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Chapter 107 - Suspicion
Chapter 107: Suspicion
TL: Enuma Novel
“…And so, our assessment is that Floor 7 is all but impossible to clear.”
Having worked his way through the entire presentation, Max wrapped it up with that conclusion.
The officials from the Climbing Bureau and the government nodded, their faces grim.
Ё ñümа
In truth, there was no need for any in-depth analysis.
Anyone who read Person123’s posted intel on Floor 7 would come away thinking, ah, this one’s… a bit much.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Liam, the Director of the Climbing Bureau, glanced over at Taylor, seated off to one side.
Her expression, too, was stiff and hard.
The United States no longer had any reason to keep recklessly challenging Nightmare.
The Nightmare project had begun with a grand purpose: to ensure humanity’s survival and to put America at the forefront of the Tower’s climb…
Ĕn u.mа
But with Person123’s appearance, that purpose had long since changed.
The first clear of any Nightmare floor was something only Person123 could achieve.
The reason nations climbed Nightmare at all was, for every one of them, nothing more than their own national interest.
The fact was that from Floor 4 on, the Climbing Bureau had no longer been in a position to wholeheartedly welcome Taylor’s continued attempts.
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Still, she had managed to climb all the way to Floor 6 in the end…
But Floor 7, by any measure, had far too low a chance of success.
W̌ еb̊ no v̆êl̃ Ëñuṁ а
Person123 had gone so far as to single out the United States and China by name and leave a warning.
Was there any reason to keep pressing on?
The scales of risk and reward had now tipped entirely to one side.
Maybe even China wouldn’t attempt Floor 7.
If the United States went in alone and ended up losing Taylor… it was a horrifying thing just to imagine.
Knowing when to stop, and stopping here, both sides alike, wasn’t that the wise choice?
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“Taylor, what are your thoughts?”
Every gaze in the room turned to her.
Taylor spoke.
“…I don’t think there’s any reason to reach a conclusion right now.”
After the meeting.
Walking alongside Taylor, Max asked,
Ĕnù.m̊а̂
“Are you planning to go through with it?”
Max already knew.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
What kind of conviction she carried.
The answer came back just as he’d expected.
“I’ll have to try.”
“…Taylor, I don’t want to say this either, but this is truly insane.”
W е b̂ ǹõṽеl̈_ Еnú m̀a
“Has it ever been anything else?”
“You know it yourself, don’t you? Floor 7 isn’t something you can put up against the other floors. Why else would Person123 have gone and left a warning?”
The body’s Left-Right Reversal gimmick.
This wasn’t something that could be practiced.
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Not unless one could swap around the neural networks of the brain’s left and right hemispheres. And sadly, humanity had no such technology yet.
No matter how well one grasped it in theory, could anyone really adapt to that sensory chaos on the spot?
Е̂ ň u mа̊
How on earth Person123 had pulled it off was a mystery, but then, he was always the exception.
Taylor shook her head.
“I have no intention of rushing into it, either. But still… I’m never going to give up on climbing Nightmare for good.”
After parting ways with Max.
Taylor entered Floor 5.
Before heading out to Zone 5 to hunt, she stopped by Drake’s Restaurant.
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“Huh? Just you today, then.”
Drake, the owner, gave her a quiet, welcoming look when he caught sight of her. She nodded a greeting in return.
As a Nightmare climber, she didn’t operate openly on Floor 5. In fact, she wasn’t even an official member of the Security Corps.
Still, since she had frequent dealings with the Corps, she did spend time with its members now and then, and because this place was usually where those meetings happened, she was on familiar terms with the owner.
“Any Horned Deer steak left?”
“Perfect timing. There’s exactly one cut left, as it happens.”
Еn u m̊á
The Horned Deer steak, Drake’s Restaurant’s specialty.
It tasted good enough that eating it under stress could make a little of that stress melt away.
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Taylor took a corner seat where she wouldn’t draw notice and waited for her food to come.
But then…
Her gaze suddenly fixed on the entrance.
A man in a hat had walked into the restaurant.
Еn̄u m̈ а
It was a familiar face.
The man spotted her too, and a flicker of surprise crossed his face.
He came closer and took the seat across from her. In a voice that sounded pleased to see her,
“Fancy running into you here.”
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“…Hello.”
Ye Tianwei.
Ѐṅû m̌å
True, Drake’s Restaurant was essentially Security Corps territory, but Black Star Society climbers dropped by often enough as well.
Even so, for the head of the Black Star Society to turn up here alone was a strange thing.
Ye Tianwei said with a smile,
“Please don’t get the wrong idea. It’s pure coincidence. As if I’d know where to find you and come looking.”
“I haven’t gotten any wrong ideas.”
“Then that’s a relief. The Horned Deer steak here is such a delicacy, I sneak in for it myself every now and then.”
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Taylor didn’t bother mentioning that she’d just ordered the last of it.
“Do you have some business with me?”
“Ah, of course I do. I was just wondering how you were leaning.”
Ye Tianwei nodded, then asked,
“What are you going to do? About Floor 7.”
“…”
Ē ń ú m̃ а .іd
“Honestly, reading that post made me a little happy, you know? A warning, sure, but the fact that Person123 singled us out by name, it almost felt like he was worried about our safety.”
Ye Tianwei prattled on as easily as if he were talking to an old friend.
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Taylor didn’t answer, but she couldn’t deny what he’d said.
Because, honestly, she’d felt something similar herself.
She had kept throwing herself at Nightmare, driven by the single wish to be even the smallest help to Person123.
And behind that, there was nothing but the conviction that it was for the sake of humanity.
Wеb̀ n̄ о̆ṽе́ l̄ Ӗ n̈u m̆ a
But Taylor was only human.
It felt as though the very person she had chased with everything in her had glanced back over his shoulder at her, and while that left her unsettled, somehow it also made her a little happy.
“For the record, I’m going to attempt it.”
“…Don’t you think you’ll fail?”
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“That’s not what matters, is it? The moment we stop climbing, our role is over anyway.”
Ye Tianwei smiled.
Wе̂b̃ ňо̂ v̂е l Е̌.n ů m̄ а̌
“Isn’t that so? I’d thought you were the same kind of person as me. Did I really not even need to ask?”
Taylor didn’t much care for the way Ye Tianwei’s gaze seemed to see straight through to her innermost thoughts.
“Of course, I’ll have to prepare far more thoroughly than for the other floors.”
“Good luck to you.”
Taylor tossed back curtly.
Just then, the Horned Deer steak she’d ordered arrived.
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“Here’s the Horned Deer steak you ordered.”
Ye Tianwei said,
“I’ll have the Horned Deer steak as well, please.”
“Hm? We just ran out, that one was the last of it.”
“Oh.”
Watching Ye Tianwei turn back toward her, looking flustered, Taylor let out a small snort of a laugh and cut into her steak.
Ë n̆ ü mа
*
After I posted the intel on Floor 7.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
My everyday life rolled on without anything special happening.
Living the year out diligently until it was time to take on Floor 8.
…That said, I spent most of my time hunting in Zone 5.
Crunch!
Wе́ bnо̌ v̄ el̈ Е̃ n̆ û m̄ а
A shard of ice punched clean through the Bone Dinosaur’s skull.
The one controlling my body right now was the Demon King.
Every time I handed my body over, all the Demon King ever did was reinforce the Ice Castle he’d built in Zone 4, or sit on his throne spacing out.
Lately, though, he’d started doing some monster hunting for me now and then.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
I’d talked him into it.
I told him I’d let him take down the Zone 5 boss himself.
W̃ е̂ b n о v̄еl Е̄ n̈ ù m̀ а
And that we should hurry up, beat the boss, and expand the zone, because then, just like he’d been buried away in Zone 4, who knew what else might turn up?
The Demon King wasn’t without interest, it seemed, so he went along with it.
Roaming the Mist Forest, hunting monsters.
The Demon King’s power put a strain on the body, but against trash mobs like these, there was never any need to push it far enough for the strain to set in.
After all, just flicking out a few tiny shards of ice, one after another, was enough to drop them instantly.
While watching the Demon King hunt, I asked something that had just popped into my head.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
‘Demon King, is there any chance I could learn magic too?’
Real magic, not the Tower’s power.
If I could use it, then I, too, could spam magic with no cooldown.
The Demon King let out a scornful snort.
“Spare me the nonsense.”
‘Aw, don’t be like that. Teach me a little.’
Ẃ e b̂ n̊о vēl̀ Е̃ñ.um̆ а
“I’ve no intention of teaching you, but you couldn’t use it anyway. The very nature of your soul is hopelessly wrong for it.”
‘…The nature of my soul?’
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The Demon King explained.
The people of the world the Demon King came from and the people of this world were, in the very nature of their souls and bodies, utterly different from one another.
In other words, it seemed Earthlings were, from their most fundamental structure on up, simply not built to use magic.
‘But you use it just fine in my body, don’t you?’
Еń u m̂ â. і d
“And what happens when I do?”
‘Oh.’
“Part of it is that your body is so pitiful it can’t withstand my power, but it’s also because your constitution is fundamentally incompatible with magic.”
So that was it.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Then why was there no problem using magic-type skills, I wondered…
But just as the Demon King had told me before, it had to be because skills were only an imitation of magic, not the real thing.
Еń úm̀ а
In any case, hearing that I couldn’t learn it was a bit of a letdown.
The Demon King’s borrowed time with my body ran out.
Once I had my body back, I hunted a while longer and then exited the Tower.
“It’s already one o’clock.”
I pulled something out of my Subspace.
A bag of Lowest-grade and Low-grade Magic Stones.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
They were the stones I’d gotten from Bilon’s courier the other day.
Every time I took delivery of Magic Stones, instead of running them straight to the Exchange to sell, I always brought them home first and sold them later…
The reason I went out of my way to do that was to keep up appearances for my family.
After all, as far as my family knew, I was earning Magic Stones by clearing Easy Floor 1.
If I didn’t let them see me heading out to sell Magic Stones on a regular basis, it would have looked strange.
“I’m heading out for a bit.”
Е n úm_а.і̀d̊
“Sure. Off to the Exchange?”
“Yeah.”
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Just as I was about to step out the front door with a bag stuffed full of Magic Stones,
I heard a door open, and my sister came scrambling out.
“I’m coming too!”
“What?”
Ẽn̄ü_m а̊
“I want to see the Magic Stone Exchange for once. I can tag along, right?”
Without even waiting for an answer, she told me to give her ten minutes and ducked right back into her room.
…Where did that come from all of a sudden?
*
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She knew it made no sense.
But lately, Kim Seo-a kept having a strange thought.
E.ň ŭ ṁ а. іd
Her older brother, Kim Seo-hyeon.
Why was it that, every single year, at the exact moment a Nightmare floor got cleared, he was nowhere to be seen?
When Floor 1 was cleared, he’d been out of the house.
When Floor 2 was cleared, it had been in the dead of night, while everyone was asleep.
Floors 3 and 4, he’d been away traveling…
And Floor 6 had, again, been cleared in the daytime, while Kim Seo-hyeon happened to be out.
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And this time, Floor 7 had been cleared in the early hours, too.
Every time a Nightmare floor was cleared, her brother only ever reacted with flat indifference.
And on top of all that, Person123 was a Korean man.
Was every bit of this just coincidence?
…Well, of course it was coincidence. She knew that.
Or what, was she really suggesting he was Person123 or something? Her brother? That guy?
Ẇ еb̌n̆ó v́ еl̃ Е̃ nu̇mă
She’d find it more believable if someone told her the Earth was flat.
A savior who, for the sake of all humanity, staked his own life climbing Nightmare on the front lines.
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A hero who’d taken on a Penalty himself just to save even the smallest handful of people, leaving no one behind.
As his own sister, sharing the same blood, Kim Seo-a knew him well.
She knew Kim Seo-hyeon was the kind of person who couldn’t be further from anything like that.
Cautious, hating to put himself forward, the sort who would never go near anything even slightly dangerous…
Ẽ n u mâ . ï d̂
In any case, she knew rationally that it was absurd, that it was nothing but coincidence.
But it nagged at her all the same, and she wanted to check, somehow, just to put it to rest.
So she tagged along after Kim Seo-hyeon as he set off for the Exchange to sell Magic Stones.
They drove over and arrived at the Magic Stone Exchange.
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Kim Seo-hyeon had his ID checked by a clerk, then handed over the bag of Magic Stones.
The clerk took the stones out and measured their weight.
Ẽ n̈ um а̊
Kim Seo-a stood at Kim Seo-hyeon’s side and gazed at the whole thing.
She’d looked it up online.
The Lowest-grade and Low-grade Magic Stones that dropped on Easy difficulty were a pale blue.
The Mid-grade and High-grade stones from Normal and Hard difficulty were a deeper blue, and only the Supreme Magic Stones from Nightmare difficulty were a special golden color.
Every one of the stones Kim Seo-hyeon had brought was pale blue.
“That’s 11.91 kilograms of Lowest-grade Magic Stone and 9.7 kilograms of Low-grade Magic Stone.”
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The clerk called them Lowest-grade and Low-grade, too.
If Kim Seo-hyeon were a Nightmare climber, it would be impossible.
Because Nightmare difficulty was supposed to drop only Supreme Magic Stones.
He received the payment by bank transfer, and they left the Exchange.
“Get your fill of looking around?”
“Yeah. It’s pretty cool.”
Ẇӗ bnо̆ v̈ e l̀ Е̇n um̂_а̌
“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden…”
Even she found it funny, and Kim Seo-a shook her head.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
…What kind of ridiculous suspicion had she even been entertaining?
There was no way her brother was Person123, just as she’d thought.
*
After we finished the Magic Stone transaction and headed out.
Ĕ nu ma
Since we were already out, we grabbed lunch at a nearby restaurant.
Watching my sister wolf down beef like there was no tomorrow, I thought to myself,
‘Is this kid actually suspecting me?’
She’d never shown the slightest interest before, and now, out of nowhere, she tagged along to watch me sell Magic Stones.
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Did she want to make sure I was really selling them like I said I was?
“Good?”
Е̄n ŭ m̊.а̃
“Delicious.”
Or maybe not. Maybe it was just a genuine whim.
Either way, she’d put me on edge for no reason.
I picked at the meat myself and scrolled through my phone.
I was idly skimming through news articles when,
– Anomalous signs detected within Pyongyang, surveillance of the North stepped up…
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“…?”
One article caught my eye.
It was breaking news about North Korea.
And something about it didn’t sit right.
I dug up more on the story.
– This is an urgent bulletin. The unusual currents now running through the North Korean military are said to most likely point to a move toward a transfer of power. Our government…
Ẅе̃ b̈ n̂о v̇ е l̀ Еń u m_а
…What is this.
Was this saying a coup had broken out in North Korea?
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