Chapter 6 - Hero Hunting (3)

"Ghk, ...ugh, urgh...!"

You awaken on the brink of death.

For years, that belief had circulated among hunters as a way to awaken a skill. Put yourself in mortal danger.

Perhaps it wasn't just a superstition. Perhaps it was true. At least it sounded more plausible than awakening a skill because your jealousy was uglier than anyone else's in history.

So I didn't let my guard down. Without relaxing for an instant, I swung my blade straight at him.

"Hhk...!"

To deny the psychopath before me even the slightest chance of awakening.

"Ghh... kh..."

Die.

"Uhh..."

What had enraged me most was something else. Something that made me angrier than the fact that this psychopath had burned me alive without a second thought. Angrier than the pain and injustice.

'He told me his name.'

Before I went back into the past, before he grabbed my head and burned me to a crisp, the Flame Emperor had smiled and said:

["But you know I'm the Flame Emperor, buddy. And you saw me kill the Saintess."]

["So you'll have to fucking die."]

["My name is Yoo Suha. Goodbye."]

It was all the sort of shit a lunatic would say. But one part—just one—was truly strange. It filled me with an anger and revulsion I couldn't bear.

That last sentence.

'He told me his own name.'

Why had he suddenly introduced himself while killing me? Was he worried I didn't know the Flame Emperor's name?

No. That wasn't it.

'He was trying to look cool.'

The Flame Emperor. That bastard... was trying to look cool, even though he was a murderer.

As if he were a warrior exchanging names before a sacred duel. At the moment he killed me, the Flame Emperor must have been thinking:

'At least I kill people after openly and honestly telling them who I am.'

'So at least I have nothing to be ashamed of.'

How dare he.

"A piece of shit like you..."

How dare a psychopath like him.

"A piece of shit like you, pulling that crap...!"

A man who had killed a witness who merely happened to be passing by. A person who had started a fire, then returned and shamelessly pretended he'd done nothing wrong. A human who wasn't human, a person who wasn't a person. A beast. A demon lower than any beast.

And he had the gall to pose as someone noble.

"Don't make me laugh!"

THUNK!

My blade pierced Yoo Suha's neck.

"..."

By then, Yoo Suha had no words left. No screams. Not even a groan. In the deserted hunting grounds, where no one passed by, he lay among nameless weeds, staring up at the sky with unfocused eyes.

He was dead.

"Hah, huff... hah..."

Perhaps simply saying he was dead wasn't quite appropriate. He hadn't been an ordinary hunter, and his death had been even less ordinary.

The man who would one day have become the Flame Emperor. The legend who would have reached number one in the world rankings. The man who would have single-handedly cleared the Tower's tenth floor, which no one had conquered for years.

I had killed him.

"Whew."

I let out a sigh.

"Now I'm finally starting to feel sane..."

Again, I was about to say, but stopped. Had the smell of blood drawn them here? Wolves. Huge wolves were prowling around me.

GRRR...

They weren't ordinary wolves. Their black fur formed patterns like tattoos someone had carved into their bodies. These monsters were called grassland wolves, and the more intricate their markings, the stronger they were.

The ones before me had simple markings... but they still weren't opponents an F-rank hunter like me could afford to challenge out of bravado.

"..."

First, I retrieved the wallet Yoo Suha had stolen from me. Then I carefully took a step back.

"You want to eat this guy, right?"

I pointed at the corpse.

"I don't need him. Take him."

Then I backed away.

GRRRR.

The wolves approached the corpse.

RIP!

Their teeth tore through its coat. Once one wolf began biting into it, the others crowded around.

RIP, RIIIP...

Their enormous bodies blocked the corpse from view.

"Enjoy your meal."

I retreated in a hurry.

'Is it over?'

I buried the clothes stained with Yoo Suha's blood deep in the hole I'd dug beforehand. I washed my entire body with water I'd brought in plastic bottles. Even as I took fresh clothes from my backpack and put them on, it still didn't feel real.

'Is it really over?'

If my new clothes were too clean, they might actually arouse suspicion. I deliberately rolled on the bare ground. Once I thought I looked dirty enough, I returned to Babylon, the city on the Tower's first floor. A member of the neighborhood watch stood guard. He glanced at me... then yawned and turned away.

'Ah.'

No one knew.

'It's over.'

When I entered a tavern and ordered a beer, no one paid me any attention. When I finished it and ordered another, no one paid me any attention either. Nobody knew what I'd done.

The tavern television was merely playing old news.

"The tenth-floor raid team met with failure again today."

"Hunters ranked second through seventh in the world all joined forces in an attempt to clear the tenth floor, but..."

"Meanwhile, criticism of the world's top-ranked hunter, the Sword Saint, grows stronger by the day. Despite holding the number-one rank, he continues to refuse to join the raid team..."

No matter how long I waited, no breaking news appeared about a hunter disappearing in the Tower's second-floor hunting grounds.

That was only natural. Novice hunters lost their lives every day. Just as nobody paid attention to me, nobody cared about the disappearance of some nameless hunter.

In other words:

'It's over!'

Yes.

I had successfully hunted down a monster.

5

"Ahh."

I raised my empty glass high.

"Another draft beer over here!"

"You're drinking quite a bit. Had a good hunt today?"

"Yesss, I did. A very good hunt!"

I couldn't possibly have felt more relieved.

For two or three hours, I filled the refreshing emptiness in my heart with beer. Only when the sunset began coloring the sky outside the tavern did I slowly start thinking about reality.

'What do I do now?'

There was plenty to do.

'I could win the lottery, or sell strategies for clearing the upper floors that nobody knows yet. Oh, man, I've got it made! I've finally got it made!'

I pulled up my status window—the window only the hunter it belonged to could see.

+

Name: Kim Gongja

Rank: F

Skills (2/4)

1. I Want to Be Like You (S+): Passive

2. Regressor's Clockwork Watch (EX): Passive

3. None

4. None

+

"Ahh, who needs bar snacks?"

My status window was the tastiest accompaniment to a drink in the world. One S-rank skill. One unheard-of EX-rank skill. In terms of a meal, wasn't that like steak with caviar on top?

'I'd have to be a greedy bastard to ask for anything better. Yep.'

But the satisfied smile on my face didn't last long.

"... But I don't have any combat skills."

Ah.

Was this just how the human heart worked?

Little by little, my shortcomings began catching my eye.

"No matter how much money I make, a hunter ought to be a proper hunter... If all I've got is money and no strength, someone's bound to rob me eventually..."

Society inside the Tower was even more ruthless than the outside world.

Put grandly, the strong reigned supreme. Put plainly, the strong devoured the weak.

It wouldn't matter if I could simply escape to the outside world...

'Once someone sets foot in the Tower, they can never leave.'

That was the rule.

No S-rank hunter with teleportation abilities could travel outside the Tower. It was simply impossible.

Only one person in Babylon could exchange anything with the outside world: the guild leader of the Union, the hunter known by the alias "Count."

'They say even the Union's leader can only send goods out and bring them in, not personally go outside...'

Quite literally, you could enter whenever you pleased, but leaving was another matter.

Only those who entered prepared to abandon everything in the outside world became hunters. Those who abandoned their wealth, their relationships, their status, and their nationality.

Perhaps... even their humanity.

"Right."

Of course, I was no different.

"Come hell or high water, I have to make it in the Tower."

Emboldened by the alcohol, I muttered to myself. Success. I wanted to succeed so badly it drove me crazy.

Why had I idolized the Flame Emperor in the first place? Because I'd fallen for that fucking bastard's character? Did he even have any character to speak of? The reason was far simpler.

I had envied the Flame Emperor's dazzling achievements. His success.

"Let's make it, Kim Gongja. Yeah, what can't a guy who's died 4,090 times do? Let's make it, no matter what..."

Just then.

JINGLE.

A bell rang at the tavern's front door.

6

At first, I didn't care who had come in. How impressive could a hunter who came drinking in the early evening possibly be?

But the other drunks began whispering.

"Hey, that guy over there..."

"Huh? I think it really is him."

"Why would he come to a place like this...?"

Soon, an odd silence settled over the tavern. Everyone held their breath. By then, my curiosity had been piqued too, and I couldn't help turning to look.

An old man in a black suit stood there.

"Hmm."

He was dressed so neatly he might have been heading straight to the office. His tie was plain and bright red. Looking at him, you could almost mistake him for an ordinary office worker and wonder, Huh? When did I get back to the outside world?

Except, instead of dress shoes, he wore sneakers. Red sneakers.

'Wow. What the hell kind of fashion sense is that?'

The combination was wildly mismatched.

But his clothes weren't the only strange thing about him.

"Milk."

"Pardon?"

"Warm milk with just a little vodka and sugar mixed in, please. Honey would be better, if you have it."

The tavern owner looked flustered by the absurd order.

"Uh... sir, I'm not a bartender..."

"I'll pay you properly. Don't worry."

The owner nodded reluctantly. The others were still sneaking glances at the old man in the suit and whispering among themselves. He seemed to be quite famous.

'Who is he?'

I frowned slightly.

'That's strange. I know the face of just about every famous hunter.'

It wasn't something to brag about, but nobody envied the top hunters as much as I did. The Flame Emperor went without saying, and I could rattle off every hunter ranked second through hundredth in the world. Every one of them had been an object of my jealousy.

And yet... that strangely dressed old man felt unfamiliar.

'I feel like I've seen him somewhere. Where was it? Where?'

It took me a while to remember.

'Ah!'

My room, of all places. The newspaper scraps plastered all over the wall. Exactly one of those articles had featured a photograph of this old man.

「Sword Saint Missing for 22 Days. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Worst Chaos Yet?」

'It's the Sword Saint!'

Yes. The most famous hunter before Yoo Suha made his name as the Flame Emperor.

His heyday had been so long ago that I'd forgotten him. Even I couldn't instantly recognize every hunter who'd been active more than ten years earlier.

Besides, whatever the circumstances, he was someone who would soon disappear.

'Ah, right... This is eleven years ago.'

Once again, it sank in that I really had returned to the past.

'To the people of this era, that old man is the strongest in the world, not the Flame Emperor...'

It was fascinating.

Though I knew it was rude, I kept sneaking glances at the Sword Saint's profile. How could I describe it? It was like seeing a great figure who'd died ages ago standing right in front of me. Whatever it was, it felt strange.

'Wow. That old gentleman must have an S-rank skill too, right?'

I grinned and sipped my beer.

'Not a weird skill like mine, but a real, proper combat skill...'

That was when it happened.

"Huh?"

My hand stopped without my realizing it.

Suddenly—out of nowhere—I remembered my S-rank skill.

+

[I Want to Be Like You]

Rank: S+

Effect: Activates automatically when an enemy kills you. Copies one of the skills belonging to the enemy who killed you and makes it your own. You cannot copy from an opponent you have already copied from once. The skill to be copied is chosen at random.

※However, you will die!

+

'Wait a minute.'

It felt as though lightning had struck inside my head, illuminating everything for an instant. The same sensation I'd felt when I thought of how to kill the Flame Emperor swept through my entire body.

[I Want to Be Like You]. It was an incredible skill. If I put my mind to it, I could let any hunter kill me and copy their skill. Having to die, however, was far too great a drawback.

But...

'I... don't stay dead anymore, do I?'

Because I'd acquired another skill.

+

[Regressor's Clockwork Watch]

Rank: EX

Effect: Activates automatically upon death. Returns you to 24 hours before the moment of your death. Your memories and stats are preserved even after regression.

※However, the higher your hunter rank, the greater the penalty.

※This skill was copied from hunter Yoo Suha.

+

'Then...'

An eerie current ran up my back.

'Does that mean I can just copy them all? All I have to do is pick any hunter and let them kill me?'

It was an utterly obvious fact. But the tension and pressure of needing to kill the Flame Emperor as quickly as possible had kept me from realizing it. At last, it dawned on me.

'... Even the Sword Saint, the number-one hunter of this era?'

I gulped down the beer still in my mouth.

The Flame Emperor, who would have become number one in the future, had possessed the overpowered ability to regress. Then what abilities did the Sword Saint possess before disappearing somewhere—the hunter who dominated this era?

Might he have a skill every bit as incredible as the Flame Emperor's?

'If I could just copy it...'

I stared at the old man's back.

'That would be a jackpot.'

Apparently, my hunt wasn't over yet.