WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 26

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Fugitive (3)

The abandoned school Seo Dong-woo mentioned was in the mountains on the outskirts of Incheon.

After reaching the destination, I hopped over the school wall and went inside.

He said he would be waiting in the gym.

I found a building that looked like the gym and headed over.

That psycho Seo Dong-woo really did seem like he wanted to meet me just to chat.

Still, I could not rule out the chance that he was planning something dirty, so I raised my guard to the max. In situations like this, Sixth Sense was reassuring.

Before I even entered, though, I could feel a disturbance inside.

'What is this?'

Was someone else here besides Seo Dong-woo? An accomplice?

...No, this sounded more like a fight.

I slipped into the gym carefully and found an unexpected scene.

There were two people inside.

A man was holding a woman by the throat and lifting her into the air.

The man had to be Seo Dong-woo... but who was the woman?

Without understanding what was going on, I called his name.

"Seo Dong-woo."

He turned to me, grinned wide, then threw the woman aside.

"Oh, you're here! Person123!"

She could barely hold herself up. She looked seriously injured.

I asked first.

"Who is that?"

"Ah, this one~? Nothing special. A climber came to kill me, so I was just playing with her while waiting for you."

Who even was she?

Someone with a grudge against Seo Dong-woo, like me?

"You don't need to care. Let's have some fun and talk. I'll clean this bitch up first and..."

"Screw talking."

"Huh?"

"I came to kill you too."

That settled it.

It did not look like there was any trap, so all I had to do now was finish what I came for.

Seo Dong-woo said he was in the level 20s.

That was lower than me, though of course he could have been lying.

At this moment, based on what Sixth Sense told me, I did not really feel danger from him.

It felt like the skill was telling me he was below me.

"So you tricked me? I trusted you."

Seo Dong-woo glared at me, face twisting.

I was so dumbfounded that I spat it out.

"You think anyone wants to talk with a psycho like you, you idiot? Are you stupid or what?"

At that moment, Seo Dong-woo charged at me.

He was pretty fast. I twisted my body and avoided his tackle.

After we blocked and dodged each other a few times, I kicked him in the stomach.

Seo Dong-woo bounced back, then sprang right up.

"What, you're stronger than I expected?"

"..."

"They said Nightmare gives ten levels per floor... then you should be level 20, right? Guess that was a bullshit rumor."

I had a rough estimate too.

'Level 28?'

He was not stronger than me, but it was not a massive gap either.

Seo Dong-woo let out a creepy grin.

"Okay, I admit it. From now on, I'll get serious."

Then he shouted some cliche line like he was raising his own defeat flag, and his skin changed strangely.

Green patterns like a turtle shell spread across his body.

'Skin Hardening?'

A rare defensive skill.

I remembered seeing it on Babel's skill tier chart.

It was a defensive skill that stayed active by consuming Willpower per second, and I had once thought it would be nice to have.

Seo Dong-woo licked his lips disgustingly, then rushed me again.

We traded punches, and I smashed his face.

Because of Skin Hardening, the impact felt dull.

Seo Dong-woo flinched for a second, then kicked at me.

I blocked with my arm and stepped back.

He stuck to me and came in hard with excited attacks.

"Hiyah! So the Nightmare clearer isn't that special!"

Sorry to ruin your fun, but I was just getting warmed up too.

I knocked away the punch flying at my face and drove a heavy blow into his solar plexus.

This one felt much heavier than before.

"Kgh...!"

His face twisted in pain.

When he threw another punch, I grabbed his arm and hurled him straight into the upper wall of the gym.

KWAANG!

Seo Dong-woo sank into the wooden wall, then scrambled up in a panic.

I used Leap, jumped in, and slammed my knee into his abdomen.

"Keugh!"

Screaming, he windmilled wild punches.

I dodged and buried a one-two into both sides of his ribs.

As he staggered and gasped for air, I used Swing and blasted a kick into his head. He flew down across the gym floor.

With Exaltation active, the gap in physical ability between him and me kept widening.

I did not even need to use Teleport or Flame Strike.

He was only this much.

After Exaltation reached full output, he could not put up meaningful resistance.

Skin Hardening or not, every hit I landed was clean.

KWAANG!

Seo Dong-woo rolled across the floor again, got up wobbling, and barely found his balance.

I started walking toward him slowly.

Then Sixth Sense suddenly blared a warning.

Seo Dong-woo was pulling something out of his back pocket.

"Diiieee...!"

I stopped time.

It was a dagger, and its blade was ice, like an icicle.

'An item?'

It felt dangerous, so I had to avoid it.

After finishing concentration, I teleported behind him.

KWAAAAH!

Seo Dong-woo thrust the ice dagger, and freezing air burst out, icing over the exact spot where I had just been standing.

I kicked him in the back while he stood there blankly, confused that I had vanished.

"Kiak!"

I picked up the dagger he dropped.

The ice blade had disappeared, and only the hilt was left.

[Item: Shelburn’s Ice Shard Dagger]

A dagger forged with the bitter cold of polar Shelburn. By consuming the dagger blade, it can release frigid energy. A consumed blade fully regenerates after 24 hours.

So that was this kind of item.

I shoved the hilt into my pocket.

Confiscated. It's mine now.

"You've got a lot of good stuff. If you've got more, take it out."

If he really had more, it could be dangerous, so I stayed careful for a bit until Teleport came off cooldown.

But now it looked like Seo Dong-woo had run out of tricks.

BANG! BANG! KWAANG!

I pounded his whole body while he had turned into a sandbag, then drove one last strike into his chest.

I felt ribs shatter in a crunch, and Seo Dong-woo flew into the wall.

"Keok... kkh..."

Twisting weakly, he showed he was barely alive.

I walked up and stood in front of him.

Even with his teeth knocked out and his face soaked in blood, Seo Dong-woo was still grinning.

"Fuck... you're crazy strong... why are you this strong... you only cleared Floor 2..."

"You can still laugh?"

"Heh, then what, should I cry like a bitch...?"

Panting, Seo Dong-woo lifted his head.

"Kill me then... I don't give a shit. Only thing I regret is I couldn't keep having fun longer, kikik..."

All mouth to the very end.

I glared at him and said,

"You're around Floor 7 or 8, right? Why didn't you climb higher?"

"...What?"

"No, I mean, you're trash. At this level, how were you running your mouth about climbers ruling the world and all that nonsense? If you were going to wreck everything anyway, you should've leveled up more."

I sneered.

"Were you actually scared? You climbed a little, then got scared you'd fail the clear, so you couldn't go any higher in the Tower. Right? You acted crazy, but you were actually very rational."

Seo Dong-woo snapped, clearly baited.

"Don't fuck with me, you bastard...!"

Now I finally felt better.

The problem now was what to do with him.

I had only planned to beat him down. I had not decided whether to kill him or leave him alive.

It was not like I felt some moral resistance to killing trash like this.

Well, that aside, how was I supposed to clean this up afterward?

'...I should report it first, I guess?'

I'd come this far, so there was no avoiding it.

Even if my identity got exposed.

That other person had seen everything too, and there was no way I could cleanly wrap this up and vanish.

I turned to the woman.

She had gotten herself up and was staggering this way.

"...?"

She walked up in front of Seo Dong-woo and raised her fist.

Then she slammed his head with a fist flickering blue.

POONG!

Seo Dong-woo's head burst.

He died on the spot.

I stared at her, stunned.

The woman, who had been breathing hard, suddenly started crying.

What was that? Who was she?

I stood there awkwardly, watching this bizarre scene.

"Haa..."

She lifted her head, wiped her tears, and looked at me.

"...If we gave him time, he could have escaped into the Tower. We had to kill him before Combat State was lifted."

Combat State?

I had heard about that. Climbers could not enter the Tower while in active combat.

"Then who are you?"

Only then did I ask.

Now that I looked, she was wearing a suit.

A bad feeling hit me.

The woman brushed back her messy hair and introduced herself.

"I'm Section Chief Shin Su-jin of the Climber Surveillance Division, Climber Special Affairs Office."

"Ah."

"Thank you for assisting in official duty. Thanks to you, we were able to kill Seo Dong-woo."

I felt like I had been caught red-handed.

No wonder I kept wondering why she was fighting Seo Dong-woo.

Section Chief Shin Su-jin even took out a business card from her inner pocket, handed it to me, and asked carefully,

"Are you Person123... the first Nightmare clearer?"

"..."

"I heard Seo Dong-woo say that earlier."

There was no point denying it, so I nodded.

If she belonged to the Climber Special Affairs Office, she was a public official.

I decided to at least ask.

"...Could you keep me secret? Say you handled Seo Dong-woo alone."

"Hm?"

Section Chief Shin Su-jin stared at me quietly, then nodded.

"I don't know your circumstances, but... understood. I will keep silent."

"...Really?"

"You saved my life. That much is the least I can do."

Thank god. She was flexible.

At that moment, Section Chief Shin Su-jin grabbed her abdomen and groaned.

I caught her arm as she swayed.

"Are you okay? Are you badly hurt?"

"...I'm fine."

She pulled her arm away from mine, sat leaning against the wall, and said,

"I will handle the scene myself. It will be recorded that I killed Seo Dong-woo in a solo engagement, so you don't need to worry."

"...Then I'll go now?"

"Yes. Thank you again."

I started to leave, then turned back to her.

"You're really okay, right? Shouldn't you call 119 right now?"

"Yes, I'll call myself. The police might arrive soon, so please go now."

If she said so.

I left Section Chief Shin Su-jin behind and walked out of the abandoned school.

But why did she cry earlier?

She was a strange person.

* * *

Left alone, Shin Su-jin exhaled and endured the pain washing over her.

She looked back at Seo Dong-woo's corpse, dead with his head burst open.

It felt even more relieving than she had expected.

She had lived while telling herself to forget, but in the end, maybe she could only be relieved once that bastard Seo Dong-woo died.

'That person...'

Shin Su-jin thought about the man who had just left.

Person123. The first Nightmare clearer and the top Nightmare record holder.

She was shocked that the mysterious man had been Korean.

He also looked much younger than expected. She could not see his face clearly because of the hood and mask.

Why had he suddenly appeared at this place in the first place? That was another question.

Judging from his conversation with Seo Dong-woo, he seemed to have tricked him and arranged this meeting here to eliminate him.

More than anything, his overwhelming dominance while toying with level 28 Seo Dong-woo was shocking.

Hadn't he only cleared two floors?

No matter how he was a Nightmare clearer, she had no idea the gap between Nightmare and Hard difficulty could be that huge.

She had received huge help. Without him, she would have died here today at Seo Dong-woo's hands. Thanks to him, she was able to avenge herself.

Shin Su-jin took out her phone.

The screen was shattered, and missed calls had piled up. She called one of the numbers.

"Team Leader! Why are you only answering now! Right now Seo Dong-woo is..."

"I got him."

"...What?"

"I caught Seo Dong-woo, so please come here. The location is..."

After finishing the call, Shin Su-jin closed her eyes to rest.

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