Chapter 182 – Tutorial 35th floor (1)
< Tutorial 35th floor (1) >
The holy sword did his job well.
The holy sword flew over to the Demon King who seemed quite interested and proceeded to whisper something that
infuriated him.
The subsequent battle was one-sided.
Even if there was a gap in power, it was the same Demon King he had defeated on the 26th floor.
I was faster and stronger than before.
I could react to the Demon King’s movements, and my attacks dealt significant damage to the Demon King.
I defended against the Demon King’s attacks and mixed in counterattacks to buy time.
And when the critical moment came, I used the light blade to finish the battle.
It was the basic strategy of swordsmanship.
It was something I noticed before, but this sword technique is effective against those that are stronger than me and
groups of enemies.
I suddenly felt thankful to the Knight I met on the 16th floor.
“So.”
[Yes?]
“What did you say that made the Demon King so mad?”
The Demon King had sprung at me like a madman upon hearing the holy sword’s words.
While it helped accomplish my goal of making the Demon King give his all, it was rather rough to deal with a
Demon King who gave no regards about his safety.
[That is.]
“Yeah.”
[A secret. Kyu.]
I felt a strong urge to hit the sword.
I could understand the Demon King’s feelings. Just a tiny bit.
[You have cleared the Tutorial, h.e.l.l Difficulty 34th floor]
[All status ailments and injuries will be healed.]
[You have acquired 6000 points for clearing the level.]
[You have acquired 6000 points for being the first person to clear this level.]
[There are multiple G.o.ds showing a positive response. Gained 4300 points.]
[There are multiple G.o.ds showing a negative response. 1200 points deducted.]
[Extra rewards are given based on play records.]
[4400 points acquired.]
There wasn’t an extra reward of note this time either.
There are a lot of G.o.ds showing an interest in me, but not that many G.o.ds that gift authorities.
Even the G.o.d of Light showed interest by gifting me extra rewards, but didn’t gift an authority.
Maybe it was because of the constraint that each G.o.d can only gift an authority to one challenger.
I heard that it doesn’t apply if the gifting is done anonymously like the G.o.d of Death did, but it didn’t seem to be
common.
Since I had nothing more to think about, I casually stepped into the portal.
“It was too easy?”
“Yeah.”
“In truth, the Demon King is a considerably strong being. It wasn’t that easy of a stage.”
“I thought the Demon King who appeared on the 34th floor stage was around average difficulty since it was a solo
stage. But the earlier bouts were too easy.”
Kiri Kiri scratched her nose at my words.
She didn’t seem to agree.
“On the 31st floor it’s easily possible to gather one thousand tokens by just going after the weak demons on the
outskirts. You could obtain tens, hundreds if you killed the demons who were essentially a safe. and the 32nd and
33rd floor were party-play.”
“Uhmm… that’s true.”
“Didn’t you specifically say before that difficulty spikes after the 30th floor?”
My questioning put Kiri Kiri in a rough spot.
She had no idea how much I antic.i.p.ated the stages after the 30th floor after hearing Kiri Kiri’s words.
If it was a mistake or she misspoke, Kiri Kiri will pay the price.
I won’t buy her cake
“Ahh! No! I haven’t misspoken!”
“Then?”
“The premise was wrong.”
“Explain.”
Kiri Kiri seemed torn on the explanation.
“Hng… it’ll be expensive to explain everything.”
“It’s not like there’s information I need to know right away. Just tell me.”
I didn’t need information on how to clear stages that badly right now.
I was easily clearing with just the minimum amount of information anyway.
“I’ll explain it as briefly as possible. First of all the Demons aren’t that weak. Even the ones in the outskirts.”
They seem weak…
“Not just the strength they have, but their high degree of intellect and sly, atrocious temperament warrant an even
higher risk.”
I thought of the demons I met on the outskirts of the 31st floor.
I never had trouble dealing with their intellect.
“That’s because Houujaeee is too strong. You took care of them before they had a chance to think. And some
demons did hold onto their lives by leaving a good impression to Houujaeee.”
That was true.
Although, they were the victim.
“Being a victim doesn’t mean they’re virtuous. All the ones there are demons, and that holds truer. The reason why
Houujaeee unconditionally took them as victims was because of their behavior. And that was deliberate acting on
their part.”
Hmm…
“If Houujaeee was weak, they would’ve stuck a knife in your back without thinking twice.”
That might be true.
And the different in power between me and them were part of the reason why I wasn’t concerned with them.
Maybe it’s true that the demons recognized that I had no interest in them and wanted to avoid irritating me.
Looking back to when I was questing a demon who was a victim on the 31st floor, after I let one faint, the others
fainted as soon as I asked them questions too.
“Then what about the demons like Olphon? They seemed rather stupid.”
“That’s… That’s also because Houujaeee is too strong.”
“Not because they’re too weak?”
Olphon and his underlings possessed frightening degrees of strength.
They had much greater pools of mana than I did.
Both them and I were aware of the fact.
“Because Houujaeee’s mana is mostly hidden away. That’s why they couldn’t discern Houujaeee’s full power.”
The mana circulating in the body flows out of the body every rotation of the magic circuit.
And the mana that flows out becomes a gauge for measuring the characteristics of the mana and how much mana
the other person has.
Even their intentions.
But.
“I’m not at the level of p.i.s.sing mana out anymore.”
Kiri Kiri shook her head vigorously.
“That’s not as easy as it sounds.”
Wasn’t that hard.
“They misjudged the amount and couldn’t read your intentions. So, they couldn’t help but look down on you. It
would be hard for the demons to believe that the skill difference would be that large when the volume of mana
differed that much.”
Is that so.
I was convinced by Kiri Kiri’s explanations.
I never thought my opponents would misjudge me like that because of the mana I had put away in order to be more
efficient.
Especially opponents like the Demon King and Olphon.
I pondered for a moment.
First, this will help me in the future battles.
It has a tremendous effect of the outcome of battle if the enemy can’t fully fathom my power like Olphon and the
other demons. But if my enemies keep looking down on me, it’ll be difficult to fight the way I want to.
Do I need to intentionally let some mana loose to coerce them?
Against an opponent with much more mana than me?
The reason I hadn’t done so until now was simple.
It’s just not efficient.
Then would it be possible to let broadcast my intentions instead of mana?
That would solve the problem if I could coerce them without wasting my energy.
Hmm… I can’t think of a way right now.
This is something I need to think about.
If possible, it would be very helpful.
I stopped pondering and looked at Kiri Kiri.
Since she took sated my curiosities, I opened the Shop window to gift her a cake.
“Wait.”
“Huh?”
“There’s something I need to tell you first.”
My hands froze just as I was about to buy her the cake.
Something more important than cake to Kiri Ki
I had no idea what she was going to say, but my body stiffened in antic.i.p.ation of bad news.
“Next floor?”
“Yeah, let me explain the next floor.”
I thought it was about changes in the system or some sort of problem, but it was an explanation for the next floor.
While Kiri Kiri has offered in-depth explanation of critical dangers, it was the first time Kiri Kiri had something to
explain with a serious expression like this.
Does it mean it’s that dangerous?
I saw the worried expression on Kiri Kiri’s face, but a corner of my heart lit up from the excitement.
“The main theme of the next floor is surviving for a certain length of time.”
Survival with a time limit.
It sounded similar to the 12th floor.
Will there be a similar restriction like the sealing of the inventory window?
“The next floor will start from the 1st floor.”
Huh?
“First, you have to survive for an hour on the 1st floor. Then 2 hours on the 2nd floor. Three on the 3rd floor. And so
forth.”
“It’s surviving on the floors I was on for a specific amount of time?”
“Yeah. From the 1st floor until the 34th floor. For approximately 24 days.”
I thought about the information Kiri Kiri gave me.
It’s not hard to hold out on the lower floors.
Even now, there were people surviving on jerky and water on the 1st floor.
“Both the inventory and items will be confiscated.”
“What about the items I take?”
“Same for those too. You have to do it with bare hands, without the starting weapons.”
That’s a bit harsh.
They’ll drop me on the 1st floor with just my bare hands?
Magicians and clerics will probably die here.
“The progress you’ve made until now will be gone too. You have to start again from level 1.”
“What?”
“Your body will return to the condition it was in back to when you first started the tutorial. Just for 35th floor
though.”
I dwelled on Kiri Kiri’s words for a moment.
It felt as though the words weren’t registering in my brain.
I slowly understood her words.
And.
“Hey! That’s a bit harsh!”
“I didn’t make it that way!”
Kiri Kiri screamed back at me.
f.u.c.k. I thought the G.o.ds calmed down for a bit, but the f.u.c.king G.o.ds were up to it again.
Are they even sane?
They’ll roll back the progress I’ve made until now?
[The G.o.d of Adventure is feels falsely accused.]
I didn’t care that the G.o.d felt falsely accused; I kept on thinking.
I can survive on the 1st floor.
The theme of the 1st floor are traps, and I won’t die if I make it past the traps.
The problems were the stages that began with fights.
For example ,the 31st floor begins with a run-in with two demons at the entrance.
Going up against two demons with the body that just entered the Tutorial…
I’ll die a hundred times even if I had the chance to fight them a hundred times.
“But you get to progress anew.”
“Progress?”
“Since you return to level 1, you can progress again from level 1. You can gain skills too.”
Basically, you can start again from the beginning.
But there was still a problem.
There wasn’t enough time
There were only 24 days to make it from the 1st floor to the 34th floor.
Could I make enough progress to survive through all the stages in just 24 days?
I wasn’t sure.
“There’s one thing I want you to promise.”
Kiri Kiri grasped the tip of my clothes while I was thinking hard.
“This was why I told you about the stage in advance.”
“What is it?”
“Please, it’s an earnest request.”
I could predict the next words out of Kiri Kiri’s mouth when she said request.
“Don’t overdo it. The 35th floor stage focused on how to deal with yourself when the progress you’ve made is gone
rather than surviving against your opponents. You need to keep that in mind.”
How you deal with yourself…
Does it want me to feel ashamed or something from seeing myself become incompetent overnight?
“The 35th stage isn’t something you can clear with just strength. You have to focus on survival using supplementary
skills like conversation and hiding rather than strategy and fighting to clear it.”
Even so, there aren’t many stages that are dangerous from the moment you enter.
Furthermore, the enemies that appear in the beginning are pa.s.sive.
Not just pa.s.sive, but they can become friendly depending on how I behave.
Even thinking back to the 16th floor, the doppelgänger was one example.
So, if I don’t overextend myself, I can guarantee my survival.
But.
“I dunno.”
Too bad I don’t work that way