Chapter 12
Chapter 12
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 12
Chapter Title: First Boss (2)
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This person was not from Earth.
I knew that the moment I laid eyes on him.
Earthlings' eyes simply didn't look like that.
The old man's eyes had no distinction between sclera and iris.
Just an endless cosmic black, impossible to tell where he was looking or what he was thinking.
Those eyes turned toward me.
"Hmm? Who might you be?"
A deep, weighty voice that seemed to reverberate through the entire cave.
Devoid of any emotion, it was all the more eerie for it.
I couldn't utter a single word.
No, I physically couldn't.
Seized by terror, I could only roll my eyes frantically, scanning my surroundings.
The walls were densely covered in anatomical charts depicting human musculature and skeletal structures.
Glass jars on the shelves held twisted organs from somewhere, fetuses that fell short of being called human.
A nose-stinging reek of chemicals mingled with the putrid stench of decaying organics.
My mind spun dizzily for a moment.
[Would you like to exit the Tower? Y/N]
I resolved to emergency-exit right then and there.
It was blatantly obvious this was heading straight to hell.
I hit Y without a second thought.
[Cannot exit the Tower!]
[Restricted access area!]
[An unknown error has occurred!]
[Sending diagnostic and usage info will help improve your Tower experience]
[Close / Send Info]
[Remaining time: 13 minutes 42 seconds]
'Goddamn it....'
An utterly ridiculous situation.
As I froze there without responding, the old man's brow furrowed ever so slightly.
"Why aren't you speaking? How peculiar. Does it lack a voice? Should I dispose of it?
Hmm. Not sure. Doesn't seem human. Who made it?
Why aren't you speaking? Who are you, exactly? Why won't you speak? Why? Why? Why?"
A cold sweat trickled down my spine at his low muttering.
He was clearly half out of his mind, plain as day.
"Why aren't you speaking? Not sentient? Then disposal it is? Who are you? Why are you here?"
Disposal, with a person standing right in front of him.
No, this old man didn't see me as a person at all.
His expression was like that of someone appraising an intriguing animal specimen or pinned insect.
I hurriedly forced my mouth open.
"Ah, no. I am a person. Just someone passing through the area."
The terrified, fumbling words came out a total mess.
As if anyone just "passes through" a place like this.
But the old man paid no mind to my flimsy excuse.
He seemed content simply with the fact that I could speak.
"Oh ho, it speaks human tongue. Fascinating. Utterly fascinating. Where did you learn it? Who created you?"
He scanned me from head to toe with evident interest.
Once again, words failed me.
Who created me?
Should I rattle off my parents' names?
"Why aren't you speaking? Why? Why? Why? Why?"
'This motherfucker....'
I'd really fucked up bad.
I calmly—desperately—pried my lips apart.
Right, just buy time.
Thankfully, the timer was ticking away normally.
That was the only thing I could count on now.
"...I'm just a regular person. No one created me."
"Hmm? Hmm.... Fascinating. Truly fascinating...."
The old man rose from his seat and took a step toward me.
'I gotta run. Jump back and sprint. Right fucking now....'
Warnings screamed in my head.
But my body wouldn't obey.
They say you freeze solid when facing a beast. Was this what that felt like?
The old man reached out to my rigid form and touched my shoulder.
In that instant, my shoulder tore free from my torso.
It didn't dissolve into sand or anything dramatic.
Blood simply poured from the clean-cut stump.
"Arrrrghhh!"
"It's genuine. A human after all."
"Urk, guh...."
"To think a human still endures.... How gratifying."
Pain beyond imagination.
In the throes of agony I'd never known, I couldn't even scream properly.
Yet whether my eyes rolled back in torment or not, the mad old man just kept monologuing.
"Perfection. This skin, this skeleton.... The very form I botched hundreds of times."
He leaned in close, inches from my face, meticulously inspecting my features and body.
His finger brushed my cheek.
Goosebumps exploded across my skin from the unnaturally icy touch.
"Where do you hail from?"
"Hic.... Hngh...."
"Ah! The pain prevents speech, eh? My apologies. It's been ages since I encountered a human...."
He pressed my severed arm back to the stump, and it reattached.
But the pain remained unabated, leaving me in no state to speak.
"Surely you can answer now? Where do you hail from?"
"Sh...."
"Sh? From a city? Most peculiar.... No human cities should remain."
"You fucking prick!"
I was in full-blown panic.
Gone were any thoughts of stalling through chit-chat.
My first brush with mortal peril.
I had to flail somehow.
And my flailing took this form.
Blowing the old man's head off with sand bullets.
"Hmm, the pain must have stabilized by now. Still mentally unstable?"
But it was futile. The sand bullets disintegrated into harmless grains the instant they touched his skin.
"Die, you bastard!"
Undeterred, I unleashed bullets from all ten fingers.
Yet not one so much as scratched him.
He didn't even register it as an attack from the start.
Sipping his tea nonchalantly, he spoke.
"Feeling less angry now? Shall I proceed with questions? Yes?"
"Hah.... Hak.... What the hell...."
"Where exactly do you hail from?"
Who knew how many times he'd repeated that now.
By then, I abandoned everything.
I'd leave it all to the old man and meekly comply.
Yeah, I definitely wasn't sane anymore.
Pain and terror. Helplessness. It all battered my mind to its breaking point. Dizziness clouded everything.
Somehow, I eked out a response.
"...From outside. Outside the Tower."
"Tower? What's that? How are you alive? Humanity outside perished long ago."
"I don't know what the Tower is either. People are alive and well.... That enough?"
"Hmm.... No lie there. Bizarre. Utterly bizarre. A tower? Doesn't that evoke that thing...? Hm? Hmm?"
[Warning: A major error has been detected.]
[Unauthorized access.]
[Error correction in progress.]
Suddenly, the old man's eyes spun a full rotation.
The black voids filled with whites, then reverted to black.
He shuddered violently, head trembling.
Then, in his madness-tinged tone, he questioned me anew.
All prior doubts seemingly forgotten.
"Did you come after clearing out those test subjects outside?"
Terror gripped me at the sight, but I pressed on with answers.
"The goblins?"
"Indeed. My little experiments. The shaman at the end was a prized one, poured real effort into it—destroyed so pointlessly.
A pity; I'd only just begun observations."
He smacked his lips, genuinely regretful.
His words slotted every puzzle piece into place.
Why the 5th-floor goblins mirrored Hard mode's lineup.
Why their numbers fell short of Extreme difficulty expectations.
'This old fucker's the real boss....'
The goblin pack weren't Tower-spawned monsters.
They were guinea pigs this madman before me had unleashed for his tests.
His gaze swept over my body once more.
"But what does it matter? You've appeared right before me!"
"...."
"Of course, appearances alone won't suffice.... I require certainty. Certainty.
I must verify if the spark of intellect burns within you...."
'What the fuck is this guy on about....'
"There's a method to confirm it. You'll cooperate, naturally?"
"Yes, of course."
Not cooperating means death. I swallowed the outburst.
At my reply, the old man grinned till his mouth threatened to split.
He promptly drew something from his robe's folds.
A black cube, palm-sized.
A bizarre artifact, as if space itself had been sliced out.
"A box openable only by the wise among beasts. Succeed, and you prove your worth."
"What's inside?"
"The essence of knowledge. Though its contents are irrelevant anyway. Correct?"
He chortled heartily and handed me the box.
"It's voice-locked to my timbre via a specific keyword."
"What keyword?"
"Mu (無). Void. Emptiness."
"...Pardon?"
I couldn't believe my ears.
His explanation followed.
"You must utter a word to unlock it, yet speaking instantly negates 'mu'—sound now exists.
A flawless paradox of my own devising.
Consequently, even I can never retrieve what's inside. Amusing, no? Amusing? Isn't it?"
"Yes... Quite amusing."
Rage surged within.
What the hell was this lunatic expecting?
The impulse to sand-blast his skull swelled fiercely anew.
But I endured.
I'd already proven it pointless.
Better to drag things out until the timer auto-evicts me from the Tower.
"Well? Can you unravel it?"
He prodded me onward.
His gaze blended pure intellectual curiosity with ruthless appraisal of my value.
Tension knotted my throat; I swallowed dryly.
I racked my brain.
But the thick skull I'd rotted away with endless gallery scrolling wasn't sparking brilliance now.
'Think.... Come on, think. This wordplay riddle. I've seen something like it on the galleries before....'
The all-night gallery sessions teemed with every bait imaginable.
Riddles and logic puzzles like this cropped up now and then.
Everyone would bang their heads trying to crack them.
"Still nothing? Hmm, tedious. Dull.... Perhaps you're unworthy after all? Your thoughts?"
'Shut your trap.... Just shut the fuck up....'
By now, even his every breath grated like noise eating at my nerves.
I wanted to clap my hands over my ears. His mad mutterings. His raspy gasps. My pounding heart. Block it all.
A desperate craving to erase every sound.
That was the moment.
'Erase the sound?'
One word flashed like lightning in my mind.
Thoughts chained in rapid succession, hitting the answer.
A concept alien to this madman's world. A solution from mine.
"H-Hey, gramps."
Having solved it, the old man before me no longer terrified.
An inexplicable serenity washed over me.
I raised my head to meet his gaze.
His black eyes flickered maniacally.
'Still scary as shit.'
I forcibly switched back to polite speech.
"Have you ever heard of noise canceling?"