SSS-Class Revival Hunter
Chapter 227: If (5)

Chapter 227: If (5)

As soon as martial law was declared, Hunters poured out onto Babylon's streets.

“Kill all intruders!”

The Hunters were wearing black uniforms, the symbol of the Black Dragon Guild, but they weren’t the guild’s reconnaissance or stage clear team. The Hunters that lined up in the plaza were from teams that specialized in resolving conflicts and exterminating threats. They were Hunters of the Tower, but not trained to actually climb the Tower.

“Anyone who cannot present a resident card will be killed, regardless of their reasoning! Those whose resident cards were issued less than a week ago will also be killed!”

“Our guild leader was attacked!”

“This is war!”

“All defiants will be exterminated!”

Gunshots rang out all over the plaza. At the Babel Tower, the production and storage of firearms was strictly controlled. Making a gun without authorization was a crime punishable by death. However, major guilds were excepted from this rule and were always prepared to pick up their weapons and wage war.

The Watchmen League also pulled out their guns and aimed them at the Black Dragon Guild’s suppression team.

“Did the Black Dragon go nuts?! What do those guys think they’re doing?”

“Get out of the way! We must carry out the guild leader’s order!”

“You call a random massacre an order?!”

“This is a necessary measure to protect the Tower! Didn’t your assistant leader also get attacked and killed?”

“Still, she wouldn’t want this!”

“Our guild leader would! So get out of the fucking way!”

The Watchmen Guild didn’t do as they were told. The Black Dragon Guild also didn’t try to persuade them any further, so they took up arms, with the other Five Guilds that lost their leaders joining them. Since it was pretty much impossible to tell who was an ally and who was an enemy, they devoured each other like starving dogs.

That was the hell that Kim Gong-Ja witnessed after escaping from the Pantheon’s half-destroyed building. He wiped his face. More and more people around him dropped dead.

“Urgh... Fuck.”

People showed no hesitation as they aimed their weapons at each other. Every time a gun spewed fire, people were injured or died. Life vanished from their eyes so fast.

Kim Gong-Ja couldn’t wrap his head around this chaos.

All these guilds are the pillars of this Tower.

Every now and then, he had heard rumors about the Five Guilds not getting along well. It was unclear what had happened in the past, but old resentment had piled up among the guild leaders. Still, he never thought it would be this bad.

Were things so bad that they’re ready to kill each other if they get the chance to do so?

The High Rankers were heroes who had written their own legends. Why couldn’t such heroes resolve this resentment that had been piling up for years? Was there really no one who could mediate among them? Kim Gong-Ja didn’t know the answers to these questions, but he knew that imagining a what-if mediator was meaningless.

He felt like his insides were going to explode. The dam at the center of his mind suddenly collapsed. Just then, Ja Su-Jeong’s body, which he had been carrying on his back, slid on the ground. When he glanced down, Kim Gong-Ja finally realized he was looking at a corpse.

“Ugh... Senior Manager.”

Ja Su-Jeong was torn apart. Her left leg, arm, chest, and even half of her face were missing. Still, she kept her lips tightly shut even after she met death, which did not allow her to retain any trace of humanity. Only her lifeless, jewel-like purple eyes looked up at the sky.

Silence reigned.

When Kim Gong-Ja lowered his head further, he noticed the Inquisitor’s lower half coming into view as well. He gritted his teeth as he took one last glance at the remains of the man who had tried to solve this crisis until his last moment.

“No. Okay. First of all.”

He had to do what needed to be done.

“Okay.”

He had to do something. Anything.

“What can I do?”

His eyes scanned the belongings he had on him.

Idol seemed to be an object that allowed him to supervise the Pantheon on behalf of the Inquisitor, but the guild had collapsed. Even if Kim Gong-Ja found the Pantheon priests outside the guild building, it was unclear whether they would obey him.

The Black Dragon Mirror was the communication device used to talk directly to the Black Witch and the other Five Guild leaders. However, ever since the Black Witch’s declaration of war, it had been silent.

Lastly, Kim Gong-Ja had himself, but he was only a Class E Hunter. He had no power.

“Power...”

He knew one person who had that very power he needed. Kim Gong-Ja turned on his heels. Babylon, the Babel Tower’s first floor, was a vast city. Even here, the land in the central plaza cost piles of gold.

A three-story building was standing right at the central plaza. It was relatively intact, despite the bomb that had gone off nearby. Kim Gong-Ja wasn’t sure how much mana the building was coated in.

The face of a man who always seemed fine also popped up in his mind.

“Guild Leader Yoo Soo-Ha...”

Kim Gong-Ja started running.

***

Yoo Soo-Ha looked irritated after getting interrupted from his nap. “Fuck. What is it? Why do you look so fucked up?”

Kim Gong-Ja felt a violent swirl of emotions in his heart once again. Ja Su-Jeong, the Inquisitor, and countless others had died. Kim Gong-Ja had wanted to help, had said he wanted to help, but the Black Dragon Master had flatly refused.

“You’re young... But you’re weak, so you aren’t needed.”

If it had been Yoo Soo-Ha instead of him, if only he had a power comparable to that of the Fire Emperor...

Kim Gong-Ja gritted his teeth. Wallowing in self-pity was a waste of time right now. He forced himself to say, “Chairman Yoo Soo-Ha, there’s an emergency.”

“Martial law has been declared, I know, but I also know that I have the ability to not give a damn. Gong-Ja, you should have been working for my guild. Why did you come back looking like a beggar? Where is Vice-Chairman Su-Jeong?”

“Here.”

Kim Gong-Ja put down Ja Su-Jeong’s body and what remained of the Inquisitor. It took a moment for Yoo Soo-Ha to break his silence.

“When?”

His eyes were calm, but it was difficult for Kim Gong-Ja to surmise what expression was actually behind them.

“Right after we entered the Pantheon, we found out that there was a traitor within the guild. A bomb went off, killing the Inquisitor and Su-Jeong noona...”

“Why are you in one piece?” Yoo Soo-Ha asked.

“She protected me from the explosion with her own body.”

Thump!

Kim Gong-Ja kneeled after Yoo Soo-Ha kicked him in the shin.

“Ugh.”

He looked up, feeling pain flare around his body. Yoo Soo-Ha was still calmly looking down at his subordinate.

“Do you still call yourself a man? Su-Jeong noona? When did you two become so close that you started calling her noona? Hey, Kim Gong-Ja, look at me. Su-Jeong is much younger than you. She seems older because of the way she speaks and acts, but she’s much younger than you. What... No, forget it. Did Su-Jeong leave any last word for you to deliver? ‘Please do your best to fix this,’ ‘Save everyone,’ or something like that?”

“That... sounds like something Secretary Su-Jeong would say.”

“Of course. That’s why she cared about trash like you until the end.”

Kim Gong-Ja couldn’t bring himself to look up at Yoo Soo-Ha. He had lost Ja Su-Jeong because he had no power.

On the other hand, Ja Su-Jeong had the power to save the life of a person in front of her if she disregarded her own. Kim Gong-Ja didn’t know if this was thanks to her innate reflexes or because she happened to spot the location of the criminal faster than him.

However, the conclusion was simple. Kim Gong-Ja couldn’t do it, but Ja Su-Jeong could. Knowing this made him feel wronged and sad. He hated it. Because he felt pathetic, Kim Gong-Ja couldn’t bear to look at Yoo Soo-Ha, so he ended up staring into space. Thanks to that, he was able to see something different.

Yoo Soo-Ha started rambling. “Shit. Okay, I have a roooough idea of what kind of guy you are. Of course, you guys would have hit it off perfectly, so—”

A flash of light was coming toward them very quickly.

“Duck!” Kim Gong-Ja screamed.

A blue spear flew out of thin air.

Swoosh—!

The power of the spear wrapped in blue aura was formidable. Yoo Soo-Ha immediately raised his aura to protect himself, but he probably missed the moment by a split-second. His blazing barrier was torn apart by the spear of blue fire.

“Ah.”

Kim Gong-Ja, who was closest to the Fire Emperor, reacted at that very moment. He stood up, leaned forward, and stretched out his fist, hitting the spear.

“Ugh!”

The blue aura vehemently swirled around the spear. When Kim Gong-Ja’s fist collided with it, the storm of aura ground it as if he had stuck it in a blender.

“Aaaaaaaaah!”

With his arm fully gone, Kim Gong-Ja kneeled to the floor. A few pieces of flesh fell to the ground, and finely ground bone dust scattered on the floor like snow furries.

“Damn it! You avoided it?”

A Hunter landed from the sky. For a moment, Yoo Soo-Ha looked at Kim Gong-Ja before shifting his gaze toward the new Hunter.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the Saintess!”

Yoo Soo-Ha once again glanced at Kim Gong-Ja, who was bleeding, before snapping his attention back at the Saintess. “Fucking hell, girl. You almost turned this dude into shredded cheese. Saintess, my ass.”

“That is the title the Tower gave me.”

“The Tower is an imbecile when it comes to naming people. So? What made the Saintess come all the way over here to give me this treatment?”

The Saintess took a deep breath. It seemed she had been waiting for this moment for a long time. “Yoo Soo-Ha, you murdered my one and only grandfather!”

The Saintess’ blond hair was radiant. Yoo Soo-Ha had seen such blond hair only a couple of times before, but those blond men weren’t old enough for the Saintess to call them Grandfather.

“More than a couple of rascals lost their family members because of me, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Who was your grandfather anyway?”

“Marcus Carlenbery!” the Saintess yelled, her eyes burning.

Yoo Soo-Ha slightly raised his eyebrows. “Sword Star?”

“Yes! That is the name of my grandfather!”

“Wow, it’s been ages since I heard that boomer’s name. You’re his granddaughter? Well, he looked like he didn’t have much time left in his life, so it’s quite possible that he would have a granddaughter as old as you.”

“You devil...!”

“Yeah, people tend to call me that. But speak of the devil...” Yoo Soo Ha glanced at his subordinate’s corpse, and then at his other subordinate who would soon turn into a corpse as well. “Is it your fault that the Tower has become a flaming piece of shit?”

The Saintess clenched her fists. She wanted to talk about the Carlenbery family’s wealth and the power that wealth had brought. Some fools from the outside world were fascinated by the mysterious Tower, so she manipulated and ordered them to do her bidding.

That was why she wanted to tell him that the Pantheon Master had been predictable and easy to use because anyone could persuade him if they followed the rules. And despite the Black Dragon Master’s hatred toward the outside world, she had desperately wanted to be on good terms with powerful people who remained outside the Tower.

The Saintess had found those loose gaps and gripped them, crumbling them. However, she didn’t mention them. With the Tower set ablaze behind her, she just said, “You killed my grandfather in the Tower. So, I will kill the Tower and you.”

Yoo Soo-Ha smiled crookedly. “If you think about it that way, it’s technically your old man’s fault. He killed me for no reason, making a damn fuss about how he could see the number of people I killed. Actually, he probably killed himself. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Nonsense!”

“That is what you’ve been sputtering since you got here. I guess an apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, killer granddaughter.”

“You’re the killer, Fire Emperor. No, it’s useless to talk to you about it. Just die!”

The Saintess lunged, her blonde hair flying.

“Hah.”

Yoo Soo-Ha glanced down at the white speckles that had flown into his palm. He didn’t know whether he was looking at dust from a collapsed building or pieces of bone from when Kim Gong-Ja got shredded. But...

“... it feels like shit.”

Yoo Soo-Ha always felt bad when something happened that he didn’t know about.

“I don’t really want to waste my time right now, but you should die here.”

Red and blue auras collided, causing an explosion. A moment later, a scream escaped through the blue and red smoke.

Yoo Soo-Ha closed his eyes and opened them again. “Okay, I kind of remember now. You two have similar eyes. You look at me and immediately see me as a trash serial killer. Ah, did you get your eyes from your grandfather? You two are so full of yourselves. Did your grandfather teach your entire family that if you see a killer, you should slit their throat first and ask questions later?”

“Ah, argh... urgh...!”

“Seriously, this world teaches you so many interesting things. It teaches you to hate, trash-talk, and kill others. What’s really amazing is that after teaching people these things, it expects them to love and cherish each other. Let’s not forget having children and raising them well.”

Yoo Soo-Ha went on even as the screams coming from the smoke stung his ears.

“There’s just something I can’t understand. When I look into your eyes, I get even more confused.”

He glared down at the Hunter, who now looked into a lump of charcoal, and bent down to match her eye level.

“How can humans like each other? How?"

What was left of the Saintess burned. Despite working tirelessly for years to avenge her grandfather, her demise had been swift and ruthless.

Yoo Soo-Ha slowly stood up. “Ah, my back hurts.”

After stretching his neck a few times, he looked around.

“What a disaster.”

The outside of the building was on fire. The ruins he saw scattered around could make for a pretty neat historical site in a few days. The world had become a sea of ash and smoke as screams and gunfire were carried by the wind.

“This is an absolute fucking disaster. Don’t you think so too, Part-Timer?” Yoo Soo-Ha asked, looking down at Kim Gong-Ja.

Kim Gong-Ja had lost too much blood after his arm was shredded away. Because he was so dizzy, he couldn’t even look up at Yoo Soo-Ha, who also didn’t bother asking Kim Gong-Ja to look up at him.

“I just don’t get it. How can you and Su-Jeong like humans that much? I really don’t get it.”

Yoo Soo-Ha then turned his attention toward the sky. “Well, that’s why you two idiots work for me.”

“Chairman, I...” Kim Gong-Ja said in a feeble voice.

Yoo Soo-Ha waved his hand, stopping Kim Gong-Ja. It looked like he didn’t want to bother listening because he already knew what his subordinate was going to say.

“Ah, forget it. Stop talking. Don’t worry. Your big bro will take care of everything.”

Even though he was dazed from losing so much blood, Kim Gong-Ja muttered, “How...?”

“I have my ways.”

The Fire Emperor made the shape of a gun with his hand, then wrapped his red aura around it. At the tip of his index finger, a sphere that looked like a bullet appeared.

“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t remember.”

“Why?”

“My Skill is a bit fucked up.”

Bang!

A bullet of his fiery aura pierced Yoo Soo-Ha’s head. Bewildered, Kim Gong-Ja looked at Yoo Soo-Ha’s corpse as it fell on the ground. Under normal circumstances, he would not have known the meaning of this death.

[You have died.]

But I knew.

[Returning to 24 hours ago.]

The world shattered. I opened my eyes.