Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 57

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 57

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Sub-Tower (3)

After China cleared the first sub-tower and the second sub-tower appeared in Mongolia, the Communication Window was noisy all day.

[FlyingSquirrel: With millions of lives on the line, and they still won't share info...]

[MeatMeat: Do they not have a conscience at all?]

[BallpointPen: How can they be that selfish]

[No.39: I saw the news, they're telling Mongolia to hand over all its resources?]

[Lethe: Do they really want to act like that? Did seeing Person123 teach them nothing?]

Most people cursed China for pressuring Mongolia while refusing to share sub-tower information.

[BlackTiger: Wang Kai risked his life to get the first clear, who are you to tell him what to do?]

[RockMountain: If you ask me, the selfish thing is demanding someone else's hard-earned info for free]

[Wildflower: Millions of lives my ass. They still have a week, they can just leave the city]

[Downstream: Why only curse Wang Kai? Which top climber is sharing info right now?]

[Zhang Wei: Then go cry to Person123 and beg him to clear it lol]

And a handful of Chinese climbers defended him.

[HwaPung: Mongolia should be thanking us. Without Wang Kai, how were they going to solve that themselves?]

[DoDoDo: If you don't want to negotiate, solve it yourselves~ You hate this and hate that, so what do you want~]

[ShootingStar: Shut up before I crack all you crazy Chinese bastards' skulls]

[MeatMeat: Thick-skinned as hell, standing in here blabbering among themselves]

[Hada: Easy, easy, Mongolian friends. Did everyone evacuate Ulaanbaatar yet?]

They were too busy cursing and fighting each other.

[Battery: Is Person123 really not going to clear this for us...?]

[Cyclone: He'd have to go all the way to Mongolia for that]

[Radive: Why? Person123 could be Mongolian, you know]

[Chechek: I'm Mongolian, Person123 please help... Mongolia is on the verge of collapse right now!]

[Takoyaki: But can Person123 even clear it? Isn't he level 0 right now?]

[Tree: No way to know since Wang Kai won't open his mouth. If it's a difficulty that needs around level 50, even Person123 might not be able to do it]

[Amazon: Stop saying crazy shit. Why would Person123 clear a sub-tower?]

[Salad: If something happens to him, humanity is finished]

People argued back and forth and could only watch what would happen to Mongolia, while Mongolia itself was being bled dry by fear.

[Second sub-tower Time Limit: 5 days 8 hours 9 minutes 17 seconds]

[The second sub-tower has been cleared up to the final floor.]

[Time remaining until the third sub-tower appears: 5 days 8 hours 9 minutes 16 seconds]

Until a sudden message popped up saying Mongolia's sub-tower had been cleared.

[Triangle: ?]

[TrialsOfLife: Oh, what?]

[Lake: Did Wang Kai clear it?]

[Requiem: I don't see any news yet though? Did Mongolia accept China's demands?]

[Oliver: Doesn't seem like it. Looks like Mongolia and China both don't know either]

Mongolia quickly announced that even they did not know who had cleared the sub-tower.

If a climber from another country had cleared it, there should have been some kind of statement. But everyone was hearing this for the first time.

The tower had been cleared, but nobody came forward as the clearer?

At that point, people had no choice but to know who had cleared the sub-tower.

[LionKing: Ah... no way, is it you again?]

[CherryPie: Yup lol who else would it be]

[Railroad: Person123! Person123! Person123! Person123! Person123!]

[Premium: If you cleared it, please at least say you cleared it in the Communication Window, Person123-nim...]

[ScalesOfJudgment: Truly the greatest pacifist GOAT in human history]

[Chain: He's seriously on a whole different level from someone like Wang Kai]

[Terrace: Compare apples to apples, man;]

[VeryBerry: These Chinese guys turned into dogs that chased chickens and got nothing lololol damn this feels good]

[Litman: They got greedy and grabbed for everything, and ended up with nothing, pffhaha]

[Hero: Hey, but wait... could Person123 actually be Mongolian...?]

[Whistle: He probably just went there directly. If he were Mongolian, wouldn't he have cleared it faster?]

As always, people praised him again today, and China got mocked all day.

Crash!

Inside a luxurious mansion.

Wang Kai hurled the whiskey glass he had been drinking from. Shattered glass and liquor sprayed across the marble floor.

Across from him, Li Wei, a Central Committee member of the Party, flinched, then quickly composed himself. He asked in a careful tone.

"How did this happen? Didn't you say the difficulty was definitely too high for Person123 to clear?"

"...Yeah, exactly. This is ridiculous."

Wang Kai muttered, his face full of irritation and rage.

"Isn't that bastard level 40? You need to be at least level 50 for something like that."

Maybe each sub-tower had a different difficulty. Or maybe Person123 was far stronger than expected.

After boiling over at the flood of mockery aimed at him in the Communication Window, he shut it off and spoke to Li Wei like he was giving an order.

"Whatever, I'll clear the sub-towers no matter what. Get things ready so I can move to the third one as fast as possible the second it appears."

"Ahem... first, we should report to the higher-ups."

"What report? Are we not taking the mana vein? I'll spoon-feed everything to you, so just do your support job properly."

What a rude bastard. Li Wei cursed him in his head and nodded.

Person123 had suddenly interfered, and the Mongolia side absurdly lost the fish they had almost caught, but as Wang Kai said, China had to secure all sub-towers.

Now that that annoying meddler had started moving, there was no more time to squeeze out extra gains through negotiation.

Given Person123's tendencies, he would almost certainly try to clear the sub-towers too. Wang Kai had to clear them faster.

The clearer received mana vein activation rights as a reward. As long as China held that, no matter which country the sub-tower appeared in, China could negotiate mana vein shares from a position of strength.

"Fucking fake savior act..."

Wang Kai was determined to clear the third sub-tower first and show the gap in class.

[The third sub-tower has appeared.]

And surprisingly.

The country where the third sub-tower appeared was Japan.

After China and Mongolia, it had appeared three times in a row in Northeast Asia alone. It was an unbelievable coincidence.

Either way, it was a good coincidence for China. The distance was not that far, so he could quickly move into the sub-tower radius.

Wang Kai had been waiting at the airport, and the moment the message appeared, he moved with his entourage guiding him.

Reservations? Security checks? If the Party used its power, none of that mattered.

They secured him a seat on the fastest flight to Sendai City, Japan, and he boarded immediately.

Since nobody could predict which country a sub-tower would appear in, this was faster than using a private jet that required advance authorization.

[The third sub-tower has been cleared up to the final floor.]

"...??"

It happened right after he sat down in first class.

Wang Kai took off his sunglasses after seeing the incomprehensible message floating in front of him.

"The fuck is this."

Only a little over twenty minutes had passed since the third sub-tower appeared.

And what? Cleared?

Unless the clearer had already been inside the radius the moment it appeared, this speed was impossible.

Wang Kai sat there with his mouth open in disbelief, then muttered.

"That Person123 bastard..."

Don't tell me he was Japanese?

* * *

The third sub-tower appeared in Sendai City, Japan.

The Japanese government did not even have time to declare a full emergency.

[The third sub-tower has been cleared up to the final floor.]

Because it got cleared before even thirty minutes had passed since it appeared.

The Communication Window exploded again.

That Person123 had likely cleared it again was not the shocking part; what truly lit up the controversy was the clear speed.

[Reynold: Cleared in under 30 minutes?]

[Sug: Unless he was in Japan, that speed is impossible...?]

[Firefly: Wait, no way, was Person123 Japanese this whole time?!]

People buzzed over one question: was Person123 actually Japanese?

At that speed, nothing else made sense.

Mongolia took two full days to clear, while Japan took just twenty minutes.

Sure, maybe he had coincidentally traveled to Japan and coincidentally happened to be inside the tower's radius, but statistically that was unlikely.

The Communication Window caught fire, and in an instant the mood shifted to treating Person123 being Japanese as basically confirmed.

The most excited people were the Japanese users.

[Start: Person123 is Japanese? Is this real?]

[Takamura: Looking at the circumstances, the odds are very high...!]

[SeasonalWind: Then has a Japanese person been saving humanity this whole time?]

[Ramen: Quite astonishing (laugh)]

[SwordDemon: I knew something felt off... it made no sense that Japan had zero Nightmare clearers this whole time]

[HumanPass: It's not that we had none, he was one of us from the start]

[Rhythm: I'm proud of you! Person123!]

Person123, the record holder of Nightmare difficulty and humanity's savior, was actually Japanese?!

For Japanese people, who along with Korea had not produced a single known Nightmare clearer until now, this was patriotism far beyond a lethal dose.

News outlets around the world quickly pushed it as breaking news.

The world turned noisy with the Person123 Japanese-nationality controversy.

* * *

Some time passed after I cleared the second sub-tower and came home.

Then, absurdly enough, the third sub-tower appeared in Japan.

What was this?

Was Northeast Asia cursed or something?

Anyway, the moment the tower appeared, I prepared to jump to Japan.

The distance to Sendai City was about 1,300 km. Required Willpower: 130,000.

Charge time: about 6,000 minutes, 100 hours.

After clearing Mongolia's sub-tower, I had spent five days charging in every spare moment except sleep, and that gave me about 85 hours' worth.

This time, for the trip there, I only had to charge 15 more hours.

For the trip back, I had to start over again from zero, though.

I finished charging the Warp Device and moved to Japan right away.

[You have successfully cleared Floor 1.]

[You have successfully cleared Floor 2.]

[You have successfully cleared Floor 3.]

The monsters were nothing special on the early floors.

As I climbed, things changed from Floor 5.

The minotaur turned into some triceratops-looking monster.

And the bat swarm got replaced by a swarm of bugs almost as big as birds.

Only the monster types changed; the overall difficulty felt similar.

I kept pushing and reached the final tenth floor, and the boss there was Dracula.

"Oh...?!"

When I hit it with Flame Strike, its body scattered into a splash of blood and then pulled itself back together.

Damn... that looked pretty good, actually.

Its raw physical ability was lower than the black knight boss from the second sub-tower.

But that liquefaction ability made it a tricky monster.

Shuuuu...

Of course, in front of Destruction Beam, all monsters were equal.

It took a direct hit and vanished without leaving even a handful of blood.

[You have acquired ownership of the third sub-tower.]

I cleared the third sub-tower easily too.

"Haa..."

The reason I sighed was simple.

Clearing it wasn't the torture; recharging the Warp Device and getting back was.

I exited the Tower.

In some unknown forest in Japan, I stopped time while recharging the Warp Device again, then went back home.

When I got home, my little sister was lying on the sofa watching TV.

"...?"

I was about to go to my room, then the absurd news on the TV screen grabbed my attention.

- Japan's sub-tower was cleared in less than 30 minutes. This is also presumed to have been cleared by Person123, and controversy is now rising over whether Person123 might be Japanese...

What was that supposed to mean?

"Person123 is Japanese...?"

My sister muttered in surprise as she watched.

"Did you see that? They say Person123 is Japanese!"

"Uh... yeah. Right."

Very shocking, sure.

I immediately understood why this ridiculous story was spreading.

Because I cleared it too early.

I had crossed into Japan almost right after the sub-tower appeared. Yeah, now that I thought about it, I could see how people got the wrong idea.

I checked the Communication Window once, and as expected it was chaos. I closed it again.

Man... recharging the warp really tired me out so bad I could die.

I didn't care much and went into my room.