Hartmann was dreaming.

Was it because his time to die had finally come?

The past was passing by like a lantern reel.

Born into a ruined baronial family, entering the Imperial Capital Knights Academy of the Empire, having his talent recognized, enlisting in the army after graduation, distinguishing himself in war, catching the eye of Marquis Lexington, commander of the Imperial Army, and even becoming the son-in-law of his household.

He had been happy, in his own way.

It was only after that that everything turned into hell.

Rian Hartmann. He had lost his precious son.

He did not know whether the boy was dead or alive.

If he had at least died, it would not have been this painful.

Judging from the circumstances, it had been an abduction or a kidnapping.

When his son disappeared, the nanny and a stable servant had vanished with him.

He searched for those two in every direction.

But in the end, they were found as cold corpses in the slums of the Imperial Capital.

And the investigation ended there.

This was definitely a conspiracy.

Someone had clearly orchestrated it on purpose.

The most suspicious party?

As expected, the Roland ducal house, the head of the noble faction.

The rival of the Lexington marquis household, which belonged to the Emperor’s faction.

But suspicion alone was not enough.

Because of that, his wife also left for a distant place.

The words she left behind as she died.

Find their son Rian, no matter what.

He had vowed, of course he would.

But the tragedy did not end.

Even Marquis Lexington, his father-in-law, died from the shock of losing both his daughter and grandson.

Even so, Hartmann did not give up.

He built strength.

He expanded his power.

And based on that, he searched for his son.

Then one day,

the tragedy happened.

He killed his son with his own hands.

The son he had longed to see so badly that he had dreamed of him.

Hartmann went mad.

Consumed by a heart demon, he became a sword wraith.

He did not know why he had made such a decision at the time, but he had stormed into the Roland ducal house alone.

You bastards of the Roland family, you did this, didn’t you?

You raised my son into an assassin and sent him to me.

He killed anyone he caught.

He killed their retainers, killed their knights, killed even the collateral bloodline of the Roland family.

And then he was subdued.

Because he had sunk deeper and deeper into his heart demon, and both his body and mind had already weakened.

Hartmann was bound in restraints and exiled to Alto Island.

To a prison he could never leave.

And just as that lantern reel was coming to an end,

a voice rang out, almost like an illusion.

“Dad?”

Hartmann raised his head and looked straight ahead.

Ten people were standing in front of him.

Who were they?

But among them, one person caught his eye and lodged there.

“Son?”

His beloved Rian Hartmann?

There was no mistake.

How could he ever forget that face?

It was the son he himself had killed.

But then why was his son here?

Ah! It was an illusion.

If not, then...

“I-Is this heaven? No, I suppose it must be hell.”

“It ain’t heaven or hell.”

Then what?

“It’s the tower. Uh, y-you’re in the tower.”

What nonsense was that... Still, since this was clearly the afterlife—

“Rian, do you recognize me?”

“...Honestly, I’m not too sure, sir.”

“I see. I-It is shameless of me, but c-could I hold you just once—”

Right then!

FWOOSH!

A pitch-black crescent-shaped blade of force rose from an old man’s palm.

TSHHT!

Spinning fearsomely, it flew over and severed every chain and shackle binding Hartmann.

As soon as the restraints crushing him vanished,

stagger—

Hartmann started to collapse to the floor.

Grab!

Cossack quickly caught him and held him up.

“Careful, sir.”

Ahhh!

He could feel the warmth of his son.

It was warm.

It felt as though every wound in his heart were being healed.

Even if this was not the living world, he had still fulfilled his wish in the afterlife.

Hartmann had no regrets now.

────────────────────────────────────

Tears streamed down Juhyeok’s face.

They poured down like a waterfall.

Well, was he the only one crying?

Everyone was crying.

“Ahem, is it windy in here? Why is there dust in my eyes...”

Even the Mad Demon, the most vicious under the heavens, who had walked mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

“Ghk.”

“Ugh, ghk.”

“Sniff... sniff...”

Meatshield, Bardin, and Veronica too.

“Hwaaah...”

“Whine...”

Rajix and Blood Wolf as well.

Even Jepetto, the vampire who had only been summoned recently and had not had time to grow attached to them, was secretly wiping away tears.

“Haaah!”

Gyeon Dallae too.

“My own past is nothing at all. No matter how relative the scale of sorrow may be, compared to Sir Cossack’s pain, it is no more than a drop of blood on a bird’s foot.”

What must Cossack be feeling right now?

Juhyeok could not even begin to imagine it.

Cossack and Hartmann.

The two said nothing.

Understandable.

What words could anyone even say in a situation like this?

“Mr. Hartmann, his condition looks bad. Isn’t there some way? Healing, maybe, or a healing potion.”

The Mad Demon slowly shook his head.

“His life force and his source qi are damaged, so he will not last much longer. And he has been trapped in a heart demon for far too long. If there were some miraculous elixir, perhaps, but the fact that he is still alive like this is strange enough already.”

“Then?”

“You must prepare yourselves.”

“......”

Time passed.

What about completing the mission?

But no one said a word about clearing the floor.

A record of an S+++ clear?

Who the hell cared about that?

“By the way, it seems Mr. Hartmann doesn’t know this place is the tower.”

“That is probably so. It must differ from person to person.”

On the other hand, Haeryeong, Gyeon Dallae’s master, had been aware of the tower.

Maybe that was only natural.

She had been someone who had reached the threshold of ascension.

“Isn’t there any way to free his soul from the tower?”

“Hoh, shamefully enough, even this old man does not know.”

There had to be a way.

There was already precedent.

Haeryeong, Gyeon Dallae’s master, the thousand-year Nine-Tailed Fox.

Though she had achieved it through her own ascension, she had been freed in the end.

There had to be a way.

He would definitely find it.

The fact that there were 146 copied souls of Hartmann in the 146 towers on Earth was truly heartbreaking.

Maybe it was fine for now, but what if Players cleared them later?

That was absolutely unacceptable.

Eventually,

Hartmann’s eyes slowly began to close.

His hand, which had been caressing Cossack’s face, finally dropped limply.

And then.

Ding!

[You have completed all missions on Floor 77.]

[Reward: 77kg of Magic Stones / Multinational Tower Access Ticket.]

But—

[You may challenge Floor 78.]

[Exit the Republic of Korea Black Tower.]

The S+++ clear grade announcement did not ring out.

Because there had been no duel itself.

It did not matter.

So what, they were supposed to make a father and son fight each other?

Bastards.

Giving a mission like this.

────────────────────────────────────

SPOT!

Juhyeok and his summoned entities returned to the penthouse.

The clear was over, but not a single one of them opened their mouth.

No one even knew what they were supposed to say.

There had been one person on Floor 77 who had not shed tears.

It was the person at the center of it all, Cossack.

He probably still had not managed to sort things out.

His own feelings, that was.

“Um, Summoner Bong.”

“Yes?”

“I got a favor to ask.”

“Y-Yeah, of course. Anything. I’ll do it.”

“Later on, could we go back into Floor 77 one more time? I couldn’t really have a proper conversation with that man...”

That was true.

If they entered Floor 77 again, they would be able to see him again.

But reset.

With all memory of meeting Cossack wiped clean.

Still, being able to see him at all was something.

If they kept meeting him, maybe they could help ease the grudge buried in his heart.

“Of course we should. Let’s go tomorrow. Let’s go three times.”

“Couldn’t we kill Diamat first and then go?”

“Something like Diamat doesn’t matter at all. Your feelings matter way more, Mr. Cossack.”

“No, sir. I need some time to think too.”

“Ah!”

Then there was no helping it.

As if he still had more to say, Cossack set his jaw and spoke.

“And I wanna go to the beach too.”

“Absolutely! We should.”

Why wouldn’t they?

He needed a change of pace too.

“And our Staff Sergeant Bae absolutely has to get a bikini.”

“...Pardon?”

“It’s a serious matter, sir.”

“Mmm, I wonder if there’s one that’ll fit.”

“Wouldn’t it be even better if it’s too small?”

“Well, that is true.”

That was oddly tempting.

Too small was good.

At that, Gyeon Dallae spoke in a voice full of feigned anger.

“Sir Cossack!”

Whoops!

Now they were in trouble.

“How truly disappointing. Why are you leaving me out?”

“Pardon?”

“I too am an adult now. Are you saying Staff Sergeant Bae may wear a bikini, but I may not?”

No, Princess—

“Do you not know how magnificent a fairy maiden’s figure is? There is even the tale of the fairy maiden and the woodcutter. On a moonlit night, a fairy maiden slips off her feather robe and bathes in a pond, and the woodcutter hides nearby and—”

Uh.

Juhyeok was not unaware of why Gyeon Dallae was acting like this, but—

“H-Hold on!”

He hurriedly cut her off and changed the subject.

“L-Let’s talk about something else.”

“About what?”

“L-Like tomorrow’s missions on Floors 78 and 79.”

At that instant,

Cossack’s eyes flashed.

In a chilly voice, he said,

“I think I know what the mission’ll be, sir.”

“You do?”

“My old workplace is gonna show up.”

“Ah!”

Cossack’s guess was exactly right.

────────────────────────────────────

The next day.

Juhyeok went up to Floor 78 early in the morning.

[Entering Republic of Korea Black Tower (NO.2) Floor 78.]

The environment of Floor 78.

It looked like a large farm.

Grassland stretched out, and ahead of them stood clusters of big and small houses.

“I knew it, sir. From here on, just follow me.”

Cossack headed toward the cluster of houses.

Juhyeok and the summoned entities followed after him.

And then—

Ding.

[Floor 78 Basic Mission: Kill 26 lower-ranked assassins of the CRUEL ASSASSIN GUILD.]

[Floor 78 Additional Optional Mission: Kill 7 upper-ranked assassins of the CRUEL ASSASSIN GUILD.]

[Floor 78 High-Difficulty Optional Mission: Kill Kruk, a special-ranked assassin of the CRUEL ASSASSIN GUILD.]

[Floor 78 Extreme-Difficulty Optional Mission: Kill Jericho, Guildmaster of the CRUEL ASSASSIN GUILD.]

The missions appeared.

Cossack’s old workplace.

It looked like a farm, but in truth it was the headquarters of the CRUEL ASSASSIN GUILD.

Just as expected.

If you thought about it, it was simple.

There was no way Cossack had gone out alone, choosing assassination targets by himself.

Who was the one that gave assassins their missions?

The guildmaster.

Back then, Cossack had been SR rank.

If you compared it to a mage class, around 5-circle.

And yet they had ordered him to assassinate a Sword Master?

“When I got there, he was a Sword Master... Did you think I could’ve imagined he was my father, sir?”

Of course not.

But they must have known when they sent him.

They had probably even identified Cossack’s relationship to Hartmann beforehand.

A meticulously designed script.

An intentional tragedy of flesh and blood, made to force a father to kill his own son.

“I’ll handle all of it myself. Those goddamned bastards without a shred of morality. I’m gonna show ’em the fiery taste of the Juche revolution.”

Had he suddenly possessed Go Sageuk?

“Great Leader, you just sit there and rest.”

Why was he the Great Leader?

“Same goes for the comrades. Just sit back, watch the fun, and eat rice cakes.”

“......”

SPOT! SPOT-SPOT-SPOT!

Cossack dashed off with Shadow Step.

The Mad Demon smirked and said,

“Are you all just going to stand still?”

At that—

“As if. We can’t let him have all the fun alone.”

CLACK!

Staff Sergeant Bae flicked off the safety of her magic gun.

“The enemy of my comrade is my enemy as well.”

“I’ll tear those assassin bastards limb from limb... except for the assassin.”

“Light!”

“The power of darkness!”

“Hoi!”

“Make sure to leave that man called Guildmaster Jericho alive.”

Bzzzzzz—

KRAK-KRAK-KRAK—!

Staff Sergeant Bae opened with the first strike.

BOOOOOM!

A large round blew an entire farmhouse away.

The kill count rose at once.

────────────────────────────────────

Jericho looked like a kindly old man.

On the surface, he was just an ordinary farmer.

The people around him called him Old Man Jericho.

Very few knew that he was actually the head of the CRUEL ASSASSIN GUILD.

Jericho had been in the assassination business for sixty years now.

To keep this business going for that long, the most important thing was securing talent.

He needed to secure a lot of capable assassins.

That was the hardest part of all.

Given the nature of the business, he hired new blood far more often than experienced talent.

Usually, he bought them from outside.

Children under the age of ten.

Buying children was not difficult.

If you went to slash-and-burn villages or slums, there were parents everywhere willing to sell them.

But buying them was not the end.

It took an enormous amount of time and money to raise young children into useful assassins.

And did they all succeed?

Most died after failing their very first kill.

Even if they survived that, they hit the wall of talent.

Almost all of them never rose beyond the lower ranks.

Those who grew into upper-rank assassins were extremely few, and special-ranked assassins were almost nonexistent.

That was how hard the assassination business was.

‘Come to think of it, that brat keeps coming to mind.’

The one who had entered the guild at age three, risen to upper-rank assassin by his late teens, and had been all but certain to become special rank.

Upper-rank assassin Cossack.

‘Blood can’t lie.’

If his use had not already been decided, he might even have become Jericho’s successor.

In truth, Cossack had not been an assassin, but a contract target.

A tool meant to bring down the strongest swordsman in the Empire.

And thus the tool had fulfilled its role and died.

Such a waste.

He had been a fun one to raise.

Where would he ever find another one like that?

Just as he was soothing that regret—

BOOOOOM!

“Hk!”

A terrifying explosion shook the farm.

“W-What is happening?”

He rushed to the window and looked outside.

“Gyaaaah!”

“Ghk!”

“Cough!”

Unknown people.

Guild members and assassins were being massacred by them.

“How dare they...”

These were no ordinary opponents.

A giant tearing people apart with his bare hands, a knight wielding a flail, some vampire-like creature biting throats open, a ghostly woman floating in midair, a woman firing some kind of ranged weapon like a crossbow, and a beastkin riding a dog while swinging a pickaxe.

The guild members were too busy running away.

Lower-ranked assassins were dying, and upper-ranked assassins were dying too.

Even Kruk, the only special-ranked assassin in the guild, had been seen through despite ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) his stealth, had a yellow talisman stuck to his forehead, and was subdued helplessly.

Where in the world had monsters like these come from?

What should he do?

Run, or fight?

He had to decide quickly, but this was the first time the headquarters itself had come under direct attack.

Jericho could not help panicking.

“First, outside—”

At that moment—

freeze.

Jericho could not move.

Someone was sitting in the room.

Over there, on the bed.

He turned his head and looked.

“Who are you...?”

An old man with white hair and a white beard.

An elder dressed in unfamiliar clothes.

“Stay quiet and remain here. Do not think of running.”

“...What?”

He was startled inside, but kept his expression calm.

Jericho slowly reached for the hidden dagger tucked in his sleeve.

He activated the poisoned spike hidden in the tip of his shoe and readied a smoke bomb as well.

But—

Ssssss.

Killing intent filled the room.

Like a mosquito trapped in a spider web, he could not move an inch.

“If you fuck around, you’ll shit blood. Go ahead and try it if you don’t believe me.”

Gulp.

Jericho swallowed dryly.

The most important virtue for an assassin.

Reading the opponent in front of you.

Whether this was someone you could handle, or someone you had to avoid.

But the old man in front of him was beyond even that judgment.

Nothing came to mind at all.

Right then!

Srrrk!

Another person appeared inside the room.

“Huh? Old man, when’d you get here, sir?”

“No matter what this one does, I should still be faster than you.”

“No, I asked you again and again, sir. This bastard is my share.”

Jericho nearly fainted from shock.

A person he had never expected appeared right in front of him.

“Y-You?”

“Good to see you, you son of a bitch!”

Cossack?

The real Cossack?

How?

‘He definitely died.’

Could it be a fake?

No.

Not just the face, but even that distinctive way of speaking.

There was no way he would fail to recognize him.

He had raised the boy himself.

“C-Cossack? Y-You were alive?”

“Shut up, you piece of shit bastard!”

“W-What?”

Cossack licked the blue blade of his dagger with his tongue and spoke.

“I’m taking your head right now. Because of me, our Summoner Bong lost badges on Floor 77. I gotta make up his badge losses.”

At that, the Mad Demon slowly shook his head and said,

“There is plenty of time. Let us take it slowly. We should at least find out who the true mastermind behind all this is.”

Cossack let out a short laugh.

“There’s no need, sir. Once we go up to Floor 79, the mission’ll tell us on its own.”

Well, true.

It was only natural for the conclusion to come on the final floor.

“Even so, it is a linked mission. If this one confesses, the next mission may continue properly.”

“...You think so, sir?”

“Leave it to me. I shall gift him such horrific pain as he has never experienced in his life. Pain so terrible he will beg and plead for death.”

Cossack accepted that.

The Mad Demon’s abilities were certainly trustworthy.

“I’m asking you, sir.”

“Very well. You may look forward to it.”

A little later—

“GAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

Jericho, Guildmaster of the CRUEL ASSASSIN GUILD, screamed like a beast.

For a long, long time.

And Cossack, too, was satisfied beyond measure.