Chapter 95
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
“Honey, don’t go.”
For that brief moment, it was just me and Miss Kim.
It felt as if the two of us were the only ones there.
An illusion, as though time had stopped like a scene from a movie.
But if I had to decide the genre, I’d say it was more suspense thriller than anything else.
“What?”
The question was dumb, even to my own ears.
But the situation was so bewildering that I couldn’t help asking it.
“Don’t go, honey.”
A hand gripping me tightly.
A faint tremble that said she wasn’t letting go.
“…….”
At first, I thought Miss Kim was just riding the momentum to tease me.
But her expression and her touch.
Everything was far too vivid to be dismissed as mere joking.
“Huh? Wh-what?! Were you actually married to Miss Kim!?”
“Stop talking nonsense!”
I scolded her for being so foolish, and Renea pouted, puffing out her cheeks.
But now was not the time to worry about Grandma.
“Don’t go, hero. I’m right here.”
“Just stay with me, honey. Please. I’ll be good.”
“…….”
I could feel the stares of the people around us. Even trying to pry the two of them apart, their strength was stronger than I expected.
“I never imagined it would be this bad.”
I had seen Namgoong Yeon struggle with Cell’s backlash, but that had been easily soothed after meeting Jessica, so I hadn’t taken it seriously.
Now that I was the one involved, I was flustered.
Even now, Grandma, as if she’d developed dementia, kept tugging insistently at my clothes.
“Boss, I’m getting hungry.”
“Do you really think this situation is something to take lightly?”
“Hmm? It’s just movie aftereffects anyway. It’ll get better soon.”
“That...”
“It was true, but...”
“Hero, don’t go. Stay with me.”
“Please, honey. Don’t disappear from my sight.”
“…….”
Their almost-pleas brought on a splitting headache, and fragments of the past suddenly surfaced.
[Where do you think you’re going, Scabbard Keeper?]
A title that had now faded into a blur.
The forceful voice asked me, who hadn’t even flinched.
[Do not leave me.]
As if she had seen me leaving, though I had never moved at all.
That thorny paranoia always had me in its grip.
“Boss?”
At Renea’s voice, the view outside the window—snow flurries drifting year-round—faded like mist.
Startled, I quickly looked at Renea, but forced myself to smile calmly.
“Yes? Did you call for me?”
“Did you hate the two of them clinging to you that much? Your face has gone from pale to deathly white.”
“Ah...”
I hurriedly touched my face.
My skin felt cold, even though it should have been no different than usual.
“It’s because I didn’t smoke. I went two hours without a cigarette while watching the movie.”
“I thought it was because you hated Miss Kim and Baek Yeonhwa.”
Had her voice reached the ears of the two who had been swept around by Cell?
The strength in the hands that had been gripping me so tightly loosened. Startled, the two of them pulled away from me.
“W-what, what, what?!”
“Kyaaah!? H-hero! It wasn’t me! This humble wife is not a woman who binds her husband!”
It didn’t think it would last long since it was just movie aftereffects anyway.
“Are you back to your senses? I’ll give you my card, so the three of you should eat separately. I think I need to go.”
“Huh?”
“You’re leaving?”
“Boss—?!”
I heard a voice calling me from behind. But I didn’t look back.
I no longer wanted to stay in that spot.
It wasn’t Miss Kim or Baek Yeonhwa’s fault.
[Scabbard Keeper.]
The feeling I had sensed, if only for an instant.
The desire to run from it—
Though I may have hurt them.
I quickened my steps a little.
* * *
“You don’t look good.”
“Right? You said a friend who makes obscene amounts of money was buying drinks, and this is the cheapest izakaya you could call me to.”
I bantered, tossing a jab at Yoo Yena across from me. Even though I hadn’t run far, I lied to myself that the sweat streaming down my face was just from my stamina.
I took a big gulp of the beer that arrived right away.
“Pff—! That’s good.”
“…….”
Yoo Yena kept her gaze fixed on me even while picking at a skewer.
“Keep eating like that and you’ll stab your throat.”
“Yeah.”
I had no idea what that meant.
When I looked at her in confusion, she added shortly.
“If you don’t want to explain it, I won’t ask.”
“...Annoying. Can I go smoke?”
“You said you wouldn’t smoke when you’re with me.”
“That was—”
I was about to say that was only back then, but I just shut my mouth.
Yoo Yena was sly.
So she’d probably chosen the cheap izakaya we used to go to often back when we attended hunter training.
Her knack for eating skewers elegantly without getting a speck on her mouth was as impressive as ever.
“So what happened? You said it was about the 7th floor.”
Her voice, which seemed about to echo back, was buried under the people around us singing and shouting.
Setting aside the old memories and all that, the place choice was good.
“Did you enjoy the movie?”
“Hey.”
“The water park?”
“Hey.”
When I glared at her irritably, the corner of Yoo Yena’s mouth lifted slightly. Apparently teasing me was fun for her.
“Ahem, about this Cyber City incident. The 6th floor was temporarily sealed off, right?”
“Right.”
The tower elevator suddenly couldn’t go up to the 6th floor.
Because of that, we got help from the Azure Dragon.
“I found the method. And that the 7th floor was using the same method to seal itself off.”
“Is it all right to tell me this?”
“Because there’s something I need from you.”
I lowered the hand that had been reaching for the beer. I figured I should hear this while I was still a little less drunk.
Yoo Yena, noticing the direction of my hand, went on.
“I learned through Axis that there is such a thing as the tower’s owner.”
“The tower’s... owner?”
The tower that rises high and connects the world.
At first, it was a monstrosity and a calamity.
Now it’s a symbol of stability, peace, and harmony.
The idea that there was an owner managing the tower was hard to believe.
But Yoo Yena’s ever-blank expression had the power to make even an unreal situation feel undeniable.
“Through a deal with the tower’s owner, you can lock a floor for a certain period of time.”
“A deal? For what?”
“Money.”
“Money? Out of nowhere?”
“Haa.”
Yoo Yena let out a sigh, looking troubled, and explained more.
The tower’s owner doesn’t manage every floor. Apparently, each floor has a being called a ‘Floor Lord.’
“The one and only person chosen by the owner. Only the Floor Lord can make a deal with the owner on that floor.”
The torrent of information was simple, but heavy all the same.
“Then the Floor Lord of the 6th floor made a deal with Axis—”
“And the price the Floor Lord demanded in exchange for sealing the tower for a set period was money.”
Talk about a materialistic Floor Lord.
Having said that much, Yoo Yena took a sip of beer and let the booze settle in.
“Whether the Floor Lord can close it whenever they want or whether there are conditions. Whether some special power is involved. We still don’t know. But—”
“But?”
“What we do know is that they came into a lot of money. We’re tracing the funds in Cyber City, but that won’t be easy either. Axis erased everything far too cleanly.”
An AI was an AI for a reason.
Then suddenly, a question occurred to me.
“Wait. Then that means other floors have Floor Lords too.”
“Exactly. And we don’t know who they are.”
“…….”
“It’s a troublesome situation. The so-called Tower Administration Bureau can’t actually manage a thing.”
Her self-mocking laugh felt bitter and forlorn, as if the association itself were just a ridiculous farce.
“We can’t find a Floor Lord in this vast world with no clues at all. For now, all we can do is look for the 6th floor’s Floor Lord, where at least there are faint leads.”
“So the reason you came to find me—”
“There must be a Floor Lord on the 7th floor too.”
An existence that keeps making deals with the tower’s owner to stop anything from coming up from below.
“We need even the smallest bit of information. That’s why I came to you.”
“Ha.”
What kind of day was today, anyway?
Before I knew it, I kept drinking until my beer glass was empty.
I clicked my tongue, ordered another round, and answered.
“I just learned what a Floor Lord is, but there is someone I suspect—no, someone I’m certain about.”
The Floor Lord of the 7th floor.
Only one person comes to mind.
The Frozen and Iron Empire, Aizenrik.
The one and only absolute monarch who rules it.
The queen who slaughtered giants and rules over all the land.
[Scabbard Keeper.]
[Could you call my name, just once?]
Just like that day, when she quietly made the request while looking out at the blizzard outside the window.
I spoke her name.
“Empress Penrina.”
* * *
Penrina, the red-haired empress seated on the throne, was gazing out the window with her chin propped in her hand.
The fierce blizzard swirling outside.
Even though it was always the same view, a faint smile lingered at Empress Penrina’s lips.
Even as her great general was reporting the situation to her.
“As you ordered, the tribute operations have been halted. Exactly six months from now, the tower elevator will operate normally.”
Great General Yorgan finished his report, leaning slightly forward.
The audience chamber fell silent.
After a long while like that, Penrina finally spoke, still looking out the window.
“Great General.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I very much like snowy days.”
“…….”
“I like snow like that, coming down as if it meant to swallow everything whole.”
At last, Penrina took her eyes off the window and looked at Great General Yorgan.
“Do you know why?”
“I do not.”
“Right, you wouldn’t know. That’s a relief. If you did, I’d have had to kill the great general and rip out the Scabbard Keeper’s tongue.”
Unusually cheerful, Penrina let out a long breath and lounged on the throne.
“Half a year... That’s rather a long time to tend the birdcage again.”
“I will bring him back swiftly.”
“You should. He’ll have to pay for the sin of using the law however he pleased.”
Though the words were murderous, Penrina hummed them like a tune.
“Shall I cut off his legs?”
Even though he was her own son, Great General Yorgan made the suggestion without hesitation.
“Then the Scabbard Keeper would take longer to come to me.”
Penrina replied, amused.
“Then shall I cut off his arms?”
“Are you trying to make me drink tea brewed with his legs?”
Tapping the armrest, Penrina shrugged.
In truth, she’d already decided on the answer.
“We’ll have to gouge out one eye.”
“…….”
“The world the Scabbard Keeper sees only needs me; two eyes are far too many.”
At the resolute declaration, Great General Yorgan merely pressed a fist to his chest and bowed even lower.
“As Your Majesty wishes.”