WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 61

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Sub-Tower (7)

[You have entered Floor 9.]

The moment I moved to Floor 9, I stopped time.

What I saw was... a stone.

It was a long rectangular block, about the size of a person, floating about a handspan above the ground.

Now I had to fight a rock?

By Floor 9, it was only natural for something strange like this to show up.

What if, the moment I released time, it started spinning and flew at me like a drill?

With that thought in mind, I finished concentrating and fired Flame Strike first.

Kwaaaang!

The fireballs hit the stone directly.

When the flames faded, the stone was gone.

Huh...? Did I kill it?

No.

I scanned my surroundings and found the stone floating near the ceiling above my head.

"...?"

I had not sensed it moving at all.

Did it teleport?

I fired again.

The light bullets streaked through the air toward the stone...

Pupupupupung!

Only the innocent ceiling got hit.

This time, I saw it clearly.

Right before the attack landed, the stone suddenly disappeared.

Then it appeared in midair to my left.

...It really teleports?

"Pli."

I ordered Pli to attack the stone.

Pli sprang up and swung a heavy forepaw at it.

As expected, the stone disappeared again.

This time, it reappeared near the ground on the right.

The instant I saw where it teleported, I stopped time.

After focusing, I fired Destruction Beam.

When the beam faded and I confirmed there was no stone there, I looked around...

"..."

And found it behind me.

Just like before, it had dodged by teleporting.

Pli chased the teleporting stone all over the place, and I kept firing magic.

Not a single hit landed.

I paused to think.

A teleporting stone.

It did not attack or counter at all. It only dodged my attacks by teleporting.

There did not seem to be any cooldown or delay limit on that teleport.

Which meant I could not hit it.

Floor 9 seemed to be all about finding some way, any way, to land an attack on this cute little rock.

Should I try attacking in stealth?

"Diul."

Using Diul's ability, I approached while hidden.

But the moment I attacked, the stone teleported again as if mocking me. Failed.

Is there a pattern?

Another idea came to me.

What if there was a pattern to where it teleported?

Predict the next location and strike at the same time.

I started attacking it again.

The stone appeared left, then right, then front, then back.

High, then low, then mid-height, then far, then close, then right in front of me...

After watching it teleport more than a hundred times,

I found no pattern at all.

No matter how I looked at it, it was random.

I kept trying other methods.

I sprayed skills in every direction. Failed.

I set up Searing Zone in advance, kept attacking, and tried to make it teleport into the burning field. Failed.

I tried not attacking at all and just sneaking close enough to touch it. Failed.

Fail, fail, fail...

I tried every method I could think of, and every one failed.

"Fuck."

I was starting to get pissed off.

How the hell was I supposed to do this?

I forced myself to calm down and think again. Anger was useless.

How is it dodging attacks?

I was not talking about the teleport itself.

To dodge an attack, it first had to perceive that attack.

So how was that rock perceiving my attacks and avoiding them?

It was not seeing with eyes or anything like that. Even Diul's stealth did not work.

I stood there with my arms crossed, thinking hard, and then an idea struck me.

Biiing-

I fired another Light Bullet at the stone, one I had already fired dozens of times.

But this time, I was not trying to hit it. I was trying to stop it right in front of it.

The Light Bullet stopped right before the stone. And then...

"...!"

The stone did not teleport.

The moment I moved the Light Bullet again, the stone instantly teleported away.

"Ha."

...Now I finally understood.

How this rock had been dodging everything.

It had been reading my intent completely in advance.

In other words, it was reading my thoughts.

Then how am I supposed to hit it?

Attack without the intent to attack?

I tried firing another Light Bullet while thinking I would not attack the stone.

The stone dodged by teleporting.

Yeah... of course that did not work.

You cannot erase intent just because you decide to.

If the stone could read my thoughts perfectly, tricking it was impossible.

Unless I could completely deceive myself first.

...Then what if I could attack it with an attack I did not intend even a little?

A plausible method came to mind.

The stone was floating low near the ground, some distance ahead.

I closed my eyes.

Then I started spinning in place.

I spun like crazy for a long time, until I completely lost all sense of where the stone had been.

...Good, done. Now I had no idea at all.

I stopped spinning and started firing skills in random directions, full 360.

Kwaaaang!

Since I did not know which direction the stone was in, naturally I also could not know which attack would hit.

And if I did not know, the stone would not know either.

I mindlessly spammed skills, and soon a message appeared.

[You have successfully cleared Floor 9.]

I opened my eyes.

When I looked behind me, I saw the stone shattered on the floor, hit by Flame Strike.

Ha... success!

It went exactly as I thought.

Now only Floor 10 remained.

"It actually does have some difficulty."

That was my impression after clearing up to Floor 9.

With all those gimmicks mixed together, it was definitely difficult.

Still, it was nowhere near Nightmare.

[Would you like to move to Floor 10?]

What would the final boss be like?

If I cleared Floor 10, I would get the special reward the Tower mentioned.

After taking enough rest and fully recovering my Willpower, I entered Floor 10.

* * *

Life on easy mode.

That was how I would describe my life.

Because I had a superpower.

Not a metaphor. A real superpower.

I did not know it as a child, but as I got older, I realized I was different from others.

Time stop.

Though it was not that amazing either. I could not move inside stopped time, after all.

Still, that alone was enough to make life easy.

Other people's one minute, one second could be used by me as if it were a full hour, and for studying, that ability was absurdly overpowered.

Even during exams, only I had no time limit. So from elementary school onward, my grades were always at the very top.

Outside that, there were endless little uses in daily life too.

I figured this ability would probably be useful in sports like soccer or baseball too, but I had no interest in physical activities, so I never considered that path.

I just grew up as a normal model student, and today was CSAT day.

Like always, I took the test lightly and came home.

"I'm back."

After dinner, I downloaded the answer sheet and graded myself.

The result was exactly what I expected. Perfect score.

Of course, I had worked hard too.

Even without time pressure, I still needed the ability to solve every problem to get full marks.

I hummed to myself and stretched.

"SNU Med, you're easy as hell."

Ah, easy, easy.

Did I not feel guilty using cheats alone while everyone else worked hard?

What could I do.

Life was unfair to begin with.

And if I was born with a great ability like this, why would I not use it?

My life had been smooth until now, and it would stay smooth forever.

I was just about to open my room door and go share the good news with my family.

"...?"

A faint sense of déjà vu made me pause with my hand on the doorknob.

What?

This felt like it had happened once before.

"Tower?"

I muttered the word that popped into my head and tilted my head.

Tower? Why did that suddenly come up?

And what was that nonsense about an earthquake suddenly happening in Korea?

"...Did I dream something yesterday?"

I ignored the strange feeling as it faded and went out to the living room.

I proudly told my family about the perfect CSAT score.

"I graded it, and for now it's a perfect score."

"...Oh my! Really?!"

"Hahaha! Great job! That's my son!"

"Haha, the interview is still left. I have to prepare well."

.

.

.

I got into medical school like that, and enjoyed a fun college life with my friends.

I did active-duty military service while enrolled. I thought it was better since the service period was much shorter than going as a military doctor after graduation.

After graduating, I worked as an internal medicine resident at a university hospital.

I became a doctor without issue, and as always, my life stayed smooth.

Good workplace, good salary, good work-life balance.

Taking my father and mother to nice places, teasing my still-immature younger sibling and giving pocket money, dating a junior I had known since residency...

Daily life was a chain of small happinesses. What a great life, right?

"...Oppa? What are you thinking about?"

I had blanked out for a moment while taking a walk at Hangang Park with my girlfriend.

"Hm? Nothing."

I looked at the green field.

Sometimes I felt something strange.

My life felt less like that calm green field and more like a spectacular mix of all kinds of colors...

But that made no sense for someone who had lived such a steady life.

I was satisfied with my current life, but for some reason my chest sometimes felt empty.

It was strange.

We went to Italy for our honeymoon.

We stood there admiring the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

"Wow, how is that thing still standing? Right, oppa?"

"Seriously. It's amazing."

My girlfriend, no, my wife tightly held my hand.

I stared blankly at the towering structure for a long time, then spoke.

"You know, this might sound weird, but do you want to hear it?"

"Hm? What is it?"

"Sometimes I imagine this. Suddenly, towers appear in the world..."

"Towers? What kind of towers? Like that?"

"Yeah. Anyway, a giant tower appears, and people have to climb it. If they don't, the world ends. They go inside and fight monsters, avoid traps..."

My wife giggled.

"What is that supposed to be? Have you been playing games like that lately?"

"The funny part is, in the hardest tower no one can climb, I'm the only one climbing it. Risking my life."

"You? You, who takes several supplement pills a day for your health?"

"I'm serious. Anyway..."

I was about to continue, but my wife suddenly turned stern.

"Enough. We're on a trip, and you keep saying weird stuff. Separate reality from games."

"..."

What was this?

The world suddenly felt strange.

I looked back at the tower and asked,

"By the way, how many years apart are we again?"

"What? Three years. You forgot even that now?"

That was weird...

I had always been firmly into older women. In high school and college, I only dated older seniors...

How did I end up meeting this woman and marrying her?

Huh? Wait, who is this person?

I stared at the mysterious woman whose name I could not even remember anymore, then let out a weak laugh.

"Hahaha..."

Fuck.

I remembered everything.

"...Oppa? Why are you suddenly laughing?"

What happened here? How do I get out?

This was a dream.

And the simplest way to wake from a dream was...

"W-where are you going! Oppa!"

I ran toward the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Guards tried to block me. I barely slipped past without getting caught.

I went inside the tower and ran up the stairs.

Wait, does the Leaning Tower even have stairs inside? Who cares, I just ran.

"Huff... huff..."

I reached the top.

Catching my breath, I stood on the railing of the tilted tower.

People below looked up and murmured, and the guards who chased me up urgently tried to stop me.

"Please calm down and come down! It's dangerous!"

Right before jumping, my feet hesitated.

What if I was the crazy one?

Which side was reality? That bizarre world where a tower rose in the Pacific, or this place?

Common sense said it was this place.

Look, the sensations felt completely real.

Just as confusion rose again, a faint voice rang in my head.

...Quit screwing around and get out already! You idiot master!

That feeling, as if my soul was connected with something else. It felt strangely familiar.

"Ah..."

I regained certainty and let out a relieved smile.

Right, reality was over there.

I was in the middle of clearing the fifth sub-tower's Floor 10.

"What kind of trick did this bastard pull?"

First, I needed to wake up from the dream.

I spread my arms wide.

Then I leaned forward.

With a dizzy drop, my body rushed toward the ground.

And then...

Kwachik!

* * *

I opened my eyes.

A pitch-black ceiling came into view.

As I sat up, I felt something foreign on my head.

I ripped it off with my hand.

"...What the."

A grotesque creature like some glowing jellyfish, its tentacles writhing.

So this was the one that did it.

Did it get me right after I entered Floor 10? I could not remember at all.

"Slept well, you bastard."

I slammed the jellyfish straight into the floor and crushed it.

Pajik!

[You have successfully cleared Floor 10.]

A message appeared.

I looked at Diul floating beside me in midair.

"Thanks, Diul. You kept talking to me."

Only now did I remember that Diul kept calling out to wake me up inside the dream.

Good thing I noticed at the end. I really might have never woken up.

Diul circled around my head as if grumbling, then returned to the bracelet.

I let out a sigh.

A boss that traps you in a dream...

What a creepy bastard.

Time in that dream felt like a split second, like a life flashing before my eyes.

If the Tower had never appeared, it was probably the life I really would have lived.

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

I had safely succeeded in clearing the fifth sub-tower too.

I stood up and looked at the stream of messages appearing before me.

[A special reward is granted.]

More messages followed.

Right, reward.

I had suffered enough. Now it was time to collect.

What exactly was this special reward?

"Drumroll, drumroll..."

I made sound effects out loud for no reason while looking at the choices. Then,

"...Huh?"

The moment I saw one of the options, I could not help but be shocked.

[1. Tower's Curse Immunity Pass]

[Special Item: Tower's Curse Immunity Pass]

Permanently grants immunity to death caused by the Tower's Curse. It can also be used on someone who is not a Climber. It disappears after one use.

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