“Daaaaamn it!!”
The hairy man tore off his shirt and hurled it aside as he struggled to contain his rage.
“You expect me to believe this is a first-week base? There has to be some kind of error!! These are Stage 3 or 4 Sentinels! Traps? Cooperation!?”
The hairy man protested indignantly, like someone who had been swindled.
Today was his final day.
He was a Day 9 Raider who would safely advance to the next mission if he survived just one more day.
Moreover, he was not some failed Raider who belonged among the lowest ranks.
He was a competent Raider who had participated in assaults against Stage 3 and 4 Sentinels several times.
Since this was his final day, he had deliberately descended to attack first-week, Stage 1 Sentinels so that he could take things easy.
The others had asked why he would bother with Stage 1 when even Stage 4 was easy for him, but he saw things differently.
If he was going to survive, he wanted to enjoy himself as much as possible.
He had not known it before becoming a Raider, but he had discovered that he was an extraordinarily cruel man.
The suffering of others filled him with exhilaration, and he was easily intoxicated by a sense of superiority.
That was why he had planned to enter Stage 1, secure a Guardian Stone without difficulty, and amuse himself with the bewildered Sentinels.
He wanted to hunt down those who hid until dawn, killing and tormenting them over and over again.
He had wanted a massacre.
Instead, some lunatic had opened fire with a gun from the very beginning of Stage 1.
Then, the moment he entered, every manner of trap had descended upon him.
He had managed to break through at his leisure by using the confused fools who entered beside him as bait.
However, before he could even reach a Guardian Stone, he had been left alone, and the Sentinels lying in ambush had attacked.
At first, he had merely assumed this was one of those unusual areas where cooperation came more naturally than it did in an ordinary Stage 1.
Such places occasionally existed.
Their members cooperated well from the beginning and climbed to Stage 4 without too much difficulty.
Of course, they were repeatedly plundered along the way until only a handful survived and eventually disappeared. Even so, considering that most Sentinel groups were annihilated before reaching Stage 3, such places were still rather troublesome.
Despite that, the hairy man had never imagined that he would be cornered.
There was still an overwhelming difference in Stats and Skill Proficiency.
He had been confident that he would not lose a one-on-one fight even against most other Day 9 Raiders.
He had believed that he could at least secure one Guardian Stone for himself.
However···
“Those damned bastards are using rotation tactics?”
Ten people had emerged from the ambush.
Yet they never approached him.
They only launched ranged attacks from a distance.
Worse still, they rotated in groups of five.
The hairy man possessed an Active Skill called Werewolf, which allowed him to transform into a werewolf.
He had invested every Point he earned into his Stats, so he was confident that he would not lose one-on-one even against most Raiders who had survived as long as he had.
However, his enemies refused to fight him individually.
Whenever he blocked or avoided their ranged attacks and tried to close the distance, those with defensive skills immediately interfered.
“Shield, Telekinesis, Force··· They had a surprising number of high-ranking abilities. I made it here for now, but I do not know when they will come after me again. I need to escape this place as quickly as possible, take a Guardian Stone, and Return.”
All of them were highly effective defensive skills.
The hairy man therefore abandoned the entertainment he had originally planned and focused solely on preserving his life.
Although his body was covered in wounds, the characteristics of Werewolf were allowing him to recover rapidly.
His Skill Proficiency was not high enough to transform his appearance completely into that of an actual werewolf, but thick hair covered his entire body, while his Strength, Agility, and Regeneration had already exceeded human limits.
That was how he had shaken off the attacks intended to gradually exhaust him and escaped this far.
He might have dealt with a single team somehow, but he had no confidence in facing the two or three additional teams pursuing him.
Their ranged attacks were painful, but not powerful enough to prevent him from breaking through.
After accepting that he would suffer some injuries, he had forced his way past them and reached Point 4.
Fortunately, he had managed to avoid most of the traps that suddenly appeared wherever he fled.
While transformed with Werewolf, his five senses were greatly enhanced, allowing him to use his sense of smell and hearing to avoid being deceived.
Then he heard footsteps.
They were quiet but distinct.
“Damn··· Have they already caught up? No, it sounds like only one person··· Have those bastards lost their minds? They sent one man?”
As the newcomer approached, the hairy man let out a disbelieving laugh.
“Ha. A jumpsuit? Is that a gun on your back? You must be the bastard who opened fire from the center.”
The sight of a novice still wearing the jumpsuit from the pure-white room was more than enough to make the wounded beast lower his guard.
Players dressed like that were usually so weak that calling them Awakened was almost embarrassing.
Even so, the hairy man remained cautious and merely observed him.
The newcomer’s aura was far too composed.
He was tall, with black hair, and walked at a steady pace that was neither slow nor fast.
The hairy man wanted to rush forward and tear him in half, yet he could not find a single opening.
“Are you in your ninth week?”
“And what about you? Did you waste all your money buying that pathetic gun? Heh heh. What should I do? A Toy Gun like that is hardly dangerous to me.”
He was half right and half wrong.
Considering the power of the Steel Balls he had seen before entering, a poorly placed hit could still incapacitate him.
However, at this distance, he could close the gap and kill the man in an instant.
“Haah. I cannot believe a brat in a jumpsuit managed to make a fool of me.”
When he first entered the base, he had secretly thought he was doomed.
If a first-week, Stage 1 Sentinel already possessed a gun, then the group might have passed through several other stages before arriving here.
This was only his own fourth stage.
This place seemed utterly devoid of equality. There was no balancing whatsoever.
Some people were absurdly powerful, while others were as weak as insects.
“This place is bizarre. Everyone dresses like novices in those pathetic jumpsuits, yet they use traps and coordinated attacks no novice could possibly devise. Is all of this your doing?”
“You talk too much. Instead of barking like an abandoned cur, why do you not try biting? Tsk. Seeing that tail tucked between your legs almost makes me pity you.”
Only then did the hairy man realize that his protruding tail was drooping toward the ground.
His face flushed crimson.
“You son of a bitch! I will tear you apart!!”
ROOOOAR!!
Fear, an ability available during his Werewolf transformation, erupted from him.
It was a skill that instilled terror in lower-Level enemies and briefly froze them in place.
FLINCH.
His opponent stopped in the middle of a movement.
The hairy man immediately lunged forward and slashed at his chest with razor-sharp claws.
WHOOSH!
However, the attack struck nothing as his opponent dropped backward as though lying down.
The hairy man lost his balance and stumbled past him.
A bayonet drove directly into his chest.
It happened so naturally that it seemed as though he had deliberately thrust his own heart onto the blade.
“H-how···?”
“I am not certain. After dying several thousand times, I learned instinctively which moment was optimal.”
The feat he displayed was so precise that it resembled a perfectly rehearsed performance, without even the slightest deviation.
“Th-this is impos··· sible.”
“Have you finally realized it? That is how this place has always been. It is filled with impossible things.”
The hairy man collapsed with the stranger’s voice as the final sound he heard.
“Phew. A Level advantage truly cannot be ignored. If Fear had worn off even a little later, I would have been killed.”
I rubbed my chest as I looked down at the fallen Werewolf.
From a distance, it might have appeared that I had defeated him effortlessly.
In truth, I had survived by a margin thinner than a sheet of paper.
‘If Fear had lasted even slightly longer, I would be the one lying there.’
He had been far stronger than I expected.
Players who obtained the Werewolf skill rarely died this easily.
Its outstanding Regeneration and swift movements allowed users to overwhelm opponents despite considerable Level gaps, and the skill had few unfavorable matchups.
“A Day 9 Raider invaded us. This world truly is insane. This is why I have to keep struggling through this endless fucking grind.”
I could not understand what petty reward had tempted that madman to target first-week Sentinels.
Balance? Fairness?
Neither concept existed in this world.
Some people received this wretched mission as their second stage, while others encountered it leisurely during the final stage of the Tower of Beginnings.
The Tower of Beginnings contained nine stages in total, but their order and type were entirely random.
The only constant was that the first stage was always the pure-white room.
The same was true of the Tower of Faith that followed.
The one fortunate rule was that Players could never encounter anyone from the next tower while inside a stage.
“Still, I would have been in serious trouble if Werewolf did not produce such straightforward movements.”
When transformed with Werewolf, the user instinctively developed the habit of charging toward a target along the shortest possible path.
Because I knew that, I had been able to plan in advance.
I had even accounted for Fear, but the Level gap was greater than expected, which had startled me considerably.
Ordinarily, Werewolf was extremely difficult to confront during the early stages unless one was an Exorcist immune to Fear or a melee specialist who wielded Divine Power.
Once, while passing the time with my companions on a high floor, we had ranked the most overpowering early-stage skills.
Transformation Skills such as Werewolf had competed for first and second place.
In that sense, I had been extraordinarily fortunate today.
We had also unanimously agreed that no matter how powerful a Passive Skill was, it could not compare to a single Active Skill during the early stages.
The reason was simple.
To use a Passive Skill properly, a person needed extensive information and knowledge about the towers.
Only then could they determine which skills created synergy and how they should develop themselves without wandering aimlessly.
In that regard, I possessed both the strongest Passive Skills and the knowledge required to use them.
“Even so, it is a shame that I do not have a single Active Skill.”
I would receive a random skill once this mission ended.
I could only hope that it would be an Active Skill.
“H-he killed him!!”
“A-are you all right?”
Several blood-covered people approached.
They were Team 4, who had fought the Werewolf, along with Teams 2 and 3, who had pursued him afterward.
“…Why are you so late?”
The blood around the Werewolf made the situation obvious.
He had been resting here while waiting for his wounds to heal.
That meant at least ten minutes had passed.
Yet these people had hesitated instead of pursuing him immediately.
Unless they had been rendered completely unable to move, the pursuit should not have taken more than a minute.
The traps I had installed along the way would have delayed the fleeing Werewolf more than enough.
“Well···”
I cut off Park Gilsu, the bespectacled man who possessed Information Reading despite appearing to be the most severely injured.
“Enough. You, you, and you. I need to speak with you for a moment.”
With a hardened expression, I pointed toward the Vanguard Squad that had been assigned the most dangerous role.
The three members of Team 4 who should have been injured first were completely unharmed.