SSS-Class Revival Hunter - Chapter 50

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ SSS-Class Revival Hunter ◈

Chapter 50: After the Ending (1)

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“Crazy bastard!”

The continental forces retreated a bit.

Meanwhile, the Sword Emperor kept laughing, holding his belly.

"From now on, I shall call you Kim Crazy!"

‘Ah, please stop it...’

I sighed inwardly.

‘Do you know how many nicknames you've given me? Kim Zombie, Zombie King, Kim Crazy. At this rate, I could fill an entire A4 paper with just nicknames.’

"Ah, that sounds great. Let’s go! A crazy person with dozens of nicknames, let’s gooooo!!"

The Sword Emperor's laughter filled the sky.

Thankfully, not everyone in this world was just there to tease me.

[You have cleared the Boss Stage.]

The voice of the Tower.

It announced in my head that I had completely conquered the twentieth stage, just as it had when I cleared the tenth stage, the so-called ‘Hellfire Mansion.’

[The conqueror is the King of Death.]

[Alone.]

I slowly looked up.

Between the branches and leaves of the Acacia, the blue sky stretched out.

[Tabulating the clear reward.]

[Tabulation complete.]

[The reward will be given upon entering the 21st floor, 24 hours from now.]

Yeah.

I smirked.

‘What does it matter if I'm called crazy or not? Anyway, I did my job.’

-Oh, look at that confidence?

‘I cleared up to the 20th floor my way.’

I had vowed not to leave anyone to die.

What a preposterous ambition it was, in hindsight.

‘Not a single hunter died while I conquered the 20th floor.’

The Demon King of the Autumn Rain. The fallen Constellation, now reduced to one of my ghouls, had lured the hunters into suspecting and killing one another. That tragedy had been prevented.

I had preemptively blocked the root of the tragedy.

‘And not a single person from the empire or the continent died.’

I fought for the otherworld while time stood still.

‘And…’

I raised my right hand and rested it on someone's head.

‘I’ve also taken care of this one.’

Preta.

The former Demon King, now confined to my shadow, sat on the ground, blankly staring at the continental forces.

The soldiers who would have burnt her small hometown in the original history.

But today, history did not repeat. The moment the paladin knelt, the continental forces withdrew their hostility. Believing my words as the Apostle of the Goddess, they abandoned their mission.

Paradise was preserved.

‘This is just my thought, but.’

I gently stroked Preta's head.

‘This 20th floor… even if I had just stood by, it would have cleared on its own. There was no real need for me to step in.’

"Huh? Why?"

‘Because burning down the village would also have been one of the [endings].’

An ending.

I realized while conquering stages that the Tower doesn't differentiate between happy and bad endings. Any properly concluded ending is accepted, regardless of its nature.

‘Otherwise, Yoo Soo-Ha wouldn’t have cleared up to the 40th floor.’

Whether it's like the Flame Emperor, smashing the dolls in the Hellfire Mansion.

Or like me, just playing with the kids for a while.

Either way, it is recognized as an [ending].

‘So, this isn't a world set by the Tower.’

I turned to look at the village.

‘It’s not an ending chosen out of helplessness.’

A place where wheat ripens under the sky.

A taciturn, stubborn old person sitting idly before their orchard, smoking and turning a blind eye when children pilfered a little fruit.

A refuge for incurable patients.

‘It's the ending I chose.’

Today.

Rain will not fall from the sky.

And fire will not engulf the ground.

"Indeed…"

But why?

While I was basking in pride, the Sword Emperor gave me a peculiar look, like someone gazing at a pitiable child. ‘What is it?’

-It’s just... is this part of the ending you chose?

The Sword Emperor subtly pointed somewhere.

There was Yoo Soo-Ha.

"Fuck! Shit, bastard! Why won't this stop!? Huh!? Stop it right now--- Fuck! Why isn't it stopping!?"

More specifically, Yoo Soo-Ha was still doing the Cossack dance.

At the entrance to a rural village where crops ripened beautifully, beneath a blue sky and among petals fallen to the ground, a handsome man stood alone shouting, ‘Fuck.’

It was a masterpiece that would have drawn tens of millions of views if uploaded to the internet.

‘Huh? What’s wrong with that?’

I tilted my head.

‘Isn’t it incredibly beautiful?’

-You truly are Kim Crazy…

The Sword Emperor murmured.

Then.

[Today.]

[The 20th floor has been cleared.]

A voice echoed between heaven and earth.

This time it wasn’t just for me to hear.

[Announcing once again to everyone.]

[Today, the 20th floor has been cleared.]

An official announcement.

Like when I cleared the tenth stage, the same voice was likely spreading throughout the Tower.

"Ah."

I smacked my lips.

‘What a pity.’

-What is?

‘We don’t have internet here.’

My smartphone was soundly asleep in my backpack. It had been five days in the real world, but hundreds of days in the time I spent here, and I hadn't touched my phone.

The internet only works in the Tower from the 1st to the 10th floor.

‘It must be chaos on the internet now...’

-Eh? I thought you didn't care about people’s reactions anymore?

‘When did I say that?’

-Didn’t you? You said you’d rather get recognition from people like the Witch and Marcus than from ordinary people?

‘Ah.’

I shrugged.

‘More is better, right? To receive recognition from the Witch and the Sword Saint, and also from ordinary people. To look up at the sky without shame.’

-Wow. Are you a pig? So much greed.

‘Humans live by their desires.’

Luckily, I could compensate for my regret of not being able to see the internet.

[The 21st floor will open in 24 hours.]

[24:00:00]

Fwoosh!

Fireworks adorned the sky, just like last time. The first firework burst into a clock of light. Just at that moment, as if waiting for this precise instant, two hunters were teleported here.

"King of Death!"

It was the Witch and the Sword Saint.

The Witch used a teleportation skill and arrived in an instant. Grab! She crooked an arm around my head and pulled me into a headlock, then flashed her characteristic bright smile.

"You're insane! You’re absolutely crazy!"

"Ow. Ouch! Wait a minute, Black Dragon Master. That hurts unexpectedly…"

"Brat! A whippersnapper not even thirty years old!"

I tried to resist, but it was futile. I couldn’t escape her headlock. Oh my. How many elixirs had she consumed to be this strong?

"Really, clearing the 20th floor in just five days! Aren't you crazy!? You're insane!"

"Please, calm down, Black Dragon Master…"

"You have no idea the chaos that’s erupted in the Tower right now! Look!"

The Witch showed me something.

It was a smartphone.

An old model, at least five years old, with a battery barely hanging on. The phone screen, which should have no internet access here, displayed numerous online articles.

"What’s this…?"

"I stopped by the 1st floor to capture these!"

Her voice was genuinely excited.

"There were too many articles to capture them all! Sorry! But you have to understand, King of Death. It's not just the Tower in chaos, but the outside world too. I captured only the top-clicked articles, but look how many there are!"

She swiped through the smartphone screen.

There were headlines.

-[Breaking] Lightning-Fast Conquest! 14th Floor Cleared!

-Rising Star's Alias Decided: King of Death.

-Official announcement by the Black Dragon. The current conquest team is just made of three members.

-Who is the main character? The Sword Saint? The Witch? Or the King of Death?

-[Special Feature] Focused coverage on the King of Death.

ㆍ

There were many.

Too many headlines to read them all.

"The titles say this, but…"

The Witch smiled.

"They’re all about you!"

"Uh…."

"Starting from where you're from, your life story. How you entered the Tower and quickly climbed to the top rankings. Really, that’s all they talk about-"

"Wait a minute."

I was bewildered.

Not by the newspaper articles. This reaction was to be expected. In the past five days, the internet must have been ablaze hundreds or thousands of times.

I’d experienced this before.

What bewildered me was something else.

"You captured all these yourself?"

"Yes!"

She nodded, her face close to mine due to the headlock.

"Of course!"

"To show me?"

"You think there would be any other reason?"

"Um. So…."

I narrowed my eyes.

"You went all the way down to the 1st floor to show me these articles, searched for them one by one, and captured each one… Is that what you’re saying?"

"That's the gist of it!"

I imagined it.

Hunter ranking 2nd place. Leader of the largest guild in the Tower.

Such a high-ranking person hurried to the 1st floor, diligently fiddling with a smartphone, clicking and capturing, then proudly showing off the captured screens upon returning.

"......."

Imagining it, the scenes seemed quite cute. But still, I didn’t understand.

"Why would someone like the Black Dragon Master go through such trouble…?"

"What are you even talking about?"

The Witch laughed brightly.

"Of course, I wanted to do something for you!"

"......."

“Oh, and do not read the comments on those articles later. People consumed by envy have flooded them with accusations that it was staged or fraudulent.”

The Witch sighed softly.

"Why do they always do that? Zero casualties is an incredible feat! King of Death. Don't bother with those nobodies. From now on, the Black Dragon will take care of the media for you."

What? Is she an angel?

-Zombie, you worship anyone as an angel the moment they show you a little kindness... No matter how pitiful your life has been, learn to take human kindness in stride. Why are you so weak against kindness when you are so damn strong against malice?

An angel, or perhaps even a goddess?

-You’re insane….

The Sword Emperor's face contorted.

-You’re finally losing it, aren’t you?

"Then maybe you should praise me more often. Do you know how starved I am for compliments? How precious a little attention is in my dreary life? You wouldn’t understand."

-That’s... not pleasant.... I'd rather achieve nirvana than this.

The Sword Emperor actually went ‘Bleurgh’ and dry-heaved.

What a psychopath. I would bet every cent I owned that that person had not possessed a single friend while alive.

-Hey! What nonsense! I had friends, you know!?

"Excluding the Sword Saint?"

-......

The Sword Emperor looked away. A quiet victory for me.

The reason for this victory remained unknown.

"And look at this!"

Finally, the Witch released the headlock.

What the Witch wanted to show me this time wasn’t a smartphone screen. The Black Dragon Master opened a small backpack and pulled out a thick stack of newspapers.

"Here!"

She unfolded the newspaper widely.

"Yesterday’s front page!"

I couldn’t immediately make out the article’s content.

However, the list printed in big letters caught my eye first.

The list had the title [Hunter Rankings Updated!] on top.

1st place. Sword Saint

2nd place. Black Witch

3rd place. King of Death

4th place. Countess

5th place. Heretic Inquisitor

6th place. Viper