WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 23

──────

Decision (2)

"Ah, please take this."

I pulled out what I had brought from my pocket.

A Top-Grade Mana Stone shining gold.

Billon took the stone and spoke in surprise.

"Oh, this is a Top-Grade Mana Stone?"

"Yeah. You recognized it?"

"I know a little about what kind of rewards come from Nightmare difficulty."

On Easy, you got Lowest-Grade or Low-Grade Mana Stones. On Normal, Mid-Grade Mana Stones. On Hard, High-Grade Mana Stones.

And Top-Grade Mana Stones were a tier that only appeared in Nightmare difficulty.

I brought the Mana Stone because it felt weird to keep taking things from him.

Honestly, I had planned to use it to negotiate a little.

I had been about to properly ask today whether I could keep receiving Skill Stones in the future. If Billon had not brought it up first, I would have.

Anyway, things had already worked out smoothly, and Mana Stones were useless to me, so I had decided to hand over the one I brought.

"You are helping me, so I should give you something too."

Billon shook his head.

"This is fine. I do not want us to become a give-and-take relationship."

"I still feel bad if I only keep receiving. I do not need Mana Stones anyway. I cannot even sell them anywhere."

"Ah, are you unable to sell Mana Stones because you are an unregistered Climber?"

I nodded.

Billon stroked his chin and said,

"I think I can help with that."

"Huh? How?"

"There are many ways. I can handle proxy sales of your Top-Grade Mana Stones, or I can simply pay you and buy them myself."

Oh, like that?

"Still, the problem is how to set the price. This is not exactly an item traded normally... Ellen, do you know anything about this?"

Billon asked the man in the driver seat.

The man called Ellen answered.

"Supply is so limited that market prices do not mean much, but at that size, even at minimum, it would probably be over 3 billion won."

...3 billion?

The Top-Grade Mana Stone I brought was smaller than a fist. I knew it was rare, but that much?

"This is worth that much?"

"Like I said, market pricing has little meaning. There are only five Nightmare clearers, so there is an extreme gap between demand and supply. Realistically, its price is whatever someone is willing to pay at that moment. In the first place, in the U.S. it is treated as strategic material, so it cannot be legally traded..."

The more I listened, the less it added up, so I asked,

"Then how are you planning to sell it?"

"There are routes besides legal ones."

"Ah."

Well, if it was someone as big as Billon, he probably had ways.

Still, I did not think he needed to go that far.

"That feels a bit much. You do not have to do that."

Come to think of it, even if Billon paid me, how would I even receive that money? Open a Swiss bank account or something?

"Then how about this method? I provide you with lower-grade Mana Stones."

What was that supposed to mean?

Billon explained.

"You are still an unregistered Climber, right? So register yourself not as Nightmare but as a Climber of a different difficulty. The state has no way to know your real difficulty anyway. I can separately give you Mana Stones at the grade that matches that declared difficulty, and you can sell those."

...Wait, that was actually tempting.

Not just for the Mana Stone issue, it solved almost every concern I had been dealing with lately.

If I registered as an Easy-difficulty Climber like he said, then continuously received Low-Grade Mana Stones from Billon and sold them properly?

I could perfectly play the part of an Easy-difficulty Climber.

Mana Stones did not come with name tags, and if I said they were rewards from my own Tower clears, there would be no issue at all.

For Billon, getting lower-grade Mana Stones would not be difficult either, so this was very doable.

Until now, I had kept going to college in a half-committed way.

Part of me still wanted to return to a normal life someday.

But I had now firmly decided to climb the Tower at full power, so I could not keep going to school anymore.

And once second-year pre-med moved into the main program, it would become real nonstop studying.

Climb the Tower and study too, with what time?

Sure, it might be possible if I abused Time-Stop Ability hard enough. But there was no point, and I did not want to push myself like that.

At the same time, if I suddenly quit medical school after coming this far, explaining that to my family would be a problem.

But if I said I had become a Climber, persuasion was possible.

The Tower had already set new rules, so it was no longer something you could just refuse to do.

Quit school, earn money by selling Mana Stones, tell my family I was a Climber, stop worrying about getting caught going in and out of the Tower, and focus only on clearing.

This solved almost everything. Perfect.

"That is a good method."

"Good. If you agree, we will proceed that way."

Billon explained the plan going forward, and I agreed.

Then I forced the Top-Grade Mana Stone on him too, even though he kept refusing. I just did not want to keep receiving things.

"Then I will accept it with thanks. I will put it to good use in research."

I remembered one more thing and spoke.

"Oh, and about the Skill Stones, I do not mind at all if you get me magic-type skills. I prefer magic-type over physical-type."

"Is that so? Understood."

I would be grateful either way, of course.

It was time to part ways.

"Then I look forward to working with you."

I shook hands with Billon one more time, exchanged a glance with Ellen, and opened the car door.

"Hmm..."

I paused before getting out and looked back at Billon.

"My name is Kim Seo-hyeon."

He had helped me this much, so hiding everything felt rude.

I figured I should at least give him my name.

Billon widened his eyes in surprise, then smiled.

"It was a pleasure, Mr. Kim. Let us meet again later."

* * *

Exactly one week later, I met someone to receive Mana Stones.

"Ah, thank you."

At the meeting place, a foreign man handed me only a bag, bowed, and left.

I opened the bag to check.

It was packed full of Lowest-Grade and Low-Grade Mana Stones glowing pale blue.

From then on, we agreed I would receive Mana Stones once a month at a fixed location.

Billon said he could not personally deliver Mana Stones every time, so he would place a separate courier in Korea. He said this person was trustworthy, so probably a close aide.

'So I am finally doing this after two whole years.'

I had also thought, since I was climbing seriously now anyway, should I just reveal that I am a Nightmare clearer and get national support?

But family finding out bothered me, and there were too many complications, so I dropped it.

I went to a nearby Climber Special Affairs Office branch and registered as an Easy-difficulty Climber.

Proving you were a Climber was simple.

If you had cleared even one floor, you only had to show them you could enter and exit the Tower.

Even for Floor 1 Climbers who had never entered the Tower, there was still a way to prove it.

Even first-floor Climbers could see progress on all difficulties, so they could answer an inspector's questions about real-time participant counts or time limits.

In my case, I could use the first method.

Kim Seo-hyeon, Easy difficulty, currently Floor 2.

After finishing all registration, Climbers on Floor 2 and above could receive a certificate.

That certificate was also the document that allowed Mana Stone trading.

I could finally sell Mana Stones fair and square. Nice.

"Total is 20.56 kilograms."

I sold all the Mana Stones I had received at a state-certified Mana Stone exchange.

The money came out to about 130 million won.

It was a huge amount that made Sang-cheol's spending habits make sense. I would not be short on pocket money anymore.

Now only the biggest hurdle remained.

"So, I actually became a Climber."

I said I had something to tell them, sat in the living room, and talked to Mom and Dad.

"What...?"

Seeing their shocked expressions, I quickly added,

"It is Easy difficulty. I already cleared Floor 1 and all that, so there is no problem."

I told them I had become a new Climber this time, but did not tell them in advance because I thought they would worry. I explained that Floor 1 was easy and there were no issues, and only then did their stiff expressions loosen a little.

"Are you really okay? You are not hurt anywhere?"

"Easy is one Goblin. You do not get hurt, and even if you do, injuries heal after the clear."

"So, what I wanted to say is, I want to quit school and work as a Climber."

Mom cried out in shock.

"Absolutely not! What are you saying!"

"I do not mean climbing higher floors, I mean repeating Floor 1 only. You do not need to worry that much, Mom. Repeated clears are not dangerous at all."

Dad spoke too.

"Why do you want to be a Climber? You got into med school with so much effort, what about becoming a doctor?"

I said what I had prepared.

"Honestly, this is a world where we do not even know what happens one year from now. I do not want to keep doing only school study. To become a doctor, I still need to study for years, right?"

"Hmm..."

"Before it is too late, I want to enjoy hobbies more, travel, and try many things. If I work as a Climber, I can earn enough money even with a little work."

I kept giving one argument after another.

Dad listened quietly, then asked again.

"Are you sure you have made up your mind? You will not regret it?"

"Yes. You know I do not say things like this lightly."

I thought it would be hard to persuade him in one shot, but surprisingly Dad nodded.

"Alright. If that is what you think, I am fine with it."

"What are you saying! You should stop him, not encourage him...!"

"Seo-hyeon is not wrong. We live in a world where anything can happen. I want to let the kid do what he wants."

Good, Dad's permission was secured.

"Mom, it really is not dangerous. Nobody dies or gets hurt repeatedly clearing Easy Floor 1. And if there is even a little danger, I can just exit immediately."

"And I have absolutely no intention of climbing Floor 2. Floor 1 is unavoidable, but do you think I am crazy enough to keep climbing just to die? Right?"

As expected, Mom was much more stubborn than Dad.

So I even put on a performance, bringing a general-knowledge book and tearing it in half with grip strength right in front of them.

"See? Even level 1 gets this strong. Your body gets so tough that against one Goblin, you cannot get hurt even if you wanted to."

"Huh..."

In truth, level 1 was not this strong, but they had no way to know that.

In the end, I at least got a reluctant answer that they would think about it.

I did not want to trouble them, so I felt a little guilty. Still, there was no other way.

Anyway, that solved about half of it.

I no longer needed to sneak into the Tower while watching their mood at home.

I picked up the bracelet on my desk and called Diul out.

"You're happy too, right, Diul? We can take more night walks on Floor 2 from now on."

It felt like, do whatever you want, but at the same time I sensed a faint feeling that it liked it too.

What a prickly little guy. It was like raising a cat I had never raised before.

Bang!

The door flew open, and I hurried Diul back into the bracelet.

For real, I keep telling her to knock first.

"What. Why."

My little sister stared at me with a sulky face and said,

"I heard you became a Climber."

"...Yeah."

"Then why did you not tell me?"

"Just because. You heard it from Mom and Dad anyway."

She hesitated for a moment and asked,

"Is it doable?"

"What is?"

"Clearing the Tower. You said it is Easy difficulty."

"It is doable. Why, are you worried?"

"What are you saying! So annoying!"

She yelled, then stormed out. Seriously, this brat.

Thinking I needed to set her straight soon, I called Diul out again.

"That's my little sister. Even to you she looks crazy, right? She treats her oppa like garbage."

Diul did not react at all.

"Fine, let's just go for a walk."

[Would you like to enter Nightmare Floor 2?]

I threw on a cardigan and entered the Tower.

Gangwon Northern Prison.

Thump, thump, thump...

A prison guard making his night patrol through the cell block heard a repetitive sound. It sounded like someone knocking on a cell door.

He traced the sound and approached one of the cells.

"What are you doing? Who is knocking on the do..."

He frowned and looked inside, then froze like he had seen a ghost.

One inmate had his face pressed right up against the inspection window.

"...What are you doing right now, Mr. Seo Dong-woo!"

Seo Dong-woo, Cell 11 of Cell Block 3.

He had received life imprisonment for murder, but for ten years he had lived quietly as a model prisoner without major incidents.

So the guard could only be flustered by this sudden bizarre behavior in the middle of the night.

Seo Dong-woo grinned and spoke in a drawn-out voice.

"Ah, officer... it's nothing much, my friends are very sick..."

"...Sick? Who is sick?"

"Yes. All of them are very sick. So sick they can't move even one finger."

"What are you talking about? What the hell..."

A sharp, fishy smell suddenly hit him.

Seo Dong-woo slowly moved his face aside, and only then did the inside of the cell come into view.

Bright red blood, crushed flesh, corpses of what had once been other inmates.

The guard stared blankly, mind stalled for a moment.

"Uh, uh...?"

A hand shot out through the window and grabbed his head.

"What do we do with that? Can they be saved, officer? If they take medicine, will they live?"

"Ghk...!"

"I'm asking you something~ Please answer. Answer!"

He squeezed his grip, and the guard's head burst like an overripe persimmon.

"I told you to answer faster."

Seo Dong-woo chuckled, shook the gore off his hand, and stepped back from the steel door.

Then he rushed forward and slammed it with his body.

Bang!

The heavy steel door shook violently. Alarms started screaming from every direction.

After ramming it several times, the thick steel door slowly warped, and cracks spread across the wall connected to the frame.

KWAANG!

Soon the wall gave out and collapsed under the impact.

The rapid response patrol team rushed in and stood stunned by the scene in front of them.

A torn-off cell door. An inmate standing in the middle of the cell block corridor with blood all over his hands.

"Why is this thing so sturdy? If my level was just a bit lower, I might not have broken it."

Seo Dong-woo spotted the guards and grinned.

"What are you looking at? Never seen a jailbreak before?"

"..."

"Well, fair enough, you've never seen one like this. Heh heh."

That night, screams and gunfire mixed together and echoed chaotically through the prison.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried