Chapter 153: Help (4)

“Tell me. Why did He help you?”

Ye Cheon-wi asked again.

Taylor remembered the private message she had sent and cleared her throat.

She couldn’t exactly say that she had gotten drunk, rambled at Person123 in a private message, and somehow ended up receiving his help because of it.

“...I was the one who asked Him for help first. I never expected I’d actually get the chance to train under Him personally.”

Ye Cheon-wi stared at her with an expression that was difficult to describe.

“Anyway, that’s why you too—”

“What were you thinking, doing something like that?”

He cut Taylor off.

“You wasted His precious time. No matter how desperate you were to clear Floor 7, how could you do that? How long—no, since when have you been receiving His help, Taylor? Exactly how much of His time have you wasted? I cannot forgive what you’ve done.”

Ye Cheon-wi suddenly began firing off words like a machine gun.

Taylor was slightly dumbfounded.

Of course, it was true that Person123 had invested his precious time in her, but who the hell was this guy to decide whether he could forgive her or not?

“It wasn’t actually that long—”

“Every minute and every second of His time is more precious than anything else in this world. The fact that you made Him concern Himself with something as trivial as training a Climber following behind Him is itself a loss and a waste. You should have dealt with Floor 7 on your own.”

“Hey. Let me talk too.”

Taylor let out a sigh and said,

“Then I suppose you’re planning to refuse?”

“...Refuse? What are you talking about?”

“Person123 asked me to ask you too. Whether you want to train together with us.”

For an instant, Ye Cheon-wi’s expression went blank.

“...He called for me?”

Taylor nodded.

Ye Cheon-wi immediately broke into a radiant smile.

“Let’s go. Can we leave right now?”

“...Weren’t you just saying not to waste His time?”

“Forget that. If He has called for me, then naturally I must obey His wishes.”

Taylor could only stare at his attitude, which had flipped as easily as turning over a hand.

“To think I would meet Him so suddenly... And receive training from Him personally? Am I truly worthy of such an honor? Really? But I can’t possibly let an opportunity like this pass...”

Ye Cheon-wi began muttering to himself, apparently no longer paying any attention to Taylor standing right in front of him.

Taylor stared at him with an uncomfortable expression.

'Seriously, he’s not normal...'

Of course, she respected and revered Person123 too.

But she had already realized long ago that Ye Cheon-wi had gone far beyond that.

Fanatical was probably the right word.

Was it really okay to bring this guy along...?

***

After receiving Taylor’s private message saying that Ye Cheon-wi had accepted as well, I immediately set another meeting time.

The location was the same cave beneath the rocky mountain in Zone 3.

When I arrived at the agreed time, the two of them were already there.

I looked at the neatly dressed man with slicked-back hair.

Ye Cheon-wi.

China’s representative Nightmare Climber.

I had actually been a little curious about him myself. About what kind of person he was.

After all, in the parallel world on Floor 10, he had been the leader of the Climbers who followed the corrupted version of me.

“It is an honor to meet you. I am Ye Cheon-wi.”

Ye Cheon-wi smiled and politely held out both hands.

I accepted the handshake.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Ye.”

My first impression was that he seemed like a perfectly normal person without anything particularly unusual about him.

Though for some reason, Taylor was looking at Ye Cheon-wi from the side with a slightly dumbfounded expression.

Anyway, now that Ye Cheon-wi was here too, it was time to begin again.

Without letting go of his hand, I asked,

“Did Taylor tell you how the training works?”

“No. She didn’t explain it separately.”

“Then don’t be too surprised.”

I looked at Taylor.

Taylor stepped closer and took my other hand.

I had never tried bringing two people into the Mental World at once, but naturally, it should be possible.

Technically, because of the Demon King, there had always been one extra person in there anyway, and everything had worked just fine so far.

There was also nothing in the item description about any limit on the number of people.

My vision shifted.

When we entered the Mental World, Ye Cheon-wi looked around with obvious surprise.

“This place is called the Mental World.”

I explained it to him exactly the same way I had to Taylor.

Ye Cheon-wi quickly regained his composure and nodded.

“I understand. This is... truly astonishing.”

“Then shall we start training right away?”

Taylor, who had already cleared Floor 7, could train for Floor 8.

Ye Cheon-wi needed to train for Floor 7.

I divided the space in half and had both of them train separately.

Floor 8 wasn’t particularly difficult once you understood all its gimmicks.

All she needed to practice was solving the puzzles while being interfered with by sandworms, and shortening the time it took to find her way through the maze inside the boss’s stomach as much as possible.

I recreated Floor 8’s underground cavern and had Taylor practice the puzzles.

Meanwhile, Ye Cheon-wi began his Floor 7 arrow-dodging training.

Booom! Booom!

In the first trial, Ye Cheon-wi nimbly dodged the enormous iron arrows without using any skills.

I could tell that he too had trained brutally hard until now.

When I asked him, Ye Cheon-wi said he possessed Sixth Sense...

If so, his circumstances were much better than Taylor’s.

Of course, I had no intention of lowering the intensity of the training because of that.

“That was excellent.”

I stopped the arrows and spoke.

Ye Cheon-wi immediately broke into a broad smile, looking deeply moved.

“Y-you flatter me.”

...What?

He was way too happy about that.

“Let’s move on to the next trial.”

He cleared the second trial quickly as well.

Then we reached the troublesome third trial.

With the Demon King’s help again, I imposed the left-right reversal gimmick on Ye Cheon-wi.

Watching him clear the first and second trials, I had gotten the impression that...

How should I put it?

In terms of sheer instinct for controlling his body, Ye Cheon-wi seemed more talented than Taylor.

Even so, the left-right reversal showed absolutely no mercy.

“...!”

Ye Cheon-wi toppled sideways and flailed his limbs like a newborn giraffe.

Soon afterward, he dropped onto all fours and barely managed to stabilize himself.

Why did the phrase convergent evolution suddenly come to mind?

Laughing inwardly, I fired an arrow.

“Arrow incoming.”

Ye Cheon-wi barely avoided the first arrow.

But he failed to dodge the second, and his body was blown apart.

There was no answer except to keep getting wrecked until he adapted.

Taylor had endured it well.

Would Ye Cheon-wi be able to do the same?

After hundreds, then thousands of repetitions, I realized that had been a pointless concern.

Ye Cheon-wi also continued challenging it endlessly without rest, displaying extraordinary concentration and willpower.

Meanwhile, Taylor had gotten her Floor 8 clear training down perfectly to under ten minutes...

But she said she wouldn’t challenge Floor 8 yet and would keep practicing until Ye Cheon-wi caught up.

Apparently, she thought keeping their progress synchronized would make it easier for me to train them.

After a long time...

Ye Cheon-wi finally adapted to the sensation of left-right reversal and succeeded in clearing the third trial.

After that, I trained him through all the remaining trials as well and prepared him for Floor 7 just as excessively thoroughly as I had Taylor.

Once the training was finished.

Ye Cheon-wi, like Taylor before him, said he wanted to challenge Floor 7 immediately.

“I will succeed without fail.”

“Yes. You will. Good luck.”

Ye Cheon-wi looked perfectly calm, without any noticeable nervousness.

I tried to lend him the Zone 6 boss item, but just like Taylor, he firmly refused.

He said there was no possibility of allowing the item to disappear in the event that he failed.

It wasn’t even that important an item to me...

Ye Cheon-wi entered Floor 7.

He returned before long.

He had succeeded.

Now it was time to prepare for Floor 8.

Floor 7 had been the real problem.

Ye Cheon-wi finished his Floor 8 training extremely quickly too.

“I’ll challenge Floor 8 immediately as well.”

Both of them said they wanted to challenge Floor 8 again without even resting.

Of course, there was no real problem with that since their bodies would have been fully restored in the Reward Room after clearing the previous floor.

Taylor and Ye Cheon-wi entered Floor 8 at the same time.

And sure enough, they returned not long afterward.

Success.

I congratulated the two of them after they cleared Floor 8 and said,

“Should we rest a little before training for Floor 9? Don’t you need some time to recover mentally too?”

Almost no time had passed in reality.

But the two of them had been trapped inside the Mental World training for an incredibly long time.

At least several months must have passed for them.

Taylor said,

“I’m fine.”

Ye Cheon-wi said,

“I also feel guilty that Person123 continues wasting unnecessary attention on us, so we’ll clear through Floor 9 as quickly as possible.”

“Unnecessary? Don’t think of it like that.”

“My apologies. I misspoke.”

Ye Cheon-wi bowed his head.

Seriously, they were Nightmare Climbers all right.

Neither of these two had a normal brain.

—And you’re one to talk?

We entered the Mental World again and began training for Floor 9.

They could find the Golden Headband Rock exactly as I had explained, climbing the mountain wouldn’t be difficult if they prepared properly, and at the summit they could stabilize the rock by chipping away just a little at its base...

The hardest parts would probably be capturing the golden monkey alive and defeating the boss.

Still, it was fine.

Could any of that possibly be more fucked-up than the left-right reversal gimmick?

I recreated the environment of Floor 9 and trained the two of them relentlessly.

In particular, I made sure they memorized the giant monkey boss’s attack patterns perfectly.

Defeating the boss would probably take them quite a while.

Eventually, we finished the Floor 9 training as well.

“Good luck.”

The two of them entered Floor 9 at the same time.

I waited calmly, confident that they would succeed.

Quite some time later...

Ye Cheon-wi returned first.

“Congratulations.”

I smiled and congratulated him.

Ye Cheon-wi calmly nodded.

“Thank you.”

Taylor returned not long afterward.

She looked more openly happy about it than Ye Cheon-wi did.

'Good.'

Just like that, two Nightmare Floor 10 Climbers had been born.

Both of them were now Level 90.

At Level 90, excluding me, they were overwhelmingly the highest-level Climbers in the world.

They were around twenty levels above even the highest-floor Hard Difficulty Climbers.

“As I told you before, Floor 10 will probably be different for every Climber. So there’s nothing I can do to help you with it.

“I have no right to stop either of you from challenging it, but even so, I hope you’ll take your time and approach Floor 10 carefully.”

Taylor nodded and asked,

“What should I do from now on?”

“...?”

“I’m climbing Nightmare solely because I want to be useful to you. I want to ask you directly. Other than climbing Nightmare, what else can I do to help you?”

Ye Cheon-wi stared at me too, apparently waiting for my answer.

What could they do...?

I hadn’t helped them clear these floors because I wanted anything special from them.

I had only done it because it was something I could do.

But if she was asking anyway...

I thought for a moment before answering.

“I’ll be challenging Floor 12 soon too.”

“...”

“But I’ve realized something now. Even if I keep successfully clearing Nightmare, the Tower’s inter-floor rules alone are enough to destroy the world.”

I had seen how Seri’s world was destroyed.

There was no telling what kind of fucked-up bullshit would appear after I cleared Floor 12.

I looked back and forth between the two of them.

“I just want both of you to do your best. As much as you can, keep the world from falling into chaos. That’s enough.”

Taylor nodded with a determined expression.

“Yes. I’ll make sure I do.”

Ye Cheon-wi lowered his head and quietly muttered something.

“I shall obey the revelation.”

...There was definitely something a little strange about this guy.

Still, both of them were clearly Climbers friendly toward me.

I hoped they would continue doing well from here on out.

Radiant Incarnation’s cooldown was almost finished too...

It was about time for me to challenge Floor 12.