Chapter 17 - Trauma Penalty (2)

3

[Penalty commencing.]

[Generating the trauma of the monster Hellfire Maiden.]

An elegant Western-style mansion.

Before I knew it, I was there.

No, perhaps saying I was “there” was strange. I wasn't there at all. Only my consciousness floated like a ghost, watching the scenes unfolding before me from a third-person perspective.

'What?'

I was bewildered.

'What's happening right now...?'

"P-please spare me."

Then I heard a voice.

A young child. A child's feet were bound in a corner of the mansion's first-floor lobby. At first, I mistakenly thought the plea was directed at me. It wasn't. The child was begging someone else.

"Please spare me, please... I'm hungry... Food... Some food, please..."

"Hmm."

Someone dressed like a noble.

"Orphans like you are a plague upon this kingdom."

"Some food..."

"Left alone, you eat away at society. You don't work. You wander from village to village, spreading disease. I am the jailer and guard who keeps you isolated from the kingdom."

In an instant, scene after scene flooded my consciousness.

An age when food was scarce and wanderers plentiful.

The noble gathered orphans and locked them in his mansion. Publicly, he called it an orphanage. To the outside world, he was a kindly rich man, a great businessman, and a conscientious intellectual.

"Others might treat you as rotten to the core. Not I."

But inside this vast mansion...

"I will educate you."

...the noble was nothing more than a tyrant.

"Anyone who craves the food before them simply because they are hungry is a beast. Of course, you creatures were born in the fields like beasts, but does that mean you should grow up as beasts?"

"I'm hungry... My stomach..."

"Endure it. Endure your hunger. Endure, and become human."

The noble spoke with a smile. A kindly smile. He was someone who could smile while looking down at a child whose ribs stood out starkly. Was there somewhere a world where that smile was considered a virtue? Had there once been such an age?

"Repent!"

One madman summoned another.

"Aaaaaagh!"

"Oh, children of witches! Poison of Zrakua, sickness of our kingdom! Do not fear. God never abandons His faithful. Likewise, I will never abandon my lambs!"

"It hurts... It hurts... It hurts..."

A priest of some god raised a hammer high.

"Pray!"

An age when madness was dressed up as virtue.

The screams in the mansion never ceased.

"I'm... hungry..."

Starvation.

"No... Please forgive me... Why... Please forgive me..."

Torture.

"Ah. Thank you... Good nobleman, kind mister... A reward for enduring the pain, a promise. Thank you. Thank you, kind mister..."

Brainwashing.

The orphans were dragged into the mansion looking like corpses and left it as actual corpses. Lives on the verge of death merely became lives that had ended, but the children had never imagined such relentless suffering could fill the gap between the two.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands were in the mansion.

And there were dozens, hundreds, thousands of deaths.

'...'

I was stunned by the scenes rushing past my eyes.

'What the hell is this...?'

"Whoa, fuck. What is this?"

Thanks to a certain fellow, I at least regained some of my senses.

'You were watching too? I thought you weren't here.'

"I've been watching from the start. I didn't know you were here either. I couldn't see you."

'Hmm. It seems like we're both just disembodied consciousnesses floating around...'

"Who gives a shit about that?"

The attendant spirit spoke.

"What the hell is wrong with these lunatics? Huh? Teach them to be human? These bastards aren't even human themselves, and they're going to teach someone else to be human?"

'... This is probably what the tenth-floor boss stage was based on.'

Just before my consciousness flew here, the voice had told me:

[Recreating the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]

The enemy who had killed me this time was... the real doll hiding somewhere in the infernal mansion. In other words, the scenes being shown to us were the trauma that doll carried.

'I had no idea.'

I whispered softly.

'That the monster used to be human...'

"Not all monsters are like that. Mostly just bosses. Boss monsters are made from things that actually happened in other worlds."

I heard the attendant spirit click his tongue.

"Creatures native to other worlds, heroes who made their names there. Things like that. That tendency gets stronger once you go beyond the Tower's eleventh floor."

'What? Why didn't you tell me that before?'

"You never asked."

'...'

He was so shameless that I had nothing to say.

"But I've never seen anything like this either. Damn."

'Like what?'

"The original you mentioned. These scenes we're seeing. I know boss monsters are drawn from other worlds, but how would I know what they went through? It's not like I have a mind-reading skill..."

The attendant spirit muttered,

"This feels really fucking awful."

I agreed.

'... It does.'

Things like this must always be happening somewhere in the world, and countless worse things too. But imagining it and seeing it firsthand were different.

They simply were.

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate...

"F-fire!"

...the [trauma] soon came to an end.

A servant accidentally knocked over a candle. Unaware of what had happened, the servant walked on. A dark night. While everyone slept, the flames spread quietly. By the time someone noticed the fire, it was already too late.

"Cough, khh. Cough!"

"We have to get out..."

The flames blazed.

The ropes in the basement burned. The chains burned. The shackles from which the orphans hung burned, and the orphans hanging in them burned. Brainwashed children, tortured children, starving children burned. The flames looked as though they would burn away all the brainwashing, wounds, and hunger.

"Ah..."

The children opened their mouths.

Red-hot chains bound their wrists and ankles. Like dolls, they couldn't move. All they could do was scream.

But I could hear them.

"I don't want to die."

Resentment.

"I'm hungry."

"I want to live..."

"Kind mister."

Their bitter grievances and cries flowed directly into my consciousness.

"I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't have a family. But that was okay. I wanted to play a little longer. But..."

"It isn't our fault. It isn't fair. I didn't do it."

"I'm hungry."

The mansion burned.

The first-floor lobby with its chandelier burned. The bedroom where the mansion's owner stayed burned. The ornate bed, the antique curtains, the deep basement reached by stone stairs—all burned.

"I don't want to die."

CRACKLE.

CRACKLE.

Sparks leaped into the air.

Now all I could see was a mansion blazing in the distance.

[Trauma recreation complete.]

[Ending the penalty.]

And I returned to the previous day.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, neither the attendant spirit nor I spoke. We both sat on the bed in silence.

Rather than being shocked... I had no idea how to react.

"Hmm..."

After a long while, the attendant spirit scratched the back of his head.

"It's a truly sad and tragic story, and we've seen it all, but there isn't much we can do, is there?"

"Wow, that's the first thing you have to say? You really..."

"Yeah, fine. I'm a shitty person."

The attendant spirit scowled. Have you ever seen an angry gorilla? He looked remarkably similar, genetically speaking.

"But the truth is a bitch! That tenth-floor boss is just a monster, and the children it was based on have already died somewhere in another world. This happened ages ago. Zombie, what the hell can you do?"

"..."

"If it had at least happened inside this Tower, you could die four thousand or five thousand times, over and over, and regress into the past. But that happened in another world, in another era. Even if I were alive, I couldn't fix this! Even a Sword God, not just a Sword Emperor, can't do the impossible."

He was right.

"Find the real doll, hunt it down, and kill it."

The attendant spirit spoke.

"Then go up to the eleventh floor. The twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth, fiftieth—you have no choice but to clear them all that way. If you've decided to become the hunter who reigns at the very top, deal with this shit yourself!"

Again, he was right.

But...

"The Flame Emperor would have thought the same thing."

"Hmm?"

"The Flame Emperor, that flaming bastard, Yoo Suha. The first human I hunted."

I got up from the bed.

I tied my sleeping bag to the top of my backpack. Slung the backpack over my shoulders. Strapped my sword to my waist. In other words, I finished preparing to climb the Tower. When I left my lodgings, I was equipped as a hunter, however clumsy a hunter I might be.

"You know what? Yoo Suha would have found the real doll and smashed its head, one hundred percent. Whether he'd seen the trauma or not. Without a moment's hesitation."

"What's wrong with that?"

"I don't want to become like that Flame Emperor bastard."

I climbed the Tower.

I deceived the attendant just as I had on the previous run.

And once again, I stood before the mansion's main doors.

A Western-style noble's mansion, identical to the one I had seen in the trauma.

"Hey! You're not a little kid. You're going to refuse to beat the boss just because you don't want to be like him? What are you going to do? You have to eliminate the boss to clear the stage, you damn Zombie!"

"Who decided that?"

"What?"

I placed both hands on the doors.

Then I muttered,

"Damn it, I was being stupid."

"What are you talking about now?"

"I was being stupid! And you were just as stupid, damn it. The answer was staring us in the face, and we couldn't even recognize it."

The attendant spirit furrowed his brow.

"Have you lost it? Your stupidity is an eternal truth, Zombie, but why am I stupid too? People have called me a prodigy since I was little, you know."

"The skill card."

I muttered irritably.

"The S-rank skill card we didn't pick. Remember? Infernal Barrier. You made a huge fuss about how I absolutely had to choose it."

"Huh? Of course I remember."

"Recite it."

"Hah, who do you think you're talking to, you Zombie... Fine. Listen."

Still scowling, the attendant spirit rattled it off. Perhaps his claim of being a childhood prodigy wasn't entirely a lie. He recited the skill card without getting a single word wrong.

+

[Infernal Barrier]

Rank: S-

Effect: Grudges. Cries of grievance. Resentment. Your unresolved bitterness, your unheard voice, your unfulfilled wishes. Burn them all. 'It's hot.' Are you hot? Turn the world into a blazing pyre. 'I feel like I'm going to die.' Kill. If you so desire, an aura inferno will descend upon the space within a two-kilometer radius.

No one can leave this hell without your permission.

No one at all.

※However, you must also remain inside the barrier.

+

After quietly listening to the skill's description, I asked,

"Mr. Sword Emperor, doesn't something seem strange to you?"

"God, this is frustrating. What exactly is strange?"

"The last part."

[No one can leave this hell without your permission.]

[No one at all.]

I said,

"It says no one can leave Infernal Barrier unless the boss monster permits it. No one at all. Then how, by what means, have the hunters who've challenged the tenth floor so far escaped alive?"

"Huh?"

The attendant spirit blinked.

"... Huh? Fuck, you're right."

There is a guild called Black Dragon.

A guild that has reigned at the top ever since the Tower opened in this world.

Its commander, the second-ranked hunter, the Black Witch, challenged the tenth floor dozens of times. Each attempt failed. The second-ranked hunter was defeated, but she still returned with every hunter who had participated in the raid alive.

They had all returned alive.

"That makes no sense."

I pushed with both arms.

The doors slowly began to open.

"Escape is impossible without the boss's permission. That's what the skill does... Yet they escaped unharmed without killing the boss. Every last one of them. It doesn't make sense."

"Then... what happened?"

"Damn it, there's obviously only one conclusion!"

CREEEAK.

The doors opened fully, as though spreading their arms.

"The boss gave them permission! To run away!"

The tenth-floor boss.

A stage no one in humanity had yet conquered.

The burning mansion of hell lay revealed.

[You have entered the boss stage.]

[Challenger: Hunter Kim Gongja. One participant.]

[May fortune be with you.]

"Can't you see? They let anyone who wants to run away escape. The boss—these kids—were never hostile toward the hunters in the first place."

"..."

[Commencing the boss stage.]

"They just wanted to play with the people who came to visit."

Candles.

Candles toppled throughout the mansion. Flames surged wherever they fell.

"Heeheehee!"

Dolls stood amid the flames. They couldn't move, as though bound to something. They could only barely turn their heads to look at me.

"Will you play with us?"

The dolls opened their mouths.

"Will you play with us?"

"Freeze tag? The Hibiscus Flower Has Bloomed? Hide-and-seek?"

"The ice melted, the flowers were all torn apart. Let's play hide-and-seek!"

"Yes! Play with us! Play hide-and-seek with us!"

"Heeheeheehee!"

The flames blazed.

The first-floor lobby with its chandelier burned. The bedroom where the mansion's owner stayed burned. The ornate bed, the antique curtains, the deep basement reached by stone stairs—all burned.

Amid it all, only the children, now dolls, had yet to burn.

"..."

I clenched my teeth for a moment.

"Yes. I'll play with you."

[Activating skill.]

The skill I had gained in my last death. I cast the flame-immunity skill on myself. The instant it activated, the heat I had felt throughout my body vanished completely. Breathing became easy. Even the scenery obscured by the raging fire grew a little clearer.

I could see the dolls' faces.

"Huh?"

"Mister isn't burning."

Every doll had a different face. I could tell despite their lack of expressions.

"Aren't you hot?"

"Strange mister."

"Can you play?"

"Will you play with us?"

I nodded again.

"Yes, hide-and-seek. Watch out. This mister never lost at hide-and-seek when he was little."

"Heeheehee! What a strange mister!"

"Hide! Everyone, hide!"

The dolls laughed. They said to hide, but not one of them moved. All were fixed in place, unable to budge. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of children laughed.

"Hide away, hide away, don't let your hair give you away. Hide away, hide away..."

The seeking began.

"... Found you."

I roamed the mansion, catching the dolls one by one. When I stroked a doll's head, it tilted its face up with a creak. Each time, it opened its mouth and spoke.

"Wrong! It's not me!"

The dolls vanished, laughing.

"It's not me!"

"It's not me!"

Wherever I turned in the mansion, there were dolls. So many. As I walked, I caught each and every one.

"..."

One child.

"Hey, this is..."

Then another.

"This is... laying spirits to rest."

The attendant spirit murmured.

Laying spirits to rest.

Comforting the souls of the dead.

I silently made my rounds through the mansion. I saw the shackles from which the orphans had hung, and the chains that had bound the children. Wherever shackles hung or chains lay, there was invariably a doll.

The flames blazed.

"It's not me! It's not me! It's not me!"

"No! It's not... me. I... I... It's not me... I..."

"It's... not me..."

Time passed.

STEP.

Before I knew it, my footsteps had stopped in the basement. I had descended a long, long stone staircase. There were dolls on those stairs too. They lay collapsed on the steps, as though they had suddenly stopped while crawling upward to escape to the surface.

"..."

After catching all the children collapsed on the stairs, I finally stood before the last doll.

The basement.

"Will you play with us?"

The doll leaned against something in the mansion's deepest recess.

Hammers, awls, and fretsaws lay scattered around it.

"..."

I walked over slowly.

Then I stroked the doll's hairless head.

"Found you."

The head of the child who had created this inferno was small. Small enough to fit within one hand.

"... Now you're it, little one."

There was silence.

The doll slowly lifted its head. Like the other dolls, this child was expressionless. With a face that had lost its expression, it opened its mouth.

"Kind mister."

It wasn't only a voice that flowed from the doll's mouth. Its lips. Its skin. Its eyes. The doll's body ran down like candle wax. The flames swallowed it in an instant, and even as it was consumed, the doll murmured like a broken record player.

"Thank you."

And it melted.

"Thank you."

The doll burned. The chains melted and ran down. Shackles, hammers, awls, fretsaws—everything burned. The hunger, even the traces of that hunger, all vanished, like a candle's wax running down as its flame spent its last breath.

Death left no trace.

I stood amid the ruins of the mansion, burned away without a trace.

"..."

Years.

[Congratulations.]

A place no one in humanity had conquered for years.

[Normal stage cleared.]

[Hidden stage cleared.]

[You have cleared the boss stage.]

On this day, the Tower's tenth floor was cleared.