WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 176: The Great Invasion (1)
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[Floor 16 has been cleared on every difficulty.]
[The Tower is calling new people.]
[A new rule has been added.]
[The Great Invasion will begin in 24 hours.]
[At that time, a vote will select a Battlefield where a Dimensional Rift will be opened.]
[Time Remaining: 23 hours 59 minutes 50 seconds]
I was moved to the Reward Room.
I frowned at the messages.
‘Great Invasion...?’
A Dimensional Rift?
Something ominous had appeared again.
I picked up the skill stone that had appeared as my reward.
[Skill: Ultra-Compressed Plasma Shot (Epic+)]
Fires an extremely compressed plasma sphere forward. Requires 200 seconds of concentration to cast.
Classification: Magic-Type
Willpower Cost: 1,000
Cooldown: 5 minutes
It was a magic-type skill.
Reading the description, it seemed to be a high-firepower skill like Destruction Beam.
[You have learned ‘Skill: Ultra-Compressed Plasma Shot (Epic+)’.]
[Floor: 17]
[Level: 197]
[Willpower: 20,400/20,400]
[Skills: Radiant Incarnation (Legendary+), Elemental Arrow Barrage (Epic+) (+3), Destruction Beam (Epic+), Blood Frenzy (Epic+), Weak Point Insight (Epic) (+4), Hellfire Eruption (Epic) (+1), Subspace (Epic), Air Step (Epic)...]
[Nightmare]
Personnel: 1,473,610
Time Limit: 8 years 335 days 12 hours 1 minute 43 seconds
Floor Reached: Floor 17
I had cleared Floor 16 easily as well.
The problem now was the new rule again...
[Would you like to leave the Tower?]
I left the Tower.
My family greeted me with relief.
After resting for a while, I entered Floor 9 and immediately tested the Plasma Shot skill I had just obtained.
When I cast the skill, blue lightning energy condensed into a sphere no bigger than a millet grain.
When I fired it forward...
Bzzzzzzzt!
The lightning energy exploded massively, sending branching bolts in every direction.
The boulders at the center of the explosion were completely erased, while even those within several dozen meters were shattered into tiny pieces.
Along with the Monkeys inside them.
Caught slightly in the blast, I shook off the tingling in my body.
I hadn’t realized it was such a wide-range skill.
As expected of an Epic+ skill, its power was truly considerable.
Still, I would need to put enough distance between myself and the target before using it.
After testing the skill, I entered Floor 16 again.
I needed to organize and upload the information on Floor 16.
[Person123: This is information on clearing Nightmare Floor 16.]
After posting the Floor 16 information in the Communication Window, I checked the remaining time.
[Time Remaining: 18 hours 9 minutes 15 seconds]
The news and the Communication Window were already buzzing over what the Great Invasion, the rule for Floor 16, might bring.
“Phew...”
I waited, mentally preparing myself.
This time, I hoped we could get through it safely.
...Though I couldn’t suppress the creeping sense of unease in the back of my mind.
* * *
Nightmare Floor 16 had been cleared.
Person123 cleared a new floor every few days, so Nightmare clears no longer felt like something humanity’s fate depended on. They felt almost routine.
[Lemon: It’s totally a runaway train, a runaway train.]
[Farmer: Are they really going to clear all the way to the final floor at this rate?]
[Chariwing: What floor do you think will be the final floor? Floor 100?]
[Captain: Who knows? More than that, I’m curious about what’ll be waiting if someone clears it all.]
[SharpSword: Won’t they become a god or something?]
[Sun: Person123 is already a god, though?]
[Ttubaya: I really feel at ease these days. The Nightmare time limit has built up so much~]
[ChocoFlavor: fr lol. I don’t even know how we lived before, scared the world would end every year lol.]
The Nightmare time limit was now approaching ten years, nearly catching up to Hard difficulty.
The climbers even had the insurance of curse immunity now, so life was looking good.
Compared to the days when people trembled in fear that the world might end every year, it would not have been an exaggeration to call this a relatively peaceful age.
Of course, there were still many who worried about humanity’s future and viewed it pessimistically.
As long as the incomprehensible existence known as the Tower remained, none of the fundamental problems had been solved.
The broadcasts that had been abuzz for days about Kanyuk and beings from worlds other than Earth shifted their focus to the impending Great Invasion once Nightmare Floor 16 was cleared.
“Don’t you feel as though the Tower’s influence is growing stronger?”
The podcast show The Jude Noise.
Harry, an influencer who offered various analyses of the Tower, appeared as a guest.
The host, Jude, asked, “What exactly do you mean by its influence growing stronger?”
“Let’s think about it. What was the first Tower rule that appeared when Floor 2 was cleared?”
“Climbers who did not enter the Tower within three years would die.”
“That’s right. The rule Person123 nullified. It did no harm to climbers who had reached Floor 2 or higher, and climbers on Floor 1 only had to climb one floor. There was plenty of time, too. Though Nightmare difficulty was an exception, of course.”
Harry held up four fingers.
“What came next at Floor 4? The sub-towers. The Floor 4 rule also caused no harm as long as the sub-towers were cleared, and even if they weren’t cleared, people were given enough time to flee from the curse.”
“And clearing them gave generous rewards too. The Tower gifted humanity mana veins.”
“Exactly. Floors 6, 8, 10, and 12 were all the same. Of course, they gradually became more difficult, but there was always a way to avoid them in the end. As long as climbers did not give in to the temptation of rewards, those rules could end without any harm.”
Harry shook their head.
“But what about the Sacrificial Lamb rule on Floor 14? Either the highest-floor Climber or all the other Climbers had to bear a penalty.”
“That... was certainly different from the rules before it.”
“That’s right! The important thing was that there was no way out. Separate from the rule’s difficulty, it was the first time the Tower presented an unavoidable, unfair rule.
“And what about the clear of Nightmare Floor 15? It proved that clearing the Tower could affect external reality as well. If Kanyuk had not sacrificed themself, Earth would have suffered damage that would have been difficult to bear. As Person123 said, humanity might have been wiped out.”
Harry paused for breath after speaking fervently.
“If that is not evidence that the Tower’s influence is steadily growing stronger, then what is? The higher we climb, the more I can’t shake the feeling that the Tower is tightening its grip on humanity.”
“I see. An unprecedented hero named Person123 is holding up the world, but the ruler of this game is still the Tower.”
Jude asked, “What do you think will happen in the Great Invasion, which will begin shortly?”
“No one can know that. But as I said, an even more outrageous disaster than the previous rules may occur. Great Invasion. Isn’t the name itself ominous?”
“It is. We also heard the term Dimensional Rift, though we don’t know what it means. Could it mean that something is going to invade Earth...?”
“One thing is certain, though. It seems that something will be decided through a vote again, and it will bring conflict among people once more. Every Tower vote has been like that so far.”
Jude nodded in agreement.
“How long must humanity live under the threat of the Tower? Do you think we have any means of fighting back?”
At Jude’s question, Harry answered playfully.
“A means of fighting back... Well, does such a thing truly exist? Isn’t the best we can do to live each day with gratitude? Humanity would have perished long ago if not for Person123.”
“Haha, that’s true.”
“The most recent idea that gained attention was escape into space. Billon Must tested whether the Tower’s power reached Mars, didn’t they?”
“Yes, the Communication Window worked perfectly even on Mars.”
“I believe escape beyond Earth is no longer a meaningful option. Kanyuk’s existence revealed that there are worlds other than Earth, did it not? The Tower’s influence extends even to worlds in other dimensions. I doubt merely leaving Earth would stop it from following us, no matter how distant a planet humanity relocated to by rocket.”
Harry and Jude let out slightly self-deprecating laughs.
After stopping, Harry said, “If there is anyone who can find a way out of the Tower’s grasp, it will be Person123. All we can do is believe in and support humanity’s one and only hope.”
Time passed.
[Time Remaining: 10 seconds]
Then, with the world’s eyes and attention focused upon it,
the Great Invasion, the rule for Floor 16, began.
Crrrack!
Gangneung, Gangwon Province, South Korea.
A rift suddenly appeared in midair, as if space itself had cracked.
Pedestrians passing through the streets screamed.
And it was not only South Korea.
Mumbai in India, Bangkok in Thailand, Abuja in Nigeria, and Munich in Germany.
Mysterious rifts appeared in major cities across five countries.
[The Great Invasion has begun.]
[A total of five Dimensional Rifts have appeared in random locations.]
[A Battlefield with a radius of 1,000 kilometers has been established around each Dimensional Rift.]
[The Battlefields will completely block all entry and exit until the Great Invasion ends.]
Then, centered around the rifts, enormous barriers appeared and blocked entry and exit, just like during the isolation zones.
This time, however, they had a radius of a thousand kilometers.
The range was vast enough to encompass several countries at once.
Just as with the isolation zones, enormous numbers floated above the barriers.
The number floating above South Korea’s barrier was ‘3.’
[Battlefield 1 Personnel: 735,788,130]
[Battlefield 2 Personnel: 519,143,236]
[Battlefield 3 Personnel: 371,608,735]
[Battlefield 4 Personnel: 360,581,243]
[Battlefield 5 Personnel: 263,057,291]
[Climbers included in each Battlefield may vote on whether to open its Dimensional Rift.]
[Once a Dimensional Rift to be opened is selected, voting will end immediately, and monsters will begin invading through the Dimensional Rift in that Battlefield.]
[A total of 10,000,000 monsters will pour out of the Dimensional Rift over 72 hours.]
[The monsters’ levels will be randomly selected from Level 10 to Level 100.]
[The Great Invasion will end when everyone in that Battlefield dies or all monsters die.]
[If all monsters are defeated, every Climber in that Battlefield who has reached Floor 2 or higher will receive a special reward.]
[Voting will begin with Battlefield 1.]
[If no Dimensional Rift has been opened by the end of voting for Battlefield 4, the Dimensional Rift in Battlefield 5 will open automatically.]
[Battlefield 1 is currently voting.]
[Time Remaining for Voting: 59 minutes 50 seconds]
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