The pool of light surrounding me slowly disappeared. A somewhat odd sound rang in my ears, but what I could see was nothing short of divine. Starting with my head, neck, shoulders, and then arms, the pool of light soon revealed my legs and feet, spreading in all directions like silk. That light is probably caused by some kind of Skill. Whose story did that Skill tell? I felt a little overwhelmed as I silently watched the silky light vanish. “You withdrew from the floor?! That’s ridiculous!” My peace was disturbed when the face of a familiar princess popped out from the floor. She struggled to climb up from the hole she popped out of. Was she a ghost? Did she finally get a job in a comedy film because of the recession in the horror film industry? What a pity. “What were you thinking? Why would you give up?” The Mirage-Walking Princess was a Pillar supporting the Tower and the daughter of the Tower master. Aside from her mother, she probably had the most power in the Tower. Now, she was releasing her stress by swinging around the pillow she usually carried around. “You’re planning something, right? Deathy, you’re pretending to withdraw from the floor to carry out your secret masterplan, right? Your sis believes in you. Now, spill!” I said, “I really gave up.” The princess went ballistic. “Whyyyyyyyyyyy? Why would you do that after all you did to raise your children!!! They’re so close to conquering the continent, so why would you give up—” “The kids say they don’t want me.” I sat on a white chair. This space where white stretched all the way to the horizon was surprisingly convenient. I thought that I would like to sit down, and a chair showed up right away. After I sat down, tea, teacups, and a table appeared as if they had been waiting for me. I picked up the black tea and smelled it. It was a truly high-quality peach black tea. It tasted as if Libton Icetea the First had received knighthood and his family had devoted three generations to the kingdom. Perhaps after Libton Icetea the Third led the kingdom to victory in an important battle, he finally became a noble. I lowered my head to taste the liquid in the teacup. “I wish I could compliment this delightful tea properly, but I can only compare it to this tea brand commonly found in supermarkets.” “Don’t sigh, Princess. I’m the one who wants to sigh.” Perhaps my commoner-like behavior helped the princess regain her elegance as a noble. She sat down across from me, pressing her fingers into her forehead. Judging from her simple shrug, it seemed she was going to postpone rebuking me for a while. “Well, won’t it take time? When I first ate pizza when I was young, I was as impressed as three pork cutlets, but after I got older and started eating seasoned fried chicken, I was as shocked as five pizzas.” “There are pork cutlets, pizza, and seasoned chicken in your world too?” “Yes, so my standard of tasty food is seasoned chicken. Compared to when I was young, I have a truly luxurious taste.” As expected from a noble from the kingdom... Hmm, or should I say a Pillar of the Tower? Someone like the princess probably lived a luxurious life, so she wouldn’t be able to imagine a life like mine, where I had to search which tteokbokki shop handed out the most amount of rice cakes. The princess hugged her pillows and said, “But the most delicious thing was the soybean paste stew that Mom made herself.” “There’s soybean paste stew in your world too?” “Yes, it tastes special. No number of seasoned chickens is enough to express it. It’s a nostalgic taste, so I still often ask her to make me some.” “I understand. My orphanage director often fried eggs for me, and I mixed them with rice, sesame oil, and soy sauce. In fact, I asked him to cook this for me several times in the Tower before I got on the thirty-first floor.” If my clan members were present, Estelle would have asked, “Why would someone like the Tower master make soybean paste stew?” Sylvia would question if the princess was actually part of the nobility, while Kim Yul would reproach me and say, “Cook your own egg rice, Patriarch. Your hands are perfectly functional. Stop giving my friend more work.” However, they weren’t here. Only the princess and I were present. [Shiny shows her agreement with the Sword Emperor in silence.] As always, they were present, but I wasn’t going to worry about them much. Anyway, that was when the princess and I reached a dramatic agreement despite our different social classes. For a moment, I felt slightly dizzy. The Demigod Eyes, which had first activated when dealing with the Viper, activated again without any warning. Before I could resist, I was sucked into a daydream. It felt as if I was peeking at someone’s traumatic past. It was a dark basement. Viscountess Amethyst, who was yet to become the Tower master, was looking after a small child. The look on her face wasn’t anything like I had seen before. The child was much smaller than she was now, but I could tell that she was the Mirage-Walking Princess. “I love you,” Amethyst said, rubbing her cheek against the child. “Let’s go home and sleep, Mom,” the girl replied as she reciprocated the gesture. I watched this daydream unfold. The moment seemed like a sanctuary of its own. It felt like no one should dare get close. As the Tower master looked down at her daughter, there was only affection in her eyes, affection that made me feel choked up just by looking at this scenery. That was probably one of the goddess’ bare sides. She held her daughter's hand and headed off somewhere. That was it. I had no idea where they were going or why they said “Let’s go home.” The moment when the two people left the dark basement and went up the stairs, the daydream in my Demigod Eyes was cut off. I blinked. Once the dream ended, reality continued. “—I’m just saying, but I’m also very good at cooking.” The princess sounded very excited. “If I were to give an item grade to the dishes I make, it would be EX. There is no way it could be any other grade. Anyway, I inherited Mom’s cooking skills, so when I use these skills to make seasoned chicken instead of soybean paste stew and make my own taste of nostalgia... Death King, it’ll be a great revolution in the culinary arts, so epic that it would be worth writing around two hundred chapters of a novel called The Princess is Cooking!” The princess didn’t seem to notice that I had been daydreaming at all, freely going on about what she wanted to say. When I saw my reflection in her eyes, I noticed perplexity written on my face. It wasn’t just because I was thrilled by her fearsome plan of achieving a revolutionary taste from her dishes. I was also thinking about what had just happened to me. Is this also a fragment of the Tower master’s trauma? For the Tower master, her entire life was no different from trauma. She remembered not only her own but also collected the trauma of others. In addition to that, she even created countless parallel worlds where she saved others, died, was tortured, or was murdered in their stead. All those memories are dormant inside me. It seemed that the speculation I came up with while dealing with the Viper was right. The amount of memories was so huge that I couldn’t recognize them on a conscious level, but they occasionally showed up like a daydream. Perhaps I would end up seeing the future. I would perhaps see events from hundreds of years ago that took place in a world that had nothing to do with me. In fact, I could see what-if scenarios like the one where Amethyst was Yoo Soo-Ha’s assistant. What should we call this other than a daydream? I understand why she tried to stop me that desperately. I smiled bitterly. When I declared that I wanted to see the Tower master’s trauma, she kept stopping me, offering other gifts or compensation. In return, all I had to do was not watch her trauma. “Please listen to me. You will be torn apart,” the Tower master had pleaded at the time. Now I understood the warning. I took a sip of the ultra-evolved version of Libton iced tea and looked up. “Princess.” “Yeah? What is it? Do you want me to cook for you at some point? I’m sorry, Death King. To do that, you need to cook me a dish that will convince me that you’re worthy. I’m the main villain in cooking comics, so to speak. Even if you make the best dish, I can easily create one that surpasses yours and expands the worldbuilding—” “No, it’s just that... You really seem to like your mother.” The princess paused. After a while, a smile appeared on her lips. “Your mom is a goddess. Have you ever felt burdened because of it, or anything like that? You know, ever felt like you wanted to be born in an ordinary family?” The Princess traced the edges of her teacup with her finger. “Hahaha. What? Well, I was going to question you for withdrawing from the floor, but I’ll go along with this for now.” “What is it actually like to be the goddess’ daughter?” “Mmmmmm. I’m very happy!” she replied with a beaming smile. “But there is an error in what you said, Death King. The possibility of being at least a little happier if I were born in an ordinary family doesn’t apply to me. Actually, it doesn’t apply to any of Mom’s children.” “We are who we are only because of Mom.” I tilted my head, not knowing what that meant. The princess sipped black tea as she looked at me over the teacup. “It’s difficult to understand it right away, isn’t it? Then imagine it ,” she said. Next to the teacup was a glass jar filled with sugar cubes. The princess opened the lid of the jar and lifted the top sugar cube with her slender fingers. “There is a certain special human being who slaughters people unconditionally after birth.” The sugar cube was slowly pulled out of the jar. “No matter what world they are born in, this person remains the same.” The sugar cube fell into the teacup with a pop. “They destroy and burn others. Because of them, countries and continents are annihilated.” The sugar cube that fell into the black tea melted, bubbling a bit. “No matter what world, what family, or what parents they are born into, that won’t change. This person is truly, truly special in that sense.” That was the way I once saw Yoo Soo-Ha: an unforgivable demon that was born wrong. “No one can convert this person or make them understand love. It’s impossible to convince them why the world should remain as it is instead of disappearing.” The princess brought the teacup to her mouth. By the time the teacup was placed back on the table, I had a hunch about the ending of the story. A chill traveled down my spine. The princess smiled. “From what I heard, there are a total of twenty-four such special people in all of the universe. My mother happens to have twenty-four children, too. Well, I am the eldest among them. You’ve been to our kingdom. There, I’m known as Goshenite. Really. It isn’t easy being the eldest daughter because my younger siblings are so mischievous!” I stayed quiet. Unknowingly, I muttered the Tower master’s motto. “No one is born wrong...” The princess clapped softly. “That’s right! Mom is a bit silly. Anyway, she only brought in children who were going to be born wrong and made them her own. And she taught us all about love.” The princess winked playfully. “Though that was the limit.” “We know what love is now, but we only love Mom. Our scales are very different from others. When we hang a world and our mother on each side of the scale, it tilts very noticeably toward Mom. Well, to us, a world weighs less than a feather.” It was the complete opposite of the relationship I had with the Terras. “Yes, for example, I’m not tearing down the High Tower or the Towers right now simply because Mom asked me not to.” The princess was completely dependent on her mother. She smiled brightly. “Don’t worry. Even though we sometimes disobey Mom’s requests for fun, we don’t do anything that will make her really sad. There are a few wackos, but they can’t enter the Tower. Don’t worry. So what was this all about... Oh, right. Why would you give up clearing the floor, Death King? The Terras were only two steps away from conquering the continent! It’s outrageous to give up right there! Outrageous!” I calmed down. Perhaps the princess didn’t realize the kind of expression she made just now. The moment she said she wasn’t going to tear down the Tower, the look in her eyes was... No, it would be best left unspoken. No one would benefit from being described as a demon. There was no need for her to speak out about the cursed part of herself that had been sealed away. The princess managed the floors, and I climbed the Tower. Since this was our relationship, what we had was enough for now. “Like I said, the children didn’t want my help.” “Really? The Terras didn’t want your help? That is why you gave up clearing the floor?” “Yes, my clan offered to aid them in war. People die during wars, so who wouldn’t want help? But the Terras outright refused, saying it’s their fight and theirs alone.” “My children are already building their own path. What happens next, the mistakes they make, even if those mistakes can lead to their death... My children think that they can and should handle everything that comes their way. They also have the skills to do so.” I smiled a little. The chairman crossed my mind. His response was polite, but he had basically told Uburka to get lost. “They’re all grown up now, so I can’t interfere with their lives anymore. Of course, if I do not interfere, they may suffer greatly. It’s sad and infuriating, but unless they ask for help first, I will just sit back and watch them.” With my luck and skill, I made the Terras into the best species on the continent, but that didn’t mean it was all my doing or that they should serve me as a god. I didn’t want any of that. The mission to guide my children from the outskirts of the world ended here. The Terras now stood their ground with their own feet. They didn’t need more than their physical strength to take down the enemies in front of them, and they made sure they didn’t need to lean on a god’s shoulders to get to their destination. In that case, all their god could do was to stand back and watch them. The princess flapped her pillow around. “But, but! Aren’t you still worried or curious? Like what disasters will strike them on future floors? What will happen with the Terras’ final evolution? Why the rewards were delayed?” “To answer your questions, first, I know what will happen on future floors.” It was natural. Before regression, I had seen Yoo Soo-Ha clear up to the fortieth floor. From the thirty-seventh floor, a so-called world quest takes place. Since it wasn’t an individual quest, the content wouldn’t differ much from what I knew. “I also know what’s going on with the rewards.” I had once told my Tower colleagues that the fact that the reward for clearing the floors wasn’t revealed itself was a mystery. This mystery would be revealed the moment the fortieth floor was cleared. Because of that... “I’m not worried that I won’t be able to meet the Terras that have undergone their final evolution,” I said with confidence. “I, Death King, will give up clearing the thirty-sixth floor, Mirage-Walking Princess. And I promise you that I’ll soon start climbing again and save your mother as we promised.” I bowed. “So please, allow my children to handle the rest by themselves.” A long silence followed. The princess stared at me for what seemed like an eternity before she sighed. In an instant, the scent and heat of the black tea vanished. For many minutes, we simply stared at each other, hiding the sound of our heartbeats. The princess smiled bitterly. “Okay, so the goblins became independent before I did.” An announcement from the Tower followed that quiet lament. [The Death King has withdrawn from the thirty-sixth floor.] [The Mirage-Walking Princess acknowledges the Death King’s withdrawal!] My children, now is your time to shine.