Chapter 178
“In the end, the key is the high-grade mana stone.”
High-grade mana stone. And the infinite-climb and escape functions made from it.
The intent of this patch was all too clear.
They want to shove more people into the Tower.
They want more hunters to be active.
“Why are they going this far?”
What is the Tower’s purpose?
Suddenly, a line from the patch notes came to mind.
[We are recruiting more observers to stabilize history.]
“Observers, huh...”
Could it be that the hunters climbing the Tower are called observers?
And history refers to the world that I interfered with and changed?
Whenever I finished climbing in ten-floor increments, there were always changes.
Thinking about that, it was a plausible inference.
“I think there was something similar in quantum mechanics, too.”
Thanks to my clearer head lately, I had read a lot of books.
Among them were books introducing quantum mechanics.
In quantum mechanics, doesn’t a state only get determined when it’s observed?
Maybe the Tower works on a similar principle.
Whatever the case, it seems they need a reason for countless people to climb the Tower.
“This feels like a huge discovery?”
My heart pounded.
I had to post this to the gallery right away. Or at least to the news.
I didn’t know how much information had been revealed to other people, but even if I leaked just a tenth of what I knew, it would definitely stir things up.
“…Wait, the gallery?”
Then, all of a sudden, I felt something off.
Just until a little while ago, I hadn’t been thinking about the gallery at all.
And now, in the meantime, I’m getting the urge to show off again?
Hadn’t I even sworn I’d quit pointless gallery browsing for good?
“Don’t tell me the mental immunity buff has worn off?”
The mental protection buff that was supposed to last until I cleared the 50th floor.
The thing that had kept me safe from the garbage dump that was the gallery was definitely gone.
“Then it really must mean the 50th floor was cleared...”
Even now, I still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on.
“Ms. Kim Hanbyeol! Have you come out?”
“Hanbyeol! You cleared the 50th floor in one minute—say a few words!”
“Is this related to the world announcement?”
I could hear the reporters shouting from outside.
Voices were murmuring beyond the dirt wall I had made.
The reporters must have sensed the Tower’s changes too and gotten excited.
“Should I go home first...”
Staying here any longer would only make my head spin.
It seemed better to sort things out slowly at home.
Let’s pack up first.
I began gathering up the items I had laid out while preparing for the 50th-floor boss.
First, my beloved staff.
“Huh?”
The feeling in my hand was strange.
I hurriedly examined the staff.
“What is this...?”
The Root of the World Tree.
It was the weapon I had been using nonstop since the 20th floor.
The item that had turned me from a sand mage into an earth mage.
[Root of the World Tree]
[Grade: Legendary]
[Overloaded.]
As if to prove I wasn’t imagining it, the status window was also displaying a line I’d never seen before.
It was the final confirmation.
“Overload...”
Just as the word suggested, the staff was cracked.
Through the gaps, a dangerous-looking golden light was seeping out.
Was it broken?
It didn’t seem that way.
Rather, it was more like the stage before a chick breaks out of its shell.
Just in case, I touched some of the badly cracked parts with my hand.
The bark peeled off easily, like cracking an egg.
The inside wasn’t visible; instead, an even stronger golden light poured out.
Could this be some kind of item enhancement event?
For some reason, I gathered up the mana I’d nearly drained dry and sent it into the staff.
Kugugugugu!
Suddenly the ground trembled, and the wall rose several more meters.
I heard the reporters outside scream in alarm.
“Huh?”
The output was much stronger than I expected.
It was enough that I’d need to control my strength in everyday life.
It seemed this really was an enhancement event.
Intrigued, I touched the shell again.
“Should I peel the whole shell off?”
[Warning! The overload is getting worse.]
“Tch.”
A red warning line appeared over the item.
The status window was clearly dead set on stopping me.
I had no choice but to stop peeling off the shell.
I’d have to ask the elf and see if I could enhance it more later.
“Could it be that my other gear got enhanced too?”
Now that my most important piece of gear had changed,
I didn’t think the other equipment would have stayed the same.
With a pounding heart, I picked them up one by one to inspect them.
But what awaited me was not enhanced items.
“...The talisman’s broken?”
A one-time talisman for preventing instant death.
An anchor-shaped necklace containing the Turtle King’s resentment.
It had already turned to black ash, as if it had been used.
That wasn’t all.
“The mirror’s wrecked too...”
The attack-reflecting mirror I had ripped off in Japan.
That was also a one-time Legendary item.
All that remained on the floor were broken glass shards.
“Don’t tell me the belt too?”
The belt containing time-rewinding magic that Maggakjung had given me.
It was my last resort.
Because I always had that in mind, I’d been able to do all kinds of crazy things without worrying about my life.
“The belt itself is fine... it’s just empty on the inside.”
The belt itself was perfectly fine, since it was nothing more than a vessel for storing magic.
But the crucial time-reversal magic had already been used.
“What the hell happened...”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Instant death prevention, attack reflection, time reversal.
Each one was a ridiculously powerful one-time effect.
And all of them were gone?
Meanwhile, for reasons I didn’t know, the staff had been enhanced.
Along with the word “overload.”
A symptom I’d never experienced even after using several times more mana than my body could handle.
All of it happened without me knowing? How could that be?
“...No way?”
One hypothesis came to mind.
It was a deduction bordering on a stretch.
But my intuition was whispering that this was the right answer.
“Was my memory of the fight erased?”
The clue to the deduction was the word “one hour.”
The status window had definitely told me this.
‘Impossible achievement, survive for one hour.’
Conveniently, the time Maggakjung’s magic could rewind was also only one hour.
“Besides, they said only about one minute had passed outside the Tower...”
In my own sense of time, the moment the ten-second countdown ended, the clear notification appeared outside the Tower and I was kicked out.
In other words, I hadn’t even lasted one second.
That one minute must have been nothing more than the time between me entering the Tower, talking with Tichi, and going through the gate.
If I spent one hour inside the Tower while only one minute passed outside, there was only one explanation: time reversal.
And then there were my items and the state of my body.
Traces as if I had been in a desperate battle.
It was obvious.
I fought for an hour.
And then I reversed time and came out of the Tower after clearing the quest.
For some reason, all the memories of that process had been wiped.
As if I had pressed the 100-million-year button.
It was a deduction full of leaps, but my intuition kept whispering that this was the answer.
“But why did I fight for an entire hour?”
That was the part I absolutely couldn’t understand.
Once I held out for one minute, the mission should have been over and I should have come out with my reward.
What happened? Why on earth had I fought such a desperate battle for an hour?
Besides, I could always use the flag to leave the Tower whenever I wanted.
It was infuriating.
“I need to recover my memories.”
I couldn’t just leave this alone.
I had to find out what I had done during that hour.
Just in case, I asked Sandworm and Chohogi too.
“Do you remember what happened?”
[??]
[Sandworm also says it was sent outside the Tower the instant the countdown ended. But as you said, it’s entirely possible your memory was tampered with.]
“So that’s how it is.”
This was definitely not normal.
It didn’t seem impossible that an enemy could erase my memory.
Even the priest on the 49th floor had shown all kinds of transcendental abilities, from nullifying divine power to time reversal.
Maybe Maggakjung’s magic itself had some insane hidden option that made you forget any time you rewound.
“There’s only one person I can ask...?”
I hurried home.
If the black magician at home knew something, maybe I could find out.
If it was a mental spell like memory restoration magic, he’d know better than anyone.
**
As soon as I got home, I ran to the fish tank.
[You’ve returned?]
“Doctor, check my body.”
[More nonsense again...]
The black magician greeted me as indifferently as ever.
He was leisurely turning pages with his tentacles, acting relaxed.
But that composure didn’t last long.
The moment he saw me, his single eye began to twitch.
[Hah!]
“What’s wrong?”
[You crazy bastard! What the hell did you come back smeared with, and where did you get it?]
“What?”
Thinking he was suddenly spouting nonsense, I looked down at my body.
My clothes were fine. I didn’t smell either.
“There’s nothing on me.”
[No, it’s all over you! A truly vile and blasphemous aura...]
“W-what is that?”
I was already uneasy because my memory had been erased, and now that he was making such a fuss, I was very worried.
[...It’s the lingering thought of someone who has attained divinity. Where on earth did you pick something like this up?]
Someone who obtained divinity?
Of course, there was only one possibility. The 50th-floor boss.
The massive being that had looked down at me from beyond the universe.
Don’t tell me its trace is still left on my body?
“Is this dangerous?”
[Of course it is. This is a sort of marking. There’s no problem for now, but if you meet it again, it’ll become extremely dangerous. The chance that thing finds you will rise too.]
“I might run into that thing again?”
That was a problem.
Even for that brief moment, it was not an opponent I could beat.
I asked in a hurry.
“Can’t you get rid of it somehow?”
[...Grr.]
The black magician hesitated, but soon extended a tentacle as if he had made up his mind.
[Come here. I shall remove it myself.]
He stretched a tentacle out of the fish tank and placed it against my forehead.
An unpleasant sensation.
At the same time, I felt something flowing in from his tentacle.
Only then could I be certain that something had indeed been attached to my body.
[Damn it, so it’s impossible with this body after all...!]
The black magician spat out a curse.
At the same time, his only tentacle crumbled to dust and disappeared.
He returned to being a neat spherical one-eyed sea urchin.
[Huff... huff...]
He sank to the bottom of the fish tank, looking exhausted.
I was deeply surprised by what he had done.
Just how much trouble had he gone through to get that tentacle?
“Don’t tell me you sacrificed yourself for me?”
[Don’t get the wrong idea. I couldn’t sleep with something like that attached to someone near me, so I got rid of it.]
“...Thank you. Really.”
I said it sincerely.
If it hadn’t been for him, I might have gone on living without even knowing I was in danger.
The black magician answered in a weak voice.
[If you know, make sure you pay it back... and it’d be even better if you could get me that gem from last time again.]
“Got it. I’ll fish one up for you later.”
I nodded.
For a debt this big, that much was only fair.
After taking a breath, I brought up the real reason I’d come.
“But I think I’ve lost some memories.”
[Your memory?]
“Yeah. I’m missing about an hour. I think I picked up that residual thought then too.”
[You really do all sorts of ridiculous things.]
I told him about what I had gone through and the items that had broken.
“Is there any way to recover my memories? With something like a mental spell?”
[Hmm... I’ve thought of a good method. A very traditional and effective one. Conveniently, you also have a fitting item for it.]
“What is it?”
[Hypnosis.]
The black magician’s eye gleamed.
[I seem to remember you saying you had a related item last time. Besides, your voice has that kind of power too.]
“Right.”
[Use that to hypnotize yourself. Sink deep into your unconscious. Then you might be able to find the fragments of your lost memory.]
Self-hypnosis.
It was a method I hadn’t considered.
But it sounded pretty plausible.
The siren’s vocal cords and the deep-sea anglerfish’s lantern. Both had hypnotic effects.
What if I used those two on myself?
The reason I hadn’t been hypnotized so far was entirely thanks to the World Tree pendant.
If I took my equipment off for a bit, there shouldn’t be a problem.
“That sounds pretty plausible.”
[Hmph, this much is basic.]
I decided to put it into action right away.
I turned off the lights and drew the curtains.