A thrilling shift of vision I hadn't felt in a long time.
Brain matter and blood turned into a mess and flowed across the ground.
And soon, I was restored.
“No, what the hell is this… Status Window!”
-FLASH—!
────────────────
Name: Yoo Da-huin
Job: ??? (Curse of Immortality)
Level: 1 (Unable to level up)
────────────────
Vitality: ∞
Strength : 8
Stamina : 5
Agility : 6
Magic Power : 0
────────────────
Trait: 『Curse of Immortality』 (Detailed information available)
Skills:
[ Pain Numbness LV.5 (MAX) ]
[ Enhanced Regeneration Speed LV.5(MAX) ]
[ Death Detection LV.5 (MAX) ]
[ Blood Absorption LV.1 ]
[ Hidden Skill: Intimidation ]
[ Hidden Skill: Overcoming Death ]
────────────────
Death Count: 20,102 times
────────────────
“Fuck!”
Sure enough, just as the notification window had said, all my stats had been normalized.
That was right.
The side effect that wasn't quite a side effect of the ‘Blood King’ caused by the Blood Absorption Skill.
Because I ‘recovered’ before I could ‘die,’ I couldn't die, and therefore Overcoming Death no longer repeated.
Because I had grown stronger and stronger, I grew weaker in an instant.
What kind of dilemma was this?
“No, what am I supposed to do when I can't die even when I want to?!”
-CRUNCH—!
Far from listening to my miserable complaint, the giant root lifted me up once more and slammed me into the ground.
My brain matter burst out again, and my face regenerated.
“Damn it, what am I supposed to do?”
-CRUNCH—! CRUNCH—! CRUNCH—!
What else?
I had to die until Overcoming Death activated.
-CRUNCH—! CRUNCH—! CRUNCH—!
Like that, I was hurled to the ground dozens, hundreds of times.
-CRUNCH—!
Without any end in sight, without any answer.
I simply kept ramming my head into the floor.
“You…!”
-CRUNCH—!
“Fucking…!”
-CRUNCH—!
“…bastard!”
-CRUNCH—!
I spat curses, but I wasn't even sure exactly where the target was.
-CRUNCH—!
Was it even the tree doing this in the first place?
-CRUNCH—!
How could it be this merciless?
Were plants living creatures with this much anger?
-CRUNCH—!
And after I had died hundreds of times like that, this process had become boring.
There was little pain, and the method of killing was the same.
It just felt like riding a slightly painful roller coaster.
Ah.
How did I end up here again?
I began a recollection that wasn't even a revolving-lantern life flash before my eyes.
From the lottery, to the jewel, to those Hunter fucking bastards.
I suddenly started to feel sick of everything, wondering why I was climbing a tower when it had never even been in my fate.
My wife. No.
Even the gaze and trembling corners of the mouth of the woman who had been my ex-wife.
The image of my father as he was dying.
Ah, Father.
Right.
My father had died.
I don't know how this will sound. No.
I don't know how this thought will sound, but….
I want to die like him too.
I want to hurry up
and know how to die.
-THUNK.
Before I knew it, I had become fairly used to my head being brought straight down toward the floor like a vertical pendulum and smashed apart.
-THUNK, THUNK, THUNK.
How should I put it?
It reminded me of playing basketball with friends during my school days.
Back then was nice.
I had no worries.
I had no anxieties.
But not anymore.
[ DING! ]
[ Many deaths have repeated within a short time! ]
For the sake of dying.
[ Overcoming Death is activating! ]
[ All stats rise dramatically! ]
Because I was a bearer of the Curse of Immortality who repeated death.
“…….”
And right around when I was about to enter a state of enlightenment like that, the notification window appeared, and Overcoming Death began to activate.
-SLIDE….
The root grabbed my ankle and lifted me back into the air.
An action it had done nearly a thousand times.
“Let's stop now.”
-GRAB.
I bent my body and seized the root with both hands.
-CRACK—! RRRRIP—!
Then I twisted it and tore it apart to both sides.
-THUD—!
For the first time in dozens of hours, I stood on the ground on my own two feet, and with the root in my hands, I first pulled it toward my body.
-TUG.
A strong tension that would not stretch any farther.
At the end of this, there was definitely the owner of this root.
And.
The owner of this floor.
Now that there would be no more ramming my head into the ground, my mind slowly cleared.
-RRRIP….
I put more strength into the hand pulling the root.
“…Now it's your turn to be eaten.”
-CRACK—!
When I pulled the root with all the power my increased Strength stat could muster, I felt a vibration through the tips of my feet as though the entire forest were shaking.
The root ripped up from the dirt floor with a grinding tear, guiding me toward the place where its owner was.
-DASH—! RRRIP—! DASH—! RRRIP—!
I pulled the root as if playing tug-of-war, then ran forward, grabbed the root, and pulled it again.
-RRRRIP—!
“Damn it, how far does this thing go?”
Even after doing that for ages, the owner of this root still didn't show itself.
Following the direction in which the root was being pulled, I looked inward.
-RUMBLEEEEE…!
“!”
A massive vibration.
And along with it, a huge silhouette writhed ahead of me.
The form of a gigantic tree, glossy with black sap clinging to it.
And.
[ DING! ]
[ The tower's 30th-floor boss – Man-Eating Tree Sylvatera has appeared! ]
“There we go!”
With the notification window, the boss's appearance was confirmed.
Smiling, I released the root I had been pulling.
Its form was faintly visible in the darkness.
Dozens of roots stirred through the air like tentacles, and at every joint, sunken places split open into gaps that looked like mouths.
“So that's why it's a man-eating tree.”
I grimaced with an ugh expression.
“Well, it looks like a boss. Good enough.”
-GROOOOOOAN…!
As if answering those words,
Sylvatera made the root I had released suddenly wriggle and immediately began its counterattack.
-WHOOOSH—!
The root I had pulled aboveground rose long into the air.
-SWISH—!
Then it was swung toward me.
-THUD—!
I instinctively kicked off the ground and threw myself in the opposite direction.
-SHK-SHK-SHK—!
From the spot where I had been standing, dozens of thin roots shot up, surrounded the area on all sides, and in an instant trapped it like a Venus flytrap before chewing through empty air.
“Wow, if I'd been there, I would've been crushed to death.”
…Of course, I would've come back to life.
I gave a small snort and glanced at Sylvatera's trunk.
Even a rough estimate put the distance at over 150 meters.
It was too far to approach with a single leap.
But to simply die and inch closer like I had with previous bosses and monsters….
-WRITHE…
“Tch.”
Countless roots writhed like a living wall, blocking the space before my eyes.
That was right.
The boss, Sylvatera, was not that bastard as ‘one individual.’
The entirety of ‘this floor,’ spread wide and surrounding me, was ‘Sylvatera's territory.’
…If I approached, I was pushed back.
The approach itself was blocked.
What should I do at a time like this?
-FLASH—!
I raised my arm high.
First, I thought of the puddle made from the countless pools of brain matter and blood I had spilled behind me.
“Blood Absorption!”
I activated the newly learned Skill, but.
“…?”
A silence quiet enough to be embarrassing.
“What? What is it?”
I looked at my palm, then looked behind me, and only then did I see the writhing trees and the ground beneath them.
“…I see.”
That was right.
It had already been absorbed.
Because this ‘forest’ had sucked up every drop of my blood, the blood could not reach me.
“Damn it.”
My first method was blocked before it even began.
Then the second method.
I recalled the Incomplete Golem I had met on the 25th floor. No.
The ‘Immortal Golem.’
The bastard that had performed a suicide that wasn't quite suicide every time it attacked, increasing its attack power.
-SNATCH—!
A root flew toward my neck, wrapped around it in an instant, and slowly choked me.
I did not resist at all and endured until my lungs and face felt ready to burst.
“Ghk, huff…!”
My vision narrowed to a dot, and then death.
-SLUMP….
My arms drooped from my body suspended in the air.
-FLASH—!
Then I soon regained my strength, resurrected, and.
-CRACKLE—! SNAP—!
I grabbed the root clutching my neck and tore it apart.
I grew stronger each time I died.
A simple and easy mechanism.
As expected, the way to break through this floor was the same.
No matter how high the wall was or how rough the path became,
I simply had to advance one step at a time!
What a simple, stupid method!
-WHIRL—!
Sure enough, this time a mass of roots constricted my torso.
-CRACKLE, CRUNCH—!
“Ghk, huff!”
It crushed me to death, bursting all my ribs and organs.
“Puhup, puhahah.”
Blood burst from my mouth as I laughed with my teeth bared,
and even in that moment, I felt my stats rising several times as I gradually closed the distance between me and the bastard.
-CRACK—!
My vision went black, then brightened again.
My breath returned.
“Puhahak!”
Air filled my lungs, and my chest throbbed dully.
-WHAM—!
“Kuheup!”
Before I could enjoy that breath, a giant root struck my chest and widened once again the distance I had barely narrowed by a few steps.
-SPRING.
“Haa, haa.”
Even as I got up, I felt my ribs were broken, and I grimaced as I endured the stabbing pain in my organs.
-TAP—!
I ran toward the center of the forest again.
And.
-WRIGGLE—!
“…!”
I tried to dodge by reflex, but I was too late.
Roots that had sprouted from the ground at some point wrapped around my ankles.
-CRUSH—!
“Ghk!”
They crushed my ankles whole, then slowly climbed up to my waist.
-CRACKLE, CRACK—!
I heard the sound of my organs bursting.
The pressure tightened around my waist.
My spine bent, and my nerves felt as though they were being torn away.
“Kak, fuck…!”
Pain Numbness was active, but the pain and pressure were impossible to get used to.
-CRACKLE, GRIND—!
Flesh tore, and bones were crushed.
But.
-GRAB.
So what if I couldn't get used to it?
“I've, already, in this tower….”
-CRACKLE, CRACKLE—!
Died more than enough.
“Keoh!”
I spat out a handful of blood.
“Blood… Release!”
-SPRAY—!
I turned that handful of coughed-up blood into a sword and cut through the roots that had bound me.
-THUD—!
Only then did I stand on the ground again
and raise my head to look at Sylvatera.
-WRITHE, WRITHE….
The bastard's form still wasn't clearly visible.
-TAP—!
I kicked off the ground and ran again.
-CRACKLE—!
“Ghk, fuck!”
The bastards snatched my wrists.
They literally ‘snatched’ them.
-SNAP—!
My wrists were ripped out of my arms.
-CRACKLE—! SNAP—!
Blood and finger bones scattered in every direction,
and soon they regenerated all the way to my fingertips.
“Haa, haa!”
But it wasn't enough to threaten my life. No.
My life, at least, would absolutely never be threatened.
My steps could slow, but they could never be stopped.
-CRACK—!
My organs burst.
-GURK—!
I coughed up a handful of blood.
-CRACK, RRRIP—!
All my limbs were torn off.
Even so, one step.
If I was lucky, two steps.
Like that….
“Haa, haa.”
The distance between me and the bastard was now barely thirty meters.
And the form of the bastard I could finally see properly was….
“…This is a little troublesome….”
A huge, towering tree.
A tree that stretched toward a sky that did not exist,
the tallest tree even in the center of the forest, grown so high it seemed to touch the end of the ceiling.
“This is just… a fucking huge tree, isn't it…?”
I couldn't even estimate its girth, and I couldn't tell whether it was looking at me,
or where and how I was supposed to attack it.
“…Is it even looking at me in the first place?”
The expression of a giant tree whose intentions I couldn't read.
No, it didn't have anything you could call an expression.
All I could see were small roots endlessly writhing and moving as if observing me, a giant root beneath that massive trunk moving slowly like a snake in a way that suited the trunk's size, and attached to the roots….
“…Mouths.”
As befitted the epithet of man-eating tree, those things on every joint of the enormous roots looked like teeth and oral structures.
Looking at them, I remembered.
“Hmm. I don't want to go back in, but.”
The Giant Wolf King on the 20th floor.
How had I beaten that fast and powerful bastard again?
“…Shall I try it again?”
I lightly loosened up my body and shoulders.
The giant root slowly watched me like a wild animal, then.
-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRACK—!
It pushed through the dirt and floor, crawling toward me like a snake and lunging fast.
-WHOOSH.
I spread my arms wide without resisting at all.
-SLASH—!
I did not dodge the teeth of the bastard's enormous mass of roots as it came crashing toward me.
I accepted them with my entire body.