Chapter 79
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
Outside the taxi.
A dwarf kneeling, and an Agent Telliman with his face swollen so badly he showed no sign of waking up.
“Didn't you hit him too hard?”
As I asked with a shrug, Mr. Deokgu snorted and clenched his fist.
“If it were up to me, I'd want to beat him even more, but I'm holding back.”
“I understand.”
I could understand, since I knew the story involving the demon and Mr. Deokgu.
“Well, there's one more here.”
I warned him, looking down at the dwarf.
“Kneel.”
“I-I am kneeling.”
“Sorry. You're so small already, I thought you were standing.”
I threw in a bit of species discrimination for good measure.
Having a gun muzzle aimed at your forehead tends to keep you from saying anything nice.
“Now, first off, why does your organization want an inter-floor war?”
“...”
“Hey, don't make this annoying. It's over for you guys anyway.”
“...”
Thick lips pressed tightly shut.
If I'd known this would happen, maybe I should have kept Agent Telliman awake.
The dwarf, true to his nickname Dapdol, was so stubborn that once he set his mind to something, it was as hard as opening a treasure chest.
“Should I... do it?”
Beloa raised a hand hesitantly.
Rather than wanting to help, she looked tired and just wanted this over with quickly.
“Huh? Are you going to torture him or something?”
“No... not that.”
With a timid gesture, a golden wave once again flowed out from her sleeve. It went into the dwarf's ears and nose-.
“Gah?! Cup?!”
As the dwarf's pupils rolled back until only the whites showed, the mana flowed back out.
“Here.”
A book had been created.
The title, [Delk Bransil], was probably his name.
“There's magic like this?”
“I can't... use it on just anyone. Only on people judged to be a threat to the library...”
Trailing off, she made it clear she didn't want to say any more. A threat to the library probably meant someone who had tried to kill her.
Because the library and she are one and the same.
Rustle.
A page recording his life turns.
Delk Bransil had originally been a miner. An ordinary family man with a daughter.
Despite spending each day breathing nothing but coal dust, what struck him was a heartbreaking tragedy.
It was a chronic illness.
He was in an abandoned mine and wanted to save his daughter and wife. Cyber City's hospitals were the best of all the Towers.
But the Tower refused.
The cold answer was that an unknown illness risked spreading contagion-.
“Skip it.”
That's life.
Who doesn't have a story?
There are plenty of people who lose something precious and come to hate the Tower.
And yet, not all of them become terrorists.
That doesn't give your own tragedy the right to make others suffer.
It was an unnamed group that approached Delk Bransil.
Revenge, pleasure, hope, boredom.
Though they each carried different emotions and different stories, what they sought was clear.
An inter-floor war.
The desire to bring down the peaceful Tower.
The one giving orders was an entity that never even showed its face.
A man's voice, overwhelming money, and ocean-deep information power.
That was all the nameless war-seekers knew of the shadow behind it.
Thunk!
As I closed the book, it dispersed into mana as if its work was done, then flowed back into Delk Bransil.
“Looks like Yena's guess was right.”
In the end, no one had seen the real person.
It only gave orders.
Overwhelming money and information power.
'Looks like Axis is the one.'
The biggest clue was that they knew I came from the 7th Floor.
That's information only someone at a very high level could know.
The question was why they wanted an inter-floor war.
'Why on earth?'
Axis's goal was still an open question, but for now, what we had to do was clear.
“Let's go to Aranchino.”
We have to stop the Yeo-eum Association from being used as a tool of war, like I was.
* * *
Aranchino's hut wasn't far, so we got there quickly.
The two men we had knocked out and tied up would be taken to the Tower Administration Bureau by Yena, who was following behind us.
“That's where Aranchino lives.”
A small hut visible from a distance.
Even after becoming the Yeo-eum Association's cult leader, Aranchino didn't build a shrine or have people worship him.
Instead, he hid himself even more and more.
He said it was because he worried his intentions would turn impure.
“...Then can I get down now?”
“Ah, no.”
Beloa, who had complained that she couldn't walk anymore, was still piggybacking on me, wrapping her arms around my neck so she wouldn't fall off.
“Human warmth... that was what this felt like, right?”
She muttered things like that from time to time, which made it hard to let her down.
Feeling like a plaintive mood was forming, I spoke to Mr. Deokgu for no reason.
“Mr. Deokgu, have you been exercising lately? I think you've lost some weight?”
He was still huge, but he did seem to be slimming down little by little. Maybe his double chin had thinned some.
But Mr. Deokgu let out a sigh and rubbed his stomach, looking displeased.
“Maria keeps nagging me to exercise. Haah, I want to get down to the 3rd Floor soon.”
“Ah...”
You're under her thumb.
Even with that huge age gap, Maria likes him, so whatever.
Besides, after exercising, he doesn't even make that signature 'Ku-hup!' sound anymore.
“I've got a bunch of daily quests piled up, and my monthly subscription is still active. I want to go back and play games already.”
“What games do you play?”
“A bunch. Last Fantasy, Myeonghon, Imolution-”
“Last Fantasy got exposed for gacha rate manipulation and tanked hard this time, though.”
“I spent ten million won on that. Don't lie.”
“The stock price was just plummeting.”
“Ku-hup?!”
By the time we were done talking, we had arrived at the hut.
At last, Beloa got down from my back, caught her breath, and knocked.
Knock, knock.
“Aranchino... it's me, Beloa.”
There were no signs that anyone lived around the hut. There wasn't even what you'd normally call a human smell—just a cold chill hanging in the air.
Creak.
When the door opened, I was a little surprised. I had somehow assumed there really wouldn't be anyone inside.
“Be, be, Beloa?”
“Aranchino? What's wrong with your face?”
His hair stuck up rough like straw, and his eyes were so huge they looked ready to pop out. His skin was stretched tight over his bones in a bizarre, skeletal look.
He looked much worse than he had on the live broadcast.
“W-What happened?”
His eyes kept darting back and forth between the three of us. His chattering teeth made even the onlooker uneasy.
I stepped forward, lightly pulling Beloa by the shoulder.
“Mr. Aranchino, I'm Kim Juseon from the Tower Administration Bureau. Could I ask for your cooperation for a moment?”
“T-T-Tower Administration Bureau?”
It wasn't originally, but it is now.
Because Beloa was there, Aranchino at least didn't refuse and listened to us.
The group trying to use the Yeo-eum Association, what happened to us on the way here, whether the radio was genuine, and so on.
“So I'd like to try using the radio.”
“Y-Y-You already think it's fake, don't you?”
Aranchino replied, looking at the radio he had placed on the table.
I answered honestly.
“That's right. I'm sure of it, but whether Mr. Aranchino can accept that is another matter.”
“...”
I took out the item I'd been hiding carefully inside my robe.
A golden medal.
Everyone's eyes turned to it.
“If the radio is real... then through this medal, I'll be able to hear my friends' voices.”
“F-Friends?”
They're the unfortunate friends who were swept up by some eccentric tyrant and met an early death.
“...”
“If my friends' voices really come from here, then I'll be the one to lead the charge into the abyss.”
He was calm, but sincere.
I was prepared for that much.
Silence settled in.
It was so cold it was almost biting, but before anyone could even feel the chill.
“I-It is f-f-fake.”
Aranchino confessed, covering his face.
“Huh?”
“I-It really is fake. I-I only found out r-recently too.”
His confession was somewhat unexpected. But the legs beneath his robe started shaking like an engine.
“T-The radio t-talked to me. It said everything was f-f-fake. B-But still, I c-couldn't throw it away-! I couldn't!”
He didn't look to be in good shape.
“What did the radio say?”
“It said, 'W-what's the problem?'”
Aranchino's breathing grew ragged.
He clutched at his chest, but his eyes still kept flicking toward the radio as if in a spasm.
“P-People who were comforted. People who shed tears. People who sought what they could do for the dead—people who swept away the guilt and dust left in their hearts.”
“People who repent, people who regret. People who atone-! People who, unable to move on from the past, move forward again-!”
“Mr. Aranchino, please calm down for a moment...”
I tried to stop him quickly, but Aranchino sprang to his feet and kept shouting.
Before long, his eyes were clearly fixed only on me. The unnecessary movements stopped.
Before long, his tongue was clearly spilling out every word.
“The son who had rotted for ten years clutching the keepsakes of his mother who died alone stood up again at the voice of his mother from that radio! To fulfill his duty!”
“There was a woman who, because she could never forgive the father she had hated all her life, carried that pain in her chest, yet still moved toward forgiveness to save him when she heard his voice of suffering!”
“Should the lives they regained really be degraded over something as trivial as whether it was genuine?!”
Breathing hard, he looked straight into my eyes. His tic stopped, and mad certainty filled the emptiness.
“Dead means dead, forget it, move on! Do you know how slowly that irresponsible answer has been killing people?! I-! I sold people tomorrow! Even if it was fake, made by some heap of scrap metal from the 6th Floor-!”
People got hope from me.
“The voices of the dead coming from the radio are fake, yes! But the comfort they received was real-! The courage and motivation they received were real!”
“And that means you're going to wage war?”
Aranchino nodded heavily at my question.
“The radio said demons would be ready to come up at any time-! Then shouldn't we go down first and hit them? Even if it's a lie, people need someone to hate! Isn't swinging a spear in anger far more alive than sinking into grief and killing yourself!”
I began to understand Beloa's words.
He was kind, but somehow different.
A shabby hut, dust-covered furniture, a gaunt frame, and loneliness with no one beside him.
He wasn't taking any benefit at all from running the Yeo-eum Association.
Aranchino's guiding principle was like a patchwork garment—stubborn, filthy, and contradictory.
And yet it was stitched together with righteousness and goodwill.
Grip!
His fleshless fingers seized my shoulder.
“Is this wrong? Is saving people a sin?! Even if it was a lie, they came back to life-!”
“...”
“You must have had that too! A time when you lost someone precious and were grieving! A moment when you wanted to hear the voice of the dead even once-!”
Creak.
The floorboards of the hut creaked.
Mr. Deokgu flinched and took a step back.
A time of losing someone precious and grieving.
In a way, he would be the one most shaken by Aranchino's words.
“Is truth more important? Or-! Or is life more important?”
Tears and pleas.
Bizarre goodwill kept piling on, and a cause stitched together from it was completed-.
“Truth is more important.”
The one who answered was the woman who had been quietly worrying about Aranchino until now.
Rrrrustle!
The old book unfolded, and once again the pages began turning without pause.
A wind that the hut couldn't withstand spread out, and Beloa's gaze was brighter and clearer than before.
“False knowledge. Deceptive comfort gained from it. Aranchino, I'm warning you. End it here.”
Was the fact that he had kept going even while knowing the radio was fake the part Beloa couldn't let slide?
Seeing that, Aranchino reached out, grasped his staff, and murmured.
“You who seek truth... you've always been that way, Beloa. Ever since the Abyss Research Society, no matter how cruel it was, if it was the truth— you thought it was right.”
Purple mana surged from Aranchino's entire body.
“But don't package that as goodwill, Beloa. Yours isn't on the line between good and evil—.”
Simply.
“You just can't accept knowledge that isn't right.”
A hair-trigger situation.
If the two mages started clashing, the whole area would be wrecked.
Mr. Deokgu and I met each other's eyes.
This was our distance, not the mages'.
Just as I judged that if we moved to subdue them right now, we could get through this without a major fight, and was about to step forward—
Ksssssh!
Static crackled from the radio, which had been still.
- Your friends are coming.
A clear mechanical voice leaked from the radio. If anything, it was closer to a woman's voice, but it carried no warmth at all—so much so that it was chilling.
- Aranchino. My friend. You've had a hard time.
“Friends?”
When I asked in confusion, the radio replied as if it had heard me.
- Curious? Shall I tell you a little?
- They will come.
- And they will kill you.
- Countdown.
- 5.
- 4.
In an instant, the window shattered, and Cyber City's pump bombs poured in from all directions.
- I just counted.
- That's a human-style joke.
- Ha. Ha. Ha.
KWA-BOOOOM!