Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 181

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 181: Nightmare Floor 17 (2)

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My father’s limp body fell to the living room floor.

“Ahhh! Honey!”

“D-Dad! Daaad...!”

My mother screamed in horror and threw her arms around my father’s fallen body.

My sibling went pale and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

His neck had been broken. He had died instantly.

‘...’

I could not believe what was unfolding before my eyes.

Was this... reality?

Really?

“Can’t believe it? Surprisingly, it is reality.”

The Demon King sneered.

“This is only the beginning. You’re falling apart already?”

The Demon King stretched out a hand again.

This time, the Demon King’s fingertips were pointed at my mother.

I screamed desperately.

‘Stop! Stop it!’

Please stop.

Time, stop already! Please...!

Begging was useless.

Time no longer stopped as I wished.

Neither did the Demon King’s hand.

‘I was wrong! It was all my fault! Please don’t do this...!’

All I could do was desperately beg the Demon King for mercy.

But the Demon King coldly passed judgment.

“It is already too late.”

Slice.

A sickening cutting sound rang out.

My mother’s head dropped to the floor.

Not a single drop of blood spilled from the frozen cut.

My mother’s tilting body collapsed over my father’s corpse.

‘...Ah.’

It felt as though something snapped inside my head.

I could no longer stay sane.

“...Mom?”

My sibling crumpled to the floor.

After staring blankly at our fallen parents, they raised their head and looked up at me.

Tears streamed down from empty eyes.

“Why...?”

...It wasn’t me.

No, please, it wasn’t me... I...

The Demon King’s hand moved toward my sibling, who had frozen like a statue.

‘...Please.’

I squeezed out a plea.

To save my only remaining sibling.

‘I’ll beg like this. Please spare my sibling...’

The hand stopped.

The Demon King chuckled.

“Pathetic. Very well. I’ll graciously spare one in recognition of your abjectness.”

The Demon King walked past my sibling and toward the living room window.

“But in exchange, I will kill ninety percent of humanity. That is the price of your sibling’s life. Watch closely. They will all die because of you.”

‘W-Wait...’

The Demon King took to the air and landed in the middle of a busy street.

The surrounding pedestrians turned toward the Demon King.

“W-What is that?”

“They fell from the sky. A Climber...?”

The Demon King swept a hand toward them.

Shhhk!

Blue lines streaked through the air, cutting people apart.

Hundreds of people died in an instant. The street was dyed red with blood.

“Ahhhhh!”

“U-Uaaah...!”

People fled in terror.

The massacre had begun.

The Demon King rampaged, killing everyone in sight.

Using my body, the Demon King crushed and burst people apart, or unleashed cold over a wide area and slaughtered them all at once.

Please stop... Don’t do this...

The Demon King did not stop, as though he could no longer hear my pleas.

All I could do was watch helplessly.

This... was not reality.

There was no way this could be reality.

“Ha ha. Are you denying reality? Go on, keep denying it.”

The Demon King mocked me as though I were ridiculous.

The city center had become ruins.

After some time passed, helicopters and fighter jets began filling the sky.

But they were nowhere near enough to stop the Demon King. Every one of them was shot down and crashed in an instant.

People’s dying screams echoed endlessly in my ears.

...I felt like my mind was going to collapse.

I could no longer hold myself together.

The Demon King continued the massacre, moving from one city center to another.

How much time had passed?

The Demon King stood atop a building.

Looking down at the sea of corpses and blood below, he spoke to me.

“What a pleasant sight. What do you think? You killed them all.”

...At least hundreds of thousands of people must have died.

But the Demon King apparently was not satisfied with that.

“There is still a long way to go. Killing ninety percent of humanity bit by bit like this will take quite some time.”

The Demon King began concentrating.

Fwoooosh!

When he finished concentrating, my body became light.

He had used Radiant Incarnation.

...How?

Even if the Demon King had control, the Demon King should not have been able to freely use my skills...

“Did I not tell you that I accepted the Tower’s offer? All of your authority as a Climber has been perfectly transferred to me as well.”

The Demon King soared high into the sky.

I could not fail to understand what was about to happen.

Just like when I had swept away the Monkey horde on Floor 9, an enormous amount of freezing cold compressed together.

...Fwoooooosh!

When it burst in every direction,

the world turned white.

On the ground below,

people, buildings, everything in sight froze and scattered amid the blizzard.

The Demon King moved while maintaining Radiant Incarnation.

The blizzard did not stop at freezing all of South Korea. Its range kept expanding without end.

China, Japan, Russia... Beyond the Asian continent, the entire world.

When we had been sent to Kanyuk’s world on Floor 15, the Demon King had said that all life in the world would be erased as quickly as possible. There had not been a hint of exaggeration in those words.

The bitter cold devoured most life on Earth.

“Can you see it?”

The Demon King looked down at the frozen earth.

“You did all of this. Billions of lives have gone out.”

‘...’

I could no longer think at all.

“To destroy with your own hands the world you tried so hard to save. What a tragedy.”

...Because of me.

Everyone had died because of me. My family, everyone else.

It was no different from something I had done myself.

The world had been destroyed in an instant.

‘...I’ll kill you.’

All that remained was emptiness and despair.

And hatred for the Demon King.

The Demon King chuckled.

“Yes, go ahead and try. But how exactly do you intend to kill me?”

The Demon King flew somewhere while laughing at me.

Back to South Korea.

Perhaps Seoul had been deliberately avoided when South Korea was frozen, but for some reason, only Seoul remained unchanged.

The Demon King headed for my home.

...My sibling was still sitting on the living room floor.

The Demon King strode over and grabbed my sibling by the nape.

‘...!’

A blinding rage, enough to burn my brain, surged through me.

I barely forced it down and spoke.

‘You promised you would spare my sibling...!’

The Demon King spoke.

“Release time.”

...What?

Time was flowing perfectly normally, yet the Demon King was suddenly spouting nonsense.

My Time Stop Ability had been banned, so what was this supposed to...

“Shut up and release it. Do you want to watch your sibling die too?”

‘No... It isn’t stopped, what are you talking about...!’

“Just decide to release it like you normally do when you release time! Hurry up!”

The Demon King roared.

The Demon King’s grip around my sibling’s neck tightened.

With no other choice, I did as I was told.

“Did you do it?”

‘I did! I released it!’

At that moment,

the scene before my eyes changed completely.

‘...?’

Huh?

Before me stood a massive set of scales.

A black sphere and a white sphere rested on the two pans.

Then the black sphere rapidly grew larger, becoming bigger than the white sphere, which had originally been much larger.

Clunk.

The scales tipped toward the black sphere.

I watched the sight without having time to grasp what was happening.

And then...

I heard the voice of a massive being behind the scales.

- You have won.

[You have successfully cleared Floor 17 on Nightmare difficulty.]

...???

“Phew, fuck! You finally fell for it, you damn bastard.”

The Demon King spoke as though utterly sick of this.

W-What was this...?

I had no idea what was happening.

[The power of this floor is being absorbed.]

[Your level has increased.]

[You are the first to clear Floor 17 on Nightmare difficulty.]

[Moving to the Reward Room.]

My vision changed again.

It was the Reward Room.

I flexed my fingers.

Control of my body... had returned.

Feeling something strange on my forehead, I took off what I had been wearing.

It was Pankera’s Crown.

“...Demon King, sir.”

Staring blankly at the crown, I asked,

“Was all of that the Mindscape?”

The Demon King answered.

- Did you think it was reality? I am sick of explaining this. It was all done to clear Floor 17.

The Demon King seemed to understand this entire situation.

But I still understood nothing.

Completely stunned, I asked again.

“What the hell happened...?”

* * *

The theme of Floor 17 was the Unknown Dimension.

I had heard that I would have to fight monsters in an unidentified purple space with neither ground nor gravity.

[You have entered Floor 17 on Nightmare difficulty.]

The moment I entered, I stopped time.

‘Hmm...’

The entire space was purple.

I floated in midair.

There was nothing but endlessly stretching space, making it resemble outer space.

Nightmare difficulty seemed to share the same setting as the other difficulties, at least.

I released time.

Then a message appeared.

[Win the wager proposed by the Demon of the Scales.]

“...?”

That was the only message that appeared.

I furrowed my brow.

It was telling me the clear condition from the beginning.

But in my experience, floors that kindly told you the condition from the start were trickier than the others. Just look at Floor 12...

‘What is the Demon of the Scales?’

Win a wager?

Floating in the weightless space, I looked around.

There was still nothing in sight.

Then it happened.

“...!”

Along with an enormous presence, a hazy figure appeared before me.

A black giant.

Its face had empty holes for eyes, a nose, and a mouth, like a skull. Its body was huge, but painfully thin.

For a moment, I was overwhelmed by that ominous, eerie presence.

It felt as though I had encountered a being of an entirely higher order.

Was this the Demon of the Scales...?

The creature, which looked like a demon by anyone’s standards, stared down at me with empty, eyeless sockets.

I was not supposed to fight something like this...

Right, it said I had to win a wager.

But the demon did not react for a long time.

Eventually, I spoke first.

“You’re the Demon of the Scales, right? Let’s make a wager.”

Only then did the demon react.

Its intent was delivered directly into my mind, as though through telepathy.

- A wager. Fine.

The Demon of the Scales seemed to smile.

- If I win, your soul is mine.

“...And if I win?”

- I will let you leave the Demon Realm. This is not a realm for humans.

The Demon Realm?

Was this place the Demon Realm?

- And I decide the terms of the wager. If you refuse to accept, there will be no wager.

“...Isn’t it going to be a wager I have no chance of winning?”

- I am the Demon of the Scales. The wager is fair.

“How am I supposed to believe that?”

The demon gave no further answer.

As though telling me to decide whether I would accept the wager or not.

[Win the wager proposed by the Demon of the Scales.]

The message also said I had to win the wager proposed by the Demon of the Scales...

Either way, I could not interfere with its terms, could I?

I had no choice but to accept.

“Let’s do it. What kind of wager is it?”

The Demon of the Scales raised a hand.

A massive red set of scales appeared before me.

A large iron ball rested on the right pan.

The left pan was empty.

Naturally, the scales tilted to the right.

There was no gravity in this space, but the scales worked just fine.

The demon spoke.

- I will bring out three sets of scales in turn. If you balance every one of them or tip them to the other side, you win. If you fail even one, I win. There is no time limit.

“...Are there any other conditions? Nothing at all?”

I asked while observing the scales.

- Every set of scales has its own rule. These red scales operate only on the mass of your physical body.

The mass of my body?

I soon understood what that meant.

In other words, I was supposed to balance the scales using my own weight.

‘...How?’

I looked at the iron ball on the right pan.

It was nearly as large as my body.

It had to weigh several tons at least.

I used Air Step.

As I approached the left pan, an attractive force pulled my body toward it.