Chapter 246: Episode 246

It wasn’t exactly the kind of content a patient should be watching, but… if the leader of a world guild wanted to see it, I wasn’t going to argue.

I hit play and held the phone out to her.

She watched the screen with a grave expression. The cries of “OUT! OUT!” poured from the speakers.

“It’s a mess.”

“Yeah.”

“And if they fail to find an antidote, it’s going to get even worse?”

At her question, I sighed.

“That’s the most likely outcome.”

The anger of those who lost family, relatives, friends, and lovers would be directed at the Alliance without restraint.

Could the Alliance possibly withstand that overwhelming rage? Even if this crisis ended in disaster, would the Alliance still be able to hold on to the title of “representative of humanity”?

The answer was no.

Before things reached that breaking point, I had to secure the Ghost Corps’ help.

While I was talking with Marie, there was a knock at the door.

“Are you awake, Lady Marie?”

“Yeah.”

It was Marquez, the Ghost Corps’ second-in-command. He must have come in the moment he heard she was awake.

Just then, Marie pointed a finger at him.

“Marquez, you’re pitch-black.”

He fell silent.

He was wearing a navy turtleneck that came up to his neck, but the black veins had developed so much that they were visible all the way up to his jawline. Forcing a smile, he spoke.

“I am fine. More importantly, you need to recover, Lady Marie. First the catastrophe, then the battle with the Lion Fleet. You must be exhausted.”

“Yeah.”

She nodded.

“I assume the situation has more or less settled down by now.”

I turned to Marquez as I spoke.

“Have you still not figured out why the Lion Fleet attacked your Ghost Corps?”

Marquez let out a small sigh.

“No. The Lion Fleet gave us no notice and offered no explanation. We filed a formal protest with the Alliance, but I don’t know if they’ll have the capacity to mediate our dispute right now.”

“Right. They’re probably insanely busy.”

With the very survival of their organization on the line, the Alliance had no room to mediate conflicts between guilds.

Besides, the Alliance’s top brass were effectively bound to Albert, who held the antidote, so there was no hope of them dispatching outside hunters either.

We would have to resolve this ourselves.

“I have a guess,” Marie spoke up.

Both Marquez and I turned to look at her.

“What is it?”

“Albert contacted me.”

’That bastard is fast. I rushed here like a madman, and I was still one step behind.’

“He told you to join his side, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you answer?”

“Marie refused,” Marquez answered in her stead. “She told him we had no time to worry about that and that he should handle his own affairs. Albert did not seem pleased. Then, before Marie returned, we heard that the Lion Fleet had sided with Albert.”

“And then that Lion Fleet showed up and attacked the Ghost Corps.”

’This stinks.’

When I demanded that Sham state her justification for the attack, she had brushed me off with a “none of your business.”

I closed my eyes.

“When I met Sham at Shelter, I couldn’t forget the look in her eyes. She’s someone who needs the antidote more desperately than anyone. Albert exploited that desperation. In exchange for the antidote, he had the Lion Fleet attack the Ghost Corps, a potential enemy. For now, that seems like the most reasonable explanation.”

Marquez folded his arms and continued.

“The timing was exquisite as well. Considering the scale of the catastrophe, it should have taken two more days. When we heard that our base was under attack by the cartel, Marie pushed herself and cleared it faster than planned. If things had gone according to the original schedule, the Ghost Corps would have had its relics stolen and would now be facing dissolution.”

I nodded and looked at Marie.

“Marie. You remember our deal, right?”

She nodded.

“As you probably guessed, what I want is for you to fight Albert with us. Albert is the mastermind and the root cause of this whole incident. He might even be a demonkin. My comrades’ lives are on the line, but I can’t bring myself to negotiate with a man like that.”

She remained silent.

“If we bow to him and accept the antidote, we might scrape by this time. But what about next time? Under no circumstances can we allow humanity to set a precedent of submitting to demonkins. They’ll seize on our weakness and use it to control us until the day we die.”

I met her eyes with a serious gaze.

“Stand with me, Marie.”

She did not answer immediately.

She lowered her head, clearly torn.

“Ahem, ahem. I understand the Tower’s position,” Marquez spoke up. “I am sorry, but could you give us a moment? I need to speak with Lady Marie…”

“I’ll do it.”

Marie threw back the blanket as she spoke. Her answer came out without any prior discussion, and Marquez’s face fell in dismay.

“L-Lady Marie!”

“A promise is a promise. And…”

She shifted her gaze to my smartphone.

“As a world guild, we cannot keep pretending not to see what is happening.”

“Lady Marie! But…!”

“I am sorry, Marquez. We have made our decision.”

She looked him straight in the eye.

“We will definitely secure the antidote, so don’t worry.”

“L-Lady Marie, that is not the issue…”

Marquez’s lips moved soundlessly for a moment before he finally bowed his head in resignation.

“…Yes, understood.”

I smiled. With that, the Ghost Corps had officially joined our side.

’Now all that’s left is to find out where Albert ran off to.’

The matchup for the final battle was set.

The Tower, the Gravekeepers, the Holy Knights, and the Ghost Corps on one team.

Facing off against the alliance of the Sky Castle and the Lion Fleet.

* * *

Even as the infection crisis threatening hundreds of millions of lives continued to unfold, a new wave of disasters swept across the world.

In South America, a continent-scale Calamity had opened, and in Papua New Guinea, an 8th-rank Calamity had appeared.

The projected death toll for the South American Calamity alone was about 260 million. Both the Association President and Hong Yeon had been dispatched there as part of the Alliance’s support.

The anti-Alliance protests that had spread worldwide were still a massive headache. They had now escalated into armed riots, and there were signs that demonkins were orchestrating the violence from behind the scenes.

The demonkins, who had been quiet until now, were using the chaos as cover to strike major hunter facilities in various countries. A global demonkin alert had been issued, and every hunter in the world was on high alert.

Outside support was now even less likely than before. Still, I had done everything I could.

First, I used Oracle to correct the misinformation. The entire world now knew that the main ingredient in the infection drug was not Krolos’s saliva but Telos’s saliva.

Governments themselves, not just pharmaceutical companies, were now building facilities and pouring resources into developing an antidote.

Distribution routes to get it to people quickly were already being prepared. All that remained was for someone to announce the antidote’s recipe…

But there was still no sign of an antidote being completed. Growing impatient, people were shouting that negotiations with GOT were the only solution.

Aside from that, I had fully replenished the Tower’s mana by mobilizing the mage candidates.

According to Na Daeyong’s report, the candidates had gone completely berserk and wiped out every last monster in Zones 1 and 2. Thanks to that, we now had plenty of leeway to use Tower Transportation.

Jeong Seojin and Alchemia were also focusing entirely on research, backed by massive government funding as part of the “Antidote Project.”

Everyone was sweating blood to prepare for the coming battle. I had just returned from practicing combos in the Mana Mine on the 6th floor.

And then—

“Bora, I told you to take it easy.”

Jin Bora stood before a magic cauldron, brewing potions. The black veins had progressed quite a bit and were now clearly visible on her skin. She stirred with a ladle as she answered.

“I’m fine.”

“…You really don’t look fine.”

“I mean it. I’m just a little tired and heavy, but I can still move just fine.”

She took a potion bottle from the shelf and examined it from various angles as she continued.

“Just because I’m infected doesn’t mean I’m going to curl up in bed and wait to die. That would be pathetic. I’m going to fight until my last breath. I’m going to create the antidote with my own two hands, no matter what.”

As the 1st-floor manager, she had teamed up with Alchemia’s Jeong Seojin to begin developing an antidote. I’d heard they were already seeing some results, however minor.

“…Bora.”

“Yes?”

“About Albert’s offer.”

“I don’t need it. Not that kind of antidote, anyway.”

I stared at her, taken aback.

She shook the ingredients in the bottle she was holding before dumping them into the cauldron. Blue smoke billowed from within.

“You said yourself there’s no guarantee Albert even has an antidote, or that he’d hand it over without any strings attached. Between a path that’s right but uncertain and one that’s wrong and uncertain, the choice is obvious, isn’t it? I don’t want you to compromise your principles for my sake, Yusin.”

I stood there dumbfounded for a moment, then let out a laugh.

“That kind of hurts my pride.”

“Huh? What does?”

“The fact that you’ve been acting far more mature than me this whole time.”

“Hehe, really? Well, I was a mess, just lying in bed crying my eyes out. But once it started to feel like the end was near, I just… calmed down.”

Watching her stir the cauldron with such deliberate force, I felt my own head clear a little.

Honestly, I should have been on the verge of a mental breakdown from the sheer stress of it all, but the only reason I was still sane was entirely because Jin Bora was looking out for me.

She was treating me so casually, so comfortably, as if nothing was wrong at all.

“Tower Master!”

With a shimmer of light, Ea appeared in midair.

“I bring good news.”

“What is it?”

“We have located Albert.”

’…Finally!’ I shot to my feet.

“Tell everyone except Seojin and Bora to gear up for combat and assemble here.”

“Understood.”

“Yusin! You’ve got a call over here, too!”

Jin Bora brought me my smartphone, which was buzzing on the table.

It was from Jeong Seojin.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

As I listened to what he had to say, the corners of my mouth curled into a smile.

Patience had paid off. Good news was pouring in.

* * *

“Alright, alright, let’s move it!”

“Ea! Move the golems up to the 3rd floor!”

“Anyone seen my goggles?”

The combat-ready mages of the Tower were a flurry of activity. Everyone was in their hunter suits, checking their gear. I drew Specter, my own preparations complete.

“Ea, where is the Sky Castle located?”

“In Kitee, Finland.”

“Finland this time, huh.”

It felt like I was getting a lifetime’s worth of world travel in a very short span.

I hoped this trip to Finland would be the last mission. I wanted to untangle this whole mess, knotted up like a ball of yarn, and end everything once and for all. Then I could finally return to Korea with a clear conscience.

“Okay, eyes on me.”

I clapped my hands, drawing the attention of the bustling crowd.

“Thanks to the mana mine event, we’ve stockpiled enough mana to use a Tower Transportation. But practically speaking, we only get one shot at it.”

The Fourth Floor Team nodded, their expressions solemn.

“First, I’ll go to Finland and assess the situation. Then I’ll send Samia the coordinates for the Tower’s arrival. Once the Tower is in Finland, you all jump into the fight.”

“Yes, sir!” everyone answered in unison.

“Let me say this in advance: our opponents this time are not monsters, but humans. This is going to be an incredibly dangerous battle. Most of them are officially certified Rank 4 or higher, so focus on staying alive rather than going on the offensive.”

“Understood!”

Still, I believed that if the five members of the Fourth Floor Team stuck together, they could take on one or two mid-level Rank 4 hunters and win. And if push came to shove, we had Samia, who was Rank 3.

Even in the Sky Castle, there wouldn’t be many hunters who could beat her in a straight-up fight.

“Then I’ll head out.”

As I stepped toward the warp gate, Na Daeyong snapped to attention and saluted.

“Come back safe, Master! We’ll see you in Finland!”

“Yeah.”

I grinned, tugged down my sleeve, and sealed my hunter suit.

“Let’s go hit them where it hurts.”

* * *

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