Chapter 252. <Independence(1) >

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Translator: Seven

1.

Shwaaaaaa-

An oddly draining sound echoed in my ears, but the scenery before my eyes was indescribably divine.

Starting with a halo that wrapped around my head, the light then covered my neck, shoulders, and arms, and eventually cascaded around legs and feet like silk and spread in all directions.

‘Those lights are probably some kind of skill.’

If that was the case then, whose life did they contain?

With a slightly nostalgic feeling, I quietly watched the silk-like light disperse…

“Giving up! That’s absurd!”

I couldn’t stand watch.

The Lady’s familiar face popped out of the ground with a ‘pop!’.

Not only did the sound effect seem tired, but the background was also tired. A hole appeared in the ground, and from there, she emerged with a grunt. Was this supposed to be a ghost? Had the horror film industry experienced a recession, forcing her to find work in a comedy film? How unfortunate…

“You, what the hell are you thinking? Why would you give up here!?”

The Lady Who Walks Through the Mirage.

She was both the Pillar supporting the Tower and the daughter of the Tower Master.

The girl who probably held the greatest power in the Tower aside from the Tower Master was venting her stress by swinging the pillow she usually carried.

“That must have been a mistake, right? Huh? Our Death King, you’re just pretending to give up and planning something else, right? This sister here trusts you. Now, tell me what it is!”

“No.”

I said calmly.

“I’m really giving up.”

“What! Suuuh!?”

The Lady exploded.

“This is like spilling the cooked rice! What are you doing?! After you’ve taken such great care in raising and pampering those goblin race kids! Now, the goblins finally have a chance to unite the continent for real. But why, why are you giving up…?”

“Those kids don’t want it.”

“Huh?”

I sat down on a white chair. This space, where only white spreads to the horizon, is surprisingly convenient. If I think, [It would be nice if a chair appeared here], it will immediately appear.

As I sat down on the chair, as if it had been waiting for it, a teacup of black tea appeared as well.

“Mmm.”

I picked up the tea and sniffed its fragrance. It was a truly refined peach black tea. If I were to make a comparison…

“…”

It tasted like a Lipton Iced Tea that had received a knighthood, devoted itself to service for three generations, led a major battle to victory with its third-generation descendant, before finally being formally ennobled.

Mmm.

Lowering my head, I tasted the tea.

“I wonder when my food metaphors will become more refined…”

“Sigh…”

“Don’t sigh, Lady. Or else I’ll want to sigh too.”

Had she regained her noble dignity after seeing my petit bourgeois attitude?

Furrowing her brows, the Lady sat down across from me. From the way her shoulders drooped, it seemed she had put off scolding me for a moment.

“Well, it will get more refined in time, won’t it? When I was young, I was as moved the first time I tried pizza, as if I had eaten three tonkatsu, but when I got older and ate spicy fried chicken for the first time, I was just as shocked as if I had eaten five pizzas.”

“Lady, so you have tonkatsu, pizza, and spicy fried chicken in your world too.”

“Mhm. So now, my basic unit of taste is spicy fried chicken. My taste buds have really become more refined compared to when I was a child.”

It’s truly a refined taste.

‘Indeed, as expected of a noble from the kingdom… No, should I say of a Pillar of the Tower?’

As someone who had lived a life above the clouds like a princess, it was probably impossible for her to imagine a life like mine, who could count how many tteokbokki I was given on the street… I was having the same thought at the time.

Hugging her pillow, the Lady spoke.

“But still, the most delicious thing is the soybean paste stew cooked personally by Mom.”

“So there was soybean paste stew too.”

“Mhm. That alone has a special taste that can’t be expressed even with several spicy fried chickens. It is literally the taste of memories. That’s why I still ask her to cook it for me from time to time.”

“I understand. I often think about the rice mixed with fried egg, sesame oil, and soy sauce that the director used to give me to eat. In fact, I asked for it several times before challenging the 31st floor.”

If my family members had been present, Estelle would have asked, “Does the Tower Master cook soybean paste stew?”, Sylvia would have inquired, “Is the Lady’s family really noble…?”, and Kim Yul would have scolded, “Make something like egg rice yourself, family head. Don’t you have hands or feet? Stop exploiting my friend.” But none of that happened.

The fact that I only now revealed that only the Lady and I were sitting in this place, and not the family members, could be called a metaphorical device.

-Crazy bastard…

[Shiny falls into deep silence and sympathizes with the Sword Emperor.]

As always, let’s just ignore those two.

In any case, this was the time when the Lady and I, who had lived in completely different economic classes, dramatically agreed.

‘Ara.’

Suddenly, I felt slightly dizzy.

The half divine eye that I activated when facing the Venomous Snake.

Suddenly, it flickered in front of my eyes without any warning.

I was helplessly sucked into a daydream before I could refuse.

2.

-Baby.

A feeling as if spying on someone’s past through their trauma.

-This one’s daughter…

It was a dark basement.

Ja Soo-jung, who had not yet become the Tower Master, was looking after someone with a face she had never shown before.

It was a small child.

Though much smaller than now, I recognized her as [The Lady Who Walks Through the Mirage].

-This one’s beloved daughter.

The person who would become the Lord of Manseng and the Goddess of the Tower caressed the child’s cheek,

-Hng. Let’s go home. Let’s sleep, Mom.

And the girl, who was not yet ‘The Lady Who Walks Through the Mirage’, this stage’s administrator, caressed her cheek as well.

“…”

I stared blankly at the daydream.

The place where mother and daughter caressed each other’s cheeks was a holy place. Therefore, it felt like no one should dare approach it. In the eyes of the Tower Master looking down at her daughter, there was only benevolence, a benevolence that somehow made one want to cry just from watching.

That was probably one of the true faces of God.

God and her daughter held hands and went somewhere. That was it.

In the daydream shown by the half divine eye, I couldn’t see where the two were going or why they said [let’s go home].

Just as the two figures climbed a staircase and left the dark basement…

“…”

Tuk,

The daydream was cut off.

3.

I blinked my eyes.

Reality continued where the dream was cut off.

“—as I was saying, that’s why I’m pretty good at cooking too, you know?”

The Lady Who Walks Through the Mirage chattered excitedly.

“My cooking would probably be rated EX rank. There’s no rank higher than EX grade. Anyway, I inherited mom’s touch. Now, if I were to make spicy fried chicken with that touch instead of soybean paste stew… it becomes the flavor of memories. Death King, it will be a revolutionary flavor. A novel titled ‘The Lady Who Cooks!’ would probably have about 200 volumes of a grand journey…”

Not realizing I had been daydreaming, the Lady proudly boasted.

Reflected in the Lady’s eyes, I was deeply puzzled. It wasn’t just the terrifying revolutionary taste plan that shocked me.

I pondered the [phenomenon] that had just been shown to me.

‘Is this also a fragment of the trauma possessed by the Tower Master?’

For Ja Soo-jung, her entire life is nothing but trauma.

She collected not only her own trauma but also those of others, and even created countless parallel worlds under the assumption that [if something else had happened]. In each parallel world, Ja Soo-jung saved someone, died, was tortured, or was slaughtered.

‘All those memories are now hidden within me.’

Apparently, the conjecture I had while confronting the Venomous Snake was correct.

‘Now too.’

The amount of information was so enormous that I can’t consciously perceive it.

Like this time, occasionally, it would appear unconsciously, like a dream.

‘Troublesome.’

Perhaps I would see a scene from the future that would happen decades later, or an event that happened hundreds of years ago in a world that has nothing to do with me.

No. Or maybe I’ll see a hypothetical world like [that world] where Yoo Soo-ha was with Ja Soo-jung.

What should I call it, instead of daydream?

‘I can see why she tried so hard to dissuade me back then.’

A bitter smile formed in my heart.

When I declared that I would see the Tower Master’s trauma, the Tower Master desperately tried to dissuade me. She offered other gifts or rewards, and begged me not to look at her trauma.

-Please.

-You will break.

That was how the Tower Master pleaded.

Now, I feel like I understood the meaning of that warning a little.

I took a sip of the ultra evolved version of Lipton Iced Tea and looked at the Lady.

“Lady.”

“Huh? What is it? Do you want a taste sometime? Sorry, Death King. To do that, you would need to first convince me with your own cooking. In other words, I am the ultimate king in a cooking manhwa. When you struggle to create your best dishes, I will easily surpass it, expanding your worldview—”

“No, the Lady… really loves her mother.”

The Lady paused for a moment.

A smile formed on her lips after a short while.

“Mhm, I love mom.”

It was a smile without any hesitation.

“You were born as the daughter of God. Have you never felt burdened or anything like that? Why? Because, usually in clichés, people would say, [I wanted to be born in an ordinary family].”

“Ahaha. What’s that?”

Fiddling with her teacup, the Lady laughed.

“Well, fine. Originally, I was going to ask about why you gave up, but for now, I’ll indulge your curiosity.”

“How does it actually feel? To live as the daughter of God?”

“Umm. Being mom’s child makes me incredibly happy!”

The Lady beamed.

“But there’s one error in the question you asked, Death King. Questions like, [If I were born in an ordinary family, I would be a little happier] don’t apply to me… no, to any of my mother’s children.”

“Huh?”

“We are all children who could only be born to our mother.”

I tilted my head, not understanding what she meant.

The Lady sipped her tea and looked at me thinly over her teacup.

“It’s hard to understand all at once, right? Then imagine this.”

Next to the teacup was a glass jar filled with sugar cubes.

The Lady opened the lid of the jar and picked up the top sugar cube with her slender fingers.

“When born, there is a certain [special] human who will inevitably commit massacres.”

The lifted sugar cube slowly came out of the jar.

“No matter which world they are born in, this person will be the same.”

The sugar cube was moved over the teacup and dropped with a ‘tuk’.

“They destroy people, set them afire, ruin countries, and shatter continents.”

The sugar cube dissolved in the tea, swirling around.

“In any world, any family, and under any parents, this doesn’t change. This person is truly a [special] being in that sense.”

That was a wish I once held for Yoo Soo-ha.

If possible, I’d hoped that Yoo Soo-ha was an unforgivable demonic being whose existence was wrong from birth or even before he was born.

“No one can change this person’s mind. No one can make this person understand love. No one can convince or persuade this person, [why the world is better off as it is now rather than being destroyed].”

The Lady brought the teacup to her lips.

By the time the teacup was placed back on the table, I had already anticipated the conclusion and felt chills from the conclusion I had guessed.

My back felt cold.

“That…”

“I think there are 24 such [special] beings in the whole world.”

The Lady grinned broadly.

“And mom has 24 children.”

“Well, I’m the eldest among them. In the kingdom Death King visited, I’m called Baek Soo-jung (白水晶). Really. My younger siblings are the most troublesome!”

I remained silent.

Unconsciously, I muttered the motto this Tower’s Master always recited.

“[There are no humans in this world that are born wrong]….”

“Right!”

Clap. The Lady lightly clapped her hands.

“Our mom is a bit silly, isn’t she? Anyway, she only gathered the children who would have been born wrong, and made them her own children.”

“And she taught love to all of us.”

The Lady winked playfully.

“But that was the limit.”

“The limit…?”

“We now know the emotion of love. But we only love our mom. Our scales are very different from other people, so even if we hang the entire world on one side of the scale and our mom on the other, mom would easily outweigh it. Mmm. The world would be almost less than a feather.”

I see.

In other words.

It was the exact opposite of my relationship as a dad with the goblin race.

“Mhm.”

The Lady in front of me, the daughter of God.

“For example, the reason I don’t tear down this Tower or other Towers right now is simply because mom asked me not to.”

They were completely dependent on their parent.

The Lady, who was in a completely different parent-child relationship from me, smiled brightly.

“Don’t worry. Even if we sometimes playfully disobey our mom’s request, we won’t really do anything to make her sad. There are a few crazy ones, but they’re not allowed to enter the Tower, so don’t worry.”

“…”

“So what was it… Ah, right. Your forfeiture! Why did you forfeit, Death King!? There were only two or so steps left for the goblins to conquer the continent! It doesn’t make sense to forfeit there, right?”

I calmed my heart.

Perhaps just now, the Lady was unaware of her expression.

The moment she said, “I could tear down the Tower,” her eyes… No, never mind. Who would benefit from manifesting an evil spirit? There was no need to release the curse sealed in silence with my mouth.

The Lady is the one who manages the stage. I am the one who climbs up the stages.

For now, this relationship is enough.

“As I said, those kids didn’t like it.”

“Those kids? You mean the goblin race didn’t like it? That’s the reason you forfeited?”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“We offered the goblins our help. Not just in anything, but in war. In a warzone where people often die, who wouldn’t want help? Nevertheless, the goblins flatly refused, saying, [This is our business].”

“Hmm.”

“The children have already started paving their own way. The things that happen there, the mistakes… even the deaths, those children already think they can and must handle it themselves. And they have the skills to do so.”

I smiled as I thought of the Chairman of the Fire River Council in this era, who had responded to Uburuka with something along the lines of [Stay out of our business].

“They’ve grown up.”

“…”

“Now I shouldn’t interfere with those children. Of course, not interfering could cause more damage. It would be sad and frustrating… But as long as those goblin children don’t ask for help first, I will just watch over them.”

Thanks to luck and skill, I managed to succeed in raising the goblin race to be one of the top tribes on the continent.

However, that didn’t mean I want to say or hear things like, [This is all thanks to me for raising you] or [You should worship me as God].

‘Up to here.’

My mission to guide the children from outside their world ends here.

The goblins have stood on the ground with their own two feet.

They had made it clear that they didn’t need more than their own arm strength to defeat the enemy in front of them and that they didn’t need to rely on the shoulder of a god to reach their destination.

So, the only thing that god could do was to step back and watch over them.

“But still! Aren’t you worried or curious at all!?”

The Lady playfully flapped her pillow.

“For example, what kind of disasters will strike in the remaining layers!? What will happen to the one remaining evolution of the goblin race!? What is the true nature of the postponed rewards!?”

“To answer you, I already know the identity of the remaining layers.”

Of course I did.

Before my regression, I had seen Yoo Soo-ha clear up to the 40th floor.

‘Especially from the 37th floor which was called the [World Quest].’

As long as it’s no longer topical missions, the content won’t deviate much from what I knew.

“I also know about the rewards.”

I once told my Tower companions that the fact that the rewards for clearing the layers are not revealed is itself a mystery.

This mystery would be revealed when the 40th floor is cleared.

Moreover, because of that.

“I’m not worried that I won’t be able to meet the goblins that have gone through their final evolution.”

I spoke with confidence.

“I, the Death King, will forfeit the 36th floor. The Lady Who Walks Through the Mirage.”

“…”

“And soon, I will once more start climbing the Tower and rescue your mother, as I promised earlier.”

I bowed.

“So, please.”

“…….”

“Please allow me to make those children independent.”

A long.

Long silence followed.

The Lady looked at me and sighed. Staring. Blankly. Suddenly, the scent of black tea subsided, and the warmth of the black tea disappeared completely. After several minutes of staring at each other while hiding the sound of our heartbeats, the Lady slowly opened her lips.

“Alright.”

The Lady smiled bitterly.

“Before me, the goblins have become independent.”

Together with that quiet lament, the voice of the Tower announced.

[Stage Forfeit.]

[The Death King has forfeited the 36th floor stage.]

[‘The Lady Who Walks Through the Mirage’ acknowledges the Death King’s forfeiture!]

Now.

Children.

From now on, it’s your era.