4048 days.
[You have died.]
4047 days.
[You have died.]
4046 days.
[You have died.]
Just as Rome wasn’t built overnight, the Fire Emperor’s legend wasn’t made in a couple of days. I was erasing his seemingly eternal legacy from the Tower. It was difficult, of course, but it wasn’t impossible.
“Fuck…!” I screamed as I killed myself.
Whenever I wanted to give up, I recalled the moment the Fire Emperor had burned me to death as if I were a moth. It brought back the pain, the frustration, and the anger I had felt at the time. He was the one who had set the fire in the old slum, but he had the audacity to come back and blatantly demand money for his help.
I’ll kill you. I stabbed myself in the neck with my dagger. I’ll kill you, Yoo Soo-Ha!
I was killing myself, but it also meant the Fire Emperor was closer to his death.
[You have died.]
[Rewinding 24 hours.]
4040 days, 4039 days, 4038 days, 4037 days… I started to lose track of how many times I’d killed myself. It felt like my work wasn’t going to end, like an hourglass that never ran out of sand. The Fire Emperor’s tower of accomplishments seemed solid like a pyramid that didn't crumble down on its own, but it began to crack.
“The Fire Emperor has cleared the thirty-ninth floor on his own!”
“The Fire Emperor has created another legend by singlehandedly clearing the thirty-eighth floor!”
“Yoo Soo-Ha, the Fire Emperor, has officially become the first Korean to earn the highest place in the Hunter Ranking.”
...
“With the disappearance of the Sword Star, the seat of the world’s Rank 1 Hunter is empty. Who shall inherit his seat?”
“All foreign experts unanimously agree that the most likely candidate is Yoo Soo-Ha from Korea.”
“The unassailable tenth floor has been cleared. Who is this mysterious hero?”
“It has been twenty-two days since the Sword Star went missing. Could this be the start of the greatest chaos the Hunter industry has ever seen?”
The clippings on my studio walls, the trophies of the Fire Emperor’s history, disappeared one by one.
“The Fire Emperor has created another legend by singlehandedly clearing the thirty-eighth floor!”
“Yoo Soo-Ha, the Fire Emperor, has officially become the first Korean to earn the highest place in the Hunter Ranking.”
...
“With the disappearance of the Sword Star, the seat of the world’s Rank 1 Hunter is empty. Who shall inherit his seat?”
“All foreign experts unanimously agree that the most likely candidate is Yoo Soo-Ha from Korea.”
“The unassailable tenth floor has been cleared. Who is this mysterious hero?”
“It has been twenty-two days since the Sword Star went missing. Could this be the start of the greatest chaos the Hunter industry has ever seen?”
One after another, the clippings disappeared like an old man’s teeth, revealing the wallpapers behind.
“The Fire Emperor has created another legend by singlehandedly clearing the thirty-seventh floor!”
“Yoo Soo-Ha, the Fire Emperor, has officially become the first Korean to earn the highest place in the Hunter Ranking.”
...
“With the disappearance of the Sword Star, the seat of the world’s Rank 1 Hunter is empty. Who shall inherit his seat?”
“All foreign experts unanimously agree that the most likely candidate is Yoo Soo-Ha from Korea.”
“The unassailable tenth floor has been cleared. Who is this mysterious hero?”
“It has been twenty-two days since the Sword Star went missing. Could this be the start of the greatest chaos the Hunter industry has ever seen?”
They continued to vanish.
I see the end now!
I still had a long way to go, but… it was okay. It was becoming clear that the psychotic Fire Emperor wasn’t immortal or indestructible. Then I could keep going as long as I needed to.
It isn’t impossible!
I swung my dagger again, eliminating the Fire Emperor’s time of clearing the Tower’s thirty-seventh floor.
“Yoo Soo-Ha, the Fire Emperor, has officially become the first Korean to earn the highest place in the Hunter Ranking.”
...
“With the disappearance of the Sword Star, the seat of the world’s Rank 1 Hunter is empty. Who shall inherit his seat?”
“All foreign experts unanimously agree that the most likely candidate is Yoo Soo-Ha from Korea.”
“The unassailable tenth floor has been cleared. Who is this mysterious hero?”
“It has been twenty-two days since the Sword Star went missing. Could this be the start of the greatest chaos the Hunter industry has ever seen?”
Next was when the Fire Emperor became the best Hunter in the world.
“With the disappearance of the Sword Star, the seat of the world’s Rank 1 Hunter is empty. Who shall inherit his seat?”
“All foreign experts unanimously agree that the most likely candidate is Yoo Soo-Ha from Korea.”
“The unassailable tenth floor has been cleared. Who is this mysterious hero?”
“It has been twenty-two days since the Sword Star went missing. Could this be the start of the greatest chaos the Hunter industry has ever seen?”
I eliminated it.
“The unassailable tenth floor has been cleared. Who is this mysterious hero?”
“It has been twenty-two days since the Sword Star went missing. Could this be the start of the greatest chaos the Hunter industry has ever seen?”
And I did it again.
“It has been twenty-two days since the Sword Star went missing. Could this be the start of the greatest chaos the Hunter industry has ever seen?”
[You have died.]
Finally, my old dagger was as good as new again, and my hands were also less wrinkly. I had moved from studio to studio in the past, so I got poorer as I became younger, leaving me in a studio that was much smaller than my previous one.
When I went to the bathroom to take a short break, I could see a much younger reflection of myself in the mirror.
“Ah…”
And there was nothing on my walls. All of the newspaper and magazine clippings were gone. It was completely empty. I had actually erased the name “Fire Emperor” from history.
“I did it,” I blankly mumbled. “I came back…”
It was May 6th, eleven years ago. I returned to a month before Yoo Soo-Ha got his Skill.