“Before that.”
Li Hwa interrupted him. With a low voice, and a gaze that tried to look deeper beneath, she addressed Yu Jitae.
“There is something that needs to be clarified.”
“Please.”
“Are you, young man, on the side of humanity?”
The old lady spoke in a firm, curt tone. She was asking as a veteran that had participated in three wars after the introduction of the New Era.
Knowing how the old lady had lived her life, as well as her values as a soldier, he replied with a natural yet serious voice.
“Yes. I am on the side of humanity.”
Only then did she ease her expression.
She probably wasn’t fully relieved and as long as his identity and affiliation weren’t clear, Li Hwa would always be on guard. However, since their thoughts were in accordance with another, there was no reason for conflict.
“You have data on Melissia Masquerade?”
“What, you think we don’t?”
“Put up the screen then.”
Minamoto obediently magnified the hologram display, as the survey map of the S+ ranked dungeon, Melissia Masquerade appeared in the air.
Melissia Masquerade was a rare type of dungeon with divided sections. There were open fields with differing sizes, and fissures connected a field to another. Since it was similar to moving between rooms, this dungeon type was also referred to as a ‘Room-type’ dungeon.
The number of rooms inside the map amounted to roughly 180. Small rooms had the size of two soccer fields at the very least, and large ones were as big as the suburb, Yeouido (about 8.4 square kilometres).
“There are three targets we need to focus on.”
“Wei Yan, Ysayle and Noah… is it those three?”
“No. There is no need to care that much about Wei Yan.”
“Why? Isn’t that guy the main character? You said everything was being carried out to feed that one guy.”
“That’s true, but Wei Yan will only gain enough power once everything is almost done. The targets we need to focus on while following the raid group are Ysayle, Noah, and… Melissia.”
Melissia.
She was the boss of the dungeon, Melissia Masquerade.
At the same time, although Lair had no idea about it, she was a monster that had a tremendous amount of mana for a mere boss of an S+ dungeon. Comparatively speaking, she had around 30% of an adult dragon’s mana, and this was on the level that could only be seen above SS+ rank.
The demons were aware of that as they chose Melissia Masquerade for their venue.
“The boss room will become a living sanctuary and Melissia will become a living altar.”
“The sacrifice…”
“Right, it will be the cadets.”
“These fucking bastards.”
A heavy dump of profanities left her mouth, as Minamoto’s mana fluctuated irregularly. She was infuriated from the bottom of her heart.
“Then, what should we do. Should Li Hwa and I take care of Noah, while this girl fights Ysayle, and you go against Melissia?”
In response to BM’s question, he shook his head.
“You three need to be with Noah.”
“What? You’re saying you will be fighting both the dungeon boss as well as that crazy demon engineer?”
“No. I’ll be fighting all three including Noah.”
“What…?”
“You just have to buy enough time to minimise the damage. If things go according to plan, that should be enough.”
“Ysayle Khalifa–”
That was when the old woman opened her mouth.
“She’s a lady that is extremely skilled at making puppets. Her ability to soul transfer is exquisite, and it won’t be easy to kill her.”
[Soul Transfer] – it referred to a blessing or a skill that allowed one to move between bodies.
“There shouldn’t be a problem there.”
Yu Jitae threw a glance at Bom.
“She will take care of it.”
Bom nodded while saying, “Yes”.
“How will she do it.”
“I have a blessing that can interrupt with soul transfers.”
“Interrupt soul transfers…? You have a blessing like that, young lady?”
Minamoto appeared astonished, but it was a lie. In fact, Bom’s ability was even greater because she had the ability of adjusting anything that deviated from Providence to its correct path.
It was the ability that had once neutralised Hasegawa’s puppets, and since Ysayle Khalifa was the one that had made Hasegawa’s puppets in the first place, it should work the same way.
Metaphorically, it was similar to using a bazooka to catch a mosquito.
“I might be able to provide some help then, in catching Ysayle Khalifa that is.”
Li Hwa held her wrinkled hands together.
“Ah right. You fought her once right, old hag?”
“I did. It was really tiring. Do you want to see it as well young man?”
The old woman looked at Yu Jitae with a clear gaze. She then pulled down the chest area of the red hoodie she was wearing. Beneath her neck, there was a horrendous-looking electronic device embedded within.
“I can stop this old thing if I want to. My body remembers how to stop the device.”
Although she was saying that, Yu Jitae knew.
He knew that the one that had burned her entire body during the East-Asian Great War was none other than Ysayle Khalifa. There was a reason why Li Hwa, who had pretty much retired, had shown up at this place once more.
“Okay.”
But there was no reason to get emotional and put Li Hwa against Ysayle. That was something that required more time to decide.
BM opened his mouth while dropping the bottle of vodka down on the table.
“Then the biggest problem… will be Noah.”
Every one of them excluding Bom had experienced the East-Asian Great War. They knew how strong and peculiar Noah was as a demon.
Minamoto raised her voice.
“You said you would take care of the catastrophe-rank yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“And you should know what kind of existence Noah was during the Great War.”
“I do.”
His response came way too easily.
With a scowl, Minamoto played several videos and placed images on the display.
There were landmarks and crushed buildings, as well as corpses and testimonies of survivors. “My friend suddenly stabbed me with a sword… i, in order to survive I…” with a stuttering voice, the young superhuman of Africa wept during the interview.
“5,423,755 – 70,315,424 – 51,130,271,230.”
“…”
“Do you know what those numbers are? It’s the number of humans killed from Noah’s influence; the size of the area that had been influenced by Noah, and the amount of financial loss because of one Noah. The units, in hectares and dollars.”
“…”
“It’s not your first time hearing that is it?”
“Of course not. I know already.”
“And despite those huge casualties, there isn’t much information known on Noah. All we have is a report on how hundreds of superhumans inside Noah’s influenced territory went crazy and attacked their friends and families. So we assumed that Noah’s ability had something to do with minds–”
Yu Jitae waved his hands and cut her words off.
“Stop. There’s no reason to add meaningless explanations.”
“…Meaningless?”
“I know what Noah’s ability is, and I know how to kill him.”
“Then what is it?”
“Noah is not a mind-control type of demon. It’s similar, but it’s a different concept altogether. It’s a lot more dangerous, and he has several authorities that are much more cumbersome to deal with.”
“And what are they?”
“Noah can become a god.”
It was absurd.
What was a god? What did it mean to become a god? What was the ability of a god, and were there limitations? It was difficult for her to know how to approach his response with questions.
She thus skipped the questioning phase.
“And how do you kill him?”
“Even if I say it, you won’t understand, and even if you know of the method, you can’t imitate it.”
“…”
Minamoto’s cat-like eyes gave a frown.
“What the hell… fuck. With that attitude you’re showing, how can I trust you?”
“Minamoto. Stop there.”
BM was the one that intervened.
“You standing on your acquaintance’s side?”
“Wake up. Frankly speaking, who’s the one that’ll be inconvenienced if that person decides to wash his hands off it?”
“…It’ll be me.”
“See? Go and look for that trust or credit or whatever at your bank.”
Minamoto gritted her teeth.
She wasn’t a fool herself and was aware. From the get go, the nature of this situation wasn’t a collaboration, and Yu Jitae was merely providing her with some help. Although the end result will be in the form of a cooperation, she was still the one in need.
“I apologise for my rash choice of words.”
“Right. Be careful of your tongue, before I tear your chin out.”
He said that subconsciously as a habit, and turned his gaze to Bom after realising what he said. It seemed that she had been staring at him for a long time, and Bom greeted him with a stare as their eyes met.
Fortunately, she didn’t look too surprised.
“…Tch.”
Minamoto wasn’t the type to linger on things, so she indifferently set the conflict aside.
Their meeting continued for another two hours or so, as Minamoto, BM and Li Hwa thoroughly understood how the situation will proceed as well as how to react in certain scenarios.
“Aigo. These old legs of mine will have to suffer a bit, ey.”
Li Hwa grumbled with a chuckle and that was the only complaint that left during the meeting. At the masquerade, anyone could end up dying, but none of them were worried about their death.
The conference thus came to an end.
***
“I have something to ask.”
At the end of the fifth iteration.
Yu Jitae was inside a dark building looking straight at Noah. On the top floor of the building where they were in, there were mountains of corpses. The dead ones contained tentacles, furs, hairs, claws and horns, and were monsters wearing the shells of humans.
Back then, he wasn’t able to form a shape with his killing intent. Yu Jitae was carrying a Level 5 sword artifact in one hand, with a Level 5 mana gun in his other hand.
“What questions for someone who’s going to die soon.”
He was gazing down. Noah, in his tuxedo, was on the ground and had black blood flowing out of his mouth and nose.
This was the result of the fight with Yu Jitae.
“Huhu…”
Since he was finally about to kill a catastrophe, which he hadn’t been able to during the fourth iteration, Yu Jitae was having expectations for the first time in a long time, and had felt great pleasure as he slaughtered Noah’s subordinates.
“Little child. What made you start hunting demons.”
Yu Jitae pulled the trigger instead of giving an answer.
Tukung–
As the surrounding space fluctuated, a bluish black laser was shot forward. It blew Noah’s arm off and pierced through the wall of the skyscraper before flying hundreds of metres outside while drawing a visible cylinder.
However, Noah was still smiling.
“We shouldn’t have caused you any harm.”
Tukung–
This time, he blew off Noah’s other arm. Resembling a pot with a empty hole, black blood flowed out of his body alongside a thick demonic aura.
“Why are you so worked up? It looks as if…”
Yu Jitae shot a leg,
“…Looks as if you’re the victim.”
Before shooting the other leg.
Despite losing all his limbs, Noah was still wearing a smile – despite his body evidently nearing death, he continued talking.
“You must have suffered something from the demons… right?”
Click–
Lastly, Yu Jitae pointed the muzzle at Noah’s head.
“You seem to have been dreaming for a long time to kill off us demons.”
“…”
“But unfortunately, you won’t be able to kill me.”
“Do you think you’ll live with a hole in your head?”
“Of course. This body even survived through the hardships of the outer dimension. Even though this body of mine had been slashed to dust, I am still alive.”
Noah is an existence from another world.
He was different from a returnee, since he was originally not from the Earth. Therefore, there was a weapon only he could earn originating from outside Earth, and an abyss that couldn’t be contacted from Earth still managed to reach him.
“I am Eternal, Immortal, Omniscient, and Omnipotent. Who dares to say that they can possibly kill me?”
Yu Jitae pulled the trigger.
Tukung–
The fluctuation shook the dimension. Shooting forth, the bluish black laser covered Noah’s body before blowing off the entire floor of the high-rise building.
Straight afterward, Yu Jitae felt something strange. Despite killing such a strong demon, and despite it being certain that it was an enemy, Yu Jitae was unable to fill any pleasure.
He didn’t feel anything.
Suddenly, the laser he shot started coming back towards him.
He tried to dodge it, but couldn’t. Yu Jitae’s body moved by itself; Noah’s head gathered back together in mid-air and he came back to life, as the laser returned to Yu Jitae’s muzzle.
“As long as your desperation doesn’t reach me, you cannot kill me in this place. This is my world–”
Did the world rewind itself back in time – Yu Jitae of the fifth iteration had trouble understanding the situation.
“And in this place, I am the god.”
It was ridiculous and incomprehensible, but Noah’s words were true.
Noah had the authority resembling a god.
He fought hundreds of days on Earth in an attempt to kill Noah, but it was just fundamentally impossible for him to kill Noah.
Thus, he had to change his plan, and decided to blow Noah away to a place where he couldn’t reach the dragons. By entirely blowing off a portion of the Eurasian continent, he succeeded in pushing Noah outside the dimension.
It was a half-success.
And when the fifth iteration came to an end, the Regressor vowed to himself while staring at the world that had become a ruin from the attack of the adult dragons.
He vowed to prepare, so that he could kill Noah easily if he were to meet him in the next iteration.
“…”
Fortunately, there was one method which only Yu Jitae could use in the entire world.
Although his mind and thinking process had already deviated from the norm, it was a fairly crazy plan even from his current perspective.
And with the start of the sixth iteration, Yu Jitae who opened his eyes from between the ash-coloured buildings next to a road, let out an empty smile.
When all the preparations were ready with only the real plan waiting for him, he once again heaved out a deep sigh. Through the repetitive regressions, he had done all sorts of things to kill demons, but he hadn’t guessed that a day like this would come.
Even then, he had to do it.
Because that was his way of life.