High-Speed Breakthrough (2)

It was fast. Far too fast.

One question circled through the minds of every Climber.

How the hell?

A few hours earlier.

“Whew. This place is seriously making me want to throw up.”

Baek Yeon-ho stuck his tongue out at his own reflection in the glass.

Mirrors everywhere. Above, below, left, right. No matter where you looked, hundreds—thousands—of shattered mirror fragments reflected their images at every possible angle. Under normal circumstances it would have been enough to make anyone dizzy.

But they had a cheat key.

The cheat key named Hyun Si-woon.

“Third mirror. Seventh fragment from the left.”

His clear voice carried not a single hint of hesitation.

“Yes!”

Kang Si-a answered at once. She nodded, loosed an arrow, and the shaft sank home.

Kreeeak!

Space itself shattered. Dozens of phantom beasts came pouring out.

“Clean them up.”

“Yes, Hyeong-nim! On it!”

Hwang Dae-un was the first to charge. Something like a bear’s roar seemed to echo from nowhere as the rock giant’s mace cleaved through empty air.

Spinning. The barbarian whirled like a top with hammer in hand, and the swarm of beasts was swept away like dust before that destructive force. The power was on a completely different level from before.

“Hahahaha! Hyeong-nim! They’re weaker than I expected!”

He shouted in pure delight. His voice brimmed with excitement and exhilaration he could barely contain. Jang Cha-yul’s Coiling Dragon Leaves the Sea, Kang Si-a’s Soul-Chasing Shot—half a year of relentless training was finally showing its true results.

This is the feeling!

The Tower can actually feel this easy?

The training wasn’t wasted!

And then, among the beasts, one presence radiated overwhelming pressure: a massive knight clad in jet-black armor. The mid-boss of the labyrinth—the Phantom Knight Commander.

— ……Fools.

He rose with dramatic force and lifted his greatsword as if about to unleash a skill. But Hyun Si-woon had already thrust his blade first. Every ounce of energy in his body condensed into a single point at the tip of the sword—an ultimate, refined strike.

Shwaaat!

A single line of silver-white light pierced straight through the Knight Commander’s skull with a sharp crack of displaced air.

— Guhahk!

That one blow sent the Commander toppling backward, limp.

“Alright. Next. Move.”

Hyun Si-woon flicked the blood from his blade as if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing had happened. The others moved with the ease of long practice. Overwhelming class difference—that was how they had been climbing the Tower so quickly.

Behind the Tower, Hyun Si-woon and the party took a brief moment to catch their breath. They had decided to push straight through to the 10th floor in one go, so there would be no return to Eden. The rewards were still Despair Stones. One on the 7th. Two on the 8th. Three on the 9th. One more with each floor climbed.

“Do-hee noona.”

Hyun Si-woon pulled out an item. A silver-white staff with a surface as smooth as a mirror.

“We got lucky. Even I didn’t expect something like this to drop.”

It was the first drop item he had seen since beginning the climb.

A classic damage-amp item. Looking at the numbers alone, it was solid. In a healer’s hands, healing power would climb even higher.

“Ohh.”

“You actually got this?”

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

“Jackpot.”

The party members crowded around to look, celebrating as if it were their own. Baek Do-hee—the only member without a unique weapon—accepted the staff with a dazed expression.

“Thank you, Si-woon.”

“Use it as a stopgap for now. I’ll get you something better later.”

There was a hidden staff available on the 13th floor. He had passed it by in the previous loop, but this time he planned to check it. If it was for healers, he would simply give it to her. If it was for mages, well, nothing to be done. Either way—

This is easier than I expected.

The members believed it was thanks to their training. That wasn’t wrong, but the fundamental cause was something else.

The status window.

Average stats of a full 25. Compared to the rest of the party it was an absurd number. The gap was inevitable—three years of time condensed into those stats. At this level he could clear the Tower up to the 15th floor without much trouble. When someone like that one-shot high-difficulty mid-bosses and giant monsters, of course the difficulty would feel easy.

“Still, we worked hard for four days. Let’s take a solid half-day of rest.”

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

They moved to a desolate park along the Han River. Each of them sprawled out on the overgrown riverbank, eating or browsing the community. Baek Do-hee kept turning her new item over in her hands, clearly fond of it.

“Hey, Leader.”

Jang Cha-yul approached with a flushed face.

“Remember last time? When I asked if I could film us while we climbed.”

“I remember.”

He did. For anyone training martial arts, filming was a massive help. The flow of forms you unleashed, the movement of your feet, the circulation of energy—moves that felt perfect in the moment often looked clumsy and awkward the second you watched the footage. Being able to observe yourself objectively was the finest mirror a martial artist could have; it let you recognize your limits and push higher. Hyun Si-woon had used the method constantly in previous loops to correct his own posture.

“I checked the community. Everyone’s going crazy wondering how we cleared it. Would it be okay if I released this?”

“This? It won’t help anyone.”

The 8th and 9th floors this time were not the routes he had taken back in the old Tower of Despair days. They were theoretical shortest-path routes he had never even attempted because his specs were too low. The prerequisite for this strategy was overwhelming firepower to erase mid-bosses at every chokepoint in an instant, plus superhuman physical ability to smash through special gimmicks. Even if they released it, no one would be able to follow.

“That’s why I’m saying we drop it for free. The information value is low anyway.”

Ah. Just looking at Jang Cha-yul’s expression, he could guess her intent. A kind of desire to show off. The urge to display the gap. Baek Yeon-ho chimed in from the side at her mischievous proposal.

“Noona, here we go again! Your disease is flaring up! Ahh, do people know? That the Dragon Savior they praise so highly is actually a terminal attention-seeker?”

“Terminal attention-seeker?! This still helps, you know! If people can at least get a feel for the map layout, the monsters’ appearances, the shapes of the traps ahead of time through video, how great is that! Our Leader asked us to work toward raising the server average, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure you did.”

“You little—!”

Baek Yeon-ho and Jang Cha-yul bickered. After a brief moment of thought, Hyun Si-woon……

“Yeah, sure.”

He nodded with a smile.

“Release it.”

“Really?”

Color flooded Jang Cha-yul’s face. She wasn’t wrong.

Seeing the atmosphere even once is worlds apart from knowing nothing at all.

“Yes!”

The moment permission was granted, Jang Cha-yul whooped as if she had won the world. She immediately set up on the riverbank and set her fingers to the holographic window. Her fingers began to fly as if possessed, lost in the happy problem of how to edit the vast footage from the past four days so it would look as cool and overwhelming as possible.

Several hours later.

Finally finished editing, Jang Cha-yul registered the posts with a smile of pure satisfaction. There were two of them.

The 8th floor footage, and—

—the 9th floor clear footage.

The moment the posts went up, they became nuclear bombs that shook the entire server. Climbers who had been waiting flooded in and hit play without even leaving comments. And then they were stunned.

The video opened on the 8th floor—the Gorge of the Dead. In that hellscape where thousands of undead surged like a tidal wave, the Bear-tank on screen was simply laughing.

“Hyeong-nim, we just punch straight through?”

“Yeah. You open the path, we run through the gap.”

The Leader’s short permission dropped, and he charged into the heart of the undead legion swinging his massive mace. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, a road of bone and flesh opened in his wake.

There was more absurdity still. Behind Bear-tank, Baek Yeon-ho was charging after him with his shield raised high—and the hilarious part was that Saintess Baek Do-hee was sitting on top of it.

Fwaaaaaash!

Radiance kept exploding from her body in a continuous surge.

— Kieeeeeek!

— Kigigigik!

The undead’s horrific screams filled the gorge. It was the power that melted any undead Bear-tank hadn’t finished off like snow under sunlight. The moment the light touched them, black smoke rose from their joints, flesh bubbled and boiled, and they scattered as a handful of ash.

The shock didn’t end there. The occasional giant undead that prayers couldn’t handle were taken care of by the Pioneer himself, and that became the talk of the community.

Seogeogeok!

With the Sword of Deception he carved the monster’s body apart like tofu. And that wasn’t all. Salamander and Undine, Gnome and Sylph launched a dazzling elemental assault in concert.

The 8th floor footage alone had already reduced the community to scorched earth. But the real shock detonated with the 9th floor Mirror Labyrinth video. If the 8th had been pure class difference, the 9th was packed with scenes that showcased both class difference and Hyun Si-woon’s charisma.

— Third mirror, seventh fragment from the left.

— Not the phantom you see there—the one whose foot-shadow on the floor is a different shape is the real one.

— Kang Si-a. Eleven o’clock. Take out the Watcher first or it’ll trigger an invulnerability skill.

His instructions never stopped. Exact positions, enemy types, the core of the strategy—everything clean, clear, and easy to follow. Jang Cha-yul had edited specifically to highlight those moments.

And among all those reactions, the one enjoying herself the most was none other than Jang Cha-yul.

“Hehehe.”

The explosive response made her want to dance.

“Noona!”

Baek Yeon-ho’s shout reached her from far away. Rest time was over. Jang Cha-yul closed the community window with a touch of regret.

“Hurry up! 10th floor! We need to move out!”

Her eyes shone. This 10th floor, too—she was going to film it absolutely brilliantly.