WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ SSS-Class Revival Hunter ◈

Chapter 138: Surviving (3)

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-I thought you might contact me someday. You seem to be doing well.

"I'm sorry for contacting you only now. I should have done it sooner..."

-It's a busy age, everyone's immersed in their own lives at your age.

A small cough came through the phone. Cough. The director cleared his throat.

-Sometimes, strangers come asking if you're from our orphanage. At first, I thought you had committed some serious crime. But after one of your peers showed me a video, I understood it was a misunderstanding. By the way, they call you the 'King of Death,' right? What a naming sense.

"It's not an alias I chose myself. In the tower…"

-Right. Hearing your voice after such a long time is somewhat reassuring.

"......."

-Gong-Ja?

"......."

-Is something the matter?

I tightly grasped the phone.

Suppressing the emotions rising in my chest.

"I have something to ask you, director."

-Tell me. No, wait a moment. How serious is this matter? Tell me that first.

"It's very serious. Probably the most serious thing I've ever discussed with you..."

-Then give me 2, no, 3 minutes. I'm currently lying on the sofa. I need to get up, grab some coffee, and listen to you properly. Don't hang up; just wait 3 minutes.

"Okay."

When I think about it.

How arduous must that life have been?

I imagined the evils one must face to become a righteous person in this world. If we gathered all the righteous people living in this world, we could probably exhibit all the evils.

"How is the orphanage doing these days? Are you well?"

-Trying to change the subject? Must be a serious matter indeed. I'm fine. We have more teachers now than when you were here. I'm technically the director, but I don’t do much. Donations have increased... Oh, and the food has gotten a bit tastier.

"That's good to hear."

-Yeah. I'm now sitting in my office. Go ahead and start.

I took a deep breath.

"Director. Did you happen to graduate from a place called Shinseo Middle and High School?"

-......

Silence fell.

Tension hung in the air. I heard liquid ripple as the director took a sip of coffee. He swallowed the black liquid.

-Yes. I graduated from Shinseo High. It's still quite a prestigious school even now.

"By any chance..."

I hoped it wasn't true.

"When you were in the second year of high school, were you the class president?"

I wished the trauma had fabricated a phantom. That the past scenes I thought I had witnessed were all false, and the director was just a purely kind person who had an untroubled school life.

I hoped.

Silence lingered for a while.

-Yes.

The director's voice flowed.

-I was the class president. It's been over several decades.

"......."

-.......

Both the director and I fell silent. My heart throbbed at what I was about to say. An unsettling air. The director seemed to sense the same foreboding and kept his lips closed.

"Director."

-Yes, Gong-Ja.

"When you were the second-year class president. Was there someone… On the school rooftop?"

-......

"Did such a person exist?"

Breathing stopped.

-Yes.

The director spoke.

-There was.

The nightmare was confirmed as reality.

-Although I never really talked to him. Yes. There was.

The school corridors I had walked, the chain on the rooftop's iron door that ■■ had looked down at, the wasteland-like schoolyard, and the shack floating amid the plastic dump like a white island were all true, without a single speck of falsehood.

Only.

『Please don't die. I beg you. Let's live in a different world together.』

Only the ending was false.

『Yes, class president. Let's survive together in this world.』

The parts that should have been the most false were true.

What should have been the most true was just a dream.

That was the story of ■■ and the director.

"Director..."

I barely spoke.

"Do you remember that person's name?"

No one in this world knew his name. He was a wanderer from the wilderness. The people of the empire reverently bestowed upon him the name Leafanta. He was the one who killed constellations. The people of the tower called him the Constellation Killer.

He was a person abandoned by the outside world. No one tried to remember him. Thus, now, only one person testified his name.

-Kim Yul.

One person called another by name.

-That child's name was Kim Yul, Gong-Ja.

"......"

I closed my eyes.

I recalled the conversation I had with the Paladin in the school corridor.

『The student sitting in the back row, near the window, remember?』

『Of course, a classmate. I think the name was,』

The noise clears.

『Kim Yul.』

There was a person with such a name.

『I'm not sorry, Kim Yul.』

A child who was hidden by the white curtains when the wind blew in through the classroom window.

A child who quietly pulled out an old notebook and looked into it before class started.

A child who pulled at the iron chains of a door that would never open.

『I'm sorry, Kim Yul. I'm sorry.』

Decades ago.

Before I was even born.

『I'm sorry.』

Such a child existed in this world.

-Gong-Ja?

And there was a person who lived for decades.

-Are you crying now? No. No. Um. Anyway, how did you hear about Kim Yul? There shouldn't be anyone who knows him.

He was smart enough to attend school on a scholarship and diligent enough to remain first in his class at a prestigious school. He studied while sleeping only four or five hours a day, steadily drawing the future he dreamed of.

What dreams did that person have upon entering high school?

What future had he dreamed of?

-I don't know how you came to know that child. Really.

But that person saw it.

He witnessed humanity.

He witnessed beasts.

He saw death.

『No one cares about you. No one, no one, no one...』

At that moment, one person's time stopped.

The freedom of choice that everyone deserves vanished.

The rest of the director's life became merely about proving something.

[That there was a child named Kim Yul at that place and time.]

"Director, he's here."

-What do you mean?

"Kim Yul. Your classmate. That child."

-I don't understand what you're saying...

"He lived in the junkyard at the foot of the mountain, Kim Yul."

-.......

"In the last row of the classroom, by the window. That's where he sat."

-.......

I spoke.

"The collar of Kim Yul's white uniform shirt was grimy. And remember that bastard who was dating the student council president? The one whose older brother was a singer. He forced a phone Kim Yul had never owned onto him, and the entire class used text messages to torment him."

-.......

"Do you remember the animal enclosure behind the school? The rabbits and chickens? The animal-care club was supposed to look after them, but after a foreign woman threw herself off the building with her infant, no one tended them anymore. So Kim Yul took care of them."

-How...

The director's voice trembled.

-Gong-Ja, how did you...

"You tried to stop it, Director. You had been trying since your first year. But when you investigated, you discovered that the main culprit's parents were on the school board, so you backed down, didn't you? The presiding elder of the church you attended was there too. Seryun Church. You told the homeroom teacher, but the scholarship kept you from pressing any further."

-How...

"He is here, director."

I bowed my head, still holding the phone.

"He is here."

-......

A long silence ensued.

-Give me four days.

The director spoke.

-No, a week. Please wait a week.

The student whose time had stopped decades ago, now with a voice slightly older and more tired, said.

-I will come there.

4.

A week passed in the blink of an eye.

During that week, the director settled his worldly affairs. Anyone could enter the Tower, but possessions from the outside world could not be brought inside. The director abandoned everything he had built, owned, and protected over the course of decades.

"I was planning to retire anyway."

When I saw the director again after so long, he looked older than before.

"I had already arranged a successor. There were a few tasks I was handling in the region, but... Once you enter the tower, even government officials can't do much. They'll have to manage without me now."

"Welcome, director."

"I’m no longer a director, but call me whatever you like."

The director gave a bitter smile.

Without an alias, the director couldn't yet access the Great Library. However, I had a talk with the [Holed-Up Head Librarian], who allowed me to bring the director in.

"Seeing it in person, I can tell how successful you've become. Everywhere I went, it was all about Gong-Ja. When I entered the tower, dozens of people rushed to guide me..."

"Um, I have made quite a name for myself in the tower. I'm the 2nd ranked hunter, director."

"You were dead last in schoolwork among your peers..."

The director looked at me as if seeing me anew.

『Princess Pyeonggang is reforming Fool Ondal.』

That gaze was exactly like the one I had seen in the trauma. While emotions I could not understand swept through me, my companions enthusiastically welcomed the director.

"Aha! So you're the one who raised the King of Death! I'm the Heretic Inquisitor. I look forward to getting to know you!"

"I'm the Black Dragon Master. The King of Death has always done a great deal for me. He is also our guild's vice guild master. If anything inconveniences you while you live in the Tower, please tell me at any time."

"I am the Paladin responsible for public safety in Babylon on the first floor. I heard that you ran an orphanage outside. This may be difficult to raise at our first meeting, but the Tower is always in need of experienced professionals. I will come to speak with you formally later."

"Thank you, everyone, for such a warm welcome."

The director responded to the hunters as though accustomed to such attention. Once the procession of well-wishers had passed and only the two of us remained, the director spoke.

"One of your peers became the youngest member of the National Assembly, so I'm used to this sort of thing. Back then, dozens of people came every week to offer congratulations and introduce themselves."

"What?! Who?!"

"Kim Hanbija. Do you remember? They are now a proportional-representation assembly member. You probably didn't recognize the name because they changed it."

I was stunned. I had not heard that news even before regressing four thousand days. I had lived with no interest whatsoever in my hometown.

"No way... That's impossible. That kid was an idiot... What did they change their name to?"

"Kim Hanbi."

"They just removed the ja from the end! Aren't they still an idiot?"

"Now that you're an adult, I can tell you this, Gong-Ja. You were an idiot too. An incredible, monumental idiot."

"Huh? I was at least fairly smart, wasn't I?"

"Until I raised all of you, I never understood why people had trouble with mathematics. King of Death, be thankful that Tower rankings aren't determined by test scores."

The Sword Emperor chuckled from behind.

-Today's going to be full of Gong-Ja's embarrassing stories. Good, good! Keep talking!

The director and I engaged in pleasant conversation.

I had spoken to the Librarian beforehand to prevent our conversation from being broadcast beyond this place. The Librarian agreed to my request. Not only that, the Bookmark Maids served us tea and snacks.

"I saw it in videos, but this truly is a strange world..."

The director eyed a Bookmark Maid suspiciously.

"So."

The director's gaze swept across the vast Great Library and finally settled on my face.

"Where is that child?"

I told the director everything. About my abilities, the trauma, the person known as [Leafanta Aegim], and [Constellation Killer].

"......"

The director listened to my story expressionlessly. However, expressionless doesn't mean emotionless. For over an hour, the director sat without taking a sip of his tea, quietly listening.

"It's hard to believe any of it."

"Yes."

"But the fact that you know Kim Yul... that's impossible."

The director's expression was hard to read, as always.

But now, after experiencing the trauma, I could understand.

The director was afraid.

"Kim Yul wasn't included in the graduation album. He couldn't be included. But I kept thinking about how the album contained no trace of Kim Yul anywhere... Think about it, Gong-Ja. Couldn't they at least have left an empty space for Kim Yul?"

"......"

"Why did the album photos look so bright? Those people... that person... how could he smile? I couldn’t understand it for a long time. He’s probably still living well now."

The director stared at the surface of the tea with a detached expression.

He quietly drank the tea, which had gone cold long ago, and looked directly at me.

"It's alright."

"......"

"Let's call forth that child's trace."

I nodded.

"Ghoul Reincarnation."

Shadows spread.

The shade writhed, coming alive. Black, puddle-like water rippled and then formed the shape of a person. The ripples turned into silvery hair, and the puddle dressed itself in neat attire.

"......Hmm."

Leafanta Aegim.

Constellation Killer looked around.

"An unexpected situation."

The silver-haired man muttered gruffly.

"Kidnapped? I have been forced to awaken as a puppet. I cannot use force... Either the puppet's system has been modified, or a very powerful psychic magic has been applied."

This man lost his black hair. Lost his name. Lost his memories. [Kim Yul] was merely the starting point of his existence, so the man in front of me was completely different from [Kim Yul]. He was Leafanta Aegim. The Constellation Killer.

Therefore, no one had the right to call him [Kim Yul].

"......Kim Yul."

Except for the one witness to his starting point.

Constellation Killer looked at the director.

The director slowly knelt on the library floor.

"I am one of the people who killed Kim Yul."

"......"

"I have wanted to say this for a long time. I am truly..."

The director bowed his head.

"Sorry."

The Constellation Killer's face hardened.

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