Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Chapter 22 Prophecy
Baek Ryeon looked down from the helicopter.
Found him.
Although she could only catch a glimpse of him from far away, there was no mistaking his silhouette.
It was impossible not to sense his presence that was deeply rooted in her heart.
Master. My master.
The moment Baek Ryeon met Han Yeong-min, she couldn't suppress the smile on her lips. She couldn't hold back the tears that flowed down her cheeks from her eyes that contained him.
They weren't tears of sadness, but tears of joy.
Because she had finally found her master.
Winter had passed, and spring had come.
‘Master, your spring has arrived.’
After sending him away, her world had been an endless winter.
She had endured the cold chill and survived by persevering through it.
There was only one reason she overcame that winter. It was to meet you again.
And now, finally facing her master again.
Though his body was more frail than when she saw him in the tutorial, seeing him who had become even stronger made Baek Ryeon bite her lips.
She knew.
No matter how strong she became, he would still try to shoulder everything alone.
He might try to send her away again like that.
But this time, she would absolutely never let him go.
Master. Your White Lotus has come.
She belonged only to Han Yeong-min.
Now I will bloom by your side forever.
Now she would no longer waver.
From this place where she had rooted herself, no wind that blew could shake her.
She was a flower that existed only for Han Yeong-min. A flower that bloomed for him and existed for him.
So this time, she would not let go.
Absolutely not.
*
It was only natural that Yoo So-eun would notice when the outside had become so noisy.
As soon as I opened the door I had barely fixed and came outside, she too couldn't help but be shocked.
"What the hell are those people?"
...They're my disciples.
I would introduce them soon, but for now I felt somewhat embarrassed.
First Baek Ran came down, and then Baek Ryeon began to descend.
When Baek Ran touched the ground, Baek Ryeon turned around and smiled brightly, then just jumped down from the middle.
It wasn't an extremely high height, but it was a situation where she could get hurt if she fell without proper landing techniques.
But she didn't attempt any landing techniques. As if she believed someone would definitely catch her.
Hehe... this girl really.
I caught her as she threw her body into the air. Since I had done this many times before, I was as skilled as a professional.
I was very glad to see her, but I scolded her first.
"What if I hadn't caught you? Why did you do something so dangerous?"
Her eyes were slightly swollen as if she had been crying until just now, but her lips were filled only with smiles.
"There's no way Master would let me fall, right?"
I never thought the day would come when I'd hear these words again. And on Earth, not in the tutorial.
But there was something else that bothered me more than that.
Her body is cold.
Since I had returned to the past, the Nine Yin Severed Meridians must have returned as well. That was very painful.
Because there was no mana on Earth, there was no way to fix it.
The other two people besides me and Yoo So-eun had entered relatively late, so it would be impossible to fix it unless they stayed in the tutorial for a long time or met in the tower.
Actually, that's not necessarily true.
Thinking from Earth's god's perspective, if they had made 10 regressors and left them to rot until the later stages, wouldn't that make the regression meaningless?
There was a high possibility that arrangements had been made for the regressors to enter the tutorial first.
The fact that they had regressed to the day before the tutorial rather than the day of the tutorial itself made this possibility very likely, and perhaps it was even a choice that considered regressors with connections meeting in advance to make plans.
"...I came too, but aren't you two being too much in your own world? That's too much. Didn't you miss me?"
Had I focused too much only on Baek Ryeon? Baek Ran puffed her cheeks and approached to give me a back hug.
In front was the younger sister, behind was the older sister. They were hugging me tightly so I couldn't move.
They even pressed their bodies closer together whenever their arms and legs touched, as if keeping each other in check.
I heard the sisters didn't get along well, but they even competed over things like this. I was getting a bit out of breath, but I answered first.
These types of questions were a matter of timing.
"Of course I missed you."
My first disciple was also very precious to me.
She wasn't just someone who received teachings, but a grateful existence who had provided the foundation for ascending martial arts.
The reason today's me could exist was definitely partly thanks to her generous giving.
My answer seemed to please her, as Baek Ran's expression softened a bit and she opened her mouth with a mischievous expression.
"Really? The gift I gave you... seems to have been effective?"
When she mentioned the gift, I suddenly remembered what had happened on the day we parted.
The moment when my first kiss, which I had protected for almost 40 years including the time in the tutorial, was stolen, was clearly etched in my mind.
"It was certainly a gift that was hard to forget."
At those words, she giggled. Her expression seemed to suggest she had finally gotten one over on me, which felt a bit annoying.
"Yeong-min-ah. Who are those people?"
Yoo So-eun, who had been watching that farce, sent me a cold atmosphere and chilly gaze that was even more frigid than Estelle in the early tutorial.
As if she didn't like this situation. As if a proper explanation was needed.
"Well..."
The moment I was about to explain about the two people, intimidated by her appearance I was seeing for the first time, Baek Ran interrupted.
"Ah, you must be Yoo So-eun? I heard a lot about you from Yeong-min. He said he had a really pretty childhood friend, and it was true? Nice to meet you. I'm Baek Ran, Han Yeong-min's 'first' disciple."
Baek Ran emphasized the word 'first' as if for someone to hear. Baek Ryeon, who had made an unpleasant expression before smiling again, then opened her mouth.
"I heard a lot about you too. I'm Baek Ryeon, the 'most' precious disciple that Master raised with all his might and care. He cherished me so much that he even created martial arts just for me."
Baek Ryeon also emphasized the word 'most', responding to the word 'first' while pouring out storytelling.
After hearing the two people's self-introductions, Yoo So-eun snorted and began her own PR as if she couldn't lose.
"Ah... is that so? I'm Yoo So-eun, who has been in the 'closest' relationship with Yeong-min since he was crawling around as a baby, through all those moments when he was discharged from the military and attending university, building lots of memories together just the two of us. Please take care of both of you?"
This is... dangerous. Wow, what is this situation?
She emphasized the word 'closest' while engaging in a war of nerves with the two people. It felt like sparks were flying between the three people's gazes.
At this rate, there would be no end, so I decided to do some ice-breaking. I borrowed a line from a drama everyone would know.
"ICE!!!"
Wait, if I do this, isn't it ice rather than ice-breaking?
Actually, that wasn't what was important. Thanks to that, all three people's attention focused on me, and all three were looking at me like I was crazy.
I had dissolved this subtle atmosphere with my sacrifice. Playing the villain was... familiar.
"Let's go inside and talk first. You must have a lot of stories you want to share besides just introductions, right?"
All three people nodded.
We had too many stories to tell.
I was curious about what kind of lives they had lived while I was gone, and there were stories I absolutely had to hear.
"So... could you let me go?"
The two people reluctantly loosened their grip on my arms. Of course, they didn't completely separate from my body.
They just changed what they were holding from my waist to my arms. Baek Ran on my left arm, Baek Ryeon on my right arm.
Still, I could move now, so I could go inside. Yoo So-eun looked at the two people with displeasure but didn't particularly stop them.
We arrived at the living room and sat at the dining table, but the seating arrangement was a bit strange. The two people still occupied my right and left sides, and across from us, Yoo So-eun was staring at me intently.
No. When four people sit down, who sits like this?
Normally, two people would sit on each side with someone sitting diagonally, but we didn't have that.
Since pointing it out wouldn't likely get a good response, I decided to just proceed.
"Honestly, I don't have much to say. You've all probably seen or heard how I've been living, and I roughly know how you've all been living too. So it would be better to start with your stories rather than mine."
It was a kind of hope that they would become close.
Of course, they couldn't become close easily, but since they would be comrades in the future, it would be convenient for working together if they at least knew about each other to some extent.
And while sharing stories, I immediately realized my thoughts were wrong.
The three people got along much better than I had thought.
Especially... when talking about me.
"Yeong-min really doesn't know anything, you know? Even when you make it so obvious, he completely fails to notice."
"Right. I really thought I'd die of frustration."
"That's right. Master has that kind of side to him."
When there's a common enemy, people can unite.
Once I became the target, they chatted endlessly in girls' talk, constantly criticizing me.
It's okay... if everyone can be happy with this.
I could be firewood for everyone. This must be what being a Dark Knight means.
"Let's start talking about the tower. Why exactly were Earth's people exterminated? Is the tower that harsh?"
Since they seemed to have gotten close enough, I decided to start the serious conversation.
I was very curious about why we had to regress.
"I'll explain. I was in the tower the longest and was continuously active on the front lines."
All three people seemed to know the reason, but Yoo So-eun began explaining as the representative.
"First, the tower's trials aren't that high in difficulty. If you have sufficient skills and thorough preparation, there's no reason you can't clear them."
Then the reason Earth's people were massacred wasn't due to the tower's abnormal difficulty.
"Rather, floors 1 to 10, which are the test floors, were probably the most difficult? People who didn't build proper foundations would all be filtered out here. Even considering that, quite a lot of Earth people made it up to the 11th floor. From the 11th floor onward, there's a plaza where you can meet other people."
According to what I heard from Estelle, other worlds have populations that don't exceed 1 billion at most, but Earth has close to 8 billion people.
Among these, those who built sufficient foundations and went up would be at least tens of millions.
Even among the people I saw while traveling, there were quite a few with solid foundations.
"Do you know that gods and Demon Kings actually exist?"
"Yeah. I know."
My martial arts were originally created with Baal, the strongest Demon King, as a motif. It would be strange if I didn't know.
"Then this will be easy to explain. From the 11th floor onward, climbers get to choose something called a Constellation. They make contracts with gods or Demon Kings who chose them to gain new power."
So that's why the Constellation item existed in the status window - it became usable from the 11th floor.
"Of course, there are those who don't receive a Constellation's choice and those who don't make contracts at all. A representative example is someone called the Heavenly Demon who settled on the 50th floor - this woman also refused Constellation contracts, saying she wouldn't rely on miscellaneous powers."
I never expected to hear the name Heavenly Demon again here.
"Earth people were relatively weak in force, so when they received contract offers from Constellations, they accepted without question, and gods are more familiar than Demon Kings to us, right?"
"That's true."
Earth people would have the prejudice ingrained in their minds that gods are kinder than Demon Kings.
"So the proportion who chose gods was overwhelmingly high. That's where the problem arose."
What problem could there have been with choosing gods as Constellations?
"About 9 years after entering the tower, a prophecy was made. There are several prophecy-type gods, and their prophecies will definitely come true unless there's intervention from Transcendents."
Then that prophecy played a major role in Earth people's extinction.
"Gods basically don't like Demon Kings. They have an antagonistic relationship, and while Demon Kings are fewer in number, each one has greater military power than gods."
This was a story I had heard from Estelle. But I also heard that because Demon Kings don't unite, gods have a slight advantage in the fight against Demon Kings.
"But a prophecy came down that the strongest Demon King would be born among Earth people."
"...What?"
Something sent chills down my spine. I absolutely don't think it would be, but some suspicion was growing inside me.
That... surely isn't about me, is it?
That can't be.
Right. That can't be.
There's no way a dullard like me could become a Demon King, right?