Chapter 53

[Round Five, Day 8, 09:30]
[Welcome to the Sixth Floor’s Stage.]
[The Sixth Floor’s trial is starting.]
I had no need for preparations or making plans.
As soon as I woke up I stretched and checked the Community then went straight to the Stage.
With light steps, I stretched some more as I walked.
I had to walk like this for two more hours before running into the skeleton soldiers.
‘Um… I’m throwing away a lot of time here. Should I work on pa.s.sive skills?
No, I won’t exactly have much time to recover before the battle.
It’s not like I can keep on using potions.
Um…
Should I get there while exercising a little?
I could do a burpee exercise each time I take three steps. I can exercise like that until I am about 30 minutes away from the skeleton soldiers.
I can calm my breathing for the battle and rest then.
That does not sound like a bad idea.
Let’s do it.’
Having repeated the burpee exercise for several tens of minutes, my breathing became fast and my leg muscles were getting stiff.

Wow…

All of my physical abilities, including raw muscle strength and endurance, far exceeded that of humans.
Still, a simple exercise like this was having such an impact on me. I never thought it was possible.
‘Looks like I had been slacking off on basic exercises too much.
The growth on pa.s.sive skills are slowing down to a crawl nowadays. I think it will be more effective to do this kind of physical exercises in my spare time from now on.’
I took a moment to catch my breath and calm down. While I was at it, the sounds of skeleton soldiers’ steps were starting to be heard.
‘Now, let’s start again today.’
[Level Up.]
[Strength went up by 1. Stamina went up by 3. Mana went up by 1. Defensive Skill went up by 1. Hand-to-Hand Combat Skill went up by 1.]
[You failed to clear the Sixth Floor’s trial.]
One time, the number one gamer of a popular RPG game was asked a question. The question was,

You must be hunting whole day. Are you not bored of it?

The response was,

Are you not bored of living?
Life is repet.i.tion of daily routines, and I get to repeat what I like to do every day.
I don’t get bored of it.

It was a great answer.
It was lacking a little in the logic department, but it was very convincing for a gamer. It was enough for gamers to agree immediately.
It was the story that the coach for a professional game team told to the players who complained that they were sick of the game.
I did not know if someone actually said something like that. I did not know if he meant it either.
I was also not interested enough to know.
Actually, I became a professional gamer because I liked winning. It was not because I liked playing video games.
If it was just the game that I liked, I would have been satisfied with being an ordinary gamer.
By being an ordinary gamer, I could play all sorts of games as I want whenever I wanted. That was way better than being a professional gamer.
Because my goal in professional gaming was not about enjoying the game itself, I was not particularly bothered by repet.i.tions in gaming.
‘However, I do want to go run to that top RPG player and ask.
I want to ask if he doesn’t get sick of it.
I want to ask what I could do to not get sick of it.
I want to beg him to tell me.
I am getting sick of this.
Smashing skeleton soldiers’ skulls…
Enduring noise pollution from their giiiaaaaak yelling…
Repeating same motions with sword and shield over and over…
Feeling pain from being cut by rusty blades here and there on my body…
d.a.m.n it all. Even if I am getting sick of them all…
I have to do this. It is my work.’
I thought that and repeatedly reminded myself.
‘It probably will come to an end soon.’
There was one thing great about all this.
I became completely used to the sword swing motion.
I had been swinging it in a similar motion through a similar trajectory through countless familar situations that repeated over and over. It resulted in me developing a way of sword technique that I usually used in most situations.
Thanks to it, my swordsmanship skill’s level went up quite a bit.
As I got used to swinging the sword, moving the shield also became a lot more natural.
[You acquired Basic Swordsmanship Lv.10.]
[You acquired Basic Shield Technique Lv.7.]
[You failed to clear the Sixth Floor’s trial.]
[You acquired Battle Focus Lv. 13.]
With the Battle Focus level increased, the cognitive processing ability during the accelerated state improved.
When I first acquired it, the effect only allowed me to see things in slow motion.
Now, I could almost see the world as if the world was standing still.
Of course, that kind of heightened focus could be maintained only for a moment. Still, I thought I was still developing further and there was a lot more room for growth.
[You acquired Will Lv.7.]
It seemed that using the Battle Focus often lead to the Will to also increase.
[You acquired Basic Swordsmanship Lv. 11.]
[You acquired Basic Shield Technique Lv.10.]
Lately, the shield technique was catching up to the swordsmanship.
‘Is it because I had been ending up doing a lot more shielding because I was fighting many enemies at once?’
[You acquired Iron Wall Lv.1.]
[Hardened Skin Lv.4 will be combined with Iron Wall Lv.1.]
[You failed to clear the Sixth Floor’s trial.]

Uuuuaaaaa!

[You acquired Battle Cry Lv.2.]
The Battle Cry was a kind of boost skill.
In video games, barbarians or tanker warriors had this skill.
The description said the combat abilities will increase by a small margin. However, I was not sure just how much it was.
I was so annoyed by the skeleton soldiers yelling giaaaaak giaaak at me, so I had been yelling back at them. I ended up acquiring the skill from doing that.
Thanks to that, I often returned to the waiting room with worn out voice.
The waiting room gave me a complete recovery as usual, including my worn out vocal cords.
[You failed to clear the Sixth Floor’s trial.]
[You shall experience death! I, the death knight Asthe shall gift you the great slumber!]
A mid-level boss showed up.
For a moment, I was excited because I mistook that monster as the final boss.
‘You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Go rot in h.e.l.l…
Well, you are already about half rotten, but…’

You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You made me excited for nothing. You are dead!

Now that I think about it, even I think my line sounds like I had a loose screw somewhere in my head. Along with that shouting, I charged toward the death knight.
[You failed to clear the Sixth Floor’s trial.]
‘d.a.m.n it all. I was stopped again from progressing further.’
The forks were the problem.
After the straight pathway on the corridor ended, forks with two pathways started to appear one after another.
Even if I chose one and broke through the army along that path, the skeleton soldiers that got through the other path reached and opened the stone door.
‘What should I do…’
The first option was giving up on breaking through the skeleton army and blocking the straight path until the holy knights arrived.
‘That is unrealistic.
The holy knights are coming way too late.’
One time, the holy knights didn’t show even after 13 days since the trial started.
It was possible they were not going to arrive until the very last moment, just before the end of the 30th day.
When I held out for 13 days, I barely managed by really forcing myself to do so.
During that time, I ended up using all of my potions, so I could never do that again.
It was not that I was lacking strength to fight. It was a matter of endurance limit. It was seriously lacking.
The second option was to go through the pathways before the skeleton soldiers get to the stone door and clear the stage.
It seemed like the second option was even more unrealistic. However, the idea sounded more appealing.
Both options required me to become stronger.
‘I should go back to focusing on becoming stronger.’
[You acquired Bleeding Resistance Lv.8.]
[You acquired Piercing Resistance Lv.4.]
[You acquired Paralysis Resistance Lv.9.]
Meanwhile, my pa.s.sive skills improved a lot.
I had been getting cut by rusty weapons more frequently. With that, the Paralysis Resistance went up the most.
The Pain Resistance didn’t increase.
It seemed like simple flesh wounds were not going to make it develop further.
[You failed to clear the Sixth Floor’s trial.]
[Human who are blessed by false G.o.ds! You shall experience death!]
[Level Up.]
[Strength went up by 1. Agility went up by 1. Basic Swordsmanship Skill went up by 1.]
[You obtained Basic Swordsmanship Lv.15.]
[Basic Swordsmanship Lv.15 was changed to Mid-level Swordsmanship Lv.1]
[You obtained Mana Circuit Lv.1.]
With the Mana Circuit, it became possible for me to utilize the mana hidden inside my body.
I was still clumsy at using it, but I had been making the mana to circulate through my body whenever I had the time.
The circulation worked only through the same paths.
I had to work hard to memorize these paths and understand them.
[You obtained Mana Circuit Lv. 4.]
With that, it became possible for me to put on a thin layer of mana on my hand.
Also, even without wrapping my body’s surface with mana, I could boost my physical abilities just from having the mana circulate through my body.
I thought it might be also possible to use explosive strength by sending mana to the muscles at the moment of need.
I had to practice some more.
[You obtained Mana Circuit Lv. 7.]
[You obtained Mid-level Swordsmanship Lv.2.]
It’s a light saber!
I’m Jo-seon’s first sword master!
[TL: Jo-seon is the name of the Korean kingdom before the country became a democratic nation.]
It became possible for me to surround my sword with mana.
As I got used to utilizing mana, the amount of mana I had started to be relatively insufficient.
I wondered if there was anything I could do.
[Servant of false G.o.ds! Witness the power of true greatness! The greatest and absolute power, the only one in existence in this world, shall become the savior to this corrupt world!]
[Human, you are brave but foolish! You have chosen the wrong path!]
[I, Khezas shall lead you to death!]
[You obtained Meditation Lv.1.]
Unfortunately, Meditation had nothing to do with increasing the mana capacity.
As the word said, it was simply for meditation.
It didn’t look like it could be of any use, but it turned out it was very useful in focusing my mind through the Magic Circuit.
I started to meditate whenever I had the time.
With the Meditation skill obtained, I got to have chance to look back at all the things that happened lately.
Many things had happened since I ended up inside the Tutorial, and…
… Having thought about it, I realized that nothing good ever happened, not even one.
As I thought more and more through meditation, my chest felt frustrated and the thoughts seriously agitated my mood.
However, I couldn’t stop thinking about the past.
As if I was possessed by something, I continued to think about negative thoughts.
They spoiled my mood, and the negative mood resulted in loss of will to go on.
[You acquired Mental Corruption Resistance Lv.2.]
…
I thought it was subjecting me to mental stress, but I didn’t know it was to the point of mental corruption.
Actually, I noticed signs that indicated I was losing my mind a little.
Something like this happened in the past.
It was when I was grinding away at the Second Floor… I think.
Back then, I was worried and scared, thinking I might end up with a mental illness.
Claiming it as a hobby, I picked up knitting and made gloves and scarfs.
Still, back then, I had the confidence to clear the floor anytime I wanted. I was grinding just for the sake of growth.
Compared to that… right now…
[You failed to clear the Sixth Floor’s trial.]

Uoooooooaaaaaa!

[You obtained Soul Cry Lv.1.]
[Battle Cry Lv.3 will be combined with Soul Cry Lv.1.]
I had been screaming by putting in mana while using the Battle Cry. I got a new skill from doing that.
When it came to boosting my combat abilities, the skill was the same as the Battle Cry. However, there was one extra feature to the new skill.
[Extra feature: The enemies below your level will not be able to ignore you and run away or avoid you.]
An area effective provocation skill was created.
With this skill, I was going to be able to easily tie down the skeleton soldiers who got past me and ran toward the stone door.
Not just the swordsmanship, but the shield technique and hand-to-hand combat technique also became mid-levels.
[Human, you possess astonishing power! This is the true form of myself, the Khezas!]
[You acquired Curse Resistance Lv.6.]
[You acquired Grand Magic Resistance Lv.2.]
I really almost died.
I had been exposed to danger for so long all this time that my sense of alertness became faint.
My Curse Resistance had grown quite a bit. Putting my faith in the Curse Resistance, I took on the Khezas with a complacent att.i.tude. It turned out that the final boss really was deserving of the position.
‘To fight that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I need to kill all of the death knights, skeleton soldiers and other priests. I need to fight it only after I clean up everyone else.
I am almost there.
Let’s not be impatient.’
[Human, you are blessed by false G.o.ds! You…]

Just shut the h.e.l.l up! You numbskull b.i.t.c.h!

Even patience had limits!
The priests kept on saying similar lines as if they were programmed to say them. Having heard the lines so many times, now, I became infuriated just from hearing creepy voices from those priests that looked like they were wearing skull masks.

Just transform into the squid already. Let’s end this now.

This time, it really was the time to end this once and for all.
It had been a very long time.
I could go on in verbose detail about how long it had been. However, nothing was more accurate than saying that it was excessively long.
[You cleared the Sixth Floor of the Tutorial in h.e.l.l Difficulty.]
[All of your status abnormality and injuries will be recovered.]
[You obtained 2000 points as the clear reward.]
[You obtained 2000 points for being the first one to clear the floor.]
[There are many G.o.ds who are showing positive responses toward you. You obtained 9100 points.]
[There are many G.o.ds who are showing negative response toward you. 600 points were deducted.]
[Based on your play records, additional reward will be given.]
[Many G.o.ds would like to give you a special skill as the reward.]
[Voting results: 43 Yes, 1 No.]
[Would you like to accept it?]
[You obtained Soul Steal Lv.1.]
[G.o.d of Slowness would like to bestow the destiny of apostle to you.]
[Would you like to receive the test to prove your worthiness to become an apostle?]
[G.o.d of Adventure is panicking.]
[G.o.d of Adventure would like to bestow the destiny of apostle to you.]
[Would you like to receive the test to prove your worthiness to become an apostle?]
[G.o.d of Slowness is displeased.]