Chapter 39
The rift connected to Floor Four of the Challenger's Tower.
Cain's eyes flew wide when he saw what lay beyond.
"……!!?"
'What in the world is that?'
And then, slowly—
He extended one finger.
Was it a coincidence that the Imperial ring happened to be on that finger?
Hwi-min had no way of knowing.
'He should just quietly watch… If he tries anything, I won't be able to hold back.'
Hwi-min adjusted his grip on his sword.
With his characteristic caution, he prepared for the possibility that his opponent might try to flee.
'Feeling sorry for him is one thing, and rewards are another… Huh?'
But when Cain touched the rift.
Something happened that neither of them had anticipated.
Fwoooosh—!!!
A sudden light swirled through the ruined castle.
"……!!!?"
'What the hell, all of a sudden!!!'
Whish—!!!
Hwi-min swung his sword reflexively.
Since he didn't know what the other man was doing, he decided to kill him first.
'What is this all of a sudden….?'
However, Cain was not cut.
No, he hadn't even noticed the attack.
Before Hwi-min's sword could reach him…
His field of vision had completely changed.
-Ding.
[The defeat trigger for the laborer 'Cain' has been confirmed.]
[Cain has been designated as Challenger Ryu Hwi-min's temporary summon.]
[Cain has been appointed the stand-in for the Challenger's Tower Floor Four (Custom - Ryu Hwi-min) scenario.]
"……Huh?"
As incomprehensible characters appeared before him.
Cain opened his eyes in a familiar place.
…It was the Demon King's castle.
"What is this…."
[Cain!! Defeat him before he descends any further!!!]
A voice he could never forget rang in his ears.
"…Elder Brother?"
'What in the world is going on?'
He had clearly been begging Hwi-min for mercy, so why had he opened his eyes in the Demon King's castle?
Why was the voice of the brother he'd killed with his own hands ringing so vividly from beyond the magic tool again?
It was utterly incomprehensible to Cain.
And yet, despite that.
What he had to do was clear.
[Defeat the Demon King!!!]
"……Hup!!!"
Demon King Barbatos.
The moment he saw him, Cain swung his sword.
After regressing hundreds of times, he had learned that the longer he let things drag on, the stronger the enemy became.
Whoom—!!
His greatsword tore through the air as it charged forward…
-Slash.
"…Huh?"
"Keurgh!!! If only I'd had a little more time…."
"……?"
The sword that had never even touched him after hundreds of regressions cleaved the Demon King with absurd ease.
[You did it, Cain!!! As expected, you're my proud little brother!!!]
"……Huh?"
* * *
It took Cain a full week to accept reality.
-Squeeze.
"Your Highness Cain, please stop! You'll stretch all the skin off your face!"
"No, this can't possibly be a dream…."
He had returned to the peaceful past.
It took him a day to accept that.
"Elder Brother, there's no way Barbatos could have died this easily!! He must be using some wicked trick, so send out a search party at once—"
"Wasn't it enough that the saintess officially certified the Demon King's annihilation?"
"But…."
"This is a peace we were able to reclaim because of you. Now put your mind at ease."
"……"
It took him six more days to realize that he had succeeded in subjugating the Demon King.
And once he finally realized this was reality.
Cain came to the following conclusion.
This was not the past he remembered—
"…Bring me the history books."
'I'll retrace everything from the very beginning to see where it diverged.'
He opened a thick history book.
Then he pored over it.
At a glance, it resembled the history he remembered, but there were small differences.
"You mean the Sachsen estate is intact?"
"Yes. It is an area where no demons have appeared."
"There should be a monster colony near there. There's no way the demons would have overlooked it."
"I beg your pardon, but there is no such thing near Sachsen."
"……Huh?"
The incident in which demons massacred an entire estate, accelerating the Demon King's resurrection by several months.
It hadn't happened at all here.
The cause of the massacre—the monster colony itself—didn't exist.
"Ah, I looked into it, and apparently monster packs used to appear frequently in the area several hundred years ago."
"Yes. They gathered together to form a colony…."
"But a knight from the Minette Kingdom exterminated them all while passing through."
"The Minette Kingdom?"
And then the chamberlain mentioned the Minette Kingdom.
Cain furrowed his brow.
He wondered what this could possibly mean.
"A kingdom knight exterminated them? Monsters that even the empire struggled to deal with until they formed a colony?"
"You're exaggerating. They must have been weak enough for a kingdom knight to defeat."
"That can't be. In the original history…."
"What do you mean, 'original history'?"
"……Nothing. You may leave."
After sending out the chamberlain.
Cain buried himself in the history books again.
Thanks to that, he soon noticed.
All these changes…
Had begun at some point several hundred years ago.
'The Sword Saint Verse and Celestia. Their wedding was definitely held in this year, wasn't it?'
The most conspicuous change was that the wedding between the Third Prince and the kingdom's princess had been erased from history.
At a glance, it seemed unrelated.
In the original history, the Third Prince had never had children, and the princess had died after spending her entire life alone, so
One might think the marriage would have made no difference.
But that wasn't the case.
'The Third Prince, Verse, accomplished achievements this great?'
First, the Third Prince.
He had uprooted the seeds of evil that had spread throughout the empire.
From the perspective of someone from the future, each of those actions had prevented a demonic uprising.
[The great hero Verse supposedly courted the Goddess of Swords by swinging his sword every night….]
"……?"
'What is this supposed to mean?'
…If Hwi-min had seen this, he would have been horrified.
In truth, the Third Prince had never been able to forget him and trained in martial arts to follow even the faintest footsteps of his swordsmanship.
Anyone who knew the truth would have freaked out and called it 'self-masturbation.'
But because the princess scolded him, telling him to go out and at least hunt some monsters if he was going to act that way,
The mad sword freak's sexual fetish was romanticized into heroic tales for posterity.
That was why even Cain never came close to realizing the truth.
'And the monster colony at Sachsen… Could the knight who escorted the princess that day have been…?'
"Elder Brother, I'll pay a visit to the kingdom."
Cain immediately decided to head for the kingdom.
"The Minette Kingdom? As it happens, we already have a visit scheduled, so that's convenient. Let's go together."
"…Yes."
For some reason, even his brother—now the emperor—ended up going with him.
"This is my only younger brother, Cain. Introduce yourself."
"P-pleased to meet…."
'Nobody said Cain was coming too!!'
For the kingdom, suddenly receiving a visit from the emperor and the great hero was like being hit by a tidal wave, but anyway.
After that, Cain accompanied his brother on his itinerary.
It wasn't until two days later that he investigated the princess, his original purpose.
"Cain, where are you going at this hour of the night?"
"I heard there's a statue Princess Celestia held dear. I'm going to see it."
"…Wasn't she a princess who died several hundred years ago? Why do you want to see it?"
"I think I'll understand once I see it."
Step, step.
The two brothers' footsteps echoed through the royal palace.
Normally, they would have been followed by countless guards, including the kingdom's own, but Cain had vehemently refused, so no one followed.
"I was told it was here…."
At the end of their path was a garden attached to the royal palace.
In a place that had once, long ago, been off-limits to men…
A statue had been erected.
[In honor of Ryu Hwi-min, the most noble hero from a distant land.]
"……Ah."
Cain let out a sigh.
His vague suspicion became certainty at that very moment.
[—I can travel between the empire of the past and the future. Unlike you, I can go a little farther into the past.]
"So that's what it was…."
The one who had sent him here, Ryu Hwi-min.
Having seen the future, he had traveled to the past several hundred years ago.
He exterminated the monsters that would later form a colony.
He caused the princess's marriage to fall through, prompting the Third Prince's awakening and the extermination of the monsters.
As a result, the Demon King had been weakened enough that even Cain could kill him with a single stroke.
'Then what was the future I experienced?'
Of course, Cain did wonder why the future had changed while he remained unaffected.
It wasn't as if he had no such questions,
'No, I must be an exception. That's what the contract was.'
The 'contract' that had given him the power of regression.
Once he considered that, it all made sense.
Once he realized the truth, all that came out was a hollow laugh.
"Ryu Hwi-min…."
"Cain, what's wrong? What is this Ryu Hwi-min fellow to you?"
"He's my benefactor. And the hero who saved this world."
-Shing—
Cain drew his sword and bowed toward the statue.
"Thank you. For everything."
"I don't know what this is about, but if that's the case, I should thank him too. Thank you, Ryu Hwi-min."
The emperor also bowed.
Beneath the moonlight, the two most exalted men in the empire paid their respects to a mere knight.
It was nearly ten seconds before the two raised their heads.
"Cain, what does this Ryu Hwi-min fellow have to do with you? Did you perhaps inherit his swordsmanship?"
"Of course not."
"Then why do you consider a knight from several hundred years ago your benefactor?"
"Even if I told you, you wouldn't believe me, Elder Brother…."
After that, the two talked at length about Hwi-min.
"A hero who traveled between the past and future to prevent the destruction? Unrestricted time travel?"
"Yes."
"What a joke. Such a thing is absolutely impossible."
"……"
'I used to think so too, Elder Brother. But as he said, nothing is absolute.'
Although Cain did feel an indescribable sense of déjà vu when the emperor casually said that. Anyway.
Thus, the brothers spoke frankly for a long while.
Since both were among those closest to the highest position in the world, their conversation eventually turned to politics.
"Elder Brother, do you intend to pass the throne to me?"
"…You must have ambitions too. It would be better to step down in advance than cling to it pointlessly and disgracefully."
"I knew it."
Cain smiled gently.
It wasn't because he was happy about inheriting the throne.
"I refuse."
"Y-you really mean that?"
"Yes. I can't do as well as you can, Elder Brother."
His brother, who had entrusted the empire to him while shedding tears of blood at the end of his life.
Unlike him, Cain was incompetent as an emperor.
He knew that better than anyone.
And above all…
He had something he needed to do.
"I think I'll spend the rest of my life training with the sword. Like Sword Saint Verse."
"Do you intend to become even stronger? After killing the Demon King with a single stroke?"
"Yes. I feel that someone may need me at the end of this life."
Cain looked up at the night sky.
He gazed into a future that was both near and far.
'When I die, everything I have will become his.'
Cain had vaguely realized it.
His soul already belonged half to Hwi-min.
It was something he had sensed thanks to being recognized as a temporary summon.
'I ought to repay this debt.'
So he would hone his sword.
He would become as strong as the Third Prince had been several hundred years ago.
When the day came that Hwi-min needed him.
He would be of use to him.
Cain, who had gone through hundreds of hells, made a solemn vow beneath the statue of his savior.
[—You will be used as material to level up Dohwa….]
'I don't know what Dohwa is, but it must surely be something so extraordinary that it can't even be compared to someone like me.'
…The one who would actually absorb all his power was a small, cute pink ball of fluff.
Had he known this, he wouldn't have bothered making a vow.
But Cain had no idea about any of that.
He simply swung his sword diligently.
'Let's become stronger.'
…And so, when he turned forty.
He became capable of cutting through mountains with his sword.
'This still isn't enough.'
When he reached his sixtieth birthday.
He came to understand even a fraction of the swordsmanship Hwi-min had wielded.
And so, as the years flowed on and on…
Around the time Cain turned 122.
-Thunk—.
His sword, which he had swung every day, sank into the ground for the first time in decades.
"……"
'Today must be the last.'
-Whump.
Cain, now an old man, collapsed as well.
He had grown strong enough to far exceed the empire's average life expectancy, but even he could not overcome old age.
-Mutter.
"You haven't been waiting too long, have you?"
'Even the life I've spent will amount to less than an hour over there.'
He wasn't afraid of death.
Rather, he was a little excited.
Now he would be absorbed by something called Dohwa.
But he had grown so strong that even he could hardly recognize himself.
So please let Hwi-min be surprised.
Let that weakling be astonished that he had made Dohwa this strong.
"I… now…."
'It's time to repay my debt….'
Thump.
His head drooped limply.
Cain, the absolute powerhouse who had surpassed Sword Saint Verse and would be recorded as the empire's guardian deity.
His life had finally come to an end.
And when he finally died.
Hwi-min, who was in the Pilgrim's Tower…
Was still swinging his sword at Cain.
-Whoosh!!
'…Hm?'
"What the hell, where did he go?"
Hwi-min blinked.
From his perspective, Cain had reached toward the rift and simply vanished.
That was only natural, because the Tower's time did not flow without an Awakener.
And the Pilgrim's Tower was a twisted future shaped by hundreds of regressions.
In other words, Cain's entire lifetime had already been observed as the past here.
The entire life Cain spent swinging his sword amounted to no more than an instant for Hwi-min.
Hwi-min had no way of knowing.
-Ding.
[An error has occurred.]
[Checking….]
[The pilgrim has defeated 'Cain, Guardian Deity of the Babel Empire'!!!]
[Cain, Guardian Deity of the Babel Empire]
Level: 1193
"……Huh?"
'Weren't you in the low 900s?'
And so Cain's natural death was recorded as a defeat at Hwi-min's hands…
-Freeze.
'Wait, the bonus is multiplicative!!? And the Regression trait is guaranteed to be assigned!!!?'
That reward was truly legendary, befitting the name Pilgrim's Tower.