Chapter 9. The Identity of the Monologue (3)
Chapter 9. The Identity of the Monologue (3)
4
-Send me back to the old man this instant!
The guardian spirit was absolutely livid.
As if my cramped studio apartment wasn't bad enough. A place barely fit for one human being, and now a ghost was flying around in it too—this was a human rights dead zone if there ever was one. You know that feeling when a three-meter giant mosquito is buzzing around your head?
"Ah, seriously! I want to send you back, but I can't!"
-You said you copied me with your skill. Then you should be able to cancel it too! Don't you know what a refund is? A refund? What kind of world do we live in where you can't even get a refund!
"I'm telling you, I can't cancel it!"
I explained how I'd ended up copying the guardian spirit. But even after hearing the whole explanation, the ghost refused to listen. Kept going on about sending him back to Sword Saint, this and that.
-Bwaaah. Marcus, you old man! You damn disciple! Your master has been kidnapped! Your one and only master has been kidnapped by some worthless bum!
And then this ghost. He flipped over in midair and started bawling his eyes out.
-Oh dear, what a useless disciple. This is all a disaster caused by that bastard Marcus ignoring and disrespecting his precious master! I warned him time and time again to serve his master like the heavens themselves!
"Excuse me......"
What a headache. Any fear I'd felt about seeing a ghost for the first time in my life was already gone. Fear? What's that? No matter how scary a ghost looks, if it carries on this loudly, the first thing you get is a headache.
"Can we please live quietly, hmm?"
-Live? What's there to live? I'm already dead!
"Ah, then please die quietly."
-Well, would you look at this absolute son of a bitch. Cursing a ghost who's already miserable from being dead, telling him to die again. Hey, neighbors, take a look at this bastard! From the very first meeting, there's nothing he won't say!
"Wow."
My mouth fell open. What the hell? Today was the first time in my life I'd seen a ghost, but it was also the first time in my life I'd seen such a too-much talker...... No, such a too-fucking talker.
And only now did I realize it. I understood why Sword Saint had kept muttering to himself at the bar. Right. Now that I thought back on it, Sword Saint had indeed mumbled constantly, but the actual content of his mutterings had been monotonous.
'Shut up.'
'Stop making a racket.'
'Too loud. I'll handle it myself, so leave me alone.'
Ninety-nine percent of his mutterings were telling someone to shut up because they were too loud.
From the outside, he'd looked like he was babbling to himself as if he had some kind of mental illness......
"Well, no wonder he kept muttering. If he's got a ghost like this attached to him......"
-Huh? What was that? Did you just talk shit about me behind my back? How old are you? You've got some nerve, talking shit about me to my face when you should be treating me like an elder!
"Damn it."
My shoulders slumped without me realizing it. The future really did look pitch black.
"I'm going to have to avoid Sword Saint for the rest of my life. No matter what skill I get, why does it always have to come with a ghost like this?"
-Huh? Avoid the old man? What kind of bullshit is that?
The guardian spirit tilted his head.
-Where are you going to find a hunter as kind as old man Marcus? Even if he is my disciple, he's a real stick-in-the-mud. Oh, but whatever you do, don't bring up his grandchildren. He's normally real quiet, but the moment anyone mentions the little ones, he loses his damn mind.
"I'm already well aware."
I sighed.
"That skill Sword Saint has. What's it called? Anyway, the one that shows how many people someone has killed."
-Ah, Detective's Insight? That's a fucking garbage skill.
The guardian spirit answered immediately. So the official name of the kill count skill was [Detective's Insight]. The ghost seemed to know all of Sword Saint's skills by heart.
-What's it good for? It's only useful for figuring out whether someone's an assassin or not. And even if someone has a high kill count, that doesn't guarantee they're an assassin.
"4,091."
-Hmm?
"The kill count floating above my head. It says 4,091."
The guardian spirit made a dumbfounded expression. He scrunched up his whole face. How was it that a ghost had more expressive facial expressions than a living person?
-What the hell, this guy. Is he insane?
"If I spend one more day with you, I think I really will go insane. You're just so loud."
-No... you're a complete beginner.
The guardian spirit's face grew a little serious.
-A beginner among beginners. From the looks of it, you haven't even awakened your Aura yet. How does a guy like that kill 4,091 people? Even I, who cleared up to the 99th floor of the Tower in my lifetime, don't think I killed that many.
"Because I didn't kill 4,091 people."
-Ha?
I shrugged.
And then I explained, one thing at a time.
"Here's how it happened. So, the truth is, the only person I actually hunted was one very bad man who would later come to be called the Flame Emperor......"
That I had been killed by the Flame Emperor.
That by a stroke of luck, I had copied a regression skill.
That if I just stayed as I was, there was no way to get revenge on the Flame Emperor, so—
-......
That I had resolved to regress over 4,000 days.
That I had carried out that resolution.
-...What?
The guardian spirit, who had been listening quietly, opened his mouth.
-You killed yourself over 4,000 times? To get revenge on that guy?
"Yes."
-......
The guardian spirit fell silent. Just moments ago he'd worn a baffled expression, but now it was different. He stared at my face with eyes that seemed to be mulling something over intently. He looked so solemn that I wondered if this was really the same ghost who'd been making such a racket that my two-pyeong box room had practically shaken.
-Hey.
Breaking the long silence, the guardian spirit spoke.
"What is it?"
-What's your name?
"It's Kim Gong-ja."
The guardian spirit let out a low "hmm."
-Gong-ja. Why did you choose old man Marcus, of all people?
"Excuse me?"
-I'm asking why, the moment you finished your revenge on that bastard, you decided to copy the old man's skill first.
"Well... isn't it obvious?"
I was nonplussed. I didn't understand the intent of the question.
"He's the number one ranked hunter in this era. You have to start with the strongest person's skill."
-So you can get strong as fast as possible?
"Yep."
-...The reason you're answering my questions so honestly must be because there's no risk of information leaking out. Since the skill card says no one but you can perceive me. It's completely safe. Right?
"Well, of course."
Silence settled over the single room again.
-Hmm.
Bob, bob.
The guardian spirit drifted around the empty air surrounding me. He went to the left and glanced at my face, went to the right and sized up my height. With an incredibly serious face, no less. I frowned, wondering what the hell this bizarre behavior was supposed to be.
-Let's see. Hmm, the build's not half bad if it's polished up. The tenacity is tremendous. There's a decent amount of ambition, too. He knows how to keep his head on straight and use his brain...... Tsk, indeed. Hmm, with this much raw material......
The guardian spirit muttered to himself.
'What's he going on about?'
From what I'd heard, this ghost seemed to be Sword Saint's master. Master and disciple, both masters of talking to themselves.
-Hey, Kim Gong-ja.
Whoosh. The guardian spirit flew right up to my nose and spoke.
"Yes?"
-Show me how you hunt monsters.
5
I hunted a few trash mobs.
"Is that enough?"
It wasn't like I had anything to do holed up in my box room anyway. As soon as day broke, I headed to the hunting grounds. Actually, since I'd died to Sword Saint and regressed one day, I had to hunt Yoo Soo-ha once more today. For various reasons, I needed to go out.
-As expected......
The guardian spirit nodded.
-My prediction was right.
"Prediction?"
-Mm. In my lifetime, I was called the Sword Emperor (劍帝).
Early dawn. The guardian spirit's voice settled low over the hunting grounds, still deserted with no one else around yet.
-My homeland isn't here. From your perspective, you could think of it as another world. Anyway, a Tower appeared in my homeland just like here, and I conquered it faster than any other hunter from my region.
"So this is all just bragging?"
-Yep.
The guardian spirit smirked.
-Well, in the end, we failed to break through the 100th floor in our world. It's written on your card too, right?
It was.
+
[Sword Constellation]
Rank: A+
Effect: From another world. Cleared the Tower of another world up to the 99th floor, but was thwarted with the 100th floor before his eyes. His lingering resentment kept him from passing on, and he became a guardian spirit. He cannot physically interfere with this world, but he can intrude upon the owner's mind.
Seek advice from his abundant experience and incredible skill!
※However, no one except the owner can perceive the guardian spirit.
※This skill was copied from Hunter Marcus Calenbury.
+
'Come to think of it, it really is an incredible feat.'
Before I regressed, the Flame Emperor, who had cleared up to the 40th floor, was revered as a legend.
So what about the 99th floor? The ghost before my eyes had truly reached unprecedented heights.
-Someone as accomplished as me can tell just by looking. How much talent a hunter has. Whether they're a jackpot or a bust, I can see it right away. That's why I told you to show me how you hunt monsters.
"Aha."
At the guardian spirit's words, I gave a bitter smile.
"Were you trying to see if I also have talent for the sword?"
You know. There are plenty of stories like that, aren't there? Stories about someone who lived their whole life without realizing their talent, until one day they suddenly fall off a cliff or meet a master and awaken their true power.
A fateful encounter (奇緣).
"Tsk tsk. You wasted your time."
Unfortunately, no such luck had ever come my way.
"I don't have a single ounce of talent for combat. I'm a complete bust. A total bust. That's why I'm busting my ass trying to copy other hunters' skills. If I had talent, I would've escaped F-rank ages ago. Would I be living like this?"
The guardian spirit furrowed his brows.
-What bullshit are you spouting? You have talent.
"Excuse me?"
-And not just any talent. Tremendous talent.
Huh.
This was far from the reaction I'd expected.
"Come on. You're joking. You're just messing with me, right?"
-I don't joke about things like this.
The guardian spirit quietly shook his head.
-Of course, you don't have any talent for martial arts. Your movements are clumsy, and your build is mediocre. From the looks of it, if you use ordinary methods, it'll take you a long time to awaken your Aura. But completely unrelated to all of that, you have one very rare talent.
The guardian spirit's eyes were serious.
-You have no fear of death.
"......"
-It's just not there. Truly astonishingly, completely absent.
The guardian spirit stroked his chin.
-Probably from dying over 4,000 times, your fear of death vanished on its own. This is part of what I predicted. You may not realize it, but when you charge at monsters, you're completely reckless. Normally, people hold back even just a little for fear of dying or getting hurt. But you don't have that.
"Uh, is that a talent?"
-Of course.
The answer was immediate.
-Talent isn't only something you're born with. A person can awaken talents one by one over the course of their life. And the hardest talent to cultivate is overcoming the fear of death. But you've already mastered that difficult thing.
"......"
-It's incredible.
I was a little taken aback.
In my entire life, not a single person had ever said something like this to me. Even I had never thought of myself that way. I had simply been furious at being treated like a bug by the Flame Emperor... so furious that I'd thrown caution to the wind and leaped over 4,000 deaths.
Dying.
That was my talent?
-Let me ask you one thing.
"...What is it?"
-You said you died to old man Marcus. What did you think in that moment?
I recalled what I'd experienced in my last death. It had only been a few hours ago. Because of that, I could vividly summon the memory and the emotion.
The night sky and the moon.
The single strike, so silent that no sound could be heard.
"...I thought it was beautiful."
That was when it happened.
-Kahahahahaha!
The guardian spirit threw his head back and laughed. He burst into laughter. The ghost's laughter was so grand it could be called a mad cackle, and it more than filled the dawn plains still empty of people.
After a long while, the guardian spirit stopped laughing.
-Interesting.
The guardian spirit's eyes sparkled.
-You don't steal skills, you just copy them. Which means old man Marcus will have [another me] attached to him as a guardian spirit. The old man and you. Which of the two will achieve greater success as a hunter? I've become a little curious.
"......"
-I'll help you.
The Sword Constellation. The ghost who had once cleared the Tower up to the 99th floor and been called the Sword Emperor, the guardian spirit looked straight at me.
-Enough that you won't lose to old man Marcus. No, so that you become far stronger than the old man!
And he extended his hand.
-Let's conquer the Tower together!
That was the moment I gained a partner.