Chapter 184 Administrator Of Dungeon Of Trials

[Congratulations, you have defeated the Sea Overlord, 'Medusa']

"It really was Medusa"

I thought in leisure, while falling from thousands of meters in the sky.

The merged Leviathan was falling beside me. Its flesh was rotting and it was howling in anguish.

My clothes were torn to shreds and my body was full of wounds. But it wasn't painful at all. I had become accustomed to this kind of sensation for a long time now. It felt like an old friend that I didn't want to leave.

Closing my eyes, I waited to be teleported to the Reward Room. It should be happening soon.

But I got to see something surprising.

[Error! Error! The Strands have not been defeated.]

[Error! Error! The challenger has used an unknown way to defeat the Trial]

Before I could understand the meaning behind the messages, my body turned into dust.

***

"Uhh..."

A groan escaped my lips.

Clutching my head, I scanned my surroundings.

A 10BHK room with 2 doors. There was an 'ODD TRIALS HERE PLEASE' sign above the door on the left, while an 'EVEN TRIALS HERE PLEASE' sign above the door on the right.

"I should go to the left one, right?"

"Of course, duh. As far as I know, 1 is an odd number."

A strange voice entered my ears. It sounded like a man's voice, but if one tried to listen closely, one would think that it was a woman's voice. From the voice, I couldn't tell if the speaker was a kid, a grown-up, or someone old, the voice was a mixture of every voice I'd ever heard.

Despite this, the voice wasn't jarring or uncomfortable, rather it was pleasant to hear.

I turned around and suddenly found a sofa inside the room. In front of the sofa, a TV was displaying the Cadets exploring the dungeon.

A girl was lying sideways on the sofa, facing the TV. She was using one hand to support her head and munching something from a plastic bag with her other hand.

She was wearing a baggy hoodie jacket over a t-shirt.

"You are?"

"Oho, it has been quite some time since a challenger wasn't surprised after meeting me"

She didn't seem amazed by her tone, despite her words which suggested otherwise.

"Are you the Guardian of this Dungeon?"

"Bruh, Guardian? Is that what they are calling me now?"

Answering, she ignored me and focused on the TV.

An uncomfortable silence descended.

'She's just as she was described in the novel'

The figure in front of me was someone anyone who would clear [Singularity] Trials will meet. The meeting was only a perfunctory meeting to show appreciation to the challenger. In layman's terms, the meeting was no different from giving a mortal a chance to meet a Goddess.

"Why aren't you leaving, shoo shoo. Go take your prize."

The corner of my lips twitched. For someone who was an ancient entity, she sure was impolite, not that it mattered to me.

"I wanted to know about the strange notification I got after clearing the Trial. It said there was an error as I cleared the Trial in an unspecific way. What did that mean?"

Her hands froze and she shot me a deathly glare, then she gnashed her teethes and answered 'politely'.

"It's nothing YOU SHOULD WORRY about. AS the administrator, I HAVE TO DEAL with the ISSUES YOU CREATED."

Her voice contained a lot of pent-up resentment.

'As I thought, the Sea Overlord was supposed to be defeated after defeating the Strands.'

She stopped watching the TV and walked up to me angrily.

Uh-huh, looks like she was acting indifferent earlier, to keep herself under control, not because she was calm.

"A perfect defense that blocks anything under your level, dozens of elixirs, one of the strongest arts in existence, and the a– energy."

She poked my chest with her index finger repeatedly.

"Do you know how many resources I had to waste to create a Trial for you? Of course not!"

"Adding insult to injury, you defeated an Overlord, an OVERLORD, in a head-on fight to boot! Does that make any sense?!"

"Why do you have such an overpowered combination of abilities!"

She was huffing and puffing and glaring at me.

"Um... I'm lucky?"

"Fuck your mama and your grandmama, who are you trying to lie to? You got them because you were lucky? You should be happy that you are alive with that luck stat!"

Her expression contorted and frustration oozed from her voice.

"Everything will be fine, you shouldn't worry about the issue. First... deep breaths... deep breaths."

I backed away swiftly while trying to console her.

She wasn't only the administrator of 'Tower'.

I'd rather not piss her off much. It wasn't like it would be fun, right?

No, maybe it would be?

"But isn't negative luck impossible? Maybe my luck is so high that the System can't display it?"

A vein throbbed on her forehead.

"Go, take the 1st Trial's reward. Odd Trials rewards are luck-based rewards, we can check how lucky you are there."

"I will, but why are you so angry? Did something happen due to how I cleared the Trial?"

She looked at me for a moment and suddenly... smirked.

Tap-

Before I could react, she tapped my forehead with her index finger.

My head felt like it was splitting. The pain was incredible, I doubled over in agony. I felt that my head was cracked open and molted metals were being poured inside it.

I fell to my knees.

The pain continued for a few minutes before disappearing as if it was never there, to begin with.

"Haah...haaah"

Finally, everything made sense. I understood why the administrator was so irritated.

Due to [Singularity] difficulty, the administrator had to choose an overwhelmingly powerful enemy for me, however as it was a Trial, she had to follow rules and keep the enemy defeatable.

The balance was important. The enemy needed to be overpowered, but not undefeatable.

But I was too strong for anything under Meta-rank.

I was too strong for anything under Meta-rank. Important things need to be said twice.

With [Golden Turtle], [Zero], and [Armory of Eridu], I'm almost invincible as long I fight someone below my level.

She decided to use her [Authority] as the administrator and made me fight an 'Overlord', enemies that only appear from the 11th Trial on [Objective-type] in [Singularity].

Administrator had planned the Trial meticulously.

The merged Leviathan had [Undying] Trait and, in the trial, the leviathans would always merge when you kill one of them.

Also, as every single 'smaller' leviathan was leagues above anything a Lvl.5 could handle, it was nearly impossible to kill a leviathan when there were more of them present.

The way to defeat the Trial was to kill the remaining leviathan on the day before the rain comes and escape the merged Levithan, along with the [Stone Gaze] of the Sea Overlord, until the rain stops and the day returns.

I was supposed to slowly kill leviathans that were defending the Sea Overlord, and then defeat the Sea Overlord. If I ever managed to win, that is.

But, the result she got was unexpected, to say the least.

The Trail wasn't fair despite how much Administrator tried to make a balanced-impossible Trial.

I cleared the Trial with an overwhelming result!

A Trial, that was speculated to take 3 months at the least to clear, and where one would die with a single mistake, was cleared before even one month was up!

Buhahaha...

Administrator was angry because the 'error' meant that I achieved results that were next to impossible and thus have to be given additional rewards.

'Ah, no matter how much I try to hold back, I'm too strong. What sin have I done? Why can't there be someone as good as me?'

At that moment, Eth reopened the connection between us.

(First thing I hear after coming back is this bullshit, just my luck)

Ignore this guy. He's here only to ruin the fun.

All in all, Administrator rigged the Trial to make it fair but rather lost a portion of her [Authority] over nothing and has to give me an extra reward.

'Wow, she's an asshole'

Not bigger than me, though.

I rubbed my hands together and spoke with a foxy smile.

"What do I get as the additional reward?"

Administrator was already back on her sofa.

"You get to skip the 2nd Trial. Of course, you will still get the reward of clearing 2nd Trial. Also, because you will be skipping the 2nd Trial, the difficulty of your 3rd Trial will be what the difficulty of your 2nd Trial should have been, and so will be with following Trials."

A sweet explosion occurred inside my mind.

Getting a reward for [Singularity] Trial without doing anything! And having the difficulty of future Trials decreased!

This was the best!

A party was going on inside my head, but I maintained a neutral expression.

Didn't I say I was a bigger asshole? I was going to squeeze as many rewards as I could!

After all, other than me, there is no other awakener that can clear the Trail I did, not the way how I did, in a head-on fight. I wasn't being greedy, definitely not.

"That's it?"

"Hah? Why do you look disappointed? From the 3rd Trial, your shield won't work, you should be thankful that you get to lower the difficulty."

"Uh-huh, do you think I'm that easy to trick? I can clear the 2nd Trial without your help. As for the reward of decreasing difficulty, it doesn't help me because as you said, my shield won't work from 3rd Trial."

3rd Trial will be after Floor 15. The boss monster in the Trial will be at least Lvl.18.

"The difficulty will still increase, thus as I had already faced an Overlord for my 1st Trial, the next enemies won't be weaker, meaning all the enemies I'll be facing from the next Trials will be Overlords. My defeat is almost guaranteed in the 3rd Trial and it's because you were 'fair'."

That reminds me, did I mention the main identity of Administrator?

She was...

"tsk, what do you want?"

She winced but folded easily. As the administrator of the Tower, she had to make sure everything is fair and follows rules, not to mention my arguments were valid.

"Tell me about the one who bought me into this world."

...the System.