Chapter 571: White Lies (1)

“Haa. Haa.” Mio’s vision grew misty as she kept herself upright using her sword as a cane. She had exhausted every last drop of magic and energy she had remaining to cut down Valencia.

‘I must... pull myself together.’

Her willpower was fierce, but she had already reached her limits, so she started falling forward. However, she fell into someone’s arms rather than on the hard ground.

“...Ah?”

“You did well.”

A familiar mask came into view. Seo Jun-Ho gently supported his party’s youngest member with his shoulder. “Go ahead and sleep. We’ll be at the ice castle by the time you wake up.”

“You always... thank...” For some reason, his warm, comforting arms reminded Mio of her mother’s arms. Mio let the exhaustion take over her, and she closed her eyes in peace.

Seo Jun-Ho slung the sleeping Mio over his shoulder and slung Mr. Shoot on his other shoulder.

“I guess we can call it a success.”

He stared at the beach.

He had saved his precious friends from dying, thanks to Sung-Jun’s instructions.

‘I had no idea that Isaac and Valencia would be here, but thankfully, it all worked out in the end.’ There was a simple reason behind the unexpected change.

The fiends in Sung-Jun’s world had died by his hand the moment they had tried to corrupt Kim Woo-Joong. ‘And he said that Mio died at the Overminds’ hands after falling into Milphage’s trap.’

A small change occurred, but the outcome was great.

In the end, Gilberto and Mio were still alive, while the Heavenly Demon lost both of his two hands.

Seo Jun-Ho chuckled coldly.

“You...” He was the one and only enemy who had been following him throughout all the seven Floors. He was the incarnation of evil and was once revered as the king of countless fiends. “You’re the only one left.”

Seo Jun-Ho wondered about what kind of face the Heavenly Demon would make upon realizing that he was now all alone.

***

“...”

The Heavenly Demon came to a halt and quietly placed his hand over his heart.

“It’s gone.”

Isaac’s Equation of Death—his safety measure—had vanished.

In other words, Isaac was dead.

“Isaac.” The Heavenly Demon’s eyes turned cold. “You useless thing.”

If he had known that Isaac would go and die in a ditch like this, he would have locked him up somewhere rather than waste such great insurance.

In addition, Isaac’s death meant that Valencia was dead as well.

“Those weaklings.”

They had spoken as if they would serve him forever.

They said that they would follow him until they had established a world filled with nothing but fiends. However, they perished and failed to keep the promise that they had made.

“...”

It was all because they were weak that the hunter had become the hunted.

“But I’m different.” He was strong, and he would become even stronger until he was invincible. The Heavenly Demon closed his eyes. He could hear their presumptuous reminders echoing in his head.

- My liege, sometimes, you must step back; haste makes waste.

- We have an endless amount of enemies, so we must increase our numbers.

They were weak and naive.

“...You two were mistaken.”

In the end, he was left all alone.

The Overminds wouldn’t spare him even a second glance.

Most importantly, the weaklings had gotten themselves killed, hadn’t they?

“A predator does not demonstrate its strength by training.”

It simply hunted prey.

The Heavenly Demon opened his eyes and stepped forward, looking bored.

From now on, every living creature was his prey.

***

Clink. Clink.

The morning sunlight shone down on Seo Jun-Ho’s face, and the clattering of dishes reached his ears.

“Do you know how hard I had it here while you guys were gone?”

“You said that like a hundred times already...”

“Hmph. Nonsense. I’ve only said it fourteen times so far.”

“And yet you decided to bring it up again? What’s wrong with you?”

“Hmm? What’s that? I don’t want to hear that from the idiot who got captured by the enemies.”

Seo Jun-Ho wondered what he had done to deserve being woken up by their bickering.

He got up and scratched. “You guys are so loud...”

“Oh, you’re awake?”

“Good morning~”

No, it wasn’t a good morning. Seo Jun-Ho looked with tired eyes.

Sure enough, his friends were crowded around his table and eating breakfast.

“Hoo.” He let out a small sigh and raised his hand. “Gilbe, can you make me a cup of coffee as well?”

“Sure thing.”

Seo Jun-Ho breathed in the thick scent of freshly brewed coffee. Still bundled in his blanket, Seo Jun-Ho walked over to the table and grumbled, “Who gave you guys the right to just barge into someone’s room and eat breakfast?”

“Huh? We were invited,” Skaya said, chewing on toast. She pointed at someone else.

Seo Jun-Ho’s face turned sour upon finding Seo Jun-Sik on the couch, flipping a page of his manhwa.

“Yup. I let them in.”

“Wow. Really, now... And what right do you have to do that?”

“What, right?” Seo Jun-Sik lowered his book, looking hurt. “See, this is all I get for taking care of you. Do you know what I had to go through—”

“Ugh, fine. Just forget it and go back to reading your book.” Seo Jun-Ho waved him off. He had a feeling that pushing him even further would only make him even more annoyed.

‘It’s hard to be tough on him like I used to be.’ It was probably because he felt sorry for what Seo Jun-Sik had gone through. He probably didn’t do it willingly, but Seo Jun-Sik had been following his orders all these years.

‘But that ends this week.’ Seo Jun-Ho had already absorbed all the memories that Seo Jun-Sik had of his training. In other words, it would be like he was the one who had gone through all that training.

Seo Jun-Sik would probably throw a fit if he heard his thoughts, so Seo Jun-Ho looked away from him.

“Mio, how are you feeling?” he asked.

Mio quietly put down her cup of tea and looked up. “Valencia nearly pushed me over the edge, but you saved me. I need not anything more.”

“Pushover...? What?”[1]

“It means that I escaped certain death.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s good.”

It had already been two days since they arrived at the ice castle.

Seo Jun-Ho had done nothing but sleep in the past two days.

“On the contrary, we’re concerned about you, Jun-Ho,” Mio said.

“For real. These three went through a lot, but you look more tired than them,” Skaya added.

“...Yeah, you’re right. I guess I’m just a bit tired.”

It had been the longest ten days of his life. To be fair, he had done a lot of things in those ten days. ‘I saved Rahmadat, fought the Overmind army, and went right to the lab afterward.’

And then he met him...

Sung-Jun.

‘And I immediately got busy afterward.’ He had saved Gilbert and had gone right to Mio without even catching his breath.

“Hoo.” Seo Jun-Ho sighed. Recalling the past ten days brought back another wave of fatigue.

Gilberto put down a cup in front of him. “Drink. It’ll wake up.”

“Thanks.” Seo Jun-Ho blew on the hot coffee and gulped it.

Gilberto was right; it woke him right up.

“Oh, there’s apparently going to be a meeting in the evening,” Rahmadat said, munching on ten pieces of bacon at once.

“A meeting? What meeting?”

“You’re the Players’ de facto leader. They said they want to discuss upcoming plans with you.”

“Plans...?” Seo Jun-Ho had plans, but he had to confirm a few things before executing any of his plans.

“Where’s Woo-Joong?” he asked.

“The little runt stuck him on the wall of your training room.”

“Good.”

They couldn’t let anyone discover what happened to Kim Woo-Joong until they destroyed the Float Force Power Plant.

‘Especially Son Chae-Won... They couldn’t allow her to discover Kim Woo-Joong’s status. She’s the Guild Master of Silent Moon, after all.’

Sung-Jun had told him that they had fallen into a great panic upon discovering the Sword Demon’s identity.

‘I feel bad, but I can’t tell the others right now.’

The problem was that Kim Woo-Joong had been missing for over ten days now.

“Skaya, how is Son Chae-Won?” he asked.

“She was just waiting patiently for the first few days, but she’s a bit restless lately.”

“Makes sense.” Her best friend had gone missing, after all. Seo Jun-Ho thought about it for a moment before asking, “What do you guys think? Will it be better to keep it a secret? Or...”

“White lies?”

“Exactly.”

A few lies were no big deal as long as they would maintain the peace of the ice castle.

In addition, Seo Jun-Ho himself was observing Kim Woo-Joong.

“I don’t think we can convince them with just a few words,” Skaya said.

“...Yeah.”

Every single member of Silent Moon here was a veteran Player.

They would easily see through flimsy lies, and there would be chaos by then.

“All right, then. I’ll leave that part to you, Skaya. You can do it, right?” asked Seo Jun-Ho.

“Sure, I guess. I’ll come up with something before the meeting.”

“Thanks. And what about Kiora?”

“We heard that she woke up this morning.”

“Hm.”

Kiora had passed out after exhausting herself fighting the monsters of Valencia’s castle.

It was fortunate that she didn’t die, but she had to rest for at least a week.

“The second thing we need to take care of is... yeah, it’s the issue about Milphage,” Seo Jun-Ho said. The traitor ended up being Milphage, and an uproar would definitely occur if they were to tell everyone about that at the upcoming meeting.

Seo Jun-Ho closed his eyes and made a decision. “...We’ll keep this under wraps for now, but we should tell Sung-Hyun and Chae-Won because they have been actively looking for the traitor all these years.”

“Is it because you don’t want them to panic?” Gilberto asked.

“Yes.”

The battle was fast approaching. The Overminds would definitely make their move soon after the Players had stolen two holy relics from them. The Players had to be united to face the Overminds.

“We need to trust each other. Otherwise, it’ll be difficult for us to work together,” said Seo Jun-Ho.

Hallem’s members were formidable.

Kiora had to recover as fast as possible for her to lead Hallem in Milphage’s absence.

“Jun-Ho, by any chance, is there—”

“You don’t have to worry about that, Gilbe. No one else was involved.” Seo Jun-Ho interrupted. He was confident because he had dug deep into Milphage memories. “He didn’t tell a single soul what he did.”

In other words, he had personally handed over the necessary information to the fiends.

Seo Jun-Ho sighed lightly. “Those are the only things we should keep in mind for now.”

“Got it. I’ll be on my way then,” Skaya said. She went off to craft their story.

“In that case, I’m going to the gym to work out.”

“I’m going to wake Arthur up.”

“Gilberto, Arthur is a fully-grown adult. I believe he should be dining with the other Watchguards at the moment,” Mio said.

“Hey, I’m not that obsessed with him. I’m just going to check to see if he’s getting all his nutrients from his food, that’s all.”

Wasn’t that basically an obsession?

“Hm. I am feeling a bit hungry,” muttered the Frost Queen from the sofa after the others finally left Seo Jun-Ho’s residence.

“...”

Seo Jun-Ho met Seo Jun-Sik’s eyes and scratched his head. “I—uh. Do you want some cookies? Cake? There should be some in the cafeteria.”

“I’ll make you some tea while he brings it up, then.”

“Hm?” The Frost Queen swept a suspicious gaze at the two men. “What is this? What’s up with this excellent treatment? Is there a reason behind this?”

“Of course not, why would we need a reason to treat you properly?”

“I’m sho shad. Are you saying that we were treating you badly?” Seo Jun-Sik whined.

“Hm... no, but... you usually treat me like this whenever you have done something wrong.”

“Wow. What are you trying to say? Do you have any proof?”

“I...suppose not.” The Frost Queen crossed her arms and pondered.

However, her curiosity would never be satisfied. It was all because Seo Jun-Ho and Seo Jun-Sik were the only two people on earth who knew Sung-Jun’s secret, and they were planning on taking their secrets with them to the grave.

“So you don’t want any snacks?”

“...I did not say that,” said the Frost Queen.

She felt a strange sense of defeat as she added, “Give me a lot, all right?”

1. Mio uses a fancy 4-character hanja phrase. The first two characters can be read as “pushover” ☜