Chapter 50 - After the Ending (1)

1

-You crazy bastard!

The continental army pulled its troops back a little. Even as they did, the attendant spirit kept laughing, clutching his stomach.

-From now on, I'm calling you Kim Psycho!

'Oh, please, give it a rest...'

I sighed inwardly.

'Do you know how many nicknames you've already given me? Kim Zombie. Zombie King. Kim Psycho. At this rate, my nicknames alone will fill an entire sheet of A4 paper.'

-Hey, I like that. Let's go! Let's goooo, you psycho with dozens of nicknames!

The attendant spirit's cackling filled the sky. Fortunately, though, this world had more to offer than someone making fun of me.

[You have cleared the boss stage.]

The Tower's voice.

That voice, too, rang inside my head, announcing that I had fully conquered the twentieth stage. Just as it had when I cleared the tenth stage, the so-called Infernal Mansion.

[The clear participant is Death King.]

[One participant.]

I slowly looked up. A blue sky stretched between the acacia branches and leaves.

[Calculating clear reward.]

[Calculation complete.]

[Your reward will be granted in 24 hours, upon entering floor 21.]

Right.

I grinned.

'Well, what does it matter if I'm a psycho or whatever? I did what I had to do.'

-Oh-ho. Look at that confidence.

'I've cleared all the way through floor twenty the way I wanted to.'

I wouldn't let anyone die.

That was the goal I had held in my heart from the very beginning. Looking back now, what an absurd thing to want.

'Not a single hunter died while I was clearing through floor twenty.'

The tragedy in which hunters fell for the Demon King of Autumn Rain's schemes and began suspecting and killing one another was gone. That fallen constellation was now reduced to one of my hundred ghosts.

I had cut off the very roots of that tragedy before it could begin.

'Not a single citizen of the empire or anyone else on the continent died, either.'

With time standing still, I had fought for another world.

'And...'

I raised my right hand and rested it on someone's head.

'I took this one in, too.'

Hungry Ghost.

The prisoner confined within my shadow sat slumped on the road, staring blankly at the continental army. These were the soldiers who had burned her little hometown in the original history.

But history had not repeated itself today. The moment the paladin commander knelt, the continental army put aside its hostility. Believing that I was the goddess's apostle, they abandoned their mission.

Paradise had been protected.

'This is just my own theory, but...'

I gently stroked Hungry Ghost's head.

'This twentieth floor probably would have cleared itself even if I'd just stood by and watched. I didn't actually need to step in.'

-Huh? Why?

'Because the village burning to nothing would have been an [ending], too.'

An ending.

Clearing the stages so far had taught me something. The Tower didn't distinguish between happy endings and bad endings. It accepted any ending, so long as it brought things to a proper conclusion.

'Otherwise, Yoo Suha never could have cleared through floor forty.'

Whether you smashed the Infernal Mansion's dolls to pieces like the Flame Emperor, or spent a little time playing with those children like I did, either way was accepted as an [ending].

'So this isn't a world the Tower predetermined.'

I turned to look at the village.

'And this isn't an ending I chose because I had no other choice.'

A place where wheat ripened golden beneath the sky. Where a taciturn, stubborn old man who turned a blind eye to children stealing fruit sat placidly in front of his orchard, smoking. A refuge where the incurably ill had gathered.

'It's simply the ending I chose.'

Today, no rain would fall from the sky.

No fires would blaze upon the earth.

-I see...

But why?

As I basked in my pride for a while, the attendant spirit wore a peculiar expression. Didn't he look as though he were gazing at some pitiful child?

'What's wrong?'

-Well, you said this was the ending you chose.

The attendant spirit casually pointed somewhere.

-I was wondering whether that was part of your chosen ending, too.

There stood Yoo Suha.

"Fuck! Fucking son of a bitch! Can't you stop this? Huh? Stop it right now... Fuck! Why won't this stop?!"

To be more specific, there stood Yoo Suha, still doing the Cossack dance.

At the entrance to a country village where grain ripened beautifully, beneath a blue sky and above ground strewn with flower petals, a handsome man stood alone in that landscape painting, shouting "fuck."

It was a masterpiece that would probably get tens of millions of views if someone posted a video online.

'Huh? What's wrong with that?'

I tilted my head.

'Isn't it fucking beautiful?'

-Yep, this guy really is Kim Psycho...

The attendant spirit muttered.

That was when it happened.

[Today.]

[The floor 20 stage has been cleared.]

A voice rang between heaven and earth. This time, I wasn't the only one who could hear it.

[We announce once again to everyone.]

[Today, the floor 20 stage has been cleared.]

An official announcement.

Just as when I cleared the tenth stage, the same voice was probably spreading through every part of the Tower.

"Ah."

I smacked my lips.

'What a huge shame.'

-What is?

'There's no internet here.'

My smartphone was sleeping soundly in my backpack. Five days had passed in the real world. But in terms of the time I'd actually lived through, it had easily been hundreds of days since I'd even touched my phone.

After all, the only parts of the Tower with internet access were still floors one through ten.

'The internet must be going absolutely wild by now...'

-Huh? Wait. I thought you didn't care about people's reactions anymore?

'When did I ever say that?'

-You said it yourself. You wanted recognition from people like the Witch and old man Markus more than from ordinary people, remember?

'Oh, come on.'

I shrugged.

'Haven't you heard, the more the merrier? I can earn recognition from people like the Witch and the Sword Star, earn recognition from ordinary people, and still look up at the sky without a shred of shame.'

-Wow, aren't you a total pig? How can you be this greedy?

'Greed is what keeps people going, you know.'

Fortunately, I had a way to soothe my disappointment at not being able to check the internet.

[The floor 21 stage will open in 24 hours.]

[24:00:00]

BOOOOM!

Fireworks embroidered the sky, just as before. When the first burst exploded, a clock of light took shape. Then, as though they'd been waiting for this very moment, two hunters teleported here.

"Death King!"

It was the Witch and the Sword Star.

The Witch had come flying over in an instant using her Transfer skill. She grabbed me, bent her elbow, and locked my head in her arm. Then she broke into her characteristic radiant smile.

"You're insane! You're absolutely insane!"

"Ack, aaagh! Hold on, Black Dragon leader. This hurts more than you'd think..."

"You little kid! You're a greenhorn who's not even thirty yet!"

I tried to resist, but it was hopeless. Her grip tightened mercilessly. The Witch was so strong that I couldn't escape her headlock.

Good lord. How many elixirs did she take on a regular basis to get like this?

"You really cleared floor twenty in just five days! Isn't that insane? It's insane!"

"Um. Black Dragon leader, please calm down..."

"You have no idea what an uproar you've caused in the Tower! Here!"

The Witch showed me something.

A smartphone.

The model was at least five years old, even at a glance. Its screen showed a battery on its last legs—and internet articles I shouldn't have been able to see here.

"What's this...?"

"I stopped by the first floor and took screenshots!"

The Witch sounded genuinely excited.

"There were too many articles to capture them all! Sorry! But you have to understand, Death King. It isn't just the Tower—the outside world is in an uproar, too. I only captured the articles with the most clicks, but look. There are still this many!"

The Witch swiped through her phone. Article headlines filled the screen.

-[Breaking News] An Unstoppable Advance! Floor 14 Cleared Too!

-Rising Star's Epithet Confirmed as Death King.

-Black Dragon's Official Announcement: Current Clearing Team Has Three Members.

-Who Is the Leading Player: Sword Star, Witch, or Death King?

-[Special Feature] Spotlight on Death King.

.

.

.

There were so many. Even just reading all the headlines was impossible.

"They may use headlines like these..."

The Witch smiled.

"But every single one is about you!"

"Uh..."

"Where you're from, what sort of life you've lived, how you came to enter the Tower, how you shot straight up to the top ranks. That's really all they talk about..."

"W-wait a second."

I was bewildered.

It wasn't the news articles that had thrown me. This reaction was only natural. Over the past five days, hundreds—thousands—of heated discussion threads must have sprung up online.

I'd already experienced that once.

So what had bewildered me was nothing other than...

"Did you take all these screenshots yourself?"

"Yes!"

The Witch nodded. She still hadn't released the headlock, so her face was rather close.

"Of course!"

"To show them to me?"

"Silly, what other reason would there be?"

"Um, so..."

I furrowed my brow as I spoke.

"You're saying that, just to show me what articles had come out about me, you deliberately teleported all the way down to the first floor, looked up each article, and took screenshots of them one by one...?"

"If you want to put it that way, yes!"

I pictured it.

The second-ranked hunter. The leader of the largest guild in the Tower.

Someone that important had hurried down to the first floor, busily fiddled with her smartphone, snapping screenshot after screenshot, then come back here to show them off almost proudly.

"..."

When I pictured it, those were pretty cute scenes.

But I still didn't understand.

"Why would someone of your standing go to all that trouble...?"

"Honestly, what are you talking about?"

The Witch beamed.

"Because I wanted to do something for you, of course!"

"..."

"Oh, don't read the comments on those articles, even later. They're full of claims that it's rigged or a scam. Jealous people have absolutely trashed the place."

The Witch sighed softly.

"Honestly, I don't know why they're always like that. Do they have any idea how incredible zero casualties is? Death King, don't pay those nobodies any mind. Black Dragon will handle all your press relations from now on."

What was with this woman?

Was she an angel?

-Zombie, you really do worship anyone as an angel if they're even a little nice to you... I know you've had a miserable life, but learn to take people's kindness in stride. How is a guy who's so fucking tough against malice this weak against kindness?

If she wasn't an angel, could she be a goddess?

-You're out of your mind...

The attendant spirit's ugly mug crumpled.

-I always figured this bastard would go insane someday. He's finally lost it.

'Then maybe you should praise me more often. Do you have any idea how starved I am for praise? Someone like you wouldn't understand how precious a little attention is in a dreary daily life, would you?'

-No, that kind of thing... grosses me out... I'd rather pass on to the afterlife.

The attendant spirit actually gagged.

Of course he did, the psychopath.

I could guarantee it. I'd bet everything I owned that he hadn't had a single friend when he was alive.

-Hey! What the hell are you talking about? I've got friends, too!

'The Sword Star doesn't count.'

-...

The attendant spirit looked away.

It was a quiet victory for me. Though I had no idea what that victory was for.

"And look at this, too!"

Only then did the Witch release her headlock.

This time, she wasn't showing me her phone screen. The Black Dragon leader opened a small backpack and pulled out a thick bundle of newspapers.

"Here!"

The Witch spread a newspaper wide open.

"The front page of yesterday's paper!"

The article itself didn't immediately register. What caught my eye first was a list printed in enormous type.

Above it was the heading [Hunter Rankings Updated!].

+

1. Sword Star

2. Black Witch

3. Death King

4. Count

5. Inquisitor

6. Viper

7. Linguist of Babel

8. Wide-Area Communicator

9. Paladin

+

"..."

For a moment, I lost the ability to speak.

Only now did I realize what had happened in the world below floor twelve while I was fighting the Demon King alone, locked in a prison of time.

"Nothing like this has happened since the Tower opened!"

The Witch smiled.

"Jumping all the way up here from outside the rankings!"

Rank three.

Just like hunters' epithets, their rankings were determined by the Tower. Those rankings appeared on the stone monument in the first-floor plaza.

"It probably doesn't feel real yet... But go down to Babylon today. You'll understand right away what kind of person you've become."

TAP!

The Witch rolled up the newspaper and tapped my shoulder with it.

"Congratulations, Death King!"

That's right.

"You're someone who represents all hunters now, too!"

In just five days, the world had changed.