Chapter 52: After The Ending (3)

Chapter 52: After The Ending (3)

After passing through the crowd, we finally arrived at the cafe, where I saw familiar faces.

“Hahaha. Welcome!” The Inquisitor, the leader of the Pantheon, waved his right arm. “I can’t believe you actually cleared all those floors and the twentieth floor in five days! It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen since the Tower appeared. I deeply respect you, Mr. Kim Gong-Ja. Wait, I should call you Death King now!”

“I’m still wondering if I’m dreaming, though...” The Paladin sipped on her iced coffee. “To be honest, I thought you, the Black Dragon Master, and the Sword Star would fail and end up dead. You even cleared the twentieth floor on your own, right? If you have a secret to your success, please share.”

“Secrets...” I sat by the table. “Things work out if I live a kind life.”

“That’s very practical advice.” The Paladin smiled bitterly.

“It’s good to see you again. It’s been a while—how have all of you been?” I asked.

“Well, it’s only been five days; I wouldn’t call that ‘a while’.” The Countess puffed on her churchwarden pipe. “At first, we stayed in the audience chamber like we promised to you—a promise is a promise, after all—but after some time, the empire’s NPCs suddenly started moving around. I was shocked!”

“Oh, yeah.” I blinked in surprise. That must have happened when I had defeated the Demon King on the twelfth floor. After defeating the Demon King for the first time, I had received a quest, which had triggered time resuming on the twelfth floor.

“That didn’t occur to me. What happened afterward?”

“The NPCs thought we invaded the palace to overthrow the king!” The Inquisitor giggled. “Someone with fancy clothes roared ’Get those traitors!’ The Imperial Knights and their elite soldiers came running to get us. Gosh, I had goosebumps!”

“But this kid has many tricks up his sleeve.” The Viper, the one-eyed Hunter who led the OJP Sect, tousled the Inquisitor’s hair. “We obediently let them lock us up and then escaped from the prison. Tsk. Seriously, that was crazy.”

“Hahaha! Wasn’t it fun? I didn’t expect a hidden passageway like that in the dungeon! That brought me back to my childhood!”

“Huh? You said that the Bulgarian mafias held you captive when you were young.”

“Yes!” The Inquisitor smiled innocently. “That’s why it brought me back to my childhood! Prison! Underground dungeons! Escape! Those are the highlights of my treasured childhood! Ahhhh... that’s all so nostalgic now.”

“You nuthead...” The Viper let out a long, loud sigh.

It looked like the guild leaders had been on quite a ride while I was having my hero’s showdown with the Demon King.

“Yes, we all led fascinating lives in the outside world.” The Black Witch shrugged, joining the table. “The Countess was born in India’s trash mountain. Viper, your parents were gangster execs. The Paladin went through quite a lot in Venezuela. We’re all trash in the eyes of people in the outside world, aren’t we?”

The air in the cafe quickly became heavy. No one made a sound except for the Paladin, who sipped on her coffee.

“...This really isn’t the kind of conversation to have in a place like this.” The Paladin’s eyes lingered subtly on my face. “Are you treating the Death King as one of us now?”

“Yes,” the Black Witch said. “The rest of you wouldn’t know, but the Death King played a vital role in clearing up to the twentieth floor.”

“We’re aware.”

The Black Witch shook her head. “No, you aren’t. We didn’t take a single casualty in this expedition even with how many Hunters were at the eleventh-floor stage together. Every one of them came back alive. That’s all thanks to the Death King. He told me all the tactics I needed to use.”

All eyes were firmly on me now. The cafe was completely silent.

“It’s true.” I shrugged.

“I want to make this man the hero that represents the Tower,” the Black Witch continued. She carefully met the eyes of each of the Hunters sitting around the table one by one. “Countess, you love money too much.”

“I can’t deny that,” the Countess casually answered.

“Inquisitor, you’ve killed too many people.”

“Yes!” The Inquisitor’s hand shot into the air. “That was a necessary sacrifice!”

“Paladin, you hate receiving attention.”

“It’s just my personality.” The Paladin took a sip of her coffee.

“And Viper, you’re...”

“Huh? What?” The Viper scratched his chin.

“...I’m sorry. You’re too ugly,” the Black Witch finished with a genuinely apologetic expression.

The Viper, aghast, opened and closed his mouth. However, his head soon drooped. He was the very picture of the grief of a middle-aged man.

“As all of you already know, the Sword Star is just an old man who’s obsessed with his sword.”

The Hunters nodded.

“I often have to work from the shadows, so I can’t do it,” the Black Witch went on. Finally, her sharp gaze landed on me. “In contrast, the Death King doesn’t have a public image yet. If we try, it’s more than possible to make him the perfect hero. This is a chance to refresh the Tower’s image.”

The Inquisitor stroked his chin. “I see. We’re all old news, so it’s true that we’ve lost our influence a little! We keep printing magazines about Hunters, but the sales are gradually decreasing in the outside world!”

The Black Witch nodded. “Yes, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“Then we should start working on his image today!” The Inquisitor stood up energetically and circled me like a puppy. “Hmm. You’re a little small, but that’s okay! As you can see from me, cameras and photoshop can take care of it!”

“Umm...” I thought the Inquisitor’s selling point was his petiteness.

A wide smile spread on the petite Hunter’s small face. “’Death King, the small but big-hearted man.’ A catchphrase like that will work perfectly!”

Before I could retort, the Black Witch, the Countess, the Viper, and the Paladin clustered around me. Regardless of their affiliation, they gathered around and examined me from head to toe.

“I’m asking this just in case: are you dating anyone?” the Inquisitor loudly asked.

“N-no, I’m not.”

“Did you ever date anyone after you entered the Tower?”

“No, I haven’t.” I shook my head.

“In other words, there’s no chance of a romance scandal. Perfect.”

I didn’t really get what it was supposed to be perfect for.

The High Rankers began to talk among themselves.

“I’ve been watching, and he looks a little like a third-rate villain if he smiles. So I think that he should stay mysterious. He has a good poker face, so it’ll work.”

“But dating no one is a problem in its own way,” the Paladin said. “We should create a romance scandal ourselves. If not, people outside will fabricate...”

“It’s okay. I’ll handle it,” the Black Witch reassured them.

“Oh! Love sprouted during five days of fighting for your lives together? Hahaha! Good, good! We’ll be able to create a story that people will love!”

“How about we release a story that the Death King has been donating a significant amount of his earnings to orphanages? There are some donations I’ve been making anonymously for a time like this. I’ll say that they were the Death King’s donations.”

“Yes, please do that, Countess.”

What? What was happening right now?

“Let’s get on with it! We should get photographers!” The Inquisitor beamed. “We’d better bring in stylists too—we have to give the media at least one photo today. I’ve already made several videos of the battle we had on the eleventh floor, so I’ll spread them online at the right time!”

“No, wait. Excuse me, everyone...” I reached out to them.

“Don’t worry.” The Black Witch stopped me with a smile. I could feel her long experience from her smile. “Death King, you don’t need to worry about a thing. We’ll take care of everything. You should... Yes, you should keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

“Wait, you said I can go mysterious. Why do I need a stylist?” I quickly asked.

“It’s just for one day. Please.” The Black Witch pressed her hands together pleadingly. “Everyone in the world wants to know about you. One photo—just take one photo and show it to people. Please? It’s going to be okay, Death King. Our exclusive stylists are all amazing.”

Thirty minutes later I discovered that it was absolutely not going to end with one photo.

“Look over here please!”

Flash!

Over ten stylists came running. They dressed me and did my hair. Every time they put me in different clothes and slightly changed my hair, the photographer’s camera went off.

“Yes, good. Please hold up a dagger this time! Pretend you’re a wolf searching for your prey in the depths of the forest!”

“No... Wait...” I groaned.

“Very good!”

Flash!

The Sword Star was looking at the sunset, not me.

“But you wouldn’t punish yourself. I believe that’s because you have a clear standard for who you kill—you aim to punish those who killed many people.” I watched the sunset play on the Sword Star’s face. “I have also done what I did with a clear standard. It’s to punish those who will hurt a lot of people. While you kill people because they’ve already murdered many people, I kill people because they will kill a lot of people.”

It was the intricate lie I had prepared for the Sword Star ever since I had deceived him into believing that I was a clairvoyant.

“So, Mr. Sword Star, we’re practically working for the same—”

Before I could finish my lie, the Sword Star said, “Young man, you don’t need to try that hard to convince me.”

“Mr. Sword Star, I...”

“Young man.” His quiet voice made me hold my tongue. The Sword Star’s eyes were still on the sunset. “I’m different from other Hunters.”

It sounded a bit out of the blue.

“Black Witch, Countess, Inquisitor, Viper, Paladin... All of those children went through a very rough life in the outside world, but I was different. I was born and raised without any depravity.”

I was aware that Marcus Carlenbery was from a prestigious family from Europe. To be precise, I had learned that when I had been researching him. Yes, his family was quite well known in Northern Europe.

“By the time the Tower appeared, I had experience running a business; I got married, had children, and saw my children give me grandchildren. I was successful in every way I could imagine,” the Sword Star calmly said. “But that got me wondering.”

“It got you wondering what?” I asked.

“I was curious if my success was really from my ability.” The Sword Star slowly drew his sword. “Perhaps it was all possible because I had been born in a good country.”

The sunset continued to seep into the bell tower’s top floor, staining the sword blood-red despite being pristine.

“I was born into a good family, received a good education, and met good friends. I was surrounded by the best things in the world. All of that might be a fancy birdcage. Although I was confident that I had built everything I had... maybe it was just the delusions of the one trapped inside the cage.” The Sword Star’s eyes were as sharp as his sword. “No, I didn’t want to believe it.”

His voice carried emotions from his heart that were as red as the sunset. “I was certainly born in luxury, but I’m still confident that I got where I am on my own. And I want to prove that my pride wasn’t a delusion.”

“...That’s why you came to the Tower.” I nodded.

The Sword Star nodded. “Those who entered the Tower can never return to the outside world, so I was without my family or my loyal subordinates. I’m on my own, and I want to prove my life. But I think I let my guard down too much and I wasn’t aware of it.”

His face was deeply wrinkled.

“Open my Skill Card.”

A silver card floated above the Sword Star’s palm.

Detective Eyes

Class: B-

Effect: You can see other people’s kill counts. Does not include indirect murder. Only the murders the person committed with clear intention are tallied.

※However, you can’t see the means of murder.

“I was a fool.” The Sword Star looked down at his Skill Card. “I decided to trust only my eyes and hands... but one day I realized that I was relying on something called a Skill. Instead of seeing the world with my own eyes, I looked at the world through my Skill. I blindly believed my Skill’s assessment like everyone else, rather than making a judgment of my own.”

His blue eyes turned to me. “Young man, I’ll ask you one last time: did you take any innocent lives?”

I came to a realization: this is why he said I didn’t need to convince him. Yes, you convinced someone through their head; however, even the most intricate lies would only get through their brain. They didn’t touch people’s hearts. What I had to do was get through to the Sword Star’s heart like what I had done with the Tower’s Pillars.

“No, I never have, Mr. Sword Star,” I said, speaking from my heart. “And I never will.”

The Sword Star closed his eyes as if he was ruminating on my expression and voice. Silence hung in the air.

“...Hah!”

He threw the card into the air and his glittering blade cut it neatly in two. Golden sunset shone through the gaps between the pieces, which soon scattered into motes of light. His Skill was destroyed.

“I’ll trust my judgment. Thank you for enduring the old man’s stubbornness for the last five days.” The Sword Star sheathed his sword. “I know it’s late, but I want to say that it was a pleasure to clear the twelfth to nineteenth floor with you. Rest well today. The twenty-first floor will open right after the press conference ends tomorrow.”

The Sword Star took a step forward and stopped. Before he leaped to another building’s roof, he briefly looked at me. “I look forward to your work on the next floor, Death King.”

And then he zipped away from the bell tower.

I couldn’t open my mouth for a long time.

“...Mr. Sword Emperor.”

—Yeah.

“...The Sword Star gave me his approval just now, didn’t he?”

—It looks like it. The Guardian nodded.

Relief rushed over me, turning my legs into jelly. The stone floor was cold. I blankly looked up at the sky, which was such a thick red that it was almost black.

“Wow... It’s really... It’s really over. The twentieth floor is mine. The guild leaders will take care of the media... Yeah, it’s really over.”

—What do you mean over? If someone saw you, they’d think you just cleared the fiftieth floor. The Guardian laughed quietly.

“I feel like I cleared the ninetieth floor.”

—Tsk, tsk, tsk. I sometimes wonder if you’re a lion or a mouse.

“Sometimes I wonder too, actually...”

Anyhow, all of my business on the twentieth floor down was taken care of. The thought gave me a subtle feeling of satisfaction.

[The Goddess of Protection admires your accomplishments!]

It had been a while since I heard that divine voice.

“Huh?” Come to think of it, the Goddess of Protection had been quiet even though the Demon King of Autumn Rain was defeated. No, the goddess was always quiet, except for the time I had cleared the twelfth floor.

[The Goddess of Protection has given her approval for everything you have done!]

The voice continued as if she were trying to make up for the silence until now.

[The Goddess of Protection believes that although you aren’t actually her apostle, you have enough qualifications to become one.]

[The Goddess of Protection has given her approval for you to continue using her in the future!]

The message was getting weird.

“...What do you mean ‘to continue using you’?”

[The Goddess of Protection is sad to hear your reply after all the good time you and her spent together.]

I really couldn’t understand what was going on.

“All the good time we spent together...?”

[The Goddess of Protection asks you to look down.]

I did that, but I saw nothing except the stone floor.

[The Goddess of Protection asks you to look a little bit to the left.]

When I followed her instructions, my eyes landed on my legs and waist. On my waist was the sheathed Lefanta Aegim’s Holy Protector Sword, the legendary weapon bestowed by the Goddess of Protection to the first emperor of the Aegim Empire.

“...Hold on. No way...”

[The Goddess of Protection urges you to focus on your waist.]

I felt a chill run down my spine. The time I had fought the Demon King’s army on the twelfth floor crossed my head. At the time, the Goddess of Protection had said that she used the last bit of her power and as soon she had said that, something I had been holding burst into light. There was no other miracle. In other words...

“Wait, wait. When I was fighting against the Demon King, the Goddess of Protection was occasionally mentioned...” My voice was thick with disbelief. “This whole time, you’ve been... a sword?”

After a moment, I had an answer.

[The Goddess of Protection has affirmed your statement!]

Oh my god. It looked like my holy sword was genuinely divine.