BFBT 11

Chapter 11

“Is it you? Are you the cause of this situation?”

“Hmm… And who might you be? Asking so abruptly leaves me with no idea what you’re talking about.”

Cha Yu-min glared at him.

The fact that they could communicate, paired with an attitude that suggested he knew everything despite his playing dumb—was this man truly the 1st-floor boss? Or was he a unique entity produced by the Tower? Was this entire 1st-floor crisis some kind of special event?

“…I am Cha Yu-min. Who are you?”

He was starkly different from the boss Cha Yu-min had brushed past when he first climbed the Tower.

A relaxed demeanor. A leisurely tone and a clear voice. Deep, penetrating eyes. And above all, a dense concentration of mana.

It was impossible to view him as the same boss from back then. Though they shared the same physical appearance, everything else about him belonged to an entirely different person.

Cha Yu-min altered his approach. He instinctively felt that treating this man like a mere monster would be a mistake.

Only then did the opponent display a satisfied expression.

“Now you’re finally ready to have a proper conversation. I am Lee Shin.”

“Lee Shin?”

It sounded distinctly like a Korean name. Cha Yu-min’s confusion deepened.

“Well then, shall we test your skills after all this time?”

After all this time?

Cha Yu-min didn’t have room to dwell on the thought.

The casting speed was on a completely different level from that of the Skeleton Mage. The instant mana was detected, an explosion detonated in midair.

“Kuh—!”

“Too slow.”

This was not an opponent against whom he could afford to hold back. Cha Yu-min immediately unleashed his shadows.

Shadows surging from the black floor engulfed his body.

“Ho? Full power right from the start?”

Cha Yu-min did not answer. Once he committed his full power, he had to settle things swiftly.

Shadow Style.Phantom Cleave.

Dark blades of shadow sword-qi sliced across Lee Shin’s field of vision, submerging his sight into a realm of pure darkness.

Phantom Cleave, huh.It’s been a while.

Rather than feeling a sense of crisis, Lee Shin found himself reminiscing as he looked at the technique—recalling the final image of Cha Yu-min climbing the Tower alongside him in his past life.

— Hyung… — Yu-min.

Within that pitch-black world, Cha Yu-min’s Phantom Cleave had struck down the demon, even as the demon’s claws pierced straight through Cha Yu-min’s chest.

Cha Yu-min lay collapsed on the ground, coughing up blood. Arriving a step too late, Lee Shin rushed to his fallen side. Pressing down on the mortal wound to stem the flow of internal organs, Lee Shin looked at his face.

It had been a face of peaceful relief.

— Please, Hyung… make it to the top of the Tower. — Yu-min. — The dream I couldn’t finish… please carry it on for me…… — Yu-min!

His eyes had closed, and his voice was heard no more.

I’m sorry.I’m so sorry……

Lee Shin’s voice continued to echo endlessly through that tragic battlefield.

[Skill: Unforgetting is Active.]

Every single memory from his past life flashed through his mind—even the ones he had desperately wanted to forget.

The shadows enveloping the darkness disturbed Lee Shin’s vision, gradually tightening their siege around him. They were the very same shadows he had seen countless times in his past life.

Countering and breaking through these shadows was no difficult task for Lee Shin, yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it effortlessly.

Seeing how Lee Shin blocked every spell while reading the trajectory of the shadow attacks as if predicting the future, Cha Yu-min’s eyes turned cold and sharp.

Yet deep within Lee Shin’s eyes, the outcome of this battle didn’t seem to matter at all. The way Lee Shin simply humored him wounded Cha Yu-min’s pride slightly, but it also forced him to grow even calmer.

At some point, the shadow sword ceased its attacks.

“Why… why aren’t you attacking?”

“……”

“Why do you have that look on your face?”

“……”

No answer came to mind.

Why was he acting like this? The Cha Yu-min standing before him was not the Cha Yu-min of the past.

“Are you happy right now?”

It was an out-of-the-blue question. Cha Yu-min couldn’t fathom its underlying intent.

“……I am… happy.”

“I see.”

Lee Shin nodded. It was a satisfactory answer.

Dark mana flared at his fingertips. It was time to put an end to this drawn-out clash.

Deep Flare.

A harmony of deep darkness and blazing flame—a fusion of dual attributes. The fire burned intensely, yet its light remained suppressed.

An abyss darker than shadow filled the space, enveloping Cha Yu-min in an explosive inferno.

Rumble—!

The cavern quaked, and the ground trembled violently. Debris rained down from the ceiling, scattering black-tinged stone fragments in all directions.

His entire body charred black as if stricken by a curse, Cha Yu-min collapsed in front of Lee Shin.

“Take him away.”

“Huh? Ah, yes sir!”

It took a moment for the three onlookers to process what had just happened; the sight far exceeded their comprehension.

By the time they pieced the situation together, Cha Yu-min was already lying unconscious on the ground, while the 1st-floor boss—the Necromancer—looked down at him with sorrowful eyes.

Cha Yu-min regained consciousness the moment he was sent back to the 1st-floor waiting room.

Because the waiting room restored all abnormal status conditions, he quickly assessed his situation the instant he opened his eyes. He had lost to the 1st-floor boss and had been expelled back to the waiting area.

Just as the others had said, the boss had not killed him.

Even after recovering, Cha Yu-min remained rooted in place for a long time, lost in thought.

By clearing the 80th floor, he had acquired the skill [Inter-Floor Traveler]. However, it came with a constraint: his stats were normalized to match the average stats of the challengers on whichever floor he visited.

Even so, given his vast arsenal of elite skills and items, he had believed it impossible to lose to a 1st-floor boss, regardless of its strength.

Yet he had lost. Absurdly, hopelessly lost. He had been utterly overwhelmed.

He had expected the challengers in the 1st-floor waiting room to be only slightly stronger than ordinary humans—people who could hardly be called superhumans. Naturally, he assumed his own stats under [Inter-Floor Traveler] would be adjusted to that modest level.

However, the average stats of the challengers here far exceeded anything he had envisioned. How could anyone possibly consider this a mere 1st-floor waiting room? That meant his own adjusted stats were correspondingly higher—more than enough to defeat a standard boss.

“Ha……”

When was the last time he had been defeated so helplessly?

The man had predicted every single strike, casting counter-magic as if fending off the most telegraphed attacks imaginable.

How was that even possible?

If his shadow strikes were truly as simple and predictable as a novice’s, he wouldn’t even be wrestling with these thoughts. The shadow sword was inherently sneaky, fluid, and erratic.

Cha Yu-min had no choice but to acknowledge the vast chasm between them.

What on earth is his true identity?

Throughout the fight, the man’s eyes had been filled with deep remorse. What thoughts had consumed him? Why did he fall into such reflection specifically while fighting him?

Cha Yu-min wanted to hear his story. What kind of past had caused such hesitation? Because he had hesitated—he had hesitated to truly harm Cha Yu-min.

“It looks like my stay here is going to be longer than expected.”

“You’re back again?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you just give it a rest?” Lee Shin said, his tone laced with annoyance.

“I can’t stay long anyway. Just bear with me for a few days.”

At Cha Yu-min’s resolute stance, Lee Shin shook his head in resignation.

“Ha… It’s not like I can just send May or Worri to deal with you every time… Tsk.”

“This time, please refrain from using magic above the 2nd Circle.”

Lee Shin stared at him, dumbfounded.

“You crazy bastard, you’re getting bolder by the second. You want me to use only 1st Circle magic?”

“Yes.”

“Why should I?”

“Originally, the 1st-floor boss only used Dark Arrow.”

“Ha…… Did you put armor plating over your face? Do I look like that guy to you?”

“Technically, you are that guy.”

He wasn’t wrong.

I am that guy. Sly bastard, resorting to cheap facts.

“Do the people outside know you’re like this?”

“They do not.”

“The number one ranker is a complete lunatic… The world is truly going to hell. People outside need to find out about this.”

“That will not happen.”

Of course it won’t. That’s just the kind of guy you are.

“Fine, whatever. Do you really think you can win if I only use basic magic?”

“No, but at least I won’t lose so miserably.”

“Tsk. I heard you reached the 80th floor this time?”

“Yes. By any chance, do you know anything about the upcoming floors?”

Cha Yu-min’s face lit up the moment Lee Shin brought up the topic, prompting him to ask immediately.

“Of course I do. Didn’t I tell you I’m your senior?”

“Ah, that……”

Lee Shin constantly claimed that he was their grand senior who had already climbed all 100 floors, demanding to be treated with proper respect.

Of course, Cha Yu-min knew Lee Shin’s combat power was monstrous, but he had suspected that once his own stat restrictions were lifted, he could easily win. He had initially written off Lee Shin’s claims as mere bravado.

Yet, spending time around him, the occasional insights and knowledge Lee Shin dropped regarding the Tower were far too profound to be fake. From what others mentioned, Lee Shin even knew things that Cha Yu-min himself was completely ignorant of.

“Do you want to know about the next floor?”

“Yes!”

Obtaining information about the next floor in advance offered an immeasurable advantage for any clear strategy. A single piece of intel was worth more than gold.

It made Cha Yu-min wonder if the Tower had granted him [Inter-Floor Traveler] for this exact reason. He had sought a way to resolve the 1st-floor disappearance crisis while preparing for future floor conquests, and the reward had been that very skill.

He had thought it was tied solely to the disappearance anomaly, but to think he could actually acquire information about the upper floors here!

“If you defeat me, I’ll tell you.”

“Pardon?”

“Did your ears stop working? I said beat me. I’ll only use basic magic.”

Cha Yu-min’s fighting spirit surged fiercely.

And then…

He lost.

Again.

The reporters in the press room were focusing with extreme intensity, determined not to miss a single word, tone, or nuance from Cha Yu-min.

“While I cannot disclose the exact details of the ability, I used it to travel directly to the 1st-floor waiting room.”

The moment Cha Yu-min paused, the hall erupted with the clatter of frantic typing.

“Every single challenger who entered the Tower was there. Not a single person was missing.”

Click! Clack! Click! Clack!

“That place was no longer the 1st-floor waiting room I once knew. What used to be a vast open plain had transformed into a small town. People were living there—building a community within the waiting area. There were houses, restaurants selling food, clothing shops, and even parks and lakes where people took peaceful strolls.”

Disbelief washed over the faces of the audience.

“So I asked them: Why aren’t you climbing? What happened here? And they answered me. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t climb—it was that they couldn’t. That is why a town was built there.”

As soon as Cha Yu-min finished speaking, journalists raised their hands all across the room. Several tried to blurt out questions in excitement, but found themselves rendered mute by an invisible force.

The Association President!

Everyone instantly recognized whose power it was: Telekinesis, belonging to Jeon Jae-yong, President of the Korean Challenger Association. He was restraining the reporters from interrupting.

“I immediately attempted to slay the 1st-floor boss to liberate the people held captive there. And so, I ascended to the 1st floor and confronted the boss.”

Gulp—

The press hall fell so dead silent that the sound of swallows echoed clearly.

This was the core of the matter. If his words were true, this wasn’t a simple mass disappearance; the 1st-floor boss had undergone a terrifying surge in strength. If the difficulty of the Korean server had shifted so drastically, there was a high probability that other nations’ Towers would follow suit.

Had Cha Yu-min slain the boss and freed the trapped challengers? How strong was this boss? What kind of powers did it possess?

Questions burned in everyone’s minds.

“I lost. To that boss.”

Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!

A torrential barrage of camera shutters erupted the moment the words left his mouth.

The statement was nothing short of catastrophic. The highest-climbing challenger in the world, the undisputed Rank 1 of South Korea—had lost to a mere 1st-floor boss.

“This is Reina from ACN! Does this mean the 1st floor in Korea can never be cleared again?!”

At the sudden shout, all eyes snapped toward her.

Jeon Jae-yong shot a glare toward an American ranker standing in the corner of the room. The ranker feigned ignorance of Jeon Jae-yong’s glare while keeping his eyes fixed on Cha Yu-min, having secretly dispelled the telekinetic silence on his country’s reporter.

“You don’t need to answer that. You—”

“It’s alright. Reporter Reina, you asked if it can never be cleared. Yes, that is correct. No one can defeat the boss residing there.”

The sound of keyboards clattering reached a fever pitch. Reina smiled in satisfaction as her fingers flew across her keyboard.

“John from Raynerd News! Does this mean you believe there is no future left for the Korean Tower?!”

“Haig from Hestige! Are you planning to transfer to another country’s server now?!”

Triggered by Reina’s question, a torrent of hostile inquiries flooded the room. Jeon Jae-yong attempted to intervene and shut them down, but Cha Yu-min subtly signaled for him to step back.

Taking advantage of the moment, foreign journalists began churning out malicious articles painting Korea in the worst light possible. By Cha Yu-min’s own admission, Korea had no future and faced only downward spiraling ruin.

Yet, despite the bleak atmosphere, Cha Yu-min looked at them with a relaxed composure and continued.

“Right now, some of you are writing articles declaring the downfall of Korea, proclaiming that the Korean Tower is finished.”

The reporters flinched, their eyes locking onto him once more.

Indeed, many had been penning exactly that. Especially reporters from nations eager to undermine Korea, who were typing with furious glee.

“Many of you believe that no one should step into the Korean Tower starting next year. Let me make this clear: To the people of Korea, I strongly urge you—enter the Tower without fail.”

Surprise rippled through the audience.

“Currently, people view Korea’s overall standing as barely making the top ten globally. And many are likely assuming Korea will now plunge out of the rankings entirely. Let me make a declaration today: Within three years, Korea will reach the absolute top—and no one will ever catch up to us again.”

Not only the journalists, but even Jeon Jae-yong standing beside him turned to look at Cha Yu-min in sheer astonishment.

Cha Yu-min had never spoken like this before. Not when he conquered the 50th, 60th, or 70th floors. He had never made such arrogant statements. He had always been humble, keeping a low profile.

“Furthermore, the 1st floor will be broken within one year. Which means you have only one year left.”

“One year left for what?!” a reporter shouted, unable to contain their frustration.

Jeon Jae-yong had already completely withdrawn his telekinetic suppression over the press.

Cha Yu-min looked straight into the cameras.

“One year left for you to establish good relations with Korea. Think carefully. You have one year.”