WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 95

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Nightmare Floor 7 (2)

Boom!

The stone door shut again.

I stopped time.

It was the same cave as before.

Arrow holes lined all four walls, and there was another door on the opposite side.

But there was no way this was the exact same stage.

Of course the difficulty had gone up...

At a glance, though, I couldn’t tell what had changed.

I resumed time and moved to the center of the chamber.

At that moment.

Fwoosh.

All the torches lighting the chamber went out at once.

Pitch-black darkness dropped over everything. I couldn’t see an inch ahead.

‘Aha...’

So this was it?

I immediately understood the concept of this stage.

It looked like visual suppression.

Not a problem for me.

‘Diul.’

I activated darkvision.

With a warning from Sixth Sense, an arrow flew straight at me from the front.

I shifted sideways and dodged the clearly visible arrow.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The arrows weren’t much different in size or speed from before.

Meaning I could dodge them comfortably.

Even without sight, I probably could’ve managed somehow with Sixth Sense alone, and with darkvision on top of that, there was no way I was getting hit.

The firing interval kept shrinking...

Then it wasn’t just one arrow anymore.

I looked up.

The instant I saw arrows being fired, I stopped time.

A rain of arrows fell, blanketing a wide area.

Let’s see...

‘I can just dodge through it.’

Dozens of arrows were plunging toward the ground at once.

I calmly checked the gaps I could slip through, resumed time, and threw myself into one.

Kwaaang!

The ground was devastated.

That seemed to be the last wave. After I dodged it, no more arrows came.

Rumble-

The torches lit back up, and the stone door to the next stage opened.

Stage 2 cleared easily too.

I walked toward the door.

Bang!

This time, a surprise arrow came from behind instead of the front.

Of course, I saw it coming and dodged.

‘So far, it’s whatever...’

Stage 1 was just dodging.

Stage 2 was dodging in darkness.

To be fair, expecting someone to handle this on a first try was still pretty shameless.

Still, everything was relative.

For Nightmare, this was still on the gentle side.

I was about to pass through the door, then stopped.

...Should I look around first?

Naturally, stages should get harder as I went.

But Floor 4 came to mind, and I got uneasy again.

There might be a hidden gimmick that would screw me later if I missed it now.

I decided to inspect the chamber a bit more before moving on.

So I spent quite a while looking around...

But found nothing unusual.

I walked toward the Stage 1 door.

It seemed impossible to return to the previous stage. The shut door gave no response.

I fired a full-charge Destruction Beam at it just in case.

But even after taking the beam directly, the door was perfectly fine. Not a scratch.

“Hmm.”

Looks like doors had an unbreakable flag too.

Makes sense. If they were breakable, I could just smash everything and skip the stage.

Thud.

The door closed.

Stage 3 was the same chamber again.

But one thing was different.

A huge pattern was engraved on the floor.

Two arrows chasing each other’s tails in a clockwise loop.

What did that mean?

Obviously, it wasn’t there for nothing.

I stopped time and thought for a moment.

...Move in circles?

Or do things swap?

I wasn’t Conan. There was a limit to what I could infer by just staring at it.

‘What do you think this means, Demon King-nim?’

I asked the Demon King too.

- Figure it out yourself.

He snorted, but he didn’t seem to know either.

Guess I had no choice but to test it directly.

I resumed time.

For now, I stayed near the outer edge instead of going close to the pattern.

Then.

Flash.

The pattern started glowing like a magic circle.

“...?!”

Huh?

I tried to move, lost my balance, and fell.

Alarmed, I stopped time immediately.

‘...What is this.’

My body felt wrong.

What was that just now?

I definitely tried to move my right leg, but my left leg moved.

Then I tried to recover my balance, but my body moved all wrong and I toppled over.

I resumed time.

I tried moving my right hand once.

My left hand moved.

‘No way...’

I understood the situation immediately.

Did my left-right control get reversed?

When I tried to move my right side, my left side moved, and when I tried to move my left side, my right side moved. Like the neural control between left and right brain had been switched...

So that arrow pattern meant this.

...It was fine. No reason to panic.

I just had to move in reverse, right?

I pressed both hands to the floor and awkwardly pushed myself up.

Sixth Sense rang out again.

An arrow was coming from the left.

I stopped time again.

I moved left-diagonal, and my body moved right-diagonal instead.

I dodged the arrow, but lost my balance and fell again.

‘Ah, damn it.’

I could perform one movement at a time.

But if I tried to keep moving continuously, of course my body got tangled up.

Even if I understood it in my head, I couldn’t adapt to left-right inversion instantly.

Another arrow came from behind.

I stopped time again.

Of course, adapting and moving right away was impossible...

But I had time stop.

If my body got twisted, I just had to stop time each time and think through the movement.

I resumed time, dove left, and dodged the second arrow.

I kept both hands on the ground instead of standing up.

This seemed better than trying to stay on two feet.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dodge, stop time, dodge, stop time.

I kept dodging arrows by hopping on all fours like a frog.

‘This is doable.’

It looked a little pathetic, but who cared. This was way more efficient.

No need to use skills yet.

Sure, using skills might’ve made it easier...

But I had no idea what else might suddenly pop up, so lowering my guard was out of the question.

If I could dodge it, I should dodge it, and conserve skills as much as possible.

Kwang!

Final arrow barrage.

I stopped time.

This time, countless arrows came all at once, densely filling the front.

There was space to slip through the gaps...

But with my body control like this, I couldn’t move precisely enough. I wasn’t confident about threading those gaps.

No need to take that risk.

I finished concentrating and used the Teleport I had been saving.

Arrows sliced through empty air and slammed loudly into the opposite wall.

No more arrows came.

The glow of the floor’s arrow pattern faded.

I stood up.

Only then did my left-right reversed body return to normal.

“Whew.”

Stage 3 clear.

That one was slightly rough.

Honestly, without time stop, I probably couldn’t have even controlled my body properly. I might’ve gotten seriously screwed...

Anyway, it felt like the concentration of Nightmare-style bullshit was getting thicker.

By the way, how many stages did this thing even have?

I recovered a bit of stamina and walked to the stage door.

Rumble-

No more sloppy surprise arrows came.

“...?”

Stage 4 was the same chamber too.

Again, there was a large pattern on the floor.

A human foot, and beside it an arrow pointing downward.

What was that supposed to mean...?

At first glance, it felt like reduced speed.

More importantly, there was something besides the pattern.

Several swords were stuck into the floor in the center of the chamber.

‘A rainbow?’

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

Seven swords in seven colors.

I walked closer.

No warning from Sixth Sense.

I picked one up. It was just an ordinary longsword, aside from the color.

A weapon, out of nowhere, at this point...?

And several copies of the exact same one? Why colors?

I was just thinking they had to serve some purpose.

Bang!

I dodged.

An arrow crashed down from above and shattered the ground.

The shockwave blasted the swords in every direction.

Then arrows started flying in.

No difference from previous stages. I dodged easily.

Then.

“...?”

One incoming arrow stood out.

Unlike the others, which were basically missiles, this one was normal-sized.

And blue.

I dodged first.

When the blue arrow missed and stuck in the floor...

The floor pattern suddenly started glowing.

“...!”

Something else was coming again.

Bang!

The moment I dodged the next arrow, I noticed the strange sensation in my body.

‘My body...’

It got a little sluggish?

I stopped time.

I needed time to think.

First, the pattern’s meaning seemed to be exactly what I guessed: a Slow-type debuff.

Seven rainbow-colored swords.

Colored arrows, unlike the others.

And when a colored arrow stuck in the floor... the pattern activated?

As I put everything together, a thought occurred to me.

‘Is this telling me to knock arrows away with a sword?’

Colored swords, colored arrows.

That was the natural link.

And only the colored arrows were normal-sized, unlike those huge brute-force arrows...

Maybe I had to knock each colored arrow away with a sword of the same color so the Slow debuff wouldn’t trigger.

If I failed, my body would keep getting slower.

I needed to gather the swords.

The moment I resumed time, I ran to collect the swords scattered everywhere.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dodging arrows, I recovered them one by one.

Then a purple arrow appeared.

‘Damn.’

Its speed wasn’t too fast to parry.

But I hadn’t picked up the purple sword yet, so I knocked it away with the blue sword I was holding.

Whoooosh-

Then the pattern’s glow grew stronger.

My body felt a bit more sluggish.

So I really did need to match colors when parrying.

I soon collected all the swords.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Slow had stacked twice, but it still wasn’t severe.

It was partly offset by Heightening too.

But if this kept going, it was dangerous.

If my body slowed to the point I couldn’t dodge, I’d just eat every hit.

‘...This is kind of hard?’

Seven swords, but only two hands.

Right now I had them in my hands and tucked around my waist.

In this state, instantly picking the right one and swinging by arrow color was impossible no matter how I looked at it.

...Wait.

Then I could just use Subspace, right?

[Skill: Subspace (Epic)]

Creates a subspace where you can store and retrieve objects. To store an object, you must be in direct contact with it, and when retrieving it, you can summon it within a 1-meter radius. Living beings or spirit entities cannot be stored. You can store up to 100 kilograms.

Casting requires 3 minutes of mental concentration.

Classification: Magic-Type

Willpower Cost: 300

Cooldown: None

I stopped time as needed and put all the swords into Subspace.

Subspace had no cooldown on storing or retrieving objects.

Pulling out the matching sword for each arrow color on the spot and parrying was completely possible.

I kept dodging arrows with my slowed body.

‘Red.’

Another red arrow cut into the mix.

Clang!

This time, the pattern’s glow didn’t get stronger.

So this really was the right answer.

I dodged the missile arrows, and used Subspace to parry colored arrows with matching swords.

Dodge, parry, dodge, parry.

The firing interval got shorter and more frantic as it went.

But whenever it got too hectic, I just stopped time and caught my breath.

Like that, aside from the first two I missed, I parried every single colored arrow.

After a few minutes, no more arrows came.

Rumble-

I took a short break and tilted my head.

‘Something feels...’

It was subtle.

Was there really no hidden gimmick or trick?

Floor 7 somehow felt like a pure skill test.

Sure, even just the left-right inversion debuff and color-matching parries were at a level other Climbers couldn’t clear without prior information...

Still, lowering my guard was out of the question.

There was no way to know what kind of insane bullshit might pop out next until I saw it.

“Let’s go.”

I didn’t throw away the colored swords. I stored them in Subspace.

Then I moved on to Stage 5.

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