Chapter 506. Can’t Cry (4)

There was a special family that climbed to the highest peak and was admired by everyone. That family reigned at the peak for a long time and consolidated its position. Of course, during these long eons, there had been a time when their position had been threatened. It was just one time, or to be more precise, it was after another family’s prodigy grew up and officially began her activities. Her phenomenal performance triggered in the top family many emotions they had forgotten for some time.

Although the Choi Family was able to keep their top position, this new prodigy raised an alarm that could not be ignored, which caused a change in the family. The great reformation broke a tradition that the family had kept for a very long time with no exceptions—it was the evolution of their bloodline. To put it more crudely, it could be considered improving breeds.

Bloodline. It was a term used to describe those who shared the same lineage, but it was also used to determine which people were related to each other. There was no better analogy to make about it than with the procreation of animals. It was common knowledge that bloodlines were quite involved in their genetic evolution. For example, dogs were the result of mating wolves with more docile personalities for generations. In this way, lineage obtained over several generations by mixing and matching various traits was called a purebred.

In the case of animals, their price and value varied depending on whether their pedigree was pure. Humans were also animals, and the Choi Family was a family that maintained their pure blood at the top position for thousands of years. As such, mixing new blood now was akin to gambling for them. However, the circumstances called for it, and the subject of the debate was no ordinary individual.

The Choi Family weighed the two choices—upholding one of their oldest traditions, or taking in an astounding talent who, despite being of a different bloodline, instigated a crisis in their family. Eventually, the Chois made a decision. To protect the family’s position, they decided to adapt with the time and accept the change. Like this, a union that garnered everyone’s attention formed out of the greed of two families. Choi Su-Ho, the legend of the time, and Elrich Ho Lactea, known for being born with the strongest blood of the founder among the Ho Lactea family, were wed. From the perspective of a non-hero, it was a bizarre arranged marriage, but considering the environment the two were born in, it didn’t matter to them at all.

In order to fulfill their duties and responsibilities to their respective families, the two sincerely cared for and loved each other, and their efforts soon paid off. With the expectations and interests of both families as well as all heroes, a child was finally born from them. His name was Choi Chi-Hyun.

* * *

There was once a child who had to be more perfect than anyone else and be omnipotent without lacking anything. He was born into a family that always had to be the best because they had always been the best. The child received intensive care and training as soon as he was born. Without exaggeration, he was forced to train from the moment he began talking, learned to flip his body, and started walking on his own. At an age when a child normally entered kindergarten, he was subject to strict monitoring and control every second of the day. The same went for training. Strict procedures and rules were imposed on him about when and how he should eat, dress, learn, and act. Furthermore, even his sleeping time was controlled not in hours or minutes but in seconds. From birth, there was nothing this child could do with his own will.

He was from a family where such rules were the norm. Like a computer that produced a result according to the value one entered, he had to live like a machine that repeatedly performed the values that both families entered. By the time he was about to enter elementary school, he had to become an actual hero. This life continued until he became a boy and then a young man.

The system couldn’t be easily challenged because it had been proven; it had been built and proven to be the best for a long time. Since the best environment had been provided with the best bloodlines, it was only natural that a corresponding result would be produced. It was a system that made even ordinary people the best if they could endure it, so no words were needed to describe the results produced when a person born with unrivaled qualities was raised thoroughly under the system since he was an infant. By the time the child grew up into a young man and was no longer under the family system’s control, he became a monster, to put it bluntly. A monster exactly like a machine that could not tolerate even the slightest deviation.

It was the emergence of an unprecedented hero who would never appear again in history. The two families were very satisfied when they saw the results made by their own hands. In particular, the Choi family’s satisfaction was indescribable. With Chi-Hyun’s appearance, it became impossible for anyone to even think about challenging their family in the future. However, if there was something even the Choi family could not have predicted, it would be Choi Chi-Hyun himself. Or in other words, Chi-Hyun’s inner self as an individual.

‘I…’ After working as a Celestial Realm hero and going to various worlds, Choi Chi-Hyun suddenly came to an extremely natural and ordinary idea one day. ‘Why do I have to live a life like this?’ As time passed by, the fleeting thought solidified and became more intense rather than disappearing. ‘When is this ever going to end?’ He couldn’t help but think this because he was not a machine, but a person.

* * *

There was once a planet. Like all other planets, the planet experienced crises that had to be resolved periodically. The same was true this time. A crisis came and pushed the world to the brink of extinction. Then, as always, a Celestial Realm hero appeared. The hero succeeded in solving the crisis and saving the world as he always did.

Woaaaaaahhhh! A thunderous cheer erupted.

“Sir Hero! Congratulations!”

“Thank you so much, Sir Hero.”

People from all walks of life, including those wielding great influence, gathered from across the world to see the hero and applauded him. Cheers and praises of the hero could be heard everywhere.

However, Chi-Hyun’s face was emotionless as he walked across the crowd like a cloud. He didn’t seem to get any inspiration or emotion from this situation. It wasn’t like this from the beginning. He had felt a sense of accomplishment from saving a world in crisis, and it would be a lie if he said there hadn’t been a time when he felt positive about his life as a great hero respected and admired by everyone.

However, no matter how delicious the food was, it was natural to get sick of it after eating it for a long time. For Chi-Hyun, that was the case for his life as a hero, which he had to endlessly repeat. One thing Chi-Hyun felt while working as a Celestial Realm hero in the beginning was that the universe was very, very vast.

Chi-Hyun was special. He was undeniably an outstanding hero, but the universe was not an easy opponent either. In this ever-expanding, infinite space, there were many cases that only Chi-Hyun could solve, and normal heroes could not even dare to attempt. And even among these cases, there were ones that even Chi-Hyun felt overwhelmed about, but even then, Chi-Hyun never failed even once; if things didn’t work out, he could reverse time and start over again.

Of course, regression had its drawbacks since it was nothing more than a saved slot in a game. If saving a world meant only defeating the source of the crisis with the power he had while entering and returning to Earth, everything would have been extremely easy. However, the universe was not so easy. The will of the universe, which adjusted the balance of each world, was extremely picky and put on many more restrictions than expected. One of the countless restrictions was that one would lose almost all of their existing power and had to build new powers suitable for each world. Even though the growth rate would be rapid due to the World’s backup, it was a process that took up considerable time. As such, the time required after each initialization was doubled.

The more difficult a world’s crisis was to deal with, the time it took to save it increased exponentially. Among them, there was a severe case that he had to regress as many as 100 times to resolve, which meant it took him about a thousand years. After finding the answer and executing every correct solution one by one, the stark gap he had experienced when he managed to save that world and return to Earth was beyond his imagination; heroes were protected from the flow of time, and hardly any time had actually passed on Earth.

It felt as if he had spent a thousand years in a dream as vivid as reality, but when he woke up and looked at his clock, only a few minutes had passed. He had to live through such a bizarre and extraordinary life since he was young. As a result, from some point on, everything surrounding him became familiar. Familiarity soon changed into boredom, and then from the time he began to question the meaning of his life, boredom gradually festered and rotted like an infection.

“Sir Hero…?”

Chi-Hyun, who had fallen into deep thought, raised his head toward the voice. A person he had seen for the first time—no, he had seen him somewhere when he first entered this world. Anyway, judging by what the man was wearing, he seemed to be the emperor of this World.

“Sir, why aren’t you saying anything…” the emperor asked carefully.

“Is everyone here?” Chi-Hyun asked in a dry voice.

“Yes, sir! We have all gathered together as you instructed and are waiting for your next orders,” the emperor politely replied.

It was the first time the emperor faced the hero in front of him, but he knew who the hero was. There was an imperial record that wrote of a hero from the Celestial Realm, who came down to save them when the world experienced a crisis every hundred years. It was a record that the emperor had been educated on many times since he was young. However, it did raise some questions. According to records, the hero had disappeared as soon as he saved the world, but this time, for some reason, he had made a separate request: to gather all those who ruled this world without a single exception on the day he came back after saving the world in crisis. Of course, holding a triumphant celebration was completely natural, but since it was unprecedented, the emperor couldn’t help but tilt his head in question.

Then Chi-Hyun said, “Besides this time, when did I most recently enter this planet?”

“According to records, it was 110 years ago, sir,” the emperor answered.

“Before that.”

“150 years.”

“Before that.”

“Sir, if my memory serves right, it was 230 years.”

“Before that.”

“Probably 390 years…” Only then did the emperor notice something strange and trail off. Chi-Hyun organized his thoughts. Although the universe had its cruddy moments, it wasn’t all bad. Since it tried to balance each world, there were also positive aspects. For example, one of its few positives was that it was fair in its own way. Since crises struck a world periodically, this also meant that the opportunity to save it came accordingly as well. In short, this meant that the world had an independent system to solve its own crisis.

Of course, there were always exceptions, and it was the duty of Celestial Realm heroes to deal with these exceptions; from that point of view, the world hadn’t originally needed a hero’s intervention this frequently. Since those cases were exceptions, there were far more cases in which the world solved the crisis on its own rather than requiring outside help. However, recently, the status quo was showing signs of unraveling, and the fact that a world’s self-preservation system was not functioning normally meant that the balance of the universe was shaking. As a result, the Celestial Realm, which once selected heroes through a very strict screening process, had begun to accept anyone with the minimum qualifications.

That was the case for this world. The timeframe for a crisis to occur went from every 200 years to dramatically shorter, and Chi-Hyun had looked into the reason during his previous visit; what he found flabbergasted him. He had given the leaders of this world a strong warning, thinking that he was giving them a final chance.

“The words I said to your predecessor 110 years ago must have been recorded.” “Of course, we remember it, sir,” the emperor readily replied when Chi-Hyun posed a different question. “We recorded every word you have said without an exception for generations.”

“…Really?” A chilling glint appeared in Chi-Hyun’s eyes, which had remained emotionless throughout the emperor’s response. “Then—” He finally asked, “Why didn’t you listen?”

“…Sir, what?”

Chi-Hyun asked again because the emperor didn’t seem to understand. “Why did you kill that person?”

“What are…you talking…”

“I’m talking about the hero.” Chi-Hyun went on calmly. “The World must have enabled the birth of a hero so that it could survive without outside help.”

The emperor’s expression instantly turned ashen. It was obvious what had happened without asking. Heroes were people too, and they had families and countries where they were born. Then, the country where a hero was born would naturally gain power. In other words, the emperors hadn’t wanted to lose the power to the hero, so they had interfered with the self-preservation system of the World many times since they first learned the mechanisms underlying crises and salvation.

After seeing the atrocities of the empire, this World must have tried to create a hero in another country, but there was no way the empire could stand idly by and watch. They must have tracked down the hero in advance by any means possible and tried coaxing them first, but if it didn’t work out, they would have killed the hero mercilessly. They must have thought it wouldn’t matter since the records showed that another hero would always appear, and that the world wouldn’t be destroyed no matter how dire the crisis was.

The self-preservation system of the World has been ruined by artificial intervention out of human greed… As a result, the cycle of crisis was continuously getting shorter, since the empire that ruled this world was hell-bent on only protecting its powers regardless of what happened to anyone outside. In exchange for the empire maintaining its power, countless innocent people who did not have to die died.

Chi-Hyun thought about whether he should leave this as it was. Frankly, he had already made up his mind. If he destroyed this empire…wouldn’t it be better for everyone? Those who did not need to die would live, and the crisis cycle would return to its original state, which in turn would normalize the World’s self-preservation system. In the long run, the amount of pain that people living here would have to experience would be reduced. Above all—

‘For me as well…’ He could avoid wasting his time and energy on useless things. Yeah, this wasn’t a bad idea; it was good, actually. What was the duty of a great hero? Wasn’t it to save the world? Since this was the path to save a world, there was nothing for him to be worried about.

‘You are all the same.’ A glint appeared in his eyes as he looked at not only the emperor, but also the various people gathered here; they were those who knew the atrocities committed by the empire but chose to remain quiet rather than stepping in. They were all the same. Bystanders were the same as offenders. Even if he let them live, they were likely to form an empire that was no different from this one. Therefore, he needed to clean all of them up. Yeah, that was right. That was the right thing to do for this world.

[Can you really be certain that among the numerous people you killed, there was not even one person who was innocent?]

[You are going to be a demon lord at this rate.]

Suddenly, his father’s words crossed his mind. Demon Lord. A Demon Lord. Chi-Hyun repeated to himself and smiled. It didn’t matter. If it was to save a world that was rotten to the core—he would gladly become the Demon Lord.