D-Rank Constellation Hunter… Stuck Without Internet! - Chapter 127

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 127
While Dan Yibum was being relentlessly disparaged.
Ha Gyuhyuk found himself in an awkward tête-à-tête with Emel.
Emel continued his rambling with an air of nonchalance, as though it mattered not whether Ha Gyuhyuk spoke at all.
“I’m probably older than you, so I hope you don’t mind if I drop the formalities. After living on Earth for so long, it’s difficult for me to maintain honorifics when speaking to younger men.”
“Ah, yes. Sir….”
Some believed Ha Gyuhyuk treated everyone coldly except Se-um, but that was a misunderstanding.
Ha Gyuhyuk was, by nature, a man steeped in Confucian values.
After deliberating seriously, he offered the title, and Emel let out a soft laugh.
‘Sir,’ he thought.
It was an affectionate term.
In this village where the average age was high, Sogyeong had been treated as a child every time he visited the senior center until he turned seventy.
Yet whenever the neighbors’ children or grandchildren visited during holidays, they called him by that name.
Sir.
I recalled Sogyeong’s words, scolding me not to be so formal and to call him comfortably instead.
If I had a child with Sogyeong, would my grandchild be around this age by now?
Emel unwittingly sank back into reverie.
Time seemed to flow differently in this place.
All I could feel was nostalgia for Sogyeong.
I began thinking again, having forgotten even that a human stood before me.
Ha Gyuhyuk, who had been patiently waiting for Emel, finally could not restrain himself and broached the subject tentatively.
“Is it true that you intend to attack me?”
“Ah…. I’m sorry. I keep getting lost in thought with a young man standing right in front of me. I suppose I’m getting old.”
“Not at all. I apologize for interrupting your thoughts so suddenly.”
“You seem like a well-educated young man either way. Or did that Constellation raise you well?”
“…If I’m being honest, the latter.”
Though his face appeared youthful, like someone his own age, his every gesture bore the weight of long years.
“You’ve found a good Patron.”
“Patron….”
“Constellations have many names across different worlds. Patron, Constellation, God, Lord, and so on….”
There was a clear sense of alienation between him and the humans who still regarded Constellations as a kind of deity.
He seemed to view them not with such reverence, but rather as somewhat bothersome entities.
“Forgive me, but are you a Constellation yourself, sir?”
“Do you know how Constellations are made?”
“Yes…. One must accumulate karma to a certain level.”
“We can become neither High Priests nor Constellations, yet we cannot remain mere Clients either.”
“High Priests?”
Emel seemed somewhat surprised, realizing that Ha Gyuhyuk knew nothing of High Priests.
“Well, not many Constellations are kind enough to explain such things.”
“Se-um is kind.”
“…Well, I suppose there was no need to know. After all, the High Priests are merely the ones who clean up after the Constellation.”
Emel explained the High Priests to Ha Gyuhyuk in very brief terms.
“Then that means if you accumulated just a bit more karma, you could reach that realm as well.”
“If I desired it, that is. They always ask before one becomes a High Priest or Constellation, I hear.”
“You could refuse?”
“If refusal were possible, all the great figures you know would already be in that Sungdo.”
Unknown righteous souls become Constellations, while those legendary figures everyone knows are conspicuously absent from that place.
That is the true nature of Sungdo, built upon karma.
“Does that mean if you live virtuously, you receive blessings….”
“No, if there is unfulfilled longing in your life, you must repay that debt even after death.”
Emel, who corrected the facts by noting that Sungdo does not contain only the righteous, burst into laughter.
He resembled an old man telling ancient tales to a child.
“Then, sir….”
“I loved Sogyeong with all my heart throughout my life, and I accomplished everything I could on this Earth.”
“Everything you could accomplish on this Earth….”
“Living, taking root, and when I sensed the danger of ruin descending upon this land, I threw myself forward without hesitation.”
“But the time of ruin never came, did it.”
“That’s right.”
Ha Gyuhyuk suddenly realized that this man harbored no attachment to any form of life.
Rather, he seemed to be waiting for the moment of ruin that would befall this Earth.
The mission granted to him since his birth was ultimately to sacrifice himself to prevent that ruin.
“Child, do you truly understand the meaning of what your Constellation said to me?”
This time, it was Emel who spoke first.
“Se-um’s words? Which ones….”
“That Sogyeong is dead, so now I should die as well.”
Is it torture to forcibly grant life to one who wishes to die?
Perhaps it was a question that humans, living their brief spans, could never definitively answer.
He simply blinked slowly, then shook his head very gradually.
It sounded like a somewhat cold statement—that since the one you loved no longer exists in this world, there is no reason to live.
“If I were truly human, I would have died when my lifespan ended. I’m already over a hundred years old.”
“Yes….”
“But I couldn’t die because of the ruin. Today marks three years since Sogyeong died.”
“…Black Darkness Hell is the hell one goes to after the judgment that comes three years after the dead die, is it not.”
Emel, who is Kim Young-won.
Explained to the human Ha Gyuhyuk.
“I have been punishing myself here as payment for stealing the life of Sogyeong, who was like my master on this Earth—a life that might have been different.”
Solitary.
Turning away from all that transpired on Earth, watching the virtue I had painstakingly accumulated crumble due to karma.
“Your Constellation told me this. That I no longer need to prevent the ruin.”
From the moment Emel met Hong So-gyeong, his life became that of Kim Young-won.
So he simply needed to remain faithful to Kim Young-won’s life.
Yet knowing this, he had always feared that the one he loved would eventually leave as Emel, becoming someone else entirely.
Only after Sogyeong’s death did he seek to reclaim his identity as Emel.
“Do I deserve to die as Kim Young-won? What do you think?”
The question fell upon Ha Gyuhyuk.
Even knowing he possessed no authority to grant or deny death.
He wrestled with the weight of it for a long moment before speaking softly.
“If I could reach the side of the one I love through my choice alone, that too would be a blessing.”
“….”
“Even if I strived my entire life, within that being’s eternity, I would become but a fleeting moment—so honestly, I envy you, sir.”
Young-won laughed for a long time.
Ha Gyuhyuk’s face twisted in confusion, as though he couldn’t fathom what he’d said that was so amusing.
“This place changes its name with its master. I was Black Darkness Hell, but I wonder what you’ll be.”
“You mean….”
“Becoming the master of this place means you must be prepared to truly accept the burden—unless you wish to carry karma instead. Are you ready?”
Rather than answer, Ha Gyuhyuk swiftly prepared for battle.
Now he understood the meaning of that attack.
He was to fight directly, to bring him to his end and seize this place for himself.
“A magnificent blade. Are there still Hunters who wield swords these days?”
“It resembles the weapon of the one I most wish to follow.”
Young-won rose with fluid grace.
And from all directions, countless branches erupted in brilliant bloom and growth.
Ha Gyuhyuk steadied his breathing and braced himself for a prolonged clash.
Hoping he wouldn’t be injured so badly that Se-um would worry.
But the situation unfolded in an incomprehensible direction.
In the blink of an eye.
The flowering branches pierced through where Young-won’s heart lay.
“…S-sir.”
Ha Gyuhyuk forgot to attack and rushed toward him urgently.
Confirming he was indeed otherworldly, he began to fade very slowly instead of bleeding.
Smiling at Ha Gyuhyuk as though without pain.
“The calamity is certainly approaching.”
“…You speak of the Dungeon?”
“It could be that, or it could be something else, or perhaps it won’t come until you die. But if the one you admire is that Constellation…. I wouldn’t mind hastening its ruin.”
“Hastening its ruin?”
“Think of it as the meddling of an old man who’s lived a bit longer.”
But no satisfying explanation followed.
Young-won’s gaze turned toward some distant place.
“I accumulated so much karma from my regrets….”
“Sir.”
“I won’t be able to go to the same place as my wife, who lived a virtuous life, will I? This is… I’m finally starting to regret it. Right, Sogyeong?”
He was muttering toward an illusion visible only to himself.
Ha Gyuhyuk recalled words he had heard before.
Those facing death see those whom humans cannot perceive.
Ha Gyuhyuk genuinely hoped that the figure Young-won saw was Sogyeong’s spirit.
Sogyeong.
I miss you.
Thank you for living with me.
Live well from here on.
I love you.
Kim Young-won.
There was no farewell.
Before long, Ha Gyuhyuk found himself standing alone before a pile of gleaming crystals presumed to be his bones.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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