Chapter 26
The swords clash. Sparks fly as they collide in an instant.
The knight realizes he is outmatched in technique and tries to overwhelm her with sheer strength, but Lee Do-hee refuses to meet force with force, continually letting his sword slide away.
One who tries to clash, and one who lets it flow.
It is like water and oil mixing and dancing together. Sword techniques too fast and flashy for an ordinary person to follow exchange several moves in a single second. A lapse in concentration, even for an instant, means death.
The evenly matched battle continues.
Whenever the knight steps forward, Lee Do-hee willingly gives up a step.
But before he knows it, she has mysteriously retreated another step.
‘What ghostlike swordsmanship.’
The knight thought.
From a woman who seemed to have lived barely twenty years, he saw the figure of a Sword Demon who seemed to have spent her entire life on battlefields.
It was the knight who first broke the rhythm of their evenly matched battle.
The problem was his aura.
Aura was not infinite. Since it was the power of a miracle, it was not usually used except in short decisive battles.
‘I have to decide this before then.’
There would be only one decisive moment.
A single move possible only because he held the initiative.
The ultimate secret technique that had enabled him to rise to the position of knight commander.
The knight saw his chance.
And the moment both of Lee Do-hee's feet touched the ground!
He exploded all his remaining mana and wrapped it around his entire body. His technique, which made him look like a storm of mana, was a secret art that forcibly boosted his entire body and reaction speed with mana.
He felt as though the entire world except him had slowed down.
With mana, he could maintain this for only three seconds.
“Dieeeee!!!”
- Boom!!
He charged straight ahead, tearing through the air.
He swung his sword at several times the speed and with several times the force of before.
‘Wait, she can react to this?’
In a world where only he had sped up.
He could see her eyes following his sword.
‘That’s impossible…’
- Clang!
As sword and sword collided, his finishing attack was smoothly deflected.
He had clearly grown stronger and faster, yet his opponent fought him as though he were no different from before.
‘Once more…!’
- Clang!
Her sword coiled around his like a snake and deflected it again, proving the first time hadn't been a fluke.
‘I can't let her deflect the last one!!’
An unavoidable head-on vertical slash.
He had to finish her with this one move.
- Clang!!!
Powerful forces crossed and sent sparks flying, but
She deflected it diagonally, as though she already knew exactly where it would land before his sword even moved.
An unpleasant feeling, as though her swordsmanship were guiding the path of his sword.
For an instant, he felt as though he had encountered an impassable wall.
-Boom!!
The smoothly deflected sword struck the innocent ground, and his slowed world returned to reality.
And then he felt a cold sensation at his neck.
- Slash!!
His vision spun round and round, and he looked at her.
‘What beautiful swordsmanship…’
That was his final thought.
*
“Phew… That scared me.”
I was a little flustered when the final attack came in. I had deflected it too forcefully at the end, and my hand was trembling slightly.
But either way, it was all more or less the same.
If the speed I had achieved in my previous life was 100, then that guy was around…
Maybe 10 to 20?
My body is slow, but if I anticipate it, it isn't too much for me to block.
In particular, the final attack had an obvious trajectory. If he hadn't relied on his speed and strength and had attacked more diversely—or chosen hand-to-hand combat or wrestling instead of his sword—he might have beaten me.
In the end, his pride as a knight and the habit of swinging a sword all his life had been his undoing.
Anyway,
It's over now.
“Waaaaaaaaah!!!”
“The whore defeated the enemy commander!!!”
“Waaaaaaaaah!!!!”
Amid the cheers of the surrounding vanguard soldiers, the Tower's voice finally rang out.
[You have cleared Floor 4 of the Tower of Trials. The true-ending reward will be granted.]
‘Just as I thought.’
[Choose an S-rank reward]
As expected. This must be an A-rank trial.
The theme of this reward is elemental affinity.
It's simple.
Whether to use ordinary blue mana with no attribute, red mana advantageous for fire, or black magic, white magic, or divine power. This is where one chooses among them.
Of course, if I want to handle everything evenly, I can choose no attribute and take only the total mana reward.
And what I will choose is...
‘Not yet.’
Right, it wasn't time to choose the reward yet.
The reward that appears when you clear the Tower.
But clearing it doesn't forcibly send you to the waiting room. You can choose whether to go there and receive the reward or not.
And during that time, you can choose whether to climb to the next floor or not.
This time, I was given one hour.
I don't know if it was given so I could grab anything I needed and exchange even a brief farewell with my comrades, but today I was truly grateful for this time.
“Hey, you, can I borrow your spear?”
I borrow a spear from a man among the vanguard soldiers who has a gigantic spear about two meters long.
“Huh…?”
“Hold this instead.”
“Oh…? Is this a sign that you've chosen me…?”
I don't know what misunderstanding he had, but his face reddens.
“Th-the whore chose me!!! Kha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“Tch… I'm jealous. If it were up to me, I'd do it right now… Ngh..”
“Damn it. I'll go after another bitch.”
If I had been a pathetic whore, naturally these guys would have forced me into an endless gangbang here, but after watching me fight, none of them dare approach recklessly.
And they aren't what matters.
The main army, finally arriving late.
I can see the vanguard commander from earlier slowly approaching on horseback. His expression is full of questions, as though he is surprised that the vanguard alone managed to take the castle.
This place is, after all, a kind of virtual world.
That doesn't mean it's like a game world where the humans here have no emotions, but it is a world that resets infinitely no matter what.
So wouldn't it be a shame to leave things like this?
The distance to the bald commander is approximately 500 meters.
Gathering strength throughout my body, I take a throwing-spear stance.
The strength of my past-
I can't recreate it, but I can at least assume a similar stance.
<SS-Rank Karios Dairn's Secret Spear-Throwing Manual>
The technique with the greatest destructive power found here.
Technique name: Meteor Spear Fall
A technique that simply throws a spear from the air.
Although it isn't in my status window, I can't use mana to replicate it, but I can at least throw it from a physically similar stance.
- Tap-tap-tap!!
“Uh…? Where are you going!”
I run out beyond the castle wall.
I step on the battlements, put strength into my legs, and jump high into the sky.
I can't stand being in someone's debt. Honestly, I don't know whether it will work, but I'll try it first.
“You son of a bitch!! Dieeeee!!!”
Revenge for toying with my p***y!!
I bend my body as far as possible, then straighten like a bow and throw the spear.
- Whoooosh!!!
The spear, fired like a cannon in an instant, flies straight at the bald commander who humiliated me.
“Hmm?”
The moment he recognizes the spear,
- Thunk!!!
My spear pierces straight through the center of his chest.
“Kugh!!”
‘You fucking bastard, serves you right!!’
It feels like a knot in my heart has come undone. His chest blows wide open with an immensely satisfying pop~.
He looks at the spear and me floating in the air as if unable to believe it.
Then he falls from his horse and dies just like that.
- Thud!!
And at the same time as he falls
“Kweh!”
I fall too.
“Ha!! Time to go.”
Just as I was about to move to the waiting room.
[You have achieved the hidden ending. Your reward has been upgraded.]
“Huh…? What?”
[An SS-rank reward will be granted. Choose your reward.]
"Whaaa....????"
What is going on? SS-rank??
“Hey? I mean, it's good and all… but isn't there any explanation?”
An old saying passed down from long ago.
The Tower is unkind.
No, but it should at least give a basic explanation!!
Why on earth did killing that guy count as the hidden ending?
“Fuck, let's run for now. To the waiting room!”
- Whoosh!
First, I move to the waiting room to evade the soldiers chasing me.
“Phew… guys, let me open the chat for now, okay?”
At last, I make it to my small white waiting room where I can communicate at ease.
- Doha~
- Kya, this is Lee Do-hee
- Is SS-rank for real?
- Consecutive SS-ranks, fuckㅋㅋㅋㅋ
- What was that hidden ending?
- Don't try to scam us, you bitch aaahhh!!!
- So why is it the hidden ending?
“No, I don't know either. I just killed him because I was pissed off, so why is this the hidden ending?”
- So is this officially confirmed now?
- Seriously, did nobody know about this until now?
- It's not that they didn't know; it's that they couldn't do it, right?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
- Those commanders are fucking strong, at least.
- Was this information already out there?
This is information I didn't know even in my previous life.
Of course, not all trials share exactly the same content, so I can't know whether killing the commander will count as a hidden ending in other trials. More samples will need to emerge.
But this is a newly discovered possibility for a hidden ending.
There have hardly ever been floors where both the true ending and the hidden ending were discovered.
“We'll have to see when we go back later. Maybe that guy was just a bad person, and I don't know what will happen in other trials. But attacking a commander obviously gets you killed, so you guys shouldn't rashly imitate me, okay?”
That commander was skilled enough that I couldn't guarantee victory even in a straightforward fight. It only worked because I ambushed the commander from a distance while he was defenseless.
- For realㅋㅋ
- ‘You can't.’
- How are you supposed to imitate that?
- Killing him at the beginning obviously ruins everything, and killing him at the end… that's hard too.
- But how the hell did she do that final spear throw?
- Seriously, what was that spear throw? It looked like she fired a K-9 self-propelled howitzerㅋㅋ
- Anyway, that was fucking awesome.
“Ahem, shall we look at the reward first?”
I can't explain that spear throw either.
Anyway, once again, a dazzling SS-rank reward.
“Kya~ Isn't this why you climb the Tower?”
This time, it's not cards; clusters of mana in various colors float before me.
- It's mana attributes.
- This is important, yeah.
- Fuck, how much of a boost will SS-rank give her?
- Lee Do-hee cheated again.
“Hehehe, what do you mean, cheated~? It's all thanks to you guys~! Thanks to all your generous donations and support, I was able to get this far!!”
I'm feeling good right now.
I got my revenge in a satisfying way, and with an SS-rank reward too, my womb is practically fluttering and trembling again.
‘Is bo-kyung bo-kyung right?’
Anyway, that area is trembling. This euphoric feeling, like I'm about to squirt.
That's why I'm feeling generous enough to give the viewers credit too.
"And luck is a skill too! Hehehehe..."
- Fuck, this bitch is flexing!
- Ah, this is so unfair. I should've taken down the commander on Floor 4 too!!
- As if anyone besides you could do that.
- Fuck
- Aaaaargh!!
[Ask donated 50,000 won]
I sexually harassed the viewers like crazy while you were being forced to suck dick~
“Ahem, let's not ruin the mood.”
‘That bastard…’
I don't exactly want to know the viewers' red-pill truth either. That's why I absolutely never watch my own replays.
- Ahem
- Hey, hey, hey
- You're a sage now?
- Ackㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
- Ahem!
- That bastard did it too though;;
“Er… let's just look at the reward!”
Ignoring that guy, I look over each of the options, starting with the first, non-attribute one.
<SS-Rank Non-Attribute Mana>
Maintains existing mana.
Mana amount +100%
“Kya~ This is really good too. 100%... That's ridiculous.”
- It's seriously cheating.
- Must feel like she owns the worldㅆㅂ
- What the hell, that mana;;
- That's impossible.
But this is not a very good choice. Since I already have so many mana-related traits that it gets multiplied by 778%, choosing this would only bring it to 878%.
And I've already decided what I'll choose.
“There are two options for now… shall we look at this one first?”
White mana radiating holy light, with a slight tinge of gold.
That's right, this is none other than—
<SS-Rank Divine Power of Goddess Hestia>
The efficiency of all healing spells increases by 100%.
This is good too, but it's not what I'll use.
<SS-Rank Divine Power of Goddess Elios>
The efficiency of all buffs increases by 100%.
“Kya~ This is the one, everyone.”
This is exactly the one I planned to choose.
Choosing Priest also expands the types of divine power available to choose from, and there is divine power that focuses on buffs among them.
It feels like a mix of white and pale pink, and somehow it seems to suit me too.
"Now, if I choose this and look at the other skills?"
<Haste lv.1>
Consumes 5 Mana. Increases Agility by 2 for 1 hour.
Buff efficiency has increased by a full twofold.
That's not all.
I'll grow at an incredible speed as I learn more buff skills and level up my buffs going forward.
'Good. I'm catching up.'
The path I took in my past life.
In terms of stats, I still haven't caught up, but I will soon.
Becoming stronger quickly isn't what's important.
The number of floors of the Tower where I can receive rewards is fixed.
That's why it's important to grow stronger reliably and efficiently.
"Next floor. I'm going right away."
I don't stop.
***
And before long, a post goes up on Lee Do-hee's fan cafe...
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[Title]: I think this is why she achieved the hidden ending?