Chapter 21. The Leisure of a Cup of Coffee (3)
Chapter 21. The Leisure of a Cup of Coffee (3)
2
-Gong-ja! This bastard's got a straight. Kill him.
"Die."
-Ah, Gong-ja. This little shit's bluffing with one pair? Oh my. Look at him. Pathetic. Just pathetic. Call and crush him.
"Call."
-Whoa, he's got the same hand as our Gong-ja. Two pair, same as you. But what's this? Our Gong-ja's two pair ranks higher? Heh, this is delicious. Let's ride this until one of you drops dead, Gong-ja!
"Raise."
-Whoa, this guy's going for a full house? Don't worry, Gong-ja. I just stuck my nose under the table and took a little peek at the cards. No matter what comes out, he's never making a full house. Trust me and go for it!
"All in."
The poker game had gone around thirty hands.
"......"
The man sitting across from me was trembling. Viper. The one-eyed hunter's face flushed red and blue.
"You son of a bitch! This is cheating!"
Viper shot up from his seat. Thud! The table shook. The other hunters lifted their coffee cups at the same time, as if they'd seen this coming. Thanks to that, the disaster of coffee spilling across the table was averted. Hmm, nice timing.
"This is bullshit! We've played over thirty hands and this guy hasn't lost once. Bluffing doesn't work on him. It's definitely cheating! I don't know if it's a passive or what, but he's using some dogshit skill! It's cheating! Cheating!"
"Do you have proof?"
I sipped my hot chocolate. It had gone cold by now and turned into a bland chocolate latte. It was good in its own way.
"Maybe I'm just a poker expert. It's unfair of you to keep accusing me without proof. Cut me some slack, senior."
"Hey, is this bastard really registered as an F-rank hunter?"
Viper shouted, looking around.
"How the hell is this guy F-rank! I'd sooner believe the Management Bureau took bribes and faked his records. The slippery little shit is at least B-rank!"
"Wow, how did you know? That I'm not F-rank."
"Right! I knew it—"
"Actually, I just went up to E-rank yesterday. I've been busy clearing the 10th floor since yesterday, so I haven't had time to report it to the Management Bureau."
"......"
I smiled.
"Thank you for thinking so highly of me. By the way, Sect Master, you're out of chips."
"Ugh......"
Viper turned his back. He walked away with a deflated gait. The bleachers. The eliminated players who had run out of chips were huddled together out there.
"Welcome! Heavenly Martial Sect Master!"
Heretic Questioner, the first to be eliminated, beamed brightly.
"I thought it was about time for the Heavenly Martial Sect Master to be eliminated. So I ordered an extra espresso in advance! No need to be polite. Drink up."
"I hate espresso......"
"Yes! I know. Picky eating is bad, so overcome it!"
"You goddamn religious nut......"
Viper sat down in the elimination seats with a sulky face.
Three hunters remained at the table. Me, the Black Dragon Guild's witch, and—surprisingly—Paladin had survived too.
"Hmm."
Paladin frowned as she looked down at her cards.
The vice guild master of the Vigilante Corps. A hunter famous for being righteous and fair. The Vigilante Corps was a guild founded to keep the peace in Babylon, the city on the Tower's 1st floor. In the outside world, the hunter before me was comparable to a chief of police.
She had no personal greed, they said, and had donated her entire fortune to an orphanage.
"I've lost."
Paladin sighed and set down her cards.
"I'm fairly confident in my poker face. Kim Gong-ja, do you happen to have a mind-reading skill?"
"Who knows. It could be mind-reading, or it could be x-ray vision. Take a guess."
"...Rookies these days are really something."
Paladin gave a wry smile. She bowed her head to me and walked over to the elimination seats.
"Hey! How can you give up so easily, you brat!"
Viper, already sitting in the bleachers, got angry. His mouth was dirty, as if he'd spilled some of his espresso.
"Whether it works or not, you've got to cling on like a hunting dog! Are you just going to leave that cheater alone?"
"A cheater? That's harsh words for a new hero."
"Anyone can see that bastard is openly using a skill!"
Paladin shrugged.
"I knew from the start."
"Huh? What?"
"It'd be stranger not to know. Would a rookie really propose a poker game with nothing but pure luck and no preparation? The very act of challenging us to a game was a declaration of [I'm confident I can beat you without getting caught using a skill]. We accepted that challenge."
Viper's mouth hung open blankly.
"I-it was like that?"
"Heavenly Martial Sect Master... It's good to devote yourself to martial arts, but use your head a little too."
Paladin looked down at Viper with a pitying expression.
"From the start, this game cost us nothing. Of course, if we won, it'd be a windfall. But even if we lost... the rookie said it himself. He'd join every guild here. That's a decent outcome in its own way."
"B-but. We have our pride! How can some green young kid be on the same level as us......"
"Does pride put food on the table?"
Viper became a mute who'd swallowed honey.
"Espresso does! Come now, Heavenly Martial Sect Master. Finish your drink!"
"You son of a......"
In the end, the last person remaining was the rank 2 hunter, the Black Witch.
And me.
Just the two of us.
"......"
The witch stared quietly at her cards for a moment, then spoke.
"I'm relieved."
"About what?"
"That you're someone I can talk to."
The witch pushed in her chips. Raise. She was upping the stakes. Was she provoking me?
"I'm from Ukraine. More precisely, from what used to be Ukraine. After I lost my family in the civil war, I've been living abroad ever since. As you know, whether it's the Tower or the outside world, it's not easy for a woman to survive alone."
"True enough."
I gladly accepted her provocation. Re-raise. I raised the stakes even higher.
"......"
The witch hesitated for a moment, then tapped the table twice. Tap. Tap. A sign that she accepted the challenge. The Count, who had volunteered to be the dealer after being eliminated from the game, laid out the cards.
"So what are you trying to say?"
I stroked my chin, pretending to think.
"The people who entered the Tower. Especially the first generation—it's harder to find someone without a story. I'm an ordinary orphan myself."
My hand was one pair.
"...This Tower is no different from a hometown to me."
My opponent's hand was a flush.
"In the Tower, no one asks where you're from. No—we made it a world where no one asks. The fact that I'm from Ukraine. That the Heavenly Martial Sect Master is from China. That you're from Korea...... None of that matters in our Tower."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Thanks to the Tower's blessing, we can understand each other's words. Here, we're equal challengers... at least more so than in the outside world."
If we went to showdown like this, I'd lose.
But I calmly raised the stakes.
"People in the outside world treat this place like a trash can."
"Roses bloom even in trash cans."
The witch firmly signaled a call.
"Kim Gong-ja, the moment the clock in the sky hits [00:00:00], the media will pour out articles about you all at once. A completely different life from before will begin. I hope you handle it wisely."
"Sounds good."
One more card was flipped over on the table.
"Not to brag, but I like attention. I want people to praise me, to look up to me, to envy me. I mean it. Honestly, that's all there is to me."
Now my hand had changed to two pair.
"...You're honest. I guess your personality is the complete opposite of the Sword Saint's."
The witch's hand was still a flush.
I was still at a big disadvantage.
"All in."
"......"
"I'm confident."
I took my eyes off my cards and looked at the witch.
"Let me tell you all something while I'm at it. I don't want to be treated well by you just because I cleared the 10th floor. I'm going to clear the 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, all the way to the 100th floor. No matter how long it takes, I will conquer the Tower."
"......"
"I understand that you all treasure the Tower. I respect that. I have no intention of pointlessly fighting you. But I will consider you my rivals."
Who will be the first to climb the Tower.
Who deserves to be praised as the greatest hero.
To be remembered by people, to be praised, to be envied and coveted. To build a golden monument that all look up to.
"I want to see the world beyond the Tower more than the world inside it."
Therefore, I will climb the Tower.
"War refugees, food shortages. Honestly, I don't have the time to worry about those things. If you need my name to solve those problems, use it. Use it as much as you want. But in return, support my climb up the Tower."
The feeling I'd had after clearing the 10th floor today. I wanted to feel that sensation of reaching the summit again. I'd only tasted it once so far... but I already seemed addicted to it.
Because it was that incredible!
"...Hah."
The witch, who had been silent for a while, let out a sigh.
"I was wrong. Your personality isn't the complete opposite of the Sword Saint's—it's exactly the same."
The witch raised both hands and pushed her chips. Crash! The mountain of chips collapsed and gathered in the center of the table.
All in.
"Is that a compliment?"
"No, it's an insult. You greedy people."
The last card was flipped.
My opponent's hand was still a flush.
My hand was... a full house.
"So it was a compliment after all."
I grinned.
"Thank you."
It was my victory.
"Then I'll expect to be treated as your equal, as promised."
"Can I expect you to bear the duties as much as you enjoy the rights?"
"Huh? Isn't a hunter's duty to climb the Tower? Don't worry. I'll keep fulfilling the duty of a hunter."
"A rookie being slick......"
The witch gave a wry smile.
-Hmm, Kim Zombie here is slick, all right. Honestly, if there were a skill called slickness, this kid would've hit S-rank.
'...You're calling me a zombie again the moment the game ends?'
-Of course, you zombie bastard! Gong-ja, my ass! What kind of frozen-to-death Gong-ja!
The guardian spirit flew around the air excitedly.
-Zombie! Zombie! Zombie brat! Hah, who knew not being able to call a zombie a zombie would be so miserable! I'll never make a bet with that slick little shit again!
'How ugly......'
How could the man called the Sword Emperor be this ugly.
I clicked my tongue inwardly and stood up.
"Leaving already?"
"Yes, the 11th floor opens soon. If I don't want to fall behind, I need to start preparing now."
"How do you prepare when you don't even know what kind of area the 11th floor is?"
Hmm.
'Giving them a little hint here wouldn't be bad.'
Since I was going to receive equal treatment anyway, creating a small debt would make things easier down the road.
I organized my thoughts and opened my mouth.
"It's [role-playing]."
"Huh?"
"The theme from the 11th floor to the 20th floor is [role-playing]."
The witch and all the other hunters stared at me. Everyone's eyes were burning. Of course they were. If you had even the smallest hint, you could get ahead of everyone else.
The information I was giving them right now was worth its weight in gold.
"When I cleared the 10th floor, I got a hint as a reward."
A lie, of course.
I hadn't received my reward for clearing the 10th floor yet. The reward would be given the moment the sky's clock hit 00:00:00. But I knew what was going to happen from now on.
Knowledge of the future. There was no reason not to use it.
"That's all I know."
"...Okay. Thanks for sharing the information."
The witch nodded.
"I'll definitely repay this debt later."
Words to look forward to.
3
I slept soundly at my lodging and came out to the plaza.
The city was already in a festive mood. The hunters were happy that the 10th floor had been cleared for the first time in years. Some bars were giving out free beer, and people who could sing a little belted out a tune in the plaza.
"But who actually cleared the 10th floor?"
The only question that left people feeling unsettled.
"There's still no official announcement......"
"Some people say they saw the guild masters gathering in one place."
"Did you see the video where the Sword Saint said it wasn't him? He was really frowning when he said it. Said it definitely wasn't him."
"Then who the hell is it?"
Murmur murmur—
I could clearly hear people whispering right next to me.
I held back the laughter that kept trying to escape.
'I'm right here.'
I was mingling with the people right in the middle of the festival.
[00:02:09]
A day had passed since the 10th floor was cleared, and the numbers on the sky's clock were steadily counting down, slow but sure.
Some hunters held free beer mugs, others gossiped about the unknown clearer as they looked up at the sky.
Just like people in the outside world welcoming the new year.
[00:00:10]
"Ten!"
No one had told them to, but when the sky's clock counted down to ten seconds, the hunters shouted the numbers in unison.
[00:00:09]
"Nine!"
[00:00:08]
"Eight!"
The plaza rang with the voices of countless hunters shouting at once. Seven, six, five...... It wasn't New Year's, but the anticipation of a new era opening was written on everyone's faces.
[00:00:04]
"Four!"
I took out my smartphone and checked the media.
Maybe the embargo was still being properly maintained, because I couldn't see any articles about me.
[00:00:03]
"Three!"
That was when it happened.
Articles began appearing on the media sites operated by Babylon, seconds apart. Was it greed to get the scoop out even one second faster than other outlets?
[00:00:02]
"Two!"
I checked the articles.
-[Breaking] The hunter who cleared the 10th floor is an unknown E-rank rookie!
-[Breaking] Real name Kim Gong-ja. A hunter from Korea......
-[Breaking] The hunter who cleared the 10th floor is known to have simultaneously joined major guilds.
-[Breaking] Black Dragon Guild issues official statement. Welcoming the new hero......
I smiled.
[00:00:01]
"One!"
It was the opening of a new era.