Alone Against the Tower - Chapter 7

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Chapter 7: Rotten Grit

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It was true. When you got badly hurt, adrenaline or whatever made it not hurt at first.

After leaving the boss room and collapsing facedown on the ground, my ankle started hurting after the fact. No, it had hurt before too, but now it hurt like fucking hell.

It felt like someone had driven a red-hot iron rod through my ankle. The wound felt like it was burning. Was it an elemental attack?

“Urgh, ngh, fuck, ah…”

I flailed around while inspecting my ankle, but that wasn't it. Getting hit by a bolt probably just hurt this much.

The burning pain gradually turned into a crushing ache. My vision flashed.

The bolt. I needed to pull out the bolt. How was I supposed to do this? Would it come out if I just yanked it?

-Creak.

I grabbed the bolt while gasping for breath, but the bolthead twisted, sending a jolt of pain straight into my brain.

“AAARGH!”

You fucking idiot, it was obvious I couldn't just grab it and pull it out! I had to do something about the bolthead first!

My other arm shook like a leaf, and every breath sent a stabbing pain through my chest.

Oh right, I was hurt here too. Were my ribs broken? Were there any bones here besides ribs?

HP : 19/340

While I was having those stupid thoughts, I saw my HP bar slowly dropping. Bleeding damage. I was fucked if this kept up.

“Huff, huuff… fuck, huff…”

Taking labored breaths, I gripped my sword. I pressed its blade against the bolthead embedded deep in my ankle. The Sharp +6 blade easily cut through it.

Now I had to pull out the shaft. Fuck, it'd come out this time, right? Please, come out in one go.

Maybe it was thanks to my high Strength stat, but when I grabbed the fletching and pulled hard, the bolt slid smoothly out.

And it hurt like fucking hell.

“Urk!”

It felt like electricity was running through the shaft. The moment it slid out through the wound, my entire body convulsed.

Even my chin was shaking. No, why the fuck was my chin shaking? Fuck, fuuuck, fuck. And the blood, why the fuck wasn't it stopping?

HP : 17/340

My HP kept dropping. My vision, which had been flashing with lightning, gradually darkened. I was getting sleepy.

There was no way I could be sleepy when I was in this much pain and agony. This was it. I was dying. Death was right in front of me.

I'd die if I didn't stop the bleeding. I clutched my ankle as blood poured from it. Lights flashed before my eyes again.

“Urk, ngh, aaah…!”

Please stop, stop coming out, I don't want to die, Mom, fuck, why did I have to live this shitty dirt-poor life just to die like this? Just fucking stop already!

No matter how tightly I gripped my ankle, blood kept leaking through the gaps. As the HP displayed in my Status Window kept dropping, tears welled up again.

I wasn't clutching my pierced ankle anymore. I was clutching my Status Window.

Please, make this goddamn HP stop going down.

-Ding.

Then somehow, while I fumbled with my Status Window, I opened my inventory.

[Red Potion]

When used, slowly restores a small amount of HP.

Pouring it on the wounded area speeds up recovery.

Only then did I realize I had potions.

“Fuck, I'm such an idiot…”

* * *

The Tower of Trials was structured like a game, but it wasn't actually a game.

Drinking a potion didn't instantly refill your HP, so Challengers on the Open Community said not to rely on potions too much.

They also said that reaching zero HP didn't necessarily mean you died, and having a full HP bar didn't mean you couldn't die either, so you had to judge each situation carefully.

I hadn't been able to do that. I had piled up a ton of potions like an idiot, yet it hadn't even occurred to me to use them.

They said people completely lost their judgment when they panicked. I never thought that'd happen to me too. I'd always thought it was something that happened to other people.

“Ah, fuck, that's embarrassing…”

I chugged three bottles of potion and poured another over the spot where the bolt had hit me. My body quickly recovered.

I still felt that burning sensation, or whatever it was, but after taking a breath, I realized it was just an illusion.

-Screech, clang!

I removed my upper-body armor, which had been reduced to rags by Goblin Lord Graksar's attacks. This was unusable now.

It had been the best armor I could get at this point, yet a few attacks from Goblin Lord Graksar had turned it into trash.

Should I have gone for Durability enhancement instead of just defense enhancement? No, then I might've been dead by now.

The potions had healed me, but it felt like my breastbone had been wrecked even through my armor. The boss's attack power was simply too high.

I changed into the spare armor in my inventory and checked my condition again.

The boss room door was still right in front of me. I could challenge it again whenever I wanted.

But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

There was absolutely no way I could clear that alone. I'd already gotten everything worth getting on this floor, and I'd still nearly died.

As a solo Challenger, there was nothing I could do about it.

* * *

There was still plenty of time before the day ended, but I was exhausted.

I went back to the village, bought a change of clothes, and headed straight to the inn I usually stayed at.

The clothes beneath my armor were soaked in blood, and at some point, I'd pissed myself too. Fair enough.

Anyway, I bought some needlessly expensive casual clothes, changed, and collapsed onto the bed. Then, out of habit, I opened the Open Community.

[Standard Guide to Clearing the First-Floor Boss Without a Carry (For Beginners).txt]

The boss guides for each floor, listed one after another in the community notice, caught my eye.

This was the guide I'd skimmed before entering the boss room. Even after reading it, I'd thought I could handle it.

The guide basically said this.

As soon as the party entered the boss room, the tank pulled the boss's aggro while the damage dealers quickly took out the Goblin Royal Guards.

If you quickly killed all the Guards from the first summon, there was a decent delay before the next one, so you focused the boss down during that time and got through Phase One.

Since my specs were high, I'd thought I could quickly kill three Goblin Royal Guards and face the boss.

But once I actually fought it, that wasn't the case at all.

Since I was alone, the boss's aggro had been locked onto me from the start, and the Goblin Royal Guards were more tenacious than I'd expected.

I quickly found myself being ganged up on, and because the second Guard-summoning pattern came around so quickly, it eventually became six against one.

The armor the Guards wore was the biggest problem.

Unlike the other Goblins, they were equipped with heavy armor, so to deal damage, I had to either aim for gaps and stab through them or destroy the armor itself.

The first option was simply difficult. The second meant switching to a blunt weapon or something similar. And honestly, I didn't think it'd work even if I did.

I searched for a few more pieces of information about the first-floor boss battle. The clear records were what caught my attention.

Among the various clear records excluding Ranker carries, the smallest group to defeat it had been a seven-person party. The party members' average level had been around 18.

Judging by the timing, the strategy had probably already been well established by then. Even so, it had taken seven Challengers around Level 18.

I might've been much stronger than those Challengers, having reached Level 22 and upgraded all my equipment to nearly the best possible stats, but there was no way I was seven times stronger.

The same would be true even if I got a little stronger through a class change.

Even if I changed classes right away, my skill proficiency and levels wouldn't rise that easily, and alone, I couldn't even attempt the established strategy.

“Fuck, of course I can't…”

I was giving excuse after excuse, but I'd already reached my conclusion long ago. It just wasn't possible.

I didn't want to go through that horrible pain again. Why the hell should I?

* * *

Lying on my bed, I wrote a post on the Open Community to complain about my situation.

[Author : Seo Jinhyeok#2661]

[Title : This newbie is fucked]

(Photo)

Tried soloing the boss today and nearly fucking died

What region's Tower is this that nobody's entering?

Can't do anything until other Challengers show up lol

- lol idiot why'd you try to solo it