The Player Who Can't Level Up

“El, make sure no one approaches me,” Gi-Gyu ordered firmly.

El answered, “Of course, Master.”

Her sudden appearance and clear, beautiful voice confused the enemy players. They backed away hesitantly and muttered among themselves.

“W-what the hell?” one player gasped in shock.

“This doesn’t make any sense! He doesn’t look hurt at all! How is that possible? Our trap could have killed the 60th-floor guardian. How could it fail against a high ranker?!” another player shouted.

Gi-Gyu looked too relaxed and unharmed. Unfortunately, the enemy players couldn’t finish their assessments, as the sound of a watermelon popping filled the entire area.

Crack!

The gruesome noise was from Gi-Gyu crashing a player’s skull, quickly followed by a slashing noise made by a weapon with seemingly otherworldly sharpness. The sound it made was so beautiful and clear that it was almost hypnotic.

“Ughhhh,” groaned a disfigured skull with a mouth full of blood. The severed head of the man who was in disbelief a moment ago fell to the ground. A blood fountain erupted from the man’s severed neck.

Fwoosh!

The bright red blood looked horrendous against the gray smoke from their attacks.

Someone stammered, “K-kill him! Attack!”

All hell broke loose.

***

Gi-Gyu had to admit that his enemies were strong. It wasn’t just their physical strengths and skills; he could tell how much they had prepared to kill him. And saying their trap could have killed the 60th-floor guardian would be no hyperbole. Honestly, any other high ranker would have been done for.

“Restraint,” Gi-Gyu whispered, punching the ground and summoning Oberon. He was using his black metal gauntlet after a long time, so he watched as thorn-filled vines erupted from the ground and snaked their way toward his opponents. Before the players could react, the thorn vines had begun restraining them.

“Dispel!” one player yelled to activate his skill.

“Cancel!” another did the same. But these magic category players were helpless against Gi-Gyu’s attack. The skills they had used were supposed to deactivate magical attacks, but…

“He wasn’t even using any magic? What the hell?!”

Oberon’s thorn had successfully restrained many of the players.

“Power slash!” Some swordsman players managed to sever the vine and free themselves. But the battle wasn’t over for them as Gi-Gyu summoned his wolf, “Bi.”

“Grrr!” A menacing growl rang in the building filled with gray smoke.

“Leave a few of the strongest ones and kill the rest. You can eat them if you want, Bi,” ordered Gi-Gyu.

“Grrrr!”

Hearing the wolf’s howl, the players shrieked in fear, “That sounds like a wolf! That must be one of Kim Gi-Gyu’s summoned beings!”

Clank!

Suddenly, heavy sounds of crashing weapons rang in the air.

“Dispel! Deactivate the summoned beast! Hurry!” one player screamed in panic.

“It’s not working!” another shouted his reply.

“What the hell?!”

Gi-Gyu’s attackers tried to dispel Bi, but it was useless. In fact, they had only managed to anger the wolf.

Sizzle.

Enraged, Bi used Elemental Fire to cover itself in flames.

Meanwhile, Hermes shone as Gi-Gyu whispered, “Accelerate. Rush.”

“Get him!” the attackers shouted. By now, none of the enemy players cared about their original strategy. The frenzied battle ensured they couldn’t figure out how many were dead and how much damage they had dealt to Gi-Gyu.

All they knew was…

“We need to kill him to survive!” the players screamed. After all, this was how the player world worked.

Kill or be killed.

If a player attacked another player, only one could come out alive.

‘If we don’t kill him, he’ll kill us all.’ The man who had lured Gi-Gyu earlier trembled in fear. He tried to hide his anxiety, but it was impossible. He slowly realized that it was only a matter of time before Kim Gi-Gyu ripped him apart. The man clenched his fists and thought with renewed determination, ‘I gotta survive this.’

He wanted to live—no, he had to live.

“Ackkk!” Sadly, his teammates’ screams didn’t stop. He was sweating so much that it dripped down his clenched fists like a stream.

Slice!

Suddenly, he screamed, “Ackkkkk!”

He didn’t realize what had happened until it was too late. He was a fairly powerful ranker, yet he now had an amputated wrist. He finally felt pain when he saw the blood spurting out of his severed arm.

“Haa… Haa…” He tried to slow down his breathing to control the pain. He had no idea who or what had severed his wrist. Was it Kim Gi-Gyu? Honestly, he would have preferred it if it were one of his teammates who had mistaken him for Kim Gi-Gyu. This way, it would have meant Kim Gi-Gyu hadn’t found him yet.

One of the fear-stricken players yelled, “I-I want to leave now! I need to get out of here!”

One by one, the players began to look for the exit.

“Don’t break the battle formation! This formation is the only thing that’s keeping us alive!” their group leader ordered in desperation, but it was useless. The unbridled fear made the player forget all sense and logic.

“Dammit! You are all supposed to be the best of the best!” their leader screamed, but it was too late. When many players were about to reach the door, a harrowing wolf roar rang inside the building.

Crunch!

No one was allowed to leave.

One of the injured players on the floor whispered, “I knew this was a crazy idea from the beginning… I knew it. Kekeke…”

Another commented, “How could a newly titled high ranker be this powerful? Who knew? There is no way he became a high ranker recently. He’s powerful enough to be…”

The enemy players were losing their will to fight. They were all strong fighters, players who had climbed the Tower beyond the 51st floor, and people who had experienced unimaginable hardships to become who and what they were. They had all thought they could face and defeat any enemies, but their world was falling apart right now.

And it was all because of one player.

“I will show you what…” Gi-Gyu announced, “Absolute fear feels like!”

Thud.

Another head fell to the floor. His voice filled with desperation, the group leader ordered, “Are you all going to just die like this? Use the thing ‘he’ gave you!”

“But… That’s…!” A nearby player seemed hesitant.

“We need to use everything we have right now, you morons! At this rate, we all will die without even being able to scratch him! Man up!” their leader yelled.

However, the leader soon groaned, “Ugh!” Gi-Gyu hadn’t attacked him; instead, there was a thin syringe filled with an unknown liquid stuck in his wrist. Suddenly, the glass syringe shattered, and a cloud of black smoke fumed out of the leader’s body.

“That’s…” Gi-Gyu whispered in surprise. The black smoke was made of sorcerous energy.

***

“Grrrr…” The players, who were human only a moment ago, became beastly. They could no longer speak and appeared to be moving only with animalistic instincts. Gi-Gyu suspected that they couldn’t even feel any pain.

“This is becoming so cumbersome,” Gi-Gyu muttered as he decided it was time to finish this nonsense.

-Pervert.

Lou smirked, and Gi-Gyu didn’t deny the accusation. He had to admit that Lou was correct because he was indeed relieving his stress by massacring his enemies.

As Gi-Gyu moved, Lou added,

-I think I now know more about the changes you have gone through.

Gi-Gyu wasn’t sure if the other players had noticed how he wasn’t using any weapons. He was cutting through them with his bare hands.

-Do these humans now look inferior to you? Like mere bugs? Or have you recognized the evil that lies dormant inside you? Or…

Lou’s voice turned playful as he asked,

-Or do you just not care anymore?

“Shut up,” Gi-Gyu replied, not denying Lou’s assessment. He felt nothing as he killed these humans and heard their screams.

After learning the secrets of the Tower, God, and Chaos… Was it true that Gi-Gyu now saw humans as inferior creatures?

Perhaps he saw them as specks of dust, ants, and mere toys to be played with. After all, weren’t humans nothing more than lesser beings who lived and died to please the higher beings?

‘No, that’s not true,’ Gi-Gyu told himself. He was human, wasn’t he? Gi-Gyu tried his best to remind himself of this fact.

‘And Jupiter…’ Gi-Gyu remembered his other self who was dormant inside him. He still didn’t know why Jupiter existed and lived inside him. In fact, Gi-Gyu couldn’t even figure out who he was.

But he knew one thing.

‘He’s evil.’ Gi-Gyu could feel that Jupiter was pure evil. Jupiter only followed his instincts; in a way, he was no different from the enemies attacking Gi-Gyu right now.

‘So maybe it’s true I don’t care anymore.’ Gi-Gyu decided Lou was right. His stress level was through the roof after learning so many giant secrets. Then, after three months had unknowingly passed, this man came up to Gi-Gyu to lure him into a trap. These players were here to hunt him down, so…

“It’s perfectly okay for me to kill them.” Gi-Gyu’s eyes glowed even brighter as he moved faster. Thanks to his reward after the test, his Egos had become shockingly strong. Gi-Gyu could feel their strength in his bones. He knew he could have annihilated this group in minutes if he had used Lou and El. But he chose not to do this because he needed a target to relieve his anger.

“So what’s with that sorcerous energy?” Gi-Gyu turned his focus back to the battle and studied his opponents. The sorcerous energy from the shattered syringe had turned all the players into beasts.

‘Hmm…’ Gi-Gyu shook his head as he decided, “Let’s just finish this first and figure that out later.”

He was done with this meaningless fight.

Crack!

The sounds of bones cracking continued. His enemies had undoubtedly become stronger, but now that Gi-Gyu had put his mind to it, he was way stronger than their enhanced state. These players had no chance in hell from the beginning.

“Right now, I think I’m probably as powerful as Soo-Jung. Maybe even stronger,” Gi-Gyu whispered. Thanks to this surprise attack, he could see and feel how strong he had become after the test.

Finally, the smoke settled. And it was partly because of the gales Gi-Gyu had created with his speed. The beastly groans stopped because only one of his enemies covered in sorcerous energy was alive.

“P-please don’t kill me.” The only survivor was the player who hadn’t done anything while the others were getting high on sorcerous energy. He also happened to be the one who had lured Gi-Gyu to this place.

The one who had pretended to be Oh Tae-Shik’s messenger.

“Now, shall we talk?” With a forced smile, Gi-Gyu walked toward the man.

“Grrr.” Bi also showed off its teeth and walked closer.

“Hehehe…” The man suddenly began to drool and laugh as if he had lost his mind.

Gi-Gyu declared, “There is no point in pretending to be crazy.”

Gi-Gyu crouched next to the trembling man, bringing their eyes to the same level.

“Because I’ll just keep hurting you until you regain your sanity,” Gi-Gyu explained and raised his hands to grab the man’s neck.

But before he could, El’s pure voice stopped him.

“Master!”