Chapter 372: Home Base (2)
When I stepped out of the light, I found myself in a kingdom of my own—- Unfortunately, nothing like this happened.
It was total darkness there.
"Wow, what the… It"s really dark here?"
Only darkness.
When I cautiously took a step forward, my ankle squished into something, sinking into somewhere. It was as if I had accidentally stepped into a mud puddle. The feel of the darkness was much like a ma.s.s of mud.
"Well, that"s because nothing has been created here yet."
[The Wand of Ages] spoke from behind me.
"This place is basically bare ground, not even the skeleton of a house has been set up yet. Not to mention built-in furniture, there isn"t even a roof. Screaming Sky, you have cleared stages and earned enough land, but you haven"t built a house yet."
"So, I"m a landowner, but not a homeowner yet."
If you put it that way, I wonder if I"ve worked myself to the bone from the 10th to the 80th floor just to buy a single plot of land. If life were compared to 100-floors, securing the land would mean I"ve already achieved 80% of my life"s goals.
Hmm. It"s uncomfortably realistic….
"Where can I find an architect or an interior designer to hire?"
"Sorry, but you are the architect and the interior designer. You"re no longer a hunter who pa.s.sively receives quests and carries out tasks. Well, if we must put it in the form of a quest…"
The mage drew letters in the air with his staff.
"It would be something like this."
Wherever the tip of the staff went, bright white letters spread out.
+
[Build Your Own Kingdom]
Constellation: The Sky That Gathers Screams
Difficulty: Undetermined
Mission Objective: Create a sanctuary.
+
I nodded.
"Simple enough."
"Be good. Save the world. Help humanity. The hardest tasks in the world are always expressed in one sentence. So, I will just watch you diligently build your palace and occasionally interject here and there."
The mage sighed softly.
"There"s one problem though."
"Life is nothing but problems."
"Yep. But this problem needs immediate resolution. You, you"re usually good at cleaning up your tracks before you leave… But now, it seems there"s one connection you haven"t properly tied up."
An untied connection? An unresolved human relations.h.i.+p?
Did I still have such things? I had thought my social relations.h.i.+ps were not just cleaned, but bleached thoroughly since the time I performed the Cossack dance for Yoo Soo-ha.
"Haha. It seems you"re mistaken. I"m a man who has sorted everything out."
"Actually, I"ve been waiting for when you would come up. [That thing] is only a nuisance for a day or two, but it comes in every day to hara.s.s me, so it"s been unbearable."
Crrrrrrrack—
Somewhere, an ominous ripping sound was heard. I turned my head to see whether to call it the sky, the ceiling, or simply the darkness above, a curtain there was splitting apart.
"Congratulations, Screaming Sky."
The mage stepped back three paces from me as if dodging something. He wore an ominous smile.
"You are now officially a famous and popular Constellation."
"What do you…"
"In the Constellation world, there is a stalker that follows only the celebrities. You"ve drawn the attention of many constellations, unfortunately, it seems the stalker has heard about you too. I can"t help, but good luck."
Ssssshhhhhh!
As the fissure opened, black liquid flowed out. It was dark here, but it was just as dark beyond the curtain. However, the ent.i.ty that fell to the ground covered in black liquid was not merely black.
[Warning.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer harbors hostility towards you.]
The being had hair as white as platinum.
"Are you [The Sky That Gathers Screams]?"
"...."
The man with silver hair spoke to me in a familiar voice. However, that was all that was familiar. The temperature of his gaze as he looked at me was entirely different from that of my servantwho had now regained the name Kim Yul.
Above all,
The man in front of me still had his hair tied with a yellow rubber band.
"...Lefanta Aegim."
Constellation Killer slowly tilted his head.
His eyes, blue as a newly born star, looked this way.
"Do you know me?"
Yes.
You were the one who remained.
"—-I know you very well."
As the mage said, there was indeed one cause and effect I had left untied.
3.
Constellation Killer is a multiple-body slaughtering puppet.
Previously, I had taken the existence known as Kim Yul from Constellation Killer. More precisely, I had succeeded in restoring it.
Constellation Killer gains power by discarding memories. He had discarded all past a.s.sociated with being Kim Yul. However, through trauma, I was able to forcibly see his past and thus restored Kim Yul from these glimpses.
Yet, I had merely created a [being with memories identical to Kim Yul"s].
Still there was a combat doll with amnesia known as Constellation Killer wandering the world.
Thanks to the S-grade skill he possessed.
+
[Puppeteer"s Parade]
Rank: S
Effect: In some world, there lived an old puppeteer. The puppeteer was afraid of receiving love, but he wasn"t strong enough to endure eternal solitude.
"Let"s make another me." So, the puppeteer designed it. "Let the other me be loved. Let it live with people, among people. And if it gets hurt—I"ll throw it away," whispered the puppeteer. "Erase it forever."
Countless puppets lived.
Countless puppets were discarded.
This skill is a black art for the weak. The ability to choose or throw away memories. You can make 13 puppets that have the exact same appearance and abilities as you. When one puppet dies, another one awakens. Broken dolls can be repaired.
It is your imitation of immortality. A fabricated eternity.
※However, memories are not shared between puppets.
+
13 puppets.
Day by day, constantly losing memories and slaughtering constellations. That was the true ident.i.ty of Constellation Killer.
I created the 14th puppet and implanted Kim Yul"s memories into it. I gave the 14th puppet the name Kim Yul, not Constellation Killer or Lefanta Aegim.
In other words, the 13 puppets I hadn"t collected were still out there somewhere.
"I"m sorry. I can"t remember you."
And so it had arrived here now.
To a.s.sa.s.sinate me, whose reputation as a constellation had grown.
"If you tell me when we met, I can search for records about you."
Constellation Killer pulled out an old notebook from his pocket. I knew what this shabby item was.
A diary. An item carried by Constellation Killer to overcome the absolute weakness that the puppets not being able to share memories.
Even though memories are disconnected, the sentences written in the notebook are shared exactly the same in other diaries.
"No."
I shook my head.
"You and I have definitely met before. We shared the same time. But… You won"t be able to find any records about me in the diary you"re holding."
"And why is it that I won"t be able to find them?"
"Because I met you in a past before you obtained the diary. In a time that you can never look back on and can never recover."
"I see. Are you a time manipulator?"
Constellation Killer was calm. Even though I told him that I had seen his past, he did not seem curious at all.
"It seems you will be a troublesome enemy. I appreciate the clue about your ability."
"I know much more about you than you know about yourself."
"That"s true for everyone in this world. It"s not a special personal detail."
Constellation Killer wrote something in his diary.
I read the direction in which the pen was swiftly moving, retraced it, and constructed the sentences written in the notebook in my mind.
+
The Sky That Gathers Screams.
Possesses a time skill.
Can know the opponent"s past.
It is speculated that there was a point of contact with me in the past.
+
Reconstructing the letters was quite easy. That"s because.
"...It"s in Korean."
"Hmm? I don"t understand what you mean."
Constellation Killer"s face was as impa.s.sive as ever. Seeing his expression, my heart tightened. Was he just using it without even knowing what the characters he wrote meant?
Probably to Constellation Killer, these letters were [characters that he naturally learned without knowing why]. That"s why he used them when writing sentences that would be problematic if others recognized them, like when writing in his diary, as if they were a code known only to himself.
He was an exile who had lost his homeland. Due to forgetting his language, he was aphasic. Because he had discarded his own existence, he was nonexistent.
I silently gazed at the one who had become exiled, aphasic, and lost his presence.
Even though he was using the same yellow rubber band and writing the same letters from the same hometown as me, unlike when I saw Anastasia and others in gym clothes—– my heart was only perplexed.
"I"ve been chasing you for 31 days."
Constellation Killer snapped the notebook shut.
The dull sound broke my train of thought.
"Since 31 days ago?"
"That"s right. However, each time I tried to invade the Lion World, there was an old swordsman in a black suit who blocked me every time."
Constellation Killer muttered as I looked puzzled.
"The old man declared his alias as Sword Saint."
My eyes widened.
So that was it. I had wondered why I hadn"t seen Marcus Grandpa"s face at all, thinking he was fighting Constellation Killer in places unknown to me!
During the 100 days I stayed in Babylon, I never met Marcus Grandpa. Nor did my other companions know of the Sword Saint"s whereabouts. I had secretly guessed he might have gone on a solitary training journey, but little did I know he was preventing Constellation Killer"s invasions.
『I wish to become your bodyguard.』
『I want to be your bodyguard, protect your life, and forever guard the humanity of those around you.』
Marcus Grandpa"s words about wanting to be my bodyguard were not empty.
Grandpa had become a defensive barrier for us, the walls of the Lion World, exchanging swords with invaders in places we could not see.
The troubled feeling I had when I saw Constellation Killer was somehow refilled with an inexplicable pride.
"I tried to invade through different routes numerous times, but each time the old man was a step ahead and blocked me. He might possess a skill to sense my movements or a skill to detect outsiders trying to invade that world."
The Constellation Killer said.
"In the end, it was only after you left the Lion World that I finally succeeded in chasing you."
"I see. That"s good news."
I grinned.
"Because it means you ultimately couldn"t defeat the Sword Saint. And I am stronger than the him. Constellation Killer. There"s nothing you can do to defeat me."
"That"s a sound conclusion."
Constellation Killer responded nonchalantly to the blatant provocation.
"Sword Saint even said that even if he were defeated, ultimately, I would surely be defeated by you. Having heard that information, I a.s.sessed your threat level as the highest. Just as you said, with my current self alone, I indeed cannot defeat you [by any means]."
That was the moment.
"Therefore, I have concluded that I need to [use every possible means]."
Crackle! Crack, crack, crack!
The fissures already in the sky widened even further. One by one, something kept falling through the gaps.
And then.
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
I witnessed that all of them had silver hair fluttering alike.
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
[Constellation Killer has appeared on the 81st floor.]
I unconsciously closed my lips.
"...."
All 13 bodies.
Even if only one was mobilized, it could sweep away most constellations, and a slaughtering puppet on par with the Sword Saint, now all thirteen with streams of silver hair, came up.
13 pairs of eyes simultaneously looked this way.
"The Sky That Gathers Screams."
"...Ha."
"I designate you as the highest level of threat. From now on, I will use all my strength to annihilate you."
I couldn"t help but burst into laughter.
"Hamustra would faint from joy if he saw this scene!"
The moment I grasped the hilt of the holy sword, all 13 Constellation Killers charged at me simultaneously.