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]

[Hell 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 pass the 1st floor?]

[Lee Jin Seok, 1st Floor : Yeah fucker . ]

[Kim Kyung Jin, 2nd Floor : Why are you swearing?]

[Nam Seon Woo, 1st Floor : What is this… Ah, I’m going fucking 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 Hell 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 Hell 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 Hell 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 Hell difficulty, I was most certain of this .

[Hell 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 Hell difficulty, please write in the Community chat . Let’s talk]

There was no information regarding Hell difficulty throughout the entirety of the Community chat .

The only person that knew about it was me, and I didn’t write shit .

As a result, the 1st Floor players could only get information about the floors from Hard difficulty or lower .

Survving Hell difficulty with only that type of information wasn’t reassuring .

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 Hell 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 .

[Hell difficulty, Noticeboard (1/6)]

Ah, fuck .

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 retards 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 fucking 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 .

Damn .

But it wasn’t right to just leave these people to die .

I thought for a long time .

Ah, fucking hell .

I pondered for a moment and came up with only one answer .

I wrote about everything I knew about the traps in Hell 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-assurance 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 Hell difficulty .

Most of the reactions were along the lines of ‘What? For real? It was like that?’ or like ‘Lies . What a fucking 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 Hell .

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 .