The Last Wave

“Gahk!”

The last Gray Wolf met its end on my dagger.

After checking the message, I let out a sigh.

This is exhausting.

I had failed to completely evade the curse, and even a light graze from it had drained a huge chunk of my stamina.

The curse the Goblin Shaman had laid on me kept stealing away my stamina, second after second.

Honestly, the fact that I was still standing at all was remarkable in itself.

The next one's the last.

Maybe because I'd been clearing the waves so quickly, the final wave had arrived just two hours after I reached the second floor.

Wave 3 had been thirty Gray Wolves.

Wave 4 had thrown fifteen Gray Wolves and thirty Kobolds at me.

Will Wave 5 bring out a boss monster?

An elite had only appeared in Wave 2. Waves 3 and 4 had both been about burying me under grade and numbers alike.

Quality had spiked going from 2 to 3, while the jumps from 1 to 2 and 3 to 4 had been all about quantity.

This time, quality goes up again.

Assuming there was a set pattern, anyway.

I pulled a mana potion out of my inventory and drank it down.

A short while later, the final wave began.

“You've got to be kidding me!”

The moment I saw the enemy list, a curse burst out of me before I could stop it.

The Desert Stone Turtle is famous.

Famous for being a colossal pain in the ass to kill.

“Kuuuaah.”

The forest began to move.

Or to be precise, the Desert Stone Turtle did.

The Desert Stone Turtle is a monster that grows an entire forest on its own back.

Looks like that, and it's still a C-rank boss monster.

In terms of pure defense, the Desert Stone Turtle rivals even an S-rank monster.

Its attack power, however, is below F-rank.

It was classified as C-rank precisely because of that absurd imbalance — and the gate it appears in is a C-rank gate.

Destroying that shell is impossible for me right now.

To take the thing down, I would need to use Forced Activation again.

Since I'd already used it once, the strain on my body would be severe.

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

I get one use.

And even that window would be shorter than before.

One chance. That was it.

“Kuuuaah.”

Then the Desert Stone Turtle spotted the castle and began lumbering toward it.

BOOM! BOOM!

Every time the creature set a foot down, the earth itself shook.

A C-rank boss was absolutely beyond what my current stats could handle head-on.

“Whew.”

I exhaled and set my mana in motion.

Hunting with Geuk alone was hopeless — I needed to weave at least two steps together into a single footwork.

There's a fitting one.

I used Forced Activation, then stepped into my footwork and moved for the Desert Stone Turtle's head.

Pabaek Footwork.

Baekbo.

Pabaek Footwork was a footwork composed of Baekbo (Hundredth Step), Hanbo (Chilling Step), and Chungbo (Charge Step).

It wasn't something I'd used often before my regression, but it was one of the footworks I'd created back in the early days. That meant it wasn't hard to execute, and its destructive power was impressive for its difficulty.

Among its three steps, Baekbo was the one devoted entirely to destruction.

Pabaek Footwork.

Hanbo.

The moment I stepped, white energy bloomed from my soles — the very nature of my mana, changed.

Flowing from it, I took the next step.

Pabaek Footwork.

Chungbo.

At the step of Chungbo, the white mana converged into my legs. Chungbo was the step used to draw in and store energy.

And finally, I stepped one last time.

Pabaek Footwork.

Baekbo.

BOOM!

The white mana that had coiled up in my legs detonated outward with the Hundredth Step.

“Kuuek!”

The Desert Stone Turtle shrieked.

It had taken the attack dead-on to the head — even a Desert Stone Turtle wouldn't walk away from that unscathed.

“Kgh.”

Then a groan slipped out of my own mouth.

Pain swept over me like my leg was about to be torn off where it stood.

I can't stop here.

I drew the dagger at my waist and forced a blade of mana into being around it, then drove the dagger straight into the crown of the Desert Stone Turtle's head.

Thud.

The instant the dagger pierced it, the Desert Stone Turtle — which had been glowing just moments before — went still.

Soon after, the system messages appeared.

The wave-clear message and the quest message came at the same time.

So this is the Black Gate….

The difficulty was an absolute nightmare.

The Demon Slime had been easy because I had memories of clearing it before. But from the second floor onward, I had only barely scraped by.

To think I'd have to use Forced Activation twice in a single day.

My head swam. I felt like I could collapse at any moment.

Ah, this isn't going to work.

And in that state, I lost consciousness.

“Ugh.”

I managed to push myself upright.

The moment I opened my eyes, an overwhelming fatigue crashed over my whole body.

Where am I?

I remembered killing the turtle with perfect clarity.

Everything after that was a blur.

“Sir Hero!”

A woman cried out at the sight of me. Her uniform put me in mind of a nurse from some bygone era.

As I slowly looked around, I saw there were plenty of other wounded people too.

A hospital ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ward?

The most likely story was that I'd collapsed and been carried here.

“Please wait just a moment. I'll fetch the doctor.”

With those words, the nurse dashed out of the room, returning shortly with a man who looked to be a physician.

“You slept for about five days.”

“Excuse me?”

I hadn't known five whole days had passed.

It was a natural result, I supposed, after using Forced Activation twice within a two-hour window.

“Sorry for the trouble I caused.”

“Please don't say such a thing. If it weren't for you, Hero, everyone living in this castle would have lost their lives. If anything, we owe you our thanks.”

The doctor's eyes held nothing but sincerity as he said it.

All I'd done was clear a floor of the Tower, and somehow I'd become someone's savior.

“Thank you so much.”

“Thank you.”

I simply watched the two of them bow their gratitude in silence.

It was better to say nothing here.

Opening my mouth now would only invite more complications.

Before long, the nurse and the doctor slipped out of the room, and I was alone again.

“Hoo.”

I let out the breath I'd been holding.

Finally, I can check them.

While I'd been out cold, a mountain of system messages had piled up.

The base reward had been increased. That much was to be expected.

And now came the main course.

A hidden condition.

There had probably been one on the first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠floor too, but I had no regrets about missing it.

Once again, the same gift box I'd received on the first floor descended from above.

I checked the contents of the box.

The Heart of Luden.

It was an item I'd never seen before, but its effects were almost too good to be called merely Rare.

Putting it on, first.

I hung the pendant around my neck and checked the other rewards.

I downed one of the mana recovery potions on the spot.

Its efficiency was poor, but it beat having nothing at all.

I'll store the rest of the potions away.

That left what could properly be called the main quest's reward.

With my heart beating just a little faster, I accepted it.

When I saw the reward, a grin spread across my face before I could help it.

First, my achievement had been upgraded to a higher tier — and the higher-tier achievements become enormously important later on.

And the next skill reward was every bit as crucial.

A B-rank skill!

Honestly, even a C-rank skill would have been more than welcome right now.

The Fighting Spirit I'd earned through all that suffering was already A-rank. Getting a B-rank skill handed to me for free was frankly absurd.

Or is it not?

Either way, B-rank isn't bad.

No — it's great.

“Let's pick one right now.”

Cards began fanning out before my eyes, one after another.

All told, the skills that appeared numbered somewhere north of a thousand.

Officially, the World Association has registered a total of 505 B-rank skills.

Which meant roughly half of them were on file with the Association.

Looked at another way, there might be that many Awakeners out there who simply hadn't reported their skills yet.

Let's narrow it down to the ones I actually need.

Going through all of these skills looked like it would take an all-nighter, starting right now.

“Finally done!”

The work I'd started at midnight the previous day didn't finish until ten in the morning the next day.

Still, it was worth it.

With that thought, I looked over the five skills I'd shortlisted.

Mana Charging and High-Speed Casting were famous even among B-rank skills.

The other three, though, were ones I'd dug up entirely on my own, sifting through the pile by hand.

Mana Charging is a passive skill that raises the recovery rate of mana, while High-Speed Casting accelerates the speed at which you wield it.

The question is whether these will apply to my mana.

The sword hilt had started out as a magic-powered device before transforming once it accepted my mana — maybe skills would change the same way. That hope was what made me pick them.

Sword King's Stance is a swordsmanship skill belonging to the swordsman once called the Sword King, and Probability Manipulation raises the trigger odds of skills that activate by chance.

Thinking about the future, those two are the absolute best.

The swordsmanship I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠used right now was nothing more than improvisation, and since so many higher-tier skills trigger on probability, Probability Manipulation would be incredibly valuable down the road.

But still….

The problem was that the skill called Taehyeom Mind Method kept nagging at me.

My instincts kept telling me, over and over, to choose that skill.

In martial arts novels, the mind method is what matters most.

I wasn't sure whether the breathing technique I'd created should count as a mind method or not, but next to my footwork, its quality fell embarrassingly short.

After a moment of hesitation, I stretched out my hand and chose the skill.

“Screw it. Whatever happens, happens.”