Boundless Necromancer

Chapter 12: Trial of Competition (1)

「 Permanently increasing your stats using the doppelganger’s soul. 」 

「 Strength increased by 7. 」

「 Agility increased by 5. 」

「 Stamina increased by 4. 」

「 Mana increased by 7. 」

The same old, same old.

Until—

「 Acquiring skill ‘Physical Resistance (D)’ 」 

“…”

‘Physical resistance…?’

My head emptied for a second.

There was no question as to where this skill came from.

Dumfounded, I reread the messages on the screen.

「 Acquiring one of the doppelganger’s skills. 」 

“Was I always this lucky…?”

My life had been nothing but a series of unfortunate events up until now…

It was as if my reality was shattering.

When I came to my senses, I checked the details of my new skill.

「 Skill – Physical Resistance (D) 」 

「 Proficiency – 0% 」 

「 Effect – Gain resistance to all kinds of physical attacks. 」 

I didn’t know what gaining resistance meant but… 

I knew one thing for sure.

I’d acquired one of the best possible skills from the doppelganger.

Physical resistance was probably a property that the doppelganger’s body had.

It wasn’t too hard to theorize.

Still, more thoughts swarmed my head.

‘Just how good is this necromancy skill?’

If the E-rank effect was this strong, just what additional effects would it gain later?

“…”

I couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

At the same time, a small voice in the back of my head was telling me:

It would be a waste to stop here.

The impulse I felt when I first chose this difficulty overtook me again.

But… 

I couldn’t let it get to me.

Arrogance leads to carelessness and carelessness leads to a mistake.

This wasn’t a game so there would be no respawning if I died.

I needed to be careful.

After checking on all the rewards, I started moving again.

Then…

「 Moving to the waiting area. 」 

It was time to get out of this damn cave.

***

「 You have entered the 4th floor waiting room. 」

「 Healing all injuries and status ailments. 」

「 The healing effect is constantly applied in the waiting room. 」

The familiar message welcomed me to the waiting area.

“The 4th floor, huh…”

I got a funny feeling when I thought about the fact that I had gone through this 3 times already… 

And how much stronger I’d gotten throughout the trials.

「 You have entered the community. 」 

「 Difficulty – Hard 」 

 Ignoring the nostalgic feeling, my body already knew what to do.

「 Floor 4 Community (880/1508) 」 

• Kim Seunghoon: Hm, a decent amount of yall survived this time. Nice job yall.
• Oh Choonsuk: Nice job my ass. I can still feel my arm getting chopped off. Thank goodness for the waiting area.
• Lee Yongjin: Well we just need to get up 1 more floor to finally see some progress.
• Lee Seungjoon: Lmao. You still have to get up to the 8th anyway.
• Hyuk Sukjin: Fuck. How am I supposed to get to the 8th floor with this difficulty?

Complaints burst out as soon as I opened the community.

It makes sense though.

The 3rd trial was crazy difficult.

‘The 2nd floor wasn’t too bad as long as you knew how to use your head… but not the 3rd floor.’

But the mood in the community wasn’t as bad as I thought.

• Lee Yongjin: Back in my day, we just stuck through it no matter how hard it was.
• Hyun Sukjin: I can smell your dentures from all the way here.
• Kim Seunghoon: Lmao yall crazy.

It seems that only the more experienced people were left at this point.

People were even sharing some tips.

• Kim Seunghoon: I don’t recommend buying any items that require mana unless you have a mana related skill.
• Oh Choonsuk: Isn’t mana the most important thing for a hunter? You need it to use skills right?
• Kim Seunghoon: That’s what the noobies think. The most efficient basic skills like weapons skills don’t use mana.
• Oh Choonsuk: I already bought a mana item… Am I screwed?
• Kim Seunghoon: Nah, you’re good. Just focus on getting stat-related items now.
• Kang Sunwoo: I’m a hunter and what he’s saying is correct. They say that you can buy skills later so you can just get a mana skill then.
• Lee Hayeon: And if you want to get your old skills back faster, train after turning the auto-healing in the waiting area off.

A lot more tips came up afterward.

Of course, I already know most of it so I didn’t have to focus as much, but I still learned some good stuff.

‘Skill proficiency goes up after I turn off the auto-healing?’

Same with acquiring new skills.

There was a lot of interesting information.

• Hyun Sukjin: Oh yeah. There’s a way to get skills besides trial rewards and training.
• Kim Seunghoon: You mean the ones that the tower gives you?
• Hyun Sukjin: Oh, you already know about it?
• Kim Seunghoon: Yeah. I think it’s called an achievement.
• Lee Hayeon: Yeah, those things are great. I already got 2 from that.
• Hyun Sukjin: Damn… I just took od hits and it gave me a single resistance skill.
• Kim Seunghoon: Resistance skills get op after a while so make sure you train it.

I was wondering what the heat resistance was about.

‘I guess it’s built into the system.’

A system that rewarded you for achieving something.

There wasn’t any detailed information but I still learned a decent amount.

Even after 3 trials, the tower still managed to surprise me.

• Kim Seungjoon: There’s something I want to say about the 4th trial.

“…”

• Kim Seungjoon: The 4th trial isn’t individual like the others but some sort of group challenge.
• Oh Choonsuk: A group trial? What’s that? Some sort of special trial?
• Kim Seungjoon: Everyone here would be fanning the same trial.
• Oh Choonsuk: … Am I the only one who doesn’t understand?
• Kim Seunghoon: I don’t understand either. Pls explain.

As soon as one person mentioned the 4th trial, the community couldn’t stop thinking about it.

• Kim Seungjoon: I found out some information about the 4th trial using my questions.

This is what he said:

He’d been using his questions to find out information about every upcoming trial.

And as always, he asked the administrator about the 4th trial.

• Kim Seungjoon: According to the admin, the 4th trial is a group trial.

Basically, all the challengers on the 4th floor would be going through the trial together. 

• Kim Seungjoon: 30 people will be grouped together and placed in the same trial.

Something unthinkable to the challengers.

There was no collaboration whatsoever until now… 

But the 4th trial would be different.

• Kim Seungjoon: That’s why I’m telling everyone.
• Oh Choonsuk: My good deeds have come back to reward me.
• Kim Seunghoon: Shut up for a second.
• Lee Hayeon: It’s still interesting to know that we’ll be facing the next trial together.
• Han Jinyong: But that could mean it will be 30 times harder to clear… Fuck.

Some people speculated that difficulty would spike because of all the people, while others said that collaboration would make the trials a little easier.

• Kim Seungjoon: This probably won’t be a trial where we collaborate though.
• Kim Seungjoon: The objective of this trial is ‘competition’ so we might have to fight each other.

The trial was definitely pitting us against each other.

I didn’t know if this would be an outright battle royale but… 

Whether or not the trial made us kill each other or not, anyone who lost would be killed by the penalty anyway.

We’d be fighting each other, even if it was just to stay alive.

• Kim Seungjoon: I didn’t get all the details but here’s what I know.

We’d be put into teams of 3 and work towards a common objective.

The teams would be formed randomly by the tower.

• Kim Seungjoon: I couldn’t figure out anything more since I ran out of questions.
• Kim Seungjoon: If anyone has more information please share it.

But people stopped talking after that.

I didn’t know who would use their questions to find out any additional information but…

‘There’s no way someone would share that information like before.’

Everyone must have figured out the situation by now.

I didn’t know why the initial challenger even told us what he knew.

Did he not realize what this information would do to the community?

‘No way.’

Still, there was no point in deliberating on why he told us.

It didn’t seem like a lie but there’s no way to tell.

‘If it’s true, we’d have to fight each other… like it or not.’

This was different from all the other trials where you had to kill monsters.

The gravity of having to commit murder weighed down on the community.

The losers would die and the winners would move on to the next floor.

“…”

I stared at the frozen chat screen and got lost in my thoughts.

Could I really kill someone for my own benefit?

‘I don’t know…’

But that didn’t mean I’d lay down and let them walk all over me.

In the end, I’d have to act to save my own life.

So…

I knew what I had to do to survive. 

I had to review my rewards and prepare for the upcoming fight.

Nothing had changed.

I had to prepare for and overcome the next trial.

That was all.