The Hero Returns

Su-hyeun nodded his head.

There was no point in saying anything else. That was his only reason for keeping the Lich King alive, after all.

"If you tell me that, then I might not kill you and even help you travel back to the other world."

"Your attempt at lying is amateurish. You're not as evil in nature to do something like that. And to put that other way around, you're not the type to let a monster like me live on because of your personal desires."

The Lich King sounded confident. And it was as exactly as he said.

Unlike what he said a second ago, Su-hyeun wasn't planning to keep this undead alive. It was unknown just what kind of future troubles this creature would bring about if left alive, after all.

"Even then, I shall tell you. So, where should I start my tale from? Perhaps starting from when I became a Lich, and then—"

Just as the Lich King opened his mouth…

Giii-iiing—

[Third Eye - Neutralization]

Crack—!

The eye in Su-hyeun's forehead split open, and at the same time, his foot stomped down on the Lich King's chest.

"If you are thinking of doing something stupid, then why don't you just die already?" he warned the undead.

The creature was planning to distract Su-hyeun with a useless tale and then use teleportation magic to escape from that place.

But Su-hyeun had been keeping his eyes firmly locked on the Lich King in case the undead wanted to sneakily use some sort of a magic spell.

If something like that really happened, then he planned to cancel the magic immediately and execute the Lich King right there and then.

His once-lowered sword was raised high again, but just before he could take a powerful downward slash—

"I do not know anything."

An answer quite different from earlier, but also one that was honest, came out of the undead. It didn't seem that he was preparing another spell at this point either.

Su-hyeun looked down at the Lich King, his sword still pointing at him.

"That is my reply. Well then, was that satisfactory enough for you?"

"If you don't, then how do you know about me?"

"There could only be one human who possesses the same ability as I do without being the same creature as I am, you see."

"Is that all?"

"No, of course not."

"Okay, then what?"

"Unfortunately, I can't mention it. Even though I want to." The laughter mixing with the Lich King's voice seemed to have thickened. "What a laughable situation this is. I've realized it only just now. When you asked me and when I was about to answer you, I finally noticed that I've been under a magic spell all along."

"A magic spell?"

"Even I don't know what magic this is. It is far more advanced than what I…I can't fathom what kind of…" The Lich King's voice began trembling softly. Then, he carried on speaking. "This is why I don't know anything."

"…"

Su-hyeun deeply furrowed his brows at that reply.

This strange response? It felt as if he had come across something similar to it before.

And he didn't need long to remember just where he came across such a response.

"The heroes I met on the 43rd floor," Su-hyeun thought.

There was a world that was created on a whim by the administrator of the 43rd floor.

After arriving in that artificial world where the heroes of many different worlds had been gathered, Su-hyeun tried to peer deeper into their individual lives.

Unfortunately, he couldn't get any answers. The response he got whenever he asked was the same. They changed topics to something completely unrelated as if they couldn't remember the conversation they were having up until that point.

"Could it be that the same type of restriction is placed on the creatures crossing over to this side?" he further guessed.

They all shared a similarity.

Once the conversation got to a specific topic, their memories would reset. With that, Su-hyeun confirmed the possibility of the answers being related to some kind of a secret.

The heroes found on the 43rd floor all reacted this way at the question of "why they were fighting in that place."

The Lich King before him was similar in that manner.

The tape of his memories rewound the moment he tried to speak about these two things—why he was here and about the special magical restriction that he just realized he was currently placed under.

"I guess getting more out of this guy will be difficult now," Su-hyeun thoughtfully concluded.

Su-hyeun raised his sword again.

The Lich King was a rare monster with intelligence and even had a thread of connection to the trials, so he wanted to exploit this opportunity to get several crucial information from the undead.

Unfortunately, his harvest didn't meet his expectations. Of course, it wasn't as if he didn't get any, but still.

Swoosh—!

Split—

The sword swung down and sliced apart the Lich King's head. At the same time, the Life Vessel hidden within his body was also sliced in half.

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The task needing his attention after the Lich King's death was the subduing of the remaining Lichs.

The undead that obeyed the Lich King's powers all disappeared, but that didn't apply to the Lichs. Once the Lich King was dead, they scattered in all directions to escape.

Su-hyeun figured that the obedience magic cast on the Lichs coming undone could be the likely cause.

Half a day passed by since that huge commotion.

Su-hyeun was resting for a little while inside the Gordon Tower. The others were still moving diligently even as he took a break.

"Although it's a bit tough to figure out their exact numbers, there aren't that many of them, to begin with. Most died in the same place as their boss, after all," said Lee Ju-ho while walking up to Su-hyeun to show the latter the screen of a tablet. It displayed red dots spreading to the rest of America with California as the starting point. "These dots are the Life Vessels inside the Lichs. Thankfully, they possess similar nature to Ether stones, so it's not that hard to track their locations."

"I can see about 20 of them."

"You normally need at least an A-Rank in order to deal with a monster like a Lich. In other words, you're not strictly needed when dealing with these creatures."

"A few of them should still pose a great danger, though. For instance, this one over here…"

"You mean, this slightly larger red spot? Just like you told us, we've already labeled these ones as the apostle-rank Lichs, and S-Ranks are being dispatched to subdue them."

"Well, in that case, that's a relief."

Su-hyeun was thinking of moving out right away after seeing the Lichs' numbers, but now, he could relax a little better.

Since these undead all had brains, they surely wouldn't make any careless moves. Not to forget, they were also virtually clueless about the science and technology of this world.

They probably wouldn't have dreamed in a million years that the Life Vessels—basically their life itself—would actually expose their hidden locations.

"What about Adel Castle?"

"The autopsy results for the dungeon management agency folks came out not too long ago. We now know for sure that Adel Castle was behind it all."

"Did the media get alerted about it?"

"Isn't that my specialty? Don't worry. Adel has now been exposed as the criminal behind this incident. It's the truth, to begin with anyway."

"I guess it's going to get noisy for a while. And it'll be difficult to hold another Ranking Wars at this rate."

"Yeah, I'm sure it'll be so for the next few years."

Whatever the case might have been, the truth about the Ranking Wars not being responsible for this incident had been revealed to the public. However, under the current circumstances, the next Ranking Wars, and the one after that, couldn't take place.

Regardless of what, this incident was probably the biggest one ever to hit the United States in all her history. It was also the first time that an indigo-colored dungeon went on to become an outbreak.

Thankfully, the public sentiment didn't seem to react so badly, and the reasons for that could be the revelation of Adel's role in the outbreak and the hard work that Su-hyeun and the rest of the Paragon Guild put into greatly minimizing the losses that could be incurred.

"It might take a bit of time before things calm down sufficiently enough. As for Adel Castle, he's going to get executed, that's for sure," Lee Ju-ho continued.

"Is the prosecution being handled by California rather than Britain?"

"Well, the incident happened in California, so yeah. Also, this place still has the death penalty. It seemed to me that Britain has washed their hands clean off Adel Castle."

"He's basically the worst criminal in the world now, so I'm sure it's untenable to protect someone like that. No one can tell what he might do next if he's left alone."

"I guess so. In any case, it's all pretty much sorted out now."

Only then could Su-hyeun breathe a sigh of relief.

The two remaining things in his to-do list were to see through Adel's prosecution and track down the locations of the Lichs. Since both of these issues were taken care of, he couldn't find a reason to remain there anymore.

"In that case, I'll be on my way. I only came here because of the Ranking Wars, but since that's been canceled, I don't have a reason to stay now."

"Are you heading back in there right away?"

"Yes."

"Feels like it's getting harder to see you nowadays, doesn't it?"

"You think so?"

"Why don't you stop by and…? If I told you to say 'hi' to the kids before leaving, I'm sure that's going to burden you some more. Okay, I got it. Hurry up and go. Don't worry too much about this side either."

Lee Ju-ho waved his hand around with an unconcerned expression on his face.

Su-hyeun saw that as a goodbye and turned around to leave before saying something. "The world where nothing needs to be done will come sooner or later, right?"

"You mean, where you don't need to do anything?" Lee Ju-ho pulled out a cigarette, lit it up, and took a long drag. "I'm sure it will. Even now, some people are strolling around a pretty lake, going to a theme park with their loved ones, or even sitting inside their favorite cafes to read the books they like."

All those things that Lee Ju-ho mentioned were Su-hyeun's favorite pastime.

"It's all thanks to you, too."

"Thanks to me, huh?" Su-hyeun smirked a little. He didn't feel so bad about that. "That sounds nice, actually."

"That sounds nice to you? What exactly does?"

Lee Ju-ho pulled out another cigarette and mouthed it.

Su-hyeun turned back and asked, "I thought you already quit?"

"I took it up again. No thanks to you."

"Are you that frustrated?"

"How can I not be? I can't help it when a certain idiot is making me worry, after all."

"You think I'm an idiot?"

"That's right. I beg of you to think about yourself first. How come I can't see you take a single day off? At this rate, well, you might look okay on the outside, but your innards will burn out sooner rather than later."

Su-hyeun remained silent for a while at Lee Ju-ho's words.

The older man wondered if he had stepped out of line just now and was about to check the mood of the latter, but Su-hyeun opened his mouth first.

"I remember seeing footage a long time ago. It was of a burning building in downtown Seoul…"

He suddenly began talking about an unrelated topic. But his voice sounded serious, so Lee Ju-ho paid attention, the cigarette hanging loosely between his fingers.

"Amid all the raging fire and thick smoke, there was a cry. The footage showed that it came from a person on the fourth floor. It was from a child about six years old."

"Why this story out of the blue…?"

"The onlookers were filming this scene. With their smartphones and their cameras. Even though this child was crying out asking for someone to save him."

"…"

"I don't think they were in the wrong, though. Well, it would be difficult for anyone to lend a helping hand in that kind of situation, after all. There wasn't much those people could've done until the fire engines arrived on the scene. And finally, even if there was something they could have done, it didn't mean they must do it, after all."

Not a lot of people would be willing to jump into an inferno for the sake of a stranger. They wouldn't point their fingers at you and criticize you even if you or anyone else chose not to. No, they would probably think you did the right thing in that case.

It was obvious why.

Because nothing was more precious than their own lives.

Because that was the smart and wise thing to do.

"But even then, there was this one guy among all those onlookers. This idiotic guy."

"An idiotic guy?"

"I don't know who he was. He could've been the child's father or maybe even the next-door neighbor. In any case, he jumped into the fire and, soon enough, came outside while carrying the child. He got burn wounds all over his body and was the first person to get driven away in the ambulance. But thanks to him, the child survived."

When Lee Ju-ho heard that far, he finally got what Su-hyeun was trying to say.

"Do you think that man was an idiot?"

However, that didn't mean he could make a straightforward reply.

He certainly couldn't label someone an idiot, and…

"But that's not the right thing to do, is it?"

And he certainly shouldn't be agreeing to that either.

Su-hyeun's situation would be the same story.

"You may have the right to be smart and simply be a bystander, yes, but it's definitely wrong to call someone an idiot, a fool, for being unable to watch idly what's going on, isn't it?" Su-hyeun got up from his seat and said his last words before leaving for good. "So yeah, I can't figure out what's so idiotic about it."

After he left, Lee Ju-ho continued to suck on his cigarettes. It had been a while since he smoked, but before long, he had chain-smoked his way through over half of the pack.

"Hah! Seriously man…" He chuckled wryly and lowered his head before rubbing his face. "So goddamn embarrassing."

He spoke out of concern, but he was now regretting what he said to Su-hyeun not too long ago. He realized that his advice—in telling the other man to think about himself first—seemed just about the same as what those onlookers from Su-hyeun's story did when they merely looked on as the building burned.

He basically insulted that man by insinuating that he was an idiot for entering the raging inferno to rescue the child.

Crush—

Lee Ju-ho pulled out the cigarette still stuck between his lips.

He looked at the crushed cigarette in his palm and muttered to himself.

"I guess it's time to quit again."