Tower kept singling me out and trying so hard to screw me over was because it couldn’t properly understand my ability and was scared of it? Because it wanted to get rid of me quickly?

“No way.”

It wasn’t particularly convincing.

An existence like the Tower that seemed practically omnipotent—why would it care about someone like me?

Time Stop. And not even one where I could move during stopped time. It was just an ability like that.

“Whatever the reason, it is undeniably true that the way the Tower treats you is bizarrely obsessive.”

The Demon King jerked his chin.

“There is something about you. Not only that inexplicable power of yours, but your mind as well.”

“What about it now?”

“The time you spent on Floor 8, and the time you spent within the Mental World. Do you truly believe an ordinary human could endure the passage of so many years while retaining their sanity?”

...Was that strange?

Wasn’t I just really patient?

“But You handled it just fine too, Demon King.”

“Do you think you and We are the same?”

The Demon King clicked his tongue.

“In any case, there must have been a reason that Sage fellow placed his hopes in you as well. He went so far as to give you something despite exposing the fact that he had escaped the Tower’s influence.”

At the Demon King’s words, I looked down at my palm.

The Sage.

I still had no idea what exactly the Sage had given me.

Wasn’t the standard trope for this kind of thing that it awakened during a crisis or something?

How many goddamn crises had I gone through since the hidden event on Floor 7... Tsk.

I raised my head and asked,

“You’re expecting something from me too, Demon King. Right?”

That was probably why he cooperated with me and did what I asked without much complaint.

Of course, if I died, the Demon King died too, and we had also agreed that I would occasionally give him some freedom.

Still, compared to before, he was practically a docile lamb now.

The Demon King snorted, but he didn’t particularly deny it.

Suddenly, Seri’s words came to mind.

‘Don’t trust that man too much. He is an existence burdened with an immeasurably vast amount of bloodshed karma.’

What kind of existence had the Demon King been in his own world?

Had he really been as vicious as the title Demon King suggested? Just as Seri had warned?

Truthfully, I didn’t care all that much.

I had known the Demon King was evil ever since the first time he stole my body...

And no matter how much evil the Demon King had committed, the two of us were inseparable now anyway.

The Demon King’s power had been an enormous help in climbing the Tower, and for the moment, that was enough.

Because to prevent my world from being destroyed, the only thing I needed to focus on was clearing Nightmare.

“If everyone’s expecting that much from me, I guess I’ll have to work even harder.”

I summoned my sword again and pointed it at the Demon King.

“Let’s start again. Training.”

Might as well go hard until it was time to enter Floor 11.

***

Radiant Incarnation came off cooldown, and another two days passed.

I began preparing to enter Floor 11.

The Epic Skill Enhancement Stones I had obtained from defeating the bosses of Zones 6 through 10.

I used the Epic Skill Enhancement Stone on Weakness Insight.

As for the two Epic+ Skill Enhancement Stones, after thinking it over, I ultimately used them on Elemental Arrow Barrage.

I figured it would be better to enhance a skill with a short cooldown and lots of projectiles rather than one that simply dealt massive damage in a single hit.

I already had more than enough maximum firepower, and I had Hellfire Eruption too.

Just as I had expected, every enhancement of Elemental Arrow Barrage increased the number of arrows by ten.

Now that I had enhanced it twice, the number of arrows had exploded to a ridiculous thirty.

[Difficulty: Nightmare]

[Floor: Floor 11]

[Level: 127]

[Willpower: 8,710/8,710]

[Skills: Radiant Incarnation (Legendary+), Elemental Arrow Barrage (Epic+)(+2), Destruction Ray (Epic+), Weakness Insight (Epic)(+3), Hellfire Eruption (Epic)(+1), Subspace (Epic), Air Walk (Epic), Finger Flick (Epic)...]

So these were my current specs.

And on top of that, I had obtained a ridiculous number of boss items, so I felt pretty well prepared.

All right, then.

Shall we go?

“I’m heading out.”

“All right... Be careful, Seo-hyeon.”

After saying goodbye to my family, whose faces were filled with concern as always,

[Would you like to enter Nightmare Difficulty Floor 11?]

I immediately entered Floor 11.

.

.

.

The theme of Floor 11 could be described as a dungeon-exploration RPG.

The clear condition was to defeat various monsters and traps inside the dungeon and find a treasure chest.

So why the RPG part?

Because I had heard that upon entering Floor 11, you first chose a class, like changing jobs in a game.

Warrior, Mage, Priest, Marksman.

There were four classes in total.

And supposedly, you received a buff based on the characteristics of that class.

For example, on Hard Difficulty...

[Warrior]

The effects of Physical-type skills increase by 10%.

[Mage]

The effects of Magic-type skills increase by 10%.

[Priest]

The effects of skills with healing effects and stat-enhancement effects increase by 30%.

[Marksman]

Damage dealt to enemies from a distance of 5 meters or more increases by 30%.

That sort of thing.

Of course, I had heard that the strength of the buffs differed depending on the difficulty.

For example, while the Warrior class on Easy increased skill effects by a whopping 50%, on Hard it was only 10%.

Maybe because they gave buffs like these, Floor 11 was supposedly quite difficult in practice.

I wondered what Nightmare would be like.

It was time to find out.

[You have entered Nightmare Difficulty Floor 11.]

The moment I entered, I stopped time.

I checked all the information within my field of view.

I was inside a crystal cave whose walls glowed entirely blue.

Ahead of me stood a massive stone door, while behind me were five branching passages.

The moment I released Time Stop...

A series of things appeared before my eyes.

It was the class list.

[Warrior]

Only Physical-type skills may be used.

[Mage]

Only Magic-type skills may be used.

[Priest]

Only skills with healing effects and stat-enhancement effects may be used. Skill effects increase by 10%.

[Marksman]

Damage dealt to enemies from within 10 meters is reduced by 99%.

“...?”

What the hell was this?

Something was wrong.

I stopped time again and carefully read through the class descriptions.

‘These aren’t class buffs...’

They were class debuffs.

This was ridiculous.

While the other difficulties gave advantages suited to each class’s characteristics,

Nightmare apparently did the exact opposite and imposed restrictions according to the class instead.

If you were a Warrior, you could only use Physical skills. If you were a Mage, you could only use Magic skills.

As expected of Nightmare!

It just hits different!

I looked over them again one by one.

The Priest could only use skills with healing effects or stat-enhancement effects...

Which meant that aside from Rapid Regeneration and physical-enhancement passives like Enhancement, basically all of my skills would be locked.

And that pathetic 10% increase slapped onto it was some truly fucking meaningless attempt at balance.

As for the Marksman, damage dealt from within 10 meters was reduced by 99%.

Basically, close-range attacks would cease to deal any meaningful damage.

‘Mage, then.’

There was really only one answer.

My main arsenal was Magic-type skills, after all.

Marksman technically didn’t ban any skills at all...

But the distance penalty was too severe.

It meant I would have to fight every enemy from at least ten meters away, no exceptions.

Without much hesitation, I decided to choose Mage and released Time Stop.

But then...

[Your class will now be determined.]

Along with that message, a holographic roulette suddenly appeared.

“Huh?”

I blanked out for a moment before realizing what was happening.

...You fucking piece of shit.

You’re not even giving me a choice, and it’s fucking random?

Whirrrrr—

A roulette wheel bearing the four words Warrior, Mage, Priest, and Marksman began spinning.

I stared at it while swearing internally.

My trauma from Floor 4 resurfaced.

You’re really pulling this shit right from the start?

Another fucking RNG hell game?

‘If I get Priest, I’m fucked.’

Priest was by far the worst.

It would lock practically every skill I had and leave me with nothing but stuff like Rapid Regeneration.

Seriously, if this lands on Priest, it’s fucking rigged, you Tower bastard. I refuse to accept it.

The roulette gradually began slowing down.

As I watched tensely,

“...!”

something suddenly occurred to me, and I pulled every item and object out of Subspace.

If my Magic-type skills were locked, I wouldn’t be able to use Subspace either.

After dumping everything out in a heap, I checked the roulette result.

The needle slowly came to a stop on...

[Your class has been determined as ‘Warrior’.]

[Warrior]

Only Physical-type skills may be used.

“...Phew.”

I let out a sigh.

At least I had avoided the worst outcome.

But it wasn’t the best either, so my expression inevitably stiffened.

[Only Physical-type skills may be used.]

A message appeared when I tried to use Subspace.

Losing all my Magic skills was a pretty damn huge problem.

Worst of all, I couldn’t use Radiant Incarnation either.

My ultimate move had effectively been sealed.

Of course, the Demon King’s power itself wasn’t a skill, so technically I could still use that...

But there was nothing I could do about it.

When had Nightmare ever made things easy for me?

“Let’s do this.”

I quickly calmed down and began picking up and equipping the items I had dumped onto the ground.

Damn, there were a lot of them when I laid them all out like this.

Had I gotten too used to Subspace?

I was once again reminded of the overwhelming convenience of having an inventory.

I equipped all the accessories like bracelets and rings, then put things like the music box and the Mist Beast King’s Pearl into a sling bag and strapped it tightly against my body.

I piled all the water and food in one corner of the cave.

Finally, holding the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper in one hand, I began exploring the dungeon.

“Hmm...”

First, I examined the enormous stone door.

I hadn’t heard of anything like this stone door existing on the other difficulties.

Their clear condition was simply to find the treasure chest hidden somewhere inside the dungeon.

There was a huge keyhole directly in the center of the stone door.

At a glance, it obviously looked like I was supposed to find a key and open it.

Kagagak!

I struck the stone door with the Heavenly Aura Blade covering the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper.

Even though it possessed ten times the power of an ordinary Aura Blade, it didn’t leave so much as a scratch on the door.

Well, obviously it was an indestructible object.

I turned around.

Five branching passages.

For now, the obvious sequence seemed to be finding a key somewhere down one of those paths, then using it to open this stone door.

Maybe the treasure chest was hidden beyond it.

Without thinking too hard about it, I decided to start with the path on the far right.

As I moved through the passage, the blue crystal walls gradually turned gray.

“...?”

Huh.

Treasure chest found.

After walking straight ahead for a while, I found a lone treasure chest sitting there.

All right, Floor 11 cleared...

Yeah, obviously not.

Of course it was either a trap or a dud.

I slowly approached the chest.

Sixth Sense didn’t react.

It was a wooden treasure chest with a keyhole.

Once again, I lightly tapped it with the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper covered in Aura Blade.

Not even a scratch.

As expected, it was an indestructible object.

Looked like I would need to find a key before I could open it...

That was when it happened.

A loud commotion came from farther down the passage.

The sound steadily drew closer, and soon I could see what was making it.

A swarm of bats.

Each one was about the size of an ordinary bat, but there had to be several hundred of them.

I reflexively tried to use Scorching Zone...

Right. Locked.

I activated Skin Hardening.

Since I couldn’t just click my way through this with skills, I would have to deal with them all using my sword.

Just as I was about to swing at the swarm that had reached right in front of me...

“...!”

I flinched and immediately deactivated my Aura Blade.

Because the moment I intended to attack the bats, Sixth Sense suddenly sent me an intense warning.

‘Do they self-destruct?’

The exploding undead from Floor 3 immediately came to mind.

Maybe these things worked the same way.

Flutterflutterflutter—!

The swarm blocked my vision and began darting rapidly around me.

I calmly looked over the bats.

Then something suddenly caught my eye.

Amid all the black bats, there was a single white one.

What the hell was that one?

Wondering if my guess was right, I deliberately formed the intent to attack the white bat.

Unlike the others, however, Sixth Sense gave me no warning.

...Looks like I’m supposed to take that one out.

The white bat was noticeably faster than the others.

I remained completely still and waited.

If I so much as slammed into the other bats with my body, they might all start exploding one after another.

So I simply watched the white bat...

Until the instant it shot past me like a bullet.

Pft!

I thrust out my sword.

Without touching any of the other bats, I precisely pierced one of the white bat’s wings.

All that fucking time hadn’t gone to waste.

Those endless years of training inside the Mental World.

The white bat, one wing torn apart, dropped to the ground.

I didn’t kill it immediately because I had learned my lesson from the Golden Monkey.

I picked up the struggling white bat and examined it...

Then noticed something sparkling inside its mouth.

I pulled it out.

It was a key.