WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 18

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Floor 2 Hidden (2)

Back in the room, I sat in a chair and thought.

"Why did I fail?"

Wasn't that Demonfolk the boss I had to defeat?

Were there other enemies besides her?

If there were just more enemies, there was no reason for an instant failure.

Since it failed the moment I killed that Demonfolk, it had to mean she was someone I was not supposed to kill.

Then was she an ally or something?

'But she ambushed me out of nowhere.'

If my reaction had been even a little slower, I would have taken a blade to the neck and died.

Either way, one thing was clear. I could not kill that Demonfolk.

After drinking some water and restoring my spent Willpower, I re-entered Floor 2 right away.

I crossed the platforms, climbed to the top, and killed the Minotaur.

Then I went back down the tower, returned to the starting point, and entered the forest.

This time, I watched my surroundings carefully.

One wrong move and I was dead.

Right when I thought, It was around here that she jumped out last time...

I sensed movement in the bushes to my side.

I caught it because all my senses were on high alert.

I stopped and stared at the bushes.

A moment later, something burst out at high speed and attacked me.

Clang!

I knocked the strike away with the sword in my hand.

I jumped back at once and shouted.

"Wait!"

The Demonfolk flinched and looked at me.

I raised both hands to show I had no hostile intent and said,

"I don't want to fight! Why did you attack me out of nowhere?"

She could speak, so she was not a monster but an intelligent being. Maybe I could talk this out.

The Demonfolk glared at me, pointed her sword, and shouted.

"Deceitful human bastard! How dare you spew such shameless nonsense to this lady!"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Was it not you who burned the entire castle with lava? Did you think this lady would not know?!"

...Castle? Lava?

I pieced together the context.

The castle she meant was probably that tower I escaped from.

And she was misunderstanding, thinking I was the one who filled it with lava.

Good. Now I fully understood what was going on.

I spoke to clear up the misunderstanding.

"I didn't do that. I'm a victim too."

"A victim?"

"Yes. I almost died in the lava too, then barely escaped the castle."

"What? Who are you to claim you escaped this lady's castle?"

"...Huh? I was just there from the start."

"What nonsense are you spouting? Then that only means you are an intruder!"

Huh, this conversation was getting twisted.

I realized my excuse came out weird, but the Demonfolk only glared at me with even more hostility.

"Cut the wordplay, human!"

She charged me again and swung her sword.

I dodged and blocked in a hurry.

"I'm telling you, it wasn't me!"

Listen when people talk, you crazy Demonfolk!

As if she had no intention of listening anymore, she did not stop attacking.

I could not kill her, so did I have to subdue her?

Flame Strike was risky. One bad hit and she could die again.

I set my goal to subdue her bare-handed and fully entered the fight.

Clang clang clang!

A constant exchange of blows as our swords smashed together.

I seemed stronger in raw power, but our speed was about even.

The difference was skill.

Her swordsmanship was clearly far more refined than mine.

I thought I had gotten used to fighting, but was this what real swordsmanship looked like?

'This is crazy...!'

I barely managed to block and evade her attacks, stopping time in between.

If things got bad, I still had Teleport.

As the fight dragged on, it got easier to endure.

Exaltation stacks were building, and my body kept getting faster.

Only after Exaltation fully activated did I gain a speed advantage too.

I found room to breathe and started pushing her back instead.

No matter how big the skill gap was, once I had both power and speed over her, the balance shifted.

"...!"

Now she looked rattled instead.

Even then, taking full control was not easy.

Goblin Knight and Minotaur had been simple. Once my physical stats were high enough to overwhelm them, putting them down was straightforward.

This was my first time in this kind of fierce back-and-forth fight, so it felt strangely fresh.

'This won't work.'

Judging that this would be difficult, I stopped time.

It was hard because I had to subdue her without killing her.

Her sword, aimed at my neck, cut through empty air.

While she panicked because I vanished, I spun behind her and slammed a full-force roundhouse kick into her side.

"Urk!"

Ah, did I kick too hard?

She bounced across the ground after the hit to her ribs.

When I moved in, she scrambled back up. The battle continued.

Still, the damage was obvious. Her sword had less force than before.

"Let's communicate, communicate!"

"What nonsense...!"

I'm saying let's talk.

Is talking that hard?

Clang!

She blocked my sword and got shoved far backward.

She clutched her side and gasped, clearly in pain.

Maybe now we could actually talk.

I tried again.

"Let's stop fighting. I don't want to fight, so calm down."

"Huff, huff... human bastard..."

She kept saying human this, human that. Like she was not the one with weird horns.

"I'm telling you, you're misunderstanding. I'm not an intruder, and I'm not your enemy. I didn't do the lava thing either."

"And you expect this lady to believe that...?!"

"What if you don't? No, let's be blunt. If I really meant to kill you, I could have cut your throat earlier instead of kicking you away. Why would I bother talking this long?"

"Insolent human! How dare you claim you could kill this lady!"

She exploded in rage.

"Is that not true? Then tell me. If we keep fighting, who do you think dies?"

"Ghk...!"

"Exactly. So let's talk, talk."

Even she could not deny she was at a disadvantage, so she could not argue back.

She seemed to calm down a little and said,

"What talk is there to have?"

"I told you, I'm not some intruder."

"Stop talking nonsense! A human stands in Demonfolk territory, and you say you are not an intruder? Then what are you?!"

So she really was Demonfolk.

"This lady will ask! What is a human doing in Demonfolk land? If you are not an intruder, what were you doing in Dapriya County?!"

I scratched my head and answered.

"Well... I got lost."

"What?"

"I'm a traveler who wanders from place to place, and I got lost. I didn't even know this was Demonfolk land."

Let's try this excuse for now.

I knew nothing about this world's setting. I had nothing else to use as an excuse.

She looked dumbfounded as she spoke.

"...What are you saying? You think that makes sense?"

"Whether it sounds crazy or not, it's true."

"This lady has never heard of such a foolish human. You got lost and wandered all the way into Demonfolk land?"

I pushed ahead shamelessly.

"Yes. My sense of direction is bad."

"..."

She stood there with her mouth slightly open.

From her expression, maybe it was working?

"T-then! What was that about escaping this lady's castle earlier?"

"Oh, that. I was just passing by and almost got hit by lava, so I said it like that. Lava was pouring out of the windows like a waterfall."

She frowned.

"That does not sound like what you said before...?"

"Let's not get stuck on small details."

Who cares, I would push through first.

"Anyway, the important thing is this situation, right? Let's think logically. Between the two of us, who is stronger? It's me, right?"

"...Do not insult this lady! This lady has not lost yet!"

She was about to flare up again.

I kept my tone calm.

"Right, I know. You haven't lost yet. But objectively, who is stronger? Be honest, for real."

"Ghk... this lady does not intend to deny that you are stronger!"

She sounded bitter as she said it.

She admitted that one pretty easily.

"Yes, I'm stronger. But even after getting ambushed and almost killed by you, I'm still trying to talk, right? Even though I can win."

I had killed her instantly the first time, but still.

"If I were the one who burned your castle with lava, why would I leave you alive and waste time having this pointless conversation with you, the castle's owner? Can you really say I have hostile intent toward you?"

She stayed silent for a moment, then shouted.

"That... cannot be true!"

"Exactly. I'm not your enemy. Then you understand now that we don't need to keep fighting."

The soothing tone seemed to work, so I kept it going.

She only stared at me now with confused eyes.

"Human, then state your name first. If you are truly confident, say it."

"...My name? Kim Seo-hyeon."

She tilted her head.

"Kim-seo-hyeon...? Are human names always that strange? What is your family name?"

"My family name is Kim. Given name Seo-hyeon."

"What, your family name is strange too. Your name is strange and your family name is strange. And why do you put the family name before the given name?"

...Why did she keep calling it strange? Should I hit her one more time?

"Humans truly are hard to understand. This lady is Haylin Dapriya. The true heir of the great Count Dapriya house is this lady."

That told me nothing.

I made an, Ah yes, I see... face, and Haylin shouted.

"You may not know because you are human, but this lady's house is very great! Human, what house are you from? Is your Kim house some kind of human nobility?"

"It's not."

Maybe it was, a long time ago.

Haylin suddenly put on an arrogant expression.

"Is that so? Then you must show this lady respect. Even if our races differ, this lady is nobility, and you human are not."

Hmm, this was getting annoying.

I had succeeded in not killing the Demonfolk and getting out of mutual hostility.

What was I supposed to do now?

"Good, human. From this point on, you will assist this lady."

"...Assist? With what?"

"The situation is urgent, so you will serve as this lady's temporary guard."

A guard, out of nowhere?

Was this story actually progressing now?

"What is urgent? You need to tell me that first."

Haylin explained.

"This lady's castle burned in lava because a magic spell went berserk. It is a self-destruct spell that normally activates only as a last resort when intruders enter. Yet it activated out of nowhere this time.

If you are not the intruder, then there must be another intruder. One strong enough that the self-destruct spell had to be activated. That is why you must help this lady."

Ah, so that was the setup.

I asked,

"Then why don't you know who the intruder is, Haylin-ssi? You weren't in the castle?"

"Address me as Haylin-nim!"

"Yes, Haylin-nim. Anyway."

Haylin said with a stiff face.

"This lady usually enjoys walking alone at night. I returned from my walk today and found this had happened. Then I followed footprints from the front gate and found you."

"Ah..."

"That intruder bastard must have known Father was away and done this. How dare he... if only Father had been there..."

Haylin trembled.

I mostly understood the situation, but I still had to ask one last thing.

"Still, why do I have to help you, Haylin-nim? This has nothing to do with me."

She had said it so naturally that it almost sounded right.

Haylin yelled back.

"This lady has not fully withdrawn suspicion of you! If you are truly confident, then of course you must help!"

So it was just force.

"Of course, this lady will grant proper compensation for all of it. This lady is the heir of House Dapriya. This lady will do nothing that stains House Dapriya's honor."

Compensation, huh.

Could that be the Hidden reward?

I nodded.

"Understood. I'll help."

From the look of it, this seemed to be the correct route anyway, and I had been planning to go along.

"So what do you plan to do now, Haylin-nim?"

"We return to the castle. Some retainers may have escaped alive, so we must confirm."

Haylin took the lead, and I followed behind her. We walked back the way we came.

A strange feeling came over me as I thought.

'What is this world?'

Was it a real world?

Were the Demonfolk in front of me all living, real people?

I had not thought deeply about it on Floor 1, but now we were naturally talking and the story was moving almost like a game, so I could not help thinking about it.

Even when I looked up information from other difficulties, I found no cases of meeting people or intelligent beings you could communicate with inside the Tower.

Then was this unique to the Hidden Route?

It felt too real to be fake, yet too fake to be real, because once you left the Tower and came back in, the world reset again.

"Haylin-nim."

"Mm?"

"Do you know what the Tower is? The one you climb, split into Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare difficulties..."

"What? What are you talking about?"

Haylin showed no sign of understanding at all.

As expected, that did not work.

I changed the question.

"Then what kind of world is this? I mean... what do you call the continent we live on?"

"Panderun Continent, obviously. What are you trying to say?"

Haylin looked at me like I was a weirdo.

Panderun.

Another dimensional world? Or just a setting that was made up?

"Come to think of it, this lady has a question too. How did you move behind this lady so suddenly? This lady could not track your movement at all."

"That? It's just Teleport."

Haylin looked shocked.

"That was magic? Are you a mage?"

"Mm... I can use magic."

It's a magic-type skill, so I guessed it counted as magic.

Haylin asked as if she could not understand.

"Then how do you cast magic like that?"

"Huh?"

"Well, this lady does not know much about magic either... but does magic not always require casting time? While casting, one cannot move."

Casting?

Did she mean mental concentration?

"I have my own method."

I could not explain it, so I brushed it off.

By the time that short conversation ended, we had returned to the castle.

"Ah..."

Haylin let out a groan when she saw it.

The lava must have kept rising even after we escaped. It had overflowed so completely that you could no longer even see the castle's outer walls.

Survivors... there was no way, right?

When I escaped the castle in the first place, I had not seen anything except the Minotaur.

"They all must be dead."

Haylin muttered, stunned.

"We have to find traces of the intruder... they could not have gone far... no, first we should go where Father is...?"

At that moment, Haylin and I turned our heads at the same time.

I had never felt anything like it in my life.

Dark, ominous, and prickling all over.

An overwhelmingly powerful presence that was hard to describe in words.

KWAANG!

The castle gate and hardened lava piles suddenly shattered.

Someone walked out from inside, covered in lava flames. It was a knight in pitch-black armor.

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