Chapter 5 - Hero Hunting (2)

4,048 days.

[You have died.]

4,047 days.

[You have died.]

4,046 days.

[You have died.]

This was the work of erasing a man's history. Of erasing a legend that had seemed destined to remain etched into the Tower forever. Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, the Flame Emperor's legend hadn't been made in a mere handful of days. Of course it was difficult.

But it wasn't impossible.

“Fuck...!”

I screamed. And as I screamed, I killed myself.

Whenever I wanted to give up, I remembered. The pain, the injustice, the rage I'd felt when the Flame Emperor burned my body. His face as he brazenly returned to the neighborhood he'd burned down himself and asked, ["What are you going to give me?"]

The look on his face as he regarded me as nothing more than a bug.

'I'll kill you!'

THUNK!

I clenched my teeth and drove the blade into my neck.

'I'll kill you, Yoo Suha!'

I was killing myself.

But beyond that, I was killing the Flame Emperor.

[You have died.]

[Regressing to twenty-four hours ago.]

4,040 days.

4,039 days.

4,038 days.

4,037 days...

* * *

How many times had I killed myself?

Like an hourglass whose sand never dwindled, my task seemed as though it would never end. The Flame Emperor's achievements stood firm as a pyramid that could never crumble.

Slowly, cracks appeared in that pyramid.

「Flame Emperor Clears Floor 39 Alone!」

「Floor 38 Cleared Solo! Another Legend for the Flame Emperor!」

「Floor 37 Successfully Cleared!」

「Hunter Yoo Suha Reaches No. 1 in World Rankings. First Korean to Claim the Top Spot.」

「The Throne at the Top of the Rankings Lies Empty Following the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Who Will Take It Next? Experts Abroad Agree: “Korea's Yoo Suha Is the Leading Candidate.”」

「Impregnable Floor 10 Conquered. Who Is the Mysterious Hero?」

「Day 22 of the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Worst Crisis Yet?」

The newspaper clippings on the wall of my rented room.

Those testaments to the Flame Emperor's history were disappearing.

One by one.

「Floor 38 Cleared Solo! Another Legend for the Flame Emperor!」

「Floor 37 Successfully Cleared!」

「Hunter Yoo Suha Reaches No. 1 in World Rankings. First Korean to Claim the Top Spot.」

「The Throne at the Top of the Rankings Lies Empty Following the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Who Will Take It Next? Experts Abroad Agree: “Korea's Yoo Suha Is the Leading Candidate.”」

「Impregnable Floor 10 Conquered. Who Is the Mysterious Hero?」

「Day 22 of the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Worst Crisis Yet?」

One by one.

One clipping. Then another.

Like an old person's teeth falling out one at a time, they left more and more of the wallpaper exposed.

「Floor 37 Successfully Cleared!」

「Hunter Yoo Suha Reaches No. 1 in World Rankings. First Korean to Claim the Top Spot.」

「The Throne at the Top of the Rankings Lies Empty Following the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Who Will Take It Next? Experts Abroad Agree: “Korea's Yoo Suha Is the Leading Candidate.”」

「Impregnable Floor 10 Conquered. Who Is the Mysterious Hero?」

「Day 22 of the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Worst Crisis Yet?」

They disappeared.

'I can see it!'

The end was coming into view.

There was still a long way to go... but that was all right. I could endure it. The Flame Emperor had seemed eternal and immortal. That psychopath was neither eternal nor immortal. As long as I could be certain of that one fact.

I could endure as much as it took.

'It's not impossible!'

I swung my blade.

With that swing, I killed the time of the Flame Emperor who had cleared Floor 37.

「Hunter Yoo Suha Reaches No. 1 in World Rankings. First Korean to Claim the Top Spot.」

「The Throne at the Top of the Rankings Lies Empty Following the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Who Will Take It Next? Experts Abroad Agree: “Korea's Yoo Suha Is the Leading Candidate.”」

「Impregnable Floor 10 Conquered. Who Is the Mysterious Hero?」

「Day 22 of the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Worst Crisis Yet?」

I swung my blade again.

With that swing, I killed the time of the Flame Emperor who had reached the top of the world.

「The Throne at the Top of the Rankings Lies Empty Following the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Who Will Take It Next? Experts Abroad Agree: “Korea's Yoo Suha Is the Leading Candidate.”」

「Impregnable Floor 10 Conquered. Who Is the Mysterious Hero?」

「Day 22 of the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Worst Crisis Yet?」

I killed it.

「Impregnable Floor 10 Conquered. Who Is the Mysterious Hero?」

「Day 22 of the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Worst Crisis Yet?」

I killed it.

「Day 22 of the Sword Saint's Disappearance. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Worst Crisis Yet?」

At last.

[You have died.]

Before I knew it, my old blade gleamed like new.

There were fewer wrinkles on my hands. My rented room grew smaller with each successive move. The further I returned to my youth, the poorer my life became. When I went to the bathroom for even a brief respite, I could see my markedly younger face in the mirror.

And then.

“Ah...”

Nothing.

There was nothing on my wall.

No countless newspaper articles. No magazine interviews. Not a single scrap of paper hung on the wall of my rented room.

A blank space.

I had erased the history called the Flame Emperor.

“I did it.”

I murmured without thinking.

“I'm back...”

May 6. Eleven years ago.

One month before the Flame Emperor, Yoo Suha, awakened.

I had regressed.

4

'No need to hesitate.'

Shabby clothes.

'No need to wait, either.'

A threadbare hoodie and sweatpants. They were all I had in my early twenties. I put on everything I owned like a layer of armor and went outside.

The excitement of returning to the past... wasn't there.

'Yoo Suha.'

Not until I killed that bastard.

'I won't let my guard down.'

4,090 times.

That was how many times I'd died to return to this day.

I'd died forty more times than I'd first calculated. Once I added up the time it took to kill myself thousands of times, along with the time spent resting, that was the result.

That wasn't all.

I'd gathered everything about Yoo Suha. Every piece of information.

By repeating this day, May 6, ten times.

'11 a.m.'

Yoo Suha almost always woke at eleven in the morning. May 6 was no exception. Perhaps because he'd knocked back four bottles of beer the night before, he was scowling from the moment he woke.

'2 p.m.'

Yoo Suha leaves his rented studio apartment and heads to the hunting grounds. The building often housed low-level F-rank hunters. Taking advantage of how often those hunters died on hunts, the landlord offered low rent but demanded a hefty deposit. A shrewd businessman.

'3 p.m.'

Yoo Suha hunted things like slimes on the Tower's second-floor hunting grounds. But hunting nothing but slimes didn't earn him much in a day. At 3:11 p.m., he grumbled to himself,

“Ah, fuck. When am I going to live it up like the Sword Saint...?”

Four minutes later, at 3:15 p.m., he muttered,

“Wow, hunting slimes is so damn boring.”

An ordinary F-rank hunter.

A life spent waiting to strike it rich someday.

That was Yoo Suha at twenty-one. Not the thirty-two-year-old Flame Emperor.

“If only I'd win the lottery or something...”

Before long, twenty-one-year-old Yoo Suha would have that wish granted.

As soon as he obtained his regression skill, he used his ability to win the lottery.

The Merchants' Union. The guild commonly called the Union issued lottery tickets every week. It was the only guild permitted to print lottery tickets inside the Tower. And every hunter who won was recorded.

Among those records was the young man who would later be called the Flame Emperor.

The lucky winner who took first prize not once, but twice in a row.

'Three weeks and four weeks from today.'

But.

That future would never come for the twenty-one-year-old Yoo Suha I was watching now.

'You're going to die here today.'

May 6. 5:31 p.m.

Yoo Suha left the second-floor hunting grounds. Had he decided there was no hope if he spent his whole life hunting slimes? He headed toward a slightly more difficult area that novice hunters rarely visited.

Somewhere a little more isolated and treacherous.

Somewhere no one but Yoo Suha would pass through for the next thirty-six minutes.

'... He's here.'

I was waiting there.

'That's him.'

The man ambling along with a yawn. Yoo Suha.

Even after going back eleven years, I recognized him at once. Not because I had a remarkable eye. The bastard simply looked much the same now as he did eleven years later.

'He must have gotten his hands on some elixir of eternal youth later and guzzled it down.'

Thank you.

For being such an insatiably greedy pig!

'Come on.'

My heart pounded like mad.

I swallowed my nerves and opened my mouth.

“H-hey, hunter! Please save me...!”

“Huh?”

Yoo Suha looked my way.

“I was attacked by wolves... Ugh. Please save me. A potion...”

I'd smeared blood all over my body. I was drenched in it. Of course, it wasn't mine, but blood from monsters I'd hunted beforehand. To anyone else, I would look like a novice hunter on the verge of death.

“Ah, damn it. What the hell?”

Naturally, that was how I would look to Yoo Suha, too.

“Mister, you already stirred up the monsters here? Fuck. That ruins today's hunt.”

“A p-potion...”

“A potion, my ass. I'm not even going to make my day's wages. Ugh.”

Yoo Suha sighed and approached.

“How much will you pay?”

“Pardon?”

“How much are you going to pay for the potion? Mister, I'm not some philanthropist. You expect me to give you this expensive potion for free? To some guy I've never met? That's just not happening.”

Yoo Suha took out a plastic bottle and shook it in front of my eyes. The blood-red liquid sloshed inside the bottle bearing the Alchemy Ministry guild's emblem.

It was a healing potion the Alchemy Ministry sold for twenty gold, or nineteen gold apiece if you bought a pack of five.

“T-twenty gold... I'll pay you. I'll pay, so please hurry...”

“Wow, look at this guy. You're seriously greedy.”

Yoo Suha bent his knees to meet my eyes.

“Mister, don't you get what's happening? You're dying. Dying. This potion is going to save your life. And you want to buy your life for just twenty gold? Is your life worth twenty gold?”

“Uh...”

“Let's be blunt. What if I just walked away? You'd die. If you don't want to die, you'd better pay what your life's worth.”

“...”

Right.

I knew.

“F-forty gold, then...”

“Forget it. Hand over everything you've got.”

I knew this was the kind of bastard he was.

“Oh, right. Even if you wanted to pay, you couldn't in that state. Can't even move your hands, can you? Don't worry. I'll collect it myself. I've got that much customer-service spirit in me.”

Yoo Suha reached over and searched my clothes. My jacket pockets. Inside my hoodie. Even my pants pockets. At last, he found the leather wallet and grinned.

“Let's see. One gold, two gold, three gold... Hmm, about sixty gold? Why are you so poor, mister? Carry a little more around.”

“Ugh. That's... everything I own...”

“It's fine. I'll put it to good use for you.”

Yoo Suha pocketed the wallet and stroked my head.

Just as he'd done 4,050 days ago—no.

As he would do 4,050 days from now, while burning me alive.

“That's just how life works, isn't it?”

With a little grunt, he pulled something from inside his clothes. He'd put away the healing potion he'd promised me. What he drew instead was a blade.

A sword.

Not something that saved lives, but its exact opposite. A tool for killing.

'Ha.'

I looked up at Yoo Suha. I was less angry than dumbfounded. But he must have interpreted my stare differently, because he shrugged.

“Aw, don't look at me like that. I thought about giving you the potion... but if I save you here, you might come back for revenge later, right? Can't have that. You've got to live without leaving loose ends, and you've seen my face, mister...”

Yoo Suha was smiling.

“So you'll have to drop dead.”

The hunter whose retreating back I'd once watched on television. The man I'd worshipped as a hero for ten years, envying him so fiercely because I wanted to be as successful as he was.

The hero's unmasked face was hideous.

Far more than I'd imagined.

'Fine.'

I quietly watched Yoo Suha grip his sword.

'I'll live without leaving loose ends.'

He slowly raised his blade high.

And then.

I raised my right foot and kicked him in the crotch.

“Urk?”

Yoo Suha's stance wavered for a brief instant as he tried to bring his sword down. But that instant was all I needed. I narrowly dodged the path of his blade, then—

“Huh?”

I drove my blade into his neck.

“...!”

I wasn't like Yoo Suha. With someone I had to eliminate, prey I had to kill, right in front of me, I didn't waste time spouting bullshit. As soon as I'd stabbed his neck, I twisted my blade again and slashed beneath his jaw.

“Kh, huk...!”

Blood spurted in a fountain. My hand was soaked in an instant. Yoo Suha forced out choking groans, then finally managed a proper scream as he collapsed to the ground.

“Aaaaaagh!”

But even that lasted only a moment. Bloody froth immediately bubbled up, choking his throat.

“Urk, ghh...! Ugh...!”

With every passing second, Yoo Suha was dying.

He seemed to sense it instinctively, too. He stopped flailing against the ground and curled his back, pressing both hands over the wound in his neck. But the blood didn't stop. If anything, it flowed more thickly between his fingers.

“Yeah.”

I planted my foot firmly on Yoo Suha's neck and ground it down.

“...!”

His eyes widened. Why? How? Those questions and that anger filled his gaze. A gaze that would soon go dark. I had absolutely no need to answer him.

“I'll think of it as you giving me a valuable experience.”

I gripped my blade.

The blade that had killed me 4,090 times.

And I swung it.

To kill a monster.