Chapter 37 - The Hero's Other Name (1)

1

In the previous run, back when the Tower's tutorial had ended.

["Warriors."]

["You who climb the Tower."]

The hunters shouted the countdown with gusto in the square. The goddess descended into the sky above them, reciting her words like a priest solemnly offering a prayer.

["From the eleventh floor to the twentieth."]

["You will face a trial."]

["A trial of faith."]

The hunters paid no attention to her voice.

A new era. A new stage.

Thrilled that the stage they had waited for all this time had finally opened, they rushed to the eleventh floor. One hunter even tested whether a sword could cut the goddess.

["You will find an answer."]

But...

["And the answer you find will, in turn, reveal who you are."]

I hadn't done that. I had stayed until the very end and listened.

["Thus shall you come to know yourselves."]

Looking back now, we had already received a revelation then. A revelation of what would happen from the twelfth floor onward.

["You who climb the Tower."]

What we needed to ponder wasn't which reward to take. What we needed to consider wasn't whom to suspect. The Tower had hinted that all that mattered was the answer we found.

["May fortune be with you."]

The goddess had simply been offering a quiet prayer.

Now, having arrived on the twelfth floor again, I nodded, letting that scene color my heart.

And I spoke.

"I'll clear through the twentieth floor within five days."

The answer I had chosen.

2

Silence filled the room. The first to speak was the leader of Black Dragon.

"Wait a moment. Five days...?"

The Witch looked bewildered.

"Did I mishear you? I thought you just said you'd clear through the twentieth floor within five days. If that was a joke, it wasn't very funny, so please take it back."

"No, you heard correctly. And it wasn't a joke."

"..."

She pressed her lips together.

The silence that had settled over the audience chamber gradually gave way to murmurs. The hunters' expressions changed. Some looked at me as though I was absurd, some in disbelief, and others as though they had no idea how to react...

'Of course they'd react like this.'

I calmly endured every hunter's gaze. By any common-sense standard, my declaration was utterly ridiculous.

"... That's impossible, Kim Gongja," the Witch said after a moment.

"You know that. It took us years just to clear through the tenth floor. Of course, we just cleared the eleventh in less than an hour, so I can understand feeling confident... but this is excessive. Far too confident. Aren't you getting a little carried away?"

"Black Dragon leader."

I bowed my head.

"Please."

"..."

"I cleared the tenth floor. I didn't do it for you. I cleared it simply because I wanted to succeed. But I shared the rewards and results of that clear with all of you."

The information that we would be fighting group battles from then on. The minimap that revealed the boss monster's location. I had shared that information, and thanks to it, the guilds had minimized their losses too.

"... I wasn't the only one who benefited. We all did."

And so I could say with confidence:

"I've earned the right to ask you for a favor."

"..."

"I'm not asking you to wait until I clear the twentieth floor. Five days. Whether I succeed or fail, please just wait exactly five days. That's my request."

Silence hung over the audience chamber. It didn't feel unfavorable to me in the least.

Perhaps that was why.

[Welcome, hunter Kim Gongja.]

[You cleared the eleventh floor in first place.]

[Your eleventh-floor clear reward will be granted.]

Why the notifications came so much sooner than in the previous run.

Last time, the rewards hadn't been granted until the Sword Star's rampage was over. That had taken quite a while. This time was different. The moment I spoke, the subject of rewards abruptly surfaced.

'All right, then.'

As though someone was desperately trying to draw my attention.

[The Goddess of Protection offers you a reward.]

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain offers you a reward.]

The notifications sounded one after another.

I chose neither reward. I only grinned inwardly.

'Getting impatient because we aren't fighting, Demon King?'

Soon, the Goddess's Reward and the Demon King's Reward scrolled into view. I gave them a passing glance. I showed not a trace of interest beyond that.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain urges you to choose a reward.]

A voice echoed in my head.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain hints that you may forgo the rewards altogether.]

Again and again. Without stopping.

My attitude didn't change.

'Hurry me all you like.'

I remained as immovable as stone. I didn't look at the roles the goddess offered as rewards, or at anything the Demon King offered.

I simply ignored them.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain is perplexed.]

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain does not understand your intentions.]

It's all right. Don't get impatient. Keep standing there dumbfounded, and I'll come to you myself.

"Hmm..."

The silence in the audience chamber continued. The Inquisitor looked around, then laughed. "Aha!" Apparently, he'd decided to speak first.

"The issue is simple! Hunter Kim Gongja shared his information on clearing the eleventh floor with us. In return, he requested one favor, and we promised to grant it as long as it wasn't impossible!"

The Inquisitor smiled.

"Everyone is to wait here for five days, doing nothing. Considering how the press will raise hell for all five days, it isn't exactly a simple request... but it certainly isn't impossible! Therefore, I'm in favor!"

"Of course it isn't impossible, but..."

"A promise is a promise, Black Dragon leader!"

The Witch's expression clouded. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before finally sighing.

"Yes. A promise is a promise."

In effect, she had agreed to my request.

The other hunters agreed one after another. The Witch and the Inquisitor—the most cultured hunter here and the most unhinged—had both supported me. Swept along by the mood, even the hunters who weren't guild leaders promised five days of silence.

"I never took part in that promise."

Except, of course, for the hunter with the highest level of old-fogey stubbornness here.

"I made only one promise: to watch you for the next five days, young man. I have no reason to grant any other requests."

"..."

"If you leave to clear the twentieth floor, I will simply follow you, as promised."

"Hmm."

I nodded.

"Yes, that's fine."

From here on, I would face the Demon King alone. I was confident I could win by myself... but having the Sword Star behind me was like gaining a thousand allies. There was no need to turn him away if he insisted on following.

I looked around the audience chamber.

"Thank you for granting my request, everyone."

Then I slowly turned to leave.

"I'll see you five days from now."

CREEEAK

I opened the audience chamber's great doors and stepped out.

An expansive palace stretched beyond them. After walking out of the palace, I passed rows of high walls, and beyond those walls lay the capital of the Aegim Empire.

A sight I had already passed through once in the previous run.

"Huh?"

But it was different.

"What the hell? All the NPCs are frozen."

The attendant spirit walked with me, looking this way and that. He was right.

The knight NPC guarding the palace, the street-vendor NPC selling fruit in the marketplace, the guard NPC patrolling with a bored expression—every NPC, from the palace to the city, stood completely still.

'That's because the quest hasn't started.'

Time had been paused. I trudged across the frozen streets. The Sword Star followed some distance behind me.

"The quest?"

'Yes. Nobody's selected a [Role] yet.'

Right now, the empire had neither a chancellor nor a Commander of the Aegim Empire's Knights, despite those being vital offices the nation should have had. Having hunters fill those positions was precisely the quest for floors twelve through twenty.

'On the eleventh floor, we got the quest as soon as we entered. That's probably the proper order. But on the twelfth floor, wasn't there a long delay? Why did it take forever just to give us a quest?'

The quest had only opened after we selected our roles.

In other words:

'If we don't choose roles, the quest doesn't start. The Demon King's army won't invade, and the imperial army won't fight back.'

That was why the NPCs were frozen. And they would remain frozen.

'As long as we don't select roles.'

A kind of trigger. The top contributors choosing their roles was itself the condition that started the quest.

'But you know, Mr. Sword Emperor...'

I crossed the street. The pedestrians were frozen in all sorts of poses, so I wound my way through the gaps between them. It felt like walking through a maze.

Even as I navigated that maze of human bodies, notifications rang endlessly in my head.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain urges you to choose a reward.]

I ignored it.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain advises you to forgo the rewards altogether if you do not intend to choose one. In that case, the right to select a reward will pass to the next contributor.]

I ignored it and kept walking.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain demands that you make your choice!]

At last, I passed through the city gate. A vast plain stretched beyond the imperial city.

'Hypothetically, what do you think would happen if the Demon King died while things were still like this?'

"What?"

I could see it. The minimap revealed by the battlefield blessing. A single red dot, unmistakably blinking on the translucent map.

At this moment, when no monsters had been summoned yet, that red dot could mean only one thing.

'I'm asking what you think would happen if the boss monster croaked before the quest even started.'

The Demon King.

'It's simple. Nobody would be able to choose the Demon King's Reward.'

"..."

'Naturally, there couldn't be a Traitor either. He'd be out before he could even try any of his little tricks.'

I crossed the plain, walking straight toward the red dot. Before long, I was right in front of it. Just a few more steps would bring me to the location marked for the boss monster.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain is furious with you!]

Had he finally realized what I intended? Only now, after I had come this far, did a slightly different message ring in my head.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain manifests!]

The sky before me rippled black. A pitch-black hole opened like a black hole, and fluid like filthy sewage oozed from the gap.

A drop. A stream. A mass.

The fluid gathered into an ever-larger shape, and a voice seeped from it.

"How dare you."

The Demon King was enraged.

"Follow the proper order, Hero of the goddess. How insolent of you to come here without making any choice. Only one who has inherited the empire's crown is worthy of facing my sword."

"What a load of bullshit."

I gripped my sword hilt tightly.

"I made my choice properly."

"What...?"

"Look. This is the best choice, isn't it?"

A time before the quest had begun. The imperial city had not yet been invaded by the Demon King's army. A world in which, therefore, not a single human had died.

"Demon King, I'm going to kill you before the quest begins. Then not a single hunter will die, and not a single person in the empire will die. Naturally, there won't be any Traitor bullshit either."

"..."

"Get it? A happy ending without a single sacrifice."

I grinned.

"I've never really liked bad endings. Maybe it's just my personality? I prefer a happy ending whenever possible. You're being a fucking nuisance and keeping me from getting one, so, sorry, but would you mind dying?"

"How dare you..."

The Demon King's shape writhed.

"You dare claim you will stop me alone? Without even accepting the empire's aid?"

"Yeah."

I drew my sword and aimed its tip squarely at the black shape.

"What do I need help for?"

On the vast plain, in the midst of stopped time and a frozen world, my sword became an hour hand pointing at the enemy.

I spoke.

"A hero fights alone. That's how it works."

Five days of eternity began.