WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 97

──────

Nightmare Floor 7 (4)

I entered warily, and what I saw was a giant monument.

A pentagonal pattern on the floor.

And a monument standing right at its center.

Boom.

The door shut.

With time stopped, I looked around to see if there was anything else unusual.

Then I released it and walked up to the monument.

Ssssss.

"...?"

The moment I stood in front of it,

red letters suddenly began writing themselves across the stone.

[What was the total number of arrows fired in the first trial?]

I read it and frowned.

What the hell was this...?

First, I stopped time again.

'A quiz?'

Out of nowhere, it was giving me a quiz.

The problem was, I didn't know the answer.

The number of arrows fired in the first trial?

How was I supposed to remember that?

'I knew I had a bad feeling about this...'

Just like I thought, there had been something else waiting.

Whatever this was, it was obvious nothing good would happen if I got the answer wrong.

I tried to jog my memory first.

But it wasn't like I had counted every arrow while dodging them. There was no way I'd remember the exact number.

How the fuck was I supposed to know this?

This question was complete bullshit.

'Demon King.'

- "I don't know."

The useless Demon King answered instantly the moment I called him.

...There was no helping it.

No amount of thinking would get me the answer. I had no choice but to guess.

'They said Hard had 300...'

I felt like Stage 1 had been around that number too.

Could it be the same as Hard?

I released time and gave my answer.

"...300 arrows?"

Was saying it out loud enough?

The letters on the monument vanished, and something else appeared.

[X]

An X mark.

Wrong.

One point of the pentagram on the floor lit up red.

[100]

A number appeared above the monument too. 100?

I didn't know what it meant, but it definitely wasn't good for me.

Letters appeared on the monument again.

[How many arrows were fired in the final volley of the second trial?]

It was the same kind of question again.

There had been five trials, so was it giving one question per trial?

The second trial was the dark stage where the torches went out.

At the end, a rain of arrows had fallen from the ceiling all at once.

It wanted me to guess how many there had been.

'Ha...'

This was seriously disgusting.

There was no way I remembered this one exactly either.

Again, I had no choice but to go with my gut.

"25 arrows."

I held back the urge to shout, I don't fucking know, asshole, and answered.

[O]

A circle appeared on the monument.

...Huh? I got it right?

'I actually got that?'

Looks like I had lucked into the right answer.

This time, the red light did not fill another point of the pentagram. The number stayed the same too.

[How many arrows were fired in the final volley of the third trial?]

"25 arrows."

I gave the same answer again.

[X]

Luck didn't strike twice.

An X appeared, and another point of the pentagram filled with red light.

[200]

The number above the monument changed too.

It had gone up by another 100 and become 200.

[What color was the tenth color arrow fired in the fourth trial?]

The fourth question was at least better than the others.

I tried to recall the sequence of color arrows.

It had definitely gone blue, purple, red, orange, green...

I clearly remembered up to the seventh one, but after that it got fuzzy.

'Orange? Blue?'

Damn it, what was it?

I was sure the tenth was one of those two.

"Hm, wasn't it green?"

The Demon King cut in and only made me more confused.

I ignored him, thought it over, and chose an answer.

"Orange."

[X]

Fuck.

"See? I told you it was green."

'...Be quiet.'

A third point of the pentagram filled with red light, and the number above the monument became 300.

[What was the order of the body parts targeted by the statue in the fifth trial?]

The fifth question.

This was probably the last one.

This... I could answer!

"Right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, heart, head."

The moment I answered,

[O]

the letters on the monument vanished along with the circle mark.

[300]

I looked at the pentagram with three points filled in red, then at the number above the monument.

At least I got two questions right...

So what happened now?

And what did that number mean?

Craaack.

Then, with a tremor, cracks started spreading through the monument.

The pentagram on the floor also began giving off a powerful light.

[299]

I stepped back.

My Sixth Sense sounded the alarm.

An arrow was about to fly in from the left.

"...?!"

I started to move, then the moment I felt something off,

I stopped time at once.

'Again?'

The left-right reversal debuff from Stage 3 had been applied again.

The moment I released time, I planted both hands on the ground

and hopped forward to dodge the arrow.

'Huh?'

...Oh, fuck.

The instant I saw the arrow, I stopped time again.

A blue arrow was flying at me.

Wait, no way...

Were all the trial themes from the questions I got wrong being applied now?

'I'm fucked.'

How was I supposed to knock away color arrows when my body was like this?

I tried anyway.

After carefully calculating how I needed to move and the path of my swing,

I finished concentrating, pulled out the blue sword from Subspace, and knocked the arrow aside.

Clang!

...Barely.

Right then, a loud crash rang out.

I turned and saw the cracked monument collapse completely.

"...!"

What the hell was that?

There was something inside the broken monument.

Humanoid, pitch-black all over, with a pair of horns on its forehead.

A monster whose appearance made the word demon come to mind all on its own.

'A boss.'

I knew immediately.

The boss, which had been completely motionless as if sealed away, opened its eyes.

No, but seriously, hold on a second...

My body was reversed left to right, I had color arrows to deal with,

and now I had to fight a boss on top of all this shit?

A red glow flashed in the boss's eyes.

I stopped time.

There was only one thing to do right away.

Before the boss could do anything, I had to hit it first with my trump card.

I finished concentrating and fired a fully charged Destruction Beam at the boss.

But...

"...?!"

Even after taking Destruction Beam head-on, the boss didn't die.

Forget dying, it looked completely fine. It didn't seem to have taken even the slightest damage.

I stopped time again.

'It doesn't work at all?'

There was no way this thing was high enough level to tank Destruction Beam through pure durability alone.

Destruction Beam had worked just fine even on the Zone 4 boss, which had to be at least level 80.

This was Floor 7. There was no way it would suddenly throw a boss far above that at me.

So there had to be some kind of gimmick... or maybe an invincibility buff?

It could be like that invincible monster I fought in the sub-tower before.

[291]

I checked the number.

Even though the monument had crumbled, the number hanging in the air was still there.

The number that had been 300 had dropped to 291.

That was a timer in seconds.

'...Ah.'

Only then did everything click into place in my head.

I finally understood how this Floor 7 boss fight was set up.

'So I just have to endure.'

Dodge arrows, knock away the color arrows, and survive for 300 seconds against an invincible boss.

Once that count hit 0, maybe the boss's invincibility would come off or something. Probably.

If I had answered more questions correctly, the conditions would've been much better...

'Fuck.'

Was this even possible?

I had no idea whether I could survive 300 seconds under conditions this bad,

but what choice did I have?

If I failed, I died. Simple as that.

I released time.

Boom!

At the same time, the boss charged at me at high speed.

I jumped away on all fours again and widened the distance.

An arrow came flying down from above my head. I stopped time.

Because of this damned left-right reversal, I had to stop time for every single action or my body would get tangled up.

The boss was slower than me.

It probably just had some kind of invincibility buff. Its actual level didn't seem that high after all. At most, maybe somewhere in the 60 to 70 range.

Kwarararang!

The boss also used a ranged attack, firing something like black thorns,

and dealing with the boss on top of the arrows was every bit as miserable as expected.

'...This won't work.'

There was no way I could fight the boss and knock away the color arrows at the same time.

I called out Diul and used Pitch-Black Mist.

Saaaaaa!

The boss entered the fog's range, lost its balance, and fell flat on the floor.

I spread Pitch-Black Mist in the narrowest range possible to keep the boss trapped inside it,

then stepped outside the mist and kept dodging arrows.

Dodge, stop time, knock them away, stop time.

I even used skills to block some of them.

Flame Strike was too slow, so I used Thunder Strike and Blade Whirlwind to knock arrows away.

The problem was that the interval between arrows kept getting shorter.

Maybe because this was a boss fight, the pace was even more brutal than it had been in the stages.

To make it worse, after a while multiple arrows started flying at me at once.

What was this, hell?

If either the left-right reversal or the color arrows had been missing, this would've been a lot more manageable.

"...!"

In the end, I started hitting my limit.

I missed one of the color arrows.

A Slow debuff triggered, and I felt my body grow even heavier.

To make matters worse, Diul was reaching its limit too.

The Pitch-Black Mist trapping the boss was about to go out.

I stopped time.

[151]

There were still 150 seconds left.

Only half had passed.

If the boss started moving again here...

I had no confidence I could hold out any longer. The color-arrow stacks would pile up in an instant.

Once my body got so slow I couldn't dodge arrows anymore, that would be it.

The arrows weren't going to keep politely missing my head forever.

'This is insane.'

I was practically backed into a corner.

What was I supposed to do?

If I called out Kalundi Citizenship and Pli and had them handle the boss as much as possible...

- "Hand it over."

That was when I heard the Demon King's voice.

- "You're not planning to stay stubborn even after things have come this far, are you? Hand it over already."

I asked him,

'...Can you actually do something?'

I didn't know exactly what abilities the Demon King could use.

He only let out a scoffing laugh.

He was someone who had climbed past Floor 20 of Nightmare, so of course he had to be strong...

The problem was that if I handed my body over to the Demon King, control would go back to him.

'If I hand it over, you're not going to give my body back.'

The Demon King answered in an annoyed voice.

- "I said I'll give it back, so hand it over."

'...Really?'

What was this? He wasn't lying.

This was the same guy who was always demanding my body, so what had gotten into him?

"Even if I use this chance to take your body, you little bastard will just stop time and cause a scene again anyway."

'That's true.'

Even if he didn't show it, maybe he was worried I'd overdo it and get us killed.

If I died, he died with me too.

If the Demon King really could get me out of this crisis in my place,

then I didn't have much reason to keep taking the risk myself.

'Then...'

It had been almost a year.

I handed control of my body over to the Demon King.

"Release time."

I released time.

The boss broke free from Pitch-Black Mist and rushed at me, while arrows flew in from every side.

And in that moment...

Saaaaaaaaaaaa!

An enormous wave of cold spread everywhere and froze everything. The boss, the arrows, all of it.

'...!'

Even though I had released time, the scene looked as if time had stopped again.

[Willpower: 0/4050]

My Willpower hit rock bottom in an instant.

"Freeze."

White cold mist spilled from my mouth as the Demon King spoke.

I stopped time again.

...So the Demon King used my Willpower too when he used his power. Well, that made sense.

The Demon King said,

"Recover it yourself whenever it drops."

'Yep.'

Of course, the Demon King already knew I could recover Willpower by stopping time.

I restored all of it, then released time again.

The boss remained frozen solid and couldn't move at all.

The arrows kept coming.

This time, the Demon King spread something like a barrier around us, and countless ice blades floated in the air.

Kwarararararang!

The ice blades swept out like a storm, smashing apart every incoming arrow.

After only a few seconds, my Willpower bottomed out again, so I stopped time.

Then it was the same thing over and over.

As time passed, the number of arrows increased exponentially.

But there were even more ice blades than that, overwhelmingly more, and they shattered every last arrow.

Watching it, the Demon King seemed to be spamming magic without any real cooldown at all.

And because time stop meant my Willpower never stayed depleted, it turned into truly infinite spell spam. There was no way the arrows could reach me.

I didn't even need to knock the color arrows away with a sword anymore.

It didn't matter if Slow stacks piled up or not, since he was just standing in place casting magic anyway.

There was just one problem.

My body was gradually freezing.

Cracks spread through it, and then one of my arms snapped off and fell to the floor. Huh?

'...Demon King?'

I asked in alarm, and he replied calmly,

"Your body is too pathetic to endure my power."

'Ah.'

Shouldn't that be a problem?

I didn't care about losing an arm, but if my head fell off too, I'd die.

[5]

There were only 5 seconds left now.

Soon, the number dropped all the way to 0.

The red haze covering the boss vanished.

Did its invincibility wear off?

The cold released by the Demon King swallowed the boss whole.

Kwaaaaaaah!

The boss took it head-on and burst apart into ice particles that scattered through the air.

Crack!

At the same time, my waist split apart and my upper and lower body separated.

The Demon King clicked his tongue.

"Tsk, you can barely endure even this much when I'm only using low-grade magic."

[You have successfully cleared Nightmare difficulty Floor 7.]

A message appeared before my eyes.

Either way, I had killed the boss, so the clear was a success.

I stared at the message, feeling a little dazed.

What was this?

It felt like I had just gotten the most insane carry ever.

[Absorbing the power of the floor.]

[Your level has increased.]

[Your level has increased.]

[Your level has increased.]

.

.

.

[Your level has increased.]

[You are the first to successfully clear Nightmare difficulty Floor 7.]

[Floor 7 Hidden Route has been unlocked.]

[Moving to the Reward Room.]

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried