I had known this for a very long time. “Think about it. Although we don’t know who built the Tower, they must have put in a tremendous amount of work for us, and that includes this message. But no one cares. It was supposed to be something people admired for a little longer. Actually, the Tower’s existence and the fact that we have our Skills are miracles in their own right... but we’ve already gotten too used to them on the tenth floor.” Always clad in armor, she almost always maintained a blank expression and wore a helmet to hide her face. “I was quite confident in my poker face. Mr. Kim, do you happen to have a mind-reading Skill?” Perhaps she had even stronger walls around her heart. “Fine. I guess there’s no other choice.” My comrade. Patricia. Our noble and virtuous Paladin. “As you can see, I have the ability to tell if a person is lying. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the Skill that made me the assistant leader of the Watchmen League.” “Doubt is an insidious poison, and truth is its strongest antidote. It isn’t going to be enough to recover all the trust we’ve lost, but we’ll be able to cooperate on the twelfth floor.” Just before the battle with the Demon King of Autumn Rain, the Hunters, who had cleared the tenth floor after years of trying, were so excited that they easily played into their opponent’s hand. They did not consider that the quest itself could be a trap laid by the Demon King. When it was revealed that someone had betrayed them and sided with the Demon King, the leaders of the major guilds immediately began to suspect one another. The Black Witch glared at the crowd, her face twisted into a vicious rictus. “Well, one cannot talk sense into an idiot. Fine! As the leader of the Black Dragon Guild, I promise you that, although I may not know who dared to betray us yet, I promise I will bring them the most painful death imaginable.” Back then, no one trusted each other. The Inquisitor was interrogating people for heresy somewhere in the Pantheon’s underground floor. The assassins led by the Black Witch rampaged through Babylon’s streets in the night, and the Countess was busy secretly taking over other guilds with her money. Above all else... “Ah... fuck.” The Viper scratched the back of his head. “I remember. I remember it now. The tension. The atmosphere. This feels just like when we cleared the lower floors of the Tower... Yeah, I feel a chill running down my back. People are going to die today.” Everyone knew they were nothing but slaughterers. They knew it all too well. “Paladin! Use the Lie Detector to interrogate everyone immediately. Not a single person should be spared! If anyone fails to answer the Paladin’s questions or evades them, I will kill them right here and now!” the Black Witch yelled. The Paladin nodded. “I was planning on it even if you didn’t ask. First of all, let me begin by saying that I’m not the traitor.” That was why I knew that someone like her would never forget who the slaughterers were. She couldn’t possibly understand, be persuaded by, or forgive them. If she didn’t have the power to punish the murderers at the moment, she would wait and endure until she did. Whether it took five years or ten, she would remain patient until an opportunity arose. “I was quite confident in my poker face.” The Paladin had let those around her think that she was a trustworthy person. Even if she missed an opportunity, she wouldn’t show any regret. When the opportunity finally came, she wouldn’t show her excitement and would do what she had to do. “Life is truly unpredictable,” the Paladin murmured. “I reconciled with the Black Dragon Master and the other guild leaders...” The Paladin smiled at me, but her gaze was somewhere in the distance. “After all that...” I believed that I had known what kind of person she was for a very long time. Therefore, when I came face-to-face with a marionette that looked exactly like the Paladin in a dead-end of the glass labyrinth on the sixty-third floor, I wasn’t surprised at all. Her sign was written in simple handwriting. —I have seventeen plans to assassinate all my comrades. That was exactly the Patricia I knew. “Are you surprised?” The mouth of the marionette, which looked exactly like the Paladin, moved. Through the marionette, the serpent, revealing neither their true form nor their voice, whispered, “This human is my model follower. As a rule, the Constellations are forbidden to interfere with humans who are yet to reach the fiftieth floor. That’s why we use Skills and blessings to contact them indirectly.” In the eyes of the Constellations, it seemed that Skills and blessings were a means to an end. There were far more worlds that were unable to reach the fiftieth floor than those that managed to do that. There had to be many. The Constellations would find it to be a waste of potential Faith in those worlds. This was why they used their power to create and distribute Skills, spreading blessings such as the God of Serpents’ blessing that I had once obtained as a hidden stage reward. “But this human was desperate,” the marionette Paladin chirped while I was engraving this new fact in my mind. “I generally don’t give special treatment to anyone, but this human is indeed special. It’s been ages since I’ve seen someone beg so desperately! Over ten years ago, this human bit her lips until they bled while begging a god she didn’t even believe existed.” That was during the Great Purge in the Tower. “‘Grant me the power to eliminate evil without anyone knowing,’ she said. In other words, she wanted to become an assassin to carry out her planned murders! An executioner shrouded in mystery. Though I’m not the Constellation of death, my power extends to all ploys and assassinations, so I gladly lent her my power!” I bitterly muttered, “You’re the one who gave her the Lie Detector.” The marionette creaked as it grinned. “Yes, and that’s not all! Her Skills are a radiant list of my power. She can see the level of affection someone has for her as a number. When she reveals her abilities to others, she can distort and twist their descriptions as she pleases. Secret detection. Information distortion. Manipulation. Scheming. How beautiful! The people you call friends were planning your death!” The Labyrinth-Dwelling Eye, the God of Serpents, was mocking me. “Not a single person approached you with pure goodwill. How does that feel? Even before hearing your story, they planned your death, perfected the method of your murder, and only then smiled at you. Death King, this was happening before you even had a title! This is the true nature of the friendships you cherish so dearly!” Yes, no matter how worthless a dagger was, it could still cut flesh. I knew and accepted this before finding out the truth about Patricia. The snake’s claim was nothing more than provocation meant to shake me. It was my opponent’s only means to gain an advantage over me for now. I knew it all. Still, a blade was a blade, and a wound was still a wound. It would be a lie to say it didn’t hurt. The question was if I could endure it. “If you wish, I can keep the secrets those people hold and remain silent, but even if you don’t want me to, I can also reveal all their secrets right before you! Fear what you should fear. You humans would know that at least. Death King, you have been given a name that is too grand for your fate. Put down that sword—” The marionette’s artificial eyes turned toward me. “What?” “I’m asking what you know so well about Patricia.” I took the white handkerchief embroidered with silver threads from my pocket and smoothed it out. Feeling its soft texture under my fingertips, it calmed down the intensity of my emotions. “I know Patricia much better than you think. A lot more.” “Ha! That’s funny! You don’t even know what kind of murder plan they hatched, do you?” “Patricia used Yoo Soo-Ha.” I recalled a memory, which was so distant, it felt like I had kept it stored for a very long time. The Paladin had been there when I decided to undergo my regression of over four thousand days. “Those of you with water-type Skills, don’t use them on your own! Yes, use them together! That’s it!” The slums had been burning down in the fire set ablaze by Yoo Soo-Ha. Of the top-ranked Hunters, only the Paladin and the Master Alchemist had rushed to the scene of the fire. The Paladin didn’t know this, but that was actually the first time I had seen her. The Master Alchemist looked around. “Strange. Why isn’t Miss Saintess here yet?” The Master Alchemist’s shoulders drooped. “I don’t like the Fire Emperor. Something doesn’t feel right about him... Although I know it’s impolite to talk badly of him, I still think Miss Saintess deserves someone better.” “Your standards are too high. The Fire Emperor is the Rank 1 Hunter, so if she has to find someone better, who’s she supposed to date? This is why you still haven’t found yourself a partner.” Of course, the two knew Yoo Soo-Ha, but the Paladin didn’t say a single bad word about him. She was supposed to hate someone like him more than anyone else. If someone in the universe had to hate him, she would be chosen without a doubt. Yet she hadn’t shown the slightest hint of contempt. “Welcome, Fire Emperor.” The Paladin nodded in acknowledgment. She was rather polite. “As you can see, a fire broke out in the old slum. Can you help us?” the Paladin politely asked. “What do I get if I help you?” “The media around the globe will print front-page articles about you tomorrow. The headlines will read something like ’The Fire Emperor extinguished the fire, saving a lot of people.’ It’ll be a refreshing shock to people, and you’ll be able to improve your image.” New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✶𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✶𝓷𝓮𝓽 Why? Why had she been like that? Was she not aware of what kind of person the Fire Emperor was? There was a time when I used to think that the Fire Emperor’s acting was so convincing that he had fooled the whole world, including Patricia. That was my belief that used to throw me in the depths of resentment. “When the Saintess tried to poison Yoo Soo-Ha, he died, but he immediately regressed and took revenge on her. At that time, Yoo Soo-Ha somehow thought that the one who ordered her to poison him was the Black Dragon Master,” I said. “What? What the hell are you talking about?” “Who would have told him that? On that night, Yoo Soo-Ha told the Saintess, ‘Think carefully before you answer. I may not have Impervious Body, but I do have a lie-detecting Skill. I’ll cremate you right here if I catch you trying any fuckery with me.’ But Yoo Soo-Ha didn’t havethe Lie Detector.” “So what are you trying to—” “The one with that Skill was Patricia.” I no longer believed that Patricia had been deceived. I believed the opposite now. Patricia had deceived everyone. “In the world before my regression, Yoo Soo-Ha probably killed the Sword Star. Since the Sword Star is strong, it would have been difficult for Yoo Soo-Ha to defeat him alone, even with the regression Skill. Yet the Sword Star was declared missing. Rumors spread that he had vanished. “Patricia knew the Sword Star well because she was his assistant leader when he was leading the Watchmen League. She knew his weaknesses, his schedule, and everything else about him. She was sharpening her blade against the Sword Star, who had participated in the Great Purge. It wouldn’t be surprising if she helped the Fire Emperor hunt down the Sword Star. Coincidentally, the Watchmen League, which has the authority to declare the deceased as just missing, happened to be Patricia’s guild.” Everyone had been deceived by Patricia. “In another world...” I trailed off. In the what-if scenario that the Tower master had shown me, I ended up joining Yoo Soo-Ha’s guild and lived in the guild headquarters, where the Saintess attacked him with a spear. “For some reason, the Saintess knew that Yoo Soo-Ha was the murderer who killed her grandfather, the Sword Star.” “Yoo Soo-Ha, you murdered my one and only grandfather!” “Who told her?” I asked. Someone wanted to use the Fire Emperor to eliminate the Sword Star, and the same person also wished to use the Fire Emperor to eliminate the Black Witch, too. They wanted to instill a desire for revenge in the Saintess, thereby irreparably burning the bridge between the Fire Emperor and the Black Witch. “Who could have told her?” In the what-if scenario, the Five Guilds collapsed. The Inquisitor was killed by terrorists who infiltrated the Pantheon, and the Black Witch was assassinated as well, even though the two of them were the most thorough people when it came to security. “The guild responsible for verifying the identities of those entering the Tower is the Watchmen League.” How could the terrorists and assassins not only enter the Tower but also infiltrate the major guilds’ cores? “There is only one person with the ability and influence to do that. Among the guild masters, there is only one person with a reasonable motive to do this.” Trust was the ability to betray. The ability to verify meant being able to manipulate trust. “The Tower master showed me that world to prove that Yoo Soo-Ha can change, but even in that world, she couldn’t hide the destruction of the Tower and the Five Guilds. Why? Since she was the one showing me the world, she could have shown me a perfect world. Why did she show me a ruined one instead?” It was because the Tower master couldn’t ignore human desires. Even if it was a bloodstained grudge, Patricia’s heart wished to deliver proper revenge to the slaughterers. Ignoring that wish had been impossible for the Tower master. I felt like I had known shit already for a long time. “Hishimit Kritz, you don’t understand anything I just said. You wanted to provoke me by implying that the trust I’ve built up over the years is nothing but a sandcastle. You wanted to expose my comrades’ secrets one by one and push me to the point where I could no longer trust anyone, not even myself. But I know more than you do about Patricia and my friends. I know the expressions they’ve made and the ones they’ve never made. I’ve seen and understood things about them that they don’t even know about themselves.” I didn’t reach out because I didn’t know. I didn’t trust them because I was in the dark about what they were like. I gripped my sword. “It’s not that I didn’t trust them because I thought they were incapable of such evil deeds. They’re more than capable of that, so I’m by their side to prevent this from happening. And they trust me.” “There is no secret you can reveal that can destroy me.” “Humans aren’t dolls to be displayed in the glass garden you created.” I thrust my sword into the labyrinth floor with all my strength. “No one lives to be displayed to others, and no one has the right to display others.” “I’ll now make you fall.” The glass world was shattering, starting with the spot where I stabbed my sword.