The Maze of Sensory Deprivation (2)
Kim Jun muttered to himself.
A space where he couldn’t see anything.
A space where he couldn’t hear anything.
A space where he couldn’t feel anything.
The Tower of Trials had always been difficult.
He had wasted a month wandering the endless maze of the 10th Floor’s Minotaur Labyrinth.
On the 11th through 15th Floors, in the Celestial Realm, there had been all that nonsense about light attributes and divine surveillance counts.
Even Kim Jun had lost an arm.
The 16th Floor Tower Defense had forced him to face endless waves and a boss with one hundred billion HP.
On the 18th and 19th Floors, the Dark Souls section had drained years of his life as he pushed through death after death with every ability nerfed to half strength.
Only the 17th Floor’s arena had been relatively easy.
From the 10th Floor to the 19th, nearly the entire stretch had been hell.
And yet, even that had been bearable.
At least I could see.
Where the enemy was.
Where his comrades were.
Where his own hand was.
He could see those things.
But here?
There’s nothing.
His sight, his hearing, his sense of touch.
All of it was gone.
He couldn’t even tell whether he had swung his sword.
He could only believe that he had swung.
Believe that he had stabbed.
Believe that he had cut.
The status window.
That was the only signal left to him.
If his HP dropped, it meant the boss had attacked him nearby.
If it stopped dropping, it meant the attack had ended.
He had to read the battle from that alone.
The Tower of Trials never told you what waited on the next floor.
Not unless you had some special method.
So when he first set foot here before his regression, Kim Jun and his companions had been thrown into panic.
They had been unprepared, unready.
Because all of a sudden, they had lost every sense they had.
Hoo.
It was dark.
Right now, Kim Jun was walking through darkness—no, through a space of emptiness.
At least, he believed he was walking through it.
He thought he was moving his feet.
But he had no way of knowing whether he was really walking.
He couldn’t feel the floor beneath him or the motion of his body.
Had he taken one step?
Ten?
Or was he just standing still in place?
There was no way to know.
Even his sense of time had vanished.
He couldn’t tell whether one second had passed or one minute.
It was all equally vague.
Status window.
The only way to check.
Kim Jun reflexively opened the window.
[HP: 292,500 / 292,500]
Still okay.
Just seeing the numbers was enough to ease his mind.
At least it proved he was still alive.
Then, all at once.
“…!”
His HP dropped.
Seven thousand damage.
There was no pain.
No sensation of being cut.
No impact, no weight, nothing at all.
He didn’t even know where he had been hit.
An arm? A leg? His torso?
He had no idea.
He didn’t know when he had been hit, either.
Just now? A moment ago?
That, too, was unknowable.
But the status window told him clearly enough.
Nustalos, the ruler of this place, had cut him.
How are you supposed to clear this? Just spam skills blindly? Was that the right method back then, before my regression?
Kim Jun questioned himself.
An invisible enemy.
Unheard movement.
Unfelt attacks.
How do I cut it?
Had he swung his sword?
He believed he had.
But he couldn’t know for sure.
He couldn’t even confirm whether his arm had moved.
Did I hit it?
He had no way to tell.
He didn’t even know where the enemy was.
How could he know whether his blade had reached anything?
Then how?
How do you cut an enemy you can’t see?
How do you fight without your senses?
He had lost more HP.
This time, even faster.
Is there a pattern?
No.
He couldn’t make out any rule or interval.
Because he had no sense of time.
Then what the hell do I do?
Kim Jun kept thinking.
Swinging the sword was a matter of faith.
Cutting the enemy was a matter of faith.
Even confirming he was alive was only possible through the numbers on the status window.
After his regression, Kim Jun retraced the memories of his first life and analyzed everything over and over again.
He had stayed up until the day before the Tower opened, filling notebooks, his computer, and his own mind.
What had the hidden clear conditions been?
What had he needed to watch out for?
Which floors were especially dangerous?
He had recalled every floor from the 10th to the 100th and sorted through them one by one.
Among them were a handful of floors that stood out.
And, naturally, this disgusting 26th Floor was one of them.
How do I clear it?
Should he just grow faster than he had before the regression?
Should his comrades grow stronger too?
No.
That wasn’t it.
He had already cleared it in his first life.
But the price had been too steep.
Lee Seoyeon had not recovered for more than three months.
The others had been bedridden for months as well.
During that time, they hadn’t been able to climb the Tower at all.
Just recovering their bodies had been agony.
Getting stronger isn’t enough.
He had to change the method.
Kim Jun thought, then thought some more.
The 26th Floor boss room.
A space where all senses vanished.
An invisible enemy.
How did I catch it?
It had been luck.
Ryu Jia’s area spell had happened to land.
Then what if it isn’t luck? What’s the proper, standard strategy?
The countless words he had written in his notes came back to him.
- No senses
- Enemy position impossible to determine
- Attack timing impossible to determine
- Only status window can be checked
Status window.
The only information available.
If HP dropped, it meant he had been attacked.
Ah. So that’s it.
*
[HP: 268,110 / 292,500]
It’s still weak.
Kim Jun watched.
He simply watched his own HP being cut away.
[HP: 254,280 / 292,500]
He’s testing me carefully. No—he’s testing me for his own amusement.
Boss Nustalos was staring at Kim Jun from within the darkness.
He was tasting him.
Measuring how strong he was, how dangerous he might be.
Confirming it by carving into him.
Two thousand gone.
Three thousand gone.
Five thousand, nine thousand.
Endless probing damage came in.
[HP: 214,808 / 292,500]
Not yet.
Kim Jun did nothing.
He didn’t swing his sword.
He didn’t use a skill.
He just stood there.
Like bait.
Keep cutting.
More. More often.
Then the creature would become certain.
This prey is weak.
It won’t resist.
Has it given up?
How boring. Shall I finish it?
That kind of certainty.
[HP: 171,540 / 292,500]
He was down to nearly half.
But Kim Jun still didn’t move.
Just a little more.
Until the creature relaxed.
Until it became certain.
Wait and wait and wait.
“…!”
For an instant, nearly one hundred thousand damage slammed into him.
He’d been pierced.
Not slashed.
It had stabbed straight through.
Meaning the boss’s weapon was buried in Kim Jun’s body right now.
Then.
Swish—
Kim Jun’s hand moved.
He couldn’t feel it, but he knew it had moved.
Toward the weapon lodged in his body.
He reached for it.
It didn’t matter that he couldn’t feel a thing.
If that much damage had come through, then it meant the strike hadn’t landed where his S-rank armor, Dragon Skin, was protecting him.
The abdomen. Left side.
It was proof that the boss had stabbed exactly the spot Kim Jun had deliberately left exposed.
His left hand reached there.
And then.
Something hard settled into his palm.
He couldn’t feel it, but he knew he had it.
The hilt of a sword.
No, something like a dagger.
And beyond it.
The boss was there.
Did I really get it?
He couldn’t be certain, but he had to be.
This might be the only chance he’d ever get.
Weapon in hand, buried in Kim Jun’s body, there was nowhere for it to run.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“You bastard. Got you.”
His other hand moved.
He swung Dragon Eater.
Whoosh—!
He couldn’t feel the cut.
He didn’t even know if he had swung.
But.
----
[Boss Monster ‘Shadow Lord Nustalos’ defeated!]
[26th Floor cleared!]
[Rewards distributed!]
◈ Defense +10%
◈ Agility +20%
[A Rank]
[When receiving a fatal attack, automatically activates once per day.]
[Unique Skill]
[Converts the attacker’s sense of impact into an illusion. The attacker is certain they pierced their target, but that certainty is nothing more than an illusion!]
The status window showed it.
The bastard was dead.
*
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
“Huh?”
Ryu Jia, who had been in the middle of hunting monsters, stopped moving.
Suddenly, alert windows rang out in a series.
“What? Me too!”
Park Minsu’s eyes went wide.
“Looks like the boss experience came in.”
Lee Seoyeon said quietly.
“Of course it’s our big brother!”
“Of course it’s our hyung!”
“...Don’t copy me!”
“Yeaah, copy me~”
Thunk-!
“Ack!”
Ryu Jia’s staff sank deep into Park Minsu’s abdomen.
While the two of them were bickering fiercely, Han Suin pointed into the distance.
“…Over there.”
Out of the darkness.
Someone was walking toward them.
It was Kim Jun.
But.
“…!”
Lee Seoyeon’s face went white.
There were wounds all over Kim Jun’s body.
His arms, his legs, his shoulders.
And the worst of them all.
The left side of his abdomen.
The armor had been torn open, and the flesh beneath it was caved in.
No, more accurately, there was such a hole in him that they could see straight through to the other side.
“…!”
She couldn’t breathe.
“Please hold on just a moment!”
Lee Seoyeon rushed over and clasped her hands together.
Healing
Divine light flashed as it wrapped around Kim Jun.
As the white glow settled over his skin.
Fwoosh—
The bleeding stopped, and the flesh slowly began to knit itself back together.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Kim Jun answered with a faint smile.
But his face was pale, and his fingertips were still trembling.
No matter how deliberate the move had been, offering up part of your body on purpose was never easy.
An expedient measure, literally one that required giving up your own flesh to survive.
This hurts like hell, damn it.
“Fine, my ass!”
Lee Seoyeon raised her voice.
“You almost made me turn the guild leader into a corpse…”
“Huh?”
When Kim Jun looked at her blankly, she cleared her throat and turned her gaze away.
“Ah, never mind. Ahem…”
Should we keep going? Or head back?
Everything they needed to do was finished.
Of course, if they wanted the ingredients for the status ailment immunity potion, they’d need to hurry on to the next floor...
But for now, the 26th Floor had been cleared, so that was that.
And by now, it should be time for the dormant pet to wake up too.
“Should we head back for today?”
At Kim Jun’s words, Ryu Jia shot her hand up as if she’d been waiting for them.
“Let’s hurry up and go! I’m gross from all this sweat!”
“I need to get my workout done too.”
Park Minsu grinned and gathered his gear.
Was exercise really that great?
Well, whatever.
“Return—Artemis.”
That was enough for today.
64