Chapter 194: Tutorial 35th Floor (13) (Part 1)

“Aren’t you tired?”

I looked at the knight sitting next to me and asked.

“Who knows what’s going on? I am not tired at all. A lot of things have happened today.”

“Why did you start to say something weird again? Just go to sleep.”

I stopped the knight, who was going to start a new topic.

His perseverance with talking was amazing.

The others had all sat down with eyes closed and were currently resting but this guy kept talking to me, I thought.

“There are many things that have happened, but none of them have been experienced by me in person, so I am not tired at all. Maybe I am just an outsider witnessing these things, so I don’t have that kind of feeling.”

That’s not true, you had experienced something in person.

You had been talking after experiencing so many things.

You had also rushed over to me and then been hammered by me.

I decided to give up trying to concentrate and then listened to the knight as he wished.

“What do you want to say? Don’t beat about the bush and speak frankly. We don’t have much time.”

Although the knight was really chatty, he knew what the others thought about himself.

So when others didn’t want to talk, he would stay in the corner quietly.

I met him on the previous 16th floor, so I knew this.

So the knight kept bothering me not because he was bored, but because he had something to say to me.

Sure enough, the knight scratched the back of his head and said,

“Are you sure it is finished?”

“What?”

“I am talking about the doppelganger, or whether there are other dangers in this dungeon.”

What was he talking about?

“Why do you think so?”

“Because no matter how many times I see it, it looks like you are preparing to fight again.”

If you knew about this, shouldn’t you interfere with me, and let me stand alone?

“Although you didn’t tell other people and you are not on guard, the way you sit here to concentrate obviously shows that you are preparing for a battle.”

I also felt it before, but this guy was really sensitive sometimes.

Although it did not help at all for finding the doppelganger.

“Something like the state of the mind? I can feel that kind of thing. Have I told you that I have participated in a war? I once went to the battlefield when I was young. The most impressive thing at that time was not the magician who burned the earth or the knight who could destroy a siege weapon with just a sword. It was an old cavalryman who was preparing to fight with a spear on his shoulders.”

Although he was really annoying, I had to admit one thing.

The stories this guy talked about were very interesting.

If you started listening, you would want to know what had happened next.

Maybe I had never heard anyone talk for such a long time after I had started the tutorial, so I thought it was interesting.

“I felt something special about him before the battle. I used to think that we should bring something to the battle. In order to stay alive, swords, fencing, armors, and teammates were necessary. But instead, what I learnt from him was to abandon.”

I seemed to understand what the young knight had learnt from the old soldier.

“He seemed to have abandoned fear, abandoned his obsession, and even abandoned his expectation, only focusing on the scene in front of him. It was not simply giving up all the thoughts about life. Although he didn’t directly tell me that, I think he was throwing all the useless things away in order to concentrate a little bit more.”

Doing one’s best and concentrating, were generally illusory.

It was impossible for a normal person to use the strength of the whole body and work hard with a mortal heart.

People would die before they managed to do this.

If one felt fear and despair, the brain would become confused. If a person was in an extremely tense state, the muscles would become stiff.

Any sense would be anesthetized by hormones.

In the face of death, human beings would not choose to overcome it, but instead choose self-anesthesia.

So we needed preparation.

It was the preparation in order to protect all and abandon all.

It was the preparation in order to face the crisis calmly and make a great effort in front of the crisis.

“Don’t worry.”

“Eh?”

“The danger will not appear here.”

The knight was quite confused.

I didn’t want to tell him word by word.

“I’m sure about that. Just go to sleep.”

This time I said these words while holding the hammer which had been lying on the side.

The knight immediately returned to his seat.

It seemed that I should have done this since the start.

The feeling of holding the hammer in my hands was very clear

It would be great if I could take this hammer away.

I had experienced crisis frequently recently.

I had faced enemies stronger than me and more enemies than this time, and had experienced the situation of being unable to escape.

But that kind of crisis was not serious enough to bring me the danger of death until now.

Since I had achieved a certain level, the crisis was neither a stepping stone for my growth nor an obstacle to me.

But it was different this time.

“Don’t fight.”

I remembered what Kiri Kiri had told me in a special tone.

I had heard about the information of the 35th floor from Kiri Kiri, and the first thing that came to mind was the 17th floor.

On the 17th floor, there was a mirage who took my appearance of that time.

Because I was the first challenger, I had ended the 17th floor within five seconds without doing anything.

So what would happen if I entered the 17th floor that’s on the 35th floor?

Would I encounter the mirage, or skip it as I had done before.

For my question, Kiri Kiri gave this answer.

“Since you can’t win, don’t fight.”

Something could be inferred from this answer.

I would encounter the mirage on the 17th floor.

It took 136 hours for me to get to the 17th floor.

It was 5 days plus 16 hours.

It was impossible to catch up with my accumulated growth from the 1st to the 17th floor during such a short time.

And therefore Kiri Kiri had told me those words.

The 35th floor didn’t have any particular setting.

That meant there was no setting on the 17th floor that required my mirage to destroy the enemies in front of him.

Similarly, there was no setting that I should kill my mirage in order to get to the next floor.

“Don’t fight, since you cannot win.”

These were the words that I couldn’t respond.

I felt the shaking of the space.

Although it was the first time I felt such a thing, I clearly knew what it was.

It was the feeling of my body moving to another space.

The nerves that became extremely sensitive could even capture the feelings that couldn’t be noticed before.

My body, which was trapped in the cave of the dungeon, moved to the stone room of a temple that I had once visited.

Along with the newly changed landscape, I sensed something new.

It was a murderous intent that permeated through the sweat pores of the skin. Just by feeling it, I could feel the heavy madness that’s filling this space.

And there was also the mirage who looked exactly the same as me, exuding a fierce atmosphere.

[Round 24, Day 7. 17 Hours]

The 17th floor.

Sure enough, there was no message that should appear at the same time as my arrival.

The mirage in front of me didn’t have to kill me.

And I didn’t have to kill the mirage either.

However, look at him.

Look at the crazy man who pulled out the long sword when seeing me and smiled happily.

I didn’t know why Kiri Kiri had said it’s OK even if I didn’t fight him.

I knew why the mirage was so happy.

He was feeling excited.

Because there was a new stimulus after such a long time.

Because of the crisis of death.

I really didn’t like that smile, but there was also a similar smile on my face, so I decided not to pick holes.

I stood up.

Without saying anything.

I said nothing about the unexpected encounter with him.

I also said nothing about how he shared the same appearance as me.

There was no doubt that we had just vowed to kill each other and accepted it as the truth.

Looking at the mirage who took the first step towards me, I took out the things I had prepared beforehand.

The mana hidden around me suddenly unfolded. In the space between me and the mirage, the mana made a chain reaction.

There was no noise at all.

However, in an instant, there was an explosion that’s fierce enough to give hearing loss , but the mirage broke through it.

It was a move that I had expected.

I compressed my aura and shot it straight towards the mirage.

It was a kind of finger strike.

Due to the explosion created by mana, the mirage could not choose to evade to the side or the back.

*Flash*

The mirage disappeared instantly and then reappeared.

I punched at the position that I had predicted, and it landed on the face of the mirage.

The thickly-compressed mana exploded, and the body of the mirage was hit and flew far away.

* * *