Chapter 26: The Escapee (3)

The abandoned school Seo Dong-woo had mentioned stood deep in the mountains on the outskirts of Incheon.

When I arrived, I vaulted over the school wall and slipped inside.

Seo Dong-woo had said he would be waiting in the gymnasium.

I spotted a building that looked like it and headed toward it.

That lunatic Seo Dong-woo genuinely seemed to believe we were meeting for a friendly conversation.

Still, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that he was planning something underhanded, so I kept my guard raised as high as possible. This was exactly the kind of situation where Sixth Sense proved invaluable.

Even before I entered, however, I could sense a commotion inside.

‘What the hell?’

Was someone else in there besides Seo Dong-woo? An accomplice?

...No.

This sounded more like a fight.

I crept into the gymnasium, only to find a scene I hadn’t expected.

There were two people inside.

A man had a woman by the throat and was holding her suspended in the air.

The man had to be Seo Dong-woo... but who was the woman?

Unable to make sense of the situation, I called out his name.

“Seo Dong-woo.”

He turned toward me, broke into a broad grin, and tossed the woman aside.

“Oh, you made it! Person123!”

The woman failed to catch herself and collapsed. She looked badly injured.

I asked the most obvious question first.

“Who’s she?”

“Oh, her~? Nobody special. Just some Climber who showed up to kill me. I was keeping myself entertained while I waited for you.”

Who the hell was she, really?

Someone with a grudge against Seo Dong-woo, like me?

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s have ourselves a nice, long chat. Just let me deal with this bitch first, and—”

“Chat, my ass.”

“Huh?”

“I came here to kill you too.”

Anyway, enough of that.

There didn’t appear to be any traps, so it was time to get down to business.

Seo Dong-woo had claimed that his Level was somewhere in the twenties.

That would make him lower-level than me, though of course he could have been lying.

But as I assessed him through Sixth Sense...

I felt no real sense of danger from Seo Dong-woo.

The skill seemed to be telling me that he was weaker than I was.

“Don’t tell me you lied to me? And here I trusted you.”

Seo Dong-woo’s expression twisted into a scowl as he glared at me.

The sheer absurdity of it left me dumbfounded.

“Who the hell would want to sit around chatting with a psycho like you, dumbass? Are you really that stupid?”

At that moment, Seo Dong-woo lunged.

He was fairly fast.

I pivoted aside, avoiding his body slam.

Seo Dong-woo skidded to a stop, spun around, and immediately threw a punch.

We traded a series of blocks and evasions before I drove a kick squarely into his stomach.

Seo Dong-woo went flying, but sprang back to his feet almost at once.

“Whoa, you’re tougher than I expected.”

“...”

“On Nightmare, it’s supposed to be ten Levels per floor, right...? Then shouldn’t you be Level 20? Guess that was only a rumor.”

By then, I had gotten a rough read on him as well.

‘Level 28, maybe?’

He wasn’t stronger than me, but the gap between us wasn’t enormous either.

Seo Dong-woo gave me a sly grin.

“Okay, fair enough. I’ll go all out from here.”

Then he shouted something that sounded like a cliché defeat flag, and his skin began to change.

Green patterns resembling a turtle’s shell spread across his entire body.

‘Skin Hardening?’

A rare-grade defensive skill.

I remembered seeing it on the skill tier list on the Babel site.

It was a defensive skill maintained through a continuous drain on willpower. I had even thought it would be useful to have one myself.

Seo Dong-woo flicked out his tongue in a revolting manner and charged again.

We exchanged blows once more, and I struck him across the face.

Whether it was because of Skin Hardening or not, the hit barely felt satisfying.

Seo Dong-woo flinched for only a moment before throwing a kick.

I blocked it with my arm and retreated several steps.

Seo Dong-woo closed the distance and eagerly pressed his attack.

“Hiyah! The Nightmare conqueror’s nothing special!”

Sorry to interrupt his fun, but I was only beginning to warm up.

I swatted aside a punch aimed at my face and drove a heavy blow into his solar plexus.

This one landed with far more force than before.

“Gkh...!”

Seo Dong-woo’s face contorted.

When he threw another punch, I caught his arm and hurled him straight into the wall above the gymnasium stage.

CRASH!

Embedded in the wooden wall, Seo Dong-woo scrambled to pull himself free.

I activated Leap, launched myself at him, and drove my knee into his abdomen.

“Hurgh!”

Seo Dong-woo let out a strangled cry and began throwing wild, desperate punches in every direction.

I slipped past them and delivered a sharp one-two combination into both sides of his ribs.

As he gasped and staggered, I activated Swing and kicked him in the head.

He went flying off the stage.

Exaltation was active, and the difference in our physical abilities was growing wider with every passing second.

There was no need to use Teleportation or Flame Strike.

This was all the man amounted to.

Once Exaltation reached its peak, Seo Dong-woo could no longer put up any meaningful resistance.

His Skin Hardening might as well not have existed. Every blow I landed struck cleanly.

CRASH!

Seo Dong-woo tumbled miserably across the floor before staggering upright again.

I advanced toward him at an unhurried pace.

That was when Sixth Sense suddenly screamed a warning.

Seo Dong-woo was reaching into his back pocket.

“Diiiiie...!”

I stopped time.

He had drawn a dagger, its blade formed from ice like a sharpened icicle.

‘An item?’

It felt dangerous.

I needed to evade it.

I completed my Mental Concentration and teleported behind Seo Dong-woo.

KWAAAAANG!

The instant he thrust the ice dagger forward, a violent blast of freezing air erupted from the blade, encasing the spot where I had been standing in ice.

Still bewildered by my sudden disappearance, Seo Dong-woo stood there blankly.

I kicked the idiot in the back.

“Gyakh!”

I picked up the dagger he had dropped.

The ice blade had vanished, leaving only the hilt behind.

[Item: Shelburn’s Ice Shard Dagger]

A dagger imbued with the cold of the polar region of Shelburn. Consumes the dagger blade to emit a freezing blast. The consumed blade fully regenerates after 24 hours.

So that was the kind of item it was.

I slipped the hilt into my pocket.

Confiscated.

Mine now.

“You’ve got some nice toys. If you have any more, go ahead and pull them out.”

Of course, it would actually be dangerous if he did, so I held back until Teleportation’s cooldown reset.

But it seemed Seo Dong-woo had already played his final card.

WHAM! WHAM! CRASH!

I worked him over like a punching bag, raining blows across his body before finishing with a strike to the chest.

I felt his ribs shatter beneath the impact as Seo Dong-woo flew into the wall and crumpled to the ground.

“Ghrk... gkk...”

Seo Dong-woo twitched, barely clinging to life.

I walked over and stood above him.

Even with every tooth knocked out and his face reduced to a bloody ruin, Seo Dong-woo was still smiling.

“Shit... you’re strong as fuck... How are you this strong...? You only cleared two floors...”

“You can still smile?”

“Heh heh... What, should I be bawling my eyes out...?”

Seo Dong-woo wheezed and lifted his head.

“Kill me. Go ahead... I don’t give a shit. I’m just pissed I couldn’t have more fun before I died, heh heh...”

That mouth of his truly never stopped.

I glared down at him before speaking.

“You’re around floor seven or eight, aren’t you? Why didn’t you climb any higher?”

“...What?”

“I’m saying you’re pathetic. This is all you’ve got, and you were still spouting that garbage about Climbers ruling the world? If you planned to raise hell anyway, you should have leveled up more first.”

I sneered at him.

“You were scared, weren’t you? You climbed that far, then got too afraid you might fail, so you couldn’t bring yourself to go any higher. Am I wrong? You act completely insane, but underneath it all, you’re nothing more than a perfectly rational coward.”

That must have struck a nerve.

Seo Dong-woo lost control.

“Don’t fuck with me, you piece of shit...!”

“Says the trash-tier coward.”

Now that felt good.

I had finished venting.

The only question left was what to do with him.

I had only thought as far as beating him senseless.

I still hadn’t decided whether to kill him or let him live.

It wasn’t as though I had any moral objection to killing garbage like this.

Hmm.

Then there was the problem of cleaning up afterward.

‘...I should at least report this, right?’

Now that things had gone this far, there was no avoiding it.

Even if it meant exposing my identity.

The other person in the gymnasium had witnessed everything, and it would have been nearly impossible to neatly wrap up the entire situation and disappear without leaving a trace.

I turned toward the woman.

At some point, she had gotten back to her feet and was staggering toward us.

“...?”

She walked over to where Seo Dong-woo lay and raised her fist.

Blue light flickered around it.

Then she brought it down on Seo Dong-woo’s head.

BOOM!

His skull burst apart.

Just like that.

His head exploded, and he died instantly.

I stared at the woman in complete shock.

She was breathing in ragged gasps when she suddenly began to cry.

What?

Who the hell was this woman?

I stood there awkwardly, watching her bewildering display.

“Haah...”

She lifted her head, wiped away her tears, and turned toward me.

“...If you had given him time, he might have escaped into the Tower. I had to kill him before his Combat Status wore off.”

Combat Status?

I had heard of it before.

Something about Climbers being unable to enter the Tower while engaged in combat.

“So who are you?”

I finally asked.

Now that I looked at her properly, she was dressed in a business suit.

A bad feeling crept over me.

Don’t tell me...

The woman swept her disheveled hair back and introduced herself.

“Shin Su-jin, Section Chief of the Tower Monitoring Division, Tower Climbing Special Agency.”

“Ah.”

“Thank you for assisting in the execution of official duties. Thanks to you, the escaped convict Seo Dong-woo has been neutralized.”

It felt as though I had been caught red-handed.

No wonder she had been fighting Seo Dong-woo.

Section Chief Shin Su-jin even pulled a business card from the inside pocket of her jacket and handed it to me before asking cautiously,

“Are you, by any chance, Person123... the first Nightmare conqueror?”

“...”

“I overheard Seo Dong-woo call you that earlier.”

There was no point in denying it, so I nodded.

If she belonged to the Tower Climbing Special Agency, then she was a government official.

I decided I might as well ask.

“...Is there any chance you could keep my involvement quiet? Say you dealt with Seo Dong-woo by yourself.”

“Pardon?”

Section Chief Shin Su-jin studied me in silence for a moment, then nodded.

“I don’t know what your circumstances are, but... understood. I’ll keep it confidential.”

“...Really?”

“You saved my life. That much should go without saying.”

Thank God.

She turned out to be a reasonable person.

Just then, Section Chief Shin Su-jin clutched her stomach and groaned.

I caught her arm and steadied her as she swayed.

“Are you all right? Are you badly hurt?”

“...I’m fine.”

Section Chief Shin Su-jin gently pushed my arm away, lowered herself against the wall, and sat down.

“I’ll take care of the scene. According to the official record, I engaged and neutralized Seo Dong-woo alone. You don’t need to worry.”

“...Then should I leave?”

“Yes. Thank you again.”

I started toward the exit, but stopped and looked back at her.

“Are you sure you’re all right? Shouldn’t you at least call 119?”

“Yes. I’ll call them myself. The police may arrive soon, so please go.”

Well, if she insisted.

I left Section Chief Shin Su-jin behind and slipped out of the abandoned school.

But seriously, why had she cried like that earlier?

She was a strange person.

***

Left alone, Su-jin endured the waves of pain rolling through her, regulating her breathing as best she could.

She looked toward Seo Dong-woo’s corpse, its head shattered beyond recognition.

It felt far more cathartic than she had ever imagined.

For years, she had told herself to let go.

To forget.

Yet in the end, it had never truly been over.

Not until Seo Dong-woo was dead.

‘That man...’

Su-jin thought about the man who had just left.

Person123.

The first Nightmare conqueror and the highest-ranked Nightmare record holder.

She was surprised to learn that the mysterious figure was Korean.

He had also seemed younger than she expected.

His hood and mask had concealed most of his face, but even so, she could tell.

Why he had suddenly appeared at this location was another mystery.

Judging from the conversation he had exchanged with Seo Dong-woo, it seemed he had deceived the convict into coming here with the intention of eliminating him. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

More astonishing than anything else, however, was the way he had toyed with Seo Dong-woo, a Level 28 Climber.

Hadn’t he only cleared two floors?

No matter how exceptional a Nightmare conqueror might be, Su-jin never would have imagined the gulf between Nightmare and Hard difficulty could be so vast.

She owed him a great deal.

Without him, she would have died at Seo Dong-woo’s hands.

Because of him, she had finally been able to avenge her family.

...She felt nothing but relief.

At last, it truly felt as though everything was over.

Su-jin took out her phone.

The screen had been shattered, and missed calls had piled up.

She selected one of the numbers and called back.

─ Team Leader! Why are you only answering now?! Seo Dong-woo is—

“I got him.”

─ What?

“I got Seo Dong-woo. Get over here. The location is...”

Su-jin finished the call, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to rest.