Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 182

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 182: Nightmare Floor 17 (3)

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The Scales operated solely on the mass of my physical body.

It was a gimmick similar to the one on Floor 11.

That goddamn gimmick where I had to fill an enormous container with my blood.

I had to increase the weight by repeatedly cutting off parts of my body and regenerating them.

All I had to do was make the left pan heavier than the iron sphere on the other side.

The problem was that I had no idea how many times I would need to repeat it.

...Well, what else could I do?

If this was the only way, I had to do it. Fuck.

Slice.

I drew the Sword of Heaven's Gatekeeper and cut off my left arm without hesitation.

The severed arm fell onto the scale, blood pouring from it.

I endured the prickling pain and waited for my left arm to regenerate.

A few minutes later, my arm had fully regenerated.

Now that I was over Level 200, my body's regenerative power was far greater than it had been on Floor 11.

If an arm weighed around four or five kilograms... I had added five kilograms now.

I glanced at the demon.

The demon only watched silently, as if it would not interfere regardless of what method I used.

'Will I need to do this about a thousand times?'

All right. Time to get serious.

I cut off my left arm again.

Then I cut off both legs as well.

I kept repeating the amputations, carefully managing things so I would not pass out from anemia.

Cut, regenerate, cut, regenerate, cut, regenerate...

Time passed.

The left pan filled with blood, and my arms and legs piled up in heaps. It was a little grotesque.

Still, there was not enough weight.

I continued removing limbs until the balance tilted.

Nearly two days passed like that.

Creeeak.

"Oh...!"

I let out an exclamation.

At last, the Scales began tilting to the left.

The left pan gradually lowered until it balanced with the right.

The condition for success was to make both pans equal in weight, or make the originally lighter side heavier and tip it the other way.

When I looked at the demon, it spoke.

- Success.

I let out a sigh.

That was only one success.

There were still two more left.

It had said I needed to clear all three Scales.

At a wave of the demon's hand, the red Scales disappeared.

Then new Scales appeared.

This time, they were blue.

The left pan was empty again, while the right pan held... what was that?

A lump of blue smoke, like cotton candy.

The demon explained the rules of the second Scales.

- The blue Scales operate solely on the weight of your memories.

"...Memories?"

- If you stand on the left pan, you may offer as many memories as you wish.

What the hell did that mean?

Offer my memories?

"What exactly does offering memories mean? Does that mean I'll lose the memories I offer?"

- Correct. Memories offered to the Scales will be lost forever.

You bastard...

Something I had never imagined had appeared.

The second Scales required memories as payment to move.

Messing with memories during a Nightmare clear was a new kind of bullshit.

I asked again.

"...How many memories do I have to offer? At least tell me that much."

The demon did not answer.

Cursing, I looked at the blue mass on the right pan.

'...Huh?'

No, wait a second...

I had actually lived for an incredibly long time, mentally speaking.

Then couldn't I just throw away those memories?

The memories of all the time I had spent with time stopped.

I stepped onto the left pan.

For example, the time I had stopped to recharge Willpower...

Whoooosh.

When I decided to offer the memories of the months I had once spent charging the warp device, blue smoke flowed from my head.

The smoke gathered into a lump and settled onto the left pan.

It was still far smaller than the lump on the right. Maybe one-tenth the size.

Once I offered those memories, they were truly gone.

I could not remember what memory I had just removed.

Then the Demon King told me.

- Those were the memories from when you stopped time to charge the warp device.

Oh, right.

Even after being told, I only knew that fact. The memories themselves did not return. They had been completely erased.

Hmm. Anyway, at this rate...

I would probably need to offer several years' worth of memories before the scale tipped.

'I can gather enough just by scraping together all the useless ones.'

Naturally, I could not offer important memories, such as meeting Seri or training in the Mindscape.

I only pulled out and offered the memories I had spent blankly with time stopped to recharge Willpower.

Go ahead and take them! Take these worthless memories!

My lump of memories steadily grew larger.

Then, once it became as big as the lump on the right...

'There.'

The Scales tipped to the left.

The left pan became heavier than the right.

I looked at the demon.

- Success.

The second Scales were cleared too.

Only one remained.

...But the last one was probably going to be the most fucked up, right?

I tensed up even more.

The blue Scales vanished, and the third Scales appeared.

Gray Scales.

"...?"

What was this?

This time was different from the previous ones.

Because both the left and right pans had something on them.

On the right was a white sphere even larger than the pan itself.

On the left was a black sphere, incomparably smaller than the white one.

Naturally, the Scales were tilted toward the white sphere.

- The gray Scales operate on good karma and bad karma.

The demon explained.

- The white sphere is the good karma you have accumulated so far, and the black sphere is your bad karma. The condition for success is the same. Balance the Scales or tip them the other way.

...My accumulated good karma and bad karma?

I looked back and forth between the white sphere and the black sphere.

Naturally, the white sphere was overwhelmingly larger.

Which meant that, to clear this...

I needed to make the black sphere, in other words my bad karma, heavier than my good karma.

'...What?'

I could only be utterly dumbfounded.

What the fuck was this?

It made no sense.

Was it telling me to accumulate as much bad karma as good karma?

That gigantic white sphere had to be the good karma I had gained from saving the world several times.

Wouldn't I have to destroy the world to accumulate even more bad karma than that?

...It was absurd.

I stopped time and thought.

More importantly... how was I supposed to accumulate bad karma in here to begin with?

I was inside the Tower.

The only things here were me and the demon in front of me.

There was nothing in this space that I could use to accumulate either good karma or bad karma.

If I could not change the size of the spheres, there was naturally no way to move the Scales.

I resumed time and spoke to the demon.

"Are you kidding me? You called this a fair bet?"

- The bet is fair.

"How is this fair? There isn't even a way to move the Scales!"

Unless someone had entered Floor 17 with perfectly equal good karma and bad karma from the start, there was no way to succeed.

No matter how I argued, the demon gave no further answer.

As I fumed, the Demon King's voice rang out.

- That good karma and bad karma must be subjective to you.

...Subjective to me?

'What do you mean?'

- What is the standard for good and evil? Such a standard does not exist in the world to begin with. Good karma and bad karma do not exist either.

It was not wrong, but there was something I did not understand.

'But Seri had the ability to see through good karma and bad karma, didn't she? And my Armor of Karma lasts longer depending on my good karma.'

- That may only be Seri's subjective judgment. Or the judgment of the being that bestowed a blessing upon Seri.

...So that was how it worked.

I looked at the two spheres again.

If the Demon King was right, they were simply good karma and bad karma based on my own perception.

...But even if that were true, so what?

I still had no way to change the spheres' sizes.

I knew better than anyone that I was humanity's savior, and that I had saved the world several times.

Of course, I saw that as immense good karma. What greater good karma could there be than saving the world?

Could I consciously change that perception?

'I did nothing. I never saved the world...'

I repeated it forcefully to myself.

The white sphere did not shrink even a little.

...Of course it would not work like this.

Not unless I could perfectly deceive myself.

"..."

Deceive myself...?

A thought suddenly came to me. Could it be?

I spoke to the demon.

"...Please bring the blue Scales back."

If the Tower's intention was what I had just thought of...

The demon would not refuse.

- Why? You have already cleared the blue Scales.

"I want to offer more memories. It only needs to be heavier, so it shouldn't matter, right?"

When I shamelessly said that, the demon seemed to chuckle.

- Fine.

The blue Scales appeared again, beside the gray Scales.

I spoke to the Demon King.

'Demon King, if good karma and bad karma are only subjective to me, then they are practically no different from memories, right?'

The Demon King seemed to understand what I was trying to say.

- ...Are you planning to erase memories and reduce your good karma?

'I think that is probably what the Tower intends.'

I had saved the world several times.

But what if those memories disappeared from my mind?

Naturally, the amount of good karma would decrease too.

From my perspective, I would never have saved the world.

But this method...

- An absurd method. You will no longer be yourself.

That was right.

Erasing all those memories meant losing all the memories of the path I had walked as Person123.

I would probably become an entirely different person.

I was not even sure whether I could continue climbing the Tower in that state.

'And that is probably the Tower's intention...'

It wanted me to make a sacrifice.

If I wanted to clear Floor 17, I would have to give up most of those memories.

This floor was especially deadly to anyone whose karma was heavily tilted to one side.

It meant losing that many memories.

I could not help but shudder at the Tower's viciousness.

...First, let us properly test whether the Demon King is right.

Were good karma and bad karma really based purely on my own perception?

'Let's see...'

I looked at the white sphere.

...It was so large that removing a trivial memory would probably not make any visible difference.

I shifted my gaze to the black sphere.

Yeah, that would be better.

A truly bad thing I had done in my life... a traumatic memory from childhood.

The time I accidentally lay on and killed a chick I had cherished and raised.

I looked at the black sphere, stepped onto the blue Scales, and removed that memory.

Then...

"...!"

The black sphere shrank slightly.

Huh?

What memory had I just removed?

'Demon King.'

- You accidentally killed a chick you were raising as a child. Does it really shrink that much over something so minor?

The Demon King spoke as if it were ridiculous.

Oh, I had killed a chick I was raising.

The black sphere was still fairly large.

It had gone from watermelon-sized to the size of a slightly smaller watermelon.

I had lived a life where I did not harm others and did my best to follow what I should.

I could not think of any other bad karma I had accumulated... What was it?

'...Ah.'

I knew.

Kanyuk.

I felt guilty about Kanyuk's world.

Maybe I saw that as bad karma myself.

Or perhaps it was the memories of killing people, even if it could not be helped.

Either way, it proved that, as the Demon King had said, good karma and bad karma followed my subjective perception.

I fell into thought with time stopped.

'...Is that really the only way?'

The enormous white sphere, like the sun.

Only erasing every memory of saving the world would reduce it below the size of the black sphere.

No matter how I thought about it, it was insane.

But it was not as though I could increase the size of the black sphere...

'...Increase the black sphere?'

Wait.

I felt like something was about to come to me.

Deceiving myself.

Increasing the size of my bad karma.

"..."

After thinking for a long while, I came up with one absurd method.

'How about this, Demon King?'

What I could do now was erase memories.

That alone gave me no way to increase the amount of bad karma.

I could not create memories that did not exist.

But what if I used it a little differently?

This was the method I thought of.

First, I would erase every memory from the moment I entered Floor 17 until now.

At the same time, I would hand control of my body to the Demon King and enter the Mindscape.

Then the Demon King would immediately recreate the real world exactly as it was.

Then, from my perspective, even though I had entered Floor 17, it would feel as though I had not.

From then on, it would be the Demon King's part.

To increase my bad karma as much as the immense good karma I had gained from saving the world multiple times...

The only answer was to destroy the world instead.

The Demon King would rampage through a Mindscape that recreated reality and destroy Earth.

Even if I used my Time Stop Ability in the Mindscape, only reality outside would stop, so I would have no way to stop the Demon King.

I would believe that the Demon King had truly taken over my body and destroyed Earth.

Then the black sphere outside would grow enormous in response to my perception...

And since the Demon King could use items while controlling my body, the Demon King could leave the Mindscape and win the bet.

- You crazy bastard... It is original, at least.

After hearing the entire plan, the Demon King gave a hollow laugh.

- But can that truly work? You are not likely to be fooled.

That was true.

There were several problems with this plan.

The biggest was that I did not seem likely to fall for it.

The Demon King's ability to recreate the Mindscape was incredibly lifelike, but I would realize it immediately if I sensed even the slightest incongruity.

'That is why we need to build the scenario well. For example, how about this? The Tower makes you an offer on Floor 17. It says it will let you take my body if you reveal the secret of my ability.'

- Would something so flimsy work?

'...Could you not keep pressuring me so hard that I have no time to come to my senses?'

I resumed time.

After putting on Pankera's Crown, I entered the Mindscape.

"Can you actually do it? Control my body in the Mindscape so I can't do anything at all?"

The Demon King's control over the Mindscape was on an entirely different level from mine.

When the Demon King had helped Taylor and Ye Tianwei train in the Mindscape before, the Demon King had forced both of them to act. Could the Demon King not do the same to me?

"Does that even need asking? Of course I can."

After testing it, I found it was possible.

When the Demon King entered and tried to take control of my body, I could not do anything by my own will.

Hmm... At this level, I did not think I would notice that it was the Mindscape.

I returned to reality.

'Let's do it.'

The only other option was erasing the memories of saving the world.

Even if I noticed and failed, it would be fine.

The Demon King could explain the situation, then I could erase my memories again and we could try again. We would just keep doing it until we succeeded.

The Demon King said,

- Even if all else works, will you not notice immediately if you sense my emotions?

Because our souls were intertwined, we could feel each other's emotions completely.

That was why I could usually tell when the Demon King was lying.

'Then you need to put on the performance of your life. If you radiate killing intent and kill everyone, would that not confuse me?'

- ...Even if you do not notice until the end, time outside will be stopped. What will you do about that?

'You will have to guide me properly there too. Make me resume time without noticing.'

- Damn bastard. You are pushing me to do everything.

What else could I do?

For this plan, the Demon King really had to do everything.

'Please, I am asking you. Let's try it. It is not as though I can erase the memories of saving the world. I would become a complete idiot.'

I wondered if my erased memories might return after clearing Floor 17.

But considering the Tower's malice and Floor 12, it was unlikely. Even after clearing it, I would probably never regain the memories I offered.

All right... Let us do this.

Wearing Pankera's Crown, I stepped onto the blue Scales again.

The memories I would offer were everything from the moment I entered Floor 17 until now.

The moment I offered those memories, I handed control of my body to the Demon King.

Operation Kim Seo-hyeon's Truman Show, begin.

* * *

- ...That is what happened.

After hearing the Demon King's full explanation, I gaped.

"Crazy..."

So that was why I had no memories of Floor 17?

I really had come up with something absurd.

I gathered myself, feeling both confused and relieved.

Even so... the memories of killing my family with my own hands and destroying the world were too intense.

Until just moments ago, I had completely believed they were real.

"But did you really have to make it that extreme?"

- You mean killing your family?

The Demon King snorted.

- You were the one who suggested all of it.

"...I suggested that?"

- Yes. How many times do you think we tried because you would not be fooled? We tried dozens and dozens of times!

Dozens and dozens of times?

Naturally, I could not remember.

- You suggested that we start by killing your family to completely knock your mind out of place. That is why it worked immediately. You noticed every time people were massacred at random, but once it began with your family being killed, you completely lost your senses.

...Was that how it was?

Now that I thought about it, there had been plenty of strange things.

I had just failed to notice because seeing my family die before my eyes shattered my mind.

The Demon King grumbled as if it had been tiresome, then sneered.

- In any case, I saw your craven pleading quite well. It was deeply moving. You should always show me that sort of attitude.

"...You honestly enjoyed it, didn't you?"

Ugh.

Completely exhausted, I lay down in the Reward Room.

"Good work, Demon King."

That goddamn Floor 17.

It was truly horrible.

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