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.

𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

“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 Hunters were in a huddle behind the photographer, watching me like a hawk while I posed and whispering to each other.

“He looks surprisingly good in a suit.”

“Maybe we should add a bit of a mischievous boy image.”

“No! That’s my image!”

“That is true. Then what should we do... How about a young man burning with adventurous spirit?”

“Let’s go with that.”

Flash!

“Very good!” The photographer gave me a thumbs-up.

Very good, my ass.

—Hahahahahaha! Haha! Haha! Hahahahahahahaha!

The Guardian had been rolling in the air for a while now.

Even after two hours, the photoshoot was nowhere close to completion. Finally, my patience ran out.

“Forget it! I’m not doing this anymore!” I took off my jacket and threw it on the floor. “Hunters’ jobs are to climb the Tower! What’s with all this media image and photoshoots? You all couldn’t get through the tenth floor for years because you were too busy worrying about this crap!”

The air got cold and quiet. Perhaps my sincerity worked, because the Black Witch and the other Hunters were looking at my face, nodding.

“...That line wasn’t bad.”

“Yes, he really is a young man with a burning passion for adventure!”

“Let’s make our next magazine tagline, ’Hunters are who climbs the Tower.’”

“We used to have spunk like that when we were in our twenties...”

It didn’t work one bit.

“Ah, forget it! I’m here to talk about the twentieth floor. You all can have all the rights from the eleventh to the nineteenth floors, so let me have the ownership of the land in the twentieth floor!”

The Hunters nodded again.

“Adding how he isn’t greedy to his image will be good too.”

“How about this for the headline of tomorrow morning’s paper? ’Death King declares he will share the rights of the eleventh to the nineteenth floors with all Hunters. He’s satisfied with clearing the Tower.’”

“Sounds good to me!”

“’Death King has been secretly making donations to orphanages’ will make a good article for the second page.”

“Yeah; then let’s say we offered the land on the twentieth floor to the Death King as a sign of our gratitude and respect.”

“It’s perfect! Ahhh. A beautiful ending!”

No. They didn’t listen to me at all. They were too distracted by trying to make me a hero.

“Give up, young man,” the Sword Star said curtly. He’d been leaning against a pillar. “The same thing happened after I became the Rank 1 Hunter. They said all sorts of things. ’There is such a thing as senior rizz.’ ’You should groom your mustache differently.’”

Oh my god.

“Those kids want to show the outside world that their lives are good and that they should be proud of them. It’s sort of an inferiority complex,” the Sword Star quietly informed me. “They abandoned everything from the outside world when they entered the Tower, so what drives them to act like this...?”

He turned his back on them. “Let’s go.”

“What?” I asked.

“It will never end if you stay here. After they’re done with your photoshoot, they will say it’s time to make some video. And then they will ask you to prep for your press conference. That is how those kids are. You’ll lose your entire day if you don’t run away now.”

What a horrible thought.

“Let’s run!” I immediately said.

“You made the right decision.”

We focused our aura into our feet and took off. I heard gasps behind us, but I didn’t stop.

“Death King!” The Black Witch shouted. “We’re going to have a press conference tomorrow, so try to be back by tomorrow morning! You shouldn’t attract attention just yet, so if you have to, use the roofs to get away! Be careful!”

—Hey, I don’t think she’s an angel or a goddess. She sounds like your mom.

The Guardian giggled.

She really was, although I didn’t really know what mothers were supposed to be like.

***

It was already sunset. Following the Black Witch’s advice, we fled across the roofs. When I looked down, I could see hundreds of people still crowded in front of the cafe, plus the reporters from broadcasting networks.

It would have been a disaster if we’d used the main door!

Leaping from one red roof to another, we eventually arrived at the bell tower in the plaza. The bell tower’s young guard, who had been playing with his smartphone, recognized us after a moment and gasped.

“M-Mr. Sword Star!”

The Sword Star skillfully entered the top floor of the bell tower. “I’m sorry, but could you excuse us for a moment?”

“Ah... Umm... Well...”

“We’ll be done in five minutes.”

The young guard, suddenly confronted by a living legend, was at a loss to be asked by a living legend to give privacy. His eyes wandered for a moment, but when they locked with mine, the guard’s eyes widened. “No way... Death King?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Wow! Woah! It’s my first time meeting the two of you in person! Wow! This is awesome!” The guard hurriedly rummaged through his bag and pulled out a romance novel. It looked like he had brought it with him to kill some time during his shift. “T-this is the only paper I have right now! Can you give me an autograph, Mr. Sword Star?”

The Sword Star took the novel. He looked used to it. “Do you have a pen?”

“H-here!”

“What is your name, young man?”

“I-I haven’t received a title...!”

The young guard gave the Sword Star his name and the Sword Star signed the book neatly and returned it. At this point, the guard just looked like an innocent boy. The guard turned back to me. For some reason, his eyes sparkled too brightly. “Can I also ask for yo-yours, Mr. Death King?”

My autograph?

“Umm... I’ve never autographed anything...” I moved back a little.

“Please! It’s my biggest wish!”

I ended up receiving the novel and the pen. It seemed like the smallest “biggest wish” I’d ever heard. I awkwardly looked at the novel.

When I grabbed the pen to write my autograph, it suddenly hit me that this was my first time writing down “Death King”. By then, my autograph was right next to the Sword Star’s.

“T-thank you! Thank you so much!” The guard bowed again and again. He quickly reclaimed his book as if he were worried that autographs would disappear.

“Um...” It was an odd feeling. I couldn’t quite decide how I felt about it.

“I’ll make this a family heirloom! Don’t worry! I’ll never sell this to anyone! Thank you so much to both of you! Have a great weekend!” The guard disappeared down the bell tower stairs.

“Yes! I hit the jackpot!”

His excited voice grew fainter and fainter. By the time he was finally out of earshot, only a speck of sunset and the sound of two people breathing remained. Both the Sword Star and I were silent for a while.

“Mr. Sword Star.”

“Young man.”

The Sword Star and I spoke at the same time, our voices canceling out each other’s. The awkward silence didn’t last long. With a calm look, I turned to the Sword Star.

“To you, I must look like I’m the mass murderer of the century, who deserves nothing but the harshest of punishments. But you’ll see another mass murderer when you look in the mirror. Yourself.”

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.