SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 104

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

Episode 104. How He Loves (2)
3
I managed my death the way people manage their daily lives.
There had always been an easier way for me to die. Wrap my brain in Aura. Detonate it. In an instant, painlessly, I could end my life. Simple. Easy. Convenient.
So I didn’t die that way.
‘Because it was simple, easy, and convenient.’
Simplicity, ease, convenience—grow accustomed to these three, and a human being grows careless. Even a mind sharp as a blade will rust.
‘Yeom Je died because of my carelessness too.’
I chose a more painful death instead. I insisted on relying on my Short Dagger. To keep my senses and judgment raw and vivid.
That’s what I did.
But today would be different.
“It’s all right. It will be over in an instant.”
I let my Aura flow slowly into the Silver Lily Young Lady’s hand. Was it because the sensation was unfamiliar? Her brow flickered as she received my crimson glow.
“…It’s warm.”
“Yes.”
“Like warm water seeping through veins. If this resembles your body heat, Butler, then you must run a little warmer than I do.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady looked into my eyes.
“You’re anxious.”
……
“In all my regressions, I’ve never once felt anxious. I thought, as long as I didn’t lose myself, it would be enough. But… today I don’t want to lose you. If I regress first and you no longer remember me……”
If I was happy hearing those words tumble from her lips, then I was a bastard. If her anxiety over me brought me joy.
Yes. A bastard, surely.
“Don’t worry.”
But a bastard only for her.
“I’ll be right here with you.”
Even as we felt each other’s warmth, the world was falling into annihilation.
Crack-crack-crack—
The earth split with a bang. Blood gushed from the fractured chasm.
The demons that spread from below—those that had been the Silver Lily Young Lady’s servants—now thrashed beyond her control. Their numbers were like drops in an ocean, and each drop was the size of a mountain.
“What?”
Screams reached us from far away.
“Demons! Demons have appeared!”
“Bad luck.”
People shrieked.
Ten days promised. The Silver Lily Young Lady’s love fixed by wish, a love that even a fractional Constellation could no longer hold back, an eternal love was raging out of control.
And yet, amid all this, the Silver Lily Young Lady regarded me still with a composure as if her heart had been gilded in silver.
“I will not tolerate mistakes.”
“Yes.”
“If I die even 0.1 seconds before you, or if you die even 0.1 seconds before me, then I will never forgive you for all eternity. Carve what I have just said into your very heart. The chance I’ve granted you is only one.”
“Yes.”
“Again.”
[A heart gilded in silver regards you.]
“Take responsibility for making me believe in people again.”
……
I squeezed her hand a little harder.
“Yes.”
While demons raged on the surface, the crimson sky shattered like a mirror.
A flood of blood cascading down.
The land flooded red and deeper red. Screams that had pierced the air sank beneath a bubbling, drowning silence.
The ruin of this world was not the Silver Lily Young Lady’s rampage alone.
[An Apostle of ‘the Ox That Harvests Ruins’ manifests.]
Apostles of other Constellations, as she had once mentioned.
[An Apostle of ‘the Warhorse of Eternal Plains’ manifests.]
[An Apostle of ‘the Missionary of Deathless Happiness’ manifests.]
Through the fractured sky, beings from the Otherworld were descending.
The Silver Lily Young Lady—this world’s fractional Constellation. Through the breach in her collapsed barrier, they abandoned even the pretense of Conquest and launched a full Invasion.
“Really, creatures without any sense of restraint.”
Their forms were as varied as the Constellations that had sent them.
“Quite so.”
So I could easily commit their appearances to memory.
“I should teach you a lesson.”
“What sort of lesson?”
“That interfering in someone else’s love affair gets you killed.”
“I like that.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady laughed.
“But there’s no need to do it now.”
She was right. We didn’t have time for it anyway.
“Young Lady.”
A shattered sky bleeding crimson. Blood falling without end.
Demons crawling up from the depths below, invaders descending from the heavens above. All the horrors of that apocalypse—she had borne them alone until now, standing before me.
Until today.
“Butler.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady spoke.
“Kill me.”
The world had turned crimson, and only the Young Lady and I, the ferry bearing us, and the water within a three-meter radius remained unmarred by that crimson dye. From the red-stained lake, countless tongues and lips rose up, mocking us with their sneers.
There.
For the first time, I granted an easy death.
I burned away the aura that filled our entire bodies.
Demonic Heaven Divine Art.
Ninth Form.
Self-Determination Sword.
Not a hair’s breadth of error. Not a moment’s twist.
[You have died.]
We died.
[Returning 24 hours prior.]
4
When I opened my eyes, I was leaning against the shade of a white tree.
It was evening.
The sky had turned a pale golden yellow.
It was not strange to wake here. From the day I resolved to become the Silver Lily Young Lady’s devoted butler, we had taken evening walks together without fail.
The moment I began to rise hurriedly.
“…Have you woken?”
A soft voice.
It came from right beside me.
“Took you long enough to come to your senses.”
I turned to look.
“You are a most vexing butler.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady stood silhouetted against the bright sunset glow. A parasol in her hand cast her figure in shadow. As the wind swept through with a soft whoosh, disheveling her silver hair, I found myself holding my breath without thinking.
‘Did it work?’
My heart raced.
‘Did I fail?’
I could not yet know.
Not knowing, I simply gazed upon the Silver Lily Young Lady.
Her fingers gripping the parasol handle with that familiar tilt. The light gesture of brushing back the hair tousled by the wind. Her lips, pressed together as always. Each movement, each gesture of the Silver Lily Young Lady struck me with such tremendous force.
“Butler, you have told me a small lie.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady opened her mouth to speak.
“You promised me you would share the same time with me. And yet did you not return nine days before I did?”
Ah.
“Despite your claim that this was false love, to leave the one you cherish alone for nine whole days—most unforgivable indeed, and grievous your fault.”
It had worked.
“I alone waited for you those nine days. The unease that came with waiting fell entirely upon my shoulders to bear. You swore to be by my side, yet you failed to keep that oath—is this not negligence and dereliction of duty?”
It had worked.
“To atone for the crime you have committed this time, you shall have to suffer greatly.”
It had worked.
“Mm. My throat is parched. Butler, the tea you brought me, if you would…….”
The Silver Lily Young Lady did not finish her words.
Because I had risen and taken her into my arms.
I could not bear not to hold her.
…….
The wind blew. The parasol the Silver Lily Young Lady had been holding fell, rolling across the grass.
Even as I held her, it wasn’t enough. More. Just a little more. I wanted to hold her ever closer. I realized then that what I truly wanted to embrace was not her body, but her heart.
“I’m sorry.”
For making you wait all this time alone.
“No.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady wrapped her arms around my back.
“It’s all right now. I can’t say that watching over you, who didn’t spend that final day with me, was terribly dull.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes, I lied. It was rather dull. But that’s all right. I’m quite good at waiting.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady stroked my neck gently.
[Your immersion with this character is deepening.]
[Your current immersion rate is 71%.]
I wanted to love her desperately.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
“I dislike lies. Jokes are acceptable, but don’t let falsehoods cross your lips to me. I too will not deceive you. Not merely in words, but in gesture and glance—I shall harbor no deception.”
“Are you crying?”
……
“When you don’t wish to speak, you may invoke your right to silence. I won’t pry. I won’t press. I’ll wait slowly, patiently, until you’re ready to tell me.”
“Mm.”
A mercy, that.
That I came to love her.
That I am someone capable of loving her.
“I have a request for you.”
“What is it?”
May I kiss you?
I held back hard.
It was a blessing she couldn’t see my face.
“I’m terribly sorry, but might you wait just a little longer?”
“How impudent. How much longer must I wait?”
“Eight days.”
“Why?”
“Seven.”
“Mm?”
“Six.”
……
“I’ll count down one day at a time.”
……
“Until I can be with you on the first day.”
Silence.
“…How audacious you are.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady whispered into my ear.
“So you mean to take my life nine more times over.”
“Did it hurt you?”
“It didn’t hurt. As you said, it was only an instant. But the malice of taking my life once and then threatening to take it again—that is vexing.”
“May I kiss you?”
……
……
Forgive me.
I couldn’t hold back.
The Silver Lily Young Lady turned her head to meet my eyes.
Crimson.
From this moment on, that was the color I would love most of all.
“I invoke my right to silence.”
And so I kissed her.
We held each other close.
From breath to breath, from lip to lip, I poured out the heat of my heart while releasing my aura. I was grateful, too, that my aura burned crimson. Our breaths mingled together.
And then.
[You have died.]
[Regression to 24 hours prior.]
When my eyes opened the next moment, the Silver Lily Young Lady was at my side. We spoke no words. Perhaps we had already said everything that mattered. She took my hand, and I kissed her.
[You have died.]
[Regression to 24 hours prior.]
To draw closer to you.
[You have died.]
[Regression to 24 hours prior.]
To the Silver Lily Young Lady who had spoken of parallel lines that would never meet, I bowed my head a fraction lower. I kissed her. Before our two moments could align, our lips found each other.
In the cool corridor of the residence.
[You have died.]
[Regression to 24 hours prior.]
In the dark underground chamber.
[You have died.]
[Regression to 24 hours prior.]
Beneath the white magnolia blossoms.
“Young Lady.”
I exhaled softly.
“You brushed your teeth before coming, didn’t you?”
“That seems like a question where I might invoke my right to silence.”
“How cruel you are, Young Lady.”
“In this world, there are two moments when one is forgiven for cruelty. One is when waging war, and the other is when sharing love. And more than that—”
When I die, I regress twenty-four hours. But the Silver Lily Young Lady returns to the first day of the Ballroom.
She had calculated the disparity in those spans of time.
“Did you not make me wait for you nine days, then eight, then seven… thirty-nine days in total? My calculated cruelty would serve you well in easing your conscience. Be grateful for it.”
“So, throughout all thirty-nine days, you mean to say—”
“Enough of your mischief. Hush.”
[You have died.]
[Regression to 24 hours prior.]
When I opened my eyes, I was in Geumsamae’s private chamber.
“Four Kings!”
The Heresy Inquisitor, not yet become Geumsamae, laughed as though broken apart. My timeline had carried forward, but the Heresy Inquisitor’s had not. Thus my immersion rate remained unchanged, while the Heresy Inquisitor’s momentum reset the closer they approached the first day.
“The Silver Lily Young Lady has come calling! Oh my, at such a late hour—what could it be? I’ve heard she stays not in the dormitory but in a separate residence. For her to have made her way here at this time suggests something…”
“Where is she now?”
“Ah, she says she’ll wait in the Garden before the dormitory.”
I threw open the door and ran. Behind me, the Heresy Inquisitor called out “Four Kings?” but I had no time for an answer. Someone was waiting for me.
Faster.
Just a little faster still.
The Silver Lily Young Lady stood beneath the magnolia tree.
A white lotus blooming against the night sky.
The bud-closed lotus resembles a heart drained of its crimson.
……
Perhaps someone peered out through a dormitory window to steal a glimpse of the garden. But we drew near and held each other, and we kissed.
I whispered.
“Do you know something?”
“I do not. Show me your wit.”
“My name is Butler, and I call you Young Lady. So when the two of us stand side by side, we become Young Lady and Butler together. Of course, in your country’s tongue it would sound different, but still…”
“You speak of a Heaven-Ordained Match?”
“I believe it to be so.”
“How vain, to be so delighted by mere coincidence.”
“I love you.”
Our lips met.
Our breath intertwined.
Our time converged.
[You have died.]
At last.
[Regression to 24 hours prior.]
My eyes opened to the brilliant Ballroom.
The chandelier hung from the ceiling like a weeping willow, glimmering with light.
Dozens of young lords and ladies paired off below, dancing in a slow, measured rhythm.
The place where we first met.
The stage where the Heresy Inquisitor took a slap across the face.
The stage where our timelines first collided.
Day One.
……
……
In the center of the Ballroom, we stood facing each other.
I moved my feet forward.
The Silver Lily Young Lady stepped toward me as well.
Without either of us asking who moved first, beneath the white chandelier, among the dozens of wavering shadows, our lips met.
Words were unnecessary.
Gasps of shock rose from those around us. I ignored them. The orchestra that had been playing in the Ballroom faltered, and the young lords and ladies stopped dancing, their eyes fixed on us—but I paid no mind.
Her eyes. Her voice. The outline of her being—I focused on nothing else.
“Are we,”
I pressed my forehead to the Silver Lily Young Lady’s.
“still on Day One?”
The Silver Lily Young Lady’s lips curved upward.
“Now it is Day One. It will be Day One forever.”
“Forever?”
“If you and I wish it so.”
And we kissed again.
We savored a single moment as though it were eternity.
Across the vast Ballroom, only the soft sound of our breathing lingered.
“Hmm……?”
After a long while, the Heresy Inquisitor spoke from behind us.
“Well. Did I perhaps miss something?”
No one answered.
SSS-Rank Hunter: Death to Live (Serial Publication)
Author │ Shin Noah
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Published by │ JPlusMedia Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelung Post Tower 1)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
© Shin Noah 2019
※This work is published by JPlusMedia Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder. No part of this work may be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
Violation of this restriction may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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