SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 50

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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 50. After the Ending (1)
1
-You crazy bastard!
The continental army pulled back slightly.
Even as they did, Baehurryeong just laughed, clutching his belly.
-From now on, I’ll call you Kim Crazy!
‘Please, just stop…’
I sighed inwardly.
‘Do you know how many nicknames you’ve already given me? Kim Zombie. Zombie King. Kim Crazy. At this rate, my nicknames alone will fill an entire sheet of paper.’
-Ooh, I like that. Let’s go! A madman with dozens of nicknames, let’s goooo!
Baehurryeong’s cackling laughter filled the sky.
But fortunately, this world didn’t consist only of those who mocked me.
[Boss Stage cleared.]
The Tower’s voice.
The announcement that I had fully conquered the twentieth Stage echoed in my mind—just as it had when I’d cleared the tenth Stage back then, the one called Hell Fire Mansion.
[Conqueror is the Death King.]
[Solo clear.]
I looked up slowly.
Through the branches and leaves of the acacia tree, the blue sky unfolded.
[Measuring Clear Reward.]
[Measurement complete.]
[Reward will be given 24 hours later, upon entering the 21st Floor.]
Right.
I let out a small smile.
‘Well, crazy or not, what does it matter? In any case, I’ve done what I set out to do.’
-My, what confidence!
‘I cleared the twentieth Floor the way I wanted to.’
I would not let anyone die.
That was the goal I held steadfast in my heart from the very beginning.
Looking back now, how absurdly greedy had that desire been?
‘Not a single hunter died during my conquest of the twentieth Floor.’
The Demon of Autumn Rain—Taecheonjwa, now fallen into my servitude—had lured hunters into suspicion and murder. That tragedy had been prevented. I had cut off the very source of the tragedy before it could begin.
I had preempted tragedy itself.
‘Not a single Imperial or Continental soldier died either.’
I had fought for this other world while time stood still.
‘And…’
I raised my right hand and placed it atop someone’s head.
‘I’ve even taken this one in.’
The Hungry Ghost.
The prisoner confined within my shadow sat crumpled on the ground, gazing vacantly at the continental army.
In the original history, they were the soldiers who had burned her small hometown.
But today, that history did not repeat itself. The moment the Holy Knight Commander knelt, the continental army withdrew their hostility. They had believed my words about being an apostle of the Goddess and abandoned their mission.
Paradise had been preserved.
‘This is just my own thought, though.’
I stroked the Hungry Ghost’s head quietly.
‘This twentieth Floor might have shattered on its own, even if I’d just stood by and done nothing. There really was no need for me to step in.’
-Hmm? Why?
‘Because a village burning down and disappearing is also an [Ending].’
An ending.
As I cleared the Stages so far, I had come to understand this: the Tower does not discriminate between happy endings and sad endings. It accepts any ending so long as it is a proper conclusion.
‘Otherwise, Yu Suha wouldn’t have cleared even the fortieth Floor.’
Whether you smashed the dolls in Hell Fire Mansion like he did,
or played with those children for a while like I did,
either way, it would be recognized as an [Ending].
‘So this isn’t a world determined by the Tower.’
I turned my head to look at the village.
‘It’s not an Ending we’re forced into by circumstance either.’
The place where wheat ripened yellow beneath the sky.
Where a taciturn, stubborn old man who indulged his grandchildren’s mischief sat alone before the orchard, quietly smoking.
The refuge where the incurably sick gathered.
‘It’s simply the ending I chose.’
Today.
The sky will bring no rain.
The earth will burn with no fire.
-So it seems…….
But why?
As I sank deeper into satisfaction, Baehurryeong’s expression turned subtle—the look one gives a pitiful child.
‘What’s wrong?’
-It’s just, you said this was the ending you chose.
Baehurryeong pointed vaguely at something with one finger.
-I’m wondering if that’s also part of the ending you selected.
There was Yu Suha.
“Damn it! Siberia, you bastard! I can’t make it stop! Huh? Stop right now… Damn it! Why won’t this stop!”
More precisely: Yu Suha was still performing the Cossack Dance.
At the edge of a rural village where grain ripened in golden waves, beneath a clear blue sky and falling flower petals—there stood a beautiful man, uttering curses in solitary anguish, as if trapped within a landscape painting.
It was a masterpiece that would rack up tens of millions of views if posted as a video online.
‘Uh? What’s wrong with that?’
I tilted my head.
‘Isn’t it incredibly beautiful?’
-This lunatic really is something else…….
Baehurryeong muttered.
Then it came.
[Today.]
[The 20th Floor Stage has been cleared.]
A voice rang out between sky and earth.
This time, it wasn’t a sound meant for my ears alone.
[Attention all. We repeat.]
[Today, the 20th Floor Stage has been cleared.]
An official announcement.
Just as it had when I broke through the tenth stage, the same voice was likely spreading throughout every region of the tower.
“Ah.”
I clicked my tongue.
‘What a waste.’
-Of what?
‘There’s no internet here.’
My Smartphone was sleeping soundly in my backpack. In real-world time, that was five days. But measured by the time I’d spent here, it was easily several hundred days—and I hadn’t touched the phone once.
Internet access in the tower was still limited to floors one through ten.
‘The internet must be going absolutely wild right now…….’
-Huh? Wait. Weren’t you done caring what people think?
‘When did I ever say that?’
-No, you did. You said you wanted recognition from people like the Black Dragon Master and Marcus more than from ordinary people, didn’t you?
‘Oh, come on.’
I shrugged.
‘More is better, isn’t it? Recognition from people like the Black Dragon Master and Geomseong, and recognition from ordinary people too, and myself standing tall with nothing to be ashamed of.’
-Wow, you’re greedy as a pig. What’s with all these desires?
‘That’s how people live—driven by desire.’
Fortunately, I found a way to console myself for missing the internet.
[In 24 hours, the 21st Floor Stage will open.]
[24:00:00]
Whoosh!
Fireworks painted the sky just as before. With the first burst, a clock of light formed. Then, as if they’d been waiting for this very moment, two hunters materialized in this place.
“Welcome back!”
It was the Black Dragon Master and Geomseong.
The Black Dragon Master used her Teleportation Skill to dart over in an instant. Whomp! She bent her elbow and caught my head in a headlock, her characteristic bright smile spreading across her face.
“You’re insane! You’re absolutely insane!”
“Agh, ow! Wait, Black Dragon Master, this actually hurts…….”
“Kid, don’t talk back! You’re not even thirty yet, you brat!”
I tried to resist, but it was hopeless. Grrrgh! The Black Dragon Master’s grip was so strong I couldn’t escape the headlock.
Good heavens. How much elixir had she been consuming all this time?
“Clearing the 20th floor in just five days! Are you insane? You must be!”
“Excuse me, Black Dragon Master, could you just calm down for a moment……?”
“You have no idea what kind of chaos is breaking loose in the tower right now! Look!”
The Black Dragon Master showed me something.
A smartphone.
At first glance, it was a model at least five years old. On the screen, where the battery indicator flashed critically low, were internet articles that shouldn’t have existed in this place.
“What is this……?”
“I stopped by the 1st Floor and took screenshots!”
Her voice trembled with genuine excitement.
“There were so many articles it was impossible to capture them all! I’m sorry! But you need to understand, Death King. The outside world is in just as much chaos as the tower. I only grabbed the articles with the most clicks, but look—there are this many even so!”
She swiped through the phone screen.
The headlines filled the display.
-[BREAKING] The Phantom Thief’s Mad Dash! 14th Floor Cleared!
-The Holy Knight’s Epithet Officially Confirmed as Death King.
-Black Dragon Guild Official Statement. Current Clearing Team: Three Members.
-Is Geomseong the Lead? The Black Dragon Master? The Death King?
-[SPECIAL REPORT] Death King In-Depth Coverage.
.
.
.
There were so many.
Just the headlines alone made it impossible to read them all.
“The titles vary like this.”
She laughed.
“But every single one is about you!”
“Well…….”
“Where you’re from, what kind of life you’ve lived, how you ended up in the tower, how you rocketed to the top of the Hunter Ranking in just a few days. Honestly, it’s nothing but stories about you…….”
“Wait, hold on.”
I felt dazed.
It wasn’t the newspaper articles that threw me off. That kind of reaction was inevitable. Over the past five days, the internet would have been flooded hundreds, thousands of times over.
I’d already been through this once.
So my confusion came from something else entirely…….
“Did you capture all of these yourself?”
“Yeah!”
She nodded.
Her face was close to mine since the headlock hadn’t been released.
“Of course!”
“You showed me all this……?”
“Well, there must be another reason for it.”
“I mean, so…….”
I furrowed my brow as I spoke.
“You went all the way down to the 1st Floor on purpose, found each article one by one, took screenshots of every single one, and then came back here to show them to me……is that right?”
“If you’re going to put it that way, then yes!”
I tried to picture it.
The 2nd Ranked Hunter. Master of the largest guild in the tower.
Such a person hurrying down to the 1st Floor, tinkering earnestly with a smartphone, clicking and tapping away at screenshots, then returning here to proudly display them to me.
“…….”
Now that I imagined it, it was rather endearing.
Yet I still couldn’t understand.
“Why would someone of your station go to such trouble……?”
“What are you even talking about?”
She smiled brightly.
“Of course I wanted to do something for you!”
“…….”
“Oh, by the way, don’t read the article comments later. There’s plagiarism accusations, scam theories. People consumed with envy have been stirring up all sorts of trouble.”
She sighed softly.
“I don’t know why those people are always like that. Do you realize how remarkable it is to have zero casualties? Death King, don’t pay attention to ordinary people like that. From now on, Black Dragon will handle all media relations for you.”
What is this?
Is she an angel?
-Zombie, you really do treat anyone who’s nice to you like they’re an angel……. No matter how wretched your life has been, you need to be more composed about human kindness. Why are you so strong against malice but so weak when it comes to goodwill?
If not an angel, could she possibly be a goddess?
A madman, clearly…….
Baehurryeong’s face twisted.
I’ve always thought he’d lose his mind eventually, but now he’s finally snapped.
‘So you praise me often then? Do you know how starved I am for praise? Do people like you understand how precious a little attention is in a barren life?’
-No, that’s… disgusting……. I’d rather find enlightenment and be done with it.
Baehurryeong actually gagged, his whole body lurching.
True to form for a psychopath.
I’d wager my entire fortune that he never had a single friend in his whole life.
-Hey! What nonsense! I have friends!
‘Geomseong doesn’t count.’
…….
Baehurryeong turned his gaze elsewhere.
A quiet victory, mine.
Though I couldn’t have said what I’d won it for.
“And look at this!”
Only then did the Black Dragon Master release her headlock.
This time, what the Black Dragon Master wanted to show me wasn’t a Smartphone screen. She unfastened a small backpack and pulled out a thick bundle of newspapers.
“Here!”
The Black Dragon Master spread open the paper newspaper wide.
“The front page of yesterday’s paper!”
At first, the article’s content didn’t quite register.
What caught my eye first was the list printed across it like a headline banner.
Above the list ran the title: [Hunter Ranking Update!]
+
1st. Geomseong
2nd. The Black Witch
3rd. The Four Kings
4th. The Count
5th. The Inquisitor
6th. The Viper
7th. The Babel Linguist
8th. The Telecom
9th. The Holy Knight
+
…….
For a moment, words failed me.
While I’d been trapped alone in the Prison of Time, locked in battle with the Demon King.
Only now did I understand what had happened in the world below the twelfth floor.
“Since the Tower opened, this has never happened before!”
The Black Dragon Master laughed.
“Rising all the way up here in one leap, from outside the rankings!”
Third in the Hunter Ranking.
Just as hunters receive their alternative names from the Tower, so too does the Tower determine their ranking.
And once established, that ranking is inscribed upon the stone monument erected in the 1st Floor Plaza.
“You probably can’t grasp it yet… but go down to Babylon today, just once. Then you’ll immediately understand who you’ve become.”
Tap!
The Black Dragon Master rolled up the newspaper and tapped my shoulder.
“Congratulations, the Four Kings!”
That was right.
“You’re now one of the people who represent all hunters!”
In five days, the world had transformed.
SSS Rank Hunter Who Must Die to Live (serialized)
Author│Shin Noah
Publisher│Kim Ju-hyung
Published by│J Plus Media, Inc.
Marketing│Han Jae-hyuk
Address│204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daekyung Post Tower 1st)
Email│[email protected]
Website│www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Shin Noah 2019
※This work is published by J.P. Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and the contents may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and the author.
Violations of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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