Under the veil of darkness, light strolling around, Harley held the marbled podium with one hand. His hand glided through the surface, illuminating a streak of dim lights. He stood in front of the podium for minutes, and nothing happened.

  For an hour, he waited, saying nothing, doing nothing, even his body tried its best not to move. Then a screen popped up in front of him. “Finally. God! Why the hell did he put such a condition in? My legs are so numb.” Harley groaned and bent down, sitting in a cross position. “Now. Now. What do we have here?”

  Harley stared at his screen. From the moment he remembered the awakening, he knew everything about it. It was just a class system that was transformed into traits. Now that he stood in front of the podium, his mind rattled through the options “Liar” could turn into.

  [Awakening]

  [Liar][Final]

  [Your Trait Has Reached Its Final Point]

  “What? What? What do you mean I’ve reached the final point? If this is the final evolution of my trait, then why the fuck does it suck so much!”

  [Because You Lack Faith]

  A red screen appeared in front of Harley. His eyes widened, his body frozen from the sight of a sentient system. Every thought in his mind began to shake, bewildered.

  [Have Faith In Yourself]

  [A Liar… Should Not Have Doubts]

  [Lying Is A Belief Of Your Own Skills]

  [Confidence Is Your Key]

  [So What If It Contradicts Itself]

  [When You Lie, The Truth Disappears]

  “How dare you fucking lecture me…” Harley tried to be mad, yet all that came was a quiet response, a guise of anger. “I know… so do I just have to be a scumbag? I can be confident. So much so, I’ll be the most arrogant in the world. Will that really work? This takes too many delusions… I need to amplify it. I need a being that resembles exactly what I need.” Like it heard him, the screen responded.

  [Be A Villain]

  ***

  Harley stood up from the floor and walked to the door. The door took a while to open, and as soon as he took his last step outside, the door immediately closed behind him, a chill ran down his spine, and his legs resisted falling.

  After the air had relaxed, he walked back to the stairs and harmonized his thoughts at each step. The sound of rubbing stone, the stickiness of the moss beneath his feet, the darkness enveloping him as the two torches dispersed, Harley emptied his mind.

  At that moment, everything that had happened so far, everything that had happened in his entire life, Harley made himself leave every attachment behind. The awakening had ironically become a place of slumber for Harley’s entire life.

  He walked out of the darkness, his feet touching the dim light coming from the gaps of the tent. Once he was outside the hole, Harley returned the dirt back into the hole using only his hand and feet. It took him a few minutes, but when he was done, it was like nothing even happened.

  With each step he took, the ground shook. The air turned into a breeze, his sweat cooling his body. A rub on the cloth, a look at the open sky above, the sky radiating the world. Harley walked out, a gentle smile etched on his face.

  “Good Morning World!”

  ***

  Harley arrived back at the cabin, his mind at ease. At least Tas will never find that place because I’ll never go back there ever again. Immediately after coming back, Harley took the rope that they had worked on for a month. Before going to the fourth floor, he stared at Elise for a few seconds. “Elise!” He yelled, then his smile came back down to a straight line. “Change.” He said, entering the fourth floor.

  There, he arrived just as Tas leaped off the mountain for another attempt. Harley placed the rope to his right and sat for a bit. While waiting, he took his dagger and tied one end of the rope to the hilt. After he finished, he dropped the dagger along with the rope. He placed his elbow on his knee and rested his head on his closed fist, staring at the endless blue sky. After a few minutes, Tas spawned back behind him.

  “I know what to do.” Said Harley.

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  “You sound a little serious.”

  “Do I?” Harley twisted his head up, bending his head to look at Tas.

  “Nah, still creepy as always. Anyways, what is it?”

  “It’s simple. So simple that it makes you ask yourself if you are stupid. But hey, what can we do? We are still humans, we can’t know everything in an instant. More so in this type of situation where thinking just adds to the pain in the heart.”

  “You’re rambling so much again.” Tas groaned. “Just tell me what you fucking though of.”

  Harley grabbed his dagger and raised it.

  “And…?”

  “You throw me.”

  “What?”

  “Throw me as far as you possibly could.”

  Tas’s mind turned blank, he looked around at the sky, and in a few seconds, he agreed. “Okay.” A huge smile formed on his face. “I’ve been waiting for this.” He then took a step forward and picked up Harley. “No reaction?”

  “Throw me!” Harley yelled.

  Tas raised him up, pulled backward, and threw. “Gladly!”

  When Harley arrived at the cabin a month ago, the rabbit gave him a hint. It was a simple yet impactful hint that could solve every bit of his current problem. The hint was that the first five floors would follow a game-like logic. That statement was already proven by the basic movement of the monsters on the tutorial, the aggro of the first-floor termites, the convenient numbers of goblins on the second floor, the wave-like system of the third floor, and lastly, the giant bird appearing just as he leaves the barriers of the clouds.

  Harley glides through the sky, limbs outstretched, a mile away from the mountain. The wind brushed through his skin, the back of his clothes filling with air like a balloon. He held the dagger, the rope descending like a dragon’s tail. While he fell, he arranged his thoughts.

  Now, it would be stupid if the bird monster only appears if you leave the clouds close to the mountain. That would certainly be stupid. But that is exactly why I think by just being far out from the mountain, that stupid bird won’t spawn. This plan relies solely on the developer's laziness or the stupid actual intended solutions.

  His body entered through the fluffy void of white, clouding his eyes. Sound immediately disappeared, vision was blinded, his body was crawling with itch, and before he could even react to everything, his ears were blasted by the wind as he exited through the clouds like smashing through a speaker.

  A second quickly passed, and not a single screech could be heard around. Harley was successful; now the only thing left is to safely reach the ground without dying. He had initially thought of throwing the dagger as soon as he confirmed that the bird wouldn’t appear; however, the climb down was still enormous. If he was ever gonna feel pain, it should be something that would bring him to the bottom.

  Past the clouds, the mountain’s steep curve dimmed. The mountain quickly grew in size, the bottom of his eyes stared at its smooth legs, curved down like a cone. He estimated the height to be around ten to twelve miles higher.

  His plan to throw the dagger was so that it would stop his descent as soon as the rope reached its final length. The impact of his legs on the mountain was something he was ready to accept. But as the mountain’s thickness quickly grew, the more he waited to throw, the less his plan could work. Before the rope could even be stretched, he would already be hitting the ground, his entire body flattened by the speed of the fall.

  Around 7 miles left, Harley threw the dagger with every bit of his strength, enough to pierce through the mountain. A mile looks long vertically… but horizontally… it really doesn’t. He thought, just a minute, and it hit. He held onto the other end tightly with both hands, a giant spiral of string floated in the air, falling for the next two-mile length of the rope.

  Soon, the rope’s spring-like appearance became a slight wave, entering slowly into its final stretch. As he comes close, he gets ready, raising his legs to land on the ground with all he's got. Three miles below the ground, something finally ripped; the dagger still pierced into the mountain.

  Both of Harley’s arms snapped, his legs landing on the slope, shattering from the impact. His body then rolled down the mountain quickly, speeding up at each turn, smoking his clothes, scratching his skin, as a thick trail of crimson followed him, and blood dripped rapidly.

  Harley’s consciousness gripped tightly, his eyes wide open, covered in blood, pierced by a rock. His mind was filled with only one thing: the ground. Bones revealed themselves, organs began to spill, his eyes soon turned blank, and his entire body was mangled like a grinder’s product. You couldn’t even argue he was still alive. What was the definition of being alive if he reached the bottom in such a state?

  But he was still awake, the world dark, but still he endured. He continuously rolled till he hit a tree, breaking his spine. Slowly, his mouth wretchedly open, full of pain.

  "I'm- still... a-live."