Chapter 2 - Episode 1. Ten Billion Stabs (1)
Chapter 2: Episode 1. Ten Billion Stabs (1)
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Thirty years had passed. It was an eternity.
Jaehwan had spent those thirty years alone on the ninety-ninth floor.
How many times had he nearly died?
Even though he had faced life-or-death crises hundreds of times while climbing from the first floor to the ninety-ninth, he had nearly died more often on the ninety-ninth than on all the other floors combined.
The boss of the ninety-ninth floor, Ice Dragon Velkisus.
The breath of this dragon, said to have come from the Forgotten Land, was difficult to endure even with Jaehwan's cold resistance raised to its limit.
That was not all.
Its hard scales had shattered Jaehwan's sword and crushed his armor countless times. Had it not been for the equipment other Walkers had left behind, he might have given up long ago.
The True Dragon Sword he had obtained on the eighty-fifth floor was especially useful.
So was the Ice Demon Armor Yoonhwan had left behind.
And the Fire King's Bracelet Seoyul had given him before she died.
Han Seoyul.
Jaehwan thought of her name for the first time in a long while. Seoyul had died before reaching the seventy-seventh floor.
* * *
"Are you going to challenge it again, Jaehwan?"
Jay, Atopos's blacksmith, asked him.
Atopos was the village established after the monstrous dragon Alteminas, the fiftieth-floor boss, had been slain.
Back when Atopos was just beginning to take root, humanity had still been all right. Walkers from the front lines were carried down every day, dead or wounded, but people had not let go of hope.
The priests had organized emergency rescue teams that went out to save raid parties rendered unable to fight. Blacksmiths at workshops even repaired the equipment of raid parties fighting for humanity free of charge.
〈Jay's Workshop〉, run by Old Man Jay, had boasted the finest craftsmanship among those workshops.
Now, Jay was the last blacksmith left in Atopos.
"Jaehwan?"
"Oh, right. Sorry. What did you say?"
"I asked whether you were going to challenge it again."
Jaehwan stared at Jay's graying beard for a moment, then nodded.
"I have to. I think I can really clear it this time."
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. No doubt about it."
It was a lie. There was no way he could know. He had no idea how long it would take, or whether he could clear it at all.
Still, he had to say it. After all, he had always thought it was impossible.
A faint smile appeared on Jay's lips.
Jay was a foreigner.
After entering the tower, native languages had lost all meaning, and everyone used the tower's common language. Yet even after language was unified, the sense of distance between cultures remained widespread. Still, Jaehwan did not see Jay as a stranger.
As he hammered the True Dragon Sword Jaehwan had entrusted to him, Jay spoke casually.
"Lately, supplies have stopped coming up from the lower floors. There was still a little mineral supply a few months ago, though it was scarce."
Jaehwan nodded.
A week ago, he had searched every floor from the first to the ninety-ninth.
There had been no living people.
He had also waited around the summoning ground on the first floor for about a week, but no additional people had been summoned to climb the tower. It likely meant that humanity aboveground had gone extinct.
It made sense.
Jaehwan did not know what year it was anymore. Messages had announced multiple Tower Impacts. It would have been stranger if any humans had survived.
In return, Jaehwan had found a clue that seemed to be a Hidden Piece.
On the passage from the seventy-seventh floor to the seventy-eighth, which the Stone of Regression had once blocked, someone had left the following graffiti.
A tower within the tower, a nightmare within the nightmare.
Jaehwan had no idea what it meant.
Then again, there were countless things in this tower that he did not know.
"The old woman from 〈Hiren Potion〉 disappeared the day before yesterday."
"Ah, Hiren..."
Hiren of 〈Hiren Potion〉 had been one of the last support-type Walkers left in Atopos with Jay of 〈Jay's Workshop〉. She was the woman who had first taught Jaehwan how to make potions.
Those who entered the tower did not age, so if they disappeared, there were only two possibilities.
They had gone to the past, or they had jumped down from the tower.
Jaehwan wondered which one Hiren had chosen. Thinking about it, though, either choice was the same.
He looked into old Jay's eyes. It was not hard to read the emotions cast beneath their shadows. Perhaps there would not be many more days when he could see Jay either.
"Jay, will you teach me the Blacksmith Skill?"
The sound of hammering stopped for a moment. Their gazes met in the empty air.
How much time passed?
Jay gave a tiny nod. Jaehwan nodded back.
A moment later, Jay resumed hammering.
* * *
Back on the ninety-ninth floor.
Ice Dragon Velkisus looked at the human who had come again and spoke in an admiring voice.
"You are an extraordinary human. Since this tower was created, not once has a human challenged the ninety-ninth floor alone."
Jaehwan gave a dry laugh. It was ridiculous. The last being to acknowledge him was not another human, but that monster.
"What a shame it'll be when I kill you."
"Unfortunately, that is impossible, human."
"I wouldn't be so sure. Cracks have started appearing in those scales you brag about."
The ice dragon let out a rough growl. Jaehwan's sword pointed toward its body.
It was a simple basic attack.
Stab.
"That attack again."
"Sadly, it's the only thing I know how to do."
Jaehwan had begun climbing the tower later than most people. Because of that, he had repeatedly missed his chances to acquire Hidden Skills and Hidden Classes.
So, he had cleanly abandoned every other skill and focused on Stab alone.
Stabbing, stabbing, and stabbing again.
After stabbing enemies around fifty million times, people had started calling him Jaehwan of the Tenacious Stab.
That was when he felt his Stab changing.
Faster, and more precise.
His Stab had become stronger.
Sixty million times, seventy million times, then one hundred million times.
As a result, Jaehwan's basic attack, Stab, had gained attack power comparable to most Hidden Skills.
Since it was not a skill, it did not consume spiritual power. No matter how many times he used it, he did not tire.
Even so, Jaehwan's Stab was not enough to deal with the ice dragon on the ninety-ninth floor. He had to stab a single scale dozens, even hundreds of times just to leave a scratch.
Yet sometimes, a single Stab could inflict a fatal wound.
Ah, there it is again.
Jaehwan's eyes clouded over, and his Stab began to carry a strange force. It was neither fast nor slow, yet impossible to evade.
The ice dragon cried out in pain.
When had it begun?
Once every million, or perhaps every ten million stabs, a faint line appeared before Jaehwan as he repeated the attack.
Unconsciously, he followed that line.
If he successfully traced it to the end, Jaehwan could inflict damage hundreds, even thousands of times greater than an ordinary Stab.
It still wasn't enough this time.
The breath gathered in the ice dragon's maw filled the tower. For Jaehwan, whose body was already in tatters, it was a lethal blow. His Constitution raced toward zero.
Jaehwan threw himself aside with all his strength to evade the breath.
"What a pity, human. If there had been just ten more humans like you, you might have defeated even me."
"Shut up."
"If your ignorant kin had not been blinded by the Dream Demon Stone, the fate of your race would have been completely changed."
"Dream Demon Stone? What are you talking about?"
The ice dragon did not answer. Its enormous claw flew toward him.
"...I'm coming back."
Jaehwan retreated with a backstep.
The ice dragon did not pursue him.
* * *
Another year passed, then another.
The ice dragon, which had seemed as though he could kill it at any moment, did not fall for a long time. Beneath each cracked scale lay another scale. Thoughts of giving up often crossed his mind.
"...It would have been a disaster if I hadn't learned potion-making from Hiren."
He had thought only idiots talked to themselves, but before he knew it, he had begun doing it more often.
As he walked the paths he had once hunted with his Companions decades ago, Jaehwan often thought of them.
One day, Yoonhwan had asked him a question.
"Have you ever thought about how long we'll have to stay in this tower?"
Yoonhwan had continued as he looked out over the fiftieth-floor village filled with people.
"Sometimes, the time we lived in Seoul feels like a lie. Maybe life in this tower will become our real life."
"Do you really think we'll be here that long?"
"Who knows."
Yoonhwan, who had said those words, was gone now.
Jaehwan also thought of the Companions who had returned to the past.
Was Sword Panic still growing out his beard? Was Sakamoto still lecturing people on his stubborn scientific theories?
He did not know. Because he could know nothing, the only thing Jaehwan could do was climb higher.
"Here's the equipment you left with me."
"Thanks. I'll be back."
Had Jay not endured for so long, Jaehwan might have gone mad long ago.
One year, then two.
Feeling time pass in silence, Jaehwan sometimes spoke with Jay.
"I can barely remember my hometown."
"Where's your hometown?"
"Florida."
"Mine's Seoul."
As they exchanged petty conversations, Jaehwan learned Jay's Blacksmithing techniques. He reviewed the recipes Hiren had left behind and studied, then studied again, the legacies left by humanity besides himself.
"You're as skilled as Hiren now."
"I'm still far from that."
"You need to hone your blacksmithing a little more."
"Don't die until I'm better than you, Jay."
As he adjusted the tempering, Jaehwan made a joke.
There was a single blemish on the smooth blade's surface. Other than that mark, Jaehwan's craftsmanship was already as good as Jay's.
Looking at the sword Jaehwan had reforged, Jay gave him his usual unreadable smile.
As his Stab reached a certain level, Jaehwan greatly increased his daily training time.
Stabbing, stabbing, and stabbing again.
Except when he learned the potion recipes Hiren had left behind or studied the Blacksmith Skill under Jay, Jaehwan trained Stab all day. It was too late to learn other skills, so Stab was all he did.
One year, two years, three years.
Time piled up, layer upon layer, on Jaehwan's dark shoulders. As he became able to repair his own equipment, the days when he saw Jay gradually grew fewer.
He repeated Stab, challenged the ninety-ninth floor, then repeated Stab again. Sometimes old emotions swept over him, or doubt seized his mind.
What meaning could any of this have?
After all humanity had disappeared, what meaning was there in him alone seeing the tower's final floor?
Jaehwan thought about it.
There was meaning. Even in a world everyone had abandoned and left behind, meaning remained. Because he was still here, remembering the time that had passed.
Because he was still here, repeating his Stab toward the world.
By the time even Jaehwan no longer knew whether he was stabbing at the ice dragon, the dragon, the resentment of the past, or himself...
He heard something enormous collapse before him.
Footnotes:
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