Chapter 50. After the Ending (1)
Chapter 50. After the Ending (1)
1
-You crazy bastard!
The continental army pulled its troops back a little.
Even in the midst of that, the guardian spirit was doubled over laughing.
-From now on, I shall call you Kim Crazy-bastard!
'Ah, please, just stop....'
I sighed inwardly.
'Do you even know how many nicknames you've given me already? Kim Zombie. Zombie King. Kim Crazy-bastard. At this rate, the nicknames alone will fill up an entire A4 sheet of paper.'
-Oh, I like that. Let's go! A crazy bastard with dozens of nicknames, let's gooo!
The guardian spirit's cackling laughter filled the sky.
But fortunately, this world did not contain only people who made fun of me.
[Boss stage cleared.]
The Tower's voice.
The voice announcing that I had completely conquered the twentieth stage also rang in my head. Just as it had when I cleared the tenth stage, the so-called "Hellfire Mansion," back then.
[The clearer is Death King (死王).]
[1 person.]
I slowly looked up.
Through the branches and leaves of the acacia, a blue sky spread out.
[Calculating clear reward.]
[Calculation complete.]
[The reward will be given upon entering the 21st floor, 24 hours from now.]
Right.
I grinned.
'Well, crazy bastard or whatever, what does it matter? I did what I had to do, anyway.'
-Oh ho. Look at that confidence?
'I cleared up to the 20th floor in the way I wanted, didn't I?'
I will not let anyone die.
That was the goal I had set in my heart from the very beginning.
Looking back on it now, what an absurd greed it had been.
'Not a single hunter died while I was conquering the 20th floor.'
Demon King of Fall Rain. The hunters had fallen for the temptation of the Fallen Throne (墮天座), who has now been reduced to one of my Hundred Ghosts, and the disaster of hunters suspecting and killing each other had been erased.
I had preemptively blocked the very seed of tragedy.
'Not a single Imperial or Continental died either.'
I fought for this other world while time was stopped.
'And....'
I raised my right hand and placed it on someone's head.
'I took this one in, too.'
Agwi (餓鬼).
The prisoner confined in my shadow sat collapsed on the roadside, staring blankly at the continental army.
In the original history, these were the soldiers who had burned down her small hometown.
But today, history did not repeat itself. The moment the Paladin Commander knelt, the continental army withdrew its hostility. They believed the claim that I was an apostle of the Goddess and abandoned their mission.
Paradise had been protected.
'This is just my own thought, but.'
I quietly stroked Agwi's head.
'This 20th floor probably... would have been cleared on its own even if I had just stood by and watched. There was actually no need for me to step in.'
-Huh? Why?
'Because the village burning down and disappearing would also be one kind of [ending].'
An ending.
I had realized this while conquering stages up to now. The Tower does not distinguish between happy endings and bad endings. As long as it is a properly concluded ending, it accepts any kind of ending.
'Otherwise, Yoo Soo-ha would never have cleared up to the 40th floor.'
Even if you smash the dolls of the Hellfire Mansion to pieces like the Flame Emperor.
Or even if you briefly play with those children like I did.
Either way, it is recognized as one [ending].
'So this is not a world predetermined by the Tower.'
I turned my head and looked at the village.
'And it's not an ending chosen out of necessity, either.'
A place where the wheat ripens golden beneath the sky.
A place where a taciturn and stubborn old man, who nevertheless turns a blind eye to the children's petty thievery, sits idly in front of the orchard and smokes his tobacco.
A refuge where the incurably ill had gathered.
'It is simply the ending I chose.'
Today.
No rain will fall from the sky.
No fire will blaze upon the earth.
-I see....
But why?
Just as I was soaking in a long moment of self-satisfaction, the guardian spirit wore a subtle expression. It was the face of someone looking at a pitiful child, was it not?
'What's wrong?'
-No, you said this is the ending you chose.
The guardian spirit casually pointed somewhere with a finger.
-I was just wondering if that over there is also part of the ending you chose.
There was Yoo Soo-ha.
"Fuck! Fuuuck, you son of a bitch! I can't stop this! Huh? I said stop right now... fuck! Why won't this stop!"
To be more specific, there was Yoo Soo-ha, still dancing the Cossack dance.
At the entrance of a rural village where the grain ripened beautifully. In a landscape painting where the sky was blue and flower petals settled on the ground, there existed a handsome man crying out "fuck" in solitude.
It was a masterpiece that would rack up tens of millions of views if uploaded as a video on the internet.
'Huh? What's wrong with that?'
I tilted my head.
'Isn't it fucking beautiful?'
-This guy really is Kim Crazy-bastard....
The guardian spirit muttered.
That was when.
[Today.]
[The 20th floor stage has been cleared.]
A voice rang out between heaven and earth.
This time, it was not a sound only I could hear.
[Announcing to everyone once more.]
[Today, the 20th floor stage has been cleared.]
An official announcement.
Just like when I cleared the tenth stage, the same voice was probably spreading throughout the entire Tower.
"Ah."
I clicked my tongue.
'What a shame.'
-What is?
'There's no internet here.'
Right now, my smartphone was sleeping soundly inside my backpack. In real-world terms, five days. But in terms of the time I had experienced, it had easily been hundreds of days since I had so much as touched my phone.
Because the only areas in the Tower where the internet worked were still floors 1 through 10.
'The internet must be going absolutely crazy right now....'
-Huh? Wait. Weren't you not caring about people's reactions anymore?
'When did I ever say that?'
-No, you said it. Didn't you say you wanted recognition from people like the Witch or old man Marcus more than from ordinary people?
'Come on.'
I shrugged.
'Don't you know the more the better? I want recognition from people like the Witch or the Sword Saint, and recognition from ordinary people, and to look up at the sky myself without a single speck of shame.'
-Wow, isn't this just being a total pig? How can you be this greedy?
'People live on greed, you know.'
Fortunately, I was able to soothe my regret over not seeing the internet.
[24 hours from now, the 21st floor stage will open.]
[24:00:00]
Boom!
Just like last time, fireworks embroidered the sky. When the first firework burst, a clock of light was created. Then, as if they had been waiting for this very moment, two hunters teleported here.
"Death King!"
It was the Witch and the Sword Saint.
The Witch used a teleportation skill and flew here in an instant. Grab! The Witch bent her elbow and locked my head in her arm. Then she let out her signature bright laugh.
"You're insane! You're seriously insane!"
"Ack, aack! Hold on, Black Dragon Master. This actually hurts...."
"You little brat! A young punk who hasn't even turned thirty yet!"
I tried to resist, but it was hopeless. Crush! The Witch's strength was so great that I couldn't escape the headlock.
Good lord. How many elixirs has she been taking on a regular basis?
"Clearing the 20th floor in just five days! Aren't you insane? You're insane!"
"Um. Black Dragon Master, please calm down...."
"You have no idea how much chaos has erupted in the Tower right now! Here!"
The Witch showed me something.
It was a smartphone.
A model that was clearly at least five years old. On the screen of the phone, whose battery was displayed as barely hanging on, were internet articles that should have been impossible to see here.
"This is...?"
"I stopped by the 1st floor and took screenshots!"
The Witch's voice was genuinely excited.
"There were so many articles that it was impossible to capture them all! Sorry! But you have to understand, Death King. Not just the Tower, but the outside world is in chaos too. Even though I only captured the articles with the most clicks, look. There are this many!"
The Witch swiped through the phone screen.
Article headlines were displayed there.
-[Breaking] A lightning-fast charge! The 14th floor cleared too!
-The divine title has been decided as Death King (死王).
-Black Dragon's official announcement. The current raid team consists of 3 members.
-Is the lead the Sword Saint? The Witch? Or Death King?
-[Special Feature] Death King intensive coverage.
.
.
.
There were many.
There were so many headlines alone that it was impossible to read them all.
"The titles get picked like this."
The Witch smiled.
"But they're all just stories about you!"
"Uh...."
"Starting with where you're from, what kind of life you lived, how you ended up entering the Tower, how you shot up to the top ranks in one go. It really is nothing but those stories...."
"H-hold on."
I was taken aback.
It wasn't the newspaper articles that flustered me. This kind of reaction was only natural. Over the past five days, the internet must have had hundreds, thousands of threads blow up.
Something I had already experienced once.
So the reason I was taken aback was not that, but....
"You captured all of these yourself?"
"Yes!"
The Witch nodded.
Since the headlock hadn't been released, our faces were quite close.
"Of course!"
"To show me?"
"Silly, what other reason would there be?"
"Um, so...."
I narrowed my brow as I spoke.
"You're saying that, in order to show me what articles were out right now, you deliberately teleported down to the 1st floor, then went around finding articles one by one, and captured them one by one...?"
"If you put it that way, yes!"
I imagined it.
Hunter rank 2. The head of the largest guild in the Tower.
Such an exalted person hurried down to the 1st floor, fiddled diligently with her smartphone, snap snap tap tap capturing screenshots, then came back here and showed off the captured screens as if bragging.
"......."
Imagining it, the scenes were actually quite adorable.
But I still didn't understand.
"Why would someone like the Black Dragon Master go to such trouble...?"
"What on earth is this person talking about?"
The Witch smiled brightly.
"Obviously because I wanted to do something for you!"
"......."
"Ah, and don't read the article comments later, whatever you do. Fabrication this, fraud that. People steeped in jealousy have been terrorizing them."
The Witch let out a small sigh.
"Honestly, I don't know why those people are always like that. Do they not realize how incredible it is that there were zero casualties! Death King, don't mind the riffraff. From now on, the Black Dragon will take full charge of media relations for you."
What is this person?
Is she an angel?
-Zombie, you really do worship anyone as an angel the moment they're a little nice to you.... I know you've lived a pitiful life, but be more magnanimous about human kindness. How can a guy who's so damn strong against malice be this weak against kindness?
If she's not an angel, could she be a goddess?
-He's insane....
The guardian spirit's face crumpled.
-I thought this bastard would go crazy someday, and he's finally lost it.
'Then why don't you praise me once in a while? Do you know how starved I am for praise? Do you know how precious a little attention is in a bleak daily life? Someone like you wouldn't understand, would you?'
-No, that kind of thing... it's gross.... I'd rather ascend to nirvana.
The guardian spirit actually gagged, "blegh."
As if anyone would doubt he's a psychopath.
I bet my entire fortune that this man never had a single friend in his life.
-Hey! What bullshit! I have friends too, you know!
'Excluding the Sword Saint.'
-.......
The guardian spirit averted his gaze.
It was my quiet victory.
Though I couldn't tell what the victory was for.
"And look at this too!"
Only then did the Witch release the headlock.
This time, what the Witch wanted to show me was not a phone screen. The Black Dragon Master opened a small backpack and pulled out a thick bundle of newspapers.
"Here!"
The Witch spread the paper newspaper wide open.
"This is the front page of yesterday's newspaper!"
The content of the article didn't immediately register in my eyes.
However, a list written as large as a front door was the first thing I saw.
Above the list was written the title [Hunter Ranking Updated!].
+
1st. Sword Saint
2nd. Black Witch
3rd. Death King
4th. The Count
5th. Heretic Questioner
6th. Viper
7th. Linguist of Babel
8th. Wide-Area Communicator
9th. Paladin
+
"......."
For a moment, I was speechless.
While I had been trapped alone in a prison of time, fighting a death match against the Demon King.
I only now realized what had happened in the world below the 12th floor.
"This is the first time something like this has happened since the Tower opened!"
The Witch laughed.
"To rise all the way up here in one leap from outside the rankings!"
Rank 3.
Just like a hunter's title, the ranking is also determined by the Tower.
The ranking determined that way is displayed on a monument erected in the plaza of the 1st floor.
"It probably won't feel real yet... but go down to Babylon today. You'll immediately understand what kind of person you've become."
Thwack!
The Witch rolled up the newspaper and tapped my shoulder with it.
"Congratulations, Death King!"
That's right.
"You are now a person who represents all hunters!"
In five days, the world had changed.