WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 29

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Nightmare Floor 3 (1)

There was a game called Vampire Surrounded.

It was a simple game. All you did was run from enemies swarming in from every direction and kill them.

That simple fun and easy control scheme made it a massive hit, and similar games started pouring out one after another, to the point people called them "Vampire-like games."

Of course, I had played it too.

It was so addictive that after trying it once, I got hooked for days.

Floor 3 had a very similar vibe to that game.

The clear condition for Floor 3 was survival.

In an open plain with nowhere to hide, all you had to do was stay alive against attacking Undead until sunrise.

Naturally, the Undead's strength varied by difficulty.

On Hard, I heard "fairly" strong Undead came in "fairly" dense waves.

More specifically, their combat power was around level 3 to 4.

Other than attacking with their rotting bodies, they had no special abilities.

That was Hard, and now I was about to find out what Nightmare was like.

If it was Nightmare, survival alone might not be the clear condition.

It shared only the theme. Our Nightmare difficulty always pulled out some deranged, over-the-top variation on a completely different level from the other difficulties.

[You have entered Nightmare difficulty Floor 3.]

Like always, I stopped time the moment I entered and looked around.

All kinds of weapons were stuck in the ground right in front of me.

And the field was packed with Undead.

Just like I expected, they were crawling everywhere.

Still, it was not that many.

Not enough to make me think, here we go again, this bullshit, the second I saw them.

That made me uneasy right away.

No way Nightmare was only this much.

'Are the Undead insanely strong?'

Or maybe, like always, there was something else.

Whatever. I would find out once I started.

The sky was dark, but faint light was rising from below the horizon like daybreak.

I had heard that on Easy, Normal, and Hard, sunrise took about ten minutes.

Maybe sunrise came much later here than on the other difficulties.

After getting mentally ready, I released time.

The second time resumed, Undead rushed me from all sides.

I opened with Flame Strike.

I launched three fireballs in a triangular spread and blew them up.

KWAANG!

Dozens of Undead exploded, and chunks of rotten flesh flew through the air.

I grabbed a mace from the weapons and moved fast toward an area with lower Undead density.

The Undead's weak point was the head.

More than a weak point, you had to crush the head to kill them for sure. If not, they kept moving.

I swung the mace at the ones clinging to me.

Thud! Crack!

Their heads burst easily.

They were not very tough.

After killing a few, I got a rough estimate.

'Their combat power is not that high.'

From what I could tell, their physical ability was around the level-10 range.

And maybe because their bodies were rotted, their durability was even lower.

Individually, they were not enough to stop me, so each one was not a serious threat.

Groooaaaan-

The problem was numbers.

If I did not keep moving, I would get boxed in from every side very quickly.

I kept smashing heads with the mace and also fired Fairy Light Bolt.

Papapapaboom!

Five light bolts arced through the air and blew off Undead heads.

I kept moving, cutting routes through thinner clusters.

Smash with the mace, fire light bolts, blow up dense packs with Flame Strike.

Damn, that smell though.

With corpses everywhere, the stench was disgusting.

The fact that I even had time to think that meant I still had room to breathe.

When my Willpower bottomed out, I stopped time and refilled.

Now that I had more magic skills, Willpower definitely burned out fast.

Still, I was clearing the Undead easily.

My magic was blowing them up way faster than they could swarm in.

If I wanted, I could keep refilling Willpower and spam magic all day.

And these Undead were much dumber than I expected.

They were groaning and chasing me, then I went behind a rock and out of sight, and they just stopped on the spot.

Looks like they only reacted to what they could directly see.

Too bad they were coming from all directions, so hiding tricks were not really usable.

I topped off Willpower and moved again.

Boom! KWA-KWAANG!

I pushed forward nonstop, blasting Undead with magic and mace.

As I did, an efficient combat flow naturally formed.

Flame Strike into a huge cluster.

Move into the thinned-out area and do second cleanup with light bolts.

Crack the few that got close with the mace.

Then refill when Willpower ran dry.

I did not even need Blade Gale.

At this pace, there was no reason to wait until they all gathered around me.

While moving and breaking through the horde, I stepped over a patch of ground with no grass at all, unlike everywhere else nearby.

"...?"

The feeling under my foot was strangely off for a second, and I moved on with a slight frown.

Was this really everything?

There were lots of Undead, but it still did not feel that brutal.

'This is pretty manageable...'

The instant that thought crossed my mind, I flinched.

No, you idiot, never let your guard down.

In Nightmare, the normal feeling should be, I am screwed, right?

If I was thinking, this is manageable, that could not be normal. If it was real, it was a vicious trap.

There had to be more.

Thinking that, I kept cutting down Undead in silence.

But no matter how much I looked around, I still saw no clear warning sign.

Was it really just survive until sunrise? No way.

My paranoia kept growing.

I crushed one Undead head and was about to pass.

At that exact moment, Sixth Sense screamed.

"...!"

I should not hit it.

But I was a beat late, and my mace had already crushed its head.

The body with the burst head suddenly swelled bright red.

I stopped time instantly.

After focusing, I teleported as far away as possible.

KWA-AAAAANG!

A huge explosion went off.

Even bigger than Flame Strike.

I barely avoided it with Teleport and exhaled hard.

"That is insane."

An Undead that exploded on contact? What was this, a creeper?

I knew it. There was more.

After confirming the existence of Exploding Undead, I sharpened my focus even further.

I hit one by mistake because I was distracted, but if I stayed focused, I could filter them out with Sixth Sense.

I was about to crush another head, then Sixth Sense signaled and I stopped.

'Ah, their eyes are redder.'

Looking closer, I noticed the Exploding Undead had much redder eyes than normal ones.

I kept my distance and intercepted them with light bolts.

One blew up in style mid-chase and dragged nearby Undead with it.

Exploding Undead mines started appearing mixed into the horde, but it was not a huge deal.

Getting hit without knowing was scary. If you knew, then whatever.

I picked them off from afar with light bolts and never let them get close.

That said, somehow...

'...There are more?'

Exploding Undead were not the only change.

The number of Undead rushing in was clearly increasing at a noticeable rate.

I pushed my magic harder and refilled Willpower more often.

From that point on, I started using Blade Gale too.

KWA-AAAAA!

I jumped with Leap, dropped into a packed cluster, and unleashed one Blade Gale.

Undead got sliced apart in waves and knocked back, pushing even the ones behind them away.

Its knockback power was no joke. It would have been nice if the cooldown were shorter.

'Now this feels like Nightmare.'

It was finally starting to feel rough.

Up to now, it had been so easy that it made me anxious instead.

I kept clearing more and more Undead and forced open paths.

Bark! Bark!

What were those now?

Now Beast-type Undead had started appearing too.

I burst the head of a wolf Undead lunging with its jaws, using Swing.

Then I shot down the nutria-like Undead following behind it, one by one with light bolts.

These things were way faster and stronger than normal humanoid Undead.

It felt like the difficulty had just jumped by another 1.2x.

...Yeah, fuck. This was what Nightmare should be.

At least this much was within expectation.

But it would not get harder than this, right?

I was starting to strain.

Swing, kill, explode, break through.

While fighting a lonely battle among corpses, I checked the sky.

'When does the sun ri-'

...Huh?

Only then did I realize something was wrong.

It had already been dark, like dawn.

Now that I looked, it was not getting brighter. It was getting darker.

Even the faint light on the horizon had faded more than before.

Ah... wait, what the hell.

Do not tell me it was not dawn breaking. It was the light setting?

'Then what happens now?'

On other difficulties, you just endured until sunrise. If this was the opposite, then...

Groooaaaan-

I did not even have time to panic. I had to keep fighting the Undead rushing in.

With my face twisted, I moved nonstop and fired magic without rest.

In real time, a bit over five minutes had passed since entry, but I had already refilled Willpower more than ten times, so it felt like a very long fight.

Soon the sky turned completely dark.

At the same time, Sixth Sense sent insane warnings.

The source of danger was everywhere.

Nightmare, yeah, Nightmare.

This much... yeah, this much...

"..."

You insane Nightmare bastard.

The horizon was covered in black dots.

As they came closer, those dots turned into a black tidal wave.

They were all Undead.

Without exaggeration, tens of thousands of Undead were charging from every direction.

I stopped time.

No, no, hold on...

This made no sense.

At least make it physically possible. How was anyone supposed to survive this?

'Fuck, seriously.'

Yeah.

This was Nightmare.

Only now did it finally feel like I was truly screwed.

Even while crushing despair hit me, I forced my brain to work so I could live.

Was I... missing something?

There was no way the clear condition was just surviving that locust swarm coming at me. No way.

It had even flipped the sun rule compared to the other difficulties.

I was confused, but that was also proof that this would not clear by simply enduring.

Suddenly I remembered Floor 1, when the iron ball came rolling in.

I had thought I would die for sure then too, but there had been a way out.

'...!'

At that moment, what flashed in my mind was that odd patch of bare ground with no grass.

The same spot that had felt strange under my foot earlier.

It had felt hollow, like empty space under it.

'Where was it?'

I released time and scanned the area fast.

I was sure it was over there... found it!

I ran immediately to the strange patch.

I spammed magic and blew up the Undead blocking my path.

The massive Undead wave kept closing in, and panic climbed in my chest.

I reached the strange ground.

The moment I got there, I fired Flame Strike first and asked questions later.

The ground shattered apart.

When the dust and fire cleared, a large hole was open in the earth.

It really was a passage!

Dodging the rushing Undead, I threw myself into it without hesitation.

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