WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
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◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability
Chapter 39
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Fallen (2)
Seeing the messages pop up one after another in front of them, Shin Su-jin and Kang Ju-hyeok froze.
Fallen? What...?
Then black smoke suddenly began rising from the man’s corpse.
"Get back!"
Kang Ju-hyeok, who had been closest, hurriedly stepped back.
Crack, crack-
The man’s skin turned pale, and a single horn rose from his forehead. The change happened in an instant.
Grrrgh-
Letting out a drawn-out wail, the man pushed himself up. The whites of his eyes were gone, both eyes completely black.
Aside from his limbs still being intact, he could no longer be called human.
"M-monster...!"
"Aaaah!"
The bystanders screamed and scattered.
The man jerked his head around like an insect, scanning his surroundings, then lunged at people.
Grab!
Shin Su-jin seized his arm.
The way he struggled was far beyond normal human strength.
She twisted his arm, slammed him to the ground, and pinned him down while shouting.
"Hey! Get a grip!"
"Kyaaaah...!"
He only shrieked and thrashed.
Communication was impossible.
Frowning, Shin Su-jin held him down and spoke.
"Tell them to bring restraints for climbers."
"Yes, but will that even work...?"
"He’s weaker than level 10. It’s fine."
She tried to make sense of what was happening.
A message had clearly said the dead would revive as Fallen.
If so, had all forty thousand-plus people become monsters like this...?
As Kang Ju-hyeok hurriedly made calls, radio traffic burst through his handset.
- Terror incident inside the Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-gu, Seoul, multiple casualties suspected, urgent support requested from nearby Climbing Surveillance Division personnel...
Both of their faces hardened even more.
Terror. There was no way this was unrelated to what was happening now.
Something had gone wrong there too.
The Seoul Arts Center was right nearby.
Shin Su-jin clenched her teeth, agonized for a moment, then brought her fist down.
Crack!
The man’s head was crushed.
Killed instantly, he did not move again.
"Clean this up here. I’m going there."
"Yes...! Please be careful!"
Without even getting in a car, Shin Su-jin started sprinting at tremendous speed toward the Seoul Arts Center.
Soon, she reached the building and approached the police officers aiming their guns at the entrance.
"Do not come closer! It’s dangerous!"
"I’m Manager Shin Su-jin from the Climbing Surveillance Division. What’s the situation inside?"
As soon as she showed her ID, the officers stopped trying to block her.
At that moment, someone staggered out through the entrance, bleeding. His face was full of terror.
"M-monster... there’s a monster inside..."
"Officer Park! Take this person right now!"
One officer moved the injured man away.
The police were in an extreme state of tension. A senior officer explained the situation to Shin Su-jin.
"Well... we still haven’t fully identified the situation. During a performance, a monster appeared inside, and it seems many people are still trapped. We were ordered not to enter and to wait, but..."
Shin Su-jin nodded.
"I’ll go in. You should move farther back from the entrance and wait."
"Yes? It’s dangerous! We need to wait for backup...!"
Shin Su-jin passed the officers and entered through the entrance.
* * *
The location always changed when receiving magic stones.
Honestly, I wondered if they really had to go this far for a deal, but being careful never hurt.
"Thank you."
Today we met near an exit at Gyodae Station.
As always, the foreign man handed me a bag full of magic stones, took the bag of top-grade magic stones from me, then left.
I slung the bag over my shoulder and started walking.
I’d sell these at the magic stone exchange, then stroll around downtown a bit before heading home.
Ah... come to think of it, was it about time?
I checked the Nightmare timer.
[Nightmare]
Population: 330,901
Time Limit: 1 year 57 seconds
Reached Floor: Floor 4
"One minute left."
Once the Time Limit hit exactly 1 year, the first-wave climbers who had not entered the Tower would start dying.
Not like watching would let me do anything.
I stood still and watched until the timer reached 1 year.
[Nightmare]
Population: 330,982
Time Limit: 1 year 1 second
Reached Floor: Floor 4
The moment the Time Limit hit exactly 1 year.
[3 years have elapsed.]
[A total of 43,456 Climbers have died for not entering the Tower.]
The messages appeared.
...More than forty thousand people were dying.
Maybe that was not huge on a global scale, but it was still in the tens of thousands. Tens of thousands of people had just died in an instant.
"You fucking Tower."
What the hell did you even gain from doing this?
I muttered a curse, feeling bitter.
[Climbers who die by the Tower's Curse will revive as 'Fallen'.]
[There is a 90% chance that a Stage 1 Fallen will occur.]
[There is a 9% chance that a Stage 2 Fallen will occur.]
[There is a 0.9% chance that a Stage 3 Fallen will occur.]
[There is a 0.09% chance that a Stage 4 Fallen will occur.]
[There is a 0.01% chance that a Stage 5 Fallen will occur.]
More messages popped up.
...What? What was this?
"Fallen?"
I couldn’t understand what it meant, but I knew right away that something was very wrong.
I checked the Communication Window.
[Ecstasy: Hey what is this? Did everyone see that message?]
[GhostBlade: It says they revive as Fallen?]
[Gabriel: Holy shit, dead people turned into monsters]
[Kingdom: Monsters? What are you talking about?]
[BellSound: The climbers who just died turned into horned monsters! Fuck, I need to run, no questions!]
The Communication Window was chaos too.
I skimmed through the posts and got the rough picture.
It sounded like the dead climbers had become monsters.
Did reviving as Fallen mean becoming a monster?
'What the hell.'
It was obvious the Tower had pulled some insane stunt again.
I glanced around the peaceful street, totally opposite from the disaster in the window, and figured I should head home first.
I went down to the station and waited for the subway.
Then my phone in my pocket started vibrating like crazy.
- [Emergency Alert] Unknown creatures have appeared across the country. Citizens are advised to avoid going outside, evacuate to safe locations, and secure personal safety.
- [Eunpyeong-gu] Monster sighted near Yeonsinnae Station, absolutely no approach...
- [Yongin City] Monster appeared inside Everland, all visitors are advised to evacuate outside immediately...
- [Busan City] Monster appeared in the middle of Busandaegyo Bridge...
One disaster alert after another.
What the hell was all this...?
I called my family.
Thankfully, Dad was off work today, and my younger sibling had no classes, so everyone was at home.
"Hello? Yeah, everyone’s home, right? The alerts... yeah, yeah. I’m in a safe place too, so don’t worry."
Even after I hung up, the alerts kept pouring in.
Then one of them made me stop.
- [Seocho-gu] Monster appeared inside Seoul Arts Center, absolutely no approach...
...The Seoul Arts Center was right nearby.
'Should I go?'
I did not think for long.
I came back out of the station, grabbed a taxi, and got in.
"Please take me to the Seoul Arts Center."
Ignoring something right nearby did not sit right with me.
I also felt I needed to see with my own eyes what these Fallen were.
I arrived quickly.
As I approached the Seoul Arts Center building, I saw police cars and police officers at the entrance.
Wee-woo, wee-woo-
An ambulance sped past me, then stopped urgently next to the police cars.
The officers were aiming their guns toward the entrance.
I looked around, then called Diul.
'Diul.'
In stealth, I passed the police and entered through the entrance.
My expression hardened. A heavy stench of blood was drifting from inside.
* * *
Passing the entrance and walking down the corridor, Shin Su-jin looked around tensely.
The building interior was quiet, and from deeper inside, a metallic blood smell stabbed at her nose.
Sob, sob...
And for a while now, faint crying had been drifting in.
Soon, Shin Su-jin stepped into the opera theater and flinched at what filled her view.
A few lights flickered weakly, and all over the dark theater, bright red blood and corpses were strewn everywhere.
Grrr-
She spotted a monster staggering between the audience seats.
It looked similar to the man who had turned into a monster earlier.
One difference: this one had three horns on its forehead.
Sob... sob, sob...
The crying came again.
This time, Shin Su-jin looked toward the stage.
Among the bodies of the musicians, another monster sat crouched with its head buried in its knees, crying.
That one had five horns.
Just looking at it gave her chills.
Shin Su-jin prepared for battle first.
But neither of the two monsters reacted to her.
She observed them in silence, then chose another move instead of fighting right away.
Keeping her footsteps quiet, she moved toward signs of people hidden around the audience area.
"U-ugh..."
Near the seats close to the entrance, a man and woman were hiding, crouched low with their heads covered.
Shin Su-jin whispered to them, both of them shaking in fear.
"I came to rescue you. It’s okay."
The man, tears and snot running down his face, shook his head.
"D-dead... everyone died trying to run... that monster..."
Shin Su-jin checked the two monsters again and calmed them.
"It’s okay. We have to leave now while the monsters are staying still."
She could not leave them there, so she quietly led the two people out.
The monsters still did not react at all, and they got out of the theater safely.
"Go quietly out of the building this way. The police are outside."
"Y-yes... ugh..."
Still terrified, the man and woman clung to each other and went out.
Shin Su-jin went back into the theater.
There were still people hiding among the seats besides those two.
"Quietly, come this way."
She evacuated them one by one.
Things were going relatively smoothly.
"Aah...!"
Someone climbing the stairs twisted an ankle, fell with a loud crash, and made a racket.
As Shin Su-jin hurriedly helped the person up, she turned to the monster.
The three-horned monster roaming between the seats turned its head this way.
Kyaaak-!
"...Run!"
With a shriek, the monster leaped.
Shin Su-jin guarded with both arms against the attack and was thrown into a wall.
The remaining people in hiding screamed and ran out.
She pushed herself back up. Her arms throbbed like they were about to break.
Without even a moment to recover, she had to dodge the monster charging her again.
Boom!
Its strength and speed were tremendous.
Its physical ability was at least above level 30.
Shin Su-jin activated her aura skill.
She narrowly dodged the monster’s attacks, waited for an opening, then drove one clean hit toward its heart.
Bang!
The monster’s chest burst open.
A blow that should have been instantly fatal.
But the monster counterattacked immediately as if nothing had happened.
Unable to brace for the counter, Shin Su-jin got hit in the side by its fist and was sent flying.
"Kgh...!"
Shin Su-jin coughed blood.
A blinding pain hit her, as if her ribs had cracked.
The monster rushed at her again without giving her even a second.
"...!"
Something else leaped in from the side and snatched the monster out of midair.
A massive black four-legged beast.
...Another monster had appeared out of nowhere and was chewing the three-horned monster in its jaws.
Stunned, Shin Su-jin watched.
Crunch! Crunch crunch! Ptui!
The tiger-like monster chewed the three-horned one to pieces, then spat it out.
Twisted and crushed into chunks of flesh, the three-horned monster looked dead.
Enduring the pain, Shin Su-jin forced herself up in a hurry.
But after instantly killing only the three-horned monster, the black tiger simply sat down with its rear on the floor.
...Was it not attacking?
Still confused, Shin Su-jin checked around first.
Thankfully, everyone seemed to have gotten out. No one else appeared to be left in the theater. But...
Sob, sob...
That pitiful crying.
A chill ran through Shin Su-jin as she turned toward the stage.
The three-horned monster was dead, but one monster still remained. The one that was still crouched and crying in the middle of this carnage.
The goosebumps crawling over her skin would not stop.
She could just tell. It was far stronger than the three-horned monster.
What should she do?
Everyone had escaped, but she could not just leave the monsters like this.
Then a voice suddenly spoke.
"I’ll handle it, so please leave."
Startled, Shin Su-jin looked around.
But there was still no one there except the monsters.
More than that, the voice felt strangely familiar.
She realized who it was.
"Person123...?"
Then that monster, could it be...?
Shin Su-jin looked at the black tiger sitting quietly.
Only then did she understand whose beast it was, the black tiger that had not attacked her and had killed the three-horned monster instead.
Once again, he had helped her.
'A summon... some kind of skill like that?'
How could anyone control a monster like this?
Shin Su-jin was still confused, but she decided to follow his words for now.
Person123 was here, and she would not be any help in a fight against that monster. At least that much was clear.
Fallen from Stage 1 to Stage 5. And the horns on their foreheads.
If she had to guess, the number of horns represented the stage.
In that case, the crying monster was the highest, a Stage 5 Fallen.
"...Please be careful."
Murmuring softly into the air, Shin Su-jin quickly withdrew from the theater.
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