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Translator: Seven ED: Sasha
“…What?”
The Black Dragon Master blinked.
The leader of the Tower’s top guild slowly lowered her eyelids before raising them up again. Slowly. The entire action literally took a full second.
Then, she furrowed her brows.
“Returner? What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Senior crossed the Aegim Empire with me. It would have been easier if I had revealed my identity back then, but at that time, I didn’t completely trust Senior yet. So I hid it until now.”
“…”
The more I said, the heavier Black Dragon Master’s expression became.
It was clear to her now that I wasn’t telling a joke.
“Senior always said. You don’t know where this rookie who doesn’t seem like a rookie appeared from. That I’m like an old fox despite my age. Senior was right. I’m not a rookie.”
I summoned a skill card.
“Skill card open.”
Golden light shined.
I flipped the golden card in my hand and showed it to the Black Dragon Master.
+
[Returner’s Clockwork Watch]
Rank: EX
Effect: Activates automatically upon death. Returns to 24 hours before death. Even after returning, all memories and stats are retained.
※However, the higher the Hunter’s rank, the more the penalty will increase.
※This skill was copied from Hunter Yoo Soo-ha.
+
“Wait a minute.”
The Black Dragon Master stretched out her left hand and grabbed my hand which was holding the card. Her hand covered the skill card, so the Black Dragon Master was unable to see its description.
The Black Dragon Master herself was blocking the skill that I wanted to show her.
“Don’t.”
Dark eyes.
Her dark eyes, which resembled a bottomless well, somehow looked desperate at that moment. She was looking at me with an urgent expression. Beyond those eyes, at the very bottom of the well, a ripple appeared in the pool of water. (TL: A bottomed bottomless well)
“Don’t do this. Please.”
There was a faint tremor in her voice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. However, I know what would happen if I were to listen to it. There’s a line between people that should never be crossed. No matter how familiar you are, no matter how close you are, that line should never be crossed.”
The Black Dragon Master spoke naturally as though she’d predicted that this would happen a long time ago.
This naturalness probably came from her many past experiences.
“Don’t tell me your secret. Don’t share it. If you were to reveal your secret now, we will cross the point of no return. When we begin to rely on each other too much, it’s no longer reliance, it’s dependence.”
“I know. I know that too.”
“……you and I are good friends. Reliable comrades. You shouldn’t expect more than this in your relationships with people. I take care of my work, and you take care of your life. Wouldn’t that be best?”
The Black Dragon Master was basically asking my consent.
Her serious words made me ponder again. It was always difficult to decide what kind of relationship you wanted to have with someone.
Soon, I came to a conclusion.
“Then listen to me first and then decide.”
“It will be too late then.”
“It won’t. I can return. Even if we talk now, I can make it so that this never happened. I have that ability.”
“…”
The Black Dragon Master fell silent.
In the Port Town’s square, the people who were gradually waking up began to look around. The residents groaned and stretched, expelling the poisonous qi that accumulated in their bodies due to sleeping for too long. Uaah. Uhh. The sounds of yawns could be heard from all around us.
“…let’s not talk about it here.”
The Black Dragon Master, who was still holding my hand, muttered.
“Transfer.”
The next moment, we were out of the square.
The town pier.
The ships tied to the dock creaked as they were pushed by the waves. Almost as if they were responding to the ships’ cacophony, for a moment all we could hear was the roar of the waves.
“Fine. Alright.”
As if she’d finally made up her mind, the Black Dragon Master nodded.
“I’ll listen to what you have to say first. But we can’t talk about this sober.”
The Black Dragon Master waved her hand and a black vortex appeared in the air. It was as if she’d opened a portal to a pitch black abyss. The Black Dragon Master stuck her hand into it without hesitation.
And after a while, pulled her hand out with a wine bottle in her grip.
I was a bit surprised.
“Is that a skill?”
“Mhm. [Item Storage]. Although the storage space is limited, there is no better skill than this when it comes to killing people and destroying the evidence.”
The Black Dragon Master said those words casually before taking two glasses from the vortex.
“You should be honored. Not many people know I have this skill. You’re also the first living Hunter to see it, Death King.”
I took the glass from the Black Dragon Master.
For a while, we only quietly emptied the bottle.
Before I began to sober up, I opened my mouth.
“I am a returner.”
Then, I started talking again.
“I don’t know where to start… I have a skill that allows me to turn back time. To be precise, it allows me to go back 24hrs when I die. Thanks to this, I was able to overcome many difficulties. The 10th floor. 20th floor. I used my regression skill to survive all of them.”
I showed Black Dragon Master the skill card.
This time, she didn’t avert her gaze.
“…I see.”
However, she then let out a soft sigh.
As if she’d found the final puzzle piece that she’d been looking for for a long time.
“You suspected something?”
“Kind of. At the very least, I knew that [Prophet] was a lie.”
The Black Dragon Master lifted her cup.
“No matter how you look at it, it just felt like a convenient excuse. I’ve been watching you from the side for a long time. You never did [what you already know]. You always fought like every battle was your last. Right. You didn’t know the future, you were going back to the past.”
She turned to look at me again.
“I would like to ask you something.”
“Please ask.”
“The battle on the 11th floor.”
It felt like she was about to say something she’d doubted for a long time.
“On the 11th floor, our Tower experienced our first group battle. Everyone was so excited about clearing the 10th floor which we had been stuck on for years that we jumped into the 11th floor. There, we fought the Devil King’s army. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“At that time, miraculously, not a single Hunter lost their life. Some people got hurt, but no one died. So…”
The Black Dragon Master hesitated for a long time.
“By chance….”
“Yes.”
“…did you return at that time?”
“Yes.”
“Until there were no casualties?”
“Yes.”
The Black Dragon Master closed her mouth.
The well within her eyes seemed to become a bit lighter.
“How many times……?”
“A lot.”
“Ten times? Twenty?”
“Probably a bit more than that.”
“The 12th floor too?”
“It continued after that. It was always like that until I met Raviel.”
“…”
The Black Dragon Master began to breathe a bit faster.
“Why? Going so far… There was no reason for you to do that.”
“I didn’t do it because I’m a good person. If I had gone up to the 11th floor on my own, I would have needed to redo it dozens or hundreds of times. You were also one of the reasons why I returned.”
I looked into the Black Dragon Master’s eyes.
“Every time the number of people who died on a stage decreased, the Black Dragon Master would smile a bit more.”
It was something she couldn’t remember.
“Before that, I’d never seen the Black Dragon Master smile even slightly. While they weren’t bright smiles, they were still smiles filled with happiness. During a raid, when the Hunters died by the hundreds, you carried out your duties with a rigid and emotionless attitude… The Black Dragon Master changed a lot when the casualties dropped to double digits.”
I was the only one who could remember her transformation.
「Oh my God! Less that 40 Hunters probably died!」
「This doesn’t make sense… It seems, less than 10 people died.」
「This is unbelievable. It shouldn’t be possible. On a battlefield like this.」
A smile that blossomed like a tightly closed flower bud spreading its petals.
I could still remember that moment vividly.
“When I saw it, I thought it was really beautiful.”
“…”
“It made me happy. It was the first time I realized I could make someone smile.”
I smiled.
“Thanks. Black Dragon Master. Senior.”
“Why…?”
“Thanks to Senior, I was able to walk a path that I would never have been able to walk on my own. I now know about loving life. I’m with someone I love. Even if it wasn’t your intention, I was able to step onto this path because of the smile you showed me that day.”
I wanted to say this.
I wanted to tell her.
“Senior, you are someone who helped me get this strength. You are not alone. Even if Senior worries about saying goodbye to every person you meet, you don’t have to worry about me.”
Since I have the ability to go back one day upon death.
“I’ll be fine.”
I won’t die.
“You don’t have to stop the assassinations against me. You don’t have to worry about what will happen if you don’t stop them. I’m here, and I’ll keep being here as long as you let me.”
“…”
“It’s fine even if we fail.”
“Saying something like that…….”
“You don’t have to be afraid of failure anymore. You can do whatever you want to achieve. Even if something goes wrong, I can give you another chance.”
“Don’t say that.”
The Black Dragon Master was afraid.
I already knew what she feared the most.
Even when we got drunk with the Crusader, the Black Dragon Master had been muttering.
「Don’t be late. Death King.」
「You can’t always be late.」
An irreversible situation.
That was what the Black Dragon Master was most afraid of.
So, I decided to give her the sincerest gift I could.
I said the one thing that only I could say.
“You can be a little late sometimes.”
“…”
The Black Dragon Master paused as if she had been stabbed.
“As long as I am by your side, nothing is irreversible. Anything can be redone. So it’s fine to take more chances and gamble, Senior. Senior deserves it.”
The wind from across the ocean swept the Black Dragon Master’s hair.
“Senior is much more skilled than I am. You started your own business and you manage an entire organization… You rule over the entire Tower. That is a talent I don’t have. Likewise, the talent to start over was only given to me by chance instead of you, Senior.”
My dear best friend.
“We can do a lot more if it’s the two of us.”
I didn’t want to see her shedding tears.
So I lowered my head and took the Black Dragon Master’s hand.
“I’m already dependent on Senior, so please depend on me too.”
“You……, really.”
The Black Dragon Master swallowed her words.
“You’re a bad person. Why are you saying all of this after saying that you can make it so this conversation never happened? That. You’re saying it’s okay since if you die and go back one day our conversation will disappear. Would you kill yourself to make this conversation go away…?”
“Yes.”
“Crazy guy.”
The Black Dragon Master held my hand.
“Crazy guy….”
She murmured again.
“You’ll see. I’ll use it till you’re sick of it. What was it? Returner? How dare you share such an ability with me without being scared? You really don’t know how crazy the leader of the Black Dragon Guild is. You’ll see. Crazy guy. Crazy bastard….”
I waited for the Black Dragon Master’s trembling to subside.
After some time passed, Black Dragon Master spoke in a much calmer voice.
“Anastasia.”
“…”
“That’s my real name. Kim Gong-ja.”
I slowly lifted my head.
The Black Dragon Master had a thin smile on her face
“I’ll make sure to use it properly, so be prepared for the future.”
“Yes.”
I also let out a genuine laugh.
“Senior Anastasia.” (TL: Anastasia sunbae)
The people climbing the Tower.
Among them, I found a comrade with whom to share my secret for the first time.