Chapter 69

“Father!”

My mind is in a haze.

“Father!”

It feels like waking from a long sleep - a heavy, lingering kind of haze.

It’s the sort that spreads from the deep recesses of the brain.

“Father!”

“Huh, uh?”

“Father! Are you alright?”

My eldest daughter-in-law was carefully tapping my shoulder.

“Ah, thank goodness... Honey!”

Relieved, my eldest daughter-in-law, accompanied by my eldest son, entered the room. Soon after, my other sons followed in single file, filling the vacant space in the room like sausages.

“Dad...”

My sons, with worried faces, surrounded the bed.

“Why such faces? It’s not the first time I’ve been sick.”

Seeing my sons’ faces clears my mind a bit.

Memories, once muddied like diluted ink, were slowly returning.

Yes, this is the VVVIP room of the hospital where I’ve been admitted for the past two years. My health has been deteriorating, but I never expected it to worsen to the point of jumbling my memories like this.

“Dad, but you looked troubled in your sleep...”

“I had a dream. About the hard times on the third floor. Why? Do you want me to tell you about it?”

“Oh, Dad! We’ve heard it enough to have it etched in our ears!”

The eldest son lets out a small laugh. The somber mood lightens a bit.

“Yes, those hard times now seem like mere memories...”

It’s been 70 years since I cleared the Tower. Humanity has regained peace.

The god who cried for the destruction of mankind was defeated by me and retreated, promising a next time. And I became the hero who saved humanity.

Holding wealth and fame for 70 years, I lived as one of the world’s most renowned individuals. Though my body remained healthier than any other elder, the problem lay with my mind.

“It seems it’s time for me to go.”

Perhaps it’s due to the excessive regressions from the Tower. In recent years, my memories became frequently jumbled, and sudden fainting became common.

“My children.”

“Yes, Father(Dad).”

“I am... ready to leave.”

My body is healthy.

But that’s the problem. It’s ‘only’ healthy.

I feared what I, with a not entirely sound mind, might do. I couldn’t allow a senile old man to wield the divine power latent in my body.

“...Dad.”

My eldest son bowed his head. He was the most stubborn person who clung to me, wishing for me to live more these past few years, but now it seems he understands my firm decision.

“All this time... I was truly, truly happy. I considered it a fortune to have you as my father.”

“Dad, me too!”

“Father...”

My family began to shed tears one by one.

I laughed heartily, indulging their complaints, and then gave a small cough.

“Now, now, everyone should leave. I think I need some time alone.”

“...Thank you for everything, Father(Dad).”

One by one, my family left the room, wiping away tears.

After watching them leave, I pulled aside the curtain beside my bed and looked out the window.

{Grandpa Jun-ho! You must get born!}

{You are the pride of South Korea.}

{The entire nation is rooting for your recovery!}

The walls surrounding the hospital were covered in bouquets and banners. There must be hundreds at a glance.

“It’s not ‘get born’, it’s ‘get well’, you fool...”

Seeing that, I was certain.

My struggles in the Tower, which aimed to crumble my humanity, had been worthwhile.

What I had done was not wrong.

“...Well done, Jun-ho.”

After praising myself, I slowly scattered the mana swirling around my heart.

Gradually, vitality drained from my body.

It was a peaceful and quiet death.

“Ughhh!!!”

Gasping for breath, I felt around my body.

Instead of an ageless body imbued with unprecedented power, I felt a flabby, twenty-something’s physique.

Where am I? This isn’t the hospital room. What am I doing?

“...You’re awake?”

Dok Su-Hee was looking down at me as if I were pathetic.

Seeing her face, my memories slowly returned.

That’s right, I was in the midst of progressing through the third floor. I had opened the right stone door, reaching a room identical in design to the left one.

There, a mysterious voice saying, ‘A warrior needs courage, confront your fears,’ was the last thing I remembered before losing consciousness.

Had I been shown ‘the scene I feared most’ by the Tower? The terror I had just felt was too vivid.

“It seems the one who overcomes ‘fear’ first wakes up the others. You’re welcome, for waking you up.”

“...Thank you.”

Wiping the sweat from my neck, I expressed my gratitude to Dok Su-Hee.

“But what kind of illusion did you see that made you sweat so much?”

“...I saw what I consider the worst possible ending.”

My goal isn’t just to clear the Tower.

If I can’t find a way to eliminate this regression skill someday... After clearing the Tower, I might fall into an eternal cycle. If that happened, my mind would slowly shatter into pieces.

The thanks I gave to Dok Su-Hee weren’t empty words. I awoke at just the right moment. I was afraid of what I, realizing that there’s no respite and with a broken mind, might do.

A madman with immense power can do virtually anything. And after witnessing an illusion of madness, it’s questionable whether my mental state would remain intact upon returning to reality.

“But what kind of illusion did you see, Su-hee?”

Dok Su-Hee was smiling lightly, but a single tear rolled down her cheek.

“...Me?”

She chuckled, wiping away the tear.

“I saw what drives me forward.”

“...”

“Well, we cleared it, right? It feels like it’s been about two hours, shall we just wipe off this sweat and move on?”

I could feel a melancholy emotion behind her smile.

“...I’ve wiped off all the sweat. Let’s go ahead.”

Without probing further, I got up from my seat.

***

It seemed that the right path was solely about overcoming fear; there were no additional illusions or crossroads.

“Ah, you’ve arrived?”

Following the path, I found Kang Chan and An Kyung-Joon leaning against the wall, waiting.

“You cleared it faster than expected?”

“Yes. There were these dirt-made dolls? Machines? attacking from all sides... But my empowered spirit swept them all away.”

“...That spirit was quite powerful.”

Kang Chan nodded in agreement to An Kyung-Joon’s remark.

If Kang Chan Hyung acknowledges it, that guy must really be strong.

“More importantly, this place seemed suspicious, so we were investigating it.”

Now that I think about it, Kang Chan and An Kyung-Joon were waiting outside the entrance of a room, not entering any.

“...What is this place?”

From a distance, it looked like some kind of cave-like space.

Torches flickering as if about to extinguish hung on the walls, and structures resembling wooden supports were embedded into them.

Large chunks of metal scattered on the ground were an added feature.

“A mine... maybe?”

Yes, the first image that came to mind was a mine. It looked similar to underground tunnels I’ve seen in books.

“But, the ceiling is too high for that...”

An Kyung-Joon’s observation was valid. I heard that mine ceilings are usually low, requiring one to stoop, but the ceiling here was high, at least 20 meters.

“And this metal. It’s not ordinary.”

An Kyung-Joon handed me a chunk of silver-shining metal.

“Would you like to hit it?”

“...Hit it?”

“Yes. Just tap it lightly.”

“...”

I cautiously tapped the metal chunk with my fist.

“Oof...!”

Even though I tapped it very lightly, a heavy impact was felt in my fist. It was as if the metal had struck back at me.

Had I hit it a bit harder, I might have regressed.

“What is this…?”

“I’ve done a few experiments, and it seems this metal isn’t ordinary.”

An Kyung-Joon, who had quickly cleared the left room thanks to his empowered spirit, had been waiting for us and conducting various experiments. As a result, he had come to understand quite a bit about the properties of this metal.

“This metal... it has the property of returning a certain level of impact back to the source.”

“...It returns the impact?”

For a science enthusiast, this would be a jaw-dropping characteristic.

“Yes, we’ll need to investigate further, though...”

A mine with rare metal strewn about. Could there be some significance to this?

I’m not sure how to interpret this.

“Shall we... go in?”

Just pondering won’t solve anything. In the end, you have to stick your head into the lion’s mouth to understand the problem.

I took the lead again, with Kang Chan Hyung covering the rear.

“...Hmm.”

There must be something. It’s the kind of environment where something, like a wolf hidden in the ceiling, could jump out at any moment.

Yet, despite being fully alert, I didn’t feel anything.

Gulp.

That silence, like the calm before a storm, made me involuntarily swallow.

***

After about ten minutes of walking...

“...The chunks here are particularly large.”

Several significantly larger metal chunks were visible compared to other areas. Could this be a sign of something? I continued to move, not letting my guard down.

Just as we completely passed by these mysterious metal chunks…

“?!”

…Because my senses were heightened, I immediately noticed it:

Behind our group. An anomaly was felt.

“Be careful...!”

I tried to warn, but it was already too late.

The large metal chunk we just passed began to levitate. The irregularly shaped chunk started to take form, assembling itself.

The process was so fast that one could barely see the chunks coming together.

Click. Click. Click.

In literally the blink of an eye, the metal chunks formed into a giant with two legs and two arms.

“Damn it...!”

We were caught off guard.

– – – End of Chapter – – -

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