Chapter 384: The Nine Keys (2)

Chapter 384: The Nine Keys (2)

“Gather nine keys!”

I tilted my head. “What keys am I supposed to gather?”

“

Hmm!

I’ll explain.”

The Mirage-Walking Princess snapped her fingers. An image appeared above the falling sand, as if sewn with platinum thread. At first, it looked like a slice of an anthill or a tree with many roots.

“This is...”

“Yes, Scream Sky! It’s a sectional drawing of your Tower. It looks different when you see it like this, right?”

Like she said, it was a sectional map of the Tower displayed floor by floor. Even when I had been a rookie Hunter, maps of the lower floors were unofficially passed around. Recently, the Black Dragon Guild and the Pantheon joined forces to map the Tower, so I recognized what I was seeing quickly.

“You were summoned to the first basement floor, and the zeroth floor is where your homeland lies. So, I’ll skip those.”

The princess smiled and raised her baton, tapping the first floor of the Tower drawn on the sand.

“The first floor of the Tower is a shelter. A base, a stronghold... It can be called many things, but shelter is the most fitting name. It’s a place where people can rest after fleeing from something. The first floor acts as a breakwater, shielding people from whatever they fled.”

Swish.

The baton lightly stroked through the model of the great river that flowed through Babylon, the city of the Tower.

“Water flows here. Rain falls in the city, too. The water is made from... Anyway, that water holds some nutrients. It’s clear and has no smell, and you can stay alive by drinking that. But if people feel like this isn’t true living...”

Swish.

The tip of the stick went up the sand and pointed to the second floor of the Tower.

“... they can choose to become a warrior.” The princess’s baton swept back and forth across the second floor of the Tower. “From the trees, they can gather fruit and timber. Stone and ores from the rocks. From the grass, vegetables and herbs. By defeating beasts like wolves or goblins, they can get meat, leather, items, and gold.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You’ve also walked this path, but tell me, Scream Sky.” The princess tilted her head. “Was this really necessary?”

It was a sudden question but it was also long overdue.

“Maybe we could have given them everything. The fruits, the timber, the ore, the herbs, and the meat. All of it. What do you think, Scream Sky?”

I fell deep in thought. The princess’ question was something many had thought of during the Tower’s early days. Bambolina had once said that it was one of the reasons cults never ceased to exist around the Tower.

I replied, “Probably because resources were limited.”

“

Hmm.

”

“To provide food, clothing, and shelter for that many people forever... That would require a large amount of resources, so inevitably...” As I thought about it, I realized something. “I see.”

“

Hmm?

”

“Was it on purpose?”

The princess smiled as I went on.

“I’m not a full Pillar yet, so I can’t be sure, but if I have to answer...”

The princess’s smile became wider. It seemed she wanted me to reply as a future Pillar who was meant to run the Tower.

“The Tower master wants to be seen as the source of all evil. By placing threats like monsters and making trials, the Tower master could be blamed for not saving everyone, even though she can...”

No, this was too vague and philosophical. There had to be a more realistic reason.

“Because a clear foe is needed for those who flee to the Tower to unite against?

Hmm

, that doesn’t feel right either. Then...“

The princess stood with her hands behind her back, staring at me. It seemed she was prepared to wait as long as needed.

After thinking for a long time, I said, “I’m not sure, Princess. Why is that?”

“Think about it. Before your world became as hot as it is now, back when your orphanage director was your age, what would have happened if your Guardian had been in your home country?”

I looked at the Guardian, who snorted with his arms crossed. The answer came to me immediately.

I said, “

Um...

he would have been a madman.”

“And?”

“And, well, a thug? A gym owner? A mixed martial arts fighter? Probably something like that, right?”

“Yes.” The princess nodded. “He may have moved to another country and become a mercenary for hire, but that’s all. Nothing more. But, Scream Sky, what if the Sword Emperor had been born in ancient times?”

I glanced at the Sword Emperor. The answer to that also came to me quickly.

“He would have become a hero.”

“Not a king?” she asked.

“What do you mean ‘king?’ What laws would he make? How would he rule? People may have worshiped him, and maybe he would have founded a kingdom, but it would have immediately fallen apart after the Sword Emperor died. Or maybe it would have happened while he was still alive.”

“

Hehehe

, you’re right.” The princess laughed. With her hands behind her back, she used her toes to sift through the pile of sand that had gathered on the floor, looking innocent. “But, from the Sword Emperor’s point of view, it would have been a much more fulfilling life than living as a mixed martial arts fighter, right?”

“I suppose so.”

“Such a world, such an era... A place where the age of warriors ended long ago. A place where heroes with swords yielded their place to legions using guns. How would someone like the Sword Emperor be treated there?”

He would be considered an obstacle. A self-righteous man. A madman. A social outcast.

“The Sword Emperor himself wouldn’t care at all,” she said. That was true. “If someone pitied him, he would have looked at them as if they were the lunatic.”

He would certainly have.

“But is that a just world for the Sword Emperor?” she asked.

Somehow, it made my heart ache a little, like watching a dinosaur’s corpse decay over the same time it took a mountain to crumble.

“A person only has two arms. To hold something else, they have to give up what they held before. It’s the same for society if it wants to grow. Every civilization can stand tall only on the bodies of many unborn.”

“So...”

“Mom wanted to build a place where no era was left behind—or at least a place where that was possible.”

Once more, the baton swept across the second and third floors.

“The age of warriors and heroes. A world where one can prove their worth by cutting something down.”

Swish.

The baton moved up through the sand like a salmon and touched the tenth floor.

“The age of priests and priestesses. A world where those cut down could find rest.”

𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

The baton paused on the eleventh floor.

“So, while the first to the tenth floors are the Golden Age, then the eleventh to the twentieth are the Silver Age.”

“Silver...” I repeated.

“That’s when you arrived at the Aegim Empire, right? Other realms. Places with no link to you all in any way. Other Towers face different worlds from the eleventh to the twentieth floors. However, since you haven’t reached the fiftieth floor, the worlds you faced weren’t entirely new, but the ones that have already been destroyed once.”

The baton began moving again.

“It’s the age of travelers. A world where you can glimpse the lives these people lived amidst the ruins of fallen kingdoms’ castles.”

The twelfth floor, the thirteenth floor, the fourteenth floor...

“The age of generals, the age of merchants, the age of soldiers...”

The baton, upstreaming the falling sand, finally reached the twentieth floor.

“Starting here is the Steel Age.”

“In our Tower, that was the Great Library of All life, right?”

“Yes, Hamustra was like Zhuge Liang. Mom said that the more she worked him to his bone, the better things became.”

That seemed sad, yet my pity vanished when I pictured Hamustra’s face.

“What about the other Towers?” I asked.

“Many of them also have Hamustra. For others, it’s mostly Mutia or Mahos. At times, Babbit takes charge. That fox hanging around your neck also took on the work once.”

“I almost nitpicked about how Babbit took on the job, but I’ll make the safe choice of just nodding along. My fox god did that. I’ll end it at that.”

“Yes, I’ll also choose not to react.” The princess continued with the explanation. “Those who learned the cost they have to pay to survive during the Golden Age learn how to treat others in the Silver Age. In the Steel Age, they finally welcome the king of their world.”

“King...”

Anastasha’s voice suddenly flashed through my mind, asking if I was ready to become our Tower’s king.

I nodded. “So that’s why only the High Rankers could join the floor expedition from that point on.”

“Yes. If you want to be the king of a world, you first have to represent that world.”

“In that sense, Mr. Sword Emperor is a king, too.”

—

Zombie, you just called me the Sword Emperor. Emperor, not king! Repeat what you just said.

“Do you know that there is a hanja that means mad dog? It sounds the same as the hanja for emperor[1]. I didn’t know it either, but I looked it up once and found it.”

—Bravo, you found a hanja that would probably crash and display as ■ in Unicode, just like your head.

“If that’s the case, your name would show up as Sword ■. It sounds like ominous foreshadowing.”

—I so want to hit you until that foreshadowing comes true.

I awkwardly scratched the back of my head.

The princess waited until our talk ended before resuming speaking. “And the thirtieth floor... is the Bronze Age. Here, you guys—”

“We have children.”

The princess smiled. “Yes. Although more Towers see it as having subordinates.’

My head drooped. The Gray Spider came to mind. Anyway, I felt like I understood the structure.

“The Golden Age is about oneself, while the Silver Age is about others. In the Steel Age, you have to look up, but in the Bronze Age, you have to look down,” I summarized.

“Yes, and there’s the Stone Age from the fortieth floor onward. Here, you’re judged. I don’t need to explain this in detail, correct?”

“Yes, we already discussed it during the final vote,” I replied.

“Right. This forms one cycle, from the first to the forty-ninth floor. After that, this cycle repeats but on a deeper level. Mom really loves music.”

Her words echoed those of the Primordial Staff. The princess’s baton swept and pointed to the fiftieth floor.

“But it also becomes more aggressive. The fiftieth floor works not as a haven but as a fort and a base. The sixtieth floor and onward is where you start fighting with other worlds in earnest.”

“Starting from the seventieth floor, we have the underworld... I see. In a way, that counts as looking up again.”

“Yes, you would also know it well by now what the eightieth to eighty-ninth floors signify.”

“I do. I think I finally understand why cleared floors stay, letting others come and go. It’s to stop an era from vanishing.”

“That’s right.”

“Thank you for the interesting explanation, but I still haven’t heard about the most important part. What are the nine keys I should gather?”

“All the clues are in what I’ve said!” The princess spun around with a wide smile. “Scream Sky, look back at the worlds you’ve passed through. Take a look around at what you’ve left behind as you climbed the Tower. Look at the path you’ve walked so far.”

Her eyes, similar to the Tower master’s but different, were violet.

“The keys to the hundredth floor are there.”

I finally understood my task. “I see. From the ninetieth to the ninety-nineth floor, it’s not about climbing...”

“Yes.”

The Mirage-Walking Princess snapped her fingers. The sand falling in the center of the ninetieth floor split in half, revealing a staircase. That staircase led downward, not upward.

“It’s time to go down.”

1. Gong-Ja is talking about 猘. ☜