Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 463

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Archer’s Streaming Season 2 Episode 183
64. The Final Layer (2)
Most of us are captivated only by what exists above ground.
When asked to imagine a tree, we envision lush green leaves, flowers in vibrant hues, and branches spreading in beautiful fractal patterns.
We tend to forget the roots exist at all.
Yet remember this—more than half of a tree lies buried beneath the earth, does it not?
Is their true essence not the roots themselves?
Literally, the very meaning and manifestation of the fundamental.
We must not forget this.
The leaves, flowers, and fruits listed above—these earthly luxuries—are merely byproducts born from the struggle beneath the ground.
Then what of the Abyss?
Entering through the fruit, passing through the layer of leaves, then the layer of the trunk, and finally touching the roots—such is its structure.
The Abyss swallows us in reverse order, attempting to convey this truth.
Therefore, here too, the essence lies in the roots.
The most complex, closest to the fundamental, and most fierce.
And the least known.
Or rather, it must remain unknown.
[Excerpt from “Advice for Those Who Dream of Becoming Legend” by Vilberk Magner, Explorer of the Sanctum]

* * *
A text that came to mind during the transfer to the next layer.
[You’ve taken one step closer to the Final Layer (★).]
This meant the conditions for the Final Layer were nearly cleared.
Now I just had to survive here to clear it.
To achieve a 3-star clear, I’d need to do something beyond mere survival.
-Ohhh
-So we can get a 2-star clear just by leaving now??
-So this is the final layer
-We’re seeing the ending today
“Finally, the last layer. Let me try to see the ending today. Though I can’t see anything at all.”
hahahaha
-Hahahaha Manager! That’s hilarious!
I’m dying laughing
It wasn’t merely a joke.
The dim field of vision—I couldn’t see anything properly.
‘Is this the roots….’
Through the fruit, past the leaves and trunk, now I’d reached the layer of roots.
This place was darkness where the surroundings were barely visible.
It was chaos itself.
Whereas the trunk layer had tree pillars standing upright in neat rows.
The space sprawls in all directions like a spider’s web, crisscrossing chaotically.
I can barely see it all, illuminated only by the faintest of light.
“Luna.”
I call out to Luna.
“I’m over here.”
Luna’s voice comes from a corner of the darkness.
I crawl slowly toward her.
As I get closer, I see Luna hiding among the roots.
Why is she already hiding before we’ve even started….
“What are you doing?”
“Just hide. You too.”
Luna says this and pulls me toward her.
Suddenly we’re both squeezed into a cramped space like a dog hole, but Luna doesn’t seem to mind and whispers.
“In this place, we don’t know what rules will be given, or if any rules will be given at all. We know nothing.”
“…Why. You’ve been here before.”
“Sigh.”
Luna takes a breath, then pulls up the hem of her top. As if she were about to undress.
-???
-wtf
-Luna too 500x
-what
-ah this lol
Of course, she doesn’t remove it completely.
She only reveals the characters written on her upper abdomen.
“See? This is Rune script.”
Rune script.
Why does Luna have this too?
But it looks a bit different from what I’ve seen before.
‘What is this?’
I’m confused.
Regardless, Luna continues her explanation.
“These Rune characters have special power.”
“Power?”
“The reason I can continue to perceive things even when time rewinds is because of this Rune. But when I come to this final layer, it gradually loses its light. It’s not shining much right now, is it?”
Light.
The characters emit light.
‘Now that I think about it, my characters also emitted light. When I accessed my memories.’
The Rune characters inscribed on my body also glowed when revealing memories.
In other words, Runes emit light when they activate.
It was the same when Swift threw the explosion Rune.
But that thing keeps emitting light?
Then it means it’s still operating?
‘But what does it mean.’
I couldn’t decipher it.
Even I, who could already convert nearly every rune character into the alphabet, couldn’t interpret what this rune character meant.
‘Just a single character.’
Moreover, that rune character was just one single character.
Did that mean it was an ideographic character like Chinese characters rather than phonetic like the alphabet? Could there be multiple types of rune characters?
Regardless, let me hear more of what Luna has to say.
“When the light of the sanctuary draws near, rune characters lose their power. And this floor is the closest place to the sanctuary.”
“Then….”
“That’s why I don’t know much about this floor. All I know is that it’s different every time I come here….”
This can’t be.
Luna didn’t have memories from this point onward.
‘So that’s why she said she didn’t know the reason for the repetition.’
Ah, come to think of it, Luna still believes she’s going back to the past.
I needed to correct this misconception.
No matter how I looked at it, it wasn’t the way to go to the past. We were losing our memories.
“Luna.”
I steeled myself and told her.
“…Huh?”
“You said you were going back to the past. Again?”
“Yeah. How many times do I have to say─”
“That’s not it.”
“What?”
“You’re not going to the past. If you were, why would I be a different person every time.”
“….”
Luna fell silent for a moment.
“You’ve repeated this how many times. Haven’t there been changes in personnel during that time? If you were going back to the past, that would be impossible.”
“I told you. Even if we go back to the past, variables arise and the participants end up being slightly different.”
“Isn’t that too large a variable for going back to the past?”
“The Abyss is that kind of place.”
“No. We’re just losing our memories.”
“What…?”
“Time remains the same. We’re only losing our memories. I have proof.”
I lifted my shirt slightly to show her.
“!”
Luna’s eyes widened in shock.
But the words that came next were strange.
“You… do you really trust me now?”
“What?”
Luna spoke with evident relief.
“Actually, when you rejected my proposal for the first time, I thought you didn’t trust me. The moment you show me this tattoo is when you truly trust me. Every single time.”
“…”
So this guy knows he’s not regressing either?
Well, thinking about it, the previous players must have shown it to him countless times, right?
It would be stranger if he didn’t know.
“I already knew it wasn’t regression. Or rather, I should say I found out. Thanks to you from dozens of cycles ago.”
“So you were just testing me when you said that?”
“Yeah. I can’t trust you every single time either. Besides, when I explain from the start that I’ve lost my memory and I’m repeating, people generally don’t understand. But when I say I’m going back to the past, they immediately grasp it similarly.”
Luna muttered while avoiding my gaze.
I suspected the reason she tacked on at the end was secondary, and the first one was the real motive.
It was essentially a filter to determine whether a proper player had arrived.
-It was to filter out trolls lol
-I mean, trusting a colleague in Ril isn’t easy lol
lol
I decided to change the subject.
If she already knew anyway, things would only get easier, not worse.
“In any case, if that’s the case, you also know that Swift is retaining his memories, right?”
Swift is maintaining his memories too?
Well, I wasn’t certain. It was just suspicion.
The tattoo carved into this body, Luna’s testimony, and the way he fought earlier.
I only had suspicion.
So I shook my head at Luna’s question.
“No. I don’t know for certain yet. I only have suspicion.”
“Is that so?”
“You think he does?”
Luna nodded and explained the reason.
“This is also suspicion in a way, but Swift called someone by the wrong name once. By mistake.”
“A name?”
“Yeah. There’s someone named Jake. He’s dead, right? By that point, he’d died in the previous cycle. But there was someone who looked similar to him. Swift called that person Jake.”
“He called someone by a name he couldn’t possibly know?”
“Right. Exactly. Even in the previous cycle, Swift confused those two. But their names were completely different. The other one’s name was Brad, apparently. There’s no way he’d suddenly call him Jake. The spelling is completely different.”
If he had no memories, there’d be no reason for Swift to confuse them.
The boy named Jake wouldn’t have even existed in that cycle.
“Of course. After that, he never made a mistake again. So that one instance is all the evidence I have.”
Was that the only time Swift showed a crack?
Or was it simply a careless slip of the tongue?
Hmm. It’s ambiguous.
And it’s even more ambiguous whether that’s reason enough to kill Swift.
“What’s your suspicion then? Almond.”
“Swift… is suspicious of you. He’s killing the people you make contact with.”
“That’s your suspicion?”
“If he only suspected you once, there’d be no reason to kill everyone you contact.”
“Ah.”
This suspicion is vague too, I have to admit.
“Then let’s assume for now that Swift has his memories.”
“Yeah.”
The real problem here is Swift’s objective.
Even in criminal investigations, you need to prove motive to declare someone guilty beyond doubt.
If Swift has his memories, then what exactly is his goal?
If Swift is the one orchestrating this repeating hell, what’s his motive? What could he possibly gain by repeating this Abyss over and over?
Or… could he simply want to escape like I do?
“Then what’s Swift’s objective if he has his memories?”
“I have no idea either.”
“Could it be escape, like you?”
“…No, it can’t be.”
“Why?”
“I’ve tried everything imaginable to escape. I’ve deliberately given wrong directions to lead people to the edge of the forest and tried digging through walls… I’ve climbed trees as high as they go…”
“And?”
“Swift has never deviated from the path to the sanctuary. Not once.”
Swift is obsessed with the sanctuary, and I’m obsessed with escape.
“Actually, going to the sanctuary is the most orthodox way to escape the Abyss. The best way. But since I know that doesn’t work for me… I looked for other methods later.”
“Swift knows but still keeps trying to go to the sanctuary?”
“Right. Well… if you don’t reach the sanctuary you die anyway, so at minimum you survive. But what’s the point of just surviving? You have to at least try something.”
The Abyss is structured so that only those who reach the sanctuary survive.
This is the same in every Abyss, apparently.
‘Then that means Swift and Luna have never failed to reach the sanctuary.’
Luna travels with the Player, so that makes sense, but Swift… if he didn’t have his memories, how would he reach the sanctuary every single time?
‘It’s 100%.’
I became convinced that Swift definitely has his memories.
With memories, his success rate keeps climbing, and now it’s reached 100%.
‘What on earth is his purpose?’
But I can’t figure out Swift’s objective.
Why is he hiding the fact that he has his memories? If escape isn’t his goal, what is it?
[DeathPatch donated 10,000 won.]
[Why are you guys dating when you came to watch Story Mode?]
Hahahahaha, for real
A man and woman whispering to each other while hiding in dark bushes lol
-How is this not a date!!!
-Hahaha
“Thank you for the donation, Despatch. Now that I think about it, I should get moving.”
Come to think of it, I’ve been hiding in this place far too long.
“How much longer are you planning to stay hidden here?”
I asked Luna.
“Ah… yes, that’s right. We should leave. But no rules have been established yet….”
Luna was visibly anxious.
Well, she lacked any significant combat ability, so she’d survived thus far by relying on her accumulated knowledge. Now that we’d arrived at a floor she was unfamiliar with, she was doing her best to keep a low profile.
“W-what’s with that look? It’s that look that says ‘we’ve done this how many times and you still don’t know how to fight?’ Well, I can fight too. I’m not scared.”
“Really?”
“….”
I didn’t believe Luna. Based on what she’d shown me so far.
After repeating this exchange so many times, it seemed the only thing Luna had mastered was reading the mood.
-Hahahaha
-Really? Lmao
-Dating app trauma
-Seriously haha
Luna fell silent, looking slightly hurt.
‘Should the Player go first?’
I had no choice but to stand up first.
“I’ll lead the way. Follow me.”
Tug.
Luna grabbed me as I tried to leave the bushes.
“Since you believed in me. I’ll show you too.”
“?”
“I have my own combat techniques. But I can’t use them easily. The opportunity only comes once, if that.”
It was just as Luna was about to show me something.
Whoooosh!
The sound of massive wings unfurling.
“R-rules!?”
Luna jumped to her feet, but.
Contrary to her expectations, this wasn’t the rules.
Beep beep beep beep.
[1 Surviving Contractor Remaining]
[Competition Ended]
An announcement.
[Victor: Swift]
-???
-What the hell is this
-Huh?
-Suddenly?
-Why?
Ding.
[Final Floor (★) Cleared!]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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