Chapter 2 - But You Die (1)

1

Skills.

A word that had brought countless hunters to tears.

The conditions for awakening a skill differed from person to person.

"I hit a training dummy ten thousand times at the training grounds. Then it just appeared on its own, you know?"

"One day, I suddenly heard God's voice!"

"Magic? I could just do it once I entered the Tower."

Some hunters had both character and grit, but were stuck scraping along the bottom because they happened to lack talent. Others had shitty personalities but made a living on talent alone.

The number-one-ranked Flame Emperor was a prime example of the latter.

If life were a game, the Flame Emperor's would probably be an awesome, skill-based masterpiece. Whatever he wanted, he could get through his own ability.

My life... was just your average luck-based shitshow.

"Bleeuuurgh!"

How long had I wandered aimlessly after leaving the bar?

I finally threw up in a deserted alley.

"If I'm gonna have shit luck... fuck, just give me no luck at all."

What was the most despair-inducing moment in a game?

Anyone who'd spent money on mobile games would know.

It wasn't when you kept pulling and never got a five-star... It was when you finally got one, only for it to be the shittiest five-star available. A five-star worse than a three-star, for instance.

My five-star was even worse than a one-star.

+

[I Want to Be Like You]

Rank: S+

Effect: Automatically activates when an enemy kills you. Copies one of the skills belonging to the enemy who killed you and makes it your own. You cannot copy from the same opponent more than once. The skill to be copied is chosen at random.

※But you die!

+

"Sob. Damn it..."

Yeah. My life really was a luck-based shitshow.

Normally, when you awakened a skill, you had to report it to the Hunter Administration Bureau. But I hadn't even reported mine. It felt too unfair. I was too embarrassed to show anyone and say this was my skill.

"Hello, hunter. How did you awaken your skill?"

"I was jealous of the number-one hunter."

"Pardon?"

"I said I was going crazy with envy and jealousy, and it gave me a skill like it was telling me to choke on it. Apparently, my jealousy is uglier than anyone else's in history. Ha ha."

How could I possibly tell them that?!

In the end, all I could do was get completely wasted and stagger through some out-of-the-way alley, like I was doing now.

'... Where am I?'

But I couldn't even manage that properly. Before I knew it, I'd wandered into a completely unfamiliar alley. I had no idea where I was or how I'd gotten here.

Was I seriously going to end up sleeping on the alley floor?

'God, this is miserable.'

Just as I swallowed my tears, a faint scream reached me from the far end of the alley.

"... Please, agh! Why are you suddenly...!"

My drowsiness vanished instantly. The voice was far too vivid to be something I'd imagined while drunk on rice wine. Whoever it was, that scream had come from someone whose life was truly in danger.

'What the hell?'

I muffled my footsteps. Instinctively, I quieted my breathing too. One step, then another. I crept toward the alley where the scream had come from. The closer I got, the clearer the voices became.

This.

"F-Flame Emperor, sir. Why are you suddenly doing this to me...?"

"...won't do any good. There's no one around here anyway..."

This was the second stupid thing I'd done today.

My first mistake... was, of course, drinking so much that my brain blew a fuse. I'd never been dead drunk in my entire life. Today was the sole exception. Furious that the skill I'd finally obtained was an S-rank piece of shit, I'd guzzled rice wine like water.

My second mistake was not running away the instant I heard the scream.

"I coated the cup you drank from with poison beforehand."

"P-poison? What have you been talking about, Flame Emperor?"

"Wow. Nice acting. Anyone watching would think you really didn't know."

Deep inside a dead-end alley, there was a man and a woman, in a patch of darkness without even a streetlight. Perhaps saying they simply 'were there' wasn't quite right. The man was threatening the woman, and the woman was being threatened.

"Basilisk stomach acid. The poison you originally put in my drink. Man, if it weren't for my skill, I'd have been in real trouble. Huh? What's wrong, Miss Saintess? You look pale."

"Don't tell me... Immunity to All Poisons...? Th-that's impossible. You shouldn't have a skill like that."

"I don't."

The man's low laughter drifted through the alley.

"But I do have a skill that's a little better than Immunity to All Poisons."

And I recognized him. Dark as the alley was, there was no way I wouldn't recognize that man's back... that swaying ponytail tied behind his head. I'd seen that exact same figure from behind on television just last night.

'It's really the Flame Emperor!'

The number-one hunter. The protagonist of this era. An idol everyone revered. And precisely because of that, the object of everyone's jealousy and envy... the hero I envied more fiercely than anyone.

And on top of that...

'Isn't that woman the Saintess?'

I covered my mouth so not even a breath would escape. The Saintess. The world's ninth-ranked hunter, as selected by the Administration Bureau, and the woman at the center of the recent rumors that she was dating the Flame Emperor. The astonishing beauty I'd only ever seen in online photos and videos was right there.

"But that's enough playing games. You messed with me, so you'll have to pay."

And she wasn't merely there. She was being threatened.

"W-wait, Flame Emperor. You've misunderstood something...! All I want is to team up with you and conquer the Tower!"

"That's what I thought too. Turns out I was wrong."

"Please wait! Think about it. If you and I team up, the fortieth floor is a given. We might even conquer the fiftieth within a year! Yes! Humanity has never conquered it before, but the two of us could!"

"That's what I thought too. Turns out that isn't happening."

I was stunned.

'Those two... weren't dating?'

The internet had been full of it. Even TV programs had covered the rumors of romance between the two heroes. But there wasn't a trace of romance in what was unfolding before my eyes. You couldn't call this a lovers' quarrel even as a joke.

Murderous intent.

All I could see was someone trying to kill, and someone trying not to be killed.

"Please, let's talk! We can clear up this misunderstanding by talking."

"Talk? Oh, talk. Sure. Very gentlemanly."

The Flame Emperor seized the Saintess by the throat.

"Ghh...!"

"But I set the rules of this conversation."

The Saintess choked and struggled. Was she unable to breathe? The more she struggled, the harder it became for me to breathe as I watched in secret. God. My God. Something that should never happen was happening right in front of me.

"I ask the questions. You just answer. Oh, you don't have to speak. If what I ask is right, nod. If it's wrong, shake your head. That's all."

"Hhk, hhh...! Gah..."

"Cooperate with our little conversation and I'll let you live. I'll even throw in the antidote. But if you disregard my gentlemanly consideration, even once... Well, you know without me spelling it out, right? I hear you went to Oxford. Put that clever brain to work."

The Saintess desperately struck the arm gripping her throat.

THUD! THUD!

But nothing changed. The Saintess had made her name as a healer; overpowering the Flame Emperor had been impossible from the outset.

"The truth is, there's only one thing I want to know from you."

"Mmph, gah. Hhh..."

"Who ordered you to kill me? Just answer that. Was it the Black Dragon Witch?"

The Saintess flinched and stopped struggling.

"Think carefully before you answer. I may not have Immunity to All Poisons, but I do have a lie-detection skill. If I catch you bullshitting me, I'll burn you down to your bones."

"..."

The Saintess seemed to hesitate for a moment. The alley was pitch-black. I couldn't see her face, but I could feel her silence. With the Flame Emperor watching her, she slowly nodded.

"Thought so."

A quiet chuckle escaped him.

"Goodbye, Saintess Isabelle."

Flames flared.

The flames swallowed the dead-end alley. From the Flame Emperor's hand to the Saintess's throat, then across her entire body. Engulfed in fire, she began to writhe. It was a desperate struggle to survive. But no matter how hard she struggled, the Flame Emperor didn't budge.

He simply watched her burn, his face expressionless.

"Hmm."

Even amid the scorching flames, the Flame Emperor remained calm. Utterly composed, he kept his grip on her throat until the very end. The Saintess flailed her arms, scraped his wrist with her nails, clawed at it, and finally reached toward the night sky... but soon stopped.

She went limp.

She no longer moved.

'Holy shit...!'

A hero of humanity had died before my eyes.

Perhaps simply saying she'd 'died' wasn't quite right. Yes. The Saintess hadn't died an ordinary death. She'd been murdered. By the Flame Emperor, who was also hailed as a hero of humanity.

'He's a fucking lunatic.'

The Saintess was already a lump of charcoal. Yet the flames didn't stop. The Flame Emperor himself didn't stop. He kept burning her until all her flesh and bones melted away into ash and charcoal.

His expression never changed.

'He's out of his mind.'

I stepped backward.

'I need to run. Now.'

And then I made my third and final mistake of the day.

CRUNCH!

It was a small sound. Not even a can—just the noise of glass underfoot. Was it a shard from a soju bottle someone had smashed? Or a piece of glass the wind had blown here from somewhere else...? I didn't know. I didn't even need to know.

There was something else I really needed to know.

I'd just made a fucking idiotic mistake.

"... Oh?"

And the Flame Emperor wasn't the kind of hunter who would let another person's mistake slip by.

"I took care of all the little rats nearby, but there's still one left."

"Gah!"

The instant my eyes met the Flame Emperor's, I ran.

I ran without looking back. Those were a murderer's eyes. Not someone who'd killed one or two people, but dozens. The eyes of a demonic bastard who'd slaughtered perhaps far more than that. And that demon was coming to kill me.

"Ha. Cute little bastard, aren't you?"

It happened the instant the Flame Emperor sneered. A searing sensation flashed around my ankles, and the next moment I was rolling on the ground. At first, I couldn't understand why I'd fallen.

Not until I saw my feet lying on the ground.

"H-hii...!"

My feet had been cut off. My feet—my right foot and my left—had been severed, shoes and all.

The famous brand's logo on the sides of my sneakers looked starkly white.

"P-please spare me! Please let me live!"

"Then why'd you run? Scared the shit out of me."

The Flame Emperor was bending down. He'd picked up my feet. After picking them up, he played with them, tossing and catching them as though they were baseballs.

TAP. TAP.

"Hey. Did you see?"

"N-no, I didn't!"

The Flame Emperor approached.

"What didn't you see?"

"I don't know anything! Ngh. Please. I don't know..."

"What don't you know?"

"Please... Flame Emperor, please... Let me live. I won't say a word. I won't tell anyone, anywhere..."

I felt someone looming over my head.

The Flame Emperor had crouched down and was looking at me.

"Wow, so you saw that I'm the Flame Emperor, and you know I'm the Flame Emperor. That's as good as seeing everything. Knowing everything, too."

"Please..."

"Buddy, you're starting to hurt my feelings. Why the fuck are you saying you don't know when you do?"

The Flame Emperor turned my feet over in his hands.

"Tell me. Who sent you? Black Dragon again?"

"I... really don't know... anything..."

"You don't know anything, but you were over there watching me and the Saintess? Quiet as a little rat? Wow. You're just overflowing with credibility, buddy. If I were a little more of a sucker, I'd believe you."

The Flame Emperor smiled.

"But I'm not a sucker, you fucking prick."

Fire sprang up before my eyes.

WHOOSH!

The flames spreading from the Flame Emperor's hands burned my feet. Everything burned away. The famous brand's logo. The shoes I'd worn for so long. The feet that had been part of my body for even longer.

All of it vanished.

"Your head's next. Answer me properly."

My mind went blank.

This demon... was insane.

He was a lunatic. Nothing you said to a lunatic would do any good. He was the kind of bastard who thought everything he believed was right, that he was always right. A psychopathic fuck who'd kill people who'd done nothing wrong.

He was supposed to be the number-one hunter. How could a human being act like this?

Was this the man everyone had gone wild over?

Had people... had I thought of someone like this as a hero, even a little? Had we praised him for his honesty, for his refreshingly blunt personality? This fucking lunatic?

"L-lies..."

"What?"

"Your lie-detection skill... You said you had a lie-detection skill."

I desperately kept talking.

"You told the Saintess. You could tell if she lied. That's why you told her to answer carefully."

"..."

"Test me with that. You'll know I'm telling the truth. Flame Emperor, I, by chance... I really was just passing by. Please believe me!"

An odd look crossed the Flame Emperor's face.

"That was bullshit, though?"