Chapter 169: Between a Master and a Friend (2)

I stared at the Inquisitor in complete silence. It was clear just from his smile that he didn’t use the word “master” as a simple metaphor or symbol. This man, who was sometimes as immature as a child, didn’t know how to crack jokes.

Still, I couldn’t help but ask, “Just to clear things up, Mr. Inquisitor, when you say you will serve me, you mean...”

“I’ll obey your orders unconditionally,” the Inquisitor answered immediately. “I’ll kill the enemy you tell me to kill and save the enemy you ask me to save! As I said, I’ll put your judgment above mine and act accordingly.”

The Inquisitor raised his right hand and placed it over his chest with a disciplined attitude, as if imitating a butler.

“I’m quite a useful tool! The beauty of a good tool is its consistent performance. I’m not bragging, but there’s probably no tool more useful than me when it comes to purging warlords and keeping our Hunters together! Mr. Death King, you can always trust my abilities when you order me around!”

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

In other words, the Inquisitor was saying he would never change. He beamed at me.

“Please use me!”

Seeing him confident in his own immutability made my heart tingle for some reason. I knew what the Inquisitor could be like if he changed.

“With emotions, I seem to have become a bit of a prankster!”

“That’s how addicted I am to feeling emotions.”

“Do you always live with this much emotion?”

I alone remembered a side of him that even the Inquisitor himself didn’t get to experience.

Under the white magnolia tree, the Inquisitor had quietly muttered,

“I keep thinking about what would have changed if I had done something different back then. Do you all keep drifting into these kinds of thoughts while you live? That’s why you’re all so beautiful and lovely. If I were like you... ”

The Inquisitor had not been able to finish his sentence back then, but I could guess the words he had swallowed down.

“If I were like you and could feel emotions like you do, would I have been able to live a slightly different life?”

I knew this because I had met many psychopaths. The difference between psychopaths and a normal person could be summed up in five words.

“If I were like you.”

From the moment he uttered those words, the Inquisitor stopped being just a psycho to me. He was just a normal man who had somehow ended up living the life of a psycho today.

“Your name,” I said.

“Pardon?”

“Mr. Sword Star’s real name is Marcus Carlenbery, and Mr. Viper’s name is Rao Fan.”

And the Countess’s real name was Nisha. The Paladin had once called the Countess by her real name. However, since the Countess had never told me that herself, I pretended not to know. The only colleagues who had told me their real names were the Sword Star and the Viper.

“Mr. Inquisitor, I would like to know your name.”

The Inquisitor blinked. “

Haha.

Is that an order?”

“If this is a mere request, does that mean you cannot tell me your name?”

“Pretty much!”

“Why?”

“I—no,

we

made a promise with the Black Dragon Master a long time ago. ‘We have abandoned our nationalities, wealth, relationships, and everything else in the Dead Sea. So, let’s erase the labels that the outside world has placed on us and use only the names we got from the Tower when calling each other.’”

I see. I didn’t know there was such a promise between them.

I was once again reminded that I wasn’t a starting member of the Tower.

“The Black Dragon Master has mixed feelings about the outside world! Although she despises it, she craves recognition from it.

Hahaha.

She’s probably the most emotional person among us!”

The Inquisitor winked.

“Anyway, the Sword Star has withdrawn from our union, so he doesn’t need to be bound to the promise! Also, the Viper isn’t the type of person to be tied down by such a promise in the first place. However, I value promises. Mr. Death King, if you really want to know the name I had in the outside world...” The Inquisitor closed his eyes. “Please order me. If you do, I’ll tell you.”

I could tell this wasn’t just a matter of him telling me his name. This meant he would prioritize my orders over the promise he shared with the Tower’s starting members. This was his way of swearing his loyalty to me.

Will I be able to take responsibility for him? Can I help him live a different life? Can I take responsibility for a psychopath who is much more than just a psychopath? I want him to live differently, so I’m willing to try, but do I have what it takes?

I looked down at the Inquisitor, who was waiting for my decision.

In The Story of Sormwin Academy, there was an opportunity to reform him, but I failed because I missed my chance. I was doing everything I could to help Raviel, so I didn’t have time to take care of him, too.

I wondered if I could provide a different life for the Inquisitor if I were given just one more chance.

I can do it.

I had my answer.

I want to do it for him.

The second chance hadn’t come yet. Until another opportunity arose, I was going to take responsibility for the man in front of me.

“Please tell me your name,” I said with a nod.

The Inquisitor smiled and then chuckled lightly. “My real name is Bambolina. Strictly speaking, it’s hard to say it’s my real name because it’s more of a pet name. A mafia family raised me when I was a child. They often called me ‘baby doll,’ and that stuck with me as a name. Oh, ‘bambolina’ means doll! I was also called ‘Kukla[1].”

After a brief pause, the Inquisitor continued, “The mafia family that imprisoned me was headquartered in Bulgaria, with their organization having connections to many different fields. I was trained to be used for their many businesses.”

“You’re using past tense to talk about the organization because—”

“Because it doesn’t exist anymore!” The Inquisitor smiled brightly and took out a padlock, spinning it around as if it were a pen. “I was incarcerated for eleven years. After my usual training, I lay down in bed only to find myself with a question. I could brute force my way through the lock on that door, so did I have any reason not to do it?”

Click.

The lock in the Inquisitor’s hand opened.

“I thought about it and realized I don’t have one!”

That was why he had escaped.

“There seemed to be no reason not to kill my watcher. I had no reason not to kill my boss either!”

There were people who didn’t do things without reason, but some committed acts because they had no reason not to go ahead and do them. The Inquisitor was definitely the latter.

“I sowed discord between two major and four minor capos. Manipulated some guys here and there, enough for them to become suspicious of each other. After half a year, the family began to be suspicious of

me

, but by that time, half of the family was already destroyed!

Haha!

”

After that, the mafia’s baby doll entered the Tower with leisurely steps. That was how the Tower gained a terrifyingly capable beast.

“Out of all people, why do you want me as your master?”

“First of all, you’re obviously more capable than me.” The Inquisitor paused before he added, “The second reason is... that I hesitated.”

“You hesitated?”

The Inquisitor furrowed his eyebrows as if he was at a loss for words, which was unusual for him. “

Uhm

, yes... How should I put it to help you understand? After clearing

The Story of Sormwin Academy

, I felt a bit... weird. Even if I tried to execute terrorists as usual, I couldn’t do it as quickly as before. To others, the difference was only a second, but that second is strange to me...”

The Inquisitor was deep in thought. “In that short period, I remembered the time I spent at Sormwin Academy with you, Mr. Death King. Strange, Isn’t it?”

No, it wasn’t strange at all. I was actually surprised.

It left an effect on him.

The timeline when the Inquisitor had become completely immersed as Goldencup disappeared. However, even in the official history that I started anew, the Inquisitor had felt Goldencup’s emotions even though the immersion level was less than ten percent—no, even when it was only one percent.

The baby doll had experienced emotions.

“Mr. Death King, you are my hesitation,” the Inquisitor said. “For a second of my life, I experienced emotions. Perhaps you will help me achieve it a second time. Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to experience emotions for a minute, or even an entire hour!”

His bright smile still hadn’t disappeared.

“This is probably what we call hope for humanity. Perhaps people are always waiting for someone else to become part of their lives. In that sense, you are my hope! I believe I’m not weaker just because I offer you my time. Yes, I can be sure of that.”

The Inquisitor handed me a rusty old lock. “Your rhythm and lyrics will be added to my dull, humming monody. Though I’m trying hard to understand all this through metaphors. Because of you, even a person like me may become music, Mr. Death King. Can I make you my hope?”

Those words carried heavy weight. There was a slight difference between heaviness and fear, so there was a possibility I would end up being afraid of carrying the Inquisitor’s life. I took the lock from his hands.

I thought about Preta’s life, then the lives of the Heavenly Demon Cult’s followers, Sylvia Evanail, and the Constellation Murderer. My thoughts reached the Terras. When I got there, I thought I could add another life.

“Yes, I will be your hope,” I replied.

The Inquisitor was my colleague. It didn’t matter that he was like a beast. By nature, humans were beasts that sought humanity. The man in front of me and I were on the path to becoming human.

I began listing off orders. “Don’t kill anyone without my permission.”

“Okay!”

“Don’t torture anyone without my permission.”

“Understood!”

“Please don’t lock up anyone without my permission.”

“All right!”

“Please tell me when something worries you. I won’t despise you or find you odd, just tell me what’s on your mind. I’ll put myself in your shoes, Bambolina, so please think of me as someone who resembles you.”

The Inquisitor clasped his hands together. For the first time, I felt that he was genuinely praying. The Inquisitor—the Pantheon Master, the Rank 4 Hunter, the baby doll—swore his allegiance to me.

“Yes, More Capable One. Now that you are my hope, I will do my best for you. I was eliminated on this stage, so I can’t follow you to the thirty-third floor. This moment, too, is nothing more than a temporary arrangement I made by making a request to the Mirage-Walking Princess. I’ll be on my way soon. When I go back to Babylon, I’ll bear your orders in mind!”

I patted the Inquisitor’s head. “Yes, please protect our home, Mr. Cult Leader.”

“

Hahaha

. Yes, Mr. Gong-Ja!”

Laughing, the Inquisitor slowly vanished.

[The Inquisitor has failed to complete the quest.]

[The Inquisitor has been eliminated from the stage!]

In the next moment, my other colleagues appeared around me—the Sword Star, the Black Witch, the Countess, the Viper, and the Paladin. Now, only six of us were left to clear the stages.

They looked at each other in confusion.

“For some reason, we ended up waiting a bit even after saying we cleared the stage,” the Black Witch said. “Death King, you were the first to clear the stage. Where have you been?”

I smiled. “I was just saying goodbye to the Inquisitor.”

The path we walked was never meaningless. Even if we didn’t know, there were people out there in the world whom we had unknowingly influenced.

I gripped the lock tightly. “Well done, everyone. Let’s go to the next stage.”

1. The raw is кукла ☜