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Chapter 36

[Joo Suhyeok: You missed him?]

[Joo Suhyeok: Is this even making any sense?]

[Joo Suhyeok: You missed him when he just popped out of the tower?]

[Na Jeongwon: Then how could we not miss him?]

[Na Jeongwon: Ryu Haneul is openly protecting him. Didn\'t you anticipate that? Didn\'t you take him in expecting that much? You needed the Heavenly Demon\'s power, but you didn\'t want the Heavenly Demon\'s will?]

[Na Jeongwon: Then you should have killed him as soon as you regressed. But you didn\'t want to do that either. Because it felt like being a bad guy.]

[Lee Baejeong: You\'re using strong words today. Haha.]

[Lee Baejeong: I heard you even told Baekya that we\'re being careful and giving him a second chance.]

[Na Jeongwon: Yeah, that\'s true.]

[Joo Suhyeok: Shit, do you guys still have lingering feelings for him?]

[Joo Suhyeok: That bastard was always like that from the beginning. He probably sees everyone in the world as insects, right? That\'s why we all agreed to kill him right after the regression, didn\'t we?]

[Lee Eunwoo: Hold on a second.]

[Lee Eunwoo: I can\'t just let that slide.]

[Lee Eunwoo: I agreed to the fact that he should be killed, not the timing of immediately after the regression. You, Cheong Siyeol, and Lee Baejeong got scared on your own and killed him on your own.]

[Joo Suhyeok: This guy is acting all calm again. If your brilliant calculations had all worked out, we wouldn\'t have needed to regress in the first place.]

[Lee Eunwoo: It\'s better than killing him blindly and then having things blow up when we uncover the truth.]

[Lee Eunwoo: Like now.]

[Joo Suhyeok: Oh, for fuck\'s sake!]

[Lee Eunwoo: I clearly said it back then. We don\'t know what kind of extraordinary artifact Baekya might have. He\'s the one and only Hunter who solo climbed from the 1st floor to the 20th floor. So we need to prepare for a long time and kill him in one go without a single mistake.]

[Lee Eunwoo: How did the situation turn out now?]

[Lee Eunwoo: In the end, we couldn’t kill Baekya. Worse yet, Baekya now knows we’ve regressed, and is aware of the trump card we were holding.]

[Lee Eunwoo: There’s even talk within the guild that we might have had a hand in it. Read this seriously. Right now, Baekya is the world’s hero. If we’re not careful, we might be the ones wiped out.]

[Lee Eunwoo: And because we killed him so hastily, we didn’t even have time to properly plan for what comes next.]

[Joo Suhyeok: Plan?]

[Lee Eunwoo: What’s your plan for breaking through the 60th floor right now? Or what about the S-rank gate that will open in the East Sea in a few years? And the Yinglong that nearly devastated China’s eastern coast?]

[Joo Suhyeok: You know what to do, don’t you? We’ll just fight when the time comes.]

[Lee Eunwoo: I hope that’s a joke. The hunters who have to follow an idiot like you as their guild master better have luck on their side!]

[Joo Suhyeok: You bastard!]

[Lee Eunwoo: Admit it. We’ve left too big of a gap, too soon.]

[Lee Eunwoo: Starting now.]

[Cheong Siyeol: We need to kill Baekya again.]

[Lee Eunwoo: What?]

[Joo Suhyeok: Oh!]

[Na Jeongwon: Ah.]

[Lee Baejeong: Wow!]

[Lee Baejeong: What were you doing until now?!]

[Lee Baejeong: If you had believed me back then.]

[Lee Baejeong: By now...]

[Cheong Siyeol: You know that wasn\'t possible, don\'t you?]

[Lee Baejeong: ......]

[Cheong Siyeol: I\'ve read all of your discussions.]

[Cheong Siyeol: It seems like everyone is confused after everything was undone.]

[Cheong Siyeol: I\'m not confused.]

[Cheong Siyeol: My idol, my hero, my sun. May he remain as the light of the world.]

[Cheong Siyeol: I still earnestly wish for that.]

[Cheong Siyeol: Didn\'t we all swear? To never let that disaster repeat itself?]

[Cheong Siyeol: Now that Ryu Haneul has started public activities, we can\'t keep hiding. Public opinion is reaching its limit too. The Blue House keeps complaining, don\'t they? Let\'s resume our activities from next week.]

[Cheong Siyeol: After turning public opinion around like that.]

[Cheong Siyeol: Let\'s finish what should have been done months ago.]

"..."

* * *

"Ugh!"

I was in the bathroom, gripping the toilet with both hands, retching repeatedly.

The toilet bowl was filled with pitch-black, dead blood.

It was the aftermath of the advent, my mana circuits fried from the strain.

This was the first time I\'d pushed myself this hard since the early days of the apocalypse when Aitel first appeared.

I flushed the toilet, cleaned the blood splattered around with the showerhead, and thoroughly rinsed my mouth.

If Wolha noticed this, it would be a disaster.

【"Are you alright?"】

【"Even I think you had no choice but to enter the tower at that time, so I can\'t say anything."】

【Your constellation \'Sunny\' is fidgeting.】

【"Take this at least."】

【Sponsors Health stat \'5\'.】

【Health +5】

"No, thank you."

I muttered softly as I left the bathroom.

"Thanks to the constellation\'s help, I was able to reach A-Rank again. I shortened the time by months, no, years, so this pain is... Ugh!"

My stomach churned again.

"Hyung. Are you feeling sick?"

I heard Wolha opening the door and coming out of his room.

"No, I\'m fine! I\'m fine. You don\'t have to come out."

I quickly closed the toilet lid and pretended nothing was wrong.

And I pushed Wolha\'s back, sending him back to his room.

He kept talking to me.

"I saw blood splattered on the tiles yesterday..."

"Wow~ What are you studying now?"

"I\'m fine..."

"Korean modern history? Or the philosophy of Gate management?"

I pretended not to hear him.

He glared at me for a moment.

It was a stern look that didn\'t match his age, but to me, it was just cute.

I shrugged nonchalantly, and he let out a shallow sigh and replied.

"It\'s just a collection of past exam questions. I was working on the questions from last year. You have to arrange them in order and explain how the earlier ones influenced the later ones."

There were five options written in the question book.

A: Awakened Registration Act

B: Awakened Mobilization Act

C: Designation of Mana Stones and Artifacts as Strategic Materials.

D: Declaration of Towers and Gates as National Territory

E: Establishment of the Awakened Support Agency.

Seeing the marks of repeatedly writing and erasing the answer with a sharp pencil, it seemed like he was struggling quite a bit.

"This is hard."

"Right? The multiple-choice questions are manageable, but the essay questions are a bit tough."

From what I could see, Wolha was intelligent.

It\'s almost as if he took all of Ilha\'s brain cells for himself.

However, questions like these are easier to solve if you have good background knowledge and are familiar with related terms.

"Want some help?"

"From you, hyung?"

Wolha raised an eyebrow.

He looked like he\'d just heard a bad joke.

I pointed to each option one by one.

"The first thing they created was the Support Agency."

"Wasn\'t it the Registration Act first?"

"It\'s the Support Agency, Registration Act, then Mobilization Act. You need to be registered to be mobilized, and you need a responsible organization to register."

"Oh."

"The next part is easy, right? They declared the territory to designate strategic materials. You get the context, right?"

Wolha stared at the paper for a moment before answering.

"It\'s that. The efforts to integrate and control Awakened into the existing society as much as possible."

I clapped my hands.

See? He\'s pretty smart.

Wolha looked up at me while sitting in his chair.

"But do Awakened actually follow these laws?"

I answered without thinking,

"They follow them pretty well, don\'t they?"

Thinking back, it wasn\'t something Ilha would say.

"Aren\'t there unregistered Awakened?"

"There are. But if you\'re not registered, you can\'t trade Mana Stones."

"That\'s because of the strategic material designation."

"Yeah. You can only buy and sell at the central exchange. Whether you\'re buying or selling, you have to go through them. Also, if you\'re not registered, you don\'t have the right to vote or be elected in the Hunter Association elections, and you\'re restricted from entering the Tower."

"I saw on \'Chatter of the Stars\' that there are also killers made up of unregistered Awakened."

"They\'re all insignificant. Almost all Rankers are registered."

"Why?"

I raised my right hand and pointed to the halo above my head.

Suddenly, the \'Ghost Princess\'s Handkerchief\' tied around my wrist caught my eye.

It was getting a bit worn out.

"Because I can\'t hide the fact that I\'m a Ranker."

Wolha nodded as if he understood.

"That makes sense. Okay, I got it. Thanks."

"Don\'t mention it. I just picked it up from the Divine Guild Hunters."

I put my left hand in my pocket.

With it still in my pocket, I opened the inventory ring and took out another ring.

To Wolha, it would look like a ring appeared from my pocket.

【Aesthetics of Reversal (Hero ‣ Masterpiece)】

【Reflects all (physical, magical, mental, etc.) attacks of C+ rank or lower with 100% power, and all attacks of B+ rank or lower with 90% power.】

【*Recovers its rank when ownership is transferred.】

It\'s one of the drop items from the Mirror Prince.

It\'s a good piece of equipment for tanker-type Awakened who fight in place, but it\'s not very useful for me since I prefer mobile combat.

It\'s definitely not because I\'m worried that he might get caught up in some low-level Gate and die like last time when I\'m not around.

Common sense dictates that you wouldn\'t give a Hero-grade artifact to someone who isn\'t even your real brother, right?

"Here\'s a gift. I saw it while I was out and bought it. It\'s not anything special, just a fashion silver ring, but wear it well."

"Huh?"

"It\'s a fashion ring. Even if you\'re studying for the civil service exam, you can still have this much style."

Of course, I can\'t tell him it\'s a Hero-grade artifact.

Since an F-rank wouldn\'t be able to see the artifact status window anyway, I can just make up an excuse.

"O...kay. Thanks."

Wolha stuttered strangely as he received the ring with both hands.

He also suddenly rubbed his eyes and blinked.

What\'s going on?

Did his eyes get bad from studying all day?

"I\'m going out for a bit. Keep studying."

I should buy some vitamins on my way back.

* * *

【"Don\'t overdo it today. I don\'t want to see a bad ending after you\'ve finally conquered the Tower and overcome your trauma."】

【Your constellation \'Sunny\' repeatedly urges you.】

I nodded several times.

"Don\'t worry."

I had no intention of overdoing it today either.

This was rehabilitation, not training.

My destination was the Ghost Princess\'s Castle.

It was a place where I could gain an absolute advantage with an overwhelming matchup.

I was thinking of going there to get a few more \'Ghost Princess\'s Handkerchiefs\'.

It was time to start paying more attention to managing my identity.

On the way, I opened my status window in the taxi.

I went deep into it.

+

【Server Ranking / South Korea】

【Hong Baekya: 313th (Invisible)】

+

As expected.

Even if it\'s barely scraping by with a minus, an A is still an A.

I\'ve already entered the top 300 of the rankings.

All Awakeners within the top 1,000 can see their ranking on the server.

From 300th, the rankings are also revealed to other Awakeners.

From 100th, they are periodically displayed on the Tower wall.

And from 30th place, they float on the Tower wall in real-time.

Of course, people usually only check up to around the 100th.

It\'s annoying to keep pressing the status window button to get this far.

But for someone like me who needs to hide their identity, the fact that someone can see my name and ranking is very dangerous.

That\'s also the reason why there are almost no unregistered Rankers.

Even if they\'re not registered with the government, they\'re already registered in the Aitel system.

Anyway, if I climbed just a few more, I\'d enter the visible range for others.

Then, simply disguising my halo like this wouldn\'t be enough.

I\'d have to cover my face every time I go out.

Of course, things like masks and sunglasses would be useless against an E-rank Awakener\'s \'Discern\' skill.

I\'d need something like the Ghost Princess\'s Handkerchief, which could hide my halo.

"Thank you."

The taxi arrived in Seongnam City.

【Your constellation \'Sunny\' effectively uses mental magic...】

Once again, I crossed various mental magic defenses, anti-Awakener barriers, and even the artificial Samdocheon to enter the Ghost Princess\'s Castle.

It felt like the defenses had become even weaker since last time.

As long as I didn\'t go berserk, it was a good thing for me now.

As always, green ghosts swarmed towards me.

【Phantom (B) appears.】

【Ghost (C) appears.】

【Wraith (C) appears.】

【Banshee (C+) appears.】

I prepared Law of Light.

Instead of just blasting it randomly like before, I combined it with an existing skill, like when I used \'Incineration Ray\'.

There was one that was perfect for ghosts.

【Light of Purification (B+)】

That\'s it.

I fired \'Light of Purification\' mixed with \'Law of Light\'.

Fwhoooosh-!

A light like a powerful military flashlight shone in the darkness.

The thick fog and green ghosts were swept away cleanly.

Despite being a tremendous wide-area skill, it didn\'t consume much mana.

My mana was slowly increasing.

【Mana increases by \'1\'.】

The increase was much slower because I had incomparable power to just a few months ago, but it wasn\'t meaningless yet.

More importantly, I needed to find a Dullahan or a Ghost Knight quickly.

That\'s how I\'d get the Ghost Princess\'s Handkerchief.

I don\'t know how many ghosts I burned.

【Dullahan (B) appears.】

A notification popped up.

Unlike last time, there was no \'warning\' alert.

That meant my rank had risen that much.

I was about to fire an Incineration Ray.

"Found you!"

Swish!

If a figure hadn\'t jumped out from behind and bisected the Dullahan from neck to groin with a single slash of their longsword, I definitely would have fired.

The figure was wearing thick artifact armor.

So, before their face, my eyes went to their wrist first.

【Ghost Princess\'s Handkerchief (Hero)】

A white, ring-shaped halo floated above their head.

"..."

"..."

I quietly hid my hand behind my back.

[Translator - Hestia