I Don't Need To Log Out

The year began.

Eight hours of walking every day.

Nothing more, nothing less.

When Arlon moved, the creature followed. When Arlon stopped, so did it. At first, the pattern felt coincidental.

Then deliberate. After a month, it became routine. A strange rhythm born not of choice but of law.

The creature, despite its power, seemed bound just as he was.

It never tried to leap at him.

Never roared or charged.

Just walked.

Every day, the same relentless steps.

It was also a sentient existence, so it probably had already learned the law, at least some part of it.

Arlon never let himself get comfortable.

He still couldn't forget how it had looked back on Floor 100—calm, cold, and completely unbothered by him.

Even now, it walked with the same disinterest, as if it was simply fulfilling some unknown function.

But when he looked into its eyes—when their gazes happened to meet—it didn't feel mechanical.

It felt aware.

Maybe not curious, not hostile—but conscious of Arlon's presence.

And that made it worse.

Because Arlon didn't know how much it understood.

Some days, he caught it looking up. As if studying the sky.

Other times, its head would tilt ever so slightly toward the buzzing sound in the air.

The sound never stopped.

It wasn't loud, but it was constant. Like the Tower's own pulse.

And Arlon knew—if he could hear it, so could the creature.

Did it recognize the pattern?

Did it know what this place was?

Maybe it could understand what the sound said and had already turned it off.

If it did, it never showed it openly.

It just watched. Walked. Waited.

And so did Arlon.

During the sixteen hours of daily stillness, he worked.

The floor didn't restrict him outside of movement, so he trained.

He meditated.

He cast small, controlled spells—spells that healed the internal damage he hadn't been able to mend before.

Since the system still considered him 'in combat,' both his health and mana regeneration remained slow.

At first, it was rough. His mana reserves were thin. His casting unstable.

But after weeks of daily repetition, it stabilized.

Even without leveling up, he could feel the difference.

His spells became sharper. Cleaner. More efficient.

Time magic, especially, improved the most after understanding the time prison better.

He no longer needed to chant or focus for seconds at a time. What he couldn't do with Agema, he had learned in the Tower.

With a glance, he could slow the aging of a wound or accelerate the mending of torn muscle.

The system didn't heal him, but it allowed the small things.

So Arlon made use of every inch.

His body fully recovered within the first month. After that, it became stronger.

But no matter how much he trained—how much he refined—he knew he still wouldn't be able to scratch the monster again.

His level hadn't changed.

Level 299.

Still the same.

But his mind... it was sharper than ever.

He studied the Tower. He gave more attention to the moments when the time prison activated and deactivated

Observed how the creature moved, how its muscles coiled and relaxed. It wasn't mindless; that much was clear. It adapted.

On some days, it stopped even before Arlon did. On others, it tilted its head at the hour mark, as if it, too, was counting.

Of course, Arlon was relying on the system as a timer—he wasn't counting manually.

Still, Arlon never let his guard down.

He didn't sleep.

Not once.

He entered deep meditation to preserve energy, but he never truly rested.

The creature could change its behavior any day. Find a way to cast magic, or hurl a rock, or compress energy into something lethal.

It never did.

But Arlon never assumed it wouldn't.

And day by day, step by step, the year passed.

By the tenth month, Arlon had memorized the exact distance between them to the centimeter.

By the eleventh, he had restructured his mana pathways, streamlining them through sheer repetition.

He had turned off the sound a long time ago since it got too loud.

And the creature had probably also understood the language and turned it off since it didn't react to a high voice.

Either that or it was already crazy and didn't care about the voice.

And now—

Only one day remained.

He stood still.

Behind him, as always, the creature stood.

Waiting.

One final day.

Then they would arrive at Jiroeki's house.

And whatever came after that...

Arlon would face it.

One more day.

---

The final day began.

Arlon took his first step forward, just like he had done every day for the past year.

But today felt heavier.

He had already played out countless scenarios in his mind, tried to predict every possible outcome, every variation.

And in nearly all of them, he died.

Back when he activated the controller through the mana flow on Floor 100, he'd made a simple assumption: that only he would be transferred here.

After all, the creature wasn't a registered challenger.

It shouldn't have been able to follow.

But it had.

So now, they both walked the same path—two figures bound by a rule that should've applied to one.

Of course, Arlon hadn't exactly followed the rules himself.

He'd bent them. Twisted them.

Maybe even broken them.

He had tried to use the Tower's own system to escape a fight he couldn't win, and somewhere deep down, he knew that the Tower—or rather, the one who had built it—would never allow such a thing without consequence.

So in truth, he had no right to complain.

His plan had always carried a risk.

And now, that risk was walking just a few dozen meters behind him.

For a while, he'd told himself it didn't matter. That even if the creature had made it here, maybe the rules of this place would hold it back.

But he had tested that theory for a year, and the truth was clear.

The floor had accepted the monster.

Somehow, it was part of this stage now.

And that meant Arlon had failed.

His strategy—to escape, to buy time, to reach safety—hadn't worked.

But even so, there was still one possibility.

A single path through all the dozens he'd mapped in his mind.

And unlike the others, this one didn't end with his death.

It wasn't a sure thing. Far from it.

But it wasn't impossible either.

In fact, the probability of it working wasn't low.

And maybe—just maybe—that was enough.

Arlon didn't need certainty.

He only needed a chance.

So he walked.

Quietly. Steadily.

With one eye on the horizon—and the other on the faint sound of footsteps behind him.