Chapter 45
Tower Defense.
A type of defense game in which you install towers to block enemies coming along a limited path.
A familiar genre that anyone has probably played at least once on mobile.
The theme of the 4th Floor was exactly like this.
I wouldn't be installing towers, but I had to block enemies coming along a limited path.
\[You have entered the Nightmare Difficulty 4th Floor.\]
As soon as I entered, I used Time Stop.
I took in the visual information in my line of sight.
A spacious area that haphazardly brought to mind a workshop, factory, and machinery.
There was a winding path.
The path blended with the surrounding background, making it feel like a conveyor belt moving products in a factory.
A large, square entrance resembling a shipping exit.
The path started from there, continued in a straight line, and ended at the exit after making a total of four U-turns.
In other words, it was a zigzagging path shaped like two 'R' characters stacked vertically.
The place I was currently located was on top of the wall that filled the spaces between the paths.
There was a height difference of about 5 meters between the path and the top of the wall.
Environment assessment is complete.
The location and structure themselves didn't seem any different from the other difficulties.
“Phew.”
“I ended up choosing a penalty and coming in after all.”
“I have no regrets. My mind is actually more at ease.”
‘Or is it? I might end up regretting it if my strategy fails and it's time to die...’
I shook off the useless stray thoughts.
\[1. 50% reduction in physical abilities\]
The penalty I chose was number 1.
The reason was simple.
I made the choice to preserve my skill power rather than my physical combat ability.
Number 3, the random ban, was too much of a gamble, and it was hard to give up Flee for number 5, the item ban.
In terms of pure physical power, Flee was stronger than I.
Besides, as long as its HP didn't run out, its summoned state could be maintained indefinitely.
I judged it was better to take the penalty of halving my physical abilities to keep Flee.
Well... since I didn't know what would happen on the 4th Floor, it was a choice that relied heavily on my gut feeling.
I'd find out if this choice is the right answer by experiencing it from now on.
It was a judgment made by considering the theme as much as possible, but Nightmare was a completely unpredictable difficulty that just did whatever the hell it wanted, meaning you never knew what kind of curveball would be thrown at you.
Still, since I'm here, should I try to think a bit more positively?
Actually, the 4th Floor might be easier than I thought, right?
Maybe the Tower tried to saddle me with a penalty because it thought I would clear it? Hahaha.
...I really wish that were the case.
I used Time Release.
Having chosen the Physical Ability Reduction penalty, I felt the strength rapidly drain from my body.
Soon, a mechanical voice mixed with static rang out.
- The Golems inside the Workshop are currently malfunctioning and running wild, so staff members are requested to carry out immediate disposal upon discovery...
I stared toward the entrance.
A blue light was illuminated on the indicator above the entrance.
If that changed to a red light, Golems would come out out of the entrance.
I heard that on Hard Difficulty, a total of three stages proceed with 3, 6, and 10 Golems.
The Golems' defense is quite high; they have no specific weak points, and they are not an attack unit.
It meant they only moved and didn't attack.
Coming out of the entrance, advancing along the path, and leaving through the exit were all they did.
However, as with any defense game, I naturally couldn't let the Golems out of the exit.
If that happened, the System Voice I just heard would announce a “Great Incineration” across the entire Workshop and count down a 10-second timer.
Incineration would mean burning with fire, but no one had actually confirmed it. If they had seen it, they would be dead.
Anyway, if even one Golem went out of the exit, the clear would fail.
I would probably end up being incinerated as well.
So my job was to destroy all the Golems coming out of the entrance and to prevent their escape.
In this Tower Defense, I was essentially the tower, except I could move around freely.
Looking at more detailed data based on Hard Difficulty:
The interval between Golems appearing is about 5 meters, and the time it takes to move from the entrance to the exit is said to be 150 seconds. That means it takes 30 seconds per straight course.
And the break time between stages is 1 minute.
It was just for reference.
Since it was Nightmare, there could be more Golems, their movement speed could be faster, the Golems might attack, strange Golems might pop out, or some weird gimmick or trick might be included, making the clear condition completely different. Or it could be all of the above.
The beginning of the path where the Golems come out.
I moved there by hopping along the top of the wall.
For reference, all structures in this place except the Golems were said to be indestructible objects. It meant changing the terrain of the path was impossible.
I immediately used Summon for Flee.
"Your role is big, Flee. Got it?"
Flee jumped lightly down onto the Path.
I was still on top of the Wall.
Flee would directly attack the Golems on the path, and I would attack with magic skills from up here.
My body was already weakened, so fighting together on the path would only get in the way of Flee running wild.
In fact, I had chosen penalty number 1 with this kind of role assignment in mind.
Ding-
Right on cue, the indicator changed to red with a sound. The door of the entrance opened.
Now, come on out.
I watched the entrance with a bit of tension.
Thud, thud, thud...
The sound of heavy footsteps.
The first Golem revealed itself from the entrance.
A bipedal form, its size only slightly larger than Flee.
Its body was made of a white, rock-like material, and something like a blue core was embedded in the center of its torso.
Kaaaa-!
As soon as the Golem came out, Flee lunged at it.
When Flee struck the Golem's head area with its front paw, it crumbled completely.
One down for now... Hmm?
I tilted my head while preparing to cast a Skill.
Golems kept coming out of the Entrance one by one, but they were all easily smashed to pieces with just a single attack from Flee.
Smashed as soon as they came out; smashed as soon as they came out.
There was no need to even fire off a skill, so I just quietly watched.
‘...Is it easy because it's still stage 1?’
Of course, Flee was also strong. It had Level 50-tier physicals, after all.
Ding-
A total of five Golems popped out.
The indicator changed to blue, and the entrance closed again.
The first stage was over.
So Nightmare is five Golems. Will the next be ten?
Only the Golem pieces and cores, shattered to pieces by Flee, remained on the path.
If it went as I knew, stage 2 would start in 1 minute.
In the meantime, I walked around and observed my surroundings.
A slight feeling of suspicion was already starting to rise.
The most terrible thing about Nightmare was that it set up traps that were absolutely impossible to know on the first try.
The Crossbow Goblins on the 1st Floor, the Illusionary Platforms on the 2nd Floor, the underground space on the 3rd Floor...
Rather than saying there was no way to know, it would be more accurate to say that by the time you found out, it was already too late.
There was definitely going to be something on the 4th Floor as well.
But nothing stood out yet.
Did things need to progress further?
Or was I just failing to notice it? Ugh, the PTSD from the 3rd Floor.
Ding-
The indicator changed to red.
As the next stage began, the Golem Remnants left on the Path turned to dust and disappeared.
Returning to the beginning of the path, I kept my eyes on the entrance.
The exact same type of Golem as in stage 1 popped out.
With one hit per guy, Flee ran wild as expected, crumbling them like styrofoam.
As expected, a total of ten Golems popped out in stage 2.
All the Golems were spawn-killed before they could even take a few steps from the entrance.
This time too, I didn't need to use a single skill.
Since Hard Difficulty was 3, 6, and 10 Golems... maybe the next one would be a bit more than fifteen?
But with Golems this weak, it wouldn't matter how many came out.
If it had ended at stage 3 like the other difficulties, I would have already progressed through two-thirds of the clear.
That made no sense. There was no way that was the case, right?
It would be more rational to believe that the Earth is flat instead.
I couldn't relax my guard at all.
To maintain the Exaltation Effect, I kept moving my body side to side, waiting for the next stage to begin.
Ding-
The red light of the indicator was on. Stage 3 began.
The Golem Remnants piled up on the path disappeared.
The entrance opened, and the white Golems came out yet again.
There were twenty of them in total, and Flee easily smashed them all to pieces as well.
stage 3 ended quickly too.
Could it be that it was easy because I had become much stronger than I thought?
I harbored a fleeting hope and watched to see if, by some one-in-a-million chance, Clear Complete would pop up, but no, no such thing happened.
Instead of a message, the System Voice rang out again.
- Not only the normal Golems, but even the special Golems that our Workshop poured its heart and soul into creating have broken free from control and are malfunctioning... complete disposal, complete disposal-
- The Blue Golems almost perfectly ignore 99% of physical damage... Please be careful when responding...
What?
The indicator changed to red and the entrance opened.
A blue Golem, different from the ones just before.
Only the color was different; its form and the core embedded in the center of its torso were exactly the same.
Flee lunged immediately and struck the Golem's head with its front paw.
BANG!
The Golem only fell over, but it didn't break.
Flee grabbed and bit the Golem as it tried to get back up and advance, but there was still no damage.
Right, so there's a bit of a variation now?
"Flee, fall back."
Flee, who had been biting and hanging onto the Golem like a chew toy, leaped backward.
I fired a Flame Strike toward the fallen Golem and the other Golem that followed it out of the entrance.
BOOOOM!
Five fireballs caused a massive explosion.
The two Golems were smashed to pieces.
The blue Golems ignored 99% of physical damage.
Flee's attacks wouldn't work.
Conversely, it meant my magic skills would work perfectly fine.
Three more Golems popped out out of the entrance.
There was no need to waste firepower, so I had Flee block the path.
Since the Golems didn't attack, when Flee grabbed onto one and held it back, the Golems behind it also had their path blocked and couldn't advance properly.
I waited for the 30-second cooldown, made Flee fall back, and fired another Flame Strike at the clustered Golems.
BOOOOM!
All of them cleared cleanly.
The indicator changed to blue and the entrance closed.
Is the next stage 5 going to be ten blue Golems just like this?
At this rate... I could easily clear up to twenty of them, couldn't I?
Furthermore, if I just herded the Golems into a single straight path, I could wipe them all out at once with Line of Destruction.
There was no need to do that yet. Line of Destruction had a 3-minute cooldown, so I had to save it.
The Golem Remnants disappeared on the path, and stage 5 began.
As expected, ten blue Golems popped out.
I had Flee block the path appropriately again, and when the Golems were all clustered together, I fired off a skill to do some mob hunting.
I easily cleared the twenty Golems in stage 6 in the same manner.
Before the start of stage 7, the System Voice rang out again.
- The Red Golems almost perfectly ignore 99% of magic damage... Please be careful when responding...
This time it's ignoring magic damage?
The Golem Remnants on the path disappeared, and the entrance opened.
A red Golem popped out.
Likewise, its form, other than its color was exactly the same, and a core was embedded in the center of its torso.
Conversely, it was Flee's turn to run wild again.
Flee attacked the red Golem crawling out.
Aside from the trait of ignoring magic damage, the red Golem's base stats also seemed stronger than those of the white Golems.
It withstood Flee's attacks better and advanced more forcefully.
Though it still ended up breaking eventually.
Flee took care of all five of them before they could pass the first course.
stage 8 began.
Ten of them were a bit more overwhelming.
Still, Flee managed to take care of all of them before they passed the middle of the second course.
For the final stage 9, I stepped up as well.
I went down to the path and tried hitting the Red Golems a bit, but...
My attacks, suffering from the penalty of halved physical abilities, didn't do much damage to the Golems.
SWOOOSH!
Instead, I used skills only to help with Advance Prevention against the Golems.
Even if I couldn't inflict damage, they could be pushed back, so when I used Blade Storm and the like, they bounced back perfectly fine.
In the meantime, Flee took care of the Golems one by one.
We blocked all twenty Golems in stage 9 before they passed the second course, and we were able to get past it without much difficulty.
"..."
A sense of incongruity.
I felt a sense of incongruity.
It wasn't stemming from Sixth Sense, just my own intuition.
‘This isn't Nightmare's style.’
The Golems were gradually getting stronger, and the difficulty was increasing.
But this wasn't a gimmick or a trick; it was just something that had to be beaten with sheer power.
The 1st Floor, 2nd Floor, and 3rd Floor—even if the difficulty was vicious, as long as you knew the solution, they weren't to the point where other Nightmare challengers physically couldn't clear them.
Is this at a level that a Level 30 climber can currently handle...?
The blue Golems with Physical Damage Immunity were no different from a disaster for other Climbers who had a hard time properly using magic-type skills.
The increasingly stronger specs of the Golems were also reaching a point where even Flee was slowly starting to struggle.
I looked around.
I had been continuously searching since earlier during every rest period to see if there was some hidden space or device like on the 3rd Floor, but I couldn't find a single thing.
The only passages existing here were the entrance where the Golems came out, and the exit.
It was said that the Elimination Count would start if anything, not just Golems, passed through the exit, so I couldn't go out of the exit.
I had also approached the entrance earlier when it was open during the Stage progression, but my Sixth Sense sounded an alarm, so it didn't seem to be it either.
I couldn't figure it out... Nightmare was always like this.
“But how many stages does this even have?”
Just as the sense of incongruity was growing deeper, the System Voice rang out again.