The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 692: The End of This World (3)

“This is the last one.”

I got up from my seat. The game board appeared, and I saw our two tokens standing on the space just before the goal and the one before that.

“If your die comes up 1, you have to get married, right? Anyone you’ve set your heart on while living here?”

“I’ve taken no new interest in anyone, and I don’t like the idea of a die manipulating someone else’s feelings, so my only candidates would be Mister Song Taewon and Mister Han Yujin.”

What the hell is he even saying. I frowned at the dog barking, and Chief Song said calmly,

“I’ll do it.”

“No, do what, exactly?!”

“It’s better than someone else getting dragged into it.”

…If Chief Song had been born a hundred years ago, he would’ve gone through a half–dozen arranged marriages easy. Either way, I had to stop some innocent person from being sacrificed. I hurried into the kitchen, grabbed a huge crab out of a tank, and shoved it into Seong Hyunjae’s arms. Since this world’s cuisine was mostly seafood, the kitchen in a fancy mansion like this naturally had live tanks.

“Here, say hello. This is a top–grade live crab for celebrity chef Mister Seong Hyunjae. ‘I’ll turn you into the perfect dish and be with you forever’ – that’s basically a proposal, right? You’re meant for each other! Your name is Crab…by?”

They said you could tell male and female by the shape of the belly. Was this one female? No idea. Whatever. I’ll get you not just a bouquet but a wedding dress too. Holding the flailing crab in one hand, Seong Hyunjae picked up the die.

“Can’t believe my first marriage is going to be with a crab.”

“I married an octopus, why are you complaining. More importantly, are you sure this is your first? I’d have guessed ten–plus weddings. Maybe a hundred broken engagements?”

“Me, you say.”

“Well, it’s not like there are many people who could put up with you.”

Crescent Moon probably blocked him from marrying anyone else. And considering what happened with Mari, marriages here were likely to turn into special contracts. Seong Hyunjae rolled the die.

[3!]

Sadly, the wedding of the king crab and Seong Hyunjae was canceled. I’d been ready to give a really generous cash gift too. Yerim, Moon Hyunah, Mari, and Liette all groaned in disappointment.

“Game’s over anyway.”

I rolled the final die myself.

[2!]

The mini Seong Hyunjae moved forward one space and paused. A 3 and a 2. Since he’d started one space behind, we’d moved the same total number of spaces in the end. Maybe because of that, the two mini tokens walked together into the starting square. Both pieces vanished in a flash of light, and the board and dice disappeared as well.

The game was over.

[Please send your team members back before settlement!]

A message popped up. Mari hurriedly grabbed her bouquet.

“Think I can take this back with me?”

“Mister, Pongpong!”

Yerim hugged the flowerpot to her chest. This much should be fine to bring, right?

“Yuhyun, just in case, go get the truck.”

Yuhyun pulled the truck from the parking lot around into the garden. Taking it back with us into our room – yeah, that was a no–go.

“Hyung, how about this?”

My brother held up a kickboard. Pretty useless, but hey, at least it was sturdy.

“Oh, that might pass. Must be a size limit. Mister Noah, grab anything useful! You too, Liette. Yerim, put the magazine down! You as well, Hyunah!”

There weren’t really any ‘items’ in this world, but if we were taking stuff, it should be food or high–end bedding, not random magazines. Come to think of it, no jewelry? We had plenty of money, but still.

“Be careful, Mister Yujin.”

“You need to come back quickly too, Hyung.”

Our team and Seong Hyunjae’s team vanished. I snuck a glance at Seong Hyunjae, standing on the balcony that opened onto the garden. I had to have won. I was the mayor, and he’d been kicked out of office and was wanted by the authorities. Sure, the restaurant was still his, but in this world, the mayor was basically the president. Obviously the job score for president beat restaurant owner.

Even thinking that, I couldn’t relax.

[Beginning settlement of game content.]

A message window appeared. Seong Hyunjae had a faint smile on his face.

[Seong Hyunjae – Restaurant]

[Han Yujin – Delivery]

Compared to him, my start looked really pathetic. Written like that, it sounded like I’d been doing delivery work for his restaurant. At least call it transportation.

[New hotspot restaurant TV–featured star chef]

[Guild–registered express delivery amazing strength]

Up to that point, our team had been losing in a pretty normal way. But once Guinders appeared, my job started bouncing all over the place. I became a Guinder, then a politician, then a fisherman and so on.

[Bellond mayor declares war]

[Miranglune No. 1 Councilor Miranglune envoy]

Seriously, how did I end up mayor of the neighboring city. They never did explain that in detail.

[Wanted]

[Banquet model politician Miranglune mayor]

He stalled out at “wanted,” and I became mayor. Good, that settles that.

[□□□□□□□□]

“…Huh?”

The message window on his side suddenly shuddered. Then it started pouring out text.

[□□□□□ □□□ First Awakening □□□□ □□Team □ron□□□War □□Unification □□□□□□ New□□□□□□ of the Tower □□]

“What the hell!”

Between the redacted blocks, I saw familiar words. First Awakening. But this world was supposed to be from before awakeners existed—

Rumble!

The ground shook. The sky, the air, the very fabric of this world trembled. Darkness slammed down all at once, then light came back. Before I could properly grasp what was happening—

Wham!

Someone kicked me. I rolled across the floor, scrambled to my feet, and a blade hissed to a stop at my throat.

“Who are you. Never seen you before.”

“He’s not from around here. With that face, we’d remember if we’d seen him once.”

Awakeners. High–rankers, at that. They looked human, with pale hair and eye color.

‘…If my looks aren’t normal here too, then it’s the same world?’

Judging from the culture, I’d suspected it, but now it was clear – the balloon people’s original forms were human. I quickly put on a frightened expression.

“I, I don’t know anything.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I mean, I went to sleep and… when I woke up, I was here.”

And I was still in pajamas. The two awakeners looked at each other.

“Kidnapped, then?”

“He’s a non–awakened or a low–rank, most likely. But why dump him here?”

“Some crazy bastard probably liked his face, nabbed him, then panicked about getting caught when there’s a surprise patrol and ditched him. We’ve got those today.”

They helpfully filled in my backstory for me. Back home they’d be asking who would bother kidnapping someone like you, but here, my face was reason enough. I cautiously got to my feet, watching their reactions.

“Um, where exactly is this?”

“East climbing base of the Third Tower.”

…What was that supposed to mean. I clutched my head and grimaced.

“Ugh… my memories…”

Even suddenly coming down with amnesia was fine right now. Because in this world, I was a harmless, delicate, beautiful young man who’d been kidnapped by a psycho and lost his memories.

“The tower, the climbing base… what were those again? And you are…?”

“At this rate we’ll never catch the perp. Maybe they used a mental–type skill.”

“Let’s take him to the administration office. Once we post his picture, someone will recognize him. Come on, you’re okay.”

“Yeah, you’re safe now. Got an older sister by any chance?”

I have a younger brother, thanks. A sweet, cute, lovable little brother. The awakeners kindly explained this place to me.

“So one day ten towers and awakeners just appeared out of nowhere. And there are monsters inside the towers, and if you don’t clean them out, they spill out or cause weird phenomena.”

“Right. And if we don’t climb all the way to the top, the world gets wiped out in the end. The area around the towers is already turning into wasteland. The water’s drying up, plants are dying, toxic miasma is rising. If we climb another floor, we can stop the cursed land from spreading or even shrink it.”

In this world, dungeons were towers. The towers were slowly expanding their own territory, and the only way to stop them was to go inside, kill monsters, and clear each floor. So here, awakeners weren’t called Hunters, but climbers.

Around each of the ten towers, there were several bases for climbers, and this was one of them.

“This is a high–rank zone. Seeing a strange low–rank here, we thought maybe you were a terrorist. A lot of those Tower Cultists like to set off bombs.”

People are the same everywhere. I could never understand the folks who were desperate to help the world end. If you think extinction is the natural order, go die by yourself.

“It’d be nice if everyone cooperated to clear the towers.”

“Not that simple. It’s thanks to His Majesty that we even have a climbing system like we do now.”

“His Majesty?”

“The emperor who united the Hundred Cities and swallowed the curse. If the cities were still split like they used to be, there’s no way we’d cooperate like this. Now we’ve got ten cities, one for each tower zone.”

“There’s still no ‘country,’ even with an emperor, but he’s still His Majesty the Emperor.”

There was an emperor who unified all the cities, but beneath him there were no countries. He’d become an emperor with no nations under him and took on the curse alone – the curse that any nation formed would inevitably split. So the cities were merged, and they worked together to climb the towers.

Only one person came to mind who could pull that off.

“…Where could I meet His Majesty?”

“What?”

“I remembered a little. I think I worked by His Majesty’s side.”

Business partner, not sure if that’ll ring a bell. He even came to my wedding.

“Aides or something? You do look like you’d fit that. Convenient timing, actually–”

“Oh, over there!”

One of the awakeners shouted. A group of people had gathered in front of a big building that looked like an administration office. Through them, I saw a familiar face in uniform.

Seong Hyunjae.

Of course it was him. Golden eyes turned toward me and curved slightly. As soon as the high–rankers noticed his reaction, they opened a path. The awakener who’d come with me stepped forward and asked,

“Your Majesty, this is a young man who was apparently kidnapped here. Do you know him?”

“Of course. He’s my janitor.”

…Why am I a janitor again. I wanted to yell, Down with the emperor, what happened to democracy and equality, but I held it in and flashed a bright smile.

“Wow, I’m saved. I never thought I’d run into you here~.”

I’m so, so happy. Oh, what a relief.

“You must’ve had a rough time. Are you cold? Let’s go inside.”

He kindly draped his uniform coat over my shoulders. Eyes all around us sparkled with Aww, he’s so sweet. This is all acting, people, it’s called playing coy. Bringing me inside, Seong Hyunjae ordered everyone else to leave.

“What happened.”

He asked as soon as we were alone.

“This is a world you stayed in, right.”

“Exactly. I made it all the way to emperor, as you see.”

“And then it was destroyed.”

Slowly, he continued.

“Despite the fact I was unusually proactive about protecting it.”

[25th floor of Fifth Tower cleared Northern Tower Cultist group annihilated Climber Act 3rd revision completed Maps below 20th floor complete Sky Garden erased]

Another message window appeared. This time, none of it was censored – a list of Seong Hyunjae’s achievements rolled by.

“This wasn’t the only one, I bet.”

The worlds he’d stayed in. He never got to remain in any of them.

“Crescent Moon can’t directly yank me out by force. There are limits on how much power she can use inside a dungeon. In other words.”

“If a world escapes destruction, it’s hard to pull Mister Seong out.”

Of course, there were ways to extract an awakener with relatively little power. If the awakener accepted and stepped out themselves, or if the world reached destruction and the force blocking outside beings disappeared.

“…I can’t imagine you voluntarily going back to Crescent Moon.”

“No matter what terms she offered, my highest priority is always myself.”

“So that means.”

“The destruction of the world I stayed in.”

But how. The space wavered again. The scenery shifted around us. We were in an unfamiliar office. Moving like he’d done it countless times, he poured me a cup of tea.

“It seems past information has already interfered with the present several times. Hence the balloon dolls.”

The Japan dungeon, the China dungeon, the Chatterbox party – even for the Unfilial Children, that had to be a pain. Rookie had a hard time with it too. So to reduce the amount of information, they’d turned people into balloon dolls.

“If the current me had been there, that alone would’ve been enough.”

The corners of his lips lifted, just the tiniest bit. So slight I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a grimace.

“‘I’ am also a lump of past information. Through Moon Hyunah and Song Taewon, I gathered what was missing. Found where I should have been, and inserted myself.”

“So that’s why you suddenly showed up as mayor of Bellond City.”

Even with good dice rolls, his rise had been odd. That’s because that position had originally belonged to him. He hadn’t become mayor by luck – he’d simply gone back to his own seat.

“And now I’m looking back on my life like this. To confirm it.”

This time his smile was clear.

“Mister Han Yujin, this is information you need as well, isn’t it.”

So he’d chosen this world from the start with that in mind. The scenery shifted again. Now it was ruins – collapsed buildings and a sky choked with heavy clouds.

“Crescent Moon was always the one in charge of the worlds where I was planted.”

His voice came through disjointed fragments of recalled memories.

“She handled almost all of it alone. In your world too, Rookie would’ve been just an assistant at best.”

Rookie really didn’t seem to know Chain, Seong Hyunjae, very well. They’d said it was a world that would escape destruction even if they ignored it. The other Unfilial Children probably only took an interest after Crescent Moon pushed herself to keep him from being swallowed by Eclipse, fell asleep, and that weird regression phenomenon started.

“If in a world like that, I looked like I could stop the root.”

What would she have done.

“…Ah.”

Snow began to fall. Seong Hyunjae scooped me up like luggage. His feet pounded over the wreckage as he ran, almost flying. Snowflakes brushed my cheeks on the wind. Far away, I heard things snapping and collapsing.

Boom!

A thunderous explosion echoed. Someone was fighting. Struggling, but—

“It’s a one–sided fight.”

His voice was low at my ear.

“Even the strongest awakener.”

The snowstorm grew fiercer, then suddenly cut off.

“Can’t win against the seed of a Transcendent.”

The tips of his boots touched down on the snow. In the middle of the white plain stood a woman. Black skin, hair white as freshly fallen snow. Eyes of mixed black and white turned toward us. Only a few smears of blood remained in the snow – no bodies.

“She plants them ahead of time and makes them bloom.”

I slipped from his arms and took a step forward. I was only wearing slippers, and my toes and feet went numb from the cold almost instantly, but I couldn’t look away from the Transcendent right before her birth.

“From another world – awakeners who couldn’t quite reach the Transcendent’s seat, but got close. She would’ve gathered them and had me do the same thing. Erased their memories and made them look like they belonged to this world.”

“…So they could swallow it and become a new Transcendent.”

Two birds with one stone. Real efficient. Raise Seong Hyunjae and raise a brand–new Transcendent. My teeth clenched on their own. I drew my gun.

Bang!

I poured as much magic as I could into the bullet, but it vanished in midair before it even touched her white hair. I fired again and again with the same result. I emptied my mana, and still couldn’t leave a single scratch.

“This isn’t your world! So why!”

I charged recklessly. A transparent wall blocked me. I tasted blood in my mouth. The woman let out a small yawn.

“Those who didn’t belong to this world from the beginning. Why are there two. But I mustn’t touch them.”

Snow began to fall again. The sky warped. Laughter slipped out of me.

“So our world was going to be destroyed no matter what?”

Even if we safely stopped the root, the seed of a Transcendent already planted would have done it in. I thought of my little brother, who’d fought desperately to protect me and died anyway. I thought of Yerim before the regression, forcing her way forward with her own strength. Of Song Taewon, who protected people until the end, of Moon Hyunah, who found her path even after leaving Korea. Of so many others.

And yet the ending was—

“As long as I’m there, Mister Han Yujin.”

…What a seriously infuriating line. I turned and looked at him. A man who could only ever reach the same ending, no matter what he tried or how hard he fought. I could feel a sliver of his boredom, sharp and clear. It was a bitter taste.

“Looking for pity?”

“You and I are the same. I’m just another chess piece on the same board in the end.”

The sky shattered. The world was swallowed by the new Transcendent. Moonlight slipped through the cracks of a world breaking into pieces.

This world perished.

“So we just have to flip the board.”