Chapter 42 - His Time (3)

4

I had fought my way through countless decisive battles.

Endured endless duels.

And at last, I had arrived.

The thirteenth stage.

'A stage numbered thirteen, of all things—that unlucky number.'

Was that why? This place made its formidable presence felt from the moment we entered. As soon as I was transported to the stage, two utterly different voices greeted me.

One cheerful. The other horrific.

[Welcome, Death King.]

First came that familiar voice.

The Tower no longer called me “hunter Kim Gongja.” My epithet. My second name, Death King. I was now duly recognized as a resident here, welcomed as a legitimate member of the Tower.

Was I too easily pleased if that little fact made me happy?

"GRAAAAAH!"

And then.

"I will not forgive you!"

There was also a scream that sounded as though something were being torn apart.

"How dare you! How dare you take my children!"

No.

The owner of that voice really was being torn apart.

"You steal the children I took in and saved, just as you please! Are you mocking me? Trying to deceive me? Will you rob me of my flesh, my blood, my soul?!"

The Demon King.

The master of the red nightmare was leaking filthy water from its entire body.

"I curse you!"

The Demon King's form was literally tearing apart. Black blood. The bubbling, boiling filth bore stark witness to its pain. Looking even more wretched now than when it had fled the twelfth floor, the Demon King shrieked at the sky.

"You! The world! I curse everything that is not me! If the world seeks to erase me, I shall swallow the world! Your seas shall become my stomach acid, and your lands my flesh! Your flesh! Your bones! Your hearts! I will chew up every last one of your organs!"

"Ugh..."

Beside me, the Witch held her breath.

That was how sinister the Demon King's howling screams were.

Such vicious bloodlust.

Even the Sword Star took a step back and tightened his grip on his sword hilt.

"What a dreadful cry," he murmured. "I've never heard a voice like that. It sounds as though it has thousands of mouths."

"I know. What could make it scream like that...?"

The Sword Star and the Witch raised their aura, enveloping their bodies. Was it to keep from being swallowed by that bloodlust? Even if only for a moment, they had clearly been overwhelmed by the Demon King's presence.

Only one person.

"Huh?"

Only my ever-unflappable attendant spirit merely tilted his head.

"What's up with that thing?"

Then the attendant spirit said something truly unexpected.

"It's weaker than before, isn't it?"

'What?'

"It's much weaker than when we fought it downstairs."

Much weaker?

I took another careful look at the Demon King.

'... That thing?'

"Yeeep."

The attendant spirit frowned.

"Sure, that girl called the Witch or whatever gave it one hell of an aura pounding. Of course it took damage. But, well, this isn't just an injury or anything... Its [stature] has actually dropped."

'What do you mean, its stature has dropped?'

"Hmm. How do I put this? For example..."

The attendant spirit chose his words carefully.

"Right. Let's compare its combat strength to a Great Goblin, roughly speaking. On the twelfth floor, it was an SSS-rank Great Goblin made by fusing Alexander and Arthur with a goblin."

'Your analogies keep getting more inventive. When did you even learn about Alexander and Arthur?'

"An emperor never neglects his studies. That's how he becomes an emperor, and how he remains one."

'Ah, yes. Let's go with that, Mr. Sword Emperor,' I said inwardly.

'So on the twelfth floor, that Demon King was an SSS-rank Great Goblin like that...'

"Yep. Now it feels like a Great Goblin with the SSS-rank part stripped off. And not the Great Goblin that led the army on the eleventh floor, either. You know that weakened Great Goblin you barely beat by treacherously going 'gorruk, gorruk' and pulling a Brutus?"

By the Tower's reckoning, that had happened only a short while ago.

But by my own reckoning, it was a very distant memory. As he brought it up, the attendant spirit kept tilting his head.

"Huh! How strange. Normally, the higher you climb the Tower, the stronger the bosses get, right? So why's it ended up like that? Does the Witch's aura frying come with a level-down effect or something?"

"..."

At the Sword Emperor's words, I looked around.

A ruined temple.

At its center, the Demon King was still howling at the sky. Like a lion struck by an unexpected blow. The nightmare of autumn rain was aggrieved, and above all, furious.

'... Could it be?'

That sight gave me a certain conviction.

'Has some unexpected change occurred in the stage?'

Just then.

[Calculating floor twelve clear rewards.]

[Unable to calculate!]

A voice flowed into my head.

[You are currently undertaking a hidden quest.]

[All rewards will be calculated when you clear floor nineteen.]

[For now, only provisional rewards will be granted.]

Something translucent unfurled smoothly before my eyes.

[The blessing, War God's Protection, is enhanced!]

It was a map.

But it was completely different from every map I had seen so far.

[All maps from floor eleven through floor twenty are unlocked!]

A map of the world.

Until now, the map I had received as a special benefit had been a “minimap,” just as its name suggested. However large it was, it was limited to a single floor. But what unfolded before my eyes now was on an entirely different scale.

A map of this world—and of another world.

I could now see what was called a “world map.”

"...!"

And the instant I saw the map, I understood.

"I've got it!"

"Hmm?"

The Witch and the Sword Star turned to me at the same time. She looked puzzled. He looked impassive.

"You've got it... Got what?"

"I know why the Demon King is acting like that. Black Dragon leader, think back to the previous stage," I said quickly. "The entire history of the Demon King's invasion of the capital disappeared. The city changed completely, too. Things like the refugee camp vanished without a trace."

"What about it...?"

"Come on, think about it logically! Where would those refugees have fled from? From all over the empire—no, not just the empire, but the entire continent, right? And even the refugee camp where all those people had gathered disappeared completely."

"... Ah."

At last, the Witch looked as though she had realized something, too.

"I see."

The leader of Black Dragon narrowed her eyes.

"It wasn't just the history of the empire's invasion that changed. It changed enough for refugees who fled from all over the continent to disappear entirely..."

"Yes." I nodded. "It wasn't just the empire. The entire continent changed. We've returned to [the era before the Demon King began its full-scale invasion of the continent]!"

Exactly.

"And right now!"

That was what had happened.

"Right now, we're at the point when this temple is under attack!"

The world map finally made it clear.

This world's continent was divided in two by a vast mountain range. The mountains were so high and broad that even birds could not cross them without risking their lives.

But in the middle of that high, broad mountain range was a section that narrowed like a waist. A sort of gateway, perhaps? Through it, people could travel between the eastern and western halves of the continent.

This temple had been built at that very spot.

A temple linking the continent's east and west.

Its construction had probably been preceded by a vast history and countless legends. For reasons I could not even begin to guess, this place resembled a fortress, resembled a rampart, and thus served as a temple.

This temple was the goddess's shield, standing across the mountainside.

Within that shield, to the east, lay plains. Small kingdoms occupied those plains, and beyond them stood the empire. Beyond the empire there was only the sea, so its borders began at the horizon of the land and ended at the horizon of the ocean.

It was humanity's domain, blue as far as the eye could see.

By contrast, everything west of the temple was red.

Every stretch of land beyond the goddess's shield was dyed crimson.

That was the Demon King's domain.

The Demon King had broken through this shield and surged east. It had swallowed the small kingdoms, then the empire. Finally, it had pushed all the way to the harbor.

In the original history.

That was what would have happened, had history followed its original course.

'So this is what revising history means!'

I understood.

Time in this world was regressing into the past.

History Revision.

A phenomenon that might more accurately be called [History Regression].

"GRAAAAAH!"

Yes.

Why the Demon King was screaming so desperately.

Why the Sword Emperor had spoken of its stature.

Now I understood completely.

I murmured inwardly.

'Its level has gone down.'

"Huh?"

The attendant spirit furrowed his brow.

"Its level's gone down?"

'You know, Mr. Sword Emperor. That voice hunters like us hear whenever we level up.'

There was one.

Whenever a hunter grew stronger, the voice always said the same thing.

「Your existence becomes more distinct.」

「Your level increases.」

The attendant spirit seemed to recall the same wording immediately.

"You mean that 'your existence' whatever-it-is?"

'Yes, exactly!'

It was easy to understand what an increase in level meant. But I had never understood what [your existence becomes more distinct] was supposed to mean. I'd thought it was just a slightly fancy turn of phrase...

Looking at the Demon King now, I understood perfectly.

"That boss monster probably grew stronger by killing countless imperial citizens and refugees. But all that slaughter and hunting became [something that never happened]. So..."

And that was why.

"That much of its growth has been erased."

Its existence was growing less distinct.

"The path the Demon King has followed until now... Its history of repeated slaughter has been erased."

Because I had completely changed the history of the twelfth floor.

Through my time, stitched together one stitch at a time as I endured endless duels and countless decisive battles.

"GRAAAAAAH!"

The Demon King's time had retreated by a single stitch.

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain is enraged.]

[The Demon King of Autumn Rain's existence becomes less distinct.]

The voice that came just then proved my thoughts correct.

"You bastards...!"

The red nightmare growled.

Its bloodlust had not diminished in the slightest.

But none of the hunters were overwhelmed by the Demon King's presence anymore.

The Witch, the Sword Star, and I all stared straight at it.

"Let's go," I said. "Let's light the beacon of our counterattack."

5

"O hundred ghosts!"

BURBLE!

The Demon King's body seethed.

"O ten thousand demons!"

At first, its voice sounded almost like a scream.

"My children!"

In response, monsters rose all over the stage. It wasn't a summoning spell. They were probably monsters that had been placed on the thirteenth floor from the start.

Among the temple pillars and the ruined debris, monsters slowly rose.

"Uuurrrgh."

Zombies numbering in the thousands.

Were they the humans who had been in this temple, [the Goddess's Shield]? Some zombies wore priests' hats, others paladins' uniforms, and still others merchants' clothes. Rolling their sightless eyes, they groaned and moved their bodies.

The Demon King shouted.

"Kill them!"

The horde of zombies charged toward us.

Beside me, the Witch sighed.

"Hah. I've always hated zombie movies..."

"I'm not exactly a fan either."

"Can you handle this, Death King?"

"It's not a question of whether I can handle it."

I raised my sword.

"I'm going to win."