WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 2

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Nightmare Floor 1 (1)

“Goblin. Their build is estimated to be between 150 and 160 cm, and their physical strength is around that of an average adult man, or slightly lower. On Easy and Normal difficulties, unarmed goblins mainly attack with their teeth and claws, while on Hard difficulty, goblins are armed with iron longswords, so the danger spikes...”

I had never planned to enter the Tower.

That did not mean I had done nothing.

“...Hard difficulty is insane too. Who the hell challenges this?”

Information about Floor 1 of the Tower was everywhere if you searched online for even a bit.

There was even a full strategy manual, advertised as required reading for Climbers.

Of course, none of that was supposed to matter to me.

No one knew what kind of trial waited on Floor 1 of a difficulty with not a single survivor.

The more I looked, the clearer the conclusion became. If you entered, you died.

You could become superhuman by climbing the Tower?

You could make absurd amounts of money from Tower rewards?

People said those promises tempted many into challenging the Tower, and some even envied the selected Climbers.

So what?

You only had one life.

I was not a thrill seeker, and I knew exactly how precious life was. I was the complete opposite of people like that.

Even if I had been assigned Easy, I would not have given it a second glance.

My life was already going just fine.

And Nightmare, with zero survivors?

Unless someone held a blade to my throat, there was no way I would walk in by my own will.

Still, I did think you never knew what might happen.

Whenever I had spare time, I looked up information on Floor 1, read it, and memorized it.

I was never going to enter the Tower, but getting healthier would not hurt, so I started working out too.

If I had really wanted to prepare properly, there were training facilities for Climbers, but I did not want to go somewhere that basically announced I was volunteering as one.

Kendo and boxing.

Boxing was ordinary enough, but I had a reason for choosing kendo too.

They said you could not bring in electronic devices, and you also could not bring anything judged as a weapon or armor.

The only usable weapons were the ones given inside the Tower, and on Floor 1, the weapon given to all Climbers was a sword.

I had long thought I could use my Time-Stop Ability for physical combat too.

After more than half a year at the kendo hall and boxing gym, I confirmed it.

It was definitely useful.

I did regret not training harder if this was how things would turn out, but...

They said the enemies on Floor 1, from Easy to Hard, were all goblins by default.

Easy Floor 1 had one unarmed goblin.

Normal Floor 1 had two unarmed goblins.

Hard Floor 1 had two goblins armed with swords.

Then what exactly was waiting in Nightmare?

[You have entered Nightmare difficulty Floor 1.]

I was about to find out for myself.

The scene in front of me changed in an instant.

The moment I entered, I stopped time first.

I checked what I could see.

It looked like the inside of a large cave.

Minerals embedded in the walls glowed like lights and brightly lit the space.

There was a straight passage ahead, and no enemy was visible yet.

I released and stopped time repeatedly while checking front, back, left, and right.

For now, the layout was as expected.

I had heard all the other difficulties also fought goblins in cave-like spaces.

...What do I do?

Now that I was really inside, regret hit me all at once.

No. This was bad.

“Get it together.”

I was already in. I could not drown in negative thoughts.

I could do this.

I had to clear it and get out alive.

If you seek to live, you die. If you seek to die, you live. Fine, then I would do it too.

I took a deep breath. Well, I could not breathe while time was stopped.

Still, I took a deep breath in my mind, steadied myself, and released time.

I picked up the sword placed on a cube-shaped rock nearby.

A Western-style longsword.

I had wondered if they might skip giving me a weapon just because it was Nightmare, but thankfully they were not that shameless.

Holding the longsword with both hands, I faced the passage ahead.

Goblins would come out of there soon.

From Easy to Hard, one common pattern was that goblins emerged from the front passage.

I waited a little, breathing the damp air.

Then they walked out of the passage.

I stopped time again immediately.

I observed the goblins that had appeared.

Three total.

Two were armed with swords similar to mine, and one had a spear.

...So I had to fight those.

Even though I had prepared myself, my resolve kept trying to break.

Idiot, get it together.

Time was endless on my side, so I calmed down and thought through a strategy.

Fighting all three at once was insane, obviously.

One sword user stood at the front, and the other two were slightly separated.

“They rush in right away.”

The space was wide enough.

Could I fight by picking them off one by one?

“As long as I do not get surrounded...”

If I used my ability to the fullest, it felt possible somehow.

I had kept refining my sense for how to use this ability in real fights through boxing and kendo.

But this was real combat.

Even the tiniest mistake would be fatal.

“I can do it.”

I forced down my fear, locked in my resolve one last time,

and released time.

“Kieeek!”

The goblins charged.

The sword goblin in front closed in first.

Huh? Then my chance came right away.

I could take one first and pull back.

When it got almost right in my face,

I started using my ability aggressively.

Release time for an instant, then stop it, over and over.

Like pausing a video and rapidly tapping play and pause.

The goblin moved little by little, slowly.

It was a technique I named Time-Slicing.

The limit for quickly releasing and stopping time was about 0.02 seconds.

Meaning I could split one second into as much as one-fiftieth.

Time stop was not invincibility.

My body and reaction speed were still just those of a normal human.

If a blade had already reached right in front of my stomach, what was the point of stopping time?

I could not dodge.

The instant I released time, my gut would be pierced.

So for someone like me, Time-Slicing was the best method possible.

“...That face is seriously disgusting.”

I realized the goblins you usually saw in games and comics were heavily cleaned-up versions.

The goblin approached me slowly.

My body moved just as slowly.

Still, that made it possible to fully predict and prepare for how it would attack.

“A thrust.”

As the goblin drew its sword arm back,

this had to be a thrust attack.

I started dodging by pulling my rear foot and hips to the side.

At the same time, I extended my sword to counter.

In the slowed time, both of us moved like dropped frames.

Moving while releasing and stopping time in split moments felt strange, but I had trained until I was used to it, so my movement did not stutter.

“Good.”

First, the dodge succeeded.

By the time the goblin extended its sword, my body had already moved completely out of the stabbing line.

My sword, in contrast, was moving straight for the goblin’s neck.

I thrust.

I stabbed.

A real blade pierced living skin far more smoothly than I expected.

“Keh-”

With my sword still buried in the goblin’s neck, I stopped time again.

...I really did it.

Time to pull the sword out and retreat. Plenty.

After preparing to move, I released time.

“...!”

I stopped it again immediately.

The embedded blade did not come out as easily as I thought. Damn.

What now?

I twisted the sword and kicked the goblin’s body away.

Thud!

This time the sword came free.

The goblin with the pierced neck flopped to the floor.

I quickly turned and ran.

The two remaining goblins chased me with unpleasant cries.

I was faster than they were.

Stop again for now.

I froze mid-run.

What, this was doable.

My ability was working perfectly fine in real combat too.

My confidence rose a little more.

I could handle the remaining two the same way.

The sword goblin was closer than the spear goblin.

Sword goblin on the left, spear goblin on the right, and the spear goblin lagging farther behind.

If I ran left, the distance between them would widen.

I released time and ran again.

As I curved left, the gap between the two goblins grew, and the sword goblin and I got closer and closer.

Now was the timing.

I stomped to a sudden stop and planted myself.

As expected, the charging sword goblin did not stop, like it had no concept of coordinated attacks.

Even better. Come.

When it came right up to me, I started Time-Slicing again.

Release, stop, release, stop.

Watching the goblin’s slow chain of movement, I predicted the next attack.

“Downward strike.”

Its sword lifted above its head.

A very straightforward overhead slash.

I matched the timing and swung my sword too.

When I knocked the descending blade to the side, the shock rattled my grip.

I stopped time again and calmly prepared the counter.

My advantage was that even in each moment of combat, I had unlimited time to think.

The goblin’s reactions could not keep up with that.

Thrust!

My sword pierced the goblin’s exposed neck.

Second kill.

I pulled my sword out more calmly than before and stepped back.

The spear goblin running up hesitated when it saw the sword goblin collapse.

Was that one more cowardly than its friends?

No, maybe smarter.

The spear goblin did not rush recklessly and just prowled in place.

“Hoo...”

I kept my gaze fixed and steadied my breathing.

...Wait.

It was too early to celebrate just because one enemy remained.

That spear was aimed at me.

Its reach was much longer than my sword.

This... the pressure from that reach difference was worse than I expected.

If I closed in carelessly, it would stab right away.

Dodging when I was already prepared and dodging while initiating the approach myself were very different levels of difficulty.

It was easier to respond when they attacked blindly like the others, but this one was careful for no reason.

The dodge or block-then-counter pattern I used to kill the first two became hard to apply.

“Taking the first move is risky...”

Keeping my distance, I faced the goblin and slowly circled.

Right, there was no reason to go first.

Are we just going to keep doing this?

You come in first.

I focused my nerves, ready to stop time the instant I saw any tell.

We kept circling each other for a long while.

Then, maybe frustrated, the goblin let out an angry cry.

“Kiek! Kieeek!”

Their cries were unpleasant, like scraping metal.

Wait, should I try provoking it?

If it was already this irritated, maybe one push would make it charge first.

“Kikik. Pfft.”

I put on the most obnoxious expression I could and laughed as irritatingly as possible. I even stuck my tongue out.

Thankfully, the goblin seemed to understand that I was openly mocking it.

The moment I noticed its body leaning forward, I stopped time immediately.

It was coming.

Release, stop. The spear approached slowly.

I predicted its stabbing line and twisted my body to start the dodge.

Dodge, step in, stab.

After the two earlier fights, my senses had oddly sharpened.

I executed exactly the counter I had pictured.

I stabbed the goblin in the neck, then kicked it to pull my sword free.

The thing twitching on the floor soon went still.

I looked around.

The goblins I had dropped earlier were long dead too.

All three had definitely died.

“...”

No.

There was no message saying the clear had succeeded.

That meant something was still left.

“Yeah, I did not expect it to be that easy.”

Three goblins.

Sure, that alone was very hard, but for this difficulty,

it did not feel like enough to explain how so many people failed and died without a single clear...

“Heh.”

Let me rest first.

I sat down and let my body recover.

[Nightmare]

Participants: 76,526

Time Limit: 3 hours 1 minute 42 seconds

Highest Floor Reached: Floor 1

I checked the Nightmare time limit panel and confirmed the flow of time.

It had not even been five minutes since I entered.

Fighting while stopping time had made it feel way, way longer.

“Good... this is manageable.”

I muttered while looking around at the goblin corpses.

Did I really pull this off?

Even by my own standards, that fight was excellent.

See? If I do it, I can do it.

My mood lifted and hope rose.

Hope that I could clear this difficulty that had swallowed tens of thousands of lives.

“Kereleok-”

I heard goblin cries.

I jumped up in a hurry.

Damn it, they were not even giving me proper time to rest.

More goblins were coming out of the passage.

I stopped time.

Three again.

But their equipment had changed.

One had a sword, one had a shield and sword,

and... oh, fuck.

I froze in alarm.

One of them was holding a bow.

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