EVS Chapter 162 – EmberLib

Until he entered the gate, Geon-joo thought things were proceeding according to plan. At least until he received the quest to kill 10,000 monsters as a condition for clearing the gate.

10,000 monsters.

Until now, the most he had ever faced was at most 100 or 1,000, but now it was 10,000. Just one more zero added, yet it became such a distant number. It was practically the same as saying he couldn’t leave the gate.

While he was speechless, the system kindly displayed one more new notification.

<The special privilege of ‘Immortal Body’ is granted for the First Step to Activate quest. You will not die during the quest progression. No matter what happens.>

The emphasized phrase at the end, rather than being reassuring, was incredibly suspicious. Suddenly an immortal body? It was like being warned he would die hundreds of times in this gate.

Geon-joo’s prediction became reality.

He had thought it was an ordinary gate.

He had expected it to be just a slightly difficult gate at most, but the gate created through the Survival Instinct skill was different from the gates Geon-joo knew. It was different from both beginner gates and the Temple of Disbelief. If he had to compare, it was somewhat similar to the field.

In that another space existed inside the gate.

When he first entered the gate, it was an entirely white space. As he stood awkwardly in this place that didn’t seem like a gate but rather like some kind of waiting room with white surroundings, a blue system window suddenly filled his vision.

<Congratulations! You are the first to enter an L-class gate. As an achievement reward, all stats increase by 10%. If you are the first to clear an L-class gate, you can earn an additional 20% stat reward.>

<Complete the activation quest by clearing the gate. Escape is impossible until cleared.>

‘…L-class gate?’

That’s when he realized something was wrong. He had thought even a high-ranked gate would be S-class, but L-class? Even the Survival Instinct skill, which he had considered an unfairly powerful ability, was only SS+ class. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what level L-class was.

Moreover, Geon-joo didn’t even know L-class was an existing rank.

According to public information, the maximum grade for skills was SSS-class and for gates was S-class, so this was natural.

To suddenly encounter an L-class gate, not S+ or SS.

He didn’t know how many levels had been skipped. Had it not been his situation, he might have praised this exceptional discovery with curiosity, but since it was his problem, since it was the gate he had to conquer, everything looked bleak.

With this dizzying feeling, he recalled his time in the field. He had suffered through an S-class gate with a B-class body, and now he was entering an L-class gate with an A-class body.

How much more would he have to struggle?

‘I’m screwed.’

In the end, there was only one sentiment Geon-joo could express.

Judging by what the system said, it seemed determined not to let him leave until he cleared the gate, even if he died. He had suddenly become the person who had to be the world’s first to clear an L-class gate.

While feeling dejected, an unfamiliar orange system window, different from the awakened user’s system window, suddenly appeared and caught Geon-joo’s attention.

[Welcome to the L-class gate, ‘Predestined Tower.’ This is the 0th floor of the tower, and after conquering each floor, you can return here to rest. You can use the portal on the left to move to your desired floor.]

[The Predestined Tower consists of a total of 101 floors from the 0th floor to the 100th floor, and if you eliminate all the trials in each tower, you can receive the reward for eliminating 10,000 monsters.]

[This is a tower blessed by the ‘God of Restraint who pursues the beauty of slowness.’ Time flows slowly in the Predestined Tower. One day inside the tower equals 1 hour in the real world.]

[This is a tower blessed by the ‘God of Wisdom who loves eternal karma.’ Upon returning to the 0th floor after clearing the gate, all wounds and status ailments will be healed. However, you must conquer the next floor within a day after your body recovers.]

[The system of the Predestined Tower explores you. You are the first challenger from Planet 9180, ‘Earth.’ Justice to the planet’s first player. The ‘God of Courage who sings of challenge and hope’ bestows a blessing on the new player.]

[Now, glimpse the future in the Predestined Tower.]

One, two, three, four, five, six.

The six windows that appeared in an instant made his head spin. The unfamiliar orange windows conveyed information that was utterly confusing, and he needed time to think, but before he could ruminate on the system windows, a blue portal appeared on the left.

[Clear the 1st floor.]

As the blue portal shimmered, the orange system window urged Geon-joo. He hadn’t answered “I understand,” nor had he approached the blue portal, but the portal arbitrarily emitted a strong light and swallowed him. Unintentionally entering the portal, Geon-joo was transported to a humid and sticky space where the entire ground was made of mud.

The feeling of the air on his skin was somehow familiar. It was similar to when he entered the dungeon from the destroyed world gate.

Splash!

Before he could even be surprised by the sudden movement, strange creatures shot up from the mud. They looked vaguely like deep-sea anglerfish with dozens of teeth on the top and bottom, making them threatening. Not just one or two, but dozens of such creatures surged from the mud. There was no time to stand dazed.

Instinctively gripping his sword, he attacked the strange creatures. Perhaps because it was the 1st floor, they quickly fell to Geon-joo’s sword, but that didn’t mean they died. They were simply stunned, and if not finished off, they would attack again within a minute. They were tricky and persistent opponents to face in an environment where it was difficult to move due to the mud.

Sweat mixed with mud. His clothes got dirty, and with mud and the creatures’ blood splashing on his face, his body felt sticky. After what felt like three hours of combat, he finally received a notification that all monsters had been annihilated, along with an orange system window asking if he wanted to return to the 0th floor. Without hesitation, he pressed yes and came out, confirming that the number on his quest window had increased.

‘Monster Elimination: 10,000 (100/10,000)’

After all that struggle, he had only completed 1%. One hundred monsters. It wasn’t a small number by any means, but when compared to 10,000, it seemed trivial.

There were 99 floors left. It seemed that with each floor he climbed, the completion increased by 1%. It really seemed like he couldn’t leave until he cleared all 100 floors.

Did it mean he had to be trapped here all this time?

There was no proper food or place to rest. A soft bed was a luxury, and he wished there was at least a sleeping bag, but the white space was just white, nothing else. When he thought about being hungry, a system window appeared as if by magic.

[In the Predestined Tower, you will only feel hunger but won’t starve to death. You won’t die on the 0th floor, so rest assured.]

In short, he would be desperately hungry but wouldn’t die. When he thought about wanting to drink water, a similar window appeared. A notification that he would feel terrible thirst but wouldn’t die from lack of water.

It was a notification that provided absolutely no comfort.

‘I need to clear this as quickly as possible.’

To be honest, he wasn’t confident about continuing to fight while feeling terrible hunger and thirst. Since the remaining floors seemed to have a similar difficulty to the 1st floor, he moved quickly as it seemed feasible to clear them promptly. 2nd floor, 3rd floor, 4th floor. Despite trying to progress quickly without sleeping for three whole days, Geon-joo met his limit at the 7th floor.

‘This is a completely insane gate…’

He had thought the 2nd floor would be easy since the 1st floor was, but the 2nd floor was exactly twice as challenging as the 1st. The 3rd floor monsters were twice as strong as the 2nd floor’s, and the 4th floor required twice the time spent on the 3rd floor to barely clear. It wasn’t just one level of difficulty increasing at a time, but more like jumping two or three levels at once. Geon-joo fully realized this on the seventh day after entering the Predestined Tower, when he successfully conquered the dreaded 10th floor and ascended to the 11th.

What had been mud floors until now became a jungle, and more powerful monsters began to appear. Not just one type, but dozens of types, with three or four of each. Since each monster had different weaknesses and strengths, Geon-joo had to deal with them in dozens of different ways. It was a terrible time.

When he barely cleared it and came out, four days had passed. Perhaps to prevent madness, the tower fortunately allowed him to sense the passage of time, showing how many days had passed in the tower and how much time had passed in reality. Initially, this was good, but after conquering the 15th floor and checking the time, it was just desperate.

Geon-joo had spent a month in the tower.

But in reality, only a day and a half had passed. How empty that discrepancy made a person feel.

It took a month to clear the 15th floor. During that time, unable to bear the hunger, Geon-joo ate monster meat, got stomachaches, and, unable to find purified water, quenched his thirst slightly by drinking muddy water from the jungle. After spending a month like that, it was just a day in reality.

There were many days when he couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. As the system had said, there were many times when he nearly died, but not once did he actually die. Even if his head was cut off, the immortal body would revive within an hour. That, in turn, gnawed at Geon-joo’s mind.

In an environment where he couldn’t get proper rest, he just continued fighting.

By the time he conquered the 20th floor, he wanted to give up everything.

And that’s when Geon-joo realized his mistake.

The immortal body given by the system was never a blessing.

It was a curse and shackles.

He couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. Because he had become immortal, he couldn’t escape even through death. Whether he liked it or not, he had to conquer all 80 remaining floors to leave. He had accepted the wrong quest and found himself in a quagmire.

At first, he denied it, but after failing to escape through death about ten times, he recognized reality and started conquering the tower again. It took three months to conquer up to the 30th floor. Of course, that was three months inside the tower, and in reality, it was just about four days. Geon-joo tried to die every five floors, realized it was futile, and continued his conquest.

The monsters became stronger with each level.

Up to the 20th floor, monsters he had never seen before appeared; up to the 30th floor, he saw old monsters from when gates first appeared on Earth, ones he had seen in news reports; from the 40th floor, monsters that frequently appeared in present-day gates, ones Geon-joo had faced before, started to show up; and from the 80th floor, strong monsters he had never even heard of appeared. From then on, Geon-joo had to spend an average of half a year to conquer just one floor.

Still, after surpassing the 70th floor, he held hope with each floor he climbed.

It would be over after just a little more.

Whenever he wanted to give up, he clung to thoughts of Sa-yoon. If he thought he was here by mistake, he couldn’t endure the terrible years. He needed a legitimate reason why he had to be here, and Geon-joo made that reason Sa-yoon. To not forget why he was here, he constantly reminded himself of his purpose and endured by making various guesses about what Sa-yoon’s secret might be.

The system said it would adjust the difficulty and lower the level of the monsters if Geon-joo failed floor conquest about a hundred times, so conquering the 100th floor wasn’t completely impossible.

But the problem came when surpassing the 90th floor.

After enduring about 8 years in the tower, the system, perhaps thinking he had stayed longer than expected, began urging him to conquer quickly. Saying that the system, which had functioned well for 8 years, was becoming unstable. By then, even lowering the difficulty of monsters with the system’s help didn’t work.

He felt something was wrong, but he couldn’t slow down his clearing speed. Geon-joo, knowing the system was unstable, forced the gate clearing, and as a result, he encountered an impossible opponent on the 91st floor.

A dragon made entirely of bones.

He had faced countless strong enemies until now, but the enemy before him was on a different level. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t win. It was at the moment he was about to ask the system for help.

Instead of the usual orange system window, a blue system window, which he hadn’t seen in a very long time, filled his vision.

[!!! Error! Error !!!]

Suddenly, red text filled his vision, and the space shook.

KWAAAANG!

A sound like an explosion was heard, and the system window enveloped Geon-joo.

A ringing in his ears spread, and incomprehensible, unknown words reverberated in Geon-joo’s mind. Cough! Suddenly, blood flowed from his mouth. With a jerk, his pupils seemed to roll back, and Geon-joo fainted.