Chapter 400: SSS-Class Revival Hunter (2)

When my cup was full, I took the bottle and poured liquor into the Tower master’s cup.

“Scream Sky, the seat of a Pillar is waiting for you. Or have you changed your mind about that?” she asked.

“No. I also still want to become the master of the Tower.”

“

Hmmm.

Yes, all new employees aim to become the CEO of their company. It’s a good goal,” the Tower master said, looking at the liquor pouring in her cup. ”Just be careful not to give up on that goal. Among the Pillars’ portfolios, you’ve just taken the underworld. If you wish to challenge me, Scream Sky, you have to seize all the Pillars’ domains.”

The cups were all filled. I set down the bottle. “What domains do the other Pillars hold?”

“That’s something you will learn in time. Enthusiasm is good, but talking about work at a welcome party only kills the mood."

“You’re right.”

I raised the cup that the Tower master had filled for me, and she raised the cup I had filled for her.

I smiled. “Just wait.”

She answered, “I’ll wait.”

The cups clinked, making a clear sound. On the rippling surface of the liquor, our reflections smiled. I brought the cup to my lips and drank. Cold at first, the liquor felt like it set a fire in my blood after it passed my throat.

The sense of fulfillment, relief, and anticipation for tomorrow filled me. I received no messages, but I realized that I was now a Pillar and was officially in charge of the Tower’s underworld. While I was lost in that afterglow, the Tower master poured liquor into the Sword Emperor’s cup as well.

“Thank you for coming.”

“No problem.”

The Sword Emperor took the bottle and filled her cup before setting it back on the tray. They clinked their full cups and drank.

After exhaling deeply, the Tower master said, “Scream Sky has received the seat of a Pillar that had been waiting for him.”

“Congratulations, Gong-Ja. You’ve joined a big company as an executive.”

“Sword Emperor, nothing was promised to you.” She looked at him. The purple surface of the mirror reflected him. “What do you want?”

“Nothing in particular,” the Sword Emperor answered plainly. “If there’s any difference between the Tower and a mountain, it would be whether someone built it or not, but both are the same for the one who reached the top. Don’t you think so?”

He picked up the liquor bottle and filled her cup again. “I should head down now. Give me permission to leave the Tower.”

The Tower master flinched. “

Ah

, so you’re really going to ask me that...”

“You knew that was what I was going to ask you?”

“From the beginning, you entered the Tower to have a drink with me.”

Purple breaths piled up on the white peak.

“I’m very possessive. I don’t want to lose a grain of the treasures I hold. Even if their skin and flesh rot, and even if their bones crumble down to dust and the dust mixes with the soil, I wish for all those to happen within my box.”

I had also noticed this when I learned that the Tower had an underworld.

The Tower master took a sip of the wine that was poured for her and looked down. “Even if that is who I am... I can’t put a leash on a warrior.”

The cup hid the lower part of the Tower master’s face. Compared to the time she had told me about the Pillars’ domains, she seemed weak and lonely. This sight was oddly familiar to me.

Ah.

She looked like my orphanage director as he watched me and other kids leaving the orphanage. In hindsight, Ja Su-Jeong from

The Story of the City of Ascension: Side Story

had the same look on her face as she bid me farewell. Maybe all parents who sent their children away shared the same look.

The Sword Emperor, who had drained his cup in one gulp, tapped my head lightly with his large hand. “I’ll come visit sometimes. I should meet Gray in his garden. If he mopes again, I should kick his ass too.”

“I don’t mope...”

Ignoring my grumbling, the Sword Emperor looked back at the Tower master. “I’ll visit every now and then and drink with you, so don’t worry.”

“Yes,” the Tower master replied. Her face showed that she was trying to suppress her loneliness. “Please come visit.”

She had recruited countless worlds within the box known as the Tower and watched even more lives and deaths. Still, even for her, farewells always stung.

I thought of my fox god. While I had been climbing the ninetieth floor and onward, my fox god, who had disappeared with the Mirage-Walking Princess and Snakey, would also be dying from loneliness until I came back.

The Gray Spider, the Sword Emperor beside me now, Teacher, and even Raviel—their worst enemy wasn’t someone stronger. It was the realization that they were alone. The only sword that could hurt even the strongest was loneliness. Deep in my heart, I could feel that even the Tower master struggled against that sword.

I looked down while the Tower master looked up. Looking at her face still tinged with loneliness, I remembered the time I had said my thank you long ago.

“Thank you. Because you built this Tower, we were able to come this far. I could have become like someone else. The Sword Emperor wasn’t the only special one. Estelle didn’t have to become the Demon King. Hwia didn’t build a flawed nation. Kim Yul wasn’t born wrong. Teacher... Teacher didn’t have to die a pointless death. Raviel is happier. Sylvia is happy without hurting others. Anastasha can smile more sincerely now. The Paladin can seek justice without killing anyone. Bambolina isn’t a monster that no one can understand. Rao fan...”

Each name flooded my mind like rain. Every word overflowing from my heart and leaking out of my mouth referred to people I had met. I...

“General Sarbas Aegim. Hamustra. My fox god. The First Wave. My orphanage director. Yoo Soo-Ha...”

I...

“We weren’t born wrong.” I bowed as I filled the Tower master’s cup. “Because you built this Tower, all of this could be proven.”

The liquor overflowed from the cup. My face was reflected in the spilled liquor on the tray. Soon, it no longer reflected anything. Tears falling down my chin had disrupted the calm surface.

“Thank you, Mother,” I said to the Tower master before turning to the Sword Emperor. “Thank you, Brother. I’m glad I could meet both of you.”

Silence filled the air.

“

Hm.

Hmm.

”

The Tower master was the one who broke the silence. With her arms crossed and head lowered, she murmured, “I’m glad!”

Her face lit up as brightly as the sun in the Sword Emperor’s flower field. I felt a hand on my forehead.

In a voice matching the warmth of the hand, the Sword Emperor said, “Contact me anytime.”

“Okay.” I wiped my eyes and nodded. “I will.”

Time passed. We shared a few more cups of liquor. By the time the fried rice was gone, the liquor bottle was empty, too.

“Then...”

“Yes.”

The Sword Emperor and I rose from our seats. The Tower master did not. Just as when she had been drinking, she remained seated because this was her home and her place. She gazed at us with her hands clasped together.

“May luck be with you.”

She saw us off.

***

There was not much to talk about what happened afterward. I was now a Pillar, but I didn’t start working right away. Even I had to take a break every now and then. I felt a little bad for those souls who had waited for me to get to the hundredth floor, but I hoped they could wait a little longer. I wanted to meet the people who were still alive and waiting for me first.

The Primordial Staff laughed dryly in disbelief about how I was slacking off on the first day of becoming a Pillar. I jokingly asked how she was going to endure eternity with me if she was already dumbstruck by what I was doing. She just sighed.

I parted ways with the Sword Emperor, who received permission to leave the Tower. Surprisingly, this leave applied to all the realms where a Tower was built. It meant that he could head not only to the Ten Thousand Sword Realm, where he had been born, but also to my modern-day Earth, outside the Tower of the Gray Spider’s world, and even the world where the Tower master had been born.

The Sword Emperor had mentioned that he had started seeing me as a rival after what had happened on the tenth floor. When we parted ways, he said he would eventually go to the Tower master’s world to challenge the Absolute Sword Duchess, the strongest swordswoman across all realms, according to what the Mirage-Walking Princess had told the Sword Star.

It looked like it would take a long time before the Sword Emperor could put the plan into action. After being stuck on the ninety-ninth floor for so long, the Sword Emperor had a lot of things to take care of.

First, he was going to visit his homeland to meet the people he had left behind. After that, he would come to Babylon, the first floor of my Tower, to meet the Sword Star and drink with him. If there were others he had been watching over, he would drink with them, too. Once he was done with all that, he would come to my flower garden to meet the Gray Spider.

Only then would he start his trip to the Tower master’s world. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t envious of how free the Sword Emperor was. But just as he made his choice, I made mine, so I had the duty to live my life.

I talked with my friends. Okay, I should be more honest. I never imagined I would be cursed so much in my life. Well... actually, I had expected it. I deserved all the curses for making them wait so long and worrying them. This was also part of the duty that came with living my life.

Still, hearing all those curses almost broke my spirit a little, but I calmed down after touching the fluffy fur of my fox god, who had quietly shown up. Though I would rather not talk about how my fox god had also almost bitten my finger off.

While talking with my friends, I shared what I had been through. They also told me what had happened to them while I was gone. Because we had seen and lived so much while I had been climbing the ninetieth floor and onward, things were sorted out sooner than we thought.

Snakey, brought out by my fox god, seemed to have gained more divinity while I was away, growing big enough to be an anaconda. Regardless of everything, my fox god seemed to have helped Snakey by sharing some of the secrets that only they knew. I was grateful for how things turned out.

Once things were sorted out and the topic of what we should do was brought up, a press conference was planned, following Anastasha’s suggestion. I agreed to follow the advice of my friend, who was wiser than me.

“That is all.”

I addressed most of what had happened to the reporters watching me beyond the projector screen. I hid and omitted what had to be concealed and cut out, but I still had talked for quite some time. The reporters would probably have no shortage of news to cover for a while. Whether that was a joy or a burden for them, I couldn’t tell. Still, if it was the former, they could act happier about it. I was willing to answer all the questions that were brought up during the conference.

—What do you plan to do now?

I looked up and saw the reporters looking at me. Their cameras were on me, and I looked straight at them, thinking of the many people who were watching me.

“What will I do now?”

First, I planned to enjoy life by spending time with Raviel. That was my plan for the future, without a single trace of falsehood. However, I didn’t say that. Beyond those cameras, there was surely someone sitting in a small room, just as I had once done.

Someone would be watching me on TV and looking at me with the same face I used to gaze at the Fire Emperor on the screen. There were things I wished the Fire Emperor had said to me back then. Of course, the Fire Emperor from that time had never said such things in any interview.

Now, I knew it wasn’t something to hate him over. The Fire Emperor had lived like the Fire Emperor and spoke in a way that fit him. If there was something I wanted to hear, I should say it myself.

“

Hmm.

”

The words that my thirty-three-year-old self had wanted to hear, the words I wished my idol had told me...

“I’m going to live through today.”

That, too, was my plan for the future, without a single trace of falsehood.

—The end of SSS Class Revival Hunter—