It's Not the Tower Master's Fault?
It's Not the Tower Master's Fault?
"Well then... ahem, I shall now convene this hearing."
Hong Yeon-hwa swept a solemn gaze over those assembled.
"Quite the familiar crowd."
Atra, Liana, Ellia. And Daera, plus Lee Ha-sol with Lee Ha-yul's body cradled in her arms...
"Is 'hearing' really the right word here?"
"Hey, quiet down."
"Yeon-hwa, I'm older than you..."
"Right now, I outrank you."
She didn't bother explaining the criterion. After all, Lee Ha-yul couldn't even see Lee Ji-yeon.
"Seriously, if I weren't so wronged here I'd just..."
No explanation needed—the criterion was understood. Lee Ji-yeon clicked her tongue and folded her arms under her chest.
Hong Yeon-hwa's eyebrow twitched at the emphasized figure.
"...Ji-yeon, aren't you incredibly busy?"
Even Lee Ji-yeon, whose rear end was usually glued to her seat, had shown up. When Hong Yeon-hwa asked, Lee Ji-yeon shrugged.
"Busy or not, I need to hear this. Besides, there's a gate connected to the Fairy Tree, so stepping away for a bit is fine."
"Ah-ha..."
Hong Yeon-hwa quickly understood—and narrowed her eyes.
Something about Lee Ji-yeon's tone sounded smug.
Lee Ji-yeon might not have meant it that way, but that was how Hong Yeon-hwa took it.
Our family has lots of fairies? We've been protecting them? That's why we have a Fairy Tree and a gate connection...
"Ha-yul, can't we plant a Fairy Tree at the Calamity Flame main estate?"
"Huh? Uh... it's possible, yeah..."
"Then let's go plant one when you have time."
Lee Ha-yul, who had been reading the room, blinked at the sudden remark.
"Oooh... the jealousy is so blatant... oooh..."
"Quit the nonsense and sit down, you too."
"It hasn't even been ten minutes since you apologized for kicking me in the stomach and you're already so cold..."
"That—ugh...! I apologized!"
Hong Yeon-hwa's eyebrows quivered as she snapped. Baek A-rin stuck out her tongue, gave Lee Ha-yul a tight squeeze, and plopped down on a nearby sofa.
"Then let's actually begin."
After all the twists and turns, the discussion finally started.
"I... really had no choice."
Eyes gathered on him. Lee Ha-yul cautiously spoke up.
"If I hadn't fought this time, something terrible would have happened... I'm truly, truly sorry for fighting on such a large scale without giving you any warning... but I had to fight."
"Yeah, I know. You didn't do anything wrong. Didn't I say it before? If anything, it was incredibly admirable and worthy of respect."
"Then why...?"
"Just because. I'm throwing a fit to work through the shock of nearly becoming a widow out of nowhere."
That was a statement no one could argue with. Lee Ha-yul folded his hands politely on his knees. Hong Yeon-hwa let out a small laugh and opened her mouth.
"I didn't call this to scold you anyway, Ha-yul. I told you. Once everything settled down, you'd explain as much as you could."
"Yes... but I heard that Lady Ariel explained some of the circumstances."
"You mean the Tower Master of Knowledge? Yeah, we talked a bit while you were sound asleep."
In truth, there wasn't much left for Lee Ha-yul to say.
The most crucial part—
—that the Tower Masters had selected Lee Ha-yul as the hero to repel the otherworldly invasion—had already been revealed.
Thanks to that, many of Lee Ha-yul's lingering questions had been resolved.
Why had the Tower Master of Growth chosen Lee Ha-yul as a special admission cadet?
Why had the Association Presidents... the Tower Master of Space and the Tower Master of Harmonization shown such blatant favoritism, even handing him the position of Association President's proxy?
Why had the Tower Master of Knowledge, who never revealed herself, brought him into her tower and personally taught him magic?
Why did the famously reclusive Observation Corps come scrambling whenever an incident involved Lee Ha-yul...
Plenty of questions had been answered, but secrets still remained.
"I... was originally from another world."
"Huh? What world?"
"Another world, literally. I—that is, this soul—was living in a different world. A world without mana..."
"Uhh...?"
Those who had been listening as if reviewing a story they'd already heard once now blinked.
.
.
.
"What are you talking about?"
What followed was even harder to grasp.
Lee Ha-yul's soul and body had been separated from the very beginning. The body had remained in this world. The soul had been flung into another world...
"The little one is a fairy, isn't he?"
Liana glanced around.
The fairies and spirits who had been subtly lurking nearby, unable to approach the solemn atmosphere, flinched and scattered.
"That's the species of my soul."
"...Then the body?"
"My body... I still don't know what species it is."
"What..."
Hong Yeon-hwa's question died in her throat. The other women stared at Lee Ha-yul with blank, uncomprehending faces.
"...Uh..."
Lee Ha-sol's expression was even more complicated.
She looked between the Lee Ha-yul cradled in her arms and the Lee Ha-yul sitting on the sofa, utterly bewildered.
"Ha-yul, this... does this mean there were... two of you...?"
"No, there's no need to distinguish—it's all me."
Lee Ha-yul shook his head firmly.
"They're body and soul. They should naturally be one. They're only separated for some incomprehensible reason."
"Ah... so the amnesia..."
"Yes... I haven't synchronized the body's memories yet. Don't worry. There's a way to recover the body's memories. I'll retrieve them soon..."
Lee Ha-yul looked at Lee Ha-sol, suppressing his unease as he added that.
After all, the Lee Ha-yul that Lee Ha-sol had known was the body.
Soul and body are one, with no need for distinction—but from Lee Ha-sol's perspective, she might see it differently.
"What a relief, such a relief... you can get your memories back..."
Fortunately, his worry missed the mark.
If anything, Lee Ha-sol was reassured.
"So that's why... it was a problem that could be fixed..."
The Lee Ha-yul Lee Ha-sol had cared for was like a doll.
She had tried everything to heal that Lee Ha-yul. Even if she couldn't heal him, she had resolved to hold him in her arms and care for him for the rest of her life.
But the anxiety had lingered.
If she couldn't fix him, would Lee Ha-yul spend his whole life unable to feel true happiness?
Meeting the Lee Ha-yul who had become whole again at Siyoram had dispelled some of that fear, but she was still terrified that someday he might revert to how he used to be.
And in reality—
When Lee Ha-yul had vanished from the Azure Sea estate and returned in a state just like before, her heart had rotted from the inside out.
"Hic, thank goodness, hic... such a relief..."
"Ha-sol..."
That anxiety had been resolved.
Lee Ha-sol's eyes reddened as she clutched Lee Ha-yul's body and sniffled. Ellia, beside her, patted her shoulder soothingly.
His conscience thoroughly stabbed, Lee Ha-yul lowered his head.
"Before, I wasn't certain about the memories either... I should have told you sooner. I'm sorry..."
"No, no... thank you for telling me now, at least..."
Lee Ha-sol wiped the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and smiled.
"...Amnesia? What kind of fucking ominous word is that?"
"Eep..."
.
.
.
...There had been a minor incident in the middle, but somehow the explanation continued.
The Tower Masters had determined that Lee Ha-yul was the only way to stop the invasion. They had attempted to summon Lee Ha-yul's soul, which had been flung into another world.
Before that, they had used their own power to suppress the invasion, prepare, and gather as much information as possible to hand over to Lee Ha-yul.
And so Lee Ha-yul had been summoned early last year.
Before the Siyoram first-year academic calendar had even begun.
"Doesn't this make the Tower Masters total garbage?"
"Um..."
[The Tower Master of Harmonization bows their head.]
[Urgh...]
Hong Yeon-hwa, who had been listening thoughtfully, muttered.
"No, seriously. Doesn't this mean they just dumped everything on Ha-yul—who couldn't even hold a sword—and made him fight?"
[The Tower Master of Harmonization's shoulders tremble.]
[U-urgh...]
"Th-they said it was the only way to win..."
Lee Ha-yul quietly defended the Tower Masters at the lines of text floating in the corner of his vision.
"Hmph..."
The only way to win was to push Lee Ha-yul forward. Hong Yeon-hwa wanted to scream fuck that, but she couldn't.
The others—those who had witnessed the Tower Master of the Dead—felt the same.
The presence the Earth Dragon had unleashed was far too vicious, too overwhelming.
And that was while suppressed by the allied Tower Masters, already heavily wounded, and further depleted from fighting Lee Ha-yul.
What would it have been like at full strength? Just imagining it made her skin crawl.
To say the world would have been destroyed was neither exaggeration nor arrogance. The creature was truly capable of it.
"...Tsk."
"Haa..."
The incarnation of potential that sneers at those three monsters was, of course, Lee Ha-yul.
Sighs escaped from everyone's lips.
They dressed it up with talk of a chosen hero, a savior, but in essence, wasn't he nothing more than a war weapon meant to prevent an invasion?
"Ha-yul..."
"Still, I don't resent the Tower Masters. These are things I can accept... and thanks to them, I got to meet all of you."
In truth, that last reason alone was more than enough to forgive the Tower Masters.
"It's true we met Ha-yul because of them, but..."
"......"
The atmosphere had grown heavy, just as I'd expected.
And there were still things I hadn't fully explained. Lee Ha-yul's eyes darted around before he cautiously spoke up.
"Actually, there's something else I need to tell you."
"...What kind of thing. Your eyes, or your throat?"
"Uh... no, not that..."
Hong Yeon-hwa's voice had noticeably dropped.
After briefly checking the state of his curses, Lee Ha-yul shook his head.
"The Tower Masters tried to deliver information to me in advance, so they conducted simulations."
"Simulations?"
"Centered around the Tower Master of Observation, they squeezed out the last of their power before seclusion, observed the future, and handed it to me in another world in the form of a game."
That intention was fulfilled.
Because the information certainly reached Lee Ha-yul. It's no exaggeration to say that information is what made the current Lee Ha-yul possible.
The problem was...
"But right near the end of the simulation, a small issue arose, and the me inside the simulation developed an ego."
"?"
The simulation had run thousands upon thousands of times. Right around the time its power was finally dwindling, during the last twelve observations, the Lee Ha-yul inside began to awaken to his own self.
That meant the Tower Masters had failed to fully account for the potential held by Lee Ha-yul's physical body.
And also that, at that point, the Tower Masters couldn't scrounge up a single shred of power to manage the situation.
"...Huh?"
"Ah."
Around that moment, two people let out an exclamation.
It was Daera and Baek A-rin, respectively.
"Daera? What is it?"
"Ah, Master. Well, you see..."
As everyone's eyes turned towards her, Daera scratched her head before glancing at Lee Ha-yul.
- Yes, you can tell them. Though, wait, you hadn't mentioned it until now?
"It seemed like my junior's private matter, so I kept quiet..."
"Daera?"
Under Atra's insistent questioning, Daera calmly began to speak.
"You see, on the Reverse Side... I saw someone similar to my junior. Actually, someone who was pretty much identical."
The 10th Iteration Blood Spike.
Daera didn't know the 10th Iteration's circumstances, but she knew he looked similar to Lee Ha-yul, and that he was a terrifying monster who used blood.
"What!? And you're only bringing this up now...! You hid such crucial information even from me!?"
"I-I...! I thought it was something important for my junior, and that maybe I shouldn't be the one to say it...!"
At Daera's words, Atra's eyes sharpened.
"Even so, there are limits... How could you keep your mouth shut even in front of me?"
"...Hmph, as if you don't keep plenty of things from me, Master! Do you think I don't know?"
Daera had been waving her hands around indignantly, but under the continued scolding, her eyes hardened.
"Ha! Hidden? I have always faced you with nothing but the truth."
"Right after you told me to go train alone for a while, you went behind a tree or somewhere and secretly breastfed my ju—"
"S-Shut...! Silence your mouth!"
"Mmmph...!?"
A hand shot out like a comb's teeth and clamped over Daera's mouth.
Everyone blinked at the sudden power struggle that had erupted between master and disciple.
"...Ahaha, the mood turned strange all of a sudden... but I also saw someone similar to Ha-yul inside the tower."
As she let out an awkward laugh, Baek A-rin's expression clouded over.
Inside the Tower of Growth, which she had entered individually using an entrance ticket—
while she was training as usual, a man had suddenly appeared, tearing through the sky.
The 8th Iteration Heavenly Thunder.
He resembled Lee Ha-yul, wielded the Heavenly Thunder, and spewed resentment and killing intent at Baek A-rin.
'...He was...'
She hadn't known who he was. Or perhaps, she hadn't dared to even let herself imagine who he might be.
But now, due to Lee Ha-yul's words, she knew.
And also why that man had poured such sticky, venomous resentment onto her...
"A-rin."
"You too?"
At the endlessly darkening look on Baek A-rin's face, Lee Ha-yul and Hong Yeon-hwa both spoke to her.
Halting her train of thought, Baek A-rin nodded.
"...Yeah. He was incredibly strong... and he even wielded Daera's Heavenly Thunder."
"Mmph-mmph... Nghha? Heavenly Thunder?"
And then came Baek A-rin's statement.
This was the second occurrence. The faces of those who could now guess the problem Lee Ha-yul was trying to speak of hardened into stone.
After deep deliberation for a long moment, Hong Yeon-hwa muttered.
"...Isn't this all the fault of the Tower Masters?"
[The Tower Master of Harmonization slams their head into a table]
[The Tower Master of Observation shoves their head into a mouse hole]
* * *
What did a snake's spawn ever need a jade throne for, anyway?
That idle thought flickered through the man's mind as he sat perched on the Jade Throne. Even when he gave his short legs a little shake, the tips of his feet still couldn't reach the ground.
If he wanted to, the Jade Throne would adjust its size on its own, but he saw no point in making the effort.
The man looked around.
It was a dark space. The sky was pitch black, without a single star. The ground stretched on with nothing but barren soil and rock.
And in between, there were monsters galore.
Things that burrowed into the earth. Things that crawled along the ground. Things with wings that flew in the sky. Things that lived in the sea. Things that used to live in the sea but now lived on the ground or in the sky.
Monsters that lived and breathed. Or undead that once had.
After gauging the presences that entered his senses, the man shrugged his shoulders.
Just the monsters on this floor alone were immensely numerous. And these were hand-picked specimens, no less. The floors below, where they had been ignorantly stockpiled, held even more.
It was only natural, he supposed.
After all, the previous owner had invaded and harvested worlds, killing and amassing an army over time.
'And this is what's left? An army that's less than half of a half.'
What kind of catastrophe would have unfolded if this were unleashed without any constraints?
His victory, in the first place, had been due only to a pile-up of coincidences.
The fact that the constraints of the five Tower Masters were in effect. The fact that those constraints grew stronger as the Tower Master of Bitter Cold was being broken down.
The fact that the Tower Master of the Dead, seized by anxiety, rushed the invasion and was thus struck by the man's unexpected ambush.
And at the ensuing climax, the fact that the Tower Master, judging he would lose to Lee Ha-yul even if he defeated the man, left half the tower behind and diverted his army.
If even one of those pieces had been missing, this sort of victory would have been impossible.
Shaking his head, the man extended a hand toward an approaching monster.
- Crrunch...
The head caught in his hand was crushed. As the hand that had seized the soul moved, soul and body were folded in on themselves like clay, condensing into a compressed mass.
The kneaded soul gradually took shape, like a dark, violet-tinged gold bar.
But its composition was not metal.
It was a soul ingot, formed entirely out of souls.
The man repeated the process.
Without discrimination, monster and undead alike were molded into soul ingots.
Before long, a pile of soul ingots had accumulated around the Jade Throne. Because the hue of each ingot depended on the soul it came from, they all shone in different colors.
The man picked up a soul ingot in each hand. They were ingots forged from entirely different souls.
He brought the two ingots together.
- Vwooom...!
His innate talent tore down the boundaries between the souls. The softened ingots stuck together, and under the guidance of his touch, they slowly coalesced into one.
Though the motions were crude, the transformation of the soul into unity beneath those hands was dramatic.
Born from the man's hands was a soul hybrid, lowering its head toward its master.
The ingredients were good, so a fine hybrid had been produced.
In terms of simple rank, it was at least 4th Rank or higher. Of course, its practical ability could not compare to a 3rd Rank.
He hadn't expected a hastily made hybrid to possess power equal to a 3rd Rank.
'If I'm going to make one properly, I need to use proper materials.'
The man drummed his fingers against a soul ingot. It was an ingot with a jet-black base, sprinkled with white powder that shimmered like stardust.
It was an ingot crafted from the capture of a 2nd Rank legion commander—one from the army that the Tower Master of the Dead had led.
Beneath that, more ingots made from 3rd Rank monsters and the like were stacked up as well.
With this much, he figured he'd be able to produce at least one elite unit.
Nodding to himself, the man set aside the precious ingots and began mass-producing hybrids by lumping together miscellaneous undead and monsters.
His reflection appeared on a yellowish soul ingot.
An extremely small build compared to the Jade Throne. Black hair, and dark, dreary eyes.
A man.
The 12th Iteration Hybrid Summoner.
Lee Ha-yul silently wove together hybrids as he waited for his moment.