Chapter 104: 7th Floor Hidden Route (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 104: 7th Floor Hidden Route (3)
“...Are you the Sage?”
I asked.
The old man replied.
“The world once called me by that name.”
Who is this guy?
It was a strange sensation.
Usually, I could get a vague sense of an opponent’s strength through my Sixth Sense.
But from the Sage before me, I felt nothing at all.
It wasn’t that he felt dangerous, either…
I didn’t get it. I just couldn’t tell.
Maybe the level difference was just too great?
It’s like in martial arts novels, where a master of an incredibly high realm doesn’t give off any aura at all. It’s a classic trope.
“It’s an honor to meet you.”
I came to the conclusion that it couldn’t hurt to be polite.
I bowed my head deeply in greeting.
The Sage chuckled heartily.
“I thank you for the greeting rather than a curse. The gates you’ve passed must have been quite arduous.”
“To obtain the Sage’s Treasure, aren’t trials like these to be expected?”
In any case, the three people had all been part of a one-man play controlled by the Sage.
That meant the information I’d gotten from them was also likely to be true.
Obtaining the Sage’s Treasure had to be the condition for clearing this Hidden Route.
Was this the end of the final test?
It would be great if it was.
“For what reason do you seek the treasure?” the Sage asked.
“...Because I wish to obtain the truth?”
He had said that obtaining the Sage’s Treasure would let one know all the truths of the world.
I gave a plausible-sounding reason, but the Sage replied.
“You will not be able to obtain the treasure if you do not answer honestly.”
What the? Can he see through lies?
I didn’t have a reason. I was just trying to clear the floor.
“Honestly, I don’t have any particular reason. I’m just a little curious about the treasure.”
He wouldn’t understand if I brought up the Tower anyway.
That was my second answer.
It was true that I had become a little curious about what the Sage’s Treasure was.
Fortunately, it seemed I’d passed, as the Sage nodded.
“One final test remains.”
“...What is it?”
“Anything.”
The Sage said.
“Name any test you desire. However, I will not test luck, and I will be the one to set the passing standard. You have infinite attempts to challenge it.”
I tilted my head.
He’s telling me to name anything…
I couldn’t help but be a little bewildered.
“So, for example, chess or…”
The moment the words left my mouth, a chessboard and pieces materialized between the Sage and me.
The Sage took his seat.
“Will you play black or white?”
“...White.”
I had just said it as an example.
Since he said I had infinite attempts, I sat down across from him.
I took the white pieces and made the first move.
I’d played my fair share of games like chess and Go, so I wasn’t exactly unskilled…
I was checkmated and lost in just thirty moves.
“...One more game.”
I played a few more rounds.
But every single time, I lost without even reaching fifty moves.
I changed the conditions.
“Can we play with a time limit?”
“By all means.”
“Then let’s set the turn time to one second.”
I planned to use Time Stop.
One second was so short you had to move almost instantly, without any time to think.
But for me, the time to think was infinite.
The Sage smiled.
“Isn’t one second a bit too short?”
“I’m confident in my ability to play quickly.”
“Very well, then.”
[0:01]
A timer appeared in the empty air beside us.
The match began again.
The moment I made my move, the Sage immediately made his.
And yet, the precision of his moves was no different than before.
“...”
So the result was the same.
It was my loss again.
What is he? An AI?
“...May I change the event?”
“Do so.”
“Let’s play Go.”
Did the Sage even know Go? I wondered.
He snapped his fingers, and the chessboard transformed into a Go board.
I took the black stones and made the first move.
This time, too, the match was over in an instant.
I was dragged around and defeated without even understanding how I’d lost.
I realized the skill gap between the Sage and me was astronomical.
I can’t win this.
“...Do you happen to know a game called Gomoku?”
Since he said I had infinite attempts anyway.
I didn’t give up and kept changing the event.
Gomoku, stone-flicking, and even absurd contests like stacking Go stones without them collapsing—I challenged the Sage in all of them.
The result.
A complete and utter defeat in everything.
I stared, jaw agape, at the Sage’s tower of Go stones.
The Sage had demonstrated the divine skill of stacking over twenty stones, showing me the difference in our class.
What in the…
Was there anything the Sage couldn’t do?
It seemed pointless to try and beat him at a game he might not be good at.
…Should I compete with my body instead of my mind?
He said anything goes, so a fight should be fine, too.
The problem was, I didn’t see much chance of winning that way either.
He was surely a far more powerful mage than I was.
“How about a contest using only our bodies, with no magic allowed?”
I quickly added.
“Of course, no killing.”
The Sage smiled, then created some distance between us and stood ready.
“I will not counterattack. If you can so much as graze me, you pass.”
The conditions were generous, but I thought the opposite.
Tsk, this won’t work either…?
He must be offering such terms because he was that confident.
Boom!
I kicked off the ground and rushed toward the Sage.
The moment I reached out my hand, thinking I had him.
The Sage’s body blurred and vanished.
When I turned around, the Sage was standing behind me.
“...Didn’t you just use magic?”
“I did not.”
Then what was it?
Was he so fast that my eyes couldn’t even follow him?
I charged again.
This time, the Sage didn’t disappear.
As if to show me he wasn’t using magic, he dodged all my attacks at a speed similar to my own.
Even with the Exhilaration skill activated, I chased the Sage at full speed, but…
I was always just about to touch him, yet I couldn’t even graze his clothes.
After running around the cavern for a good while, I stopped to catch my breath.
…This is hopeless.
I didn’t feel like I could do it if I just tried a little harder. The level difference was obvious.
Considering the speed at which he’d disappeared at first, he was just going easy on me.
I looked at the Sage, and he gave me a gentle smile.
His breathing wasn’t even the slightest bit labored.
‘How am I supposed to win?’
I couldn’t win with my mind, and I couldn’t win with my body.
I asked the Demon King.
‘Demon King, can I beat that man with magic?’
The Demon King replied.
– Is that even a question?
‘Oh, then maybe…’
– You cannot win.
‘What?’
– Perhaps with my true body, but how could you possibly win with that pathetic vessel? That man is no mere mortal.
So even the Demon King couldn’t do it.
– Think straight. It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s that your body is pathetic…
I ignored the Demon King as he started to throw a fit.
Hoo, this is impossible.
After some thought, I opened my mouth.
If this didn’t work, I doubted there was any way to beat the Sage.
“Let’s go with a memory test.”
The Sage nodded.
“I will display 1,000 digits. If you memorize them all before I do, you pass the test.”
The Sage waved his hand.
[612436123376327176126176122...]
A countless sequence of numbers appeared in the air.
I raised my hand and spoke.
“Wait a minute. Isn’t it a bit unfair to have a memory contest with numbers that you presented, Sage?”
“Are you suggesting that I have already memorized the order? These are merely randomly generated numbers.”
I shook my head.
“Even so, I can’t help but be suspicious. Could we conduct the test in a different way, one that doesn’t involve us competing against each other?”
“Such as?”
“You set a time limit, Sage, and I will memorize all the numbers within that time.”
This was the Sage who made a one-second time limit in chess feel meaningless.
I had a feeling that in a memory contest, he’d just claim to have memorized all the numbers the moment we started.
The Sage readily agreed.
“Then let us do that. How many seconds do you wish for?”
Get a load of this guy.
“...Seconds? To memorize a thousand digits, shouldn’t you at least give me hours?”
I tried whining a little.
The Sage laughed.
“That would hardly be a test. I will give you 100 seconds.”
“Hah, that’s way too harsh…”
I held back a smile.
Inwardly, I was celebrating.
‘I’ve won.’
The truth was, it didn’t matter how much time he gave me.
I managed my expression, worried that acting too confident would arouse unnecessary suspicion.
[100]
A separate timer appeared.
The number sequence was also changed to a new set of digits.
“I will begin.”
The moment the Sage spoke, I stopped time.
The Demon King spoke with a sneer.
– What a cheap bastard.
‘This is part of my skill set.’
Besides, the Sage was the cheaper one.
Even if it was a memory test, telling someone to memorize a thousand digits in 100 seconds—was he serious, or was this some kind of joke?
In the frozen time, I began to memorize the numbers.
‘61243612…’
I remembered trying to memorize the digits of pi when I was a kid.
I think I got up to about 100 digits.
This was ten times that.
I had no idea how long it would take.
Would it take at least a few days to memorize it completely?
Victory was already assured, but the tedious task of memorization had just begun.
‘Demon King.’
– What.
‘Help me memorize them.’
– Are you crazy? Memorize them yourself.
If he helped, it would shorten the time and allow for cross-verification, but I guess I was asking for too much.
Anyway, I drilled the numbers into my head.
How much time had passed?
‘...1522315126243…’
Okay. Done.
After memorizing everything and running through it several times to verify, I finally released the time stop.
I deliberately waited until the timer was almost at zero.
“I’ve memorized it all.”
I said to the Sage, my face a mask of exhaustion.
This wasn’t an act.
I was so fucking bored I thought I was going to die…
The Sage waved his hand, and the numbers disappeared.
“Recite them.”
“6124361233763271…”
I rattled off the numbers.
I recited all one thousand digits without forgetting a single one.
“...Were they all correct?”
I was a little nervous.
If I had made a mistake, I would have to start memorizing all over again.
Clap, clap, clap…
The Sage smiled and applauded.
“Correct.”
“...”
“Congratulations on passing the final test.”
It was a humble celebration.
More than that, the Sage’s attitude was somewhat strange.
It was as if he knew I would pass, as if…
It felt like we had just gone through a mere formality.
The Sage waved his hand again.
The scenery changed.
The dark cavern transformed into a vast library.
“Follow me.”
I looked around with wide, surprised eyes before following the Sage.
As we climbed an endless spiral staircase…
“I have spent my entire life exploring the world. By a stroke of luck, I defied the fate of a mortal and spent an infinite amount of time endlessly filling the void of my ignorance. There is no greater joy than learning what you do not know.”
The Sage chattered on.
His somewhat stiff tone from before was gone, replaced by a sense of vitality.
For a moment, I found that subtle change jarring.
The Sage stopped walking and pulled a book from a shelf.
A thick book with no title.
When he opened it, the pages inside were blank.
‘…Is there more?’
When was he going to give me the Sage’s Treasure?
As I was thinking that.
The Sage caressed the blank page.
…Fwoosh!
A current of air swirled around us.
“...!”
The library itself trembled.
There was no other way to describe it.
Books flew from the shelves on their own, floating in the air.
The letters flowing out of those books began to be absorbed into the one the Sage was holding.
Shwoooooo…
The storm of letters subsided.
The once-blank book was now filled with dense text.
The Sage closed the book.
“This is the Sage’s Treasure.”
“...”
“All the truths of the world are contained within this single volume.”
Momentarily overwhelmed, I nodded dumbly.
More importantly, could this be the reward for this Hidden Route?
“What do you think? What truth do you wish to learn through this?”
The Sage asked.
A truth I wish to know.
Well… there were obviously many things I wanted to know.
Like about the Tower, for instance.
Information about the Nightmare floors I had to clear in the future, or what awaited at the very top of the Tower.
But there was no way I could learn things like that.
No matter how grand it sounded, calling it the truth of the world, this was ultimately just part of clearing a single floor.
Wasn’t it all just a stage play set up by the Tower?
“Does this book also explain the Tower’s identity?”
I asked, half-joking.
He wouldn’t understand anyway, but I wanted to see his reaction.
But then…
“Of course.”
“...Excuse me?”
I flinched and stared at the Sage.
He was looking at me with a smile.
“Kim Seo-hyun, currently clearing the 7th Floor Hidden Route on Nightmare Difficulty—all the truths you desire are in here as well. Do you want to know the Tower’s identity?”