Chapter 221
Chapter 221
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 221
Chapter Title: Maya (2)
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“I thought you wouldn’t recognize me because I’m old.”
Maya’s words made me smile faintly.
She hadn’t changed much. No, her face looked much brighter. It seemed like she’d lived her second life well, just as she said.
I’d had brief contact with my fellow kin, and afterward, she’d quit politics and laundered her identity—that’s how she’d survived. Most of the people involved had been purged or died. Hearing that she was doing well made me feel good.
Anyway.
“Could you hold off on calling me by that nickname?”
It was a very old nickname. Back when I first arrived on Earth, humans who couldn’t freely call out me and Kyle’s names had made it up on their own.
At the time, I had no idea what Michael or Lucifer even meant, so I just let it slide.
But now, it embarrassed me every time someone said it.
I never dreamed I’d hear it again.
Maya stared at me intently.
“Why?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Now?”
“It was back then too. After I’d fully absorbed human culture.”
The other person snorted.
Maya drank her hot Americano like it was cold water while staring right through me.
“Didn’t you say, ‘That was also a way to refer to me,’ when I called you it?”
“Yeah. I really hated it back then.”
“It’s such a shame that only I know that nickname now.”
Maya stood, holding her half-empty disposable coffee cup.
“If you called me that in front of people now, you’d just look like the weird one.”
“Exactly. Thank goodness.”
“The seniors are coming.”
Maya nodded in that tone of someone who’d seen my face and now had to go handle her backlog of work.
She carried the aura of a long-time corporate veteran.
“I’ve got reports to review by end of day, so I’m off.”
She didn’t wait for my reply.
Her name surely wasn’t Maya anymore. Without telling me her new one, she walked out of the cafe without a second glance. I gave a wry smile as I watched her pass by the seniors.
The seniors coming in from smoking.
The lineup had changed.
“Hilde!”
Ami had been added.
I laughed long and hard at the sight of the light and salt of my life hopping over.
“Ami.”
“Can I set Yoon Oppa’s profile pic to your Mario gif?”
…Huh?
I had no clue what she was talking about.
I blinked and looked down at the senior. Ami pulled out the empty chair beside me and sat.
Asil came over with weary strides and took a seat. Ricardo ambled in lazily and sat as well.
Ami held out her phone screen to me as I sat there with my head down.
“You know the Hilde Mario gif.”
“Ah, yeah.”
I knew it.
A lot had changed since it went live.
None of it good for me. I’d become too famous. The drone had let me escape safely with the mountain, but unfortunately, it belonged to a notorious media outlet. My desperate struggle alongside the mountain had been live-streamed across the core, watched by millions.
I wasn’t fool enough to expect my life to stay the same.
I’d suffered so much in the weeks after the broadcast.
Now, a month in, the uproar had died down some. Still, life wasn’t exactly comfortable.
Fame itself wasn’t awkward. Back as Knight Commander, every citizen of the Empire knew me and Kyle’s names and faces.
But this place had SNS, and the cost of fame was way too steep.
The Mario gif was one such example.
“This is my favorite version of the Hilde Mario gif.”
I looked down at the gif.
The Mario gif.
It started with someone turning the scene of me jumping on the mushroom cap to cross the ridge into a gif.
Uploaded under the title “Mario Live-Action,” it spawned endless variants that spread across the net. Versions with the mountain erased, ones with game sound effects overlaid, ones with game backgrounds added. The under-one-minute clip got looped into a “Mario Live-Action 1-Hour Ver.” There were even ones trimmed short, synced to weird music, and more.
The one Ami was showing me now was the poppiest of the bunch I’d seen.
The mountain was gone, and it looked so game-like it was funny.
“Can I use this as Yoon Oppa’s profile pic?”
“That’s the part I don’t quite get.”
“I was gonna use it as my own profile pic at first!”
That didn’t make sense either, but whatever—fair enough.
I nodded, and Ami’s eyes went wide as she piled on the explanation.
“But Oppa said I should just put it on my profile pic instead!”
“Yes? Why?”
“In messenger, your own profile pic doesn’t show up.”
Aha.
“He said he doesn’t wanna see it, so if I really want to, put it on my own.”
“Such a master thing to say.”
I got it.
I nodded, then looked at Ami, whose eyes were sparkling, and said,
“Go ahead.”
“Really? Thanks!”
“Really?”
Asil gave me a look like, you’re seriously okaying this?
Ricardo, sitting next to him with his legs crossed, snorted.
I grinned at the seniors, who were shooting looks that said Ami wasn’t normal—and neither was I.
“Now everything’s good.”
“Gotta go to Oppa. Time to change his profile pic.”
“Paparazzi must’ve been rough, huh~?”
Ricardo leaned lazily against the chair back.
“You couldn’t even go out properly for a while….”
“Yeah. Like Asil senior advised, I turned down all the broadcasts, CFs, and interviews, went dark, and it’s quieted down a lot.”
“After a year, it’ll be way better.”
Unlike me, the one who’d drawn bad press for killing the police chief sipped his topped nut latte.
Asil had given me solid advice ever since reporters started sneaking into my hospital room.
I was truly grateful.
“Footage like that live stream or the Mario video won’t vanish. But the public’s attention shifts fast.”
“Thank you. I’ll buy you a meal sometime.”
“Nah.”
Asil grumbled with an expression like it was no big deal.
“Not like I did much.”
It had helped plenty.
As I tried to convey that sincerely, Ami cut in like she’d just remembered what she’d forgotten. She’d actually come to see me for that reason but got sidetracked by the gif and lost track of the main point.
The point was that Black Badger’s rookie hiring process was over.
And for some reason, the HR Director had summoned the entire Task Force.
I smiled faintly and nodded.
Truth was, I already knew the rookie hiring results. Yesterday, Kairos had shown me the acceptance message.
That’s why the assembly order had come down.
“Asil, we’re heading out!”
“Taking off first, senior.”
Ricardo waved his hand with a wide-eyed grin instead of speaking.
We left Asil, who nodded, and headed out of the cafe. It was an evening meeting, and time had slipped by, so we planned to grab dinner once we got to the conference room.
Eating out was still a hassle.
I was used to strangers knowing me, but not to them snapping photos for SNS.
Yo-u’s rampages worried me too.
Thinking I’d have to request more outdoor missions going forward, I headed to the conference room with the seniors.
***
‘Forget the past.’
After lowering the sword pricking his throat and kneeling before the enemy.
The day he kissed the ring stained with the Emperor’s blood—a day that still haunted his nightmares. Those were the words Kyle had heard.
Spoken by the crusty old Finance Minister.
‘Your life starts over from now. Forget the past entirely. Recalling it will only make you miserable.’
That day, Kyle had vowed never to forget the past.
To carry this humiliation to his grave.
The day he’d sworn loyalty to the one who forced him to his knees.
Over a century had passed since then.
“Thought you’d rage.”
At Jin Silver’s mutter, Kyle indifferently lifted his head.
He stared at the human slouched in the chair, not bothering to brush aside the hair obscuring the corner of his vision.
There was the one who’d fled the core because he hated Black Badger. The deserter who’d lived out his days in his own private timeline until they found him—now chomping on land whale jerky.
“What’s there to rage about?”
Kyle kept his legs propped on the table and turned his gaze aside.
Slouched in his chair, he honed his dagger.
“You didn’t lie to us.”
“I did fudge it a bit. But it was useless. You didn’t mention it had eyes.”
“Do I have to explain every detail?”
“Wondered if you really needed to drag me in just to confirm the event route.”
Jin grumbled as he chewed and swallowed the land whale.
Kyle neither replied nor shifted his gaze. He simply stared into his own eyes reflected on the smooth blade.
A silent building.
“Anyway, good thing the op failed.”
One bold prisoner.
But Kyle felt no anger. Jin Silver wasn’t enough to stoke his rage.
Not when serving Badgers swarmed as his true targets for fury—not even toward a deserter Badger.
Especially not when some had turned Badger after flipping sides.
Revenge.
What Kyle had chased but failed to achieve until the world’s end.
This time, he would succeed.
“Looks like he remembers everything now.”
Kyle muttered without lifting his eyes from the dagger.
“Didn’t it seem that way to you?”
“Hilde?”
Jin replied in a subdued voice.
The answer came only after a long pause.
“Yeah, he’s changed a lot.”
No more clinking of utensils—appetite gone at the mention of that name.
“Back when he faced me, he was just so kind and innocent.”
Kyle snorted.
A lot of people thought that.
And it was part of Hilde’s true nature. Kyle knew full well how Hildebert could be annoyingly considerate at times. His eyes weren’t so clouded he’d deny it.
But in the end, who had succeeded at revenge?
Kyle hadn’t managed it before the world ended. Far from revenge, at some point he’d found himself running around for the very man he’d ground his teeth over.
The depth of despair when he realized it.
He had innocent subordinates who trusted and followed him—he couldn’t let it show.
He couldn’t even confide in Hilde.
Back then, they’d been inseparable friends. Kyle had shared everything with Hilde. Every daily detail. Every inner thought.
Except his thirst for revenge, the humiliation of lowering his sword, and the jealousy toward Hilde, who’d succeeded.
How could he lament to a man who’d won revenge but lost everything?
He’d failed at revenge, but he still had survivors.
As a brash young knight, he’d muttered laments in some dingy alley. But Kyle never opened up his heart to Hilde again.
“An innocent guy doesn’t hand his sword to a human to kill his friend.”
Hildebert had succeeded at revenge before reaching adulthood.
The temple boy who’d never harmed another soul till then.
That boy had felled the Divine Tree for revenge and swung the sword it had blessed. He chased down the priests’ murderers, thrust his blade into their throats, stared straight into the eyes of screaming foes, and withdrew it with elegant flair for all to see.
After his revenge, he’d stood for a long time on the blood-soaked plain littered with corpses.
He hadn’t burned the bodies. He wouldn’t grant them that mercy.
Only after wild dogs and birds descended to peck at the flesh did he return to the temple and begin burying the priests.
Even then, he hadn’t lost his mind.
He’d said if he couldn’t lift the Curse of the Divine Tree, it wouldn’t be victory over the enemy—it’d be mutual destruction, a battle where both sides wiped each other out. So he’d desperately sought the World Tree.
That’s how he’d neither died nor gone mad.
Hildebert Talib was that kind of man.
“He can turn cold as a statue when he needs to.”
Decades ago, that icy cruelty had been aimed at Ray.
Kyle could never forgive Hildebert.
He couldn’t stop the hatred. He felt nothing beyond hate and betrayal.
It had always been that way. Kyle’s rage burned like fire, Hildebert’s like ice.
“Now it’s my turn for revenge.”
Revenge for his kin. And for Ray, who’d hesitated at the sight of the sword.
If he hadn’t hesitated, they might have won.
When Kyle learned Ray had died because he hesitated before Hildebert’s sword, something inside him died.
And it never came back.
“How dare you miss him like that.”
Blood trickled from the hand gripping the dagger.
Kyle clutched it tighter, feeling no pain.
“After committing such a sin, how dare you.”
The dagger—a gift from Hildebert Talib long ago.
Kyle gripped its sharp edge and stayed still for a long time.
Feeling the presence of that hated man moving about in the core.
***
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ten minutes before the meeting.
I grinned at the sight of my master shuffling sullenly into the conference room.
Yoon raised one eyebrow in lieu of a reply.
I grew my smile watching Ami hop over and snatch his phone.
“Didn’t know you liked me enough to make my gif your profile pic. If I had, I’d have come by to greet you more often.”
“Now you know?”
Yoon sat across from me, brazen as ever instead of annoyed.
“Come to my room tomorrow night. Reserved the experiment table.”
That’s a bit.