Chapter 7 – The Monologuing Ident.i.ty(1)
Translator: Seven
Editor: Ana_Banana
I searched for information about the Sword Saint on my phone.
-Originally, it was said that he was an elder from a wealthy old Northern European Conglomerate
-His real name is Marcus Calenberry. It was rather regretful, but it was said that he gave up his family, connections and fortune and entered the tower all by himself.
-No one knows exactly what skills he has.
-It is rumoured that he has a habit of muttering to himself.
I clicked my tongue.
“There’s no helpful information.”
I even looked for any interview videos but couldn’t find a single one. Apparently, this elder was the complete opposite of the Flame Emperor. Although he was reputed for his bad personality, information of him could be found all over the internet.
On the other hand, the Sword Saint was a mystery.
The information on the internet about the Sword Saint was very vague. He was apparently from a large wealthy family, supposedly entered the tower on his own and it was rumoured that he mumbled to himself. All the information was speculative.
‘What?’
I turned my head to a table in the corner. There, the Sword Saint sat alone, drinking his milk vodka.
‘At least the information that he talks to himself is correct.’
The old man with an odd sense of fas.h.i.+on. Sat at the table with his odd drink and seemed to be mumbling to himself between sips.
“Shut up. Don’t be so noisy. In the first place, you are…”
Mumble
I couldn’t hear exactly what the old man was saying, but he seemed to spit with every word he said. It was a horrible scene and I couldn’t help but be a bit frightened.
‘Does he suffer from psychosis?’
The number one hunter was psychotic. That was scary in itself. It was like having a nuclear bomb and not knowing when it might explode.
‘…No, if you think about it, Yoo Soo-ha had also been a psychopath.’
Perhaps one of the conditions to become number one was to be mentally ill.
‘Almost all the top rankers are psycho.’
I shook my head and kept browsing the internet for information. However, most of them were purely speculative. But as I kept looking, a post in a forum caught my eye.
-[Caution!] NG1 Words you should never say in front of the Sword Saint!]
‘Hmm?’
It was an interesting t.i.tle. The thread was posted in the Hunter Specialty Community website. A place to play, chat and share information that could only be accessed by those who had a Bureau issued Hunter Certificate. The post was done anonymously.
-I saw it for myself. There are NG words that you should never say in front of the Sword Saint unless you want to die!
└ What are they?
└ Anything about his family. A few days ago, a few top-ranking hunters were fighting with the Sword Saint, and one of them said
‘Looking at the way you are now, your grandchildren outside must have suffered.’
‘I bet you like to be alone because they don’t dare keep you around.’
‘How embarra.s.sed would they be if they saw you behaving like this.’
-Then he died!
└ What? Died?!
└ Yes. He was killed. In fact, he only managed to say, ‘How embarra.s.sed would your grandchildren be…’ before his throat was cut. His head had been separated from his body in an instant.
The comments after that ran wild.
-Don’t be insane.
-This is probably a rumour created by those large guilds!
-He’s doing well so people are trying to trample him back down.
Most of the people who responded didn’t believe nevertheless the anonymous writer was persistent.
-Believe it or not, I don’t care! I just felt like telling you, so I told you.
-Of course, I’m not saying the Sword Saint was wrong. It was that guy’s fault for mentioning his family. However, it’s certain that those few top powers are ganging up on him because of this incident. You can see it with the constant abuse directed at him in the media these days.
-Anyway, if you ever meet the Sword Saint. You should try it.
“…-re too loud. I’ll take care of it myself, so leave me alone.”
The old man had been muttering to himself since he sat at the table. It really seemed like he had a mental illness. However, even if he suffered from psychosis, he still stood at the top of the world. The fact that this crazy old man had great skills beyond imagination remained unchanged.
‘Good.’
And that was good enough for me.
‘It was worth giving a shot.
“Good drink.”
“Ah, have a safe trip!”
The Sword Saint emptied his goblet.
As soon as he left the tavern, all the customers collectively let out the breaths they had been holding.
“He’s finally gone.”
“He must have dementia. Why did he keep muttering like that?”
“I know right. Anyway, the alcohol doesn’t taste good anymore…”
All the customers were probably waiting for the Sword Saint to leave, as they all rose to their feet to leave at the same time as I did.
However, our intentions were probably the opposite.
“This is my payment for the beer.”
I got up quickly and settled my bill with the owner. I had no time to waste
“Ah, yes. Thank you. Come again!”
“The beer was delicious. I will.”
Daling!
The bell on the door rang as I opened it and stepped out.
It was late at night and darkness covered the street.
‘Where did you go…?’
I looked around, there were many crowds of people coming out of the numerous pubs on the street. Dozens of people laughing and staggering as they enjoyed the effects of the alcohol under the night sky.
“Where are you, Mr First place?”
Fortunately, after looking around for a while, I found the back I wanted.
‘Found you!’
It was all thanks to his unusual outfit. He was probably the only man in all of Babylon who wore a suit and carried a sword. I quickly gathered myself and started following the old man.
‘What skills do you have?’
My heart was pounding.
‘The Flame Emperor had a ridiculous regression skill which was an Ex-rank skill. So what skills would the Sword Saint who was the previous generation’s strongest have? Wouldn’t he have skills that were even more broken?’
That skill would soon become mine. If I was lucky. (TL: Our MC is a pretty greedy guy lol, got on EX skill and now he wants more)
…
How long had I been chasing this old man’s back?
We’d long since left the heart of the city and had started walking through the backstreets. As I kept following him, we left the alleys and backstreets and entered the outskirts of the town. Here, there was a field that had no buildings or any signs of construction.
The Sword Saint walked through this empty field.
“Hmm.”
I walked a bit more before I stopped behind a tree.
“This place should be appropriate enough.”
The Sword Saint turned around, with starlight bathing his old body.
“Why don’t you come out here young man.”
“…”
“No one would know what happened in this place.”
He was staring right at the tree that I hid behind. And I sighed in my heart.
‘He caught me.’
I should’ve expected it. From the very beginning, it was unreasonable to think that the strongest hunter wouldn’t know that he was being followed by a low-cla.s.s hunter like me.
I could only blame my own incompetence as I walked out from behind the tree.
“Ah. Excuse me. There is something I wanted to ask you Sword Saint-nim.” (TL: Leaving in ‘nim’ just to further emphasize just how polite KGJ is being)
I tried to speak as politely as I could. But for some reason, the Sword Saint laughed.
“Huh. Weren’t you following me this whole time already? I don’t know why you’re getting so scared to ask this old man a question.”
“…”
Huh?
“For some reason. It seemed like the Sword Saint believed I was intentionally pretending to be afraid. In addition, since he’d turned around, the Sword Saint had not let go of the hilt of his sword, even though I hadn’t done anything. It seemed that he was ready to attack at any moment.
‘Uh. Why?’
Of course, this was the best outcome for me, since my purpose was to have him kill me anyway.
‘But I haven’t done anything other than followed him…’
Whether he knew my intentions or not, the Sword Saint seemed as though he was ready to end my life. As if in his eyes, I was already dead and he was just humouring me.
“…Your acting is amazing. Indeed, you must be an amazing a.s.sa.s.sin.”
“…Yes?2”
“You don’t need to pretend you know. Other hunters might fall for it, but you cannot fool my eyes. I know you are an a.s.sa.s.sin sent by the Black Dragon Guild
Uh…
Old man, you’re really misunderstanding something.
‘Should I like this or not?’
Anyway, this way worked too. I didn’t have to talk about his grandchildren for him to kill me. Though I didn’t understand how he mistook an F-cla.s.s hunter like me for an a.s.sa.s.sin. Honestly, I couldn’t understand.
“Uh-huh! You’re really abominable. Come here and act to my face!”
The Sword Saint looked at me with his mouth twisted as if staring at a monster he had to get rid of. It was a very odd expression that I couldn’t understand.
“Didn’t I tell you before? You can’t deceive my eyes.”
“This…Sir. There is something I truly want to ask you…”
Eventually, I just asked what I wanted to know.
“What makes you so convinced that I’m an a.s.sa.s.sin? I don’t do anything that would make you think that.”
“Shut up.”
s.h.i.+ng!
The Sword Saint drew the sword at his side.
“I have many skills. Among them is a skill that tells me how many people a person has killed. Thanks to this, I’ve been able to avoid many crises.”
“…”
What? I still didn’t understand.
‘Ah.’
Then, a few seconds after, I realized.
‘I killed Yoo Soo-ha.’
That’s right.
I murdered Yoo Soo-ha today because I knew he was going to become a monster, but the people in this era didn’t know that. So now I am a murderer.
Unlike the outside world, murders happened pretty frequently inside the tower.
‘But murder was still murder.’
In other words, in the eyes of the Sword Saint, there was probably a number [1] hanging above my head. The number [1] would be a prominent indicator of murder, so it was natural that the Sword Saint was on guard against me.
“Yes, I understand Mr Sword Saint.”
“Hmmm.”
“Even if you’re on guard against me and I have nothing to say to that. You can take it as an excuse but listen. I followed you because of an important reason, I can’t tell you what it is exactly but it is an extremely important reason. I can swear to the heavens.”
It was a heartfelt statement. But the situation became strange instead of getting better. As he listened to my small speech, the Sword Saint’s expression got worse and worse.
“Disgusting.”
“Yes?”
“A devil who has murdered as many people as you have dares to act in such a way. I haven’t lived a clean life, but…I never committed a reckless ma.s.sacre as you have!”
His words made me confused and embarra.s.sed at the same time.
“No. Wait a second. Ma.s.sacre? I’ve only killed one person in my entire life.”
“You really are shameless to say such a blatant lie!”
Chik!
The Sword Saint pointed the tip of his sword toward me and said,
“I can see the number [4091] hanging above your head.”
I was dumbfounded.
“What…the fuc…”
I tried to ask “What the f.u.c.k?” but my words got cut short as I came to the realization of where the number 4091 came from.
‘Ah.’
It was from my one time killing Yoo Soo-ha
And.
‘It’s the number of times I committed suicide.’
4090 times.
The exact amount of times I killed myself.
“Be prepared Devil!”
If so.
“I don’t know if it was that Black Dragon Witch who sent you or someone else, but I will do my best to kill you!”
It meant that in the eyes of that old man, I was nothing but a murderer who slaughtered 4091 human beings. A cold s.h.i.+ver went down my spine.
‘No.’
This was a serious problem.
‘It was no longer just a matter of copying the Sword Saints skills or not.”
That’s right.
‘Anytime in the future…if the Sword Saint sees me, he will try to kill me.’
Because in his eyes, I was an abominable murderer who, like a deadly virus, should not be allowed to survive in this world.
“Wa-, wait!”
I reached out my hand.
“Please wait a minu…”
At that moment.
The Sword Saint’s sword flew toward me at an unstoppable speed.
T/N:
1: NG(written in English characters) meaning ‘not good’ or ‘no good’ is a type of forum shorthand(abbreviation).
2: It can be found sometimes in Asian speech, that they will sometimes use words in place of others. In this case, the mc used ‘yes?’ in the place of ‘what?’ or ‘huh?’