Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Tutorial 2nd Floor, Waiting Room (Part 3)
[The 2nd attempt will commence.]
The 2nd attempt has begun.
As soon as the attempt started, the portal in the corner of the waiting room vanished.
Just like the beginning of the 1st attempt, it seemed like you had to stay the first 3 days within the waiting room.
With the combination of 3 days in the waiting room and 30 days to challenge the floor, it seemed like a total of 33 days were allowed per attempt.
To be able to prepare for another additional 3 days with no pressure was definitely good news.
There was still room for growth while in the waiting room.
As long as I devote myself to training instead of dozing off for the next three days, there should be significant improvements before entering the 2nd floor.
I had to prioritize my understanding and use of this body. This could probably be done through gym based exercises which would also improve my stats.
I was still in my baby steps for shield and sword wielding, not to mention I also had to get more familiar of using the Battle Concentration skill.
Improving my tolerance skills wasn’t a bad idea with the healing effects of the waiting room present.
However, my priority should still be to improve my general fitness and use of skills.
Hmm. Come to think of it, to try and improve my tolerance skills in the waiting room seemed like an amazing idea.
Could I improve my haemorrhage tolerance?
I mean, it will be healed before I bleed so maybe not.
But there shouldn’t be a problem trying to improve my tolerance for pain and piercing resistance.
With that, I decided to inflict self-harm in my break periods between training.
But I mean, I don’t know if it should be called a ‘break’ when I’m constantly gouging into my own flesh by myself.
[Time until Tutorial begins, 71 hours 50 minutes]
[h.e.l.l difficulty, Noticeboard (1/6)]
Huh?
I opened the Community tab to see if there was any new information but I saw something unexpected.
What?... A total of 6 people?
Unable to brush off the sudden shock, I stared at the number.
As I looked at the other Community chats of other difficulties, I could tell what had happened.
As the 2nd attempt had begun, new people had appeared in the 1st floor.
[Kim Kyung Jin, 2nd Floor : Yo, seems like there are new people on the 1st floor?]
[Lee Jin Seok, 1st Floor : Yeah, seems like more people were kidnapped when the 2nd attempt began. I’m here with the new people.]
[Kim Kyung Jin, 2nd Floor : Hey uh, did you not pa.s.s the 1st floor?]
[Lee Jin Seok, 1st Floor : Yeah f.u.c.ker.]
[Kim Kyung Jin, 2nd Floor : Why are you swearing?]
[Nam Seon Woo, 1st Floor : What is this... Ah, I’m going f.u.c.king crazy.]
[Lee Hee Jin, 1st Floor : This doesn’t feel like a dream, where am I? Why can I see weird things and who are these weird people...]
A flood of confused messages filled the Community tab quickly where the messages left by the 1st attempt players once were.
It was the completely same situation as the beginning of the 1st attempt.
Where is this? Who brought me here? What are these crazy messages?
These were questions that obviously had to be asked in a situation like this.
Likewise, questions like these couldn’t be answered.
When the 1st attempt had begun, no one in h.e.l.l difficulty wrote questions like that to try and find answers.
We knew there would be no sufficient answers.
With the leadership of Choi Min Sik, the 4 of us shared opinions and prepared for what would happen next.
It seemed like it was the same for the people in the 2nd attempt.
None of the five that entered
h.e.l.l difficulty wrote anything in the Community chat.
However, there was never knowing what was truly going in the waiting room of the 1st floor.
I couldn’t help but feel a little worried.
Even if they were having structured and constructive discussions about their future, they didn’t know the real danger of h.e.l.l difficulty.
I could easily predict their future.
A wipe out. Every single one of them would die.
As the sole survivor who cleared the 1st Floor of h.e.l.l difficulty, I was most certain of this.
[h.e.l.l difficulty, noticeboard (4/6)]
3 people from the 1st Floor entered the Community chat!
Without wasting time, I quickly wrote in the Community chat.
[Lee Ho Jae, 2nd Floor : New people of h.e.l.l difficulty, please write in the Community chat. Let’s talk]
There was no information regarding h.e.l.l difficulty throughout the entirety of the Community chat.
The only person that knew about it was me, and I didn’t write s.h.i.t.
As a result, the 1st Floor players could only get information about the floors from Hard difficulty or lower.
Survving h.e.l.l difficulty with only that type of information wasn’t rea.s.suring.
Actually, with information like that, they could be at more of a risk due to the misleading information.
And then they would just die.
[Lee Ho Jae, 2nd Floor : I got here in the 1st attempt. I am in h.e.l.l difficulty too. I will give you important information so please, answer me.]
But there was no response.
I found about direct 1:1 messaging while scanning the Community chat the other day. I was trying to give information to the people on the 1st Floor but how am I supposed to when they won’t even reply?
There wasn’t a listing of people or anything of the sort in the Community chat, so I couldn’t directly message anyone who hadn’t written a comment before.
I started chewing on my nails in anxiety for them.
Just why?
There was no reason to ignore me like this.
They were definitely in the Community chat.
It had definitely been a few minutes since they had entered this chat.
I couldn’t find a reason.
If I could find a reason I would be able to persuade them but, I just couldn’t.
[h.e.l.l difficulty, Noticeboard (1/6)]
Ah, f.u.c.k.
They left Community chat.
I had graded the intelligence of Kirikiri quite low when I saw its peak the other day.
But compared to the r.e.t.a.r.ds from the 1st Floor, Kirikiri was quite a smart bunny.
With frustration and rage, I disregarded what pity I had left for them and lifted my head up.
I literally tried spoon feeding them, all they had to do was chew and swallow.
But they didn’t even open their f.u.c.king mouths.
I did what I could.
What else could I do here?
On top of that, I was in a situation where I didn’t even have enough time to invest for myself anyway.
There was no purpose for me to waste my efforts into this.
d.a.m.n.
But it wasn’t right to just leave these people to die.
I thought for a long time.
Ah, f.u.c.king h.e.l.l.
I pondered for a moment and came up with only one answer.
I wrote about everything I knew about the traps in h.e.l.l difficulty in the Community chat.
I regretted this decision.
‘puff puff’
I was short of breath.
However, I couldn’t afford to stand and rest, there was no time.
From here, the only way to move forward was to tackle any obstacles head on.
I quickly bent my knees.
After, a quick forward roll.
As I stood up I tilted my body to the way I was facing and flew my body to the left.
This movement may be too stressful to your knees and my back, but I was able to perform this with no trouble.
I kept rolling to the side and as I stopped, I swung my shield to the left.
In situations like these where I come to a complete stop, I had to be careful of arrows flying behind me.
After quickly scanning my surroundings, I began to run again.
After dodging the last arrow that was heads towards your ankle, just keep a steady pace and you clear the trap.
‘Huaaa.’
I took deep long breaths to calm myself down.
Since a few days ago, I’ve been doing simulations of the trap right before the boss room of the 1st floor.
Although there was no pattern to it, the speed of the arrows fired and the sound of the arrows being fired were the same throughout.
There may have been quite a few differences with the actual trap since this was just a simulation, but it still helped me a lot in terms of training.
Even after a few attempts of my personal simulation, I didn’t get any severe injuries.
I was getting quite used to this body. With the blessing of the Wind Spirit, the additional dexterity stats it provided and the battle concentration active skill allowed me to improve greatly.
This self-a.s.surance didn’t come from just the simulations you know?
I knew that if I went back to the 1st floor, there would be a big difference. I would be able to clear it without any major injuries.
If I just concentrated on dodging the arrows with composure, clearing it would be a breeze.
Of course, I wasn’t too sure about this with the boss room though.
The thing about the boss room was that it wasn’t just about the wounds, if luck wasn’t on your side either, or even if you had a slight hindrance in your concentration you could just die in the lava.
I told myself to never let my guard down until I had the confidence to clear the 1st floor boss room... no, each and every boss room without any injuries. My training had to continue.
After one more attempt, I sat in place as a little break.
Of course I wasn’t just resting. I was constantly stabbing myself in the arm with a knife while reading the Community chat.
Unfortunately, none of my resistance skills had levelled up.
Maybe the waiting room didn’t allow for the levelling of these type of skills? Or Maybe I just didn’t do it enough, so I kept stabbing myself.
I should ask Kirikiri about this.
I mean, the 2nd attempt will begin soon.
There wasn’t any new information in the Community chat that was eye-opening.
No replies from the 1st Floor either.
There were a lot of reactions from people of different difficulties about my experiences of h.e.l.l difficulty.
Most of the reactions were along the lines of ‘What? For real? It was like that?’ or like ‘Lies. What a f.u.c.king liar’.
There was a chance that all the traps in the 2nd floor was different to the information I put up in the Community chat.
No matter what, they could at least tell how gruesome this difficulty was with the info I provided.
Please, believe in the information that I wrote.
I prayed for the safety and wellbeing of the new players on the 1st Floor of h.e.l.l.
This was all I could do for them.
I did what I thought was best.
I had no thought of doing more, and I couldn’t do more either.
[The Tutorial 2nd attempt will begin soon.]
[A portal will appear to enter the Tutorial stage.]
[Portal activated.]
[Enter the stage?]
It was time to focus on myself now, not anyone else.