Second Floor Extreme
The view shifted, and what stung the tip of her nose was a vile, repulsive stench.
Was it the smell of decayed creature corpses mixed with rotten mud?
All around stretched a vast swamp shrouded in thick purple fog.
This was no place suited to a great and beautiful dragon like herself!
Shouldn’t there be a red carpet laid out, with thirty maids standing ready?
She believed there ought to be attendants prepared to feed her snacks at the slightest gesture.
“Is this… the normal difficulty?”
Suddenly Yuhwa recalled the first floor’s normal difficulty. Wasn’t it the stage where three wolves attacked…?
The difficulty truly seemed to rise exponentially.
They said no one has ever climbed past the seventh floor.
She could understand why.
With that thought, Yuhwa recalled the information she had read in the strategy guide about the second floor normal difficulty.
A swamp filled with deadly poison. Venomous leeches lurk in the bottomless mud. Poison Resistance skills and antidote potions are essential. One wrong step and you will sink into the swamp and slowly melt away.
Just like the Easy difficulty, reaching the end clears the stage.
It was a map that demanded survival and endurance. The standard strategy was similar to Easy mode.
Endure… and escape. But would someone really melt?
I don’t think I’ll melt.
Curious now, Yuhwa stepped out into the swamp.
Splash.
She felt her ankle sink into the bubbling purple poison mud.
Sizzle—!
She could feel the powerful acid trying to melt her bare skin. Naturally, her skin remained untouched.
The hem of her pants began to melt instead. Even her shoes dissolved.
“Ah.”
Yuhwa frowned slightly and lifted her foot.
Her pure-white foot emerged completely clean, without a single speck of mud.
Her mood instantly improved. As expected, even her feet were beautiful!
As expected, I’m perfect. Heh…
Yuhwa wore a dark smile as she strode toward the center of the swamp.
Straight-line clearing was still the correct choice.
Splash, splash. Splash.
She had no desire to repeat the clothes-melting experience, so she circulated her mana while she walked.
With every step the poison was purified, the swamp hardened, and a solid path formed beneath her.
The leeches hiding in the mud, aiming for her legs, could not rise.
Even if any tried, they could not approach her.
They all burst apart from the intangible pressure she radiated.
Having leisurely strolled straight through the swamp section, the result was—
That was the pure travel time spent walking across the swamp.
Maybe I should have walked faster?
No. Clearing everything in one second would be too cliché. Adding a touch of humanity was better.
Whether “humanity” was the right word was debatable.
Yuhwa immediately entered the Hard difficulty.
Entering the Tower of Trials 2nd Floor (Hard) difficulty.
The next map was a massive uninhabited island floating in the middle of an endless ocean.
A blazing sun. An isolated environment with neither drinking water nor food.
Locate the hidden dungeon in the center of the island and defeat the guardian on the lowest floor.
According to the strategy guide, the standard route was to craft survival tools, explore the island for several days, and find the dungeon entrance.
“Find the dungeon…”
Yuhwa stood on the island’s shore and gazed at the volcano rising in the center.
The fact that she could see it meant lava was scattered throughout.
Was there any reason to bother pushing through bushes, searching for the entrance, and descending winding underground passages?
If the goal was to defeat the guardian on the dungeon’s lowest floor.
Crack.
Yuhwa lifted her foot.
Her pure-white foot reflected the sunlight, creating a beautiful glow.
Of course, the result was far from beautiful.
Kwaaaaaaaaang—!
The entire island’s foundation began to shake.
Crack. Crack. Craaaaack….
The ground split open. Lava that had been trapped underground began to erupt.
Yuhwa sensed an aura through the fissures. The aura of the “lowest-floor guardian.”
“Found you.”
Yuhwa formed a gun shape with her hand. Formless energy began gathering at her fingertips.
Then, from the surface, she sniped the “lowest-floor guardian” deep underground.
Now for the 2nd floor Hell difficulty.
In the waiting room, Yuhwa took a deep breath. To be honest, she felt slightly nervous.
The first floor’s Hell difficulty ogre ambush had been so unreasonable and violently sudden that it had forced even her to use a tiny bit of her real “power.”
She had a feeling the second floor would also have an entrance-kill gimmick…
I wonder what kind of gimmick the 2nd floor Hell difficulty will have…
She felt both anticipation and a trace of fear.
Yuhwa steeled her resolve and entered.
Entering the Tower of Trials 2nd Floor (Hell) difficulty.
The moment the view changed, she felt herself tilting.
This was the middle of a boundless ocean surrounded by seawater on all sides.
She stood atop a very narrow, shabby raft that looked as if it had broken off from a shipwreck.
Gather nearby debris to expand the raft and survive the attacks of starving predators until you reach the light of rescue.
Predators?
Splash, splash. Splash.
When she looked around, she saw sharks.
Shark fins circled above the waterline surrounding the raft.
A maritime map combining survival and defense.
It reminded her of a game she had seen before.
If it were a game, it would have given her time. But this was reality.
Therefore, no time was given to expand or defend the raft.
Rumble—!
Only three seconds after entry, the shadow directly beneath the raft where Yuhwa stood began to swell.
The sea split in two as an enormous great white shark—at least thirty meters long—soared upward.
The shark’s gaping maw tried to swallow both the raft and Yuhwa whole.
“Huh?”
The shark’s jaws closed mercilessly, and Yuhwa was swallowed into its stomach along with the raft.
A moment later.
The shark, which had been contentedly waving its fins, suddenly developed a bulging belly.
It swelled larger and larger. Like a balloon. And when the balloon grew too big to endure—
Kaboom—!
It exploded into chunks of meat that scattered in every direction.
“Fuck, you’ve ruined all my clothes!”
Yuhwa burst from the shark’s innards into the air, frowning as she shook off the blood and gore.
The smell was awful. It felt terrible. Terrible.
She would simply fly and clear it.
Yuhwa spread her wings wide and soared high into the sky.
In the distance… beyond the horizon, she could faintly see the glowing rescue lighthouse.
That must be the exit.
It took her mere dozens of seconds to reach the lighthouse.
“Hah.”
It was an unreasonable gimmick, but not enough to make her nervous like the first floor’s ogre.
At the same time, genuine curiosity arose.
Just how had the Vatican Holy Knight broken through such absurd gimmicks to clear Hell difficulty?
She couldn’t fly to clear it like Yuhwa had.
Did she really just swim across?
And then.
Another system window popped up before Yuhwa’s eyes.
Condition Satisfied
Would you like to enter the 'Extreme' difficulty?
Of course she would enter.
Entering the Tower of Trials 2nd Floor (Extreme) difficulty.
This is a place where eternal punishment is predetermined.
The prisoners here are those who deceived the administrators and struggled to escape the Tower’s rules.
Reach the end. If you die here, you too will be trapped in eternal punishment.
Lucas’s words came to mind.
—Please… I hope you do not end up like me. Please… do not be defeated by the Tower and captured. Do not become trapped in the repeating timeline.
To be honest, she had no grand reason for climbing the Tower.
She had climbed because it looked fun. Being praised was nice too.
But… if things were like this, it might be different.
Now she was genuinely curious. What would be waiting if she climbed higher?
What would come out?
Yuhwa opened her eyes. And she saw hell.