SSS-Class Suicide Hunter

Chapter 387: The Garden of Time (3)

6.

Leaving The Garden of Withered Flowers, Sword Emperor slowly strolled.

Under the gradually setting sunset, in a place where the dead slept as flowers, the Sword Emperor said this:

– Well done.

Instead of retorting back asking what nonsense he's trying to say, I said this.

– Thank you.

Instead of asking why I was so compliant, as if I had eaten something wrong, the Sword Emperor said.

– It's nice that even the soil is dead.

– ....

– On the day I awakened my Qi, I placed a grain of soil on my palm and observed it closely. When I focused my eyes and ears, I found that soil, seemingly quiet, is actually quite noisy. On that tiny grain, inside it, how many things were busily competing.

The Sword Emperor crouched down and caressed the rotten earth with his fingertips.

Though his fingertips merely brushed over the soil, a coincidental breeze scattered the grains of dirt, creating a scene as if the ground was caressed by the Sword Emperor's touch.

– I saw and heard more things that day than any other day before.

– ....

– But the soil here is truly quiet. And that silence is what the flowers here need.

The Sword Emperor straightened his back and looked back at me.

– Even before feeling such true tranquility, Gong-ja, I am truly amazed that you had already created such a place.

I did not banter this time either.

I simply nodded quietly once.

– Thank you.

– Yes.

We walked in silence for a while.

The area we were walking through was known as the [Summer Zone]. In a place where the air flowed lukewarm like breath under a flipped blanket, Estelle was preparing to call the rain with her hands clasped together.

– This too is nice.

– Yes.

I nodded.

Passing by Estelle who began to cry, the Sword Emperor said:

– Gong-ja.

– Yes.

– You remember when I said that if you can't ascend to the 99th floor, old man Marcus might climb it instead?

Of course, I remembered his words.

– Do you remember what I added then?

I certainly remembered.

– It's funny to say instead, isn't it? The old man is not my substitute.

The Sword Emperor nodded.

– Nevertheless, I believe you also know what I meant by that.

Indeed.

– So.

The Sword Emperor asked.

– What do you think I meant by that?

– It was a topic I pondered over several times anyway.

So the answer flowed easily.

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– Simply that you believe in me, so cheer up? Or was it out of consideration that Sword Saint could do better than me, so it's okay to rest if it's hard?

– It was neither, right?

I walked alongside the Sword Emperor and looked at him.

My steps had become as natural as the words flowing from my mouth.

– Because I also remember what you added next.

[ Frankly speaking, it's okay even if you fail. ]

[ .... ]

[ Belief means thinking that the other person will give their best. And the best isn't something decided by others but can only be determined by oneself. So, a relationship based on trust means that each decides their best and accepts the other's decisions. That's all there is to it. Nothing more.]

– The important thing here is not that it's okay to fail.

– It's the part where right after saying you believe in me, you explained to me what [belief] means.

Therefore.

I was able to respond like this.

– [Either way, it doesn't matter.] …That's what you meant.

– Whether I overcome this ordeal. Whether I fail and become a prisoner of the eternal desert. Whether Sword Saint carries my will and climbs to the 99th floor. Or even if he also encounters an unexpected accident and becomes a visitor of no return. Really, either way, it doesn't matter because that's what you meant.

The Sword Emperor did not stop his steps. Just like in the World of True Heaven, his pace only quickened.

Unlike before, when I had to grit my teeth and run to catch up with him, I was able to continue speaking by his side.

– And it's not because you don't trust me. Nor is it because you don't trust the Sword Saint.

I continued speaking.

– You trust me.

And just as much, you trust an old man who abandoned everything he had achieved to enter the tower.

– You trust the Sword Saint.

And just as much, you trust a jobless man who fled to the tower at a young age and lives silently alone in an alley on the first floor.

– You trust the Grey Spider.

Again, just as much, you would trust the resistance that was trampled by the Magic Tower.

– You trust the Assistant Writer.

And once more, surprisingly, even a minor villain who harassed the resistance of the Magic Tower and complained about the Magic Tower while filling his lust for power, you would trust someone like Charumu.

– You often say you are great. Sometimes you boast so much that I feel like hitting you. But your boastfulness differs from the Flame Emperor.

It didn't simply mean that the Sword Emperor was truly great and the Flame Emperor was not.

Even the Flame Emperor before his regression was undoubtedly a capable person. Whether it was the Sword Emperor, Flame Emperor, or even myself, the aspect of claiming one can do and then doing it was not different.

But there was a crucial difference.

– The Flame Emperor thought [he alone was special].

– Only I can do it. I am special by myself. Only he can do it, and so others, even if they were to be reborn, couldn't do it like him… That was the driving force that made the Flame Emperor who he was.

I looked at the Sword Emperor.

– But you, Sword Emperor~nim, on the other hand, believe [you are also special].

In other words.

– You too can do it. You could be special. There's no reason others can't do what you were able to do.

Therefore.

– You might say, [you believe in every person in this world].

That's why you said that then.

– If not me, then the Sword Saint. If even the Sword Saint fails, then Anastasia or the Grey Spider, if they find it impossible, then someone unknown among all people, anyway, someone will eventually reach the 99th floor.

– Anyone has the potential.

Some time had passed since the Sword Emperor and I walked past Estelle. During that time, we strolled through this garden at a brisk pace.

Over fields. Over mountains.

Above seas.

– Only the capable will succeed, the incapable will not, and people never change… are things you say when you live shortly and can't look far ahead.

And thus far away. A land where red rain fell, lay before us.

– If it makes no sense to say, [That person could do it, but you cannot], obviously the opposite, [I could do it, but others cannot], doesn't make sense either.

Yes. Before we knew it, we had made a complete round of this world.

– That's a fair attitude.

Raindrops pierced through us, hitting the ground.

– In reality, isn't that true for you?

I gazed at that redness, the requiem for nameless deaths.

Now that I could truly [see] in the genuine sense, in that landscape that came in so vividly, the rain felt like it was slowly rising up from below rather than pouring down from above.

– Gong-ja, you sometimes recall those days spent in that tiny room. And then you say.

[ How did I get here? ]

– Others too, if they had seen you during your time clipping newspaper scraps about Yoo Soo-ha, would have clicked their tongues and said.

[ How can there be such an idiot? ]

[ That guy won't succeed at anything. ]

[ You shouldn't become like that. ]

– However.

It felt not like walking in the rain but stepping into water.

The Sword Emperor did not stop walking. As if the positions of air and water had switched, red bubbles infinitely burst around us, bubbling, bubbling.

– And yet, here you are now.

Thump.

My heart throbbed.

– People change. Given even a small catalyst, they transform. Isn't that what you've been proving every time you turned back a day?

Just like when I was young and received praise from the director for the first time.

– Was that all? Even the Grey Spider, who had lived unchanged for a thousand years, changed.

– ....

– Because of you? Of course. But was it something only you could do?

Certainly, it wasn't a remark that could be taken as pure praise.

If interpreted maliciously, it could very well be so. It could be seen as nagging, typical of old-timers asking why you can't be like them, or paradoxically as a declaration that only oneself is special.

But I knew that the Sword Emperor did not intend it that way.

– Perhaps that's why, the first skill I received when I entered the tower was this.

When there's no malice, when no hidden motives permeate, when words purely function as words, the Sword Emperor's statement bore exactly the literal meaning.

– Skill Card Open.

The Sword Emperor raised his hand. From the tattered hem of his robe, a skill card slipped out.

On that skill card, it was written:

+

[You Can Become Just Like Me]

Rank: F

Effect: You can see all the skills your opponent possesses.

※ However, opponents who have been defeated by you can copy one of your skills to make it their own. Opponents who have already lost to you once are excluded from this skill effect. Additionally, which skill gets copied is determined randomly.

+

As if possessed, I raised one hand.

– Skill Card Open.

I took out and looked at the first skill I had.

+

[I Want To Become Just Like You]

Rank: S+

Effect: Automatically activates when killed by an enemy. You copy one skill from the enemy that killed you, making it your own. You cannot copy from the same opponent more than once. Which skill gets copied is determined randomly.

※ However, you die!

+

The two cards touched.

An F-rank skill and an S+ rank skill. The two skills mirrored each other like facing mirrors.

Between the two skills, in a world of similarities, there were the Sword Emperor and I… we were facing each other.

I said.

– Sword Emperor.

– Yes.

– What is your sanctuary like?

I said, standing in my sanctuary.

– Even Constellation Killer had a sanctuary. And since you are now on the 99th floor, you must have created a sanctuary too. I…

I.

– I am curious about what your sanctuary is like.

– Hmm.

The Sword Emperor raised his hand.

His robe fluttered, rippled. And then.

– Ah.

A world unfolded before us.

■.

In a forest with faint sunlight, the morning glory stretched its neck even longer

To half the size, bending their heads halfway, again to half the size, the crown of the morning glory flower shrunk and shrunk as much as morning turned to midday, midday to evening, the sun dying in the sunset

As the sun grew tired,

In a rain-sparse wilderness at night, sunflowers spread their petals wider and ah…

Ah

In that season of sparse rain and thin sunlight, those who could not blossom and perished, the flowers of people and the people of flowers, along with the ten million flowers that they tried to embrace, the ten million flowers that they could embrace, the ten million flowers that they were meant to embrace

Morning glory flowers, spinning top flowers, frost flowers, peony flowers, rose flowers, globe amaranth flowers

The world

A man seated in lotus position was there.

'....'

It was a man dressed in tattered robes.

Seated in the lotus position, with a sword as tall as himself planted into a flowerbed blooming with hundreds of millions of flowers beside him, there sat a man. I knew that man well—very well. I had seen him. Watched him.

Countless times, yet,

this was the first time I saw that man, who was not translucent, in this way.

Sword Emperor.

The reason I couldn't say that, might be because I am not actually here right now.

Nevertheless, I saw him. I could see him.

I could only know that he was showing this because he wanted to.

The man—the Sword Emperor, with his eyes closed, without opening his eyes, simply quietly opened his lips.

And, 'spoke'.

"Come. Kim Gong-ja."

That was the first time I heard his voice.

"Here."

On the 99th floor.

"I will be waiting for you."

He was waiting for me.