Chapter 372: Home Sweet Home (2)

When I stepped out of the long hallway of light, I saw my kingdom... was what I would have said if the world was kind to me. Unfortunately, all I saw was pitch darkness.

“

Whoa

, what is this? It’s so dark!” I said.

There was nothing but darkness. As I took a cautious step forward, my feet sank into something squishy. The texture of the darkness was almost exactly like a lump of mud.

“It’s because nothing has been created yet,” the Primordial Staff answered from behind. “This place is like bare ground where not even the framework of a house has been built. There’s no roof, let alone built-in furniture. Scream Sky, you earned enough to buy the land from clearing floors, but you haven’t built the house yet.”

“So I’m a landowner but not a homeowner,

huh?

”

If that was the case, then it meant that buying a plot of land needed grinding from the tenth to the eightieth floors. Supposing that I compared life to this Tower of one hundred floors, then acquiring the land for my home would be equivalent to completing eighty percent of my life’s goals. That was both realistic and kind of unpleasant.

“Where can I find an architect and interior designer to hire?”

“Sorry, but you

are

the architect and interior designer. You’re no longer a Hunter who just accepts and completes quests. Well, if I had to describe it like a quest, it would be like this.”

The Primordial Staff etched snow-white letters in the air with the tip of her staff.

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

—

Build your own kingdom!

—Constellation: Scream-Gathering Sky

—Difficulty Level: Undetermined

—Goal: Create a holy ground.

“That sounds simple enough.”

“Be a good person, save the world, help humanity... The most difficult tasks in the universe can be described in one sentence. While you diligently build your palace, I’ll stand by and help out here and there.” The Primordial Staff sighed. “But there’s one problem.”

“Life is nothing but problems.”

“Yeah, but this problem needs to be solved immediately. The good thing about you is that you leave things neatly wrapped up when you have somewhere else to go, but you left one knot untied.”

Really? Did I forget about something? Ever since I danced the hopak for Yoo Soo-Ha, I thought I wrapped up everything there was, as if I scrubbed the floor with bleach.

“

Haha.

I think you’re misunderstanding something. I’m a man who ties up all his loose ends.”

The Primordial Staff shook her head. “Actually, I was waiting for you to come here. Stopping

him

is okay for a couple of days, but he barges in every single day and torments me. I really can’t hold out any longer.”

Craaaaaaaaack.

That

sounded ominous. I turned my head and saw a crack opening in the distant space above—a barrier that I couldn’t tell if it was the sky, the ceiling, or simply more darkness.

“Congratulations, Scream Sky.” The Primordial Staff took three steps away from me with an ominous smile, clearly wanting to stay out of this. “You’re now undeniably a celebrity in the world of Constellations.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“There’s a stalker in the world of Constellations who only follows celebrities. You attracted attention from countless Constellations, so unfortunately, news about you seems to have reached the stalker, too. Well. I can’t help you, so good luck.”

Crraaaaaaaaaaaacckkkk.

The crack widened and oozed fluid. The place was dark, and the area beyond the curtain was equally shrouded in darkness. But the being that fell to the floor, drenched in the fluid, wasn’t pitch black.

[Warning.]

[The Constellation Murderer has descended to the eighty-first floor.]

[The Constellation Murderer is hostile toward you.]

That being had silver hair, platinum-blond even.

“Are you the Scream-Gathering Sky?” the silver-haired man asked me in a familiar voice.

However, that was the only familiar thing about him. The cold gaze fixed upon me was entirely different from that of my vassal, who had regained the name Kim Yul. Above all else, the man before me still had his hair tied back with a yellow rubber band.

“Lefanta Aegim,” I muttered.

The Constellation Murderer tilted his head. His eyes, as blue as a newborn star, stared at me.

“Do you know me?”

I clenched my teeth. “Yes, I know you very well.”

Yes, he was the one loose end I had forgotten about, just like the Primordial Staff had said.

***

The Constellation Murderer was a killing puppet born from the desire to avenge. In the past, I took Kim Yul away from him. Well, what I actually did was successfully restore Kim Yul. The Constellation Murderer gained power by abandoning memories, so he had discarded all traces of his past as Kim Yul. However, I could see his past through my trauma penalty and used it to restore Kim Yul.

Nonetheless, what I had done was merely create a new being with the exact same memories as Kim Yul. The amnesiac killer puppet known as the Constellation Murderer still roamed the world thanks to the Class S Skill he possessed.

Puppet Master’s Parade

Class: S

Effect: An old puppeteer from a world. The puppeteer was afraid of being loved but wasn’t strong enough to endure eternal solitude, so they came up with an idea.

“I’ll create another me. I’ll let the other me live with other people and be loved. And if the other me gets hurt... I’ll get rid of them,” the puppeteer whispered. “I’ll erase them forever.”

Countless puppets lived and were discarded.

This Skill is a wicked sorcery for the weak, giving them the right to choose which memories to keep and which to throw away.

You can create thirteen puppets with exactly the same appearance and abilities as you. When one dies, another will wake up. Broken puppets can be repaired.

You shall have imitated immortality and assembled eternity.

※The puppets do not share their memories.

Thirteen puppets slaughtered Constellations day by day, endlessly losing their memories. That was who the Constellation Murderer was.

I created the fourteenth puppet and implanted Kim Yul’s memories into him, naming him Kim Yul. In other words, the thirteen puppets that I failed to retrieve were still alive. That was why he was here: to kill me, a famous Constellation.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember you,” the Constellation Murderer said. “If you could tell me when we met, I could search the records for you.”

The Constellation Murderer took out a familiar old diary. This was what allowed him to overcome the weakness of puppets not being able to share memories. Even if the memories were severed, the sentences written in the diary were synced with all the other diaries of this kind.

“No. You and I have definitely met before and spent time together, but you won’t find any record of me in your diary.”

“Why?”

“Because you and I met you before you got the diary. It’s a time you can never look back on or reclaim.”

Despite what I had said, the Constellation Murderer remained calm, showing no hint of curiosity whatsoever. “I see. You have an ability related to time. You’ll be a troublesome adversary, but you have my gratitude for giving me clues about your ability.”

“I know far more about you than you know about yourself.”

“Everyone in this universe does. It’s nothing special.”

The Constellation Murderer wrote something in his diary. I followed the direction of the pen’s movement and reconstructed the sentences in my mind.

—Scream-Gathering Sky.

—Owner of temporal Skill.

—Can know the other people’s past.

—Presumed to have had contact with me in the past.

Reconstructing the letters was incredibly easy because...

“You’re writing using

hangul

[1],” I muttered, closing my eyes.

The Constellation Murderer still looked calm. “

Hm?

I don’t understand what you mean.”

My heart clenched. Was he using those letters without even knowing what they were? To the Constellation Murderer, those letters were likely characters he had learned without knowing the reason. That was probably why he used them when writing something others shouldn’t see or when scribbling in his diary. It was like a code only he understood.

He had lost his homeland, his language, and his existence, but that was the only way he could exist.

I silently watched the man. He was using the yellow rubber band that could be commonly found in my home country to tie his hair and was writing the same letters that I knew. Mixed feelings swirled in my heart, unlike when Anastasha and the others had started wearing Korean school gym uniforms.

The Constellation Murderer slammed his notebook shut. The sound snapped me out of my thoughts.

“I’ve been pursuing you for the past thirty-one days.”

“Thirty-one days?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes, but every time I tried to enter the Lion Realm, an old swordsman in a black suit blocked my path. He said his title was Sword Star.”

My eyes widened. During my hundred days in Babylon, I never met Gramps Marcus, not even once. My other friends also knew nothing of Sword Star’s whereabouts. I’d assumed he traveled to train somewhere, but this was the real reason Gramps Marcus never showed his face—he was fighting the Constellation Murderer! I never imagined that he was holding back the Constellation Murderer from invading our world.

“I want to be your bodyguard, protect you, and forever preserve the humanity of those around you.”

Gramps Marcus’s words about wanting to be my bodyguard were no empty promise. He had become the palisade and fortress wall of the Lion Realm, clashing swords with invaders without our knowledge. My heart was filled with inexplicable pride after becoming heavy upon meeting the Constellation Murderer.

“I tried to infiltrate through other Routes many times, but the old man was always half a step ahead of me. I suspect he possesses a Skill that detects my movements or any outsiders attempting to invade that world,” the Constellation Murderer said. “It was only after you left the Lion Realm that I was able to pursue you.”

I grinned. “That’s good news. That means you couldn’t defeat Mr. Sword Star. I’m stronger than him, Constellation Murderer. No matter what you do, you can’t defeat me.”

“That’s a correct deduction,” the Constellation Murderer answered impassively to my obvious provocation. “The Sword Star said that you would defeat me even if he were to lose. Upon receiving that information, I assessed your threat level to be the highest. Like you said, I can’t defeat you no matter what I do in my current state. Therefore, I have concluded that I must use every possible means at my disposal.”

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The cracks in the sky widened further. Through the gaps, people fell. One, two, three... They all had silver hair, fluttering in the wind.