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[The 61st-floor stage begins.]
Explanation: Challenger who wants to take a short break and start a journey, here are two roads. One is a trail, where you have to walk through a burning desert, and the other is to climb a mountain filled with snow-storms. Both roads are full of dangerous enemies and difficult challenges. Conquer both paths, and reunite with your colleagues at the end.
– Clear condition.
Conquer the first ascetic path.
Conquer the second ascetic path.
3.?
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Two portals appeared with the message. They were emblazoned with the patterns of fire and ice, respectively. Splitting 50 people into two halves and conquering both of the paths beyond the portals would be how this 61st-floor stage was conducted.
And finally, they would meet again. The 61st floor would only be cleared when one side is wiped out. If the explanation Kirikiri gave was correct, perhaps it would be so.
[Which way do you want to go?]
“Left.” I chose the portal with the pattern of fire. I was more used to fire than ice. Before going to the entrance, I called the frog.
“Keeaaaeeek!”
“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to put you back in. There must be a lot of temperature changes over there.”
“Keeeaaaeek!” The frog was sad, but he didn’t object to my words either. Temperature changes were fatal to amphibians.
Of course, the frog only had an amphibian as its head and body of a dog, but anyway. I put the frog back and stepped on the portal. After a while, I stood in an open space, not in an enclosed space.
“I’m glad I called the frog back.”
[Right.]
The place where I was teleported to was in the middle of a raging desert. I thought it was better to recall the frog because of humidity problems rather than temperature problems.
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[You have chosen the first ascetic path.]
Explanation: The challenger who has chosen the first route, your journey will be rough. During the day, you will have to walk in the blazing desert, and at night you will have to sleep, hiding from the harsh winds. At the end of the journey, you must defeat one of the two rulers who rule this planet, the volcano ruler. There is a way to make the journey to the ruler of the volcano easier. You can weaken the volcano ruler by dedicating a companion to another ruler of the planet, the ruler of the Snow Mountain. The more the sacrifices, the weaker the ruler of the volcano becomes. As the ruler weakens, the number of his combat forces and powers decreases. Finally, the climate of the Great Volcano is adjusted.
-Clear condition of the first ascetic path.
Pass through the Desert.
Climb the summit of the Great Volcano.
Defeat the Ruler of the Great Volcano.
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All I had to do was cross the desert, go to the volcano, and kill the volcano ruler. It was a simple stage. There was a suggestion in between, about offering a colleague, but it wasn’t a choice I could make.
“Okay. Let’s go for now.”
You can never clear it alone, Kirikiri had said. Even if they had a 50-member team, it would be difficult to proceed without the thought of sacrifice. That’s how I organized my thoughts and began to walk forward. I liked the feeling of stepping on the fine sand in the desert. I also liked the dry climate without moisture, but a sandstorm ruined everything. My shoes and clothing filled with sand, some stuck to my face, making me displeased.
“Shhh!”
I hadn’t said that. When I looked around, I saw a lizard staring at me. Standing on its hind legs, it was as tall as my knee. That was not a good attitude to hunt for food. It had already shown its position. Maybe that lizard was going to hunt me down. Instead, it was as if I had invaded that lizard’s territory. I think the lizard was threatening me by making sounds. There’s no need to kill an innocent lizard, so I just tried to pass it by. Until the lizard spewed out a fire.
“Cooch!”
The lizard threw the fireball in my direction. The sound was funny, but the power was not a joke. Even in the middle of the hot desert, I could feel the heat of the flame. It was amazing.
“Is it the sub-species of a dragon?”
[Of course not. That’s just a lizard.] Ahbooboo answered shortly.
When the lizard saw that I had escaped the fireball, it licked its mouth, a visible sign it was preparing to spew yet another fireball. Before that, I approached the lizard and grabbed it by the tail. The lizard started struggling. Its short legs could not touch my hand that held it by its tail, but it still fought with all its might. I had no choice but to end up flinging away the lizard that was cutting off its tail. As soon as the lizard, with its tail cut off, fell to the ground, it rushed towards me.
I snapped my fingers. A fire broke out inside the lizard. The lizard’s insides burned horribly, and it died.
“Damn it. Too much blood.”
The tail of the lizard was still wildly flapping, sprinkling blood all around. There was a lot of blood on my clothes, too.
[What’s wrong with blood?]
Well, that’s true. I felt uncomfortable because it was not the blood of an enemy, but of an insignificant beast. My curiosity hadn’t been solved at all.
I asked Ahbooboo, “Have you ever heard of a lizard spouting fire in a crisis?”
[Of course not.]
Was it really a dragon’s subspecies? Maybe it was a Hatchling. The ruler of the volcano I was looking for was actually a dragon, but could it be that I had already killed a dragon cub? Something like that was plausible.
[Never. That’s just a lizard.]
“But it spat out a flame by its mouth.”
[I guess it’s a unique lizard. Anyway, it’s not a dragon. How can a lizard that doesn’t have even a handful of mana be a dragon cub?]
It was an unusual lizard, huh. Maybe, fire-breathing was a local trait here. Volcanoes in the desert and even fire-breathing lizards. All the themes in the region seemed to be set to fire and heat. Now for the second question, I violated the control of the lizard and set it on fire. How did I do that? Come to think of it, the first time I used <Infringement of Control> was when I didn’t know much about my abilities. I just happened to use it.
At that time, I thought that the power to exercise control over others came from the core of the source given by the God of Remorse. But now that I’d been dealing with both gods and the source, I knew it wasn’t. So, it didn’t make sense that I had started a fire in a lizard’s body with the power of the source. Most importantly, I didn’t have any source right now.
[Are there not people who have faith in you?]
“Huh?”
[Like people from your hometown or the people you met last time. Don’t the other challengers of the Earth or from the Tutorial have faith in you?]
That was a valid point, but it didn’t seem so. My image among the challengers was no less than a vague fear. Even Kim Min-hyuk’s work was fading the image. I didn’t see that as religious. The same was true of the Earth. I didn’t know what the people outside thought of me challenging the Hell Difficulty level. I doubted that they had faith in me.
[How about Warrior?] Seregia, who had been quiet, asked.
“Huh? What do I think?”
[No.]
I thought she was asking me what I thought about this problem.
[Warrior believes in himself.]
“Uh, yeah. That’s right.”
[Crazily, maniacally.]
“….”
[Close to crazy. Warrior has the belief that he can do it. It’s not a bad thing. But when you can’t do something, instead of feeling sorry or disappointed, Warrior seems to deny the possibility of failing.]
There’s no way that I can’t make it because I have to. Perhaps such an obsession that goes beyond faith, which I send to myself, had become faith. That was what Seregia meant. She had tried to convey the meaning of words too directly. It was not bad, but sometimes it hurt my heart.
[Sorry.] She didn’t sound sorry at all.
I asked Ahbooboo, “What do you think?”
He was silent for a moment, then replied, [That’s something I can’t tell you.]
He was under a constraint. I didn’t know if it was a systemic constraint or a divine constraint. This increased the credibility of Seregia’s hypothesis. This was quite an important matter. If Seregia was right, then I could self-produce power without anyone else.
“Well, let’s find out slowly.”
If I looked back on the memories of my first experiment with <Infringement of Control> and observed the changes that emerge through training, I would soon know. After thinking about it, I decided to start again.
I spread Talaria’s wings and flew up. I didn’t want to walk because of the annoying sandstorm. As I flew up into the sky, the wind seemed a little less sandy. When my body was covered by mana, the sand that clung to the body was significantly reduced. There was also one more good thing. A desert city was seen from the top.
After such a long flight, I should arrive in front of the city soon. I landed nearby and walked to the city’s main gate. As I was strolling, the city faded from my sight. Soon the city disappeared without a trace, and only the boundless sands remained in front of me.
“…Was that a mirage?”
[Huh… I guess so.]
* * * * * *
“It’s not a mirage. Definitely not.”
At first, I didn’t realise, but after seeing the city disappear nearly ten times, it slowly began to hit me. As far as I knew, a mirage was a phenomenon in which light bends to move through warmer and less dense air.
This was a phenomenon in which the city showed up at a different location every time.
The problem was, I didn’t see it wrong. I had approached the place with the thought that there was a city in the place, not just through sight. Nevertheless, as soon as I approached, the city had disappeared. I had to hold back my boiling anger at this, which seemed as if someone were making fun of me.
“This is not a mirage. Someone’s playing a prank on me.”
[Oh, my God, looks like Warrior has gotten agitated again.]
< Tutorial 60th Floor (0-4) > End
