Nightmare Floor 5 (2)

"Kereuk!"

I drove my sword straight through the Goblin Centurion's heart.

I'd intended to cut him off at the knees for the crime of looking down on this seat, but the height difference was so ridiculous it didn't quite go the way I planned.

"Well. Enough of a warm-up, I suppose."

Still, compared to the rest of the trash, he actually had a decent bite to him when you cut him down. Figured — that was what being a mid-boss was supposed to mean.

A message I'd grown far too familiar with by now.

"Seems the Tower has taken quite a liking to this seat."

If the Tower possessed any kind of will of its own, it was clearly doting on me. Whether my clear time was fast or slow, it kept handing out SSS ranks like candy. It almost felt like it was testing just how far I could go.

"Hmm. The ranking setup's changed a little."

For the first time, the Challenger Ranking that had never once shifted showed a tiny change.

SUPER, formerly first, had still been shoved down to second because of me — that much was the same. But the third-place seat had flipped from Blood Demon to Maestro.

"Maestro…"

A name no magic-type awakener could possibly fail to know. For South Korea — and for me personally — it was a name I could never forget.

The unshakable number one in the mage rankings.

The Maestro of the battlefield.

The only mage awakener to crack the top ten of the overall rankings, and the one and only S-class awakener South Korea possessed.

Mages were, by nature, a class poorly suited to solo play. That put them at a structural disadvantage in ranking contests, where solo-play bonuses carried so much weight. And yet this monster still clung to the absolute top tier no matter what.

My goal. My hero. And my enemy.

"…Third place on Nightmare Floor 5."

When it came to dealing with an army, magic types inevitably had the relative advantage. On this floor, Maestro had apparently overtaken Blood Demon, a more orthodox warrior type.

So even back then, this bastard had already been that far ahead of me.

"Still a long way off. But."

It wasn't over yet.

I'd started later than him, but one of my steps equaled eight of his. I'd catch up soon enough.

And someday…

"I'll make you chase me while staring at my back."

Of course, for now it was pure fantasy. Maestro was probably already clearing the fiftieth floor and beyond, while I'd only just broken through the fifth.

Instead of wasting time on daydreams, I needed to take care of myself first.

"But."

Why wasn't I being moved?

The elevated state unique to the Heavenly Demon trait had already worn off long ago. Which meant that by now, I should already have been in the Reward Room cracking open a chest.

"Why haven't I been transferred to the Reward Room?"

"Of cour—"

I was about to nod without thinking when a sharp spike of unease lanced through my mind and I clamped my mouth shut.

Why was it asking all of a sudden?

Not once, in all the times I'd been moved to a Reward Room, had my own will ever been factored in. There had only ever been a transfer message and a swirl of light that dragged me away by force.

Which means…

Something was here.

"And if I choose not to move?"

Apparently it had no intention of answering my question. Still, there didn't seem to be any particular time limit on the choice.

"There's something here."

Something was hidden somewhere across this vast plain.

A hidden piece.

The Tower held secret elements you could never obtain through a normal clear. A hidden boss monster, a concealed item or space — even a special NPC. Whatever form it took, finding it was always pure profit. They always carried treasures you simply couldn't get any other way.

"But combing the entire plain is a bit much."

Scampering around on these stubby little legs had clear limits. Even if time were infinite, the search area was simply too wide to handle.

"That's what magic is for."

I'd grown fairly used to the feel of casting by now. My personality might have warped into something brutally aggressive thanks to the trait, but the memories from back then hadn't vanished. My combat instincts were still vivid and intact — which meant I could still force through magical constructs that far exceeded my current capacity without much trouble.

And the mana inside the Tower is plentiful, too.

If I borrowed that power, sweeping the entire plain wouldn't be unreasonable.

I pulled the dense mana flowing beneath the earth up into my body in one long draw. A vast current of energy came surging through my veins.

"Kh—!"

Mana rough as a breaking wave tore through my circuits, and a groan escaped me despite every effort to clamp it down. How the hell had I ever endured this when the trait was in control?

Painful as it was, I could still hold on. I seized the flooding mana under my control and fixed a direction on it. Then, with hands trembling hard, I forced them out and released it into the air.

"Search!"

Wuuuung!

A massive tide of mana swept across the entire fifth floor.

Search magic. A second-circle spell for detecting and tracking enemies. Ordinarily it scanned a radius of ten ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meters — fifty at most. But if you used the Tower's overflowing mana as a catalyst? Forget fifty meters. Even a wide-area sweep measured in kilometers was trivial.

"Uuuugh!"

Of course, I regretted it the second I did it.

Search magic converted the surrounding terrain into a kind of minimap and slammed it directly into your mind. Which meant a crushing volume of information from a full kilometer radius was currently being stuffed into my skull all at once. My head felt like it was about to explode any second.

"Khrrrk!"

I gritted my teeth and poured every ounce of strength I had into digesting the flood of data.

"Found it."

Somewhere not far off across the wide plain, something was there.

The moment I confirmed the target, I forcibly cut the Search magic.

Blood ran from my nose in a thick stream. For a second I'd genuinely thought my head was going to burst. If I'd held the spell even a little longer, my brain might have actually melted.

Still — I'd found what I wanted.

Next time, I need to dial it back a bit.

I finally understood, deep in my bones, why people limited Search magic to a fifty-meter radius — a hundred at the absolute outside. Push past that and the overload cooked your brain. Even this much had only been survivable because the Heavenly Demon trait and the switch to a little girl's body had made my flesh abnormally durable. Without that, my brain would have been fried just the same.

"Close."

The detected location was right ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠under my nose. Exactly where the Goblin Centurion had been standing at the start. While I'd been performing the Shura Sword Dance, both of us had drifted so far from the initial position that I'd been late to notice it.

If I'd known, I wouldn't have needed to abuse my brain casting Search that wide in the first place.

Well. You grow by learning from your mistakes.

The place I'd returned to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had a distinctly alien atmosphere. A massive stone gate standing out of nowhere in the middle of a vast plain — it might as well have been screaming I am suspicious with its entire body.

"The carvings are a little unusual, though."

Two dragons were sculpted on the gate in exquisite detail, each gripping a door ring tight in its jaws. Not the winged Western dragons that usually came to mind in a fantasy setting — these were unmistakably Eastern long: long whiskers, serpentine bodies smooth as snakes.

"Hmm."

After nothing but Western monsters, suddenly running into an Eastern relic felt oddly refreshing. Then again, a trait called Heavenly Demon existed in the first place, so it wasn't all that strange.

"The problem is how to open the thing."

The giant stone gate in front of me easily looked more than three times my current height — meaning the doors alone were a good three meters tall. And because it was set into the floor of the plain, you couldn't simply push it open; you had to heave the whole massive slab upward with your entire body.

Which left me with no clever idea for getting this stupidly huge gate open.

"Should I just smash it?"

Was smashing it the right call when I had no idea what was on the other side? But other than breaking it, I couldn't think of any way to open it at all.

A genuine dilemma. Smash it and I risked wiping out some NPC or treasure that might be waiting beyond. Leave it alone and I had no way through.

"What to do."

Time was generous enough. I could afford to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think it through carefully.

"Hmm."

Not that thinking hard was going to produce a brilliant answer on the spot.

"Just smash it."

After a long stretch of deliberation, I settled on an answer. Wracking my brains further wasn't going to spit out a solution. I wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed — saying it myself felt weird, but it was true. Outlandish clever schemes were never on the table for me. Simple and stupid was best.

Assuming every mage was intellectual and rational was a serious mistake.

"What do I smash it with."

Executing a form with a clear head for the first time might be new, but it shouldn't be impossible.

Heavenly Demon Divine Art.

If I ran its unique energy, even as I was now I could more than—

"Huh?"

The moment I drew up the Heavenly Demon Divine Art to deploy a technique—

Kuuuuung!

The heavy stone gate began to shudder with a deafening roar.