Chapter 184: Floor 17 Hidden (1)

[The Tower is making a proposal to ‘Person123’.]

[Upon accepting the following penalty, ‘Person123’ will receive a very special reward in return.]

[Penalty: Increase the difficulty of the Nightmare Difficulty Floor 17 Hidden Route and close all Hidden Routes on floors below Floor 17.]

[Reward: ‘Person123’ will permanently acquire ‘Rule Nullification Authority’.]

[‘Rule Nullification Authority’ can permanently nullify the rules triggered after a floor has been cleared on all difficulties, with no limit on the number of uses.]

.

.

.

The Tower's Offer.

The Tower had been quiet ever since the Joint Battle rule on Floor 10, but now it had made Person123 another offer.

The entire world's attention was focused on it.

[Battery: Tower's up to something again]

[Simple: This Tower bastard seriously never quits. No clue how badly it wants Person123 dead lol]

[Luban: Hidden Route? What's a Hidden Route?]

[Werewolf: Rule Nullification Authority is a pretty insane reward though]

[Songhwang: Dunno what a Hidden is, but doesn't this basically mean they're raising the difficulty?]

For the public, who didn't even know Hidden Routes existed, parts of the offer were difficult to understand from the outset.

Still, the reward of Rule Nullification Authority split public opinion into two noisy camps.

[OtherSideOfDeath: Kinda seems doable... Think Person123 will take it?]

[Natalie: Doesn't really seem like he needs to. Why take the risk?]

[Fon: The rules seem to be getting harsher and harsher, so thinking long-term, it might be worth it]

[WestKing: Why are you all just assuming he'll succeed? Get too complacent and there's no telling what could happen]

[Library: It's honestly hard to imagine Person123 failing though]

There were those who firmly believed Person123 would succeed again because failure simply wasn't something that happened to him, and those who thought there was no reason for him to take on an unnecessary risk.

So far, Person123 had accepted two of the Tower's offers and rejected two.

The only times he had accepted the Tower's Offer were during the Floor 4 clear and the Joint Battle, when people's lives had been directly at stake.

So regardless of all the arguing over whether he should take it or not, the prevailing opinion this time was that he would reject the Tower's Offer.

The world watched Person123's decision with bated breath.

*

- Don't get any foolish ideas. You're not actually thinking of accepting, are you?

As I continued to deliberate, the Demon King's voice reached me.

‘It's Rule Nullification Authority. That's not some ordinary reward.’

- Don't you know by now that the reward is always nothing more than bait?

‘I know that perfectly well.’

Appetizing bait dangling from a hook.

But so far, I'd always managed to eat the bait without getting hooked.

I couldn't help thinking that maybe I could somehow pull it off again this time too.

- How long do you think that luck of yours will last? One failure is all it takes for everything to end.

The Demon King clicked his tongue.

- If it's willing to offer a reward like this, doesn't that mean it's confident it can finish you off for good this time? It'll be far worse than the Zone 10 boss.

‘Probably...’

That was exactly why I was agonizing over it.

[Upon accepting the proposal, ‘Person123’ must enter Nightmare Difficulty Floor 17 within 24 hours and cannot exit until he clears the Hidden Route.]

The Tower's determination to kill me for good on Floor 17 came through loud and clear.

But damn... that reward was just too good to pass up.

Between the Great Invasion and everything else, the Tower's rules were getting more and more outrageous.

What if a rule appeared like the one in Seri's world, where killing Non-Climbers granted levels, or something like Sacrificial Offering?

Or something even worse than those...

By then, the Tower wouldn't bother offering a reward like this.

If people's lives were at stake, it would know that alone was enough to force me to accept its offer.

My younger sister was a Climber now too. There was no telling when she might get dragged into danger again.

This might be a chance that would never come again.

Of course, there was a way to put the problem off.

At the moment, Hard difficulty had been cleared through Floor 18.

If Hard didn't push the highest cleared floor any higher, we'd only have to endure the Floor 18 rule, and after that no more Interval Floor Rules would be triggered.

After all, I had less than a year left to live anyway.

I could put the problem of the rules aside until I found some way to deal with my lifespan, or whatever else I needed to do.

But...

- Exactly. Your lifespan. That's what you should be worrying about first. You'll be dead in a year anyway, rules or no rules, so why would you accept this? What is there even to think about?

I answered the Demon King.

‘...There's just something that's been on my mind lately.’

- What?

‘Can I really do anything about the Tower just by blindly climbing floor after floor?’

The Demon King, Seri, the Sage.

Every Transcendent who had been far more capable than I was had failed.

Bringing down the Tower would take something close to a miracle.

The Demon King said the Tower's offers were poison that should never be accepted, something I should simply ignore...

But Seri's world had been destroyed even though the Tower had never made her a single offer.

What if it was actually the other way around?

Either gain everything, or lose everything.

Maybe I had to keep forcing my way through openings as narrow as the eye of a needle, taking every opportunity to chip away at the Tower's influence whenever one appeared.

Maybe only then would even the slightest possibility of bringing down the Tower finally open up.

It was only a hunch.

A baseless instinct, nothing more.

The Demon King sounded dumbfounded.

- A hunch, my ass. Think about it. Why would it make an offer like this to someone who won't even live another year? Unless it wants to stop you before you climb any higher.

Of course, the Demon King had a point.

No, logically speaking, his argument was far stronger.

And yet...

Why did simply walking away from this one bother me so much?

Was this hunch nothing more than arrogance born from all my past successes, telling me I'd succeed again this time too?

I didn't know.

After agonizing over it, I released Time Stop.

My family stared into empty space with startled expressions.

“Seo-hyeon, this is...”

“I need to be alone for a little while. I need some time to think.”

I went into my room.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I muttered under my breath.

“...I'm not taking this offer on these terms.”

Everything else aside, a condition as vague as simply “raising the difficulty” carried far too much risk.

For all I knew, it could throw something at me that couldn't possibly be cleared in under a year.

I'd simply waste away there until my remaining lifespan ran out.

“Make the terms better. Then I'll take it.”

I'd bargained with the Tower before, during the Masked Auction.

I spoke directly to the empty air.

I had no idea whether it could hear me.

If it wasn't willing to negotiate, then as disappointing as that would be, I'd have to walk away.

Then it happened.

[Regardless of the clear conditions for the Nightmare Difficulty Floor 17 Hidden Route, if 168 hours pass after ‘Person123’ enters Floor 17, it will automatically be considered a successful clear.]

A message appeared.

...It had actually added another condition.

‘168 hours?’

That was a week.

In other words, all I had to do was survive for one week after entering Floor 17, and it would count as a successful clear.

It was an incredibly generous condition, but looked at another way...

The Tower seemed utterly confident that it could kill me within a week on Floor 17.

“That's it? I'm not taking it. Sweeten it some more.”

I said it mockingly.

But the terms didn't change any further.

I smacked my lips and glared at the message again.

After agonizing over it for a long time, I finally found myself leaning one way.

“Demon King.”

- ...You really don't listen to a damn thing I say.

“Sorry. But let's give it a shot.”

I had made it through every absurd ordeal thrown at me so far.

I could do it again. I had to.

In the end, the opportunity was simply too valuable to give up, so I decided to take on the challenge.

I was already fully prepared, so I went back out to the living room.

My family looked at me anxiously.

“I've decided to do it.”

“...”

“This is a chance I can't let slip. There's no telling what kind of rule could appear next. I have to stop it here.”

My parents simply nodded in silence.

They knew that even if they tried to stop me, they wouldn't be able to.

“...Please, be careful.”

I gave them a confident smile.

“You know me. I don't fail.”

I hugged each member of my family, then looked into empty air.

[‘Person123’ has accepted the Tower's proposal.]

[‘Person123’ has been permanently granted ‘Rule Nullification Authority’.]

The messages appeared as soon as I accepted the offer.

“I'll be back. It might take up to a week.”

[Would you like to enter Nightmare Difficulty Floor 17?]

All right... let's do this.

I can do it.

Steeling myself, I entered Floor 17.

*

Come to think of it, to proceed with the Hidden Route, I had to clear Floor 17 all over again first...

Ugh. Did I really have to go through that nightmare one more time?

As I was thinking that, my vision shifted.

But the moment I entered, the Demon of the Scales was already standing right in front of me.

Its voice rang out.

- You won, so as promised, I'll let you out.

What the hell?

It had picked up exactly where my previous clear had left off.

‘Did it let me skip the Repeat Clearing?’

The Demon of the Scales reached a hand toward me.

“...!”

The space around me warped, and my vision shifted once again.

I immediately stopped time.

The new place was... a street in a medieval-style city.

But the passersby weren't ordinary humans.

‘...Demons?’

They had pale skin, with horns jutting from their heads.

There wasn't a single human among them. Everyone looked like that.

Like the demon Young Lady I'd seen during the Floor 2 Hidden... Wait. Could this actually be the same world?

‘Let's see...’

I thought while time remained frozen.

For now, all I had to do was survive for one week.

[Time Remaining Until Successful Clear: 6 days 23 hours 59 minutes 49 seconds]

There was even a timer displayed in my vision.

But obviously, I had no intention of sitting around doing nothing.

The Tower had added that condition because it fully intended to kill me before the time ran out, so I needed to figure out what was going to happen.

Surviving for one week was just a bare-minimum safety net. I was better off aiming to clear the Hidden Route properly.

It had been a while since I'd done a Hidden Route... First things first, I should figure out the setting and gather information, right?

I released Time Stop.

The instant I did, I activated Concealment using Diul's ability.

This looked like a demon city, and I'd stand out like a two-eyed man in a village of cyclopes. Better to stay out of sight.

‘Didn't the Demon of the Scales say the place I just escaped from was the Demon Realm?’

According to the Demon of the Scales, that space filled with nothing but purple was the Demon Realm.

Wondering whether the Demon Realm itself might have something to do with the clear conditions, I wandered through the city while concealed.

“Fresh fried ghoul tongues, only 1 Loki! Three for 2 Loki!”

“...Hyah! If you don't want to die, stop blocking the road and move!”

Street stalls lined the roads, carriages pulled by strange monsters rolled past, and children ran around playing.

Looking around, the place wasn't all that different from an ordinary city where people lived.

More importantly, where was I supposed to go?

Diul's Concealment lasted much longer now, but I couldn't stay hidden forever... Would wearing a mask make me stand out?

As I wandered around, a large tavern building suddenly caught my eye.

I headed toward it.

The reasoning was simple.

Taverns and inns were cliché places to pick up all kinds of useful information.

When I went inside, the demons were drinking and making a tremendous racket.

I stood in a corner with my back against the wall and listened to their conversations.

And most of them were talking about the same things.

“All Twenty-Six Families are gathering in Kagolak soon, right? To decide whether to revive the War Demon God.”

“Of course we should revive the Demon God if we want to tear those arrogant human bastards apart! Am I wrong?!”

“The Demon King is dead too, and everyone's saying everything will end up going Grand Duke Keilteir's way anyway...”

The Twenty-Six Families. The War Demon God.

Those were the two terms I kept hearing.

What was this about reviving the War Demon God?

It felt like it might have something to do with clearing this...

“Besides, isn't the Dafria Family unable to participate?”

“Heh. Their own Knight Commander started a rebellion. You think they're in any state to participate?”

Then a name suddenly caught my attention.

‘...Dafria?’

Huh?

That sounded familiar... Where had I heard it before?

I went upstairs, found a hallway with no guests around, and briefly released Concealment.

Then I pulled an item out of Subspace.

[Item: Dafria Family Ring]

A ring engraved with the crest of the Dafria family. It is proof that you earned the gratitude of the Dafria family.

“...”

Right. Dafria.

The ring I'd received from that demon Young Lady after clearing the Floor 2 Hidden.

I'd wondered if that might be the case, but...

Floor 17 really did seem to be set in the same world as Floor 2.

⚬──────────✧──────────⚬

Join our discord server: .gg/96hMXymzMP