WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 72

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Desperate Struggle

It was a closed-door session inside U.S. Climber Bureau headquarters.

Taylor, fully prepared to challenge Floor 4, was doing one final check of her condition.

Bureau staff watched her, including the newly appointed director, Liam, and Max.

Until now, whenever Nightmare challengers followed Person123’s lead, the U.S. had always gone first, but this year the order changed.

China had rushed into Floor 4 for some reason and succeeded at an unusually fast pace.

Maybe they had meant to pressure this side into hurrying, but it changed nothing. Taylor did not let herself be rushed and finished her preparations exactly as planned.

Still, Director Liam could not help feeling more uneasy than usual.

He trusted Taylor’s abilities, since she had already cleared three Nightmare floors, but Floor 4 was not a floor decided by ability alone.

How long could they keep chasing him?

Could the U.S., or China, or any other Nightmare raider really keep following that man forever?

Even with his strategy posts.

At first, Liam had thought: the U.S. must stand on the Nightmare front line, just follow Person123 properly...

Now, even that belief felt shaky.

What happened on Floor 5 had revealed, at least to a degree, just how huge the gap was between Person123 and everyone else.

There was a saying in South Korea, where he was far away: if a little sparrow tries to keep up with a stork, it tears its legs.

If Floor 4 was already like this, what would the remaining floors be like?

If Person123 had publicly revealed himself, at least the U.S. would have poured in every resource and placed all hope on him. But Person123 never revealed his identity.

On Floor 5, he showed himself only once, because he had no choice, during the clash between the Peacekeeping Corps and Black Star Society.

That incident showed how noble he was. He had even exposed the identity he had hidden for so long just to save people’s lives. But after killing the Zone 3 boss, he did not show even a shadow of himself again, and that was regrettable.

Of course, even if they got another chance to contact Person123 on Floor 5, they had no real way to support him. The item transfer mechanism on Floor 5 was extremely restrictive.

Any item brought in from outside the Tower could only be taken back out when the same person exited with it. In other words, passing outside items to someone else was impossible.

So even if they met Person123, handing him a skill stone or anything else was impossible on Floor 5. Unless they met him directly in reality.

...Anyway, this was not the mindset a bureau director should have.

Right now, an American Climber, Taylor, was about to risk her life on her fourth challenge.

Liam apologized to Taylor in his heart. Looking at her as a substitute for Person123 was disrespectful.

“I wish you luck, Taylor. America will not forget your dedication.”

After receiving salutes from the people around her, Taylor took one last deep breath and entered the Tower.

Fortunately, the number in the Nightmare Communication Window did not decrease that day.

Following China, the U.S. also succeeded in clearing Nightmare Floor 4.

* * *

Time really slipped by before I knew it.

The time limit for clearing Nightmare had dropped below 60 days, so now less than two months remained.

That meant I had about one month left before my own challenge.

I spent most of my time hunting in Zone 4.

Before challenging Floor 6, I gave up on fighting the Zone 4 boss.

I had already run the numbers long ago while hunting, and looking at my progress so far, it was too much.

It looked like I would have to clear Floor 6 first, then deal with the Zone 4 boss.

Well, it was a little disappointing, but it was unclear whether I could even kill a boss 20 levels above me anyway. One wrong move and it could get dangerous.

I kept building affinity with Diul and kept up my Floor 2 night walks as well.

And of course, I did not neglect everyday life just because I kept going in and out of the Tower.

If someone asked whether I had spent this year meaningfully... I guess so?

I always tried to.

As time passed, big and small things kept happening in the world, and everything kept changing fast.

One recent hot issue was the successful development of pollution-free cooling systems using byproducts from the Floor 4 monster, the Ice Spirit.

There was also the successful agreement between Japan and the accord signatories over the mana vein, which let me reactivate Sendai’s mana vein.

Then there was China, followed by the U.S., succeeding at Nightmare Floor 4. And in Spain, a new Nightmare Climber had rapidly cleared three floors in a row early this year, with a Floor 4 challenge coming up soon, drawing attention as a super rookie...

And there was another story I was watching on the news right now.

- We have news that the first crewed Mars probe from America’s UniverseZ has successfully landed on Mars after about three months of flight. Human history has now gone beyond Earth and begun anew on Mars...

A low-resolution video of a rocket landing on the Martian surface was playing on the news.

UniverseZ. Billon’s global private space company.

There had already been plenty of news before about spacecraft upgrade research using magic stone energy, major breakthroughs, and so on...

Now they had finally succeeded in crewed Mars exploration. It was truly worth congratulating.

[Person123: I saw the news. Congratulations.]

I sent Billon a message through the Communication Window.

A reply came right away.

[Chicken Sandwich: Thank you. More than anything, Mr. Kim’s help was huge. Thanks to the top-grade magic stones Mr. Kim provided, we could push the research much more aggressively. I should be the one thanking Mr. Kim.]

[Chicken Sandwich: Without the power of those magic stones, reaching Mars would have taken at least six months, but we dramatically shortened that. To explain the principles a bit more...]

If it helped, that was good.

Maybe Billon was in a great mood. He started listing principle after principle that I would not understand even if he explained it.

I was not a humanities guy, but there was no way I could follow all that anyway. I just gave him generic responses.

[Person123: But didn’t you say the top-grade magic stones I gave you couldn’t be discovered by the government?]

[Chicken Sandwich: The research itself was done privately. And of course, the magic stones used in the spacecraft were officially purchased by the company, so you do not need to worry.]

...Privately? Did he build a secret research facility on some remote island or something?

He was the richest man in the world, so it did not sound impossible.

I had only been worried he might get into trouble, but if there was no issue, good.

After more back-and-forth, Billon said this.

[Chicken Sandwich: I will be visiting Korea soon as well. How about we meet face to face for the first time in a while?]

A direct meeting proposal.

When I received skill stones, I met Billon directly only the first few times. After that, an intermediary always handled it, so it really had been years.

[Person123: Sounds good.]

I did not bother refusing.

By now, Billon was a partner I could fully trust.

We had always talked only through the Communication Window, so I also wanted to properly sit down and talk in person at least once.

[Chicken Sandwich: Then shall we meet the old way? I would like to host Mr. Kim at a proper meal, but... that might be too difficult.]

I thought for a moment, then replied.

[Person123: That sounds fine too. Pick a place and I’ll come to you.]

I had Stealth, and Warp teleportation too.

I had a lot more tricks now.

Getting to wherever Billon was without anyone noticing was no problem at all.

* * *

On the day of the appointment, I left home to meet Billon.

He chose a suite in a famous five-star hotel as the location.

It felt a little burdensome, but I was the one who said I would come.

Following Billon’s directions, I found the room and used teleportation right in front of the door.

“...!”

The moment I teleported into the room, Stealth dropped.

The two men inside flinched when they saw me. I had told them not to be surprised even if I appeared suddenly.

It was Billon and his secretary, Allen.

“Mr. Kim!”

Billon immediately walked toward me with a broad smile and opened his arms. It was an enthusiastic welcome.

I gave him a light hug, then smiled and shook hands with Allen too.

“Let me greet you properly. I am Allen, Mr. Billon’s secretary.”

He was also the one who always relayed Billon’s words through the Communication Window whenever Billon and I talked.

In one corner of the room, huge enough to feel less spacious than vast, luxurious food had already been laid out.

This did not feel like a hotel room. It felt like a mansion living room.

I took off my outerwear, washed my hands, and sat down with Billon.

“You must be hungry. Please eat.”

“Alright then... thank you for the meal.”

I had skipped dinner before coming, so I was hungry.

The table was packed with delicacies from land and sea. It was hardly an exaggeration to say they had gathered food from every country.

I had said I ate anything. Did they really prepare literally everything?

I started with familiar dishes rather than unknown ones.

“Does it suit your taste?”

“It melts in my mouth.”

We talked while eating.

Billon told me more details about the Mars mission, and I told him bits and pieces about how I had been lately too.

“...I’ve been hunting hard in Zone 4, but at this rate I don’t think I can fill the gauge before entering Floor 6.”

“I see. I hope you do not push yourself too hard.”

I also drank some of the alcohol Billon had prepared, saying it was a rare wine.

As we talked about this and that, the atmosphere that had felt a little burdensome quickly became comfortable.

“So in another month, you will challenge Floor 6.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“I have always been curious about this, but what were you thinking when you first entered Floor 1, Mr. Kim?”

Billon suddenly asked that.

I thought for a bit, then answered.

“Honestly... it was like grabbing at straws. There were only a few hours left, nobody had succeeded, and the world was about to end.”

“Even so, most people still would not have challenged it. They would just hope someone else succeeded in those final hours.”

Right, that was what I had done too.

Then why did I challenge it in the end?

At this point, I could not clearly remember what I had felt back then.

Maybe I had sensed, instinctively, that nobody would succeed.

Anyway, looking back now, that became the best choice... and completely changed both the world and my life.

I was living a very strange life. I felt it again.

“Mr. Kim, you are truly an extraordinary person. Humanity, including me, owes you a great debt. A debt we can never repay.”

No need to put it that far.

“Someone had to do it anyway. It just happened to be me.”

Billon smiled and asked again.

“What is your dream, Mr. Kim?”

“...My dream?”

There was only one.

“To climb Nightmare all the way to the top floor.”

If I did that, maybe the Tower’s time limit would disappear completely, maybe not.

Still, for now, I had no choice but to believe that was the only path for the world to be safe.

Billon spoke.

“My dream is to make human civilization multi-planetary. To move beyond Earth and expand into space, widening the survival possibilities of the human species. And Mars will be that beginning.

Now that we face the massive threat called the Tower, that gives us one more critical reason. If humanity leaves Earth, will the Tower’s curse affect Mars as well? Or will a Tower like the one in the Pacific rise again on Mars and follow humanity there?”

...Yeah. What would happen?

Would the Tower, which wielded power close to omnipotence, really let humanity go so easily?

Still, Billon’s idea was absolutely worth trying too. No matter what, we had to struggle.

“If crewed Mars exploration continues safely, we plan to carry out a human Mars migration program with everything we have. While Mr. Kim saves humanity, I also want to do everything I can on my end.

Against that vicious Tower, shouldn’t humanity also struggle with everything we have, however we can?”

Billon said out loud exactly what I had been thinking, and it made me laugh.

Nobody wanted to die.

And nobody wanted to live in a world where 99% of humanity had turned into monsters.

Billon and I smiled at each other and clinked glasses.

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