Chapter 9: 1F Hidden (2)

Mental Concentration was possible even while time was stopped.

Willpower continued to recover even while time was stopped.

Conclusion:

I could use skills with virtually no restrictions.

For Magic Type skills, the casting time was effectively erased.

All I had to do was stop time and complete the Mental Concentration.

Running out of Willpower would never be a serious problem either.

Whenever it ran dry, I could simply stop time and wait for it to recover.

The only genuine limitation was a skill’s cooldown.

‘Wait. Don’t tell me... even the cooldown?’

No.

That couldn’t be possible.

A cooldown timer should require real time to pass.

Still, on the off chance that I was wrong, I decided to test it.

I waited a full hundred minutes with time frozen.

[Willpower: 100/100]

Once my Willpower had completely recovered, I released Time Stop.

I glanced around.

Now that the Goblin Knight was dead, the Crossbow Goblin should appear at any moment.

“...?”

What was that?

A small boulder tucked into one corner of the cavern was moving.

A moment later, a Crossbow Goblin crawled out from a passage hidden behind it.

Last time, I had wondered where the hell it had suddenly come from.

So that was how it made its entrance.

My eyes met the Crossbow Goblin’s.

It frantically tried to raise its crossbow toward me, so I stopped time.

All right.

I had a present for this one too.

I completed the Mental Concentration, released Time Stop, and fired the instant time resumed.

The Crossbow Goblin exploded spectacularly in the blast.

[Flame Strike (0:27)]

The message appeared the moment I thought about checking the skill’s cooldown.

I stopped time immediately.

[Flame Strike (0:27)]

The number hadn’t changed.

So the cooldown was unaffected after all.

Honestly, it would have been absurd if even that worked.

Then again, being able to complete Mental Concentration and recover Willpower while time was frozen was already absurd enough.

I took back everything I had said about Magic Type skills being garbage.

With things working this way, Magic Type skills were a perfect match for me.

No.

Perfect didn’t even begin to describe it.

The synergy was completely broken.

The two greatest weaknesses of Magic Type skills were their Mental Concentration requirement and their enormous Willpower consumption.

For me, both of those weaknesses had effectively vanished.

In game terms, it was like having infinite mana and instant casting on every spell.

Flame Strike had a thirty-second cooldown.

That meant I could now unleash a skill of this caliber every thirty seconds without suffering any meaningful restrictions.

‘My mind might get a little tired, though.’

I gathered my thoughts.

Come to think of it, the clearing message still hadn’t appeared.

I hadn’t entered Repeat Clearing for Magic Stones.

I had returned to investigate the Hidden Route.

Since the floor hadn’t ended yet, there had to be something more.

[Would you like to exit the Tower?]

The message appeared the moment I thought about leaving.

All right.

At least I could leave whenever I wanted.

I decided to look around a little longer first.

The boss room was a dead-end cavern.

Going back through the passage I had entered from would only return me to the starting area.

There didn’t appear to be any additional space at all...

“...”

Then the passage the Crossbow Goblin had crawled out of caught my eye.

Could that be it?

I approached it.

The explosion from Flame Strike had exposed the entrance more clearly than before.

I lowered myself onto my stomach, stuck my head inside, and peered into the darkness.

A narrow tunnel sloped downward like a rabbit hole.

An underground passage?

After a moment of hesitation, I decided to enter.

I had a strong feeling that this was what I was looking for.

There was no reason to expect any real danger.

I could escape the Tower at any time, after all.

“Hup.”

I squeezed myself into the tunnel.

It was only barely wide enough for one person to crawl through.

I inched forward on my hands and knees, following the gentle downward slope.

It was pitch-black ahead.

I couldn’t see a thing.

With my eyes rendered useless, my hearing became sharper instead.

The darkness was starting to get to me.

Surely an arrow wasn’t about to come flying out of nowhere and strike me in the face.

‘Maybe I should’ve gone in backward...’

Fortunately, the tunnel came to an end fairly quickly.

A wide, brightly illuminated space appeared ahead.

I crawled out of the tunnel and stood upright.

Then I froze.

It was another cavern.

The opposite wall was riddled with holes just like the tunnel I had emerged from.

Someone was sitting in the center of the chamber.

For a moment, I thought it was a Goblin.

But it wasn’t.

It was a person.

A... person?

My body tensed.

The figure hadn’t moved at all.

“...Hello?”

I called out cautiously.

There was no response.

I edged closer to get a better look.

The figure wore robes that immediately brought a wizard to mind.

Then I caught sight of the face beneath the hood and recoiled.

Its skin looked as though it had rotted and begun to slough away.

The grotesque face was the stuff of nightmares.

The old man with the melting face sat cross-legged with his eyes closed.

I studied him in silence.

So...

What exactly was I supposed to do here?

I knew how to deal with Goblins.

But when a person appeared like this, I had no idea what the Tower expected from me.

‘Do I just wait for him to open his eyes?’

Could this old man actually be an enemy?

Getting any closer felt like a terrible idea.

That was when the old man opened his eyes.

His gaze settled on me.

A voice like metal scraping against metal seeped from his throat.

“I wondered what all the commotion was above... Child, what purpose brings you here?”

I had no idea how to answer.

Purpose?

Hell if I knew.

“You do not appear to be an imperial soldier, and yet you came here alone? You have hastened your own death. Since you have already crawled in like a rat, I may as well use you as a test subject.”

“Excuse me?”

A test subject?

I couldn’t make sense of most of what he was saying.

But one thing was perfectly clear.

My life was in danger.

The instant I determined that he was hostile, I backed away and began casting.

I stopped time, completed the Mental Concentration, and hurled a fireball directly at the old man.

BOOM!

Crimson flames engulfed him.

Did that finish him?

The smoke cleared, revealing the old man once more.

Impossibly, he was completely unharmed.

A translucent barrier surrounded him.

What was that?

A barrier?

“...A mage? How?”

For some reason, the old man sounded just as surprised as I was, muttering the words beneath his breath.

My one and only skill—my most powerful weapon—had just been blocked.

I was still trying to decide what to do next when the old man suddenly roared.

“Come forth, all of you! Kill him!”

...All of you?

A moment later, the cavern filled with the pounding of footsteps.

Goblins began pouring out of the tunnels lining the walls.

What the hell was this now?

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

SKREEEE—!

Dozens of Goblins charged at me from every direction.

[Flame Strike (0:01)]

I confirmed that the cooldown had nearly ended and immediately stopped time.

A handful of Goblins would have been manageable.

Several dozen was an entirely different matter.

If they surrounded me and I caught even one stray blade while fighting in the middle of the swarm, I wouldn’t escape unscathed.

There was no reason to take such a reckless risk.

‘You little bastards are really going to make me wait another hundred minutes.’

Once again embracing the virtue of patience, I waited for my Willpower to recover.

[Willpower: 100/100]

After a long wait, it finally returned to full.

I completed the Mental Concentration, released Time Stop, and launched a fireball immediately.

Straight into the densest cluster of Goblins.

KA-BOOOM!

Chunks of flesh flew through the air.

The Goblins caught at the center of the blast vanished without a trace, while those nearby were hurled in every direction.

A sharp, acrid stench stabbed at my nostrils.

It looked as though a single blast had wiped out roughly two-thirds of them.

I moved in to finish the survivors.

Darting among them, I cut them down one by one.

Snick.

Snick.

It was over quickly.

After killing the last Goblin, I turned my attention back to the old man.

“...”

Uh...

Excuse me.

What exactly are you doing?

That was what I wanted to ask.

Throughout all the chaos, the old man had remained in the same position, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed as though meditating.

The barrier still surrounded him, leaving me with little I could do.

Should I walk up and strike it with my sword?

Either way, it seemed I would have to kill this mage if I wanted to finish the Hidden Route.

At that moment, the old man’s eyes snapped open.

At the same instant, dark energy spread throughout the cavern.

I stumbled backward in surprise and nearly fell.

The floor had suddenly transformed into a thick, viscous swamp that dragged my feet downward.

‘Wh-what the hell?’

I flailed in panic as the old man cackled.

“You insolent little whelp! Did your master never teach you how mages duel? You stood there like a fool while I completed my spell!”

Tentacle-like shapes rose from the black swamp that now covered the floor.

My feet were trapped.

I couldn’t move.

The more I struggled, the deeper the mire swallowed my legs.

The tentacles writhed toward me.

The sight sent a chill crawling down my spine.

Hold on.

Time out.

Time out!

[Would you like to exit the Tower?]

Emergency evacuation.

‘Exit! Exit! Exit!’

I screamed the command inside my head.

The scene before my eyes shifted.

My room.

I stood there, gasping for breath.

“Haah...”

I had nearly died.

[You have failed the Nightmare difficulty 1F Hidden Route clear. (2/3)]

[Three failures will permanently seal the Hidden Route.]

The messages floated before my eyes.

So that old man really was the hidden boss.

“That insane old geezer.”

A barrier.

Commanding Goblins.

Transforming the floor into a swamp without warning.

He had used one bizarre ability after another.

Judging by all his talk about test subjects, he was probably some kind of dark mage.

The Hidden Route was on an entirely different level from the normal clear.

‘Three failures, and it gets sealed...’

It seemed I had only three attempts in total.

The one fortunate thing was that failure didn’t mean death.

...I would have to try again.

With only two chances remaining, I needed to find a way to kill the mage before I exhausted them.

“How am I supposed to beat him?”

I sat on the edge of my bed with my arms crossed.

My skill was useless against his barrier.

If the barrier could withstand a fiery explosion, striking it with a sword certainly wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Before I could even touch the old man, I needed some way to deal with that barrier.

With the tools currently available to me, it seemed impossible.

“Seo-hyeon, are you awake? Come eat breakfast.”

I had been lost in thought until morning arrived.

Even while sitting at the table and eating, my mind remained elsewhere.

“Stop picking out the carrots. Eat all of them.”

“I am eating them.”

“Carrots are good for your eyes. Seo-a, your eyesight is bad like your mother’s, so you need to take care of it.”

My sister grumbled as she poked through the braised short ribs.

No matter how many times she was told not to be picky, the words went in one ear and out the other.

Ugh.

That little cow.

At that moment, something clicked.

‘Did your master never teach you how mages duel? You stood there like a fool while I completed my spell!’

Come to think of it, the old man had said exactly that.

Completed his spell?

Did he also need to undergo Mental Concentration before casting magic?

‘He sat there meditating or whatever the entire time before using that bizarre spell.’

That might have been his version of Mental Concentration.

Then what about the barrier?

The barrier had to be magic too.

But he had deployed it the instant I attacked.

‘...Ah.’

Wait.

When I first encountered him, his eyes had already been closed.

What if he had been completing the Mental Concentration required to cast the barrier during that entire time?

By the time he began speaking to me, the preparation had already been finished.

The old man himself had said it.

Why had I stood there like a fool while he completed his spell?

In other words, when fighting a mage, never give them enough time to finish casting.

...I might have just thought of something worth trying.

***

I waited until everyone in the family had left the house, then entered the Tower again.

After effortlessly clearing the Goblins, I returned to the underground passage.

I crawled through it as quickly as I possibly could.

When I emerged from the tunnel, the mage was sitting in the same place as before, his eyes closed.

The instant I saw him, I stopped time.

I completed the Mental Concentration and fired my skill without saying a word.

KA-BOOOM!

The explosion tore through the cavern.

Where the old man had been sitting, only a heap of charred ash remained.

Did that finish him?

A message appeared before my eyes.

[You have successfully cleared the Nightmare difficulty 1F Hidden Route.]

It had.

I let out a dry laugh and muttered,

“I can’t believe that actually worked.”

So he really had been preparing the barrier in advance.

Strike first and victory was guaranteed.

That had been the answer.

Now that I understood it, the solution felt almost absurdly simple.

[Fully absorbing the Power of the Floor.]

[Your Level has increased.]

[Your Level has increased.]

[Your Level has increased.]

[Your Level has increased.]

[Your Level has increased.]

[Moving to the Reward Room.]

The scenery changed.

[Difficulty: Nightmare]

[Floor: 2F]

[Level: 15]

[Willpower: 200/200]

[Skill: Flame Strike (Rare)]

My Level had increased significantly once again.

I clenched and relaxed my fist, feeling the power surging through my body.

All right.

Let’s see.

What was the reward for clearing the Hidden Route?

Several items were scattered around the room.

I spotted a book and picked it up first.

It was an old, worn tome with geometric patterns etched into its cover.

[Item: Malphadus’s Spellbook]

A grimoire left behind by the mage Malphadus. Upon use, you may select and acquire one of the following skills.

[Skill: Lower Mind Control (Rare+)]

[Skill: Teleportation (Rare+)]

[Skill: Corrupted Flame (Rare+)]

[Skill: Shadow Swamp (Rare+)]

[Skill: Life Drain (Rare+)]