NOVEL NEXT 208: Floor 25, The Mountain Serpant
When I return to the lobby, I find my eyes hallucinating scales, and I can feel the phantoms of non-existent snakes wrapped around every part of my body. Luckily for me, I have long since figured out how to handle this. Simply put, if you remove the limb or area experiencing phantom sensations, the feeling will typically be gone once said part regenerates. Easy!
So, I tear off all my limbs, rip out my eyeballs, and get to try my hand at using my latest trinket of a skill.
<[Peel(Lv.1)]
Peel off your skin!
Current Peel Area: 10 cm2>
I can peel off my skin! It’s honestly criminal that this skill comes at absolutely no cost. Yes, for the low-low price of exactly nothing, I can peel off a square decimeter of my own skin. How useful! I’d probably be more upset if it hadn’t been for the fact that the skin peels in slices, like a banana.
That aside, I’m starting to seriously consider the theory that the god of comedy is a sadist. I can’t see any other explanation for these skills.
However, that obviously doesn’t mean that I won’t grind it as much as I can. It is a brand-new skill, after all.
So, during my one-day stay in the lobby, I train the peeling skill.
Peel Lv.2>
Peel Lv.3>
<...>
Peel Lv.10>
Shed Lv.MAX>
Shed, as the name suggests, allows me to shed my entire skin. All of it. In one piece. The weird thing is that it peels off the same as before, much like a banana, but then once it’s on the floor in a heap, it magically reforms itself into a complete and unbroken skin. For the sheer sake of it, I experimented by cutting a slit across the back of my own skin and then wearing it.
It felt… weird. On the one hand, it fit perfectly. The second I stepped inside it, I felt all snug and calm, like a cat in a cat-shaped vase. But, on the other hand… It’s a little weird to wear two sets of your own skin.
<20:24:03
Day 910>
3:35:57>
4:10:13>
Nevertheless, I have a few more hours, so… I might as well, right?
<00:34:11
Day 911>
29:23:25:49>
00:0:05>
With five seconds remaining until the floor opening, I can proudly report that I am able to wear seven sets of my own skin in total. Any more than that and the joints start ripping. Of course, while wearing seven sets of skin, I’m not exactly able to move very well. In hindsight, this might not be the best way to enter a floor.
Do you want to enter?>
…It would appear that I no longer have any choice in the matter. Oopsies!
I poke the ‘yes’ button without hesitation.
The world swirls around me, and as stiff as a man in a mascot suit, I stumble once, twice, before falling face-first onto the floor. Ouch. Did I mention that I have tunnel vision in this thing? With some creative bending of the limbs, I’m able to heave myself onto my feet again, wobbling like a penguin going down a slip-n-slide standing. Yeah, this might not be too good.
Or, at least, that would’ve been the case if I actually happened to be in any kind of mortal danger. The semi-barren tundra wasteland around me presents little to no danger to me, especially since I’m ridiculously well-insulated. It’s cold, rocky, and not threatening. The sky is an annoyingly vibrant blue, the sort it can only really be midwinter. Considering that it’s supposed to be early summer right now, that means that I am far from the central continent—far from the only place I’ve really known so far.
The only thing in my sight that could be even slightly threatening would be if I had to somehow climb that jagged mountain range in the distance. But I can’t see why I would have to—
Hell Difficulty Twenty-fifth Floor:
The Mountain Serpent.>
<[Clear Condition]
Reach the summit of Mt. Apathy.>
…Ah. Yeah, okay, I see how it is. Should’ve guessed. Is the god of comedy running this show now? Ha-ha, very funny.
However, I have a better question. What do you mean mountain serpent? Am I supposed to fight a snake on the summit? I don’t know if you watched me for the entirety of the month I spent in a literal pit full of snakes, but if I have to fight another snake, I’m pulling my veto card. I’m not playing anymore.
…As usual, no response meets me. Figures. Now that I think about it, most of them have been fairly silent recently. Might be because their disdain no longer does anything, but it still feels strangely lonely to not hear their opinions.
I know they’re watching, though. Those grubby divines can’t keep their eyes off their favorite channel, even if they wanted to.
And if the viewer polls demand that I must scale a summit and fight a snake, then it shall be done. It’s not like I have any choice, after all.
Pulling my skins closer, I head out.
My nose guides me down the right path to the right mountain, but it’s still one heck of a trek. For one, it’s frigid. But it isn’t that snowy. The chill is in the air, and there isn’t a single sign that it’s going to snow anytime soon. It’s just cold. Very, very cold. My extra skin, not being warmed by my blood and veins and whatnot, actually freezes around me. Eventually, it did trap me, at which point I helpfully discovered that the peel skill also peels any skin I’m wearing on top of my own skin. So, by using the peel skill seven times, I’m freed of the stiff, constricting epidermis I was wearing. For a moment, I almost considered wearing a warmer hide on top of it all, but then I realized my folly. Wear warm clothes? And miss out on an excellent cold protection grinding moment? No way!
So, sticking the bear hide I was holding back into my now-reliable inventory, I continued my journey. It’s worth noting that since the great values sniffer skill only told me the location of what I wanted, I didn’t actually know the best route up the mountain. If the rocks had been covered by moss or something I might have been able to ascertain the general outlay of the region, but as it was, all I knew was the direction and distance, and that was it. So, I had no other choice but to head straight for it.
Routes? Walked paths? Roads?
No such things here. I scaled it, barehanded and barefooted, ignoring the biting of the cold and the stiffness of my body. Lost fingers, toes, limbs and teeth grew back as long as I survived.
Scale Lv.4>
Scale Lv.5>
Scale Lv.6>
Cold Protection Lv.10>
Cold Immunity Lv.1>
With my previous immunities, the effect wasn’t very obvious. Poison immunity meant I didn’t die, bleeding immunity meant I didn’t die, and paralysis immunity meant I didn’t die. But cold immunity? Suddenly, the temperature in my body dropped by at least five degrees. Or maybe it adjusted to better fit the environment? I have no idea. All I can say is that I don’t feel colder. I just feel more… numb, I guess. The sensation of cold is lesser. It feels very strange.
As I exhale between clenched, frozen-shut teeth, I find with some degree of trepidation that my breath is no longer milky-white. That’s a bit worrying. Now that I’m thinking about it, the needle-like sensation piercing my limbs and joints might be shards of ice forming in my flesh. Which is also not optimal.
Still, I trudge on. Despite the fresh hell I’m now experiencing, it doesn’t feel like I’m close to death. It hurts enough to make me wish that wasn’t the case, but I can tell that I’m not going to die from this. Hooray.
As I’m contemplating the meaning of life, death and the universe, my foot snaps off from under me. Not much of a loss since I’d lost the toes somewhere, but unlike the left arm I lost a few days back and still haven’t fully recovered, I kind of need my foot to live. So even though it’s a bother on several levels, I hunch down and rip the foot from where it froze stuck to the icy ground. And now for the annoying part.
My teeth, and subsequently my jaw, froze together the other day, leaving me unable to open my jaws. Or, at least, unable to do so without effort. An effort I now require.
Sticking my foot between my legs, I use my one good arm to smash my clawed hand into my mouth, snapping off and cracking enough teeth to make a hole. I don’t want to remove all my teeth in case I get ambushed, so with this hole open, I spend upwards of an hour, sitting squat on the side of a fairly steep cliff, ripping off pieces of my own foot and sliding them into the hole in my face. Without teeth, I have no choice but to swallow the pieces whole, which becomes a lot more difficult when my tongue starts getting frozen, too. I try to thaw it by massaging it, but that just makes the icy needles formed inside shuffle around even more.
Maybe I should be happy that bleeding immunity makes me bleed less? If my mouth had been full of blood right now I would have had to act as a bloody slurpee machine. Instead, I just have to swallow marble-like teeth and frozen flesh. Very fun.
Normally, I would have eaten the bones too, but I can't be bothered. This will have to be good enough.
I continue my trudge.