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Chapter 65

"Haneul, sorry, but you and Choi Gimin need to stay on the yacht."

"W-why?"

"Fengyun obviously has to go, and I need to check the goods. But I can\'t leave Choi Gimin alone on the yacht, can I?"

Ryu Haneul\'s face fell.

He looked like he was barely restraining himself from drawing the Dark Heavenly Demon Sword and killing Choi Gimin right there, then with a disturbingly bright smile, he\'d say...

\'Can I go now?\'

He wouldn\'t actually do that, would he?

Lately, I\'ve noticed that he has a tendency to go off the rails when it doesn\'t involve me.

He\'s a grateful and satisfying friend, but I need to keep a close eye on him.

I left Ryu Haneul behind and disembarked with Fengyun.

Before getting off the yacht, Fengyun changed into a neat naval uniform.

"Let\'s go."

"Yes, hyungnim!"

Seeing him in uniform, leading dozens of Awakened subordinates, it really hit me that he was a big shot in the international underworld.

【“Didn\'t you make him that way?”】

That\'s true, but it\'s been a while since I\'ve seen him in person.

【“Well, I guess after conquering the Tower, it feels like hundreds of years have passed.”】

That\'s also true.

With the great Fengyun himself accompanying me, we didn\'t encounter any obstacles as we entered the city.

"Welcome!"

"We\'ve been waiting for you."

"Thank you. Thanks to you, we can set sail again!"

People from various countries were gathered in the city.

The Russian mafia shook hands with South Korean brokers, and Chinese triads bargained with North Korean gangsters.

A Japanese yakuza drew a sashimi knife and shouted something, but...

"If you\'re going to stab, then stab, and if you\'re not, don\'t even take it out. Damn it."

As soon as he made eye contact with Fengyun, he sheathed his knife and bowed his head.

We passed through concrete-covered buildings, one after another.

"Here it is."

We stopped in front of a luxurious room salon.

"You\'ve arrived!"

"Welcome. He\'s waiting for you in the basement!"

Several gangsters bowed their heads to us.

All of them had ring-shaped halos, and in the distance, between the shadows of buildings, I could see colored halos as well.

Leaving two of his subordinates at the entrance, Fengyun went inside.

The room salon, decorated with gold leaf and red tiles, was quite luxurious.

However, to my eyes, accustomed to the highest class both inside and outside the Tower, it looked cheap.

"Thank you for your hard work coming all this way."

"Thank you so much for closing the Gate."

A spacious room.

A gangster in a yellow suit and a gangster in a green suit, who had been sitting on the sofa, stood up.

Despite both being Awakened with white rings, their faces were haggard.

It seemed they had suffered quite a bit because of the Gate.

As if they knew each other, Fengyun waved his hand dismissively.

"That\'s enough. That\'s what friends are for. Just give me the thing. I\'m busy and have to go back without even having a drink."

"Oh, that\'s too bad."

The gangster in the yellow suit sighed and took out a luxurious paper bag.

"What you were looking for, hyungnim, is here."

Inside the paper bag was a cubic wooden box.

Even without opening it, I could feel a strange mana emanating from the box.

It was a mana similar to the Gate core, or the feeling when being transported to a higher floor in the Aitel Tower.

It seemed it wasn\'t a fake.

The gangster in the green suit picked up another paper bag.

"Thanks for closing the Gate."

Fengyun waved his hand.

"Hey, hey, hey, put it away. What\'s this all about? We all help each other out."

"How can we live if we can\'t sail from a port city? Hyung, you saved us all."

Inside that paper bag was a rectangular wooden box, which the gangster in the green suit took out and opened.

【Bloodbath Wakizashi (Master)】

[TL/N: Wakizashi = Short sword with a blade between 30 and 60 cm long.]

【A wakizashi used by a certain swordswoman. Blood won\'t stop flowing from a wound inflicted by it.】

Inside the box was a Japanese-style short sword.

The black blade was two spans long, and the wooden handle and scabbard were adorned with stylish red patterns that seemed to hold some magical power.

Fengyun exclaimed in apparent gratitude,

"What\'s this...!?"

The gangster in the green suit smiled amiably.

"Please save us one more time."

And then he grabbed the \'Bloodbath Wakizashi\' and thrust it forcefully into Fengyun\'s lower abdomen.

Thud!

"Ugh!"

"I-I just want to sleep now!"

Green ghostly energy flickered in the eyes of the gangster in the green suit.

Ahaha, laughter echoed in his ears like an auditory hallucination.

Damn it.

Betrayal?

It seems the gift was a stabbing.

The image of the Ghost Swordsman turning his back flashed through my mind.

"Y-you son of a bitch!"

Fengyun grabbed the blade with his left hand.

The man in the green suit tried to push the blade in deeper, and blood flowed down Fengyun\'s hand.

Fengyun channeled mana into his right hand and thrust it out.

Clank!

A brass-colored gearwheel sprang out, rotating violently.

Yellow lightning and whitish wind swirled.

The gangster in the green suit, holding the wakizashi, was thrown back like a kicked ball, crashing into the door.

Thud!

As if that were a signal, gangsters from all over the world started pouring in from the hallway.

"全部殺せ!" (Kill them all!)

"殺個精光!" (Kill them all!)

"Убейте их всех." (Kill them all.)

"Kill them all!"

Despite their different languages and races, they were all saying the same thing.

Kill them all.

"You bastards!"

"I\'m going to bring my boys from Busan and wipe out this whole city!"

"You think you can do business for even a month without our goods?"

Swish. Swish. Swoosh!

Fengyun\'s subordinates drew their sashimi knives and blocked the doorway.

I let out a deep sigh and grabbed the box containing the Irregular Polyhedron.

"Fengyun!"

"What?"

Fengyun had just pulled the wakizashi from his stomach and was kicking off the ground.

Thud!

He cornered the gangster in the yellow suit against the wall, pierced his shoulder, and then stabbed him in the side and thigh in succession, finishing him off.

"Are there any Korean Rankers here?"

Fengyun shook his head.

"Nope! They don\'t come here."

"So all those guys are Chinese or Japanese, right?"

The room we were in had large doors at the front and back, and a chaotic battle was raging throughout the hallway connected to those doors.

There were Awakened with colorful halos among the enemies, indeed Contractors.

"Argh!"

"Ugh!"

Fengyun\'s subordinates were being pushed back mercilessly, unable to withstand even two or three exchanges.

Fengyun swore and replied—

"Yeah! But what are you going to do about it?!"

I flung open the wooden box.

"That\'s all I need."

A strange radiance spread through the room.

"I\'m using it here."

"What?"

* * *

The Irregular Polyhedron was a fist-sized black and white gem.

Like a faceted gemstone, it displayed a mesmerizing dance of colors depending on the angle, sparkling and shimmering with countless facets that seemed to writhe and flow with an inner light.

I had seen it a few times before, but every time I saw it, my heart would strangely race.

My earlobes would flush red, my fingertips would tingle, and my lips would become dry and chapped.

Nervousness.

I couldn\'t tell what I was nervous about.

【“Do you know what this is?”】

【Your constellation \'Sunny\' lets out a laugh like a scientist who has found a rat that has reached the end of a maze.】

My constellation asked me a question.

Despite the fact that hundreds of Awakened were fighting around me, it was quiet.

Since it was realistically impossible, I had to assume that this conversation was only happening in my mind.

I answered as I knew it.

"As far as I know... it\'s a fragment of a collapsed Aitel Tower."

There were some countries, like certain dictatorships in Africa or small nations in Southeast Asia with weak central governments, that were destroyed despite having an Aitel Tower.

The Towers there fell under the waves of monsters.

They disappeared with a burst of magic power, leaving behind only a few fragments.

This fragment must be one of the pieces left behind by one of those Towers.

【“That is correct.”】

Sunny answered brightly.

【“What do you think the Tower is?”】

"It\'s a world."

【“And?”】

"It\'s a terminal. A terminal that connects me and you."

【“Yes.”】

【“The Tower is both a world and a terminal. It is a terminal that projects the laws of Aitel onto this world.”】

That was right.

Law of Light, Ten Thousand Souls Embrace, Petrification, even Regression, were all powers that couldn\'t be explained by the laws of physics alone.

"What do you mean by that...?"

【“If you consume this fragment, you will become a being closer to the laws of Aitel than the laws of humans.”】

"...."

【“You will cease to be human.”】

"...."

【“Aren\'t you afraid? Of becoming something completely different from the beings you have protected and loved all this time? Aren\'t you anxious that you might become like those you hate?”】

【Your constellation \'Sunny\' asks provocatively.】

I looked down at the Irregular Polyhedron in my hand.

The black and white gem with countless facets boasted a mesmerizing radiance like the moonlight reflecting on the black sea.

Gripping the Irregular Polyhedron more tightly, I answered.

"No. I am not afraid."

【“I thought you would be afraid?”】

My constellation\'s voice was still provocative.

I decided to gladly respond to that provocation.

"From the moment they awaken, they\'re no longer ordinary people. In fact, whether they awaken or not, people don\'t live their lives thinking they\'re the same as others. They live with the expectation that some special opportunity, power, or fateful something will come to them, for half their lives, or until they die."

【"Isn\'t it only until they\'re 15?"】

"It\'s especially prevalent then, but no. That\'s not true."

【"...Go on."】

"There\'s nothing more to say. In our society, there isn\'t a firmly established, absolute, and common massive set of \'this is what people are like.\' It\'s not that it doesn\'t exist, but it\'s at the level of instinct, like eating when hungry and seeking out your kind when lonely."

【"My opinion differs."】

【"To my eyes, you all look pretty much the same. Why else would only a handful of you, out of the countless grains of sand, be able to receive the call of Aitel, and among them, only a pinch be able to directly reach us? Isn\'t it because you\'re all so similar? So much so that you can\'t tolerate those who have become different from yourselves."】

It was quite a decent argument.

But I smiled faintly and shook my head.

"As I said, there is no major premise of \'this is what people are like.\'"

【"Indeed."】

"But there seems to be a major premise of \'this is what people should be like.\'"

【"...Go on."】

"In history, that condition has included things like skin color or gender, but in any case, that condition has been broadening. Have subjectivity, treat others the way you want to be treated, love, be filial, vote, study..."

I felt a sense of deja vu.

It was as if I had had this conversation once or twice before.

"That\'s why people all seem similar. Because they are pursuing the same major premise. No matter the era or the world, how different can the conditions necessary for people to live together be?"

My constellation provoked me once more.

【"Did you understand that too?"】

It was something a child might say, but I couldn\'t take it that way.

I had seen worlds that no one could imagine and done things that no one else could do.

"...It\'s not my thought, Cheong Siyeol says that."

Naturally, my constellation pressed further.

【"Then you are already not human?"】

I knew you would say that.

"Think as you wish."

【"Oh?"】

"Human or not, I don\'t know. What do you expect from a middle school dropout?"

If I could know only one thing, I would need to know what was on the higher floors.

If I could gain only one thing, I would choose my disciples, whom I painstakingly raised until they could understand me.

If I could protect only one thing, I would protect the country I stabilized so that I could raise such disciples.

And perhaps.

Anyone who lived like me would have made similar choices.

"I just want to get to the 51st floor quickly, and I want to help Fengyun\'s subordinates before more of them collapse. So please help me absorb this Polyhedron."

That was my specialness and my ordinariness.

【"Alright."】

【Your constellation \'Sunny\' strokes your cheek with an affectionate touch.】

【"You\'re the best after all."】

A wind carrying the scent of sunlight brushed past my cheeks.

Clink!

The Irregular Polyhedron in my hand shattered into hundreds of pieces.

Amidst the clear laughter—

"Aaaargh!"

A pain like hot glass shards piercing and digging into my blood vessels swept over me.

Even in that pain, I remembered.

Yes.

This pain, this conversation.

It wasn\'t the first time.

[Translator - Hestia