Chapter 21: The Gap

The identity of the person who had cleared Nightmare difficulty’s 2nd floor was finally revealed.

Person123.

Once again, he had announced his achievement simply by posting the floor’s clearing information in the Communication Channel.

[Polarm: So it really was Person123 again.]

[PartyTime: Hahaha, I knew it’d be that guy!]

[Devic: Is there just something different about the first clearer?]

The information he released about the 2nd floor was more than enough to leave everyone stunned.

[Asparagus: Is that a typo? The gaps between the platforms are eight to nine meters?]

[Hanguru: Hard difficulty is around five meters, so it’s not impossible.]

[Andromeda: The distance isn’t the insane part. It’s the size of the platforms. Twenty-five centimeters on each side means you can barely fit both feet.]

[Pullup: How many inches is twenty-five centimeters?]

[Songkyeong: Look it up yourself, you fucking American.]

Climbers who had attempted the 2nd floor—especially those on Hard difficulty—understood just how absurd the conditions were.

And the platforms were only the beginning.

There were Illusion Platforms, glowing platforms, and sections of floor that suddenly shot upward.

And even that was not the end of it.

Breaking through doors, climbing the Infinite Staircase, scaling the Tower’s outer wall, defeating the boss monster Minotaur, and finally surviving the collapse of the Tower’s summit...

How in the world had anyone cleared it?

That was the one thought shared by everyone who read the post.

The 1st floor had been the same, but even compared to Hard difficulty, Nightmare truly existed on an entirely different level.

“He did it again.”

Max’s expression darkened as he read the 2nd floor information posted in the Communication Channel.

He had always known that the floor would be unimaginably difficult.

But this went beyond anything he had imagined.

He had never expected it to be so brutally punishing.

Looking back, Jack’s failure had been inevitable.

Clearing something like this without any prior information was simply impossible.

...and yet Person123 had done it.

What the hell was he?

“If I’d attempted it, I would have died without a doubt. I was lucky.”

Taylor spoke while reading the post, her face pale.

She had originally planned to challenge Nightmare difficulty’s 2nd floor herself, but it had been cleared before she could enter, narrowly sparing her from going in.

Person123 had organized the information even more meticulously than he had on the 1st floor, recording even the smallest details.

It was a thoughtful gesture, clearly written with future challengers in mind.

Now, with that information, they could prepare thoroughly for their own attempt.

But...

Even with everything laid out before them, the floor would still be extraordinarily difficult.

Taylor let out a long sigh.

“Max, at the very least, I don’t have what it takes to become the Nightmare Front Runner. No matter what I do, I don’t think I can surpass this person.”

Max nodded in silence.

The project had been launched with two objectives: saving humanity and establishing the United States as the leading nation in Nightmare difficulty.

At that moment, Max and Taylor both reached the same conclusion.

It was not going to happen.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that their fighting spirit had been broken.

If the 2nd floor was already like this, what would the 3rd and 4th floors be like?

They had no choice but to admit it.

The first Nightmare clearer possessed something special.

‘Is he really an Unregistered Climber?’

That question continued to gnaw at Max.

If Person123 was truly a Climber concealing his identity and operating without the backing of any nation, how could he possibly be so far ahead of everyone else?

It defied common sense.

Unless, perhaps, he had received something extraordinary as the First Clear Reward on the 1st floor.

Whatever the truth might be, if they could not surpass him, then their only option was to follow in his footsteps as closely as possible.

Every other nation running a Nightmare program was probably thinking the same thing.

***

After clearing the 2nd floor’s Hidden Route and posting the information I had compiled, I spent some time enjoying a quiet, leisurely routine.

─ Hard difficulty record holder Wang Kai clears the 10th floor...

─ Another clash between Climbers in the 5th floor Common Zone...

─ Updated compilation of Normal-grade skill charts...

Sitting on the subway with my earbuds in, I scrolled through the latest posts.

The site was called Babel, an online community where nearly all discussion revolved around the Tower.

The Communication Channel existed as well, but Babel was useful for keeping up with the latest news, so I browsed it whenever I had time to kill.

─ Guns don’t even work on high-level Climbers lol

The title caught my attention, so I opened the post.

The linked video was titled How Dangerous Are Climbers?

It featured an interview with a foreign professor.

─ ...So, Professor, you believe Climbers will pose a significant threat to society in the future?

─ Rather than saying they will inevitably become a threat, I would say they possess the potential to become one. This is an entirely reasonable concern. They are already superhuman beings who have surpassed the limits of ordinary people.

The physical abilities of high-level Climbers exceed anything we can imagine. Based on the combined results of physical tests conducted by the U.S. Climber Bureau and various other institutions, we can now establish several useful benchmarks.

For example, a nine-millimeter handgun round cannot inflict meaningful damage on a Climber above Level 20. The bullet either ricochets or becomes lodged shallowly without even penetrating the dermis. This is possible because their skin has developed a degree of toughness and elasticity far beyond natural human limits.

─ Are you saying guns don’t work against Climbers above Level 20?

─ Handguns of the kind typically carried by police officers do not. More powerful firearms would naturally produce different results, but we are speaking strictly about the Level 20 benchmark. Climbers continue to become stronger and gain Levels as they ascend the Tower, and the highest officially recorded Level currently belongs to a Level 36 Climber.

─ You’re referring to Wang Kai, the Hard difficulty record holder.

─ Precisely. If a Level 20 Climber has already reached that degree of resilience, imagine the durability of a Climber above Level 30. What about Level 40? And on top of that, they possess skills—abilities that are, for all practical purposes, superpowers. Frankly, it frightens me.

Of course, the number of Climbers who have reached Level 20 or above is still extremely small, but that number will continue to grow.

Throughout the long course of human history, civilization has advanced its technology and acquired tremendous power. Yet if we look solely at human beings themselves, there has never been such a profound imbalance of strength within the species.

I am not referring to ordinary differences, such as men being physically stronger than women or adults being stronger than children.

No matter how powerful an ancient warrior might have been, he could not defeat ten armed soldiers alone. No matter how skilled a modern fighter may be, he cannot overcome bullets and artillery shells.

And yet that kind of severe imbalance is precisely what is emerging now.

Can you imagine what society will become?

─ ...That does sound dangerous.

─ Naturally, Climbers are essential to humanity’s survival. If no one ascends the Tower, the world will end, and only the chosen Climbers are capable of climbing it.

Which is precisely why the imbalance becomes even more severe.

If a Climber were to exploit that power and overturn the foundations of our social order, how would we stop them?

Even now, Climbers are forming their own communities and steadily increasing their influence through associations and similar organizations.

We must begin seriously considering this issue before it is too late.

Assuming Nightmare difficulty continues to be cleared and the world survives, we need to think carefully about the future that awaits us...

It was an interesting discussion.

The professor appeared to take the social upheaval that increasingly powerful Climbers might cause very seriously.

Then again, all of that only mattered if the world did not end first.

What interested me more was the claim that Climbers above Level 20 could withstand gunfire.

Hmm...

So that was roughly the threshold.

I pinched and stretched the skin on the back of my hand experimentally.

Considering what my body was capable of now, it did not seem particularly surprising.

─ This station is Sillim. Sillim Station.

I got off the subway and headed toward the place where we had agreed to meet.

I had dinner plans with my friends that evening.

“Oh, Seo-hyeon’s here.”

“Sorry. I’m a little late.”

“No problem. That bastard Sangcheol said he’d be here in five minutes, and that was ages ago.”

While I stood with my friends waiting for the guest of honor, a foreign car pulled up nearby and came to a stop.

The driver’s window rolled down, and Sangcheol stuck his head out.

Everyone stared at him in surprise.

“Damn... What happened to you?”

“Wait, you bought a car?”

Sangcheol grinned, looking more than a little smug.

“Let me park first. Give me a minute.”

As the foreign car glided down the road, my friends immediately began commenting.

“That guy’s really made it, huh?”

“I heard Climbers earn a lot of money.”

“But hasn’t he only been a Climber for a few months?”

Our dear Sangcheol, who had ultimately taken a leave of absence from university to become a Climber, was thankfully still alive and well.

He had invited all of us out and offered to pay for dinner, which was why we had gathered.

We went to an expensive Korean beef restaurant and happily stuffed ourselves with meat.

“So, how is life as a Climber? Is it manageable?”

“Totally manageable. I’m actually thinking about challenging Easy difficulty’s 2nd floor.”

“Hey, don’t do that. Isn’t the 1st floor enough to earn good money?”

If I remembered correctly, the largest group of Climbers consisted of those who had never entered the Tower at all.

The next largest group were the Climbers who had cleared only the 1st floor and repeatedly farmed it for Magic Stones.

Sangcheol had cleared Easy difficulty’s 1st floor and was earning money by selling the Magic Stones he collected through Repeat Clearing.

“Goblins aren’t weak monsters either. Let me tell you what happened when I first went in...”

Sangcheol spent the meal enthusiastically talking and bragging about everything imaginable.

Since he was buying us expensive food in exchange for listening to him show off, the least I could do was humor him.

I reacted at the appropriate moments while happily filling my stomach with meat.

“Clearing Easy difficulty’s 1st floor puts you at Level 1, right? How much stronger did you get?”

“Heh heh. Quite a bit stronger. Even Level 1 is far beyond an ordinary person.”

“Then let’s arm wrestle.”

One of our friends, a gym-obsessed muscle freak, boldly challenged Sangcheol.

The outcome was predictable.

Sangcheol grinned and forced his arm down with ease.

“Holy shit. He’s actually strong.”

“Hey, do me next!”

“Come at me, all of you. Want me to do it while holding only your wrists?”

Once the alcohol began to take effect, everyone grew rowdy and loud.

While grilling another piece of meat, I asked Sangcheol a question.

“Hey, Sangcheol. Climbers talk to each other through the Communication Channel, right?”

“Hm? Yeah.”

“What name do you use?”

“Me? Cheolsang. It’s Sangcheol backward. Why the random question?”

“No reason.”

I simply thought it might be nice to recognize him if I ever saw his name in the Communication Channel.

After eating beef until we felt ready to burst, we left the restaurant and wandered around the entertainment district.

“Want to try the punching machine? We can bet on the scores.”

“I’m in. But isn’t it unfair with Sangcheol?”

“Fine. I’ll take a hundred-point handicap.”

We were in the middle of our punching-machine contest when—

BANG!

Something exploded right beside us.

We all flinched, and passing pedestrians stopped to stare.

Another group had been using a nearby punching machine.

Their machine had been completely destroyed.

“Shit, what? I barely even hit it, and it broke.”

The man who had thrown the punch shook out his hand and laughed.

His friends snickered along with him.

A startled arcade employee hurried outside and stared slack-jawed, his gaze darting between the group and the ruined machine.

“Um... Did you do this, sir?”

The man answered with a shameless shrug.

“Yeah. So what?”

“Well... you can’t just break the machine...”

“I punched it. It’s a punching machine. It’s meant to be punched, isn’t it? Not my fault it broke.”

The man was clearly no ordinary person.

Obviously.

No normal human possessed that kind of strength.

A Climber?

When the group brazenly attempted to walk away, the employee hurriedly blocked their path.

“Y-you can’t just leave!”

“What? Then what the fuck do you want me to do? Pay for that piece of junk?”

The man snarled at him.

“Get lost before I hit you. I’m a Climber. If I hit someone the wrong way, I could kill them.”

A Climber.

Just as I had thought.

What the hell was wrong with this guy?

The employee’s face turned white at the blatant threat.

“S-still, you can’t just go...”

“God damn it. Do you want me to—”

The man raised his hand as though he genuinely intended to strike him.

I was just about to shout at him to stop when Sangcheol spoke first.

“Excuse me!”

The man turned toward us.

Sangcheol visibly shrank beneath his gaze, but he still forced himself to speak.

“Y-you can’t just destroy a machine and cause a scene like that.”

“Who the hell are you? Do you want to die?”

“Don’t swear at me... You’re not the only Climber here. I’m one too.”

The man tilted his head.

Then he laughed.

“Oh, yeah? What difficulty and floor? I’m on Normal difficulty’s 4th floor.”

Normal difficulty’s 4th floor would place him at around Level 6.

After stepping forward so bravely, Sangcheol could no longer bring himself to speak.

He clamped his mouth shut.

“Hey, asshole. I asked you a question. What are you? What Level?”

I stepped forward.

“Stop before I call the police. You’ve clearly had too much to drink.”

The man stared at me as though he could not believe what he had heard.

“What the hell is with these little shits running their mouths? Do you really want to die?”

I had even taken out my phone where he could clearly see it, but the man came striding directly toward me.

Fortunately, his friends grabbed him and held him back.

“Hey, hey, stop it, Min-seong. This is going to turn into a real problem.”

The surrounding onlookers murmured among themselves.

The man glanced around and clicked his tongue.

“Fine. I’ll see you again.”

He shot me one last glare before leaving with his friends.

See me again, my ass.

I walked over to the employee, who still looked deeply shaken.

“Are you all right?”

“Y-yes. Thank you...”

“Do you want me to report it to the police for you? That guy’s a complete lunatic.”

It was the first time I had seen a Climber openly causing trouble on the street.

The employee still seemed too flustered to act, so I fulfilled my civic duty and called the police on his behalf.

“Hey, you did the right thing. There’s no point fighting with a psycho like that. You’d only end up losing.”

Sangcheol had probably suffered a blow to his pride, so our friends quietly tried to comfort him.

“But Seo-hyeon, you’ve got some serious guts too. You stepped up to a Climber and said all that.”

“Seriously. I respect you on a whole new level now.”

“Honestly, I was terrified.”

My friends burst into laughter.

But I was not joking.

I had genuinely been tense the entire time.

I had intervened, but if the situation had actually turned into a fight, things could have become extremely awkward.

It was getting late, and the mood had been ruined, so we decided to call it a night.

The friends heading in Sangcheol’s direction climbed into his car, while the rest of us, myself included, headed toward the subway station.

“...?”

What is it now?

I glanced discreetly to one side before speaking to my friends.

“Guys, I think I left something at the restaurant. Go on without me.”

“Really? We’ll come with you.”

“No, no. It’s fine. Just go.”

I separated from them and slipped into a secluded alley nearby.

A moment later, a man followed me inside.

It was the bastard from earlier.

“What? You knew I was following you?”

The Climber grinned, an ugly sneer twisting his face.

Hostility rolled off him in waves, all of it aimed directly at me.

Strangely, I had sensed that hostility from a distance.

That was how I had realized he was following me and deliberately led him into the alley.

Was this also an effect of Sixth Sense?

It was a skill designed to detect danger.

It made sense that it might also sense killing intent directed toward me.

“What’s wrong, asshole? Cat got your tongue all of a sudden? You were running your mouth just fine earlier.”

I ignored him and looked around.

No pedestrians.

No visible CCTV cameras either.

“What are you looking for? Someone to save you?”

“Why do you live like this?”

“What?”

“Why do you go around acting like a thug? Is being a Climber really something you’re so desperate to show off?”

The fact that he had followed me merely because I had wounded his pride told me everything I needed to know.

This man was completely unhinged.

His face flushed with anger as he approached.

“...I was going to let you off if you got on your knees and begged properly, but forget it. You’re going to die today.”

His fist shot toward me.

I caught the punch.

It was so slow I nearly yawned.

The man tried to wrench his hand free.

When it refused to move even an inch, confusion spread across his face.

“Y-you little—AAAGH! AGH!”

I tightened my grip slightly.

The man twisted his entire body and screamed.

I had barely squeezed at all.

What a drama queen.

The moment I released him, he scrambled backward.

“Sh-shit. You’re a Climber too? You piece of shit, you lied to me?”

“I never said I wasn’t.”

“Shut the fuck up! I’ll kill you!”

The hostility pouring from him intensified.

It became thick and clinging, almost viscous.

I narrowed my eyes.

This was no longer simple hostility.

It felt much closer to genuine murderous intent.

The man pulled a knife from his back pocket and charged, suddenly accelerating.

He appeared to have activated some kind of burst-speed skill.

Even so, to me, he was still moving like a turtle.

I caught the wrist of the hand holding the knife.

Crack!

“AAAAAGH...!”

This time, I broke it.

The man collapsed to his knees with a graceless shriek.

He had genuinely attempted to kill me, so I felt no guilt whatsoever about going too far.

What am I supposed to do with this lunatic?

I could hardly drag him to the police station myself, but I could not simply leave him here either.

What a pain in the ass.

‘Still, this really pisses me off.’

Some people were losing sleep because they feared the world might end.

They were forcing themselves to climb a Tower they had never wanted to enter in the first place.

Meanwhile, this idiot’s idea of being a Climber was starting fights and throwing his weight around.

I crouched before the man, who still had not recovered, and met his eyes.

The killing intent I had sensed through Sixth Sense...

I had a vague feeling that I could produce it too.

I recalled every moment inside the Tower when my life had hung by a thread.

Drawing on those memories, I dredged up every ounce of murderous intent I could summon and fixed my gaze on him.

“H-hiiih...”

The man’s face turned deathly pale.

He trembled like a leaf.

I glanced down at his trousers.

A dark stain was spreading across them.

He had pissed himself.

Disgusting.

“P-please spare me. I’m sorry. Please, spare me...”

The man repeated his apologies like a broken machine.

I spoke calmly.

“Go to a police station and turn yourself in. For destroying the punching machine.”

“Y-yes. Yes, I’ll turn myself in.”

“And don’t tell anyone what happened between us here.”

“Yes. I-I won’t say anything.”

I noticed his wallet lying nearby and picked it up.

“Kim Min-seong. Born in ’95. Seocho-gu, Gangnam-daero, Seoul...”

I read the information on his identification card aloud.

Then I gave him one final warning.

“If I ever catch you pulling this kind of shit again, I will find you, and I will kill you. Understood?”

The man hiccupped and nodded frantically.

I left him there and walked out of the alley.

I had enjoyed a good meal, and now I had to deal with this shit in the middle of the night.

Still, my understanding of Sixth Sense had deepened.

So I supposed I had gained something from the encounter after all.