Chapter 171
Chapter 171: Who Are You? (3)
“These wretched creatures……”
The Saintess felt an intense fatigue. From the moment she'd arrived on the 25th floor, she hadn't rested even once, continuing the battle without pause. Quite some time had passed, yet there was still no sign of it ending.
And on top of that, I have to conserve my strength—.
The Saintess closed her eyes. Then a number surfaced in her mind.
[236,629]
She had no idea why, but the number of punishments affected by the restriction had stopped increasing. No, rather, it had begun to decrease.
Why on earth—?
The Saintess had clearly authorized the Holy Capital's defense system, the Sun of Punishment.
That power was akin to the Holy Kingdom's ultimate weapon—burning down the Holy Capital while annihilating the enemy together with it. When an enemy died, their forces would shrink. But the citizens of the Holy Kingdom who died would become the Saintess's power. That was how it was supposed to work…….
The Sun of Punishment has risen.
The death of a human marked with the restriction converts directly into the Saintess's power. That power referred to the source of the Saintess's being—the one that restored her divine power and regenerated her body. And yet, the deaths of those marked with the restriction weren't occurring.
Could the Empire have done something?
In other words, there had been no change whatsoever in the source of the Saintess's power. Simply consuming it without replenishing wasn't going to produce an answer. The Saintess's mind grew complicated.
Crack—! In the midst of it all, a fierce attack rained down on the Saintess. Swarms of insects carrying curses of instant death and the powerful shockwaves unleashed by the giant Rudrick swept across the ground.
“Whew—. The two remaining ones are the real problem.”
While she had spent hundreds of thousands of instances recovering her strength, three of the five Floor Masters had died. But the remaining two were genuine articles among genuine articles.
The 60th Floor Master and the 63rd Floor Master, was it?
The god of giants, Rudrick. The insect that summons death, Deathwing. These two were exceptionally powerful.
“To think they're stronger than something from a higher floor—.”
At the Saintess's offhand remark, Nishida Ryo shouted quickly.
“I-it's because they hold symbolic significance!!!”
Nishida Ryo may not have known the strategy to clear them, but he was well-versed in the lore.
He rattled off an eloquent stream of words.
“It's part of Continental Online's lore—unlike the shoddy Floor Masters who just get the word bug tacked onto their names, the ones with unique names all have their own distinct traits!”
The 30th Floor Master, Rudrick's Knight. The 27th Floor Master, Rudrick's Giant Soldier. And the master of the 60th floor, Rudrick himself. He went on explaining the connections between them in this manner.
“Deathwing is connected to beings beyond the 66th floor and above.”
The Saintess let Nishida Ryo's words pass right through her. No matter how many times she killed him, he'd come back to life and spout similar nonsense—since whatever she did, it just came right back, she decided to simply leave it be.
The Holy Son's followers are truly relentless as well.
They died, and yet they came back to life. And on top of that, they had absolutely no tact. Yet even so, every single time they came back to life, they kept spouting the same words.
Those yellow ones in particular are the real problem.
The Saintess's gaze turned toward the distant ruins. Yellow Possessor Park Chang-ho was rummaging through the corpse of a Floor Master, between the shells of a massive insect. And his goal was—.
“I'm the one who killed that Floor Master, so why does he covet it?”
The Saintess shot a pillar of fire toward Park Chang-ho. With a pop, Park Chang-ho turned into ash. A moment later, the resurrected Park Chang-ho charged straight back at the pile of the Floor Master's corpse.
“Y-you! You lunatics!!!”
The Saintess clutched the back of her neck. She was truly on the verge of a genuine breakdown. It was then that Nishida Ryo spoke up from behind her.
“Isn't it thanks to us telling you the strategy that you managed to kill it? According to our God……. He said that since we're the ones cleaning up the disasters the Saintess creates, we should take all the rewards for ourselves.” Ahh—.
The Saintess set Nishida on fire. And then Nishida came back once again.
Beings who have transcended death…….
It wasn't just once or twice. No matter how many dozens or hundreds of times she killed them, they behaved exactly the same way every time. It was as if they accepted the words of the Holy Son Erik as divine revelation, moving like immortal fanatics devoted to carrying it out.
“What relentless bastards.”
The Saintess resigned herself, halfway giving up. And so, she turned to look at the short-haired beauty standing beside Nishida.
“So, you said you know the strategy—then why can't you do anything about those two?”
Kang Pung-ho had been watching comfortably thanks to Nishida. But suddenly, sparks were flying her way, weren't they?
Hmph!
She puffed out her cheeks. Then she launched into an explanation for the Saintess.
“They're originally tricky ones to begin with, but with the two of them together, it's not easy at all to find a way to counter them.” “Then……. Are you saying it's impossible to get rid of those two?” “Th-that's… right?”
The Saintess set Kang Pung-ho on fire.
Kyaaht!
Oh Lu-Solace. The Saintess squeezed her eyes shut. She felt like she was going to go mad.
“What is the Holy Son busy with, leaving me to deal with the demons that have descended upon me!!!”
The Saintess cried out in lament. Then the revived Kang Pung-ho returned behind the Saintess. And then she offered a solution.
“W-well, the best option is to buy time until God returns!”
That short-haired woman was no pushover either. No matter how many times she was killed, she kept coming back only to tell her to stall for time until Erik arrived—.
Is she hiding the strategy?
It clearly looked like she was stalling for time, and there was an unmistakable sense that she was deliberately trying to drain the Saintess's strength. But the Saintess had no time left to spare.
“……Is there any guarantee that he'll come back?”
“Of course! There's no way he'd abandon us here……. Ahem. That would never happen!”
The Saintess of Lu-Solace steeled her resolve once more. There was no answer.
“Let me ask you just one thing. What is the basis for your faith, that lofty belief of yours?”
At her question, Kang Pung-ho tilted her head. The short-haired woman's hair swayed.
And she said, “I suppose you could call it having had enough experience that we no longer fear death?”
Her eyes carried a certain chilling glint, and her tone was tinged with something eerie.
***
Clack, clack.
A vest and tie peeking out beneath a three-button jacket. A man in a suit pressed to a suffocatingly sharp fit walked across the pure white floor, the sound of his shoe heels echoing.
The man swept back his neatly slicked pomade hair and turned his head. His gaze turned to Erik.
“Park Ji-hun, do you really think it makes sense that you wouldn't recognize me?”
Erik's very first question had been, “Who are you?”—.
“I am you.”
Erik's split form, appearing in the shape of Park Ji-hun, answered with a sardonic smile. At that, Erik told him to cut the bullshit and drew out the Sword of Creation.
“I am me. You were merely the me of the past.”
Erik smiled brightly as he thrust his sword forward. It was a smile of relief at facing Park Ji-hun of Earth—his past self with pitifully weak power—as an enemy, and being glad of it.
Whoosh—.Clang!
But Erik's sword strike was blocked by Park Ji-hun's immaculate three-piece suit.
“You called me your past self? That too is you, and thus it is me.”
So, he said, your sword will never be able to pierce through this sharply tailored suit.
Park Ji-hun offered such a strange remark.
“This suffocating suit. It was the first suit my father ever had made for me. And it was from Kingsman, that historic bespoke tailor in England, no less.”
Park Ji-hun looked at Erik, his mouth twisting into a smile. The shape of it resembled Erik's own, but it carried a thicker, darker quality.
“Even after you'd gone mad for Continental Online, didn't you still cling to this suffocating suit?”
At those words, Erik's face creased.
“Clothes are just clothes. I clearly threw away the ghost of my past. Don't try to seduce me with nonsense.” “Right, you threw it away. But when did you throw it away?”
Erik found himself at a loss for words. Park Ji-hun continued the conversation on his own.
“Right, ever since you met her—Gilma noona—you have changed.”
Weren't the two of you incredibly close back on Earth?
“Have you forgotten a noona like that? Does taking in two new women mean it's fine to forget the past? No wait, that crazy tree is a woman too, so that makes three.”
Park Ji-hun burst into a hearty laugh.
“Just like our father! Trying to take in three wives.”
Erik thought Park Ji-hun's words had a point.
That bastard is clearly an illusion, but it pisses me off even more that he's only spouting things that are right.
Thinking about it, he wasn't wrong. Why have I been neglecting Gilma noona like this? It wasn't as if he'd truly neglected her, but it wasn't as if he lacked the capacity to look after her more, either No, wait.
Did I just get swayed?
Erik suddenly felt that he'd been drawn into the split form's scheming.
Thinking about it, everything that the bastard says is nonsense.
Who was Gilma noona, anyway? She was every bit as capable as he was. The reason Erik hadn't paid her more attention was simple.
Noona is someone who builds up her own power base in the Allied Nations on her own and lends me support.
Gilma noona was never someone who needed Erik's help.
That crafty bastard. Trying to mess with my head?
Having reached this thought, Erik swung the Sword of Creation once more.
“Your way of speaking mimics mine strangely well, but you and I are fundamentally different at the core.”
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A triple strike of sword strikes struck Park Ji-hun's body in an instant. But Park Ji-hun remained unscathed.
“You can deny it all you want, but I am still you.”
Then Park Ji-hun pulled out a long ticket and waved it toward Erik.
[Possessor Appearance Change Ticket]
“Use this, and the Possessors return to their forms from Earth.”
Park Ji-hun began slowly approaching Erik as he spoke.
“It felt good using this to toy with the Possessors, didn't it? But, do you actually have the courage to use it on yourself?”
Park Ji-hun waved the ticket right in front of Erik's eyes.
And then he asked.
“If you tore this up, would the you that remained look like me, Park Ji-hun? Or would you still be Erik?”
A being similar to the Labyrinth's walls.
Lately, he felt like he kept running into things that couldn't be destroyed. Not only this Trial Corridor, but this unidentified being wearing the appearance of Park Ji-hun also seemed unfazed by any attack.
“So, what would you become if you tore it up?”
Park Ji-hun was still holding out the ticket, pressing Erik. He wasn't wielding a sword or unleashing power. He simply kept holding out the [Possessor Appearance Change Ticket] and stepping closer to Erik, over and over.
“I am me.”
In the end, Erik stopped attacking too. Erik glared straight at Park Ji-hun, reciting his own identity.
“And yet you still can't use it, can you?”
Park Ji-hun mocked Erik for that. But as if he'd been waiting for this very moment, Erik twisted his mouth into a smile and snatched the ticket from Park Ji-hun.
“You do resemble me somewhat.”
Having taken the ticket, Erik looked down at Park Ji-hun. Park Ji-hun was an East Asian man standing 190cm tall, with the looks of a top actor and a chiseled physique. But standing before the towering, over two-meter-tall, mythically handsome and radiant Paladin, he looked like nothing more than an ordinary human.
“Resembling me is one thing, but you can never become me.”
Without a moment's hesitation, Erik tore the [Possessor Appearance Change Ticket] to pieces.
At that, Park Ji-hun's eyes went wide.
“Y-you're really tearing it up?”
A blue holographic light rose over Erik's massive body. It looked as though it were performing 3D modeling. Enveloped in that light, Erik continued speaking.
“You imitated me fairly well, but you don't understand me at all.”
Erik had always been a man who never backed down. And “The very fact that you don't use your power was already proof that you aren't me.”
The being who had appeared in the form of Park Ji-hun. He had chosen to face Erik with his tongue instead of drawing a sword.
A powerhouse of this world fighting with words?
As far as Erik was concerned, that wasn't the kind of thinking a powerhouse would have. At the very least, a true powerhouse should follow the laws of this world—the logic of strength—and confront the opponent through force.
“So, who are you?”
The question came flying through the hologram enveloping Erik's entire body. Park Ji-hun standing before him showed clear signs of bewilderment.
I never imagined he'd actually tear it up.
The Nameless One, a being with no name living deep within the Labyrinth. He had defied the laws of the Labyrinth in order to meet the newly emerged divinity in this world. As a result, he had encountered Erik.
Is that truly the judgment of a human being?
Having met him this way, Erik had delivered an immense shock to the Nameless One.
“If you returned to being Park Ji-hun from your current form, what would everyone who knows you think?”
The Nameless One thought Erik was being foolish.
“Everyone in this land who reveres you remembers the massive, radiant Paladin Erik—they don't know the East Asian man Park Ji-hun.”
Shedding all the reputation and following he'd built and becoming his form from Earth wasn't an ordinary choice to make.
Hahahaha!!!
At the Nameless One's question, Erik suddenly burst into laughter.
“You're a coward. Even I, back in my Park Ji-hun days, wasn't as much of a coward as you.”
Then, he continued speaking casually. It was a voice that sounded almost relieved.
“I'm truly glad you're not really the me from my Park Ji-hun days.” “Even so, that still doesn't answer my question.”
Park Ji-hun's form—the Nameless One—narrowed his eyes. In contrast, Erik smiled brightly and offered a proper answer.
“In this world, unlike on Earth, I'm blessed with people around me.”
A mother steeped in extravagance and pleasure who never looked after herself, and a father who thought everything could be solved with money. Park Ji-hun, who had grown up in a battlefield between a legal wife and a mistress.
“Ruelle and Riferoze, of course, as well as Jang Du-sik and Jackson, and even the orphanage children—.”
Erik in this world was different. Everyone cared for him, and he cared for them in turn.
And so—.
“Even that crazy World Tree feels the same way. They're not the kind of people who'd abandon me just because my appearance changed.”
That was a matter of essence. That very essence was something he had so desperately craved back in his Park Ji-hun days. But once he'd become Erik, all of that had become meaningless.
“Why is that?”
“Because I have everything.”
The light enveloping Erik's body faded away. And then, Erik's mouth was revealed. Drawing a bright, radiant curve, Erik said.
“It's just my height getting a bit shorter, my ethnicity changing, and my hair color shifting—what is there to fear in that?”