“What did you just say?”
“It was a lie. You know what bluffing is, right? I don’t have a lie-detecting Skill, I bluffed to make the Saintess talk.” The Fire Emperor laughed quietly. “Oh, man. You and the Saintess are so naive. I can’t believe you two actually fell for it.”
“Th-then…” My lip quivered in shock. “...does that mean you killed the Saintess without any proof?”
Unlike the psychopath standing in front of me, the Saintess, the heroic Hunter who was in ninth place of the official ranking, was a decent person. Most of her earnings were donated to orphanages, which was what had eventually earned her the title of Saintess. Did he seriously kill her because she was a little suspicious?
Then…he’s the lunatic of the century, not the Hunter of the era.
“Hey, give me some credit here. I do have proof. The Saintess actually tried to kill me. If I hadn’t killed her first, she would have poisoned me to death tomorrow.” The Fire Emperor spat on the ground. “Fuck! Just thinking about it makes me feel like shit again.”
“H-how would you kno—”
“I know,” the Fire Emperor answered right away. “I just know. I have a way, but it’s none of your business.”
I was rendered speechless. It was…not just because the Fire Emperor was absurdly confident. There was certainty I could see from the Fire Emperor’s eyes; he actually had a reason for killing the Saintess. That was what it looked like to me at least.
“Well, judging from all your talk about the lie-detecting skill, I guess you’re really innocent.”
“Ah…”
“I remember all eighteen of the rat shitters that were crawling around here. Eighteen. It was like they wanted to prove they were a group of fuckers.[1] Mmm… Anyhow, it’s my first time seeing you. Yeah, I don’t remember seeing a softie like you among them.” The Fire Emperor stroked my head with a grin.
Did he finally believe I was innocent?
“Th-thank you—!”
“But you know I’m the Fire Emperor and you saw me killing the Saintess.” The Fire Emperor stroked my head once again. “So you should die.”
The Fire Emperor stopped stroking my head. “My name is Yoo Soo-Ha. Goodbye.”
At that instant, it felt like someone put a hot frying pan on top of my head. …No, it was inside my head. My brain was devoured by fire, its fluids boiling and sizzling like a barrel of oil. That was how I learned that a human couldn’t scream in the face of true pain.
This…is how I die—killed by a lunatic.
Kim Gong-Ja was the name that the director of my orphanage had given me, hoping I would become a great person like Confucius.[2] However, my life and death were nothing like Confucius’s.
Ah.
It was sad. Nothing changed in my wretched life even until the day I died. If my life was a game, nobody would buy it.
[You have died.]
I hated it.
[It has been determined that your death met the requirements for Skill activation.]
Why did I have to die? No, why did I have to live like this? It was unfair. Everything was unfair. I could have lived a better life—actually, my life should have been a little better. I just made mistakes, that was all.
I died because of the three mistakes I had made today. My life was full of mistakes. I had been born because of someone’s mistake; maybe my birth itself was a mistake too.
[Duplicating Hunter Yoo Soo-Ha’s Skills at random.]
[Creating Skill Cards]
I couldn’t hear or see anything except for faint points of light, which buzzed in front of me like a swarm of bronze fireflies. They looked fairly easy to catch. There were silver fireflies in lesser numbers, but there were still many of them. I would be able to get them too, but there was one singular golden firefly that shone like the sun. It was fast. It actually flew so fast that I felt like it would be impossible for me to catch it.
[Choose a Skill Card.]
I still reached out for the only golden light.
[You have chosen a Skill Card.]
I got it.
[Copying the Skill.]
And I embraced my death.
[The Skill is active.]
Name: I Want To Be Like You.
Class: S+.
Effect 1: It will automatically activate after an enemy kills you.
Effect 2: You will be able to copy and turn one of their Skills into yours.
Effect 3: You can’t copy your enemies’ Skills more than once.
Effect 4: The Skill you copy will be chosen at random.
※ However, you will die!
Now I could tell others what hell looked like with confidence. There was no inferno, nor even ordinary fire. There was a gas stove lying around, but it wouldn’t be enough to start an inferno. To my surprise, hell gave me a little fridge, a small bed, and…a second-hand television.
“Huh.”
In other words, it looked like a replica of my studio. …Wait, I wasn’t in hell. This was my twelve-square-meter studio with a charming rent.
“Huh… Uhh… Uhhh?” I felt around my head with my hand.
It was fine. Just in case, I checked my reflection on my smartphone’s screen and I saw a face that looked like God had given up just before they completed their masterpiece. In other words, it was moderately handsome and ugly at the same time—but I didn’t have any burn marks.
... What? What happened? What in the world happened? Did the Fire Emperor treat me and then dump me here?
It was ridiculous as fuck, but…it was the only explanation that came to my mind. Maybe the Fire Emperor was kinder than I had thought. Sure, he was a lunatic, but perhaps he wasn’t a psychopathic killer. He may have pretended to kill me and ended up sparing me instead.
「Breaking news!」
Then was the Fire Emperor the one who had left the television on?
「Breaking news! The Black Dragon Guild confidently declared that they’d clear the Tower’s fortieth floor and show everyone the skill of one of the best guilds in the world. Unfortunately, the Black Dragons ended up coming back without any achievements once again.」
However, the Fire Emperor wasn’t in my twelve-square-meter studio. It wasn’t like he had left the TV on and stepped outside for a moment.
「Yet the Fire Emperor, the number one ranked Hunter, has singlehandedly taken down another boss monster!」
Instead… Instead, the Fire Emperor was on the screen with his brow furrowed.