5th Floor, The Girl Who Gazes at the Meteor Shower (4)
The scenery of the Ascension Tower I'd seen until now had always been similar.
A world like a computer game, dark, worn, dreary, or half-dead.
But beyond the Apocalypse Tower's wall was different. There, there was a sky.
And.......
The sky was collapsing.
Tens of thousands of lights were splitting the sky. Looking at the meteors falling with long tails trailing behind them, what impression should I put into words?
Red, blue, bruised violet, or scattering golden light.
Spreading in rainbow hues, as if someone had poured paint across the sky.
But it was strange.
Every one of those meteors 'was stopped.'
The meteors were falling, yet they didn't fall.
The flames were burning, yet they didn't spread.
As if time were holding its breath.
“......”
It was a scene that looked like the end of the world, but something felt off.
I went a little closer to the wall.
Below my feet, a vast city spread out. Tall towers stretched up toward the sky.
Bridges woven from unbroken glass and metal, buildings reflecting light.
Traces of a brilliant civilization.
'People are alive.'
But above all of it.
Tens of thousands of ends had come to a halt.
My heart beat slowly.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I walked slowly.
The stage had clearly been cleared, but the reward hadn't come in. That meant a final objective still remained.
The innermost door, guarded by five Gatekeepers.
Clunk! When I picked the lock and went in, there was a large cage of blue light.
Inside it, a girl in a pure white dress sat still, gazing at the sky.
The highest point of the skyscraper.
In a place where she could see the whole sky at a glance, the girl simply stayed there, endlessly, locked up.
Even the sign of her blinking was faint. I followed her gaze and raised my head.
That sky I'd seen beyond the wall.
That scene of the end, where tens of thousands of meteors had stopped and looked down upon the world.
The girl kept gazing at it. As if she wouldn't miss a single moment of it.
I lowered my gaze and looked at the girl. Her eyes were deep.
So deep, it was as if they held the sky itself.
And even within those eyes.......
The meteors were stopped.
“......Have you come?”
When the girl parted her lips, I could feel it instinctively.
Like the 'merchant' who kept watch over the Apocalypse Tower, that girl was actually alive.
The breath of life and civilization I'd never once felt in the Ascension Tower up to Tier 4 difficulty.
Here, people were actually living.
So that's what it meant for the Apocalypse Tower to be 'real'.......
“What are you?”
At my question, the girl turned her head and looked at me.
Her eyes seemed to resemble meteors. They sparkled in rainbow hues like the tail of a meteor shower, but I didn't find them beautiful.
The girl tilted her head as if the question was quite unfamiliar.
“I am...... the Saint of the Meteors.”
As she said so, she smiled.
“As you can see, I'm holding back the end of the world.”
“......”
I looked at her ankles. They were covered in thin scars, whether from brushing against the iron bars or left over from struggling in here.
Tear stains lay heavily around her eyes.
I could tell at a glance.
She hadn't come here because she wanted to.
I absentmindedly picked up a cigarette, wanting to recharge my nicotine, then sighed and put it down.
“What do they need you for?”
At that, the girl pointed to her own eyes.
“My eyes can stop that meteor shower. It's an ability every Saint in history has had. It's just been given to me now.”
“......When does the next Saint come? How long are you going to be like this?”
At that, the Saint shrugged and answered optimistically.
“Until I die?”
“So, you're saying you have to keep staring at nothing but the sky until you die?”
“I don't have to look at just the sky. Look over there. Watching the city is fun too. That tower over there wasn't there before; it was built recently. I often see families coming to visit with their little kids. When I think that they're living happily thanks to me, it's rewarding in its own way.”
Rewarding, huh. That's a feeling you force yourself to feel. The girl's eyes as she looked at the city held longing and hope. She, too, was yearning for that kind of free life.
'What does it want from me?'
The clear condition was 'Meet the Princess.'
I'd killed the 5th-floor boss. Now all that was left was to do something about that girl.
I absentmindedly gripped my longsword.
'What if I killed her?'
I could probably destroy an entire world. That would be quite a pleasurable experience. Being able to bring down a world I knew nothing about with a light slash of a sword.
But pleasurable experiences don't necessarily remain as pleasant memories.
I knew that from long experience.
Rather.
Than thoughts like that.
“I don't get it.”
“......Pardon?”
“In other words, it means that if you got pissed off, you'd have the power to destroy this world.”
That's right.
On Earth, it'd be like the right to launch tens of thousands of nuclear missiles all over the world at once being held in one person's hand.
If I had that kind of power...... I think I'd just conquer the world? I could live as the worst villain on earth.
“Why do you just sit still? With that precious power of yours.”
“Well...... because I want this world not to be destroyed.”
The girl's eyes turned resolute.
“I want to protect this world. Even if the people of this world lock me up and make me suffer.”
Ah, is that so?
Then again, a kid with that kind of heart must be why she was chosen as Saint.
That mindset probably wouldn't change until she died.
“Who told you to actually destroy the world?”
I poked here and there at the cage with my dagger and picked the door open.
Clank!
The door opened so easily it was almost anticlimactic. The Saint couldn't say anything for a moment.
Her face showed she didn't understand what had just happened.
“......Huh?”
She slowly turned her head to look at the open door.
“Just now.......”
She asked carefully.
“Is it...open?”
“Can't you see?”
I said it like it was nothing.
“Things like this are usually built to lock from the outside, so they're easy to open from the outside.”
That wasn't the point.
The girl couldn't say anything.
“......Why, why? I'm a being who must not go outside.”
Even as she said that, her gaze didn't leave the door for even a moment.
'It's open.'
Her chest burned hot.
A door that hadn't opened in decades, no, maybe not even once since she was born.
Not the wind that came in between the iron bars, but the wind blowing from beyond the door lightly stirred her hair.
The girl's hand rose very slowly and...... caressed the door.
Cold metal.
But it moved.
“......It really opens.”
It was a very small voice.
As if murmuring in a dream. She tried to get up from her seat and stopped. It was a motion her body didn't remember. Her legs, which had been sitting for a very long time, wouldn't obey her.
“Hey.”
“......Yes?”
“You right now.”
I pointed at her ankles with an annoyed expression.
“For a Saint spouting noble stuff about stopping the end of the world or whatever, your legs are in a real mess.”
Only then did she look down at her ankles.
Countless thin scars. Marks from brushing against chains and wounds left over from struggling.
The truth was, she'd wanted to go outside too.
She stared blankly at them for a moment, then smiled faintly.
“I guess I've been sitting...... a little long.”
“A little?”
I laughed along as if dumbfounded and held out my hand.
“Get up.”
She looked at my hand for a moment.
Just a very brief moment.
Truly just a moment, she hesitated.
Because she had never once in her life been offered a hand by someone saying 'Let's go outside.'
She carefully raised her hand, and touched it.
“......It's warm.”
“Because I'm alive.”
When I pulled her up with some strength, the Saint stood up, staggering.
For the first time.
One foot came out of the cage.
She stopped and took a breath.
The air of the passage. It smelled different from inside the cage. It was only a very trivial difference, but...... her eyes wavered.
“......It's outside.”
Her gaze slowly moved along the passage.
The cage, the walls, the ceiling.
And.
The sky.
Tens of thousands of meteors were still stopped.
But it was the first time.
That she was seeing that sky 'from outside the cage.'
Her lips trembled slightly.
“So.”
Her eyes sparkled.
“......Was it always this wide?”
The thing called the world.
I didn't answer.
That was something she could gradually feel for herself from now on.
'Now what? What should I have her do?'
Suddenly giving freedom to a child who'd been locked up her whole life was a cruel thing too. She knew nothing and didn't know how to do anything.
'Should I stay here a little longer?'
If I put in the time, I could teach the girl a lot of things.
“I see. I understand now.”
“What?”
As I was tapping the cigarette pack with my finger and thinking it over, the girl smiled and turned around to look at me.
“You said that if I got pissed off, I could destroy the world, right?”
“You said you wouldn't.”
“Yes. I won't. But the people of the world will fear me.”
She said as she slowly walked toward the sky full of meteors.
“I'm going to become a king.”
Her gaze was turned toward the sky she'd watched her whole life, but.
For the first time, she looked at the world instead of the meteor shower.
The girl's chest heaved once, big.
It was freedom.
And at that moment.
One of the tens of thousands of meteors...... began moving again, very slowly.
“Um, by any chance. If I become a king someday, would you, with me...... huh?”
Turning around, the girl blinked blankly.
The man who had just saved her had vanished without a trace, as if he'd never been here.
“I didn't even get to say thank you.”
She hadn't even asked her savior's name. But it was all right.
'If I become queen like this, someday...... we'll be able to meet again, right?'
The Saint dreamed of the world for the first time.
***
After the Ascension Tower rose on Earth, many changes appeared on Earth too.
Tower Breaks.
And Gate Overs.
At first, they were at a level Earth's technology could handle well enough.
The monsters and Gates that appeared were at most at the level of the Tier 1 Tower's lower floors.
Of course, even this was enough to put nations with weak militaries on emergency alert, so the whole world was said to have been greatly shaken.
The change began when the Tier 1 Tower's death rate got far too high.
In the early days, very few people climbed, and the 'grace period' was frequently exceeded.
The Tower Breaks that occurred each time were at a level hard for Earth's technology to handle.
Beasts over level 100 weren't affected much by guns and missiles, so even if they somehow managed to deal with it, civilian casualties always followed.
That was when the 'graduates' appeared.
The superhumans who graduated from the Tier 1 Tower instantly resolved the crises on Earth and rose to become heroes.
It was only natural that Earth's social system came to revolve around Awakeners.
No Awakeners, no Earth.
There was also talk that the Awakeners called Hunters could conquer Earth if they set their minds to it, but it wasn't easy.
Because there were more moderate Tier 4 Tower graduates opposed to conquering Earth than you'd think.
One of the leading figures of those moderates, Yuna Sinclair.
Having defected to America on the condition of marrying a Hollywood actress, she lived hidden in the forest, doing only the minimum hunting America required.
So no one predicted that Yuna Sinclair would come back out into the world, but.
“What's this now? Yuna Sinclair. Weren't you not doing dangerous hunts?”
Yuna Sinclair, with her black bob and youthful beauty. When she suddenly announced her return to activity, the whole world was abuzz with talk of Yuna.
It was rare to be both an SSS-Rank Awakener who graduated from the Tier 4 Tower and a beauty. Yuna was a superstar who met both conditions, to the point that her social media followers easily surpassed ten million even though she barely did anything.
“......Eddie.”
Looking at Eddie, the Awakener who had spoken to her, Yuna scrunched up her face.
It wasn't a very welcome meeting.
If a 'Rank 13' Gate, where monsters from no less than the Tier 4 Tower were said to appear, hadn't shown up, she wouldn't have bothered forming a party with him.
“Whew, a hunt with Yuna, who they called the Diva in the Ascension Tower. Now this brings back memories, huh?”
When Eddie said it playfully, Yuna stared at him silently. Eddie, grinning as if to say 'so what,' met her eyes, and.
Suddenly felt as if his throat were being squeezed.
'Wh-what the.......'
A dead-looking gaze without any emotion. Some said her eyes looked as beautiful as stained glass.
When those eyes, shimmering like shards of broken pale-violet glass, quietly stared at him, cold sweat began to pour down.
“Wh-whoa, whoa. Calm down. We're about to go to the battlefield as comrades, are you going to waste our strength fighting each other?”
“......”
Yuna looked off into the distance again.
Waste their strength fighting each other?
What a stupid thing to say. Yuna hadn't done anything. Having ended up looking like he'd gotten scared for nothing, Eddie frowned.
[Danger Grade Assessment]
[Rank 13 Gate]
[Tier 4 Tower monsters expected to appear]
A Rank 13 Gate usually spawned monsters or dungeons from between the Tier 4 Tower's 1st and 25th floors. However, since their 'levels' came out raised to match the level of Tier 4 Tower graduates, clearing them became slightly difficult for Tier 3 Tower graduates.
On Earth, you couldn't use the 'Shop,' and there were no 'retries.'
On top of that, considering civilian casualties, it was the World Hunter Association's policy that at least 2 to 3 Tier 4 Tower Awakeners were needed to clear a Rank 13 Gate or higher.
'......I think I could do it alone.'
Yuna thought that. Of all people, she had to carry out a mission with a man like that.
No. She had resumed activity with all of this in mind. She had to endure it.
Eddie, swaggering again, casually spoke to Yuna, who was checking the operation guidelines on a tablet.
“Ah, right. Is the reason you're active again because of 'Yu Hyun-sung,' by any chance?”
She flinched. When that name came up, Yuna's shoulders trembled.
“Yuna, you of all people opposed Yu Hyun-sung's policies more fiercely than anyone. As it happens...... lately, an alliance has been quietly forming among the Tier 4 Tower graduates. I guess you got contacted too?”
“......What contact?”
“Not yet? Hmm. It's confidential, so I'm a bit uneasy saying it, but you'll be contacted soon anyway.”
Eddie edged closer to Yuna. She hated it horribly, but she forced herself to endure it.
Curiosity pushed away disgust.
“The thing is...... if by any chance Yu Hyun-sung graduates from the Apocalypse Tower, the balance of power collapses, right? We Tier 4 Tower graduates don't want that. We're trying to build our own kingdom and live well, and we can't stand watching some talentless trash bug run around, can we?”
“......Is that so?”
“It is~! Well, I think he'll just croak on his own while climbing anyway. But even if he does graduate from the Apocalypse Tower, there's nothing to worry about. As you know, even a Tier 4 Tower challenger can be killed by a Tier 3 Tower challenger, right? Of course, it's only ever happened once.”
Of course she knew.
He was talking about the incident a few years ago when 'Ahn Ho-young,' then challenging the Tier 3 Tower, killed a challenger who was clearing the top floors of the Tier 4 Tower.
The first and last case of overcoming an overwhelming gap in level and blessings.
“That errand boy who sticks to Yu Hyun-sung like chewing gum. Yu Hyun-sung's not scary, but that guy is. Anyway, there's only been one case like that so far, but there's no law saying there can't be two.”
He was right.
No one knew how strong an Apocalypse Tower graduate would be, but stronger than all 100 Tier 4 Tower graduates combined? Well. She was skeptical.
The accepted theory was that if Tier 3 Tower graduates formed a large-scale alliance and set their minds to it, they could kill a Tier 4 Tower graduate or so.
“So...... you're saying if Yu Hyun-sung does graduate and come out, you kill him?”
“Correct! Isn't it better to prepare for the future early?”
Yuna held back a trembling breath and said.
“......He saved Earth from the apocalypse, though?”
“What does that matter? His policies completely deny an Awakener-dictatorship society. He'd only get in the way of our paradise.”
Right?
Eddie added.
“You're the one who came to loathe Yu Hyun-sung more than anyone in the Tower, aren't you?”
She flinched. At those words, Yuna's lips trembled.
Why was it? Even with that gleefully smiling face, she saw the form of a horrifyingly disgusting devil.
“Anyway, let's do our best on the Gate clear together!”
As Eddie walked away with a cute wink, Yuna broke into a cold sweat and pressed a hand to her forehead.
'Compared to the Tier 4 Tower hardliners who want to rule Earth...... the moderates are absurdly few.'
Even now, the hardliners stayed still not because they feared the moderates, but only because they didn't want to start a war and get hurt or die for nothing.
If they set their minds to it, the Tier 4 Tower hardliners could kill every moderate, including Yuna Sinclair, at any time.
Of course, Yuna would take a few of them with her when that time came, but.......
In the end, Earth being ruled by the Tier 4 Tower graduates couldn't be prevented.
'......That future would be the worst Earth possible.'
Yuna let out a deep sigh and walked toward the Gate.
Whatever the future might be, for now she would do what she had to do.
Even so, suddenly curious, right before entering the Gate.
She turned her head and looked north.
Under that constellation where the North Star hung, the 'Ascension Tower' always rose firmly. No matter where on Earth you looked from, you could see the Tower by looking toward the North Star.
Yu Hyun-sung would still be...... climbing that Tower even now.
For his mission.
For Earth's future.