Chapter 226 - If (4)

BOOOOM!

The next bomb went off a little closer. The entire building shook.

The Pantheon's guild priests activated their aura in unison, erecting a barrier. Inside it, the Inquisitor, Kim Gongja, and Ja Sujeong struggled to their feet.

"American-made really is the best!"

Even under terrorist attack, the Inquisitor was positively cheerful.

"Making this place destruction-proof was well worth the effort!"

"Thank you, Inquisitor."

Ja Sujeong brushed the dust from her face. She, too, was as composed as ever.

"But this isn't the end of it. The organization behind these attacks has approximately five million members. There could be any number of further explosions."

"You mean five million followers! What fraction of them are actually believers, and what fraction of those would take action? Ahaha. Faith is an abstract matter, but death is a concrete one."

"Again, even if only one in a thousand—no, one in ten thousand—takes action, that's five hundred people. Five hundred explosions."

"Yes."

The man responsible for religion in the Tower adjusted his hat.

"And five hundred is a number [we can handle]."

"..."

"It would have been nice to discover the plot and wipe them out beforehand. But it's too late now. So, since I made the mistake, I'll take responsibility for the cleanup!"

Ja Sujeong hesitated briefly. That was unusual for her.

"By cleanup, you mean..."

"Killing every suspicious individual, of course. Reducing five million to two and a half million is difficult, but reducing five hundred to two hundred fifty, then to one hundred twenty-five, then to fifty or fewer isn't particularly hard."

"..."

"I'll have to ask the Black Dragon leader to declare martial law! Has it been seven years? Aha, we've enjoyed quite a long peace!"

Kim Gongja was speechless.

BOOOM!

The walls shook again. Another bomb.

"How..."

The words escaped him before he knew it.

"How can you talk like that?"

"Hmm?"

The Inquisitor turned to him.

Looking into eyes that could easily be called innocent, Gongja clenched his teeth. A reptile's eyes could be called innocent, too. The Inquisitor smiled gently, retaining that animal innocence.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"..."

"Thinking, speaking, and acting this way produces swift, clear conclusions. Why shouldn't we discuss things this way? Because it hurts your feelings, Mr. Part-Timer?"

"That isn't the issue..."

"No, that is the issue. Someone has to do it anyway. If it must be done, it's faster to dispense with the pointless flowery language and get on with it. Taking the public's feelings into consideration is a virtue in a politician, but we agreed a very long time ago to leave [that sort of thing] to the Black Dragon leader!"

Gongja gritted his teeth. Just as he was about to roar in anger, a small hand caught his shoulder.

It was Ja Sujeong.

"Gongja."

"..."

"Don't try to change him. There's no time right now. You need to use him instead."

"Use him..."

"Surprisingly enough, the human being standing in front of you is [someone who can be persuaded with words]."

At that, Gongja struggled to think.

'I have to minimize the victims of the bombings. But I also have to minimize the innocent people killed needlessly just because they're suspicious. What do I do? How can I persuade the Inquisitor and use him...?'

Use him.

"..."

At that moment, Gongja realized something.

"The Pantheon."

The Inquisitor stopped.

"Pardon?"

"It's the Pantheon," Gongja said urgently. "That deputy leader you took away. You said he's dead. But he must have died inside the Pantheon, and you killed him yourself!"

Only moments ago, the deputy leader's blood had still been on the Inquisitor's left hand.

The Inquisitor tilted his head.

"Yes, that's correct. And?"

"Then how did [the young man broadcasting the video in the square] know immediately that the deputy leader was dead? He couldn't have Thousand-Mile Sight, and he couldn't have looked into the Pantheon's torture chamber..."

Gongja saw the Inquisitor's eyes waver.

"A traitor inside the Pantheon told his comrades about the deputy leader's death!"

The Inquisitor began to make the sign of the cross. There was no telling whether he intended to erect a barrier or kill the aides gathered here—the Pantheon's officers.

It became impossible to tell.

An explosion and a deafening roar.

The world flipped upside down. It righted itself once, then immediately tilted again.

Before he knew it, Gongja was on the ground. Apart from the fact that something covered his back, and that it was very warm, he could feel almost nothing.

It was as though a cicada were crying somewhere, long and intensely.

Beyond his shattered hearing, someone muttered.

"So Flame Fuckup had a needlessly sharp-eyed bastard working for him."

Gongja couldn't tell who it was. But it wasn't the Inquisitor's voice, and it certainly wasn't Ja Sujeong's. That meant it must be one of the Pantheon priests who had been here.

Footsteps sounded as the speaker walked away.

"What a pity. I could have kept using you for a good while yet."

Who was he speaking to?

"All you had to do was behave like a doll and move like a doll, Master of the Pantheon."

"..."

"But I've no use for a marionette with severed strings. You're being disposed of. Luckily, today is the day of the operation, so the delay will be minimal..."

And Gongja lost his chance to see the traitor's face forever.

A flash erupted, and a scream rang out.

The man reveling in the success of his betrayal made no further sound. Just as he could betray his superior, his superior would never have trusted him completely. No—the traitor had overlooked, until the very end, the fact that his superior had never once fully trusted another person in the first place.

"Ahaha..."

A small hand patted Gongja's cheek.

"Are you all right? Are you alive?"

"Ugh... fuck..."

"Swearing first thing—I see you really are the Flame Emperor's subordinate. What's your name?"

"Kim Gongja..."

"If you can swear and say your name, you're halfway through the business of living, really. Can you open your eyes, Mr. Kim Gongja?"

Gongja opened his eyes.

Through his blood-red vision, the Inquisitor was smiling gently. Slowly, Gongja realized that his vision wasn't red solely because he himself was bleeding.

"Good. What a relief. There's still one person besides me who understands the situation."

The Inquisitor, too, was covered in blood. Even his voice was steeped in its scent.

"Master... of the Pantheon..."

"Yes."

"What about Manager Ja Sujeong...?"

Gongja forced the words out. What about Ja Sujeong? The Inquisitor had just said he was relieved that [there was still one person besides him]. Gongja desperately hoped that arithmetic was wrong.

"This isn't the time to worry about anyone else."

The Inquisitor coughed up blood. Far too vivid a red.

And it wasn't just blood. A few pieces of flesh were mixed in.

"You need treatment..."

Gongja barely managed to speak. The Inquisitor raised a hand to stop him.

"There's no need. It won't be in time. I won't survive."

"You can't know unless you try..."

"I know without trying. It would be more efficient to do what we can right now..."

The Inquisitor coughed up blood again. It splashed onto Gongja's cheek.

"Ugh."

Before he knew it, Gongja had braced his hands on the floor and risen. The dark-red world spun around him as though he were inside the spinning barrel ride he remembered from visiting an amusement park with the director when he was very young. It was hard to keep his balance, but somehow he managed.

As he raised himself, whatever had been covering his back slid off and fell to the floor. He desperately tried not to pay attention to it.

Gongja took in the Inquisitor's appearance.

He was sitting directly in front of him. But Gongja wasn't sure whether [sitting] was the right word for that posture.

With everything below his waist torn away, the Inquisitor spoke.

"As your observation implied, Mr. Kim Gongja, it appears... these attacks... were more thoroughly prepared than I thought. A miscalculation."

"Don't talk... Right now, your body..."

"It's the opposite. Precisely because I'm in this condition, I must at least speak. That way..."

Blood and coughing.

"Ah, even our proud American-made equipment ends up like this if the explosion comes from inside. The damage... if this happened here, what might have happened elsewhere... urgh."

"Master of the Pantheon, please stay quiet a moment. I'll get someone—"

"Instead of fetching someone, take these."

The Inquisitor took something from inside his clothes.

Two things: a small doll and a hand mirror whose rim was adorned with a pitch-black dragon.

He smiled at Gongja, who had accepted them without thinking.

"The first is called an idol. It signifies that you're my proxy. For the time being, the Pantheon is now yours."

Gongja froze.

"Why... me?"

"As I said earlier. You're the only one here who can move, Mr. Kim Gongja."

Gongja gritted his teeth. He neither looked around nor turned back.

The Inquisitor continued.

"Though, honestly, I don't know whether that token will mean anything... whether the system I've built will keep running after I'm dead. Still, it should be better than nothing, so for now... More important is this second object. The mirror."

"The mirror..."

"It's called the Black Dragon Mirror. To communicate with the other guild leaders... these are emergency tools the Black Dragon leader gave us. Tell them you're my proxy..."

The Inquisitor stopped speaking.

Gongja waited for the next words. It took him time to realize there would be none.

"..."

Gongja opened his mouth.

"Master of the Pantheon?"

There was no answer. There never would be again.

"Master of the Pantheon."

Life can cling on stubbornly, only to vanish without warning.

In the ruined room, Gongja stared blankly down at the two keepsakes left in his hands.

Not for long.

Resolve settled over his face.

"I have to move..."

But how? And where?

Those were things an E-rank hunter couldn't know. Fortunately, however, the Inquisitor wasn't the only person who had died at this moment, and Gongja wasn't the only survivor. People were moving desperately, and as one result of their efforts, a voice reached him.

"Damn it..."

The sound came from the mirror in his hand.

"Hey, is anyone alive? If you are, answer me."

Gongja knew the owner of that voice. Probably every resident of the Tower did.

"Black Dragon Guild Leader?"

"Hm? What are you... Who are you?"

Gongja took a deep breath and briefly explained what had happened.

Silence lingered beyond the mirror before the voice resumed.

"I see. Well, he was never going to die of old age."

"... You believe me?"

"Yes. I got a skill from the Paladin some time ago. It lets me more or less... Ah, damn it."

The Black Dragon leader let out a long groan. It held not only thin saliva but thick blood.

"Are you injured?"

"A little. It's been a very long time since an assassin stuck a knife in me..."

Second in the hunter rankings. In both name and fact, the holder of the greatest power in the Tower.

Even hearing firsthand that someone like her had been targeted for assassination, Gongja remained rational. Or perhaps the succession of enormous crises had simply numbed his reason.

Either way, only the Black Dragon leader's voice and Gongja's came through the Black Dragon Mirror. Despite the time that had passed while he explained everything, no one else joined the communication. Quietly, she put the implication into words.

"This is rather big. It might be the second-biggest crisis since the Tower appeared."

"..."

"Well, we've made plenty of enemies over the years..."

A cough.

"The guy who stabbed me used to be a section chief, or deputy section chief, at the American State Department. I thought he was just a chain-smoker living an ordinary life after being pushed out of power, but fuck... Those CIA bastards, seriously... Now they're even using cult scum to screw us over...?"

"Black Dragon leader, where are you? I'll come to you."

A cough and a laugh came through.

"What would you do if you came? If you were the secretary or your boss, that would be another matter."

Gongja knew that better than anyone.

"Still, I can't just sit here doing nothing."

"You're young..."

Melancholy tinged her voice. It was a very brief sigh. That sadness immediately faded before cold calculation.

"But you have no power. That makes you unnecessary."

Before Gongja could respond, she continued.

"Normally, in a situation like this, the guild leaders meet and select an alliance leader. But these circumstances are what they are."

"Black Dragon leader..."

"I'll assume command."

The Black Dragon leader breathed raggedly.

"From this moment on."

The city's ruler spoke.

Her voice no longer came only from the Black Dragon Mirror. In Babylon's already devastated square, in the streets, in the slums, from the streetlights installed along every road and the speakers mounted beneath them, her voice began to ring out.

"I declare martial law. I am the Black Dragon leader, leader of the Black Dragon Guild. I repeat. Effective immediately, I declare martial law."

Between her words came the sound of blood being coughed up.

"The outside world has mobilized unidentified hostile forces to set off multiple explosions inside the Tower. Contact has been lost with all the guild leaders. Casualties may number in the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands."

A cough.

"In any case, the Tower belonged to no one from the moment it was built. There were those who killed people while claiming the Tower belonged to God. There were those who killed enemy soldiers while claiming it belonged to the United States. And there were even those who beat people down while claiming it belonged to gangsters."

Through the speakers, even Babylon's shattered square could hear that the person exercising command was bleeding.

"But now, more than a decade later, we can say this with conviction. This Tower is ours. It is our territory. We are the people of the Tower. The Tower's skies are our airspace, and its waterways are our territorial waters. The Tower's land is our territory. And we call those who defile our skies, our waters, and our land our enemies."

The Black Dragon leader swallowed. Perhaps it was blood she swallowed.

Still carrying that crimson bodily scent, her sharp declaration burst from beyond the speakers.

"War."

The sound erupted simultaneously in every alley of the city fitted with speakers.

"This is war."

It fell, too, upon the back of a mother sheltering her child tightly beneath a speaker.

"With the Tower's security so gravely compromised, we of Black Dragon declare martial law and announce that we will achieve victory in this war as swiftly as possible. And I promise this: we will show the enemies who dared shake the Tower revenge without mercy."