Chapter 129 - From the Same Homeland (2)

3

"What?"

Of course, the constellations weren't the only ones to react to the Heaven-Slaying Star's death.

"What the...? Wait, what... The Heaven-Slaying Star is dead? Really?"

A dazed voice drifted through the ashen sky. The leader of the wizards who had been battling the Heaven-Slaying Star just moments before—the one called the Master of the Magic Towers—was aghast.

Her voice was the starting signal. People gradually gathered in the wasteland. The hunters who had fled the great battle between the Heaven-Slaying Star and the magic towers approached one by one.

"No way. The Heaven-Slaying Star is dead?"

"Who is that guy?"

"Who's the Sword Emperor?"

"Fuck. That crazy bastard got reincarnated..."

Astonished as they were, the people didn't dare approach recklessly. Wariness lurked in their eyes—wariness toward a hunter they had never seen before, who had suddenly appeared and hunted down the Heaven-Slaying Star.

'This is dangerous. I need to disappear before I attract any more attention.'

I steadied my breathing, still heated from fighting the Heaven-Slaying Star.

'If they find out I'm weaker than they think, there's no telling when or how they'll attack.'

I had hunted down the Heaven-Slaying Star by laying a trap. If we had dueled with both of us fully prepared, I would have lost a hundred times out of a hundred. The other hunters didn't know that yet... and thank goodness they didn't.

'Let's hurry.'

I hoisted the Heaven-Slaying Star's corpse onto my back and murmured,

"Teleport."

I pictured the magnificent lobby of the Great Library. Soon, I would be teleported there with the Heaven-Slaying Star's corpse on my back. Then I intended to persuade the [Shut-In Librarian] according to a certain plan.

"...?"

But nothing happened.

"Teleport."

I murmured it again, with the same result. The desolate plain still surrounded me. Blood from the Heaven-Slaying Star's corpse soaked my back, sticky and thick. Hundreds of hunters stared at me in bewilderment.

"..."

Suddenly, an ominous premonition swept through my body.

'The stage clear hasn't been announced yet!'

The Heaven-Slaying Star was unquestionably dead. Yet I hadn't heard the voice say, [The stage has been cleared].

'Why? What's missing?'

I desperately reviewed what I might have missed. Was killing the Heaven-Slaying Star alone not enough? Since he wasn't the owner of the fiftieth floor, couldn't that count as clearing it?

"... What's with that guy? He's just standing there."

"Wait. My observation skill says his level is B-rank."

"B-rank?"

While I desperately racked my brain, the hunters murmured among themselves. A current rippled through the atmosphere that had been frozen in shock. Shock slowly turned into wariness, and wariness soon soured into suspicion.

"Quit bullshitting."

"Well, he probably has a disguise skill. The Heaven-Slaying Star was estimated to be at least S-rank. There's no way some B-rank could've killed him."

"Hey! Somebody talk to him!"

"Isn't there a hunter here who was active back when the Sword Emperor was alive?"

A cold sweat broke out.

'This isn't good.'

An unsettling current ran through the air. It wasn't only because the hunters were showing signs of approaching me. Nor was it only because every one of them was likely higher-level than I was, making this perilous in the extreme.

It was the sense that [I was missing something].

A hunter's instinct.

"..."

Instinctively, I turned to look beside me.

"..."

Beside me, my attendant spirit was grinning.

"What are you looking at?"

'Be honest. You know something, don't you?'

"No idea what you mean. I've already given you all the advice I have to give."

Even as he said that, my attendant spirit kept grinning. The corners of his mouth were loaded with mischief. Damn it. Cursing inwardly, I hurriedly recalled his advice.

["Gongja."]

["Don't think of him as human. He's practically a weapon that operates strictly according to the instructions he enters himself."]

Not a human, but a weapon. A fighting machine.

'What if I were Lefanta Aegim? He's a man who obsessively calculates everything. Surely he'd have accounted for even the remote possibility of his own death?'

My thoughts accelerated.

'The Heaven-Slaying Star has even met my attendant spirit before.'

I had first seen Lefanta Aegim's face in the trauma dream. My attendant spirit had been with me then, too. He had recognized Lefanta Aegim immediately.

["Haven't I seen that bastard somewhere before?"]

["No matter how I look at him, that's the Heaven-Slaying Star."]

["I'd wondered what world spawned a lunatic like that. So the bastard was from Aegim."]

I had asked my attendant spirit what his relationship with that man was. He had shrugged and answered.

["What relationship? We had one hell of a fight."]

["He was strong, sure, but nowhere near my level."]

In other words.

'My attendant spirit fought the Heaven-Slaying Star and won.'

The Heaven-Slaying Star had lost to my attendant spirit before.

Wasn't that terribly strange, then?

Feeling the Heaven-Slaying Star's blood run down my spine, I looked at my attendant spirit.

'You...'

"Yeah."

'Someone like you would never have left the Heaven-Slaying Star alive instead of killing him.'

The Sword Emperor.

A crazy bastard, but a man who maintained a noble attitude when it came to the sword and martial arts.

My attendant spirit had killed my Master. He had slain her in a fair martial duel. My Master had been beautiful, and as good as she was beautiful, yet my attendant spirit had declared, [That is the doctrine of the wicked Demonic Cult], and cut her down.

"Heh."

The Heaven-Slaying Star was so much more sinister and aberrant that he couldn't even be compared to my Master.

"Clever bastard."

After subduing someone like the Heaven-Slaying Star... there was no way my attendant spirit wouldn't have killed him.

"That's why I like you. You need a good head on your shoulders to be a hunter. A hunter needs three qualities. The intelligence to think of a way to win. The courage to put that plan into action. The ability to make it succeed. Smart, bold, and capable."

There was only one conclusion.

My attendant spirit had unquestionably killed the Heaven-Slaying Star once before.

It simply hadn't ended there for the Heaven-Slaying Star.

"That bastard the Heaven-Slaying Star is a hunter, Gongja. Just like you."

The sky split open.

"Enhance strike."

I.

"... I discard a white flower I happened to glance down at on my way here."

The reason I could evade that strike was that I was keeping watch over my surroundings in a state of extreme tension. I had enhanced my sight, hearing, and all five senses as much as possible with aura. I was keenly monitoring the currents in the air, and so I felt a single blade tear through them all.

I kicked off the ground.

I abandoned Lefanta Aegim's corpse. Abandoned my stance. With the sole aim of getting out of that spot, I rolled in an ungainly heap. Lazy Donkey Rolls. I performed the evasive maneuver without a shred of shame, though martial artists would have mocked it, or at least chuckled.

In exchange, I lived.

BOOOOM!

The wasteland shattered. The earth broke apart. The strike that had flown in from somewhere swept through even the crowd gathered to watch me. Unlike me, the hunters hadn't been watching their surroundings. Because of that slight lapse in vigilance, more than twenty hunters were slaughtered.

It happened in an instant.

"On my way here, I saw an old man tending a flowerpot."

Someone took a step. A footfall echoed through the wasteland, now thick with screams and groans.

"The flowerpot was small. Compact. The man's life had grown old and small, until it seemed to fit entirely inside a single flowerpot. For a moment, I gazed at the flowerpot that held the old man's life. If only it could be held somewhere, life could be that beautiful, regardless of its size."

The figure wore a worn-out hood pulled over his head.

"Strike. Enhance."

A voice flowed from beneath the hood.

"I discard the memory of the old man and the flowerpot."

A raging gale blew.

['Lonely Seeker' rejoices.]

['Eye Dwelling in the Labyrinth' watches the emergence of new information.]

['The Warhorse of the Eternal Plains' abandons its plan to attack you.]

The death toll of twenty doubled in an instant. Everyone except the hunters who reacted swiftly was caught in the strike. One brave soul charged at the hooded man instead, but his limbs soon went flying, impressing the difference between courage and recklessness upon everyone.

"I overheard people murmuring in an alley."

The wind he had created slipped the man's hood off his head.

"I couldn't understand it enough to call it voices. I wanted to understand it too much to dismiss it as noise. Something I couldn't understand, yet wanted to. I wondered if that was a sign of beauty. I thought the sounds of the alley were beautiful."

Silver hair.

"I stepped on the earth as I walked here. The feel of the earth was new. Firm. Good. I wondered whether the people of the world might become a little better if they walked barefoot, and after imagining it, I hurt, thinking they might step on shards of glass. Those who walked barefoot through this world would be good, but for that very reason, they would always be in pain."

Blue eyes.

"I deduce that the person who killed me is among you. The most likely candidate... is the one who was carrying my corpse."

A worn journal.

"My death occurred for the first time in 153 years, seven months, and two days. The hunter who killed me in the past, the Sword Emperor, possessed clearly superior skill. Therefore, I added the rule [Flee if killed by a stronger opponent] to page two. This is a lesson learned in battle, after fighting the Sword Emperor three times and losing my life all three times."

The silver-haired man scanned the worn journal with his blue eyes.

"I judge."

Then he looked at me.

"You evaded the two strikes I unleashed. However, a martial artist on the Sword Emperor's level would have counterattacked immediately after evading. The Sword Emperor called his level of swordsmanship the All-Encompassing Sword. You lack the skill befitting such a level."

The holy sword at my waist trembled.

"It is difficult to guess why I was killed by a martial artist of your caliber."

The slaughterer of constellations.

"That means you are clever enough to devise a method I find difficult to guess. A hunter more intelligent than I am is dangerous. If you acquire greater martial power than you currently possess, you may grow into a hunter rivaling the Sword Emperor."

A human weapon.

A man who had anticipated even his own death, and thus prepared spare bodies. Whether it was a [clone], a [puppet], or some art performed with a constellation's borrowed power, the Heaven-Slaying Star, Lefanta Aegim, stood there.

["Don't think of him as human."]

["That bastard the Heaven-Slaying Star is a hunter, Gongja. Just like you."]

Like me, who would never truly die no matter how many times I died.

The Heaven-Slaying Star, too, was a human who had taken precautions against death.

"I judge you to be a dangerous individual who cannot be left unchecked. I will eliminate you immediately."

The Heaven-Slaying Star took a yellow rubber band from his clothes. Slowly, he tied back his silver hair.

"I am now entering combat."

The world split apart.

"Welcome, Gongja."

My attendant spirit laughed loudly.

The skirts of his moth-eaten robe fluttered.

"This is the world from the fiftieth floor onward!"

4

I drew up my red aura with everything I had.

"Damn it! A puppet! At this rate, you're no different from an actual machine!"

"There were no witnesses to my battles with the Sword Emperor except for a single constellation."

The Heaven-Slaying Star alternated his gaze between his journal and me. If only looking had been all he did. Even as he spoke, strikes flew at me without pause. I evaded the waves of attacks with all my strength.

"That was because the Sword Emperor himself regarded a duel as sacred. He called it a martial contest. But there are far too many witnesses to this death. It would be difficult to eliminate them all."

"Crazy fucking bastard..."

A dazed murmur came from the distant sky. It was the Master of the Magic Towers. Unconcerned, the Heaven-Slaying Star continued calculating his own [behavioral logic].

"Therefore, I choose intimidation rather than elimination. Listen. Look. I declare this to those who oppose me and those who will oppose me in the future. I have acquired immortality through artificial means. Even if you kill me, I will stand before you again."

"..."

"And I will make certain to kill anyone who kills me once. If a group participates in killing me, I will eradicate that entire group."

BOOOOM!

I narrowly dodged the Heaven-Slaying Star's strike. The strike that missed me split [the Heaven-Slaying Star's corpse] instead. The corpse was instantly severed at the waist. Fuck. The Heaven-Slaying Star—that bastard—had sliced apart a corpse that looked exactly like him.

"My declaration is not merely a threat. To prove that, I will kill you here."

Even so, his face was expressionless.

As though he placed no value whatsoever on his own body.

"Enhance strike."

The Heaven-Slaying Star lunged at me.

"I discard all the beauty in the world."

'Ah.'

I was seized by the illusion that time had stopped.

A single sword strike surged toward me, tearing the air and cleaving the earth. I looked into the Heaven-Slaying Star's eyes. They were indifferent.

Pure madness.

Eyes that feared neither sacrifice nor cost when it came to acting upon his chosen convictions. Yes. My attendant spirit had been right. He—this man—was a human living as a hunter, just like me.

'He's me.'

I lamented.

'Me, if I'd never met Raviel...'

Staring at the death bearing down on me, I abandoned defense for an instant. Disregarded it. But that absolutely did not mean I was carelessly throwing my life away.

["Do not take your own life without my permission."]

["Do not die, even when death offers an easy escape."]

["Even if death truly seems unavoidable, struggle until the very end."]

Instead of defending, I swung my sword. If I couldn't block the strike anyway, I had to land at least one blow, even if I was going to fucking die. That was my nature. That was my promise to Raviel.

SHIIING!

The Heaven-Slaying Star's strike crossed the path of my sword.

My blade managed, at last, to tear through the journal in his left hand.

"..."

I saw the Heaven-Slaying Star's silver eyebrows shift slightly.

"..."

And his strike pierced me.

'I'll admit it.'

Blood surged up my throat in choking gasps. My vision went white. Even as my whole body seethed, I glared at the Heaven-Slaying Star until the very end.

'You're a monster. You're stronger than me. You're as cautious as I am. But you're not the only one who gets another chance, Lefanta Aegim.'

[The Shut-In Librarian sighs.]

'Kill me. I'll die for you this time. Kill me again and again. Let's kill and be killed! Let's pit your hell against mine. I'll be the one left standing at the end. You're wrong!'

[The Shut-In Librarian rejoices and despairs.]

I will defeat you.

[You have died.]

Wait.

[Your current hunter rank is B.]

[The increased penalty changes the order in which skills activate.]

I will make certain to... you...

[Warning.]

[The trauma of the enemy who killed you will be recreated.]

[The data required for recreation will be extracted from your memories.]

The white before my eyes turned red.

[Penalty depth: High.]

[This is the Animal Realm.]

My consciousness receded.

From the world beyond, as though crossing over from the farther shore, a melody reached me.

DING.

DONG.

DANG.

DONG.

...

Something about its tone was deeply familiar.

It was a bell I felt I had heard somewhere a very long time ago.

'I've heard that somewhere... Huh, where... Where was it?'

I struggled to open my eyes. My eyelids felt as heavy as though they were holding lumps of iron. My whole body tingled, trapped in sleep paralysis. Only a rough melody, a muffled chime, reached me little by little. Ding, dong, dang, dong...

Then, at some point, I heard another sound.

"This is an announcement from the broadcasting club to all students remaining on school grounds."

School grounds?

"All students except those participating in evening self-study are asked to leave school now. Once again, this is an announcement from the broadcasting club."

Leave school.

"Recently, students have been seen remaining on school grounds after dismissal time. Any students still here who have not signed up for evening self-study are asked to leave school."

DING, DONG, DANG, DONG.

The chime rang again, and the voice cut off.

"..."

What on earth was this about?

I struggled to break free of the paralysis. When struggling failed, I focused my awareness on a single point as intensely as I could. I felt my body stir. Just as I concentrated harder and tried to twitch a finger, something tapped my head.

"Wake up! They say it's time to go home!"

Only then did I move, as though released from a binding spell. I let out a gasp. Slowly, I began to feel the contours of my body. My senses returned. Hearing was the first to come back, followed by sight.

"Aha—"

Drawn by the familiar laugh, I raised my head.

"Sleeping slumped over a desk is bad for you! It's bad for your back, and more importantly, you can't get a good night's sleep. I understand studying hard with midterms coming up, but you should go home to sleep instead!"

The Inquisitor was looking down at me with a bright smile.

But something was different.

"... Inquisitor?"

The Inquisitor was wearing a school uniform.

"Pardon? Inquisitor?"

He tilted his head.

"Who's that?"

"... Don't tell me you're Golden Silk Blossom. Have you possessed the Inquisitor again?"

"Possessed? Oh, were you dreaming? Ahaha. You do read a lot of books. You must have had an entertaining dream!"

"..."

I slowly looked around.

The two of us were in... a library. A library, yes, but a shabby one compared to the Great Library of Myriad Thoughts. If the Great Library was a splendid mansion, this was a cramped doghouse.

Looking through the window, I saw a large schoolyard.

"..."

Just like an ordinary school.

'Mr. Sword Emperor.'

Feeling my mouth go dry, I murmured inwardly.

'We're in trouble, Mr. Sword Emperor. This... Apparently the penalty got really strange when my level went up. Before, I definitely watched the trauma as though I were dreaming, but this is practically... Mr. Sword Emperor?'

No answer came.

I looked around again.

'Hello?'

Silence.

'Hey, Sword Emperor.'

Stillness.

"..."

And I realized.

"Come on, you should head home. The student council president is probably waiting at the school gate again today! You mustn't make your girlfriend angry! I'll tidy up the books before I leave, so you go on ahead!"

I had entered a new stage.

And a trauma on an entirely different level from anything before was unfolding.