Chapter 20: 2F Hidden (4)

“Oh...”

I looked over the accessories.

I had actually managed to get all three.

If I had chosen only one, the Reward Room probably would have contained only that item, right?

So hidden rewards could change depending on what I did.

Good thing I had gone all in without hesitation.

I picked up the necklace.

It was a silver chain adorned with a small gemstone at its center that resembled a ruby.

Only now did the item information appear.

[Item: Plligas’s Blood Necklace]

A necklace infused with the blood of Plligas, a predator of the demon realm. Summoning Plligas into the mortal world and defeating it will allow you to form a Master-Servant Contract. The necklace will be destroyed upon failure. (Level 50+ recommended)

[Would you like to use ‘Item: Plligas’s Blood Necklace’?]

It was more or less what Heilin had described.

The idea was to summon Plligas, fight it, and form a contract only after defeating it.

“Level 50 recommended...?”

The fact that the prompt had appeared meant I could technically summon it right now.

But if Level 50 was recommended, then the creature was probably about as strong as someone at Level 50.

After clearing the hidden quest, I had gained another five levels, bringing me to Level 30.

I would probably die if I fought it now, wouldn’t I?

What kind of reward was this, when I could not even dream of using it yet?

For the moment, I moved on.

[Item: Bandiul’s Bracelet]

A bracelet inhabited by the dark spirit Bandiul. The higher your affinity with Bandiul, the more abilities you can draw out.

Next was the bracelet.

The power of a dark spirit.

This one, at least, I could try immediately.

No prompt appeared, so I slipped the bracelet onto my wrist.

“...!”

Dark energy seeped from it in thin wisps.

The energy gathered in the air before my eyes and formed a small sphere.

Is this the dark spirit?

I cautiously reached toward it.

But it was like smoke.

My fingers passed straight through.

“...Hey?”

I tried greeting it, at least.

If affinity was important, then I needed to get along with this thing.

The small, round dark spirit circled my head as though examining me, bobbing gently through the air before drifting back in front of my face.

What is this?

This feeling is strange.

It was as though something had connected us.

I could faintly sense the spirit’s mood.

It seemed to be saying something along the lines of, Well, you’re not too bad.

“Good to hear. So you’ll let me use your abilities, right?”

According to Heilin, its ability was to see through darkness.

She must have meant Dark Vision.

The Reward Room was not dark, so I could not test it right away.

“Don’t you have any other abilities? Can’t you show me something? Anything?”

I poked at the untouchable spirit as I spoke.

I sensed it grumbling in annoyance, so I stopped.

It was kind of cute, though.

“All right, sorry. Let’s get along from now on.”

The dark spirit, Bandiul, smoothly slipped back into the bracelet.

If Dark Vision was its only ability, it did not seem particularly useful, but...

‘I should think of it as a growth-type item.’

The description said I would be able to draw out more abilities as our affinity increased.

I would just have to look forward to that.

Lastly, there was the ring.

[Item: Dafria Family Ring]

A ring engraved with the Dafria family crest. It is proof that you have rendered a service to the Dafria family.

That was the entire description.

Does this thing seriously have no effect whatsoever?

I turned the ring over in my hands and examined it from every angle.

“Why did something like this even appear here?”

Still, it was classified as an item.

Maybe it had some use somewhere.

Heilin had said the Dafria family would grant me one favor if I came to them with the ring, but the 2nd floor clear was already over.

It was not as though I would ever see her again anyway...

Hmm.

After checking all three accessories, I moved on to the more straightforward reward.

The Skill Stone.

[Skill Stone: Sixth Sense (Rare+)]

Upon use, you will acquire ‘Skill: Sixth Sense (Rare+)’.

[Skill: Sixth Sense (Rare+)]

Your sixth sense is heightened, allowing you to detect danger more effectively.

Classification: Physical Type (Passive)

Willpower Cost: None

Cooldown: None

Another passive skill.

The grade was Rare+ rather than merely Rare, befitting a hidden reward, but...

Ah.

It still felt somewhat underwhelming.

“Why do I never get any Magic Type skills?”

Not a single Magic Type skill had dropped anywhere on the entire 2nd floor.

Magic Type skills were supposedly harder to obtain than Physical Type skills to begin with, but still.

I supposed I should simply consider myself lucky that I had received nothing but Magic Type skills on the 1st floor.

I read the description of Sixth Sense again.

It said the skill would help me detect danger more effectively.

That was rather vague.

It was the kind of ability I would only be able to test once I actually found myself in a dangerous situation.

[Difficulty: Nightmare]

[Floor: 3]

[Level: 30]

[Willpower: 600]

[Skills: Teleportation (Rare+), Sixth Sense (Rare+), Flame Strike (Rare) (+1), Exaltation (Rare), Leap (Normal)]

Heilin’s three accessories, along with the Sixth Sense skill.

Those were all the hidden rewards from the 2nd floor.

My level had also risen by five.

I had received quite a lot, certainly, but...

I still felt strangely empty.

One item could not be used yet.

One was a growth-type item.

One was little more than decoration.

And the skill was passive.

Considering all of that, I could not help feeling disappointed for the moment.

Oh, right.

I had forgotten one thing.

There was also the useless Supreme Magic Stone.

I tossed the newly acquired stone onto the pile of Magic Stones stacked in one corner of the Reward Room.

Well, let’s think positively.

In the long run, this is probably better.

The necklace recommending Level 50 meant the Familiar I could eventually tame was that powerful.

If I cleared the hidden quest on the 3rd floor as well, I would reach Level 45.

Maybe I could challenge it then.

“The 3rd floor, huh...”

Come to think of it, I was already treating my entry into the 3rd floor as inevitable.

Probably because I had realized something clearly while clearing the 2nd floor.

Hoping that someone else would clear this insane difficulty for me was ultimately nothing more than wishful thinking.

...Yeah.

It was time to stop hoping for that.

It was about time I made up my mind once and for all.

***

I rested for a day, then went straight back into the Tower to Repeat Clear the 2nd floor.

Now that I had completed the hidden quest, I needed to compile the floor’s information and post it.

What I needed to verify was the precise location and number of Illusion Platforms.

This {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} time, I would check every platform one by one, jumping onto each of them to determine whether there were any Illusion Platforms besides the fourth.

Using Leap and Teleportation, I climbed to the third platform.

Standing before the fourth Illusion Platform, I rubbed my chin.

The mechanism was clearly that the concealed platform appeared only after the illusion disappeared, right?

If that was the case, then would it not be possible to trigger the platform from a distance instead of stepping onto it directly?

I fired a Flame Strike at the Illusion Platform.

The fireball passed clean through the false platform and continued flying toward the other side.

The illusion vanished, revealing the hidden platform beside it.

“Works.”

With this method, there was no need for a skill that allowed movement in midair.

It would still require some kind of ranged attack, though.

I leaped toward the newly revealed platform.

“Ugh.”

I had intended to reach it without using Teleportation, but I failed.

I activated Teleportation and moved myself safely onto the platform.

Even after trying again, this is not easy.

Jumping around here might actually make for good training.

It could help sharpen my sense of movement and improve my control over my body.

Something to keep in mind.

I stepped onto the remaining platforms one by one.

Five, six, seven...

All of them were perfectly normal.

No traps.

Then came the eighth platform, the last one before the large floor.

“...?”

Standing before it, I felt something strange.

How should I describe it?

A faint sense of discomfort?

The source of that discomfort was unmistakably the eighth platform.

I realized the reason almost immediately.

Wait.

Is this...?

‘Could this be the effect of Sixth Sense?’

The skill was supposed to help me detect danger more effectively.

I had already known that the fourth platform was dangerous, but I knew nothing about the eighth.

And if I was getting this feeling now, then the eighth platform must also be an Illusion Platform.

I fired a Flame Strike.

Sure enough, the platform vanished like a mirage, and another concealed platform appeared beside it.

‘So that’s how this skill works.’

That’s actually pretty good.

Of course, Sixth Sense had not told me exactly what was dangerous or why.

I had only known that the platform was an illusion because I already understood the context.

If I had known nothing at all, the skill would have given me no more than a vague feeling that something about the eighth platform was dangerous.

But even that alone was incredibly useful.

The greatest burden when clearing the Tower was, above all else, the lack of information.

There were complete unknowns everywhere.

Situations where there was no way to know what kind of danger lay ahead.

Those who came later might not have to worry about that, but anyone attempting a first clear had no choice but to bear that risk.

With a skill like this, that danger could be significantly reduced.

Nice.

Yeah, this is nice.

Satisfied after confirming the effect of my new skill, I crossed over to the large floor.

I had verified that the first platform section contained Illusion Platforms in the fourth and eighth positions.

Next, I moved on to check the remaining traps.

The glowing platforms appeared in the same places as every other time I had encountered them.

The same was true of the floor sections that suddenly shot upward.

After completing all my checks, I entered several more times to confirm whether the trap locations changed between attempts.

They did not.

If there were differences from person to person, there was nothing I could do about that.

I would simply have to include a warning.

Still, when Rhino and I had compared our experiences on the 1st floor in detail, even the smallest features had matched perfectly.

The 2nd floor was probably the same.

“Time to post this.”

It had taken quite a while, but I had finally finished compiling all the information.

Back in my room, I lay down on the bed and began writing a post in the Communication Channel.

***

Several days had passed since the Nightmare difficulty 2nd floor had been cleared.

Everyone’s attention was focused on a single question.

Who had cleared it?

The Nightmare Communication Channel had remained completely silent, and there had been no news from the media either.

The only new development was an official statement from the United States declaring that it had not been them.

[Baekseok: The US must be kicking themselves. If they’d waited just a little longer before attempting it, they wouldn’t have lost someone by such a narrow margin.]

[Hobak: Why isn’t anyone posting anything in the Nightmare channel?]

[Hashbrown: Who do you think cleared it? The US says it wasn’t them, so my guess is China.]

[Reolib: Whoever it was, I just hope they keep climbing.]

[Freemin: Am I the only one who thinks Person123 cleared it again?]

[Hanwol: I’d say that’s unlikely this time. The general consensus is that he’s an Unregistered Climber, after all.]

The 1st floor had been one thing.

From the 2nd floor onward, however, access to outside support made an enormous difference.

The prevailing—and entirely reasonable—assumption was that Person123, the first Nightmare clearer and an Unregistered Climber, had not cleared the 2nd floor.

Most believed it had instead been cleared by another climber backed by an entire nation.

Certainly, Person123 would have obtained a First Clear Reward.

But could that truly compare to having an entire country funnel Skill Stones, Skill Enhancement Stones, and items into a single climber?

[Mateus: It has to be China, right? They’re investing in their Nightmare climber just as heavily as the US.]

[Hwaseok: China does seem the most likely.]

[Rusawektok: I heard a rumor that it was Russia.]

Amid the flood of speculation, a single post quietly appeared in the Nightmare Communication Channel.

[Person123: Here is the clearing information for the 2nd floor.]

Just as it had a year earlier, the post began with one concise line.