The Player that Can’t Level Up

Gi-Gyu studied the door that led to the 90th floor.

“Why don’t you rest a bit?” Tae-Shik suggested. He could feel Gi-Gyu’s aura had changed a bit, and Tae-Shik could also feel an unfamiliar energy inside him.

‘Behind that door, on the 90th floor, there is Lee Sun-Ho,’ thought Tae-Shik worriedly. He knew Gi-Gyu meeting Lee Sun-Ho would lead to something bad.

“I think we should take a break here for a while,” Tae-Shik insisted, much more firmly this time.

“I agree with him.”

“Grandmaster, I believe it’s a good idea too.”

Go Hyung-Chul and Haures approached Gi-Gyu as well and agreed with Tae-Shik. It was hard to tell if Gi-Gyu had planned to rest anyway or if his creatures had convinced him, but he ultimately nodded. Tae-Shik, Go Hyung-Chul, and Haures brightened in relief.

Gi-Gyu looked away from the door and turned toward Kang Ji-Hee and the Angela Guild members. With them was a man Gi-Gyu hadn’t expected to see standing. It was Deputy Guild Master Lim Hyun-Soo who had woken up the day they had entered the 89th floor.

Gi-Gyu walked toward them and called out, “Deputy Guild Master Kang Ji-Hee.”

He also addressed Lim Hyun-Soo, “And Deputy Guild Master Lim Hyun-Soo, may we chat for a moment?”

Kang Ji-Hee replied, “All right, but Deputy Guild Master Lim Hyun-Soo is still not doing well, so please give him a little time.”

“Okay, go ahead. I wanted to rest before entering the 90th floor anyway.”

Kang Ji-Hee nodded to thank Gi-Gyu. Gi-Gyu turned toward Lim Hyun-Soo. Their eyes met, but Lim Hyun-Soo still looked dazed; his eyes remained blank. Gi-Gyu turned away, realizing that Oh Tae-Shik was right. They all needed time to rest before entering the 90th floor.

‘I need to organize my thoughts.’ Thousands of years of memories had been injected into Gi-Gyu. In fact, there were two sets of memories, and it was difficult to determine the amount of information they contained. The aftermath of such a forceful injection was greater than anyone could have had imagined.

‘This must be the side effect of the sync ability…’ Gi-Gyu remembered how something similar had driven Jupiter to insanity. He could retain his consciousness for now, but he could feel overwhelming confusion slowly setting in.

‘Who… am I…?’ Gi-Gyu began to question his identity. Was he really Gi-Gyu? Or was he now Lou, El, or any other one of his Egos?

***

“Haa…” Lou sighed deeply. He was killing his enemies by the thousands, but those black monsters just kept coming back from the dead.

Lou muttered, “It’s just like before. I’m so sick of it.”

No matter how many times he killed these monsters, they returned. He had experienced something similar many times before. It was annoying that he, the former hell king, was having such difficulty, but this was no time for self-pity. He looked ahead to see Koios, the traitor of the great Titans, fighting fearlessly. Titans had gone extinct now, but they once ruled an entire dimension. Koios was drowning in those black monsters, but he didn’t seem to care that the monsters were destroying his body.

“Tsk.” Lou clicked his tongue and raised his hand toward Koios to pulverize all the monsters on top of him.

“Kwarrrk!” Koios nodded toward Lou in thanks.

The situation in the other areas of the battlefield was even worse. They hadn’t experienced any casualties yet, thanks to El, but most of their allies looked exhausted.

‘And that old man sure is doing well,’ Lou thought in surprise as he watched Oh Tae-Gu and the other players fighting together. Oh Tae-Gu was so powerful that he managed to impress Lou.

‘But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.’ Lou knew that Oh Tae-Gu was special. He was one of the special few who knew about Lou and El’s forgotten memories. He was obviously one of Gaia’s chosen ones.

Lou moved on autopilot, continuously killing monsters effortlessly while thinking about the memories he had recovered.

‘Gehenna…’ They were inside Chaos' stomach. Chaos was asleep in the Tower’s basement, and Gehenna was Chaos’s stomach. It was a world of confusion born inside Chaos. Kronos, Lou, El, and many other powerful figures had gotten trapped here after God’s death.

The rules inside Gehenna were different from the outside world. It was such a different world that two insanely powerful individuals, Lou and El, had failed to change it all that much. The main reason they could escape Gehenna the last time was thanks to Gaia.

‘If it wasn’t for her, the world might have ended already,’ Lou thought with a shiver. But Gaia had changed. When this war is over, they would learn the truth for certain. Lou knew that the Gaia, who had suppressed Kronos to save the world, no longer existed.

‘We need to hurry.’ Lou felt impatient to leave this place. The final battle was around the corner, and he needed to be there for it. Lou looked up at El, who was far away in the sky.

‘Not yet,’ Lou communicated to her. El was currently looking for Gehenna’s warden, Uranus—a normal human whom Kronos had turned into a monster. He was currently hibernating.

Just then, Lou heard El’s voice in his head.

‘Please get ready.’

Lou grinned and stretched his tired body before nodding. He could feel that Uranus was coming.

“Everyone, get back and focus on defense!” Lou shouted at the soldiers of Pandemonium.

***

Everyone gathered on the 89th floor in front of the door that led to the 90th floor. Gi-Gyu and a few other figures took the lead while Fenrir and the rest stood behind them.

“Please give me a moment.” When Gi-Gyu raised his hand, several chairs emerged from the ground. The ground had deformed to create these chairs, and everyone stared in shock.

Oh Tae-Shik’s eyes widened as he asked, “You can do things like that now, Gi-Gyu?”

While they were apart, Gi-Gyu had changed significantly. He was much stronger and more efficient at using his power. Oh Tae-Shik believed that, right now, Gi-Gyu might be the strongest human in the world.

“All I did was use my magic to change the shape of the ground. It’s nothing.” Gi-Gyu explained nonchalantly, but Kang Ji-Hee took one look at it and turned rigid.

How could anyone think it’s not a big deal to have such control over their magic?

Everyone sat on a chair, realizing they might be in for a long conversation. As soon as he sat down, Gi-Gyu looked at Kang Ji-Hee quietly.

Kang Ji-Hee seemed flustered because she looked down. Soon, she heard Gi-Gyu’s voice.

“We’re about to enter the 90th floor.” It may have sounded like Gi-Gyu was talking to everyone, but that sentence was directed at Kang Ji-Hee and Lim Hyun-Soo. Lee Sun-Ho was on the 90th floor, and Gi-Gyu had reminded the Angela Guild members of that. Kang Ji-Hee and Lim Hyun-Soo turned tense as they looked at Gi-Gyu.

“Deputy Guild Master Lim Hyun-Soo,” Gi-Gyu called out. Lim Hyun-Soo was recovering quickly. He had been almost dead on the lower floors, but as they had ascended the Tower, he had recovered. And now that they were so close to the 90th floor, his mind was also working normally.

“It’s time for you to explain a few things. What happened on the 90th floor?” asked Gi-Gyu. After receiving Lou and El’s memories, he had gotten an idea of what was happening. To turn that idea into a solid fact, he needed details.

“...” Lim Hyun-Soo remained quiet.

“Being silent isn’t going to help this situation. We’re about to climb to the 90th floor, and”—Gi-Gyu’s eyes shone—“I must eliminate all variables.”

The warning made Lim Hyun-Soo flinch. Gi-Gyu turned toward Kang Ji-Hee and the other Angela Guild members, and then Lim Hyun-Soo finally opened his lips.

“I’ll talk.”

***

“Do you remember when we announced that we would conquer the Tower and started climbing?” Lim Hyun-Soo reminded Gi-Gyu of the past. This was when Gi-Gyu’s life had nothing but hardship. He wasn’t leveling up, and all the avenues of becoming stronger were also blocked. Back then, he worked as a guide, living paycheck to paycheck.

Gi-Gyu remembered the Angela Guild having a public departure ceremony to announce its intention to conquer the Tower. When Lim Hyun-Soo saw Gi-Gyu react, he continued, “At that time, we had already conquered the 80th floor.”

They had fed the public false information. The Angela Guild had claimed they had only conquered the 78th floor. The public believed they had stopped their expedition on the 78th floor because Lee Sun-Ho had gotten injured on that floor.

Lim Hyun-Soo continued, “The problem actually occurred on the 83rd floor. Because of the sudden appearance of a figure. We had no idea who he was, but it looked like our guild master knew him.”

‘Someone the Angela Guild players didn’t know, but Lee Sun-Ho did… And this figure appeared on the 83rd floor,’ Gi-Gyu thought with interest. At the time, the Angela Guild had barely conquered the floor before. However, someone had already been waiting for them on the 83rd floor.

Who was this figure?

“We don’t know anything about this figure, including their gender or name. This creature wanted to speak to our guild master, and when their conversation was over…”

Gi-Gyu noticed that Kang Ji-Hee was trembling, perhaps from remembering what she had seen then.

Lim Hyun-Soo continued, “Our guild master returned wounded. But it wasn’t an external injury.”

Lim Hyun-Soo didn’t bother explaining the injury because he assumed Gi-Gyu knew about it.

Gi-Gyu mumbled, “This was why Lee Sun-Ho needed the elixir.”

When he had first met Lee Sun-Ho, Lee Sun-Ho wanted the elixir. At the time, Soo-Jung had stated that Lee Sun-Ho’s shell was polluted. Gi-Gyu hadn’t known what she had meant then, but he did now.

‘This figure on the 83rd floor and Lee Sun-Ho must have fought. It’s obvious he was after Lee Sun-Ho’s shell.’ Gi-Gyu assumed that this figure’s target was Lee Sun-Ho’s shell. Back then, Gi-Gyu had no idea how badly Lee Shun-Ho’s shell was damaged.

‘But I know now. It was so badly damaged that even the elixir couldn’t fix it.’

Soo-Jung had said that even the elixir couldn’t eliminate all the pollutants from Lee Sun-Ho’s shell. Apparently, the elixir had only slowed down the deterioration.

“After receiving the elixir from Lucifer, our guild master seemingly got better,” Lim Hyun-Soo added. So it appeared that the elixir had helped a little. “He was focusing on purifying himself when a problem occurred inside him.”

“Was it because of Ha Song-Su?” asked Gi-Gyu.

Lim Hyun-Soo nodded. Kang Ji-Hee, who had been tight-lipped until now, seemed ready to spill the beans. It wasn’t because she was afraid of Gi-Gyu’s warning. She was ready because Lim Hyun-Soo was talking freely. The fact that he was openly giving away this sensitive information meant that something had happened to their guild master. Kang Ji-Hee could tell that Lim Hyun-Soo was desperate for Gi-Gyu’s help.

“Is it because of the wound from Ha Song-Su’s attack?” Gi-Gyu asked again. Gi-Gyu was thankful to Lee Sun-Ho for one thing he had done. When they had first met, he had seemed hostile. However, when Ha Song-Su had attacked Gi-Gyu’s family, Lee Sun-Ho had helped them. This had injured him and forced him to go into hiding.

“That’s correct. That battle worsened his condition, and it became so bad that our guild master needed to be sealed away. This was why we came into the Tower. We needed to find a solution.”

Gi-Gyu nodded and asked, “Then… who did Lee Sun-Ho become?”

“...!” Lim Hyun-Soo’s eyes widened. “How did you know that?!”

But Gi-Gyu never got the chance to hear an answer.

Creak!

“What the…!” Lim Hyun-Soo flinched when a strange noise rang.

“Dragon knight order! In position! Now!” Hal ordered when something unexpected happened.

Go Hyung-Chul yelled, “Why is the door to the 90th-floor opening?!”

No one had opened the door from their side.

‘Someone’s coming out,’ Gi-Gyu thought in anticipation. Tension filled the air, and when the figure appeared, Gi-Gyu’s eyes widened.

“...!”