WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
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◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability
Chapter 104
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Floor 7 Hidden (3)
"...Are you the Sage?"
I asked.
The old man answered.
"The world used to call me by that name."
What was with this guy?
It was a strange feeling.
Normally, with Sixth Sense, I could at least vaguely tell how strong someone was.
But from the Sage in front of me, I felt nothing at all.
That didn't mean he felt dangerous either...
I didn't know. I simply couldn't tell.
Maybe the level gap was just too huge?
Like in martial arts stories, when someone's realm is so high that they don't give off anything at all. That kind of cliché.
"It's my first time meeting you."
It couldn't hurt to be polite first.
That was the conclusion I came to.
I bowed my head in greeting.
The Sage laughed heartily.
"Thank you for greeting me before cursing me. The trials you passed through must have been quite harsh."
"If I want to obtain the Sage's treasure, shouldn't I naturally have to go through at least this much?"
Anyway, those three had all just been a one-man play controlled by the Sage.
Which meant the information I'd gotten from them was probably all true too.
It seemed likely that obtaining the Sage's treasure really was the condition for clearing this hidden route.
That would be nice.
"What is your reason for wanting the treasure?"
the Sage asked.
"...Because I want to know the truth?"
Hadn't they said that if you obtained the Sage's treasure, you'd learn every truth in the world?
I gave a fitting answer, but the Sage said,
"If you do not answer honestly, you will not be able to obtain the treasure."
What? Could he see through lies?
I didn't have any real reason. I was just trying to clear the floor.
"Honestly, there's no special reason. I'm just curious about the treasure."
There was no way he'd understand if I started talking about the Tower.
So that was how I answered again.
It was true that I'd gotten curious about what the Sage's treasure even was.
Thankfully, it seemed I'd passed, because the Sage nodded.
"There is one final test left."
"...What is it?"
"Anything."
The Sage spoke.
"Name any test you want. I will not test luck, and I will decide the standard for passing. You may challenge it as many times as you wish."
I tilted my head.
Anything I wanted...?
I couldn't help being confused.
"Then, for example, chess..."
The moment I started to speak, a chessboard and pieces appeared between the Sage and me.
The Sage sat down in his place.
"Which will you choose, black or white?"
"...White."
I'd only said it offhand.
He'd said I had unlimited chances, so I sat down across from him.
I took white and made the first move.
I'd played a fair amount of things like chess and baduk, so I wasn't unskilled...
But I got checkmated in thirty moves and lost.
"...One more game."
I played several more rounds.
But in every one of them, I lost before fifty moves.
I changed the conditions.
"Can we do it with a time limit?"
"Of course."
"Then let's make the turn time one second."
I was planning to use time stop.
One second was so short that you'd have to move instantly, without any time to think.
But I had unlimited thinking time.
The Sage smiled.
"Wouldn't one second be too short?"
"I'm confident in how quickly I can move."
"Very well, then."
[0:01]
A timer appeared in the empty air beside us.
The match began again.
The moment I moved, the Sage placed his move immediately as well.
"..."
So the result was the same.
I lost again.
What was this? Was he an AI?
"...Can I switch to a different game?"
"Go ahead."
"Let's play baduk."
I wondered whether the Sage even knew baduk, but...
When he snapped his fingers, the chessboard turned into a baduk board.
I took the black stones and made the first move.
This time too, the match ended quickly.
Before I even understood how I'd lost, I was dragged along and defeated.
I realized the difference in skill between the Sage and me was absurdly huge.
I couldn't beat him.
"...Do you happen to know gomoku?"
He'd said I had unlimited chances anyway.
So without giving up, I kept changing the game.
Gomoku, marble flicking, even absurd things like stacking baduk stones without letting them collapse, I challenged the Sage in all of them.
The result.
Utter defeat every single time.
I stared at the Sage's tower of baduk stones with my mouth hanging open.
The Sage had stacked more than twenty baduk stones, showing off a miraculous feat and making the gap between us painfully clear.
No, what the hell was that...
Was there really nothing the Sage couldn't do?
It seemed pointless to challenge him in games he looked like he might be bad at.
...Rather than using my head, should I compete with my body?
He'd said anything was fine, so fighting should count too.
The problem was that I didn't think I had much chance there either.
He was obviously a mage far stronger than me.
"How about a contest using only our bodies, without magic?"
I quickly added,
"Of course, killing is forbidden."
The Sage smiled and moved away from me.
"I will not counterattack. If you can so much as brush me once, you pass."
It was a generous condition, but I took it the other way.
Tch, so this wouldn't work either...?
He was only setting those terms because he was that confident, wasn't he?
Bang!
First, I kicked off the ground and charged at the Sage.
The moment I thought my hand had reached him,
the Sage's body blurred and vanished.
When I turned around, he was standing behind me.
"...Didn't you just use magic?"
"I did not."
Then what was it?
Had he just been so fast that I couldn't even follow him with my eyes?
I charged again.
This time, the Sage didn't disappear.
Maybe he wanted to show that he wasn't using magic, because while moving at a speed similar to mine, he dodged every one of my attacks.
Even after the Heightening skill activated and I chased him at full speed...
I couldn't even brush the edge of his clothes.
After running around the cavern for a long time, I finally stopped and caught my breath.
...This wouldn't work.
I didn't feel like I was close and just needed a little more. The level gap was obvious.
Judging by the speed at which he'd vanished at first, he was still going easy on me even here.
When I looked at the Sage, he smiled with his eyes.
His breathing wasn't disturbed in the slightest.
'How am I supposed to beat him?'
Not with my head, not with my body.
I asked the Demon King.
'Demon King-nim, can I beat that man with magic?'
The Demon King answered.
- Is that even a question?
'Oh, then maybe...'
- You cannot.
'What?'
- Perhaps if it were my true body, but how could I win with this pathetic body? That one is no mere lesser creature either.
So even the Demon King couldn't do it?
- Think properly. It is not that I cannot do it, but that your flesh is so worthless...
I ignored the Demon King as he started to throw a fit.
Whew, this really had no answer.
After thinking for a while, I opened my mouth.
If even this didn't work, I didn't know whether there was any way at all to beat the Sage.
"Let's do a memory test."
The Sage nodded.
"I shall display 1,000 numbers. If you memorize them all before I do, you pass the test."
The Sage waved his hand.
[124572305804329502589320323...]
Then countless strings of numbers rose into the air.
I raised my hand and said,
"Wait a second. Wouldn't it be a little unfair to test our memory using numbers that you presented, Sage-nim?"
"Are you trying to say that I already have the sequence memorized? These are merely numbers generated at random."
I shook my head.
"Even so, I can't help but be suspicious. Could you conduct the test in a different way, rather than having us directly compete to determine a winner and loser?"
"What kind of way?"
"If Sage-nim sets a time limit, then I'll memorize all the numbers within that time."
He was the kind of monster who made time limits meaningless even in one-second-rule chess.
I suspected that if we competed directly in memory, he might claim to have memorized everything the moment it started.
The Sage accepted without resistance.
"Then let us do that. How many seconds do you want?"
Look at this old man.
"...How many seconds? To memorize a thousand numbers, shouldn't you at least give me minutes?"
I whined on purpose.
The Sage laughed.
"That would not even qualify as a test. I shall give you 100 seconds."
"Hah, that's way too harsh..."
I held back a smile.
Inside, I was cheering.
'I won.'
In truth, it didn't matter how much time he gave me.
I kept my expression under control so I wouldn't look too confident and arouse pointless suspicion.
[100]
A separate timer appeared.
And the string of numbers changed again into a new set.
"We shall begin."
At the Sage's words, I immediately stopped time.
The Demon King said mockingly,
- What a shameless bastard.
'This is my skill too.'
And the Sage was even more shameless.
No matter how much of a memory test it was, what kind of nonsense was asking someone to memorize 1,000 digits in 100 seconds?
I started memorizing the numbers in frozen time.
'52839472...'
I remembered trying to memorize pi when I was a kid.
Had I gotten up to around 100 digits?
This was ten times that.
I didn't know how long it would take.
To memorize it perfectly, would it take at least a few days?
Victory was already guaranteed, but this was the beginning of a mind-numbing memorization session.
'Demon King-nim.'
- What.
'Help me memorize it too.'
- Are you insane? Memorize it yourself.
If he helped, it would go faster and we could cross-check too, but I was asking too much.
Anyway, I just kept drilling the numbers over and over.
How much time had passed?
'...1231289924585...'
After memorizing everything and checking it over several times, I finally released time.
"I have memorized them all."
I said that to the Sage with an exhausted face.
That wasn't acting.
I really felt like I was going to die of boredom, fuck...
With a wave of the Sage's hand, the numbers disappeared.
"Say them."
"5283947212525110..."
I recited the numbers one after another.
Without forgetting a single one, I said all 1,000 digits.
"...Did I get them all right?"
I was a little tense.
If I'd made even one mistake, I would've had to start all over again and memorize a new set.
Clap, clap, clap...
The Sage smiled and applauded.
"Correct."
"..."
"Congratulations on passing the final test."
It was a rather modest congratulations.
More than that, there was something strange about the Sage's attitude.
As if he'd already known I would pass, somehow...
It felt like he'd simply gone through a formality.
The Sage waved his hand again.
Then the place changed.
The dark cavern became a vast library.
"Follow me."
I looked around in shock, then followed the Sage.
"I spent my entire life studying the world. By good fortune, I even defied the inborn fate of mortals and filled my ignorance through infinite time. There is no greater joy than coming to know what one did not know before."
The Sage spoke as he walked.
The somewhat stiff way he'd been speaking until now was gone, and I could feel life in his voice.
For a moment, that subtle change felt strange.
Then the Sage stopped walking and pulled a book from a shelf.
It was a thick book with no title at all.
When he opened it, the inside was nothing but blank pages.
'...Is there still something left?'
When exactly was he going to give me this Sage's treasure?
I was thinking that when
the Sage stroked the empty page.
...Flap, flap, flap!
At once, a current of air surged around us.
"...!"
The library trembled.
That was the only way to describe it.
Books pulled themselves from the shelves and floated through the air,
and the letters flowing out of those books all began to be absorbed into the book the Sage was holding.
Shuuuuuu...
The storm of letters died down.
Before I knew it, the book that had been blank was now packed full of writing.
The Sage closed the book.
"This is the Sage's treasure."
"..."
"Every truth in the world is contained within this single volume."
Overwhelmed for a moment, I nodded blankly.
More importantly, was this really the reward for this hidden route?
"What do you think? Through this, what truth do you wish to know?"
the Sage asked.
A truth I wished to know.
Well... of course there were plenty of things I wanted to know.
For example, things about the Tower.
Or information about the future Nightmare floors I still had to clear, or what exactly was waiting at the top if someone climbed it all the way.
But there was no way things like that could really be known.
No matter how grandly he dressed it up as the truth of the world, this was still only part of clearing a floor.
Wasn't all of this just a stage play set up by the Tower?
"Does this book also say what the Tower really is?"
I asked that half as a joke.
He probably wouldn't understand it anyway, but I wanted to see his reaction.
But then...
"Of course."
"...What?"
I flinched and looked at the Sage.
The Sage was looking at me with a smile.
"Kim Seo-hyeon, who is currently clearing the Nightmare difficulty route, every truth you seek is contained here as well. Do you wish to know the identity of the Tower?"
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