Chapter 443: Ninety-Third Floor, Waiting Room (1)

The Community of the Dead, on the ninety-second floor.

[Light Su-Hyeok]

[Let’s pray for Light Su-Hyeok, who’s out here hard-carrying our chances of revival yet again.]

[Sumen—]

[Sumen.]

[SUMEN!!]

[Just... sumen vibes...]

[✨Light Su-Hyeok! Light Su-Hyeok! Light Su-Hyeok!✨]

[Yo believers, keep it down during service.]

[Sumen.]

[SUMEN!!]

[Su-Hyeok GOAT! Su-Hyeok GOAT! Su-Hyeok GOAT!]

[Stay chill while we’re praying... repay Light Su-Hyeok’s grind with faith. Sumen—]

[Sumen.]

[SUMEN!!]

[Light Su-Hyeok! Be my main! Light Su-Hyeok! Be my main!]

[Bro, STFU during prayer.]

[Lmaoooooo.]

[That’s a heretic!!]

[Boot the nonbeliever!!]

[These mfers tweaking 💀]

[Lmaooooooooo!]

[Ngl I’m dead 😂]

[They’re actually hitting max hype cuz the resurrection arc is close rn.]

[Mom! When I grow up, I’m gonna be Su-Hyeok! Mom! When I grow up, I’m gonna be Su-Hyeok!]

[Sumen.]

***

[95 hours 46 minutes until the rest period ends. Please take a rest.]

Eternal Feast’s debts truly startled me; there were easily over several thousand. Most seemed like minor obligations based on how weak they were. Scattered among them, though, were ones that contained tremendous power.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t discern their precise scale. Nor was it clear who the contracts were with. It felt as if that information was intentionally concealed. Perhaps it was because I was still a climber.

Just like in earlier trials, something this divine could only be fully wielded after conquering the tower. Well, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising after all—it made sense considering his title. Eternal Feast had ruled over a hub of hedonism for gods for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Even if he had made only one deal each year, the tally would still number in the thousands.

The contracts were unusable for now, but they would surely become a great boon one day. I had many enemies, after all.

Another thought occurred to me.

Did the tower intervene?

To be honest, Eternal Feast’s meddling with causality was something that had confused me. Judging by the number of contracts—regardless of how long it took him to get them—he possessed a methodical nature. Therefore, it struck me as odd that a third-class god, far from low in standing, would recklessly give in to greed.

Of course, desire was a frightening emotion, not so easily judged. I didn’t truly know Eternal Feast’s character, and it could be that after thousands of years of waiting, he had finally succumbed to it.

Surely, the moment he touched causality, he would have anticipated the tower’s hand would reach for him.

The timing is too perfect.

On the verge of conquering the tower, it felt as if I had been granted a reward for what lay beyond. I couldn’t help but become suspicious, although I didn’t think it was a trap. If the tower was truly trying to set me up, then it had started the ploy all the way back on the thirty-fourth floor.

The thirty-fourth floor and the ninety-second. I couldn’t even imagine how intricate the tower’s plan was if that were the case.

Although if the tower is capable of manipulating the gods’ minds, it would have done so long ago.

Moreover, it wouldn’t have had to resurrect me through Ha Hee-Jeong’s resurrection. Perhaps the causality on the thirty-fourth floor wasn’t such a grand scheme after all, but merely bait left dangling. Bait meant to tempt Eternal Feast. During the reclamation of the laboratory, the tower could have deliberately allowed him to discover that information, then ignored it afterward. If anything, that explanation made the most sense to me.

Thinking along those lines, the meager reinforcements Eternal Feast received could also have been due to the tower’s influence.

There wasn’t enough time for Thunder Axe to learn of it and intervene. Although the tower and Thunder Axe seem to be aligned.

It wasn’t of great importance. I had survived the trial, and if both the tower and Thunder Axe were helping me, all the better. Nothing had caused me lasting harm. Even though Eternal Fierce had blasted a hole through my chest, I had fully recovered. Along with the debts, I had inherited Eternal Feast’s vast reserves of divinity and causality.

The divinity pouring in from Earth and the climbers were a bonus, and I had successfully mastered cutting with will as well.

It is called the Heart Sword, right?

Because the tower hadn’t teleported me to the waiting room, I had used the time to say my farewells. Wan had declared how much of an honor it was to witness the Heart Sword firsthand, having only ever seen his own god use it.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the best term. His god wielded a sword, so “Heart Sword” fit, but I used an axe. Technically, it should have been called Heart Axe. Either way, Heart Sword sounded better, so I decided to call it that.

Heart Axe feels... awkward, strange somehow.

I stopped my pondering and rose to my feet. After returning to the waiting room, I had taken only a brief shower before heading straight for the spring. The waters of the training springs rippled softly as I exited them. Now, after roughly drying off, I put on a new set of climbing clothes and stretched.

Having fought a god and bathed in the spring, I felt lighter and stronger. The spring had worked perfectly.

Satisfied, I gripped Soulbound.

The tower had allotted me four days to rest. Perhaps because my opponent had been a god, it had given me a generous amount of time. I already had a rough plan of how I would spend that time. I would refine the Heart Sword further and grow more accustomed to using causality. Just as I had once failed to properly regulate divinity, I still tended to waste causality as well.

It was a precious power, one I couldn’t squander. Thankfully, Seorden’s Forest would replenish it to a degree.

Closing my eyes, I recalled my battle against Eternal Feast.

***

For the first time in a long while, I opened the Community. It wasn’t to check new posts or interact with other climbers. No one other than me could access the Community, so it had remained frozen.

With nothing else to do, I was simply passing the time. To be precise, I was scrolling through the Community to posts from before the nineteenth floor. It had always been full of praise for me. It hadn’t started out that way. Back on the lower floors, jealousy, envy, and insults far outweighed compliments.

Because I had taken longer to clear the tutorial, everyone had been forced to wait for me on the fifth floor. Climbers had raged, exclaiming that I was holding everyone back.

Looking back, it was absurd. To some extent, though, I could understand.

They didn’t know I had it harder.

The standard tutorial wasn’t especially difficult to clear. To them, it would have been annoying that the last to arrive sat at the top of the rankings. Additionally, like always, the silent but disgruntled majority made their voices heard louder than those without complaint.

Anyway, public opinion gradually shifted. The first time I received praise was on the sixth floor, when I rescued another party from the corrupted Seraphim Queen. I had felt a touch embarrassed back then. Some called it a lie while others dismissed it, saying anyone could have done it.

I hadn’t cared. The number one climber would always be met with envy and jealousy. Moreover, with a million climbers, it would have been stranger if there hadn’t been haters.

After that, I scrolled through the posts from the following party floors and individual floors, which had passed with little incident. From the fourteenth floor onward, however, my reputation changed dramatically. It began with the Defense of the Drina River.

I had held the river against an army of over a million and driven back a colossal dragon. Afterward, I had saved countless climbers during the march toward the fortress, and topped it off by defending the stronghold alongside the climbers from other species. I even slew a dragon, though the memory of running across the plains with Turen stood out to me more.

In the first few floors after the twentieth, I had fought Stagnant Terror and his minions to rescue Azure Dawn Breeze, while on the all-climber floors in the thirties, I had worked as an intermediary between the humans and elves.

Step by step, my influence grew. Eventually, climbers could no longer compare themselves to me.

Hmm.

I was spending too long caught in nostalgia, but I wanted to focus on how the Community had become filled with praise for me as I climbed—of course, I already knew that. Though I had rarely checked it, the higher we climbed, I glanced at it from time to time.

I hadn’t realized to what extent the adulation had grown, however.

[Lately, I’m low-key living just to watch Light Su-Hyeok.]

[Ngl same. I’ve been grinding ever since I started watching Su-Hyeok the GOAT.]

[Real talk, as long as we somehow clutch our individual floors, Su-Hyeok’s gonna hard-carry the whole squad.]

[Honestly, I was half ready to give up, but now I’m sweating it out training fr fr.]

[Almighty Kwon Su-Hyeok, protect me with your eternal Light... Almighty Kwon Su-Hyeok, protect me with your eternal Light... Almighty Kwon Su-Hyeok, protect me with your eternal Light...]

[Lmao, he really said we’re clearing the hundredth floor and going back to Earth.]

[Floor 100, here we come~]

[Elon Su-Hyeok 💀]

[Elon Su-Hyeok?? Bro’s actually wilding.]

[Lol nah, call him Kwon Su-Hyeok-X.]

There were plenty of playful posts, but honestly, it was still surprising. There was far more praise than I expected. It felt closer to worship. Even climbers I had met face-to-face had posted such content in the Community, and it left me a little unsettled.

Of course, the Shadow Su-Hyeok fan club has been like that, even in person.

Thankfully, the majority hadn’t.

I had thought the majority of climbers trusted me because I treated people warmly and with humanity, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Looking back, I saw that I had been someone everyone could put their faith in, an object of devotion.

Though I received a ridiculous amount of divine energy from climbers—of exceptional quality, too—I hadn’t realized this was how many felt. Yes, some of the posts were lighthearted, so perhaps they acted that way so that I wouldn’t feel burdened.

It was common knowledge among climbers that I didn’t check the Community often. Knowing that, they had likely hidden their reverence when facing me in person.

I was only speculating, but it seemed very likely.

Even if she never said it outright, Ha Hee-Jeong had devoted tremendous effort to maintaining my state of mind. She even kept in touch with the Shadow Su-Hyeok fan club. I would bet that she had asked the other climbers to hold back as well.

Not that the Shadow Su-Hyeok fan club members are the sort to restrain themselves.

In any case, seeing those posts did lift my spirits. The human brain was wired around reward systems, after all.

For me, training, growth, and trials were the foundation of that system, but praise and trust produced a similar effect. They were dedicated only to me, and by now I was learning to enjoy them in my own way.

In the end, it was for my own sake, Ha Hee-Jeong, Earth, and everyone’s future.

Should I get up?

I still had about twenty minutes left of my planned rest, but after reading posts like that, I didn’t feel like lying down. I would need to move my schedule forward a bit. Meeting with Natalie came before training. I intended to learn about the hidden truths surrounding Eternal Feast and how I could use these contracts.

Activating Two-Way Portal, I got up and walked through it.

Huh?

As soon as I crossed through the blue-gold portal, the sight startled me. The garden was gone. Where there had once been three differently styled gardens, there was now only a snowy field. The space had been warm and welcoming during my last visit, but out of nowhere, winter had come.

It reminded me of the first time I met Natalie. After all, that floor had been named “The Ice Castle’s Princess.”

Amid the white snowfield, Natalie stood waiting in a neat black coat, smiling. “You worked hard.”

“Hard? Not really. But what happened to the garden?”

“You were going through so much, so I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy the flowers alone.”

“

Hmm?

No... I don’t mind, really.” I scratched my cheek.

The thought was touching, but it actually left me feeling more uncomfortable.

Natalie laughed shyly. “I felt uncomfortable, that’s all. Please understand.”

“Even so, this makes me feel guilty.”

“I like winter too. Can’t we just call it a change of mood?”

It occurred to me that her statement contradicted something she had said earlier, but I didn’t bother pointing it out. Debating it wouldn’t help anyone. She had done it for my sake, and it was better to simply feel grateful.

I cleared my throat and shifted the subject, “There’s something I wanted to ask.”

“About the contracts you received from Eternal Feast, right? Don’t worry about those. I’ll take care of them.”