Chapter 4
Even after Han Yoo-seong closed the Transcendent Gallery and hurried on, the topic of conversation in the <Transcendent Gallery> remained centered on him.
Title : But even if we somehow help that guy, what do we stand to gain?
Author : Closed-Room Theorist
-Sure, it does relieve our boredom, yeah. But aside from that, is there really anything in it for us?
└ Isn't it enough if it's entertaining?
└ Since when did the demon uncle start thinking about anything meaningful, and why is he looking for benefits? LMAO
└ Head Mod) There might be something in it for us.
└ ?? Benefits?
└ Shaman) Head Mod-nim, please tell us more!!
└ Head Mod) We can trade among ourselves, right? It seems we might be able to trade items with a climber too.
Cross-dimensional trade was possible in the <Transcendent Gallery>.
└ Closed-Room Theorist) There are plenty of things we could give him, but something we could receive from him… Oh, there is one.
└ ‘Oh, there is one,’ my ass. LMAOOOOOOO
└ Pioneer) Hmm, if it's possible, there should be plenty we could get, right? Even without going to the higher floors, just getting past Floor 30. Someone must need things like the 《Phantom Tree》 or the 《Wraith Reunion Rune》….
└ Pioneer) And even without reaching Floor 30, the Climber Coin Shop opens as soon as he reaches Floor 2. He might be able to get food there too.
└ Pioneer) I don't remember what else I got from the Tower, but I still think about the food from the Martial Arts District. I've kept trying to make mapo tofu, but it never tastes the same.
└ I'm a martial artist, but I occasionally think about those red grain-avoiding noodles… pasta. Eating a bowl every time we climbed a flight of stairs was practically a ritual… I don't know why food disappears whenever we trade across dimensions among ourselves.
└ Head Mod) That's true. Things bought directly from the Coin Shop are in special storage containers, so they probably won't disappear.
└ Heavenly Demon) So, Head Mod. Have you tried cross-dimensional trade with that climber?
└ Head Mod) Yeah, I tried, but it said cross-dimensional trading was disabled because the target wasn't qualified yet. That means it might be activated later, right? It might activate as soon as he reaches Floor 2.
└ Light's Sword) We could give him a sword manual.
└ Head Mod) Yeah. If weapons follow the same standards as our cross-dimensional trades, every weapon we sent would have a minimum usable level of 200 or higher. We should give him a sword manual or spellbook. Something like that.
└ Pioneer) Right. Even if we give him a weapon, he can't use it….
└ Shaman) Hawawa, this maiden shall give him a talisman.
└ Pioneer) A maiden?
└ Shaman) Be quiet. Old man.
└ Absolute Sovereign) A sword manual, you say. Light's Sword, you seem rather intent on teaching that fellow like a disciple. You've also given him the most advice. I'm curious why.
└ Light's Sword) The biggest reason is amusement. Starting from Floor 2, when scores begin being tallied for each floor. It would be extremely entertaining if a climber I've helped placed near the top of the overall Easy, Normal, and Hard rankings.
└ Light's Sword) And I don't like the people currently placing near the top of this cohort. I want to scare them a little.
Light's Sword was extremely interested in and intrigued by Han Yoo-seong.
└ Light's Sword) In just a few days, he'll come face-to-face with the other players at the 《Tower Exchange》 held once a month. Even if he's on his own for now. I'm very curious to see how that plays out.
└ Great Mage) You really think he can do that well? Him?
└ It would be damn fun if things went the way Light's Sword said. But it's scary that he might have died even as we're saying this.
└ Ice Queen) I made an iceberg of prayers for Mr. Climber's safe return! Don't say things like that! Frozen solid!
└ Head Mod) Ah, right. I haven't even asked the climber's name yet. I should ask when he comes back alive.
└ Head Mod just said something that sounds like it's going to trigger a death flag. LMAOOOOOOO
└ The climber triggered the death flag before Head Mod did. ‘See you alive’—what does that even mean? See you alive. Hmm, sounds like he's going to die.
└ Head Mod) You're blocked until the climber returns alive.
└ Ah.
* * *
Crack!
The spear shaft shattered. Before my eyes stood a dark-green monster with both hands covered in blood.
Judging by its appearance, it was probably a goblin.
I had barely managed to block the axe swung by the goblin by holding the shaft crosswise.
I rolled across the floor and grabbed the remaining shaft with the spearhead still attached.
Thrust!
As I rose, I drove the spearhead, held like a dagger, through the goblin's throat.
Kheugh!
A thin moan escaped the goblin's mouth from mere inches away. Bright-red blood spurted from its throat.
Then the goblin's body pitched forward.
[Level increased!]
[Lv.1 → Lv.2]
[‘Strength’ increases by 4.]
[‘Agility’ increases by 5.]
[‘Vitality’ increases by 3.]
It seemed like a lot of other notification windows had appeared along with the level-up. But my gaze was directed somewhere else.
Another person was dying right before my eyes.
A woman lay dying with her long hair spread across the ground. Her abdomen was soaked in blood despite the thin armor covering it.
I knew why the woman had those wounds. I had just watched the goblin gouge and churn her abdomen in real time with claws as sharp as swords.
The scream that had filled the floor was still vivid in my ears.
But when I confronted the scene, she had been too far away for me to reach her by running a few dozen steps.
A mouthful of blood burst from her lips, and the woman's head drooped limply.
The woman's twitching body suddenly stopped moving as well.
Words still floated above the woman, who had gone from a living human being to a dead corpse.
[NPC - Fleeing Mercenary]
At that moment, anger came before fear.
Why did I have to keep seeing corpses like this? If they were going to put an NPC right in front of me, shouldn't they at least give me a chance to save them properly?
Even if it was nothing more than an illusion, I hated watching someone die right before my eyes.
What made me even angrier was that…
I was now scavenging this mercenary's belongings.
To survive.
Shing-
In place of my broken spear, I picked up the sword that had clearly belonged to the mercenary.
I also removed a greave that looked like it would fit around my ankle from the mercenary and wrapped it around my own ankle.
There was something else to take from the pouch tied around the mercenary's waist.
There were two potion bottles identical to the Grade 3 Healing Potions carried by the [Fleeing Citizen].
There were also real bandages, not the rags I'd been using in their place.
I closed the mercenary's wide-open eyes. It wasn't some hypocritical gesture. Those were the eyes that had met mine. I just felt unsettled, so I closed them.
“Status Window.”
<Player Status>
Name : Han Yoo-seong
Species : Human
Lv.2
Strength : 16
Agility : 18
Vitality : 14
…The Easy-mode big shots had said that they gained only one point in each stat at most when they leveled up. They'd said Normal mode was one point by default, with an occasional two-point increase in just one of Strength, Agility, or Vitality.
My Strength had increased by 4, Agility by 5, and Vitality by 3.
These numbers were similar to the predictions made by the Hard-mode veterans.
-Light's Sword) If you're in Hard mode, your stats will rise rapidly at first. People like the knights from my world or the martial artists from the Martial Arts District, who were already accustomed to using their strength, have high base stats, so even in Hard mode their increases are pitiful. But you're from twenty-first-century Earth, so yours should rise well.
-Head Mod) I believe there's a gap between the life you lived before and surviving in Hard mode. Those who survive in Hard mode receive compensation for the hardship they endured.
-Head Mod) Most people summoned to Hard mode aren't ordinary people to begin with, so they don't properly feel it. But if you're in Hard mode, you might be able to notice the difference.
I spread both hands wide, then clenched them into fists.
I could feel the difference all too clearly.
Even after retiring as a high-school baseball player, I had exercised moderately, but in the end, all I'd done was go to the gym.
It felt as though both firmness and flexibility had been added to my muscles, flowing from my shoulders down my arms and all the way to my hands.
But did this mean Hard difficulty was confirmed?
Bitterness lingered in my mouth.
I unwound the cloth I had tied around my shoulder blade like a bandage.
It seemed that the ‘complete restoration of vitality,’ one of the effects of leveling up that Light's Sword had explained, had taken place.
I had made it halfway through Floor 1.
The scene spread out before me left me no choice but to think so.
What appeared was a long bridge. A bridge connecting two pieces of land, with a cliff directly below if I fell.
Steel planks on either side served as railings.
This was one of the structures Absolute Sovereign had told me about.
-Absolute Sovereign) For arrows flying in from the left, hide behind the planks on the left and use them as cover. If they fly toward a spot where you can't hide your body, block them with a shield or knock them away with a weapon. I had a rectangular shield, so it was fairly easy to block them, but you don't have one of those, do you?
Absolute Sovereign, who I had hoped might tell me some other way to deal with this, cruelly betrayed that hope.
-Absolute Sovereign) What else can you do but survive on your own? Trust your combat instincts.
This was fucking ridiculous.
I moved forward.
I suppressed the unsettled feeling left by the NPC I hadn't even been able to try to save, and stood before the bridge.
Creak-
I stepped forward.
Onto the bridge.
Wind blew from the right.
Whoooosh!
Three iron arrows came rushing in from the right.
I hurriedly shifted my body toward the right.
I had to take as much cover as possible behind the steel planks.
Crack!
One of the iron arrows bounced off the steel planks.
One—
Clang!
I swung my sword and knocked it away.
There was no time to wonder whether I could do it. I simply had to.
Thunk-!
One of them struck me.
An unreal pain flared up, just as it had when I was attacked by the three-headed Ansranthrop.
The iron arrow had pierced my thigh, but it felt as though my entire leg were about to be ripped out.
Once again, I had no choice but to use that old-fashioned self-hypnosis.
It's a baseball mound.
This is.
Take a deep breath.
A place where I had never collapsed, no matter how tense I became, even a hundred or a thousand times.
A place where I had never given up, no matter how many times I lost.
Glug-!
I gulped down the half-full potion. After swallowing it, I pulled out the embedded arrow. I poured the Grade 3 Healing Potion I had obtained from the [Lv.2 Fleeing Mercenary]'s pouch over the wound. Then I bandaged it.
[Skill ‘Pain Suppression’ level increased. Lv.2]
Shaaahhh─!
This time, the wind blew from the left.
That was a warning that the iron arrows would come rushing in from the left.
I moved my body.
I avoided what I could with cover.
Clang!
I swung my sword and knocked away what I could.
Thrust!
This time, my shoulder?
[Skill ‘Composure’ level increased. Lv.2]
Avoid what I could. Knock away what I could. Take what I had to take.
It was a repetition of that process.
[Danger Detection Lv.1 - Skill acquired.]
I braced for countless arrows and knocked away the chains plunging down from above.
[Expanded Vision Lv.1 - Skill acquired.]
How many tens of minutes had I been walking?
[Focus Enhancement Lv.1 - Skill acquired.]
At last, the end of the long bridge began to appear faintly beyond the fog.
Kagagagagak─ Kagagak!!
And I heard a spine-chilling sound.
It sounded as though something was being diligently cut apart with a saw.
As the fog slowly cleared, I saw an Ansranthrop as tall as a grown man.
It was busily sawing through the enormous stakes supporting the bridge with both arms.
That bastard.
Words appeared above its head.
[BOSS MONSTER]
A boss monster.
[Queen Anthranthrope]
Queen Ansranthrop.
So it was female after all, not male.
I pulled out the arrow lodged in my shoulder and poured a potion over the wound. The pain shaking my brain was overwhelmed by the adrenaline.
My body moved on its own.
Kill it.
[Focus Enhancement Lv.1 - Activating skill.]
The Focus Enhancement skill stated that the caster's vitality would be consumed if it was maintained for a long time.
It was exactly what it sounded like: drawing my concentration up to its maximum.
I read the trajectories of four iron arrows rushing in from the right.
Clang! Clang!
I knocked away two and dodged the other two.
Even then, Queen Ansranthrop continued sawing busily with both legs.
Kagagagagak─!!
The instant I kicked off from the end of the bridge and leaped upward, the long bridge plunged straight down into the abyss.
Kieeeaagh!!
True to her title, the Queen's head was unlike the head structure of the Ansranthrop I had seen before. It had a single enormous head.
It appeared to be covered in an extremely hard shell.
Pain flared hotly throughout my body, but my mind was clearer than ever.
Whoooosh!
I knocked away the leg lunging in from the left, twisted my body to the right, and brought my sword down vertically.
One of its six legs.
Kieeek!
Calmly. I poured every ounce of my concentration into dodging all of its attacks.
Fwoooosh!
It stabbed me once in the abdomen, but I clenched my teeth and endured. I cut off all five of its remaining legs.
Kieeeek!
Thud─!
I brought my sword down on its head. Again.
Thud!
With enough force to crush both my arms.
Thud!
Crackcrackcrack─
I heard a sound like an egg being crushed.
Fragments of the shattered crown of its head dug into the back of my hand, but I paid them no mind.
I could see the purple brain nestled inside.
A brain pulsing grotesquely, like a heart.
I brought my sword down toward that brain.
Soon, notification windows covered my field of vision.
[You have defeated the boss monster!]
[Level increased!]
[Lv.2 → Lv.3]
[‘Strength’ increases by 4.]
[‘Agility’ increases by 3.]
[‘Vitality’ increases by 4.]
[You have cleared Floor 1.]
[Proceed to Floor 2.]
The thick fog ahead of me slowly cleared.
Rumbleeeee-
I had thought it was a wall, but it was a door. Through the open door, I could see a long staircase.
An arrow and a number were visible on the door.
【 2 】↑
Head Mod had said the difficulty was written beside the number.
There were definitely letters written next to it.
And those letters possessed a malevolent force that could instantly wipe away the relief of having killed the boss monster and survived.
I rubbed my eyes and checked again, but it was the same.
“……”
The letters had not changed.
【Pandemonium】
Pandemonium.
I had thought it would be Hard at worst.
Before crossing the bridge, I had resigned myself to being in Hard mode after seeing my stats rise so rapidly.
But the Tower I had fallen into was not merely Hard mode.
-Head Mod) No one has conquered Pandemonium yet.
-Great Mage) The clear rate there is 0%.
I was fucked.
Thoroughly fucked.