The time I had to endure to get here was long. It was about time I thought back to a certain nightmare I had. In the battle of the twelfth floor, I, a drop of water, had been part of an intense current before I had gotten killed by the Demon King. That was when I had seen her trauma, the nightmare that belonged to the master of nightmares.
[Initiating your Skill penalty.]
[Recreating your killer’s trauma.]
[The penalty’s intensity level is intermediate.]
[The penalty’s theme is the Preta Realm.]
[Recreating Monster Demon King of Autumn Rain’s trauma.]
A village was engulfed by an inferno. I was standing in the center, alone.
“Burn down the witch’s nest!”
No, I wasn’t on my own. At least I had the Guardian by my side. The person who was truly alone in this inferno stood on the opposite side. Her name was Estelle, the Saintess of the Outskirts and the salvation of all the sick.
“Don’t show any mercy. They are all cursed monsters!”
Estelle’s confusion left her speechless. She had no idea what was going on, so she just opened and closed her mouth. Why? Why were humans burning other humans? The people they were burning were the parents who had expressed their gratitude to her for giving their babies new lives. All of those babies were also being butchered now.
“It is our lord’s will!”
Soldiers with a myriad of flags destroyed the village’s wooden fence.
“Our king has ordered us!”
Knights wielded their swords, each of their armors engraved with different symbols.
“His Imperial Majesty of the Great East, guardian of the rising sun and protector of all those living between the land and ocean and...”
“A heretic dares to call herself a saintess, so our great pope...”
“The Forest Monarch tasked us with this mission, so please, my elemental spirit, upon this arrow...”
“Using the gem given by the Mermaid Queen, our magic staff...”
“The Primordial Volcano Dragons are also here to uphold our oaths! Dragons, release your fire on those wicked...”
They stated their affiliation and names. Yet Estelle still couldn’t understand. Who were they? Who were they to burn other humans?
They were thorough. First, they surrounded the village like they would do with prey, leaving no room to escape. Some families tried, but they were soon caught. The villagers were about to be skewered by spears or cut by swords; even if they managed to avoid them, they would be shot with arrows or magic spells. Perhaps they could have avoided all of that by some miracle, but the fire ultimately drove them to the village square, the only place they could run to.
The village was the paradise Estelle had created. She stood in the center of it, peering through the swirling smoke.
“Hold on a little longer. Hold on....”
A father hunched his back, creating a small sanctuary. His young child cowered within while the father took on the sparks and swallowed the smoke for his child. The child got to live a minute longer than her father.
An old man and an old woman took each other into their arms. Estelle thought that they were saying goodbye to their life partners. However, when she looked a little closer, she realized that she was wrong—there was a baby between them.
“Just a little more...”
When the fire reached them, the grandfather and grandmother screamed, but they didn’t let go of each other. Even as the fire burned their elbows and slowly turned them into lumps of coal, the old couple didn’t move. Their hug wasn’t a goodbye, it was a desperate sacrifice to save the child. The old couple died first, and the cries of the baby between them died out a minute later.
One by one, the coughing in the plaza stopped.
The village had a family whose orchard made them the richest. There used to be an old man who went out at every dawn to tend to his farm. When fall arrived, an old woman in the village used to go out and admire the golden wheat fields.
However, no one’s health was perfect. Terminal illnesses lay dormant in their stomachs. Cancers were corroding some of their brains and spines. There were those whose eyes couldn’t see and whose legs couldn’t be used to walk. There were too many sicknesses in this world, so Estelle had been gladly eating them away.
Her heart turned darker than all the diseases she had swallowed. It was scorched by the fire and stained by the smoke. She tried opening her mouth, but the smell of fire filled it. That was when she realized that her heart had become a little darker. The village burned all night, and so did Estelle.
Estelle scraped up the piles of ashes that remained after her paradise had burned down. No one interrupted her; they had all left when they had seen the fire engulfing the village.
There lay a father’s corpse.
Under him was the corpse of a baby.
“Solape... Chou... Ugensache... Mobazaijan... Topo... Enna... Garcorp...”
She used her bare hands to shovel the village’s remains, turning her fingers dark. Her fingernails broke and bled. Even her blood eventually turned dark, but she kept digging. And then she opened her mouth to eat the flesh and bones. If there weren’t any flesh or bones, she choked down the ashes.
Human flesh was no longer fragrant. It no longer piqued her appetite, nor could she feel any beauty from it. The only thing left after the fire was the smell of smoke. Yet Estelle continued to devour everything the fire had touched, even if it was unsightly.
“You pitiful things...”
Estelle’s mouth became dirty and black. Her teeth and throat were also painted black as the body fluid welled up in her stomach and her blood turned into slime. It wasn’t just her blood—something was coming out of her eyes. They probably were not tears, given their opaque blackness.
“You pitiful things...”
That was why it was just filth. The waste created after the other humans used and abandoned it flowed and flowed until it filled Estelle’s heart. It had nowhere else to go.
“You pitiful things...”
The dark stream didn’t stop flowing.
It flowed over the village square.
“All of you... All of you are human.”
The sewage spread throughout the village.
“All of you were born human, so you must know the beauty of life and how to shed tears. So why?”
It reached the plains.
“Why would you call them monsters? Did you burn them because they were? They also knew the beauty of life and how to shed tears. Was it not enough? Is that why you called them monsters and burned them without a second thought?”
It flowed to the mountains.
“Are you the only ones who are humans? Is that the reason why you people are the only ones who are allowed to smile and shed tears in your world? Are you the only ones who get to stay beautiful in your world?”
The grudges rained down.
“Is that why you get to be human? And... they... my children should remain monsters, forever? Is that what your world is like? I see. You people need proof to accept others as humans.”
Howls and cries burst out of the heart.
“Then it’s your turn to prove it.”
It continued to rain.
With the rain, no villages, even the ones on the outskirts, were going to be engulfed in fire.
Her children and heart had lost their color. Her blood now only flowed as ashen wastewater, but red rain fell upon this world in remembrance of her blood.
“Let your malice swallow you.”
“You... you people made me .”
“That is why I made you like that. “
—Gong-Ja. Wake up. This isn’t your hell.
With difficulty, I managed to blink.
[The trauma recreation has been completed.]
[It has been confirmed that the ego of the subject under the Skill penalty is intact.]
[Ending the Skill penalty.]
—Gong-Ja! Now is the time!
I blinked again, clearing my vision so I could see what was in front of me. No, what was shown to me.
—I see an opening in her head!
I wandered through the moment as if it were an eternity. In front of me was a person covered in darkness. In my hands was a sword because there was someone I had to cut down.[1]
She continued to drown in sewage. Water was still water after it was cut, so it had to be cut many times.
More filth dripped from the Demon King’s wounds. Perhaps this wasn’t waste, or else it wouldn’t be red. It was blood. The Demon King bled red blood.
—Urgh... Gahhh...! The Demon King staggered backward.
One step. Two steps. When I was on my third step, no more wastewater surged from the Demon King’s right arm. She still left behind dark pools of waste, but they grew smaller with every step I took.
The wastewater was slowly stripped away from the Demon King.
When the flow stopped, she began to bleed instead. Her blood was red like the color of life.
[The Demon King of Autumn Rain’s presence has weakened.]
The being of absolute power was now gone.
—No... This can’t be happening... Agh...! The Demon King tried to cover the weeping wounds on her left arm using her right hand, as if she refused to let a single drop of blood go. No, it was more like she was trying to scoop up what had been spilled long ago
—My children... I can’t... Their grudges and resentment...
“Retreat,” I quietly said.
While a sword could cut the flesh in two, a voice could sever the soul. The Demon King froze as if she had been cut by my voice.
“Go back to the twentieth floor. You’ll never be able to defeat me. Go back to your main base, the last scraps of your territory.”
The state of the war was already evident on my world map. The blue reached the mountain range and beyond the Goddess’s Shield. The one-eyed giant looked over the temple. The forest was filled with dancing elves. Mermaids played around the waterfall. A clear lake replaced the lava in the crater of the Primordial Volcano... Every region of the continent was blue; it was the land of humans again.
“Go back to your start.”
Only a small region of the continent was red—closer to a dot. A fire may be able to burn an entire plain, but it eventually died out to a spark. A flood that might have reached the bottom of the sky would turn into a drop of water in the end. Only a red dot, dim as a firefly, was left on the wide world map.
“That will be your end, Demon King.”
—You... The Demon King looked up and gritted her teeth.
The sewage had stopped flowing, so she now bled. Half of her body was scorched. Only one of her red eyes shone with its vicious light; the other half of her face was still covered with ashen sludge.
“Hmm.” The Sword Star gripped his sword.
The Black Witch leisurely lined up her six mirrors. “I’ll let you make the final attack, Death King.”
In no way was it possible for her to even try turning the situation around. Having peeked at the Demon King’s trauma, I felt was like the siege the humans had created to surround her village.
The Demon King had no choice but to run. However, she couldn’t take that choice because she also knew that it wasn’t the answer either, just as running to the village square to get away from the fire had only lengthened the villagers’ lives by a minute. Fleeing to the twentieth floor would only mean a slight delay in her defeat.
Blood dripped out of the Demon King’s mouth.
[The Demon King of Autumn Rain has decided to retreat.]
[The Demon King of Autumn Rain has retreated to the twentieth floor!]
Yes, a human would flee even if they knew it meant death by fire. The more the Demon King ran, the closer she became to a human.
[It has been confirmed that the Demon King of Autumn Rain retreated.]
[Initiating History Reformation.]
[The nineteenth-floor stage has been revised!]
Drops of light settled over the world once again.
When the Demon King had disappeared, I turned around.
“Black Dragon Master.”
“I appreciate your help until now, but I’m sorry.” I bowed. “I want to clear the twentieth floor and see the end with the Demon King on my own. Let me go alone.”
The Black Witch shrugged. “It’s fine with me. You’re the main reason why we were able to get this far. I already promised you not to do anything for five days anyway... It was me who broke the promise and helped you, so I’ll really stay put this time.”
“Today is our fifth day. Meet up with me after you finish clearing the twentieth floor. You and I have a lot to talk about.” The Sword Star sheathed his sword.
“I understand. Thank you.” I bowed once again before I said, “Send me.”
[Welcome, Death King.]
And I headed to the twentieth floor, the village where the Demon King, Estelle, had been born.
1. The raw is ????(一刀兩斷). It’s a four-letter idiom that carries two meanings. (1) Cutting something in half. (2) Making decisions without hesitation. ☜