Magic Monopoly: Reborn as the Sole Magic Tower Master-Chapter 206: Episode

Episode 206

I closed my eyes, focusing with all my might and immersing myself in the Dungeon. After the insane experience in Tanzania, this had become familiar.

Time passed.

—Tower Master. Synchronization has been successfully completed.

’Good work.’

The Dungeon was currently in “sleep mode,” with most of its functions shut down. I channeled mana through my palm, activating several of the Dungeon’s dormant systems.

What I wanted were the Dungeon gate’s records.

I focused, reading through the Dungeon’s memories, and soon found the data I was looking for. I confirmed the traces of ninety-eight gates that had opened across Asia.

’...But which one of these did the Association President come through?’

Obviously, the Dungeon’s records didn’t specify “somewhere in Korea” or “somewhere in Russia”—they were just numerical coordinates.

“Ea. Calculate the mana coordinates of the ‘Daejeon Gate’ the Association President passed through.”

—Confirming the relevant record. Beginning mana coordinate calculation.

Ea calculated the coordinates and relayed them to me, and I compared them with the records left in the Dungeon.

I soon found the trace of a gate that had opened at a location with nearly identical coordinates.

“Okay! Open a gate that leads there.”

—Understood. Activating the Dungeon’s internal gate function.

As I lifted my hand from the ground and rose, the Dungeon gate Ea had created materialized before me.

Without hesitation, I walked into it.

* * *

The surroundings changed again. The new setting was a barren plain, unremarkable except for the foul stench hanging in the air.

’The smell of a rotting corpse.’

A single body had been discarded on the plain. I approached the corpse and searched its clothes, finding an ID card.

Chu Young-hoon, a certified Rank 4 hunter belonging to Blackguard.

Blackguard was the guild that had entered this Dungeon with NIX—the same one Hong Yul had been with when she went missing. It seemed I had come to the right place.

“But why is he dead out here?”

—I will analyze the cause of death.

“You can do that too?”

’...Just how capable are you?’

Ea deployed several magic circles around the corpse and began her analysis.

—Confirming necrosis of the skin. Moisture expansion and thorough destruction of cellular tissue detected. Cause of death is determined to be hypothermia.

“Hypothermia, huh...”

I took a look around.

“Out here?”

The wind was howling, but it wasn’t nearly cold enough for someone to freeze to death. Nor was it the kind of environment where ice-type monsters would appear. That left only one conclusion.

“Frost.”

The answer came to me immediately.

“This man was killed to shut him up.”

—I consider that a reasonable hypothesis.

“Let’s keep going.”

There were plenty of tracks, so I didn’t need to do any elaborate detective work.

Following the tracks led me to—

“...Wow.”

—a massive, collapsed cave.

—It appears a major battle took place here.

The Association President must have entered this cave to hunt the boss monster, only to be ambushed by hunters lying in wait.

In the meantime, Frost had collapsed the cave to trap Hong Yul.

That was the scenario that formed in my mind.

“Check for any life signs.”

—Understood.

While Ea cast her detection magic, I walked over the fallen cave, searching for clues. I could see traces of explosives scattered about.

’To bring down a cave this big, normal bombs wouldn’t be enough... Huh?’

I found the casing of an explosive among the rubble.

I brushed off the sand and examined it. On the outer shell of the device, the letters “PHC” were printed.

I let out a sigh that was half a groan.

“Now I finally see what happened.”

Was this all a coincidence? No, I didn’t think so.

My guess was that White Wing—Wayne Jones—was still alive and had joined forces with Frost to get his revenge on me.

Thinking of it that way, every question that had been bothering me fell neatly into place. Frost’s strange behavior suddenly made sense.

Frost had obsessively tried to block my trip to the Russian Dungeon, where my survival odds were under one percent.

Even though simply letting me enter the Dungeon would have been the best way to get rid of me.

In particular, the meticulous move of placing me under a travel ban while dispatching the executive branch to Russia ahead of time would have been impossible unless he knew me very well.

I’d been careless. Destroying the demons’ research bases was one thing, but afterward, I’d barely spared a thought for whether Wayne was alive or dead.

In the end, an enemy who bore a grudge against me had joined forces with another enemy, and things had spiraled this far out of control.

Once I got out of here, I’d have a lot to deal with.

—Tower Master.

“Yeah. Did you find something?”

—There are no life signs whatsoever in this area. Everyone buried in the cave is dead.

I fell silent.

My heart lurched, but I quickly regained my composure.

There was no way someone like her would die from something like this.

“Let’s keep checking the other traces.”

—Yes, Tower Master.

* * *

I circled the cave, trying to find clues about the Association President, but I couldn’t discover anything.

Realizing that combing the area was getting me nowhere, I went back through the gate to the Dungeon’s core.

—Tower Master. You have not eaten anything all this time.

“Just a little longer. Let me search just a little more.”

—There is no proof that she is still alive.

“She is definitely alive.”

If I were Hong Yul, what would I have done?

Unless she intended to take her own life, she would have gone searching for another gate no matter what. The distance between us could have grown quite large by now, so I needed to change my search method.

“I’m going to unify with the Dungeon one more time.”

—...Tower Master.

“You know I’m stubborn as hell about things like this, right?”

I forced a smile. I heard her let out a small sigh.

—I will obey the Tower Master’s command.

I began the Dungeon synchronization. Once again, my mind expanded and my senses were heightened to the extreme.

’I thought I could handle everything on my own.’

I’d believed I could hole up in the Tower and toy with the world as I pleased.

But that was a delusion. As long as Frost sat in the Association President’s chair, we would never be free.

I needed her.

Her strength. Her influence. The legacy she’d built.

’All right, focus.’

Just like in Tanzania, I abandoned myself once more.

My senses receded as a powerful state of Unification took hold. Everything inside the Dungeon felt like an extension of my own body.

Next, I set the crystal cave’s coordinates as my reference point and reached out to every monster in that region.

I could feel the monsters’ emotions. Hunger, rage, emptiness—countless feelings were shared with me.

I held on with everything I had, maintaining this state. I have no idea how much time passed before a wave of excruciating pain crashed over me.

...Gah!

Someone had killed me.

More precisely, a monster I was linked to had died, and the pain of its death was transmitted directly to me. No matter how many times I experienced it, death was something I could never get used to.

One by one, my connections with the Dungeon were severed, and each time, a fresh bout of maddening agony tore through me.

It wasn’t like being stabbed to death. My head simply exploded, and I died instantly.

Even as I screamed in pain, I laughed.

I had found her.

[The Unification trait has reached Lv.5.]

I severed all connections with the Dungeon and returned to myself, guided by the sound of Ea’s desperate voice.

As sensation slowly returned to my body, I opened my eyes and pushed myself up.

“I’m back, Ea.”

I checked my condition.

The backlash from the Unification still lingered, and I felt like retching, but it was bearable.

I placed my hand on the ground again.

—...At this rate, your mind will give out before your body does. Why are you being so desperate?

“Because I never want to regret it again.”

I spoke as I channeled mana into the Dungeon.

“After witnessing the end of the world, I realized that as long as I’m breathing, I have to give everything my all.”

FWOOOOSH!

I opened a Dungeon gate that led to the place where “I”—no, where the monsters—had died.

“Let’s go see the Association President.”

* * *

I stepped out of the gate. Once again, a desolate plain stretched out before me.

I saw dried bloodstains on the ground and followed the trail.

Could some other survivor have killed the monsters? Of course. But for some reason, I was certain it was her.

Night had fallen in the Dungeon. The temperature dropped, and a cold wind blew. I pulled my collar tight and kept walking.

A bright light flickered from beneath the trees, the crackling of a campfire reaching my ears.

I walked toward it. Monster meat skewered on a branch was dripping fat into the fire as it roasted. And beside it—

I saw the figure of a woman sitting on a rock.

Her vividly red hair, the suit jacket draped carelessly over her shoulders, the countless scars of battle, and the honed muscles all over her body came into focus one by one.

A lot of time had passed.

People tend to fall apart in the grip of such brutal solitude and despair. She might not be the woman I remembered.

But there wasn’t a hint of disarray in her posture as she sat before the fire, eyes closed in meditation.

“Madam President.”

I bowed my head.

“I’ve come to bring you home.”

Her eyes slowly opened. Those mysterious golden irises quietly fixed on me.

She remained silent.

I said nothing.

As the silence stretched on, the corners of her mouth curved into a gentle arc.

“You came?”

“Yes.”

We faced each other as if nothing was out of the ordinary, just as we always had.

The Association President patted the spot beside her.

“...You’ve become a total local, I see.”

I sat down next to her and tossed out a joke. She let out a short snort of laughter.

“Yeah. I was just starting to find this stuff edible. Want some?”

She held out the meat skewered on the branch. It might have been monster flesh, but once it was cooked over the fire, it didn’t look as bad as I had expected.

I was pretty hungry, so I accepted it.

Then I took a light bite.

“Ugh!”

The moment I bit down, a rancid liquid burst out instead of meat juices.

I spat the half-chewed meat onto the ground.

“What the hell is this? What a waste!”

“...I’d rather starve to death than eat that.”

She burst into loud laughter, then took a huge bite of the meat in her own hand.

Crunch. Crunch.

I honestly had no idea how she could eat that. There was something almost deranged in the way she chewed, and it was a little scary to watch.

“When I’m angry, all the complicated thoughts disappear and my head clears.”

She spoke up.

“Who are you angry at?”

“At the bastards who made me eat this crap.”

Still chewing noisily, she tossed the now-empty branch behind her.

“Phew.” 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

She stretched both hands back to brace herself on the rock and leaned back.

“So, why did you come here?”

Not “how,” but “why,” huh...

I watched the crackling campfire for a moment, then slowly opened my mouth.

“While the tiger’s away, a rabbit is playing king. He’s calling himself the only hunter who can carry on your legacy. How could I just sit back and watch that?”

She said nothing.

She silently watched the fire burn. I continued.

“The administration changed. Hong Yeon is in Antarctica, and Im Nam-jin is in Myanmar. I also made a promise to Hong Yeon that I’d bring you back to your rightful place.”

She remained silent.

“And lastly.”

I looked at her and smiled gently.

“I missed you, Madam President.”

For the first time, a crack appeared in her emotionless expression.

She stayed quiet for a long while, as if at a loss for words, then finally let out a sigh whose meaning I couldn’t quite grasp.

“...Idiot.”

She muttered the word under her breath and leaned toward me.

“You really are my kid.”

She reached out and slowly stroked my face.

My jaw, my lips, then my nose. With slender fingers, she traced my features over and over, as if confirming I was real, as if she couldn’t believe it even as she touched me.

It suddenly hit me.

She’d been tormented by hallucinations.

She’d been crushed by loneliness and fear.

Had I already appeared in her hallucinations? Was she wondering even now if I was another illusion or the real thing?

“It really is me.”

I spoke with a smile and took her hand.

Then, as if handling something precious, I gently guided her hand, letting her confirm that I was solid and real.

“I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to be afraid.”

She was speechless.

Her expression became indescribable. Her blank mask melted away, revealing the emotions beneath.

It was a look I had never seen on her face before.

But just before she broke down completely, she pulled me into a tight embrace, burying her face in my chest to hide her expression.

I went stiff as a board.

“M-Madam President.”

“Just a minute.”

Her voice trembled.

“Let me stay like this for just a minute.”

I fell silent.

I relaxed my body. The usual pain was gone. Her arms around me felt impossibly warm.

Heat seeped into me where we touched. I could feel her breath, and with it, the crushing loneliness she must have endured here.

Yeah. She always acted strong, but she was human, just like the rest of us.

She held me like that for a long time.

“Sorry.”

After a while, she pulled away and straightened up. The shaken woman from moments ago was gone, replaced by the same bold, confident hero of humanity as always.

“Time for revenge, right? On that bastard Frost.”

The crooked grin tugging at her lips was like that of a mischievous boy.

“Do we have a way back?”

“Of course. I’ve got everything ready.”

I picked up the dirt-covered monster meat I had dropped earlier. Then I took a big bite.

It was disgusting. The taste and smell were both atrocious. But it wasn’t so bad that I had to spit it out this time.

“Let’s go. Back to Korea.”

“You really are my kid.”

We shared a vigorous high-five and burst into loud laughter.

Now, it was time to set everything right.

* * *