5th Floor, The Girl Who Gazes at the Meteor Shower (3)
I always used to think this.
From around the time I first entered the Tier 1 Tower and began watching the vanguard shoot upward with overwhelming talent, until I watched the vanguard become the first to graduate from the Tier 4 Tower.
'I wish I had at least one blessing or S-Rank skill too.'
Because of my lacking talent, I never got the Celestials' attention. The inferior had no chance to even grow stronger, while the talented received the love of the heavens and gained ever more blessings, widening the gap in power overwhelmingly.
That unreasonable world was the 'Ascension Tower.'
Stages others passed in one go, I barely cleared after going through hell and dying several times.
People with talent at my level were a dime a dozen in the Tower. Most of them died somewhere while climbing, without anyone ever knowing.
I, too, would have been fated for that.
I was lucky.
If someone asked me 'How did you climb the Tier 4 Tower?', that's the only answer I could give.
How did someone with this lousy talent end up climbing all the way to the Tier 4 Tower, you ask?
That's.......
[You have been revived.]
I pressed a hand to my forehead.
With my left hand.
My hand had come back perfectly intact.
The regeneration is fast, but no matter how many times I die, I can't get used to dying.
Then again, it makes no sense for someone born a human, fated to mortality, running toward death, to grow numb to death.
[The skill 'Sixth Sense' has leveled up.]
My nerves sharpened to a fine edge.
Sixth Sense had the fatal flaw of having a very short duration and blurring your concentration once used, but after repeating the 5th floor more than 10 times, its proficiency had gone up very quickly.
Should I call that a good thing?
Raising this skill's proficiency was atrociously difficult. Sword skills gained proficiency just by mindlessly swinging over and over. Most other active skills were like that.
But Sixth Sense was different.
Since a skill that purely spreads out the senses isn't intuitive, there were often types who could never raise its skill level at all.
“......I have to pull this off.”
Sixth Sense. And Rapid Acceleration.
I had to use the two skills at the same time to get through this stage.
Through several rounds, I'd confirmed that I couldn't dodge the knight's [Flash Cut] without skills.
Even if I detected the attack with Sixth Sense, I couldn't dodge because my movements were too slow, and if I used Rapid Acceleration, I couldn't dodge because I couldn't detect the attack.
But what if I used both skills at the same time?
In theory, 'multi-skill' use was impossible at level 30. You could only ever use one skill at a time.
That was like a rule set by the Tower. Like a kind of 'level cap.' Just like how it blocked you from easily raising your level past a certain point on certain floors.
But in this Tower, there was no such thing as a complete restriction.
It's possible if you put in the effort.
Even if the system puts on a restriction that makes it hard to raise your level, you can do it if you work at it for a hundred, a thousand years.
Even if there's no system assistance and a skill is hard to use, you can do it if you work at it for a hundred, a thousand years.
It's just that it's hard for players to overcome on their own and not worth that much; there was nothing that couldn't be done with effort.
And I was already someone who had realized the limits of that system assistance.
Because of having fewer skills and lower stats than others, I could only survive by overcoming the system in at least one thing.
It was my first time trying it at a mere level 30, but there was no reason it couldn't work.
[Entering the Round 6 stage.]
The moment the challenge began, I ran forward at full sprint.
As soon as the knight saw me in the distance, it immediately took its quick-draw stance.
Emergency Evasion had invincibility, so it was very easy to chain it into an evasion while using Sixth Sense.
But Rapid Acceleration simply made all my movements twice as fast for 3 seconds; it had no invincibility.
[Emergency Evasion]
Whooosh!
The wind brushed past. The knight in front of me had already moved behind me through [Flash Cut].
What came next was important.
Trust my gut.
[Sixth Sense]
If I raised my senses to the max, kept hold of the thread of concentration, and used [Rapid Acceleration] to pinpoint the safe zone.......
Clatter!
'Ah, fuck.'
My head fell off. Whenever I die to the second Flash Cut, I never die instantly; my head always falls off and rolls around on the floor before I die.
It feels pretty damn shitty.
It's probably because the thing's Flash Cut level is lacking. The second Flash Cut must lose power and speed.
That's why the first Flash Cut absolutely had to be dodged with Emergency Evasion alone.
[Challenging the Round 7 stage.]
Let's go again. Just now, Sixth Sense got canceled as I tried to activate [Rapid Acceleration], but I got a rough feel for it. I don't fail twice.
[You have been revived.]
......That's what I thought, but.
This was harder than I thought.
If I were a genius at using skills, maybe, but I wasn't, so getting the feel of it in one go was hard.
“Ah.......”
Lying on the floor, I pressed a hand to my forehead.
Geniuses either soar from victory to victory without a single failure, or never fail twice at something they failed once.
Thinking about it now, it's enviable beyond words. What would it feel like to live as a genius?
I'm curious about a life with no second mistakes.
The guys who climbed the Tower side by side with me were all geniuses, so if anything, they were the ones curious about me.
'You made a mistake on that just now. So why are you making it again?'
'Even when I think something won't work, it works right away when I try again next time, though?'
'How do I do it? Uh...... that's the first time anyone's asked me that, so I'm kind of thrown. Everyone just did it, so I copied them?'
'You still haven't gotten a blessing? When I cleared Tier 1's 50th floor in one go, they gave me three. Huh? It took you 20 tries to clear the 50th floor? Hm.......'
'......You really have no talent, huh?'
“......”
Conversations with geniuses were always exhausting.
Overcoming the inferiority complex that welled up was hard.
Springing up from where I lay, I rubbed my face dry and entered the stage.
[Entering the Round 8 stage.]
I still have plenty of chances.
Let's stay relaxed.
[Entering the Round 9 stage.]
Was this always this hard?
The very idea of using multi-skills at level 30 was absurd.
[Entering the Round 10 stage.]
I realized anew how great 'Tower system assistance' was. How dependent the breed called players was on the Tower. Then again, without the skills and Divine Powers the Tower gifts them, humans would be embarrassed to even be called superhuman.
[Entering the Round 11 stage.]
......I was starting to get anxious.
[Entering the Round 12 stage.]
It's frustrating.
There's a way, the strategy is perfect.
The current situation, where I couldn't pull it off purely because my physical ability and talent were lacking, was so frustrating I felt like I'd go crazy.
I'd already completely figured out the terrain features and the thing's patterns.
Once.
If I could succeed just once.
'I still have 8 chances left.......'
No. Get a grip.
The chances given to me are different from others'. They might look like a lot, but how many have I wasted in vain so far?
Get a grip. Think of it as having only one chance.
'This is the last one.'
Every moment, charge in desperately.
Act like you're going to die right now.
I took a deep breath, but my breath trembled heavily. It seemed I'd gotten really nervous. This much tension, even though I had a skill that strengthened mental endurance.
[Time remaining until challenge 01:16]
I used as much of the time as possible in the waiting area. To meditate. You might ask why something like that matters, but I needed it right now.
[Entering the Round 13 stage.]
I opened my eyes. Far away, the knight was walking toward me.
Tap! I kicked off and ran forward, activating [Sixth Sense].
The first draw.
[Emergency Evasion]
No failure; I dodged it perfectly.
After dashing 1m forward, I activated [Hardening] and raised the buckler.
TWOOM!!
'Ugh!'
The impact and pain I couldn't get used to no matter how many times I took it. My spine was wrecked, and I endured the shock of my left hand being torn off with my eyes wide open.
After finishing its two Flash Cuts, the knight would be stunned for a moment.
That was my chance.
[Rapid Recovery]
Running forward while raggedly healing my broken bones and bleeding, I threw 3 makeshift bombs at the wall beside the still-stunned knight. With the materials I had now, that was all I could make.
'That's enough, right? Please.'
I hadn't known I'd end up using bombs again, since bosses with high levels appeared from the 5th floor on, and even if I did, I'd figured I wouldn't need many, so not buying more materials to save TP was my biggest regret.
Fwoosh!
I lit them with my cigarette and threw it at the makeshift bombs.
The moment I backed off slightly.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-!!
“Ugh!”
The bombs went off faster than expected, and I got swept up and sent flying a little too.
Then what about the knight, who'd been even closer than me?
The knight was lodged in the side wall, struggling to raise its body.
The knight stayed stunned for only 8 seconds. It was about time for it to use [Flash Cut] again.
“What.......”
Looking at the wall as the smoke cleared, I frowned. A huge crack had formed in the wall, but it hadn't completely broken through.
'Don't tell me.'
Looking at the floor, one of the bombs was a dud. Three should have been enough to break through the wall.
“Damn it!”
With no other choice, I kicked the dud bomb far away and put my back to the heavily cracked wall.
Now the knight and I were each standing with our backs to the walls on either side, facing each other.
The passage was very long, but its width from side to side was only 3m at most.
But.......
The minimum distance for the knight to activate [Flash Cut] was also 3m.
Clank!
As expected, the thing lowered its stance and looked at me, leaning with my back to the wall.
Somehow, I seemed to feel a sharp energy from its sword.
[Sixth Sense]
Concentrate. Think of it as the last chance. If not now, I die. I've always had only one life.
I lowered my stance just like the thing, and at the split second I thought its breathing had gone slightly off.
'......Now!!'
[Rapid Acceleration]
I activated the skill.
And I felt it.
'Success.'
That I'd finally activated two skills at the same time.
I could feel it through Sixth Sense. The thing's sword was flying toward my neck. Even though I'd become twice as fast from the acceleration effect, the thing was correcting its trajectory in real time.
An absurd concentration, determined to cut off my head no matter what.
'No.......'
Double speed wasn't enough to completely dodge the thing's attack.
With no choice, I brought my longsword up near my neck. This was a gamble. It was no different from flailing and struggling to somehow block an attack I couldn't even see.
A gamble thrown out with no plan.
Was I lucky?
KAGAGAGAK!
The thing's sword slid along my longsword, scooped a big chunk of flesh from around my neck, and glanced off just like that.
TWOOM-!!
“Gack!”
As Sixth Sense and Rapid Acceleration ended, my world returned to its normal speed once more.
“Ugh, uaagh.......”
Blood gushed from my neck like a fountain. I hurriedly took a patch from inside my clothes. A patch soaked in potion; attaching it to a wound stops the bleeding to some extent. On top of that, [Rapid Recovery] activated on fatal wounds first, so fortunately I escaped death.
But.......
Creak, creak! Creeeak!!
The knight, lodged in the wall, was still trying to move its body. Judging by how the second Flash Cut hadn't activated, it seemed to be stuck firmly in the wall and couldn't get out.
'Even this doesn't work?'
I'd thought that if I lured it to the cracked wall, the impact of Flash Cut would pierce straight through and it would fall outside.
But the wall was sturdier than I'd imagined. Who knew one bomb not going off would make this big a difference?
But it was too early to give up.
Tossing the longsword and summoning the halberd, I gathered a big breath.
A technique that, once used, completely ruptured the muscles involved, so it could only be used once per challenge.
My most powerful technique.
[One-Strike Slaughter]
“RAAAAAAH!!”
TWOOM!
With a roar like a bomb going off, too much for a mere halberd colliding with armor.
Crack...crrrack!
The wall slowly crumbled, and.
Rumble......!
At last, the knight broke through the wall and fell to the other side.
[Apocalypse Tower 5th Floor Boss subjugated!]
[You have obtained Rank-and-File Knight Zeller's Armor.]
[You have obtained Rank-and-File Knight Zeller's Sword.]
[You defeated the boss with a unique idea. Intelligence +2]
It was my victory.
“Ha, as if I could fail.”
It was a battle with a lot of trial and error, and there were unexpected variables, but.
Even so, I won.
This was how you break through a stage by understanding 'the Tower's structure.'
If I only thought about winning by fighting like a brute, with my skill, it'd be out of the question. I had to somehow grasp and understand the Tower and exploit everything.
While sitting slumped on the floor wiping away the blood pouring out, I absentmindedly raised my head.
“Ah.”
I looked beyond the wall.
The theme of floors 1 to 5.
A long passage.
I'd never particularly thought about what might be outside that wall. It was a 'stage' anyway.
Whooooo.......
Before the dust had even settled, a cold wind blew in from the outside world.
I just.
Stared blankly at the world beyond the wall.
“What is that.......”
The world outside the stage that met my eyes was a scene of tens of thousands of meteors falling in a meteor shower.