Chapter 148: Nightmare Floor 11 (2)

Kehk—

The moment I pulled out the key, the white bat coughed up blood and died on the spot.

At the same time, all the other bats dropped to the ground one after another.

Their corpses scattered and vanished.

So killing the white bat took care of all of them?

I dusted off my hands and approached the treasure chest with the key.

Obviously, opening this wasn’t going to clear the floor...

Was it a trap?

Or maybe it contained whatever I needed to open the stone door back in the starting area.

Click.

With every nerve on edge, I inserted the key into the lock and turned it.

A faint warning from Sixth Sense.

I immediately pulled my body back.

Crunch!

The chest snapped its jaws shut on empty air.

The inside of the chest was lined with rows of sharp teeth...

A mimic?

So it was a trap after all.

I swung the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper, Aura Blade coating its edge.

I intended to cut it cleanly in half with a single strike...

But the sword was stopped.

The impact felt strange.

Some mere chest-shaped mimic hadn’t been cut apart.

‘What the hell?’

For a moment, I was dumbfounded.

Don’t tell me the indestructible-object property still applies even after it turns into a monster?

The mimic opened its mouth again.

A green liquid that looked like concentrated acid sprayed everywhere, melting the floor.

I backed away and dodged it.

I activated Weakness Insight and examined the mimic...

‘So it’s inside.’

Instead of the outside of the chest, the entire interior was covered in a red haze.

I closed the distance in an instant and thrust my sword into the inside of the chest.

Kieeeek—

Only then did the mimic impaled on my sword stop moving with a feeble shriek.

I pulled out my sword and looked inside the dead mimic.

There was nothing in the chest except pooled acid.

A dud?

Apparently it was just a trap designed to screw me over without giving me anything in return.

I continued farther down the passage.

Soon I reached a dead end, with nowhere else to go.

I left the passage and returned to the starting area.

I looked over the remaining four passages.

‘Maybe there’s one chest in each passage.’

Judging by the size of the keyhole in the stone door,

it needed a key far larger than the one I had just used to open the chest.

Going purely by gut feeling...

There was probably one treasure chest in each passage, and one of them contained the key to the stone door.

Either way, I just had to check the remaining passages.

Keeping myself appropriately alert, I entered the second passage from the right.

This time, the crystals lining the walls were purple.

‘What’s that smell?’

An incredibly strong odor wafted from farther inside.

When the passage ended, what came into view was...

A lake.

A pool so absurdly vast that calling it a lake didn’t even feel like an exaggeration.

Except the surface was bubbling, and smoke was rising from various spots.

It wasn’t ordinary water.

What the hell was this...

A lake of deadly poison?

Frowning, I looked around.

I spotted a treasure chest sitting on the ground in front of the lake.

It looked no different from the one in the previous passage.

And there was something else beside the chest.

Something that looked like a potion from a game.

A flask filled with purple liquid.

I approached and examined it.

[Special Item: Suspicious Poison Resistance Drug]

Upon consumption, Poison Resistance increases greatly for 30 minutes. Once the duration ends, Physical Ability decreases by 30%.

This was...

An item?

A special item that could be used while clearing the floor.

Something like this had appeared once before during the hidden event on Floor 3.

I alternated my gaze between the potion and the lake.

A poisonous lake, and they gave me a Poison Resistance potion...

I had a pretty good idea where they wanted me to look for the key.

‘Inside the lake?’

It was obviously telling me to drink this and search the lake.

But it only lasted thirty minutes, and once those thirty minutes ended, I’d even get hit with a Physical Ability reduction debuff.

That penalty would probably remain for the rest of Floor 11.

Hmm...

But did I actually need to drink this?

I already had Poison Resistance from the Zone 7 boss item.

I approached the lake and lightly touched the surface with my hand.

A warning from Sixth Sense.

But it was extremely faint.

Sizzle.

Even with my hand in it, all I felt was an unpleasant sensation like sandpaper scraping across my skin.

My hand itself was perfectly fine.

This level of poison seemed tolerable enough.

‘I can just go in.’

Yeah, not drinking that~.

If I could withstand it without the potion, there was no reason to accept its debuff.

I took off my bag, stripped off all my clothes, and folded them neatly.

Then I entered the poisonous lake.

“Ugh.”

Pretty warm.

I floated on the surface for a moment, then completely submerged myself.

[Item: Sea Dragon’s Orb]

An orb containing the power of a Sea Dragon. When used, consumes Willpower to control water currents. While in contact with the item, Physical Ability increases underwater and underwater breathing becomes possible.

The Sea Dragon’s Orb.

The boss item from Zone 8.

I had brought it with me because I wondered whether its effect would still work in poisonous liquid.

Turns out it worked just fine.

Even after diving beneath the surface, I could breathe normally.

My eyes stung badly enough that keeping them open was difficult, but it was tolerable.

There was just one problem...

Sssssss!

A strange sense of emptiness from above.

I hurriedly felt around my head.

Y-you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

My hair was melting away.

Within moments, I had become completely bald.

‘Ahhh...’

I had unwillingly acquired a new piece of knowledge.

Poison Resistance does not apply to hair...

Confirmed.

It was fine.

Everything would regenerate in the Reward Room once I cleared the floor anyway.

Holding back tears, I began searching for the key.

Since it was a key, it was probably lying somewhere on the lakebed.

My Physical Ability had been boosted even further by the effect of the Sea Dragon’s Orb.

On top of that, I could use Willpower to manipulate the currents.

Whoooosh!

I controlled the flow of the water in the direction I wanted to move and swam through the lake at incredible speed.

Seriously, though...

Normally, they only gave you thirty minutes to find a key in a lake this huge?

Where the hell was their conscience?

And the water was stupidly deep too.

Of course, I could take my sweet time without worrying about any time limit.

Gear carried hard.

Instead of descending all the way to the bottom, I moved around at a reasonable height while scanning the lakebed.

The surface had already been fairly dark, and because of the depth, everything below was pitch-black with no light reaching it at all.

But I had Diul, so darkness wasn’t a problem whatsoever.

Using Night Vision and the eyesight of a superhuman well above Level 120, I thoroughly searched the deep lakebed.

After quite some time...

‘Found it.’

I discovered the key hidden between some rocks.

At this point, Nightmare going out of its way to hide something this obnoxiously didn’t even surprise me anymore.

I took the key and left the lake.

Steam hissed off my entire body.

Guess I’d have to put my clothes on later.

Still completely naked, I immediately opened the treasure chest.

Would this one be another mimic or not...

Crunch!

Another mimic.

I dodged as it tried to bite my hand and immediately drove the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper, wrapped in Aura Blade, straight through the roof of its mouth.

I killed the mimic easily and looked inside the chest.

Again, there was nothing.

“Tsk.”

For no particular reason, I rubbed my now perfectly smooth scalp.

The second chest I had opened after sacrificing even my hair was another dud.

I got dressed and returned to the starting area.

So it really did seem like there was one treasure chest in each passage...

Without wasting time, I immediately entered the third passage.

The crystals lining the walls of the third passage were red.

I followed the blood-red corridor farther inside.

“...?”

An altar?

A tall platform appeared, radiating a strongly religious atmosphere.

At the center of the platform was a large structure shaped like...

A rice bowl?

And right beside the bowl sat a treasure chest.

I looked around, then climbed the stairs onto the platform.

The chest was here...

So where was I supposed to find the key this time?

I stared at the bowl.

The only thing that stood out in this entire space was this enormous bowl, almost as large as my body.

The giant silver bowl had red teardrop-shaped gemstones embedded into it as decoration...

“...”

A blood-red space.

An altar.

And gemstones that looked like drops of blood.

Maybe it was because of the atmosphere, but one thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

‘No way.’

I wanted to believe there was no way.

But in Nightmare, that kind of “no way” usually turned out to be exactly right.

I lightly cut the tip of my finger with my sword.

I let one drop of blood fall into the bowl.

Then...

Flash—

The blood-drop gemstone embedded in the bowl emitted a faint glow in response.

My expression immediately hardened.

...No, hold on.

You’re telling me to fill this entire bowl with blood?

My blood?

“Fuck off. Seriously.”

The bowl was almost the size of my entire body.

By volume, it had to hold at least several hundred liters.

The human body contained roughly five liters of blood.

Even if I drained every drop of blood from my body...

Still nowhere fucking close!

Could I use some other liquid instead?

I tried.

I brought over water and poured it into the bowl instead of blood.

Then—

Fwoosh!

Flames erupted violently from inside the bowl and evaporated the water in an instant.

Nope...

You seriously want me to fill this whole thing with blood?

That’s fucking absurd.

‘...Skip it for now.’

After thinking for a moment, I decided to check the remaining passages first.

I returned to the starting area and entered the fourth passage.

The walls of the fourth passage were lined with green crystals.

What appeared in the wide cavern was a gigantic hourglass hanging from the ceiling.

And beneath it was a cube-shaped boulder.

‘This is...’

Something about this looked familiar.

The atmosphere was similar to the room where I had solved the cube on Floor 3.

I approached the boulder.

On top of it were several tangled metal rings.

A puzzle.

The kind usually called a cast puzzle...

A puzzle where you used your hands to separate interlocked pieces of metal.

“Another puzzle?”

It was obvious what I was supposed to do.

Solve it within the time limit.

Floor 3, Floor 8...

Come to think of it, the Tower really fucking loved puzzles.

Without touching it, I carefully examined the puzzle.

Three rounded rings somewhat resembling musical notes were tangled together...

And of course, just looking at it wasn’t enough to tell how I was supposed to separate them.

But the timer would probably start the moment I touched it, right?

I looked up at the hourglass hanging from the ceiling.

Considering how ridiculously stingy the Tower had been with the time limit on the cube back on Floor 3, this would probably be just as bad, if not worse.

Back then, I hadn’t actually managed to solve the whole thing in time either...

“Okay.”

Let’s do this.

You want to pull this bullshit again?

Fine.

This time I’m cheating too.

I spent a long time studying the puzzle, firmly memorizing exactly how the rings were intertwined.

Then,

I used Pankera’s Crown and entered the Mental World.

All right.

External time was stopped.

I recreated the puzzle I had memorized exactly as it was inside the Mental World.

Then I started fiddling with it, trying to solve it.

Maybe this goes like this...

No, if I do this, then...?

It wasn’t easy at all.

But that didn’t matter.

I had infinite time.

As I kept working at it, the Demon King, who had been watching from the side, started giving me shit.

“How can you struggle so much over something so trivial?”

“Then You try it, Demon King.”

“Very well. Give Us one.”

The Demon King and I sat down side by side, groaning as we worked on the puzzles.

After what felt like half a day...

“...I got it!”

“You solved it?”

At last, I solved the puzzle.

Before the Demon King did.

Fucking bastard.

Of course he had to make it ridiculously difficult.

I repeatedly solved the puzzle until I had completely memorized the method, then returned to reality.

I looked over the still-tangled puzzle again and mentally simulated whether the method I had used would work here as well.

‘Should work.’

All right.

I picked up the puzzle.

Clunk!

At the exact same moment, the enormous hourglass on the ceiling flipped over with a deafening noise.

Yep.

The Tower’s conscience was completely fucking dead.

The sand inside the hourglass began falling at an absurd speed.

But I was much faster.

I successfully separated the puzzle in under ten seconds, then fitted each of the detached rings into grooves carved into the boulder.

The hourglass immediately stopped.

Crack!

The boulder split in half.

Inside it was a key.

Done.

Fourth passage cleared nice and easy.

I took the key and opened the treasure chest.

‘Did I finally hit the jackpot?’

Maybe this time it was actually the winner?

Crunch!

Nope.

I clicked my tongue and stabbed the mimic to death as it bared its teeth.

So the fourth one was a dud too...

Now all that remained were the third passage I had skipped and the fifth passage.

I returned to the starting area and entered the fifth passage.

The walls of the fifth passage were made of white crystals.

I strode forward with the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper resting on my shoulder.

The farther inside I went, the lower the ceiling became.

Only after it had dropped to around three meters high did the passage finally end and open into a cavern.

The treasure chest sat directly in the center.

I approached it and looked around...

“...What the hell?”

Then I witnessed a bizarre sight.

The cavern walls began bulging outward in twisting shapes.

And soon, pure-white knights started emerging from every direction one by one.

They even flooded into the passage I had come through, blocking the way out.

What the hell should I call those things?

Crystal golems?

Golem knights?

Whatever.

They were monsters I had to kill.

There were just...

A lot of them.

And the space was cramped as hell.

Every one of them carried either a sword or a spear, and their weapons were even coated in red Aura Blades.

Was this one a test of pure combat ability?

—Do you want to switch?

The Demon King asked.

“No way.”

Sure, if I used the Demon King’s power, freezing all of them would be easy.

But there was no reason to waste his power on something like this.

I could handle it.

Even without Magic skills.

Rumble!

The cavern trembled as the knights charged from every direction.

I kicked off the ground as well and swung the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper, wrapped in Aura Blade.

Every knight in its path was cut apart like pudding without the slightest resistance.

I twisted my body, dodging the blades and spears flying toward my back, then swept down the knights behind me as well.

But then I saw the severed knights regenerate their bodies almost instantly.

I activated Weakness Insight.

Red dots appeared at different locations on each knight’s body.

Slash!

When I precisely cut through the weak points of several knights, they finally collapsed without regenerating.

Then their bodies crumbled into powder and scattered away.

Got it.

These guys had a gimmick where each of their weak-point cores was located somewhere different.

I really got moving.

The knights were quite fast and strong.

If I had to estimate their levels, maybe around Level 80 or 90?

My Physical Ability was far superior to theirs, but the weapons they were attacking with were pretty dangerous.

Sixth Sense warned me.

Even with Skin Hardening active, those red Aura Blades would cut through my body if they landed.

The solution was simple.

Then I just wouldn’t get hit.

I wove between the knights, swinging my sword without pause.

At one point, I kicked another sword off the ground, caught it, and took it in my free hand.

The Heavenly Aura Blade on the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper was powerful enough to turn anything in its path into pudding.

So there was no such thing as crossing swords with these knights.

If I swung, their weapons simply got cut apart.

I focused on attacking with the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper and defending with the other sword.

Dodge.

Block.

Deflect.

Twist.

Redirect...

Never stopping my movement, I spun through the knights and hacked at their weak points like a madman with both hands.

As the effect of Enhancement raised my Physical Ability, I gradually started getting into it.

The cavern was suffocatingly cramped, and the ceiling was so low there wasn’t even enough room to jump upward.

But I somehow carved out space wherever I could and used every inch of the cavern efficiently, refusing to let a single attack touch me.

Had I been going wild like that for a full ten minutes?

Even the endlessly spawning knights finally began to thin out.

I pierced the red dot marked over the final knight’s heart.

Clang!

The knight scattered and vanished.

A key dropped where it had stood.

I picked it up and caught my ragged breath.

“Demon King.”

—...?

“From now on, please call me Swordmaster Kim Seo-hyeon.”

—Fuck off.

Even without skills, my pure ability really had improved tremendously.

In the past, fighting like this would have been absolutely impossible.

After taking a brief moment to congratulate myself, I approached the chest.

‘Come on, give me something.’

Hoping that this time would finally be the winner...

I opened the chest with the key.

Oh, fuck this.

Thrust!

The instant the mimic lunged with its teeth, I drove my sword straight through it.

In the end, the fifth passage was another dud.

The only thing left now was the third passage I had skipped.

“Ah, fuck...”

I stared toward the passage with a grave expression.

That seriously made no sense.

I really had to do it?

That?